Viva Graffiti: Women in Mexico Are Protesting Violence and Discrimination - Creatively Dawn Starin - The Progressive | |
go to original November 30, 2016 |
Scores of images are appearing on the walls of San Cristobal as women push back against endemic violence (Dawn Starin)
Although accurate figures are hard to come by - in part because of underreporting and how the data is manipulated - there is no doubt that widespread violence against women exists in Mexico. An average of seven women were murdered in that country every day between 2013 and 2014. According to Amnesty International, killings, abductions and sexual violence against women and girls remained endemic there in 2015 and 2016. Human Rights Watch has shown that Mexican laws do not adequately protect women and girls against domestic and sexual violence.
Some women are fighting back - not with their fists but with graffiti.
"Don't let them touch you; Don't let them silence you." (Dawn Starin)
Poverty, economic woes, and gender inequality have led to a surge in political creativity, visible in the pro-feminist anti-machismo graffiti popping up overnight on the colorful stucco walls across the city of San Cristóbal de las Casas, a city rich in architecture, craftwork, scenic vistas, and indigenous cultures.
The fight for equal treatment and against domestic violence has been a part of San Cristobal’s political landscape for more than twenty years. When the EZLN - the Zapatistas - rebelled against the Mexican government on January 1, 1994, they unveiled a Women’s Revolutionary Law in San Cristobal as a key feature of their manifesto. The ten-article bill of rights for indigenous women essentially declared that women have a right to a fair wage, quality health care, equal participation in the political system, marital and reproductive rights, and freedom from sexual and domestic violence.
Establishing the right to have rights - especially women’s rights - is no easy task. Here in Chiapas, the state with the highest levels of inequality and poverty in the country, it is very much an unfinished one. Discrimination and violence against women are still commonplace. Many women, especially those from the indigenous communities, continue to face machismo and discrimination at work and within their communities, and suffer from violence inflicted by their partners as well as by the military.
Read the rest and see photos at The Progressive
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