BUENOS AIRES: Argentines turned out for the eighth annual march against persistent gender-based violence Saturday, only days after a young woman was killed by a coworker who had harassed her.
The now-iconic “Ni una menos,“ or “Not one less,“ chant is also meant to call attention to economic inequalities suffered by women, which many consider a form of violence in itself for limiting women’s ability to extract themselves from dangerous situations.
According to police, 25-year-old Rocio Gonzalez was shot seven times Thursday by an office colleague of the same age whom she had previously reported for harassment.
A court had issued a precautionary measure after Gonzalez filed two complaints against the coworker, most recently last month. In response, the employees' schedules were shifted so they wouldn't run into each other at work.
Violence against women remains a major problem in Argentina, with over 250 women killed in femicides last year, according to the country's Supreme Court. In 88 percent of those crimes, victims knew their attacker, and in 59 percent of cases, the assailant was the woman's partner or ex-partner.
“The numbers aren’t dropping,“ warned NGO La Casa del Encuentro, one of the organizers of Saturday’s demonstration, where participants urged government action and called for more visibility for victims like Gonzalez.
“The measures taken up until now have not been sufficient, and even though we see changes... the socio-cultural transformation that is needed to topple the patriarchy is coming very slowly, leaving hundreds of women and trans people murdered for their gender every year,“ the organization said in a statement.
The first “Ni una menos” march came in 2015 when hundreds of people took to the streets after the killing of 14-year-old Chiara Paez, who was beaten to death by her 17-year-old boyfriend after refusing to abort a pregnancy.
The case was the jumping-off point for Argentina's feminist movement, which has gained momentum in the wake of other highly publicized gender-based crimes.
According to Casa del Encuentro, the South American country has seen more than 2,280 gender-based killings of women since that first protest. -AFP
