PANDEMIC AND FEMICIDES
Easter 2020: From Argentina, to FiLiA UK
By Marta Nunez, FiLiA Latin American Liaison
In our days of the Pandemic, all statistics are sad. Here in Argentina, at the end of each day, we wait to listen to the numbers of new cases, dead people and hopefully the recovered ones.
It is true the Argentinean President Alberto Fernandez is an example of excellent leadership on these sad days. He clearly asserted “People are more important than the market” and concentrated efforts to assist the neediest. After four years of pure and crude neoliberalism, Fernandez took charge of a country almost in social and economic bankruptcy. And he is managing a strict quarantine to avoid the collapse of the limited health structure resources of the country.
However, I am missing a word from the government concerning other sinister statistics.
FEMICIDES DURING THE PANDEMIC.
Women are forced to maintain the quarantine with dangerous partners, who are becoming even more dangerous because they are reacting like beasts confined in cages.
According to *MuMaLa during the first 100 days of 2020, there were 96 femicides in Argentina. One femicide every 29 hours. Now the same organisation says that in March there was one femicide every 12 hours in Argentina.
Feminist groups are demanding a declaration of emergency about the femicides that is long overdue.
*MuMaLa is a women's organisation (as they define themselves) based in the province of Buenos Aires (not only the city) and are following the increasing trend of femicides and documenting the cases.
It’s important to note that, given the socio-economic composition of the area of the Great Buenos Aires, there are areas where the “home” quarantine does not make any sense because people do not have houses as such. They share refuges, abandoned properties, and common shelters because, in fact, the streets are their houses. In these areas, women and especially very young girls are exposed to male violence.
The recent femicide cases in Argentina so far have been horrendous. Men are killing even their own children to punish women.
On the other hand, because prisons are overpopulated, which represents a health risk, there is a danger that rules will be relaxed. Violent men who have not declared guilty of a serious crime, (although they have a background of violence) may be allowed back on the streets.
From my “quarantine” observatory, in a middle-class area of Buenos Aires, I face every day a family opposite to my window that has made a “home” on a street corner.
When I take “my time allowance” to go out, I talk to them. The family had to sell their house because they could not pay the costly medical treatment for their child. The child died.
They are homeless. When I asked why they do not look for a shelter, they said that this would be worse, like a prison. I took from home as much as I could to make sure that they will not be cold, and every time I go out for food, I share with them what I can.
For me, listening to their plight has put everything into perspective.