At least 190 women were murdered in Latin America during the first two months of the year, according to the Latin American Map of Femicides (MLF), carried out by the organization MundoSur.
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With the slogan "Stop killing us," the organization makes the urgent request given the increase of femicides in the region, when this March 8 is celebrated as International Women's Day.
The portal Latinoamérica Piensa published a note warning that the figure is added to the statistics of victims of gender violence in the region, women who, before becoming a number, had a name, a family, a life project.
During 2020, a year marked by isolation and pandemic, some 2,456 women were murdered. On International Women's Day, the message is urgent: "Stop killing us."
The figure is imprecise, "cases are missing," warns the Latin American Map of Femicides (MLF), carried out by the organization MundoSur.
What is also missing are lives—those of women who were murdered for the simple fact of being a woman. Victims of male violence and patriarchy, it is pointed out.
although today might be a celebratory day for most places, in latin america we’re marching, fighting for and remembering the women who lost their lives due to femicides #NiUnaMenos pic.twitter.com/GwEs9bUOXM
— aime ☾ (@swtnerry) March 8, 2021
The objective of the MLF is to make visible "the scourge that women in Latin America are living, increased by the preventive and obligatory social confinement in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic".
The organization stresses that femicides are "the tip of the iceberg" of domestic violence.
"The fatal result of multiple violence that is invisible and unheeded by those who had an obligation to do so," they explain while noting that the number of victims is growing year by year in Latin America.
It seeks to celebrate the enormous efforts of women and girls worldwide to forge a more equal future and recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.
In this vein, UN Women notes that, in the wake of the pandemic, new barriers have emerged in addition to the social and systemic ones that persisted before and are holding back women's participation and leadership.
Around the world, women face increased domestic violence, unpaid care work, unemployment, and poverty.
#FromTheSouth | #NewsBits | Lawmakers in Bolivia are treating gender violence as a priority issue and making sure that femicide will be dealt with, by making this and other crimes against women more visible. pic.twitter.com/WpmCjLcTwX
— أمينها العام عاشق (@MarxistWolffist) March 18, 2019