Crime & Justice

Mexicans demand gov’t action on gender violence, disappearances

Mexico City, May 18 (EFE).- Civil society groups demonstrated Wednesday in the Zócalo plaza of Mexico City against the rising numbers of disappearances and femicides throughout the country in recent months, and demanded authorities take action.

The protest was called to declare a day of national mourning for gender-based violence experienced by many Mexican women, and for this they called on participants to wear black clothing, in addition to holding flowers, crosses and candles.

In a speech in front of the Metropolitan Cathedral, women called on the government to declare a national alert on gender-based violence and demanded the authorities take responsibility for the growing wave of femicides and disappearances.

“We are here to demand that the disappearances of women be clarified. There are more than 23,000 disappearances of women that have not been clarified and we ask that there be a trial in the femicides that are committed every day in the country,” activist Patricia Olamendi told EFE.

She said that the protest was also to demand that this day be declared a day of national mourning “for all the girls and women that we have lost and that we have not been able to obtain justice for.”

Olamendi indicated that the idea was to hold a peaceful demonstration to honor the victims “in a country that lives in permanent mourning.”

Diana, a student, said that she participated in the demonstration to show women are “fed up” with what they experience “day to day as women in the country.”

Protests also took place in the city of Puebla.

An emblematic case has been that of 18-year-old Debanhi Escobar, a law student who was found dead inside a motel cistern in the state of Nuevo León almost two weeks after she disappeared. A second autopsy revealed she was raped and murdered.

The case has caused an uproar in Mexico, in part due to the viral photo of her standing alone on the side of a highway on the night she went missing in the northern municipality of Escobedo, after leaving a party.

So far this year, Nuevo León has registered a wave of disappearances with at least 30 women still unaccounted for.

In Mexico, on average, more than 10 women are murdered every day, and in 2021 there were more than 1,000 femicides. EFE

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