“Our daughters do not commit suicide or die of alcoholic congestion”

Carolina Gomez Mena and Jessica Xantomila

Newspaper La Jornada
Saturday November 26, 2022, p. 4

To the voices of the mothers who have taken to the streets for decades to demand truth and justice for their disappeared daughters, victims of femicide and sexist violence, new ones are added every year, those of those who have recently faced that same ordeal. For all of them, the constants are impunity, complicity with the aggressors and the disdain of the authorities.

Yesterday, like every commemoration of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, thousands of them mobilized towards the capital’s Zócalo to demand progress in the investigations of crimes against their daughters and jail for the guilty. On this occasion, not all the buildings were surrounded by metal fences in the Plaza de la Constitución, because in front of the National Palace there is a sit-in of teachers from the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE) from Guerrero.

During the march, which started from the so-called roundabout of the women who struggle, the search mothers and the victims of femicide demanded put behind bars the aggressors of our daughters and repair the damage. They also asked for a bigger budget to care for survivors of gender violence and called on state prosecutors to stop being accomplices to the perpetrators.

Our daughters do not commit suicide, they do not die from alcoholic congestion, they are victims of femicidal violence and the inaction and omission of the authorities who dispense justice.

New cases have been added to the cases known for years, such as that of Sandra Karina García Alemán, a 27-year-old civil engineering graduate, who was found dead on May 18, 2020. Initially, it was said that it was due to alcoholic congestion, when the real reason is asphyxiation by strangulation. Her mother, Antonia, assures that the person responsible is the former sentimental partner of her daughter and demands justice.

Twenty-two years after Alejandra’s femicide, committed in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, her mother, Norma Andrade, continues to demand justice. She asserted that although they tried to silence her with five bullets and her health is deteriorating, nor can they silence my voice. She asked her fellow fighters to relieve her of the demand for punishment in the event that her life was not enough to see those responsible in jail.

war against us

Before starting the walk, Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International, assured that in Mexico and the world there is a war against women, our dignity and our right to live without violencebut We are fighting.

The mobilization was led by relatives of victims of femicide and disappearances, who shouted slogans –some of which were accompanied by batucadas– such as What do we mothers in Mexico want? Justice! When? Now! Y We love each other alive, free and combative!

Most of the march was peaceful; however, women with their faces covered and dressed in black painted some monuments and street furniture. These contingents were located in the rear and were escorted by female police elements, which led to some friction between the two groups.

In the Zócalo, which was intervened by feminists the previous morning with silhouettes painted on the floor, resembling a crime scene, the muffled women could not attack the National Palace, so they opted to break windows and paint the facade of one of the government buildings of Mexico City. They also launched flammable devices and firecrackers against the Metropolitan Cathedral, which was protected by high metal fences that made the attack unsuccessful.