ProtestBlog.org: November 4, 2021
The day after Mexico´s traditional Day of the Dead celebration on the 2nd of November, several hundred very determined and angry women descended on Mexico City's center to draw attention one more time to the the egregious problems of violence against women and femicide in Mexico.
We do not know how many femicides there are in Mexico since many of those deaths go unreported for a variety of reasons, mostly an utter lack of any confidence in the police or the justice system. Estimates often suggest that the real number is around 10 women per day. According to official, government statistics, almost 1000 women were murdered, mostly, by a partner or ex-partner, almost entirely male in 2020. Nearly that many murders of women had already taken place by the time of this writing in November of 2021.
Even when these cases are investigated, according to Amnesty International, those cases are often flawed because evidence is lost or ignored, resulting in a vast majority of these crimes as going unpunished.
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Trans Women in Mexico City Honor Their Dead
ProtestBlog.org November 2nd, Mexico City
Trans women in Mexico City honored their dead on Mexico's traditional Day of the Dead, holding a vigil to pay tribute to members of their marginalized community who had been murdered, this year and prior years.
Kenya Cuevas, one of the primary leaders and organizers of Mexico's trans community tell us: “Today we are making an offering with which every year we remember women of our community. It is a way of remembering them with love and affection on this traditional day,” said Kenya Cuevas, one of Mexico’s most influential trans rights activists.
Mexico has some of the highest levels of violence against trans people in the world, and may well lead the Western Hemisphere in this dubious distinction. As the women at this celebration explain, they have no families, since their families have largely disowned them and seldom want anything to do with them, even their own mothers. After they are gone, and that could be sooner rather than later given the high levels of machista violence in Mexico, if they are killed and a picture of them makes it on the family alter, it will not be them, it will be a picture of them as a small child, before they became who they are today, a woman with full rights, worth, dignity, and deserving of being protected by the government.
Frankly, Mexico has earned its Macho reputation for good reason, and the failure of the government speaks to the need to reform Mexico's 'macho' politicians, including the current President, AMLO, Lopez Obrador, who does nothing to help protect Mexico's trans people.
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Outraged Mexican Women Rise Against Violence for International Women's Day
ProtestBlog.org: International Women's Day, March 8, 2021, Mexico City
¨You will be seeing us¨ it says on the right, on the lavender-colored cross - the color of women´s power. On the left the cross reads ¨we are going to scream until you listen to us¨.
For some time now, the rate of femicide in Mexico has been among the highest in the world, with nearly 10 women a day being murdered on average, as women, because they are women. For some time now, Mexican women have been at the forefront of protest against sexual violence and femicide.
A barricade was placed outside the Presidential Palace which has become what the President refers to as a ¨wall of peace.¨ A largely popular left-wing leader, he now faces his most difficult challenge from women, who say that during several years as President he has done nothing about the nearly 10 women a day murdered in Mexico.
This is true, this issue has not been and will not likely be a part of his political agenda. Although a leftist, he is very macho, like Trump and Bolsonaro on the Right. This is going to cost him. He is clearly going to be dealing with the feminist Mexican agenda for the balance of his time in office.
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