{"id":44708,"date":"2021-02-24T20:23:01","date_gmt":"2021-02-24T20:23:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=44708"},"modified":"2021-02-24T20:23:01","modified_gmt":"2021-02-24T20:23:01","slug":"rage-boils-over-amid-argentinas-unrelenting-femicide-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=44708","title":{"rendered":"Rage boils over amid Argentina\u2019s unrelenting femicide crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Buenos Aires, Argentina \u2013<\/strong> The women huddle close, crane their necks and take photos of the ornate advertising stand in the core of Argentina\u2019s capital city that has been papered over with posters of men accused or convicted of murdering women.<\/p>\n

The word \u201cFEMICIDA\u201d \u2013 woman killer \u2013 screams out in large black letters under each name.<\/p>\n

The posters, like the thousands who gathered outside the Supreme Court of Argentina last week in protest, are a measure of the rage that exists in the country over rampant levels of violence against women.<\/p>\n

It was the murder of 18-year-old Ursula Bahillo that pushed the women\u2019s movement into the streets on February 17 in numbers not seen since Argentina\u2019s Congress legalised elective abortion<\/a> in December. This time, the mood was much more sombre.<\/p>\n

Bahillo was killed in her hometown of Rojas, in the province of Buenos Aires, on February 8. Her ex-boyfriend, police officer Matias Ezequiel Martinez, has been charged with femicide, with the aggravating factors of premeditation and cruelty.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to be able to walk the streets without having to look over our shoulders,\u201d said Fabiana Costa, a 26-year-old mother who lives in Quilmes, on the outskirts of the capital city, standing with a sign calling for \u201cfeminist judicial reform\u201d outside the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Lightning rod<\/h2>\n

Advocates say Bahillo\u2019s case has been a lightning rod because it clearly demonstrates the many ways the state is failing to protect women.<\/p>\n

She had filed several police complaints against her ex-boyfriend and obtained a restraining order that was not enforced. The last time she went to authorities to report a complaint, she was told they did not work on weekends and that she would have to come back another day. On the following Monday, the day her panic button was slated to arrive, she was dead.<\/p>\n

An autopsy revealed Bahillo was stabbed 15 times in the back, torso and neck with a butcher\u2019s knife that was found at the scene. Martinez, her ex-boyfriend, was found in the same rural area where her body was discovered, with a self-inflicted stab wound.<\/p>\n

Since Bahillo\u2019s death, more cases of femicide have been reported across Argentina. The body of Ivana Modica was found buried behind a hotel in the city of La Falda, in the province of Cordoba, after her ex-boyfriend confessed to the crime. Miriam Beatriz Farias, who was lit on fire in the city of Cordoba by her partner, also a police officer, died of her injuries.<\/p>\n

A sign features the names of other victims during a protest after the femicide of Ursula Bahillo, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on February 17 [Flor Guzzetti\/Reuters]<\/figure>\n

On Tuesday night, Guadalupe Curual, 21, was stabbed to death on a busy street in the southern city of Villa La Angostura, reportedly by an ex-boyfriend whom she had also obtained a restraining order against.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cases are everywhere. We all have a neighbour, or someone we know, who has gone through it, who is living it now, but the judicial system doesn\u2019t do anything about it,\u201d said Costa at the Buenos Aires rally.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou go to make a complaint at the police station, and they just look at you. They record your complaint and that\u2019s it. The restraining order never arrives. [Or] it arrives after the person is already gone. We want to live.\u201d<\/p>\n

#NiUnaMenos<\/h2>\n

High rates of violence against women triggered a new wave of activism for Argentina\u2019s feminist movement in 2015, after the body of 14-year-old Chiara Paez was found buried in the yard of her boyfriend\u2019s family. The pent-up outrage drew hundreds of thousands of people to the streets under the banner of #NiUnaMenos (Not One Less).<\/p>\n

The movement seeks to eradicate gender-based violence and has spread across several Latin American countries.<\/p>\n

