By Ma.Gabriela Simonetti
Two years passed without being able to march in the streets due to the Coronavirus pandemic. For this reason, this afternoon, perhaps everything had a slightly more special seasoning, because it meant not only the reunion to unite the voices in a unanimous cry in the face of impunity for crimes of gender violence, but also, it was experienced as an outlet for express themselves before the femicides that do not stop and a judicial system that is not always up to the circumstances.
Some women marched in the company of friends, others with co-workers and also accompanied by their little daughters who wore the characteristic violet headscarf of the “Ni Una Menos” movement. Others left their work and went on their own to the march. “I needed to come and feel like I’m doing something in the midst of so much pain,” said one woman.
Posters with slogans “If they touch one of us, they touch us all” once again made clear the union that can occur when listening to and empathizing with the cases of each woman.
In the middle of the march, a group of friends holds a poster with the photograph of Millaray Cattani, a young woman from the Santa Cruz city of Puerto Deseado, who took her own life at the age of 15, after being harassed by someone who claimed to be her boyfriend. The girls, natives of the same locality, recounted the situation that the adolescent went through and the struggle of her family and friends to advance the case. “Who was her boyfriend is still free as if nothing, and we know that another girl also suffered physical and psychological violence from him.”
The main demand, of course, is led by the cessation of femicides. But, we know very well that to reach this fatality, long before there was a sum of factors that end up triggering the murders directed towards women.
7 years after the first Ni Una Menos, we march again demanding that they stop killing us.
With this graphic action we remember the victims of femicide from 2015 to the present in Córdoba✊🏽💜 Today we meet in Colón and General Paz at 5:00 p.m. to march to the Patio Olmos pic.twitter.com/XIcMYK7Aqz
– Not One Less Córdoba (@niunamenosCBA) June 3, 2022
The micromachismos and the naturalization of certain messages, speeches, actions and gestures legitimize the forms of inequality and constitute the foundations of the so-called symbolic violence (which ultimately sustains all forms of violence).
It is clear that cases of gender-based violence are not isolated events, because in our country 127 femicides were registered according to a report by the Femicide Observatory in Argentina “Adriana Marisel Zambrano”, and the most insecure place for a woman in a situation of violence, it continues to be your home or the home you share with the abuser.
“Progress has been made, but we need a larger budget for the application of policies that protect us against sexist violence,” summed up one of the many women who said they were present at the march so that “Not One Less” is not only a slogan, but a reality.
If you are a victim or know someone who suffers gender-based violence, call 144 24 hours a day.
