One in three women have experienced physical and sexual violence at least once in their life. A figure from UN Women who mobilized for the International Day to Combat Violence.
Femicide, the ultimate violence against women, is what hundreds of thousands of women and men in Europe and around the world have denounced…
In Italy, there were 106 femicides last year, according to the National Institute of Statistics (Istat). And the country is still in shock from the death of a 22-year-old student, Giulia Cecchettin, murdered two weeks ago by her ex-companion who was arrested in Germany after a week on the run.
“It’s over: our struggle is global”
In Madrid, around 7,000 people according to the government demonstrated behind this banner, a slogan taken from a recent Sweden-Spain women’s football match.
Parades also took place in Barcelona and Seville, in a pioneering country where the first European law specifically punishing gender violence was passed in 2004.
“Protect your daughters, educate your sons”, “Give in is not consent”, “When I go out, I want to be free, not courageous”“Dancing without being drugged”, could be read on the signs of demonstrators in several cities in France.
“We no longer want to count our deaths”, launched Maëlle Lenoir, of the feminist collective “Nous tous”. They called on the government to speed up the implementation of measures.
In France, since the start of 2023, feminist associations have counted 121 feminicides. This is more than for the whole of 2022. Dramatic countdown which is not an exception in Europe.
In Turkey, also on Saturday, in Istanbul, 500 women gathered in the Sisli district with the following slogans:
“We will not remain silent” And “Women stand united and fight against male state violence.”
In 2021, Ankara withdrew from an international agreement aimed at protecting women against domestic violence, the Istanbul Convention. On Saturday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared that this outing had “no impact on our fight against violence against women”…
In Brazil, an alignment of pairs of shoes accompanied by women’s first names on Copacabana beach in Rio symbolized the 722 feminicides recorded in the country in 2022, the highest figure since 2019.
In the United States, President Joe Biden deplored that “the scourge of gender-based violence continues to inflict suffering and injustice on too many people”. “We know what the issues are: whenever and wherever women and girls are threatened, so is peace and stability“, he added.
“Violence against women is a toxic weed that plagues our society and must be cut at the root (…) through educational action that places the person and their dignity at the center”said Pope Francis for his part.
In Argentina, the march’s slogan was the defense of gender policies after the election of the new controversial anti-system president. Javier Milei announced during his campaign that he wanted to abolish the Ministry of Women and declared himself against the right to abortion and compulsory sex education.
A terrible setback in the fight for women’s rights in 2023.
Additional sources • AFP