Prepared mass women's strike in Mexico just like 'Cinderella' dream become a reality, organizer says
04 March, 2020
Activist Arussi Unda knew many across Mexico shared her fury above violence against ladies and impunity for the perpetrators, but she was still shocked when her perspective of women staging a good national one-day strike took off beyond her home talk about.
In many towns and cities, girls next Monday will skip class, work and alternative activities to show how public life appears without them, delivering a critique of the violence which has resulted in a surge in femicides, or gender-motivated killings of women of all ages.
"It's like a Cinderella tale," Unda told Reuters, marveling at just how her obscure 15-member feminist collective Brujas del Mar ["Witches of the ocean"] possessed suddenly been thrust into the countrywide spotlight by the protest it helped inspire.
"This is just like the shed village, the little collective, the nobody women ... but sooner or later, it was likely to happen," explained Unda, whose group in the eastern condition of Veracruz lives off its funds, plus product sales of bandannas and major chains.
Femicides found in Mexico jumped 137% during the past five years, according to Mexican authorities statistics, while gang violence pushed the national murder tally to record heights. Just about all violent crimes get unsolved.
In Veracruz, one of the key battlegrounds of warring medication cartels, femicides leapt almost 300% to 159 in 2019, fueling the indignation of women's advocacy groups.
"Ladies in Mexico are completely fed up," explained Unda, 32, the spokeswoman for Brujas del Mar, which became known found in Mexico late this past year for its advocacy of abortion privileges.
"It's not simply the obvious crisis of femicides in Mexico but also what goes on every day in the home, at school, at the job. There's no place that's safe for all of us."
Notorious cases like the latest kidnapping and killing of a young girl, and the newspaper publication of images of a 25-year-older woman's mutilated corpse, have pushed the strike known as "a day without all of us" to the guts of national politics.
Support for subsequent Monday's protest, 1 day after International Women's Day, has cut across a good swath of society from corporations and universities best up to federal government ministries.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has said authorities employees are absolve to join the walkout. But he in addition has accused political opponents of wanting to exploit the country's reliability concerns to undermine his administration.
Unda dismissed his remarks as a good macho and condescending frame of mind toward the organizers.
"So, we're stupid, or perhaps what?" she said.
Source: www.thejakartapost.com
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