Today, we want to share our Managing Partners María Leticia and Lía's thoughts and experiences participating in the #3J demonstrations, calling for Ni Una Menos ("Not One Woman Less"). How was your first time attending these protests? Who did you go with?
María Leticia Cazeneuve says...
"The first time NUM happened, I went alone. I didn't know what to expect of it. No one knew what to expect, really. I had attended many other demonstrations in support of my political party and even some feminist ones, on days of observance. But this one was different: the air was filled with rage, we had had enough and we knew we couldn't just move on as if things were okay. We were mad about the number of femicides we saw. We were mad we kept "turning up dead" in trash bags. That day, that demonstration was a turning point for the Argentine society as a whole regarding tolerance of femicides."
Lía Díaz says...
"Before TEIFEM, I used to go to demonstrations alone. At the NUM protests, I first found actual affidamento. It was about living a collective experience in a community of diverse feminine-aligned people, feeling all these emotions Leti has mentioned while hoping that, by taking to the streets and showing our fragility, together we would be stronger."
Observatories on femicides: a response in the absence of the State
After the first Ni Una Menos demonstration (June 2015), the need to expose sexist violence in Argentina became impossible to ignore. As a response to this situation, several organizations were created to start approaching the issue of femicides as a social problem.
As explained by Ahora que sí nos ven, given the lack of official data collected nationally on the topic, one of the visibility strategies adopted by feminist organizations was the production of their own statistics. La Casa del Encuentro was the first one to gather information regarding femicides through its own Observatory, "Adriana Marisel Zambrano," from 2009 onwards.
In 2015, the Office for Women at the Argentine Supreme Court of Justice set up its own Observatory based on the information of all criminal cases investigating violent deaths of women under gender-related motivations. The following year, the National Office of the Ombudsman established its own one, too.
Demonstrators have kept taking to the streets throughout these years. A few months ago, after the heart-wrenching femicide of Úrsula Bahillo by her ex-boyfriend, a police officer, the Executive Power stepped in and created a Federal Council to tackle femicides, transfemicides and travesticides. Its goal is to have public bodies react faster when informed of high-risk situations to prevent such tragic endings.
We want ourselves alive: Marta Dillon, one of the creators of Ni Una Menos
Marta Dillon is so much more than a renowned feminist journalist at Página 12. Alongside other activists, she participated in the creation of the Ni Una Menos collective in 2015.
As a professional communicator, Dillon works as editor for Las 12 and she founded Soy, both supplements published by the newspaper Página 12. In the 90s, she wrote the column “Convivir Con Virus” (“Living with Virus”) for the same newspaper, in which she shared her life experiences as an HIV-positive person.
Did you know she is a leading advocate in the organization H.I.J.O.S? Her mother, Marta Taboada, was among the activists who were abducted and murdered during our country's last civic-military dictatorship.
She has published five books. The most recent one is titled "Aparecida": it narrates her journey to find the truth about her mother's fate in 2012. She has received several awards throughout her career: First Mention at the José Martí Prize (2003) and the Lola Mora Prize to Lifetime Achievement (2016). In 2005, the women's organization Unión de Mujeres de la Argentina rewarded her work in journalism and she was also appointed Ambassador for Reproductive Rights by the Social and Political Institute for Women.