Activists install feminism symbol in Mexico City ahead of Women’s Day
Mexico City, Mar 5 (EFE).- Hundreds of people in Mexico City on Saturday held a day of collective action at the Monument to the Women Who Fight and reinstalled a feminist statue on the empty plinth at a roundabout.
The event, ahead of International Women’s Day on Mar. 8 and a possible national strike the following day, called together civil society groups and organizations that reinstalled a violet silhouette of a girl raising her fist and the word “justice” on her back on the central Reforma Avenue plinth previously dedicated to Christopher Columbus.
“Justice, justice, until we find them,” the activists shouted after the reading of the names of women and girls who have disappeared in Mexico in recent years.
The demonstration turned into a mini music festival with several women singing, in addition to other activities such as screen printing and poetry reading.
It was in September 2021 when feminist groups installed the Monument to the Women Who Fight.
At that time, they declared that the space was dedicated to women who are looking for their disappeared relatives, to the mothers of femicide victims and their daughters, to the defenders of the territory, to Afro-Mexican women, to indigenous women and “all women who with their struggles have built our history.”
On Wednesday, feminist groups called the national women’s strike “A Day Without Us” for Mar. 9, just 24 hours after the commemoration of International Women’s Day, with the aim of exhibiting the consequences of what would happen if there were no women in the country.
The Brujas del Mar collective published the call on its social media for the second year, after the first in 2020 at the start of the pandemic, in which many women were absent for 24 hours from the country’s activities.
It said that the objective is to make inequalities visible, since women on average earn 34 percent less than men, while in Mexico there are more than 10 murders of women per day.
In addition, it pointed out that 43.9 percent of Mexican women have faced violence in their relationships and 53.1 percent have faced violence from a different aggressor.
On International Women’s Day, various groups are expected to hold marches in across the country.
Mexico is suffering from a wave of gender-based violence with 1,004 femicides registered in 2021, 2.66 percent up on 2020. EFE
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