Mexico City | Desinformémonos. The march was convened at four in the afternoon, but it was not even noon when women’s collectives, mothers of victims of feminicide and disappearance, girls with their banners, indigenous defenders, students, artists and creators began to congregate at the Glorieta de las Mujeres que Luchan to participate in the day for International Women’s Day, a day of struggle against all macho violence.
Green and purple, this time combined with the colors of the Palestinian flags in solidarity with the people of Gaza, gradually began to flood the area around the Roundabout. There the women placed a clothesline with denunciations of harassment, rape, femicide and disappearance. Meanwhile, the La Coraza choir embraced the arriving crowds with its song of struggle.
The atmosphere is one of support, solidarity and indignation. The massive mobilization starts from different parts of the city and converges on Reforma Avenue. Tens of thousands of women, mostly young women, mothers with their sons and daughters, and also grandmothers in wheelchairs or with canes, form a purple river from the Monument to the Mother to the capital’s Zócalo, which welcomes them with the walled National Palace.
At every moment a madre buscadora, a family member of a feminicide victim or a wife of a prisoner presented their case, demanded justice and denounced the apathy of the government and its institutions, which “shelve” the investigations and “pretend” to attend to the crisis of violence in the country.
We can hear the Mazatec women for Freedom, who demand the immediate release of the political prisoners of Eloxochitlán de Flores Magón, Oaxaca; the mother of Lilith, a trans girl who disappeared in Zicatela, Puerto Escundido; or the collective La Wiccan Forense, made up of women forensic experts and investigators who, they pointed out, “are also fighting when they make their rulings.” In response, the collective cry “you are not alone” surrounds those who speak out.
And the tide does not stop. The growing crowds joined the march shortly before three o’clock in the afternoon. An energetic batucada is present when, formed in line and in circles, the women beat their drums, smiled, raised their arms and shouted. Together with them, girls, young women and adults advanced like rivers alternating with the main river to the Zócalo, where last night hundreds of candles and pink crosses were placed to demand justice for the victims of feminicide.
“I raise my voice so that tomorrow there will be no one missing in my classroom,” reads the banner of a little girl accompanied by her mother, and supported by a contingent of young people. Next to her, a purple poster reads “Your fear of my freedom is called machismo”. Meanwhile, the women buscadoras carry banners like clothing with the data and photographs of their disappeared, and the choruses resound to demand that the government fulfill its obligation to guarantee the safety of all and that the cases of violence do not go unpunished.
Throughout the march, thousands of police officers, wearing their purple uniforms, gather in the surrounding streets. The monuments of the Historic Center are surrounded by metal fences, which the women cover with their demands, with the faces of their missing and dead victims, and with the names and photos of their aggressors.
One by one, the crowds of women fill the entire Zócalo square and raise their own flag on the central flagpole, the base of which is covered with denunciations and photos of their victims. A giant banner with the legend “Abortion out of the penal code” hangs in front of the National Palace. Nothing stops these women. They go together and assure that they will not let the violence against them remain, and that they know they are united by a common goal: to live without fear, until none of them is missing.
Original text by Fernanda Peralta published in Desinformemonos on March 8, 2024.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.