As governments recognize the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women today —a day chosen to remember the Mirabal sisters who were killed during a dictatorship in the Dominican Republic— activists across Latin America have taken to the streets. In Dominican Republic, women organized protests on Sunday to bring attention to the alarming femicide rates happening in the country, as allegedly 66 women have been killed in the country by romantic partners in 2019. Women also took part in protests in Mexico City and nearby municipalities like Nezahualcoyotl, a response to Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum’s announcement of a Gender Alert for the city in response to high levels of violence against women. The Gender Alert has been used in other Mexican states to concentrate government resources on preventing and solving violent crimes against women. Of Mexico’s 31 federal entities, 20 have now declared emergencies over gender violence and femicide. Sheinbaum also said that the city will create a sex offender registry. A second march is planned in downtown Mexico City today.
In Puerto Rico, the feminist organization Colectiva Feminista en Construcción, along with others, marched to La Fortaleza, the governor’s mansion, to protest violence against women. Last week, the government announced the creation of the Gender Violence Alert Advisory Committee, which will work on a plan to eradicate gender-based violence on the island. Recently, anti-police brutality organization Kilómetro Cero and feminist organization Proyecto Matria released a report that identified at least 266 femicides in Puerto Rico between 2014 and 2018 and found that the island’s police undercounted murders of women by 11 percent to 27 percent each year in that period.