Nearly 300 femicides were reported in the country in 2020, according to organisations tracking cases through the media. In the first 52 days of 2021, there have been 43 femicides and transfemicides, according to Mumala, a feminist organisation that tallies the cases. Of those, 38 were direct victims and five were children or other people connected to the woman who was killed.<\/p>\n

But the crisis stretches across beyond Argentina. Most countries in Latin America have modified their laws so that the murder of a woman appears specifically as a femicide in the criminal code or is considered an aggravating factor to a homicide.<\/p>\n

Honduras, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic recorded the highest rates of femicide in the region in 2019, with more than six women killed per 100,000 people in Honduras, and around three killed in El Salvador and the Dominican Republic.<\/p>\n

In Mexico, an average of 10 women are killed every day.<\/p>\n

Government council<\/h2>\n

\u201cFemicides are the bloodiest expression of a machista society that we must end once and for all,\u201d Argentine President Alberto Fernandez said on Twitter on the day of the protest in front of the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

He met with Bahillo\u2019s parents and announced a plan to create a federal council for the prevention of femicides, transvesticides and transfemicides. Its mandate will be to coordinate an integrated response to the issue by different government agencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that the state has a duty to guarantee the prevention, the assistance, the sanction and reparation of gender-based violence, but we also need everyone to adopt a cultural change that eliminates violent machismo in all aspects of our lives,\u201d the president wrote in a letter to the country\u2019s governors.<\/p>\n

But for many, the council is not going to cut it.<\/p>\n

Patricia Nasutti, the mother of Ursula Bahillo, speaks during a protest against violence towards women in Buenos Aires on February 17 [Flor Guzzetti\/Reuters]<\/figure>\n

Soledad Deza, a well-known lawyer from the province of Tucuman who has worked extensively on women\u2019s rights, said Argentina already has a Ministry of Women, Genders and Diversity and does not need to create more organisations.<\/p>\n

Instead, she said the focus must be on prevention. \u201cWe tend to think that violence is a private problem. Violence is a political, social and cultural problem that is built on patterns of inequality, patterns that enable violent masculinities,\u201d she told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

For her, education that breaks those cultural patterns at an early age is crucial. The government also needs to ensure that a gender-based approach permeates all corners of the state.<\/p>\n

Argentina has a law that makes training on gender-based violence mandatory across the executive, legislative and judiciary branches, but Deza said the sheer number of femicides this year indicates much more is required.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need public policies, and we need effective implementation of those public policies, so that what we have works,\u201d she said, adding more men need to be involved in discussions about how to prevent, eradicate and sanction this violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince they are part of the problem, they need to be part of the solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018More of the same\u2019<\/h2>\n

For Marta Montero, what she is hearing from the government is \u201cmore of the same\u201d.<\/p>\n

The 2016 murder and rape of her 16-year-old daughter, Lucia Perez, became an emblematic case of femicide in Argentina. Three men were acquitted of her sexual abuse and femicide, and two were convicted only of administering drugs. A new trial has since been ordered.<\/p>\n

Montero is now a member of a group of families of femicide victims that is seeking an audience with the government to improve what she described as a painful, labyrinthine journey families must take in search of justice for their loved ones.<\/p>\n

There is not enough help or financial support for the legal battle, she said, and the swift justice they seek seldom arrives.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t need the state to spend money pointlessly on people who talk. As families of victims of femicides, we want actions. We want things to get done, we want things that are concrete,\u201d she told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do we have to spend three, or four or five years bouncing around looking for justice?\u201d she said. \u201cI need the state to get to work, to take responsibility for the deaths, the orphans, families that end up destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Buenos Aires, Argentina \u2013 The women huddle close, crane their necks and take photos of the ornate advertising stand in the core of Argentina\u2019s capital city that has been papered over with posters of men accused or convicted of murdering women. The word \u201cFEMICIDA\u201d \u2013 woman killer \u2013 screams out in large black letters under…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spotlight_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}