Thousands of people took to the streets across the world on Saturday to condemn violence against women on the international day highlighting the crime.
On the UN-designated International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, protesters marched in Europe and the Americas.
“The scourge of gender-based violence continues to inflict pain and injustice on too many,” US President Joe Biden said in a statement. “An estimated one in three women globally will experience physical violence, rape, or stalking at some point in their lifetimes. It’s an outrage.”
Photo: AP
In Guatemala, protesters began commemorations on Friday evening, placing candles to write out 438 — the number of women killed so far this year.
In the Chilean capital, Santiago, about 1,000 protesters marched through the streets on Friday night, chanting “Not one step backward” and demanding action by the government to protect women.
A women’s advocacy group estimates that 40 femicides have occurred in the country this year.
Along Rio de Janeiro’s famed Copacabana Beach, protesters lined up 722 pairs of women’s shoes, from high-heels to sneakers, each pair before a woman’s name to represent the femicides recorded last year — the highest number since 2019, the non-governmental Brazilian Forum on Public Safety has said.
In Argentina, demonstrators — including those concerned by the election of incoming Argentinian president Javier Milei — in Buenos Aires combined a protest on violence against women with a show of support for the Palestinian people.
Milei has suggesting eliminating the Ministry of Women, Genders and Diversity — in charge of preventing gender violence — and has taken hardline stances on issues including abortion and equal pay.
In Italy, which has been shaken by the murder of a 22-year-old university student allegedly by her former boyfriend, about 50,000 people demonstrated in Rome, the Italian Journalistic Agency said.
The country has been horrified by the case of Giulia Cecchettin, who went missing for a week as she was due to receive her degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Padua.
Her body was eventually found in a gully about 120km north of Venice, and her former boyfriend, 22-year-old Filippo Turetta, was arrested in Germany.
“This year... takes on particularly important connotations for us... for those in this country who care about the rights, claims and emancipation of all women, following yet another femicide, the killing of Giulia Cecchettin,” said Luisa Loduce, a 22-year-old librarian.
In the year to Nov. 12, there have been 102 murder cases with female victims in Italy, 82 of them by family members or current or former partners, the Italian Ministry of the Interior said.
In France, several thousand people, wove through the chilly streets of Paris and other cities, carrying signs reading: “One rape every six minutes in France” and “Protect your girls, educate your boys.”
France has recorded 121 women killed so far this year in femicides, the killing of a woman due to her gender, compared with 118 last year, government data showed.
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