Crime & Justice

Mexico City demonstrators grieve for murdered girl, femicide victims

By Ines Amarelo

Mexico City, Mar 26 (efe-epa).- About 100 women gathered for a march on Friday in Mexico City, amid grief and frustration over the murder of Nicole, a seven-year-old girl, in the central state of Hidalgo.

“She said she wanted to be a pilot. She saw an airplane pass by and said ‘I want to be there.’ Now she is flying very high, but not in the way we would like,” said the girl’s sister at the iconic Zócalo of the capital, surrounded by a large circle of women who yelled “You are not alone.”

On Mar. 2, Nicole went out to play with her friends in the town of Tizayuca, Hidalgo, and when she did not return, her sister went out to look for her.

Nicole’s family and the authorities searched for her for a week until on Mar. 9 a body, which later was identified as hers, was found at a nearby dam.

A neighbor of Nicole’s family had been detained even before she was found.

“He was a neighbor who, like any other, appeared to be normal. But then the girls said that he masturbated watching them from the window. They didn’t say anything until the Nicole thing happened because they were probably afraid,” said Fer, Nicole’s cousin.

On Friday, some of the girl’s family demonstrated in the Mexican capital together with the Mujeres Lunares collective and other groups that demanded justice for Nicole and for all the women and girls murdered every day in the country.

According to the accounts of civil organizations and associations, in Mexico more than 10 women are murdered every day. However, official data collected in 2020 showed a total of 967 femicides.

“We came here and we are collecting provisions for Nicole’s family. We want to make as much noise as possible, we can no longer shut up. Unfortunately, children suffer from a lot of violence and we can no longer let this happen,” a spokeswoman of Mujeres Lunares told EFE.

The march left the iconic Monument to the Revolution and ended in the Zócalo with demonstrators holding placards saying: “We are not all here, Nicole is missing” and “What do we want? Justice!”

There were many emotional moments, among them when it was remembered that Nicole liked to dance and several women and girls began to dance within the circle of demonstrators.

The march became a cry for justice and condemnation not only of Nicole’s murder, but also for all victims of femicide in Mexico.

“We want to finish finding everyone involved because it is not just one, we do not know if there are three or more. Anyway one is already caught. We are asking him to tell the truth and help us end this. It is not just Nicole, there are many more girls and women,” said Fer.

For just over two years, the feminist movement in the Latin American country has been growing exponentially. However, femicides and gender-based violence isn’t subsiding.

On Thursday, an image of young women carrying the white coffin of Wendy, a 16-year-old girl whose body was recently found in a sewage canal in the central State of Mexico, made waves around the world. EFE-EPA

ia/tw

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