“I am arrived” – that is the message that will send the Mexican women to family and friends, if you were to go out at night and arrived at home. Why? Because every day nine women are murdered.
“I say to my family via a text message to let them know I arrived safely at home,” says Lizbeth Sanchez, a 44-year-old professional Mexican DW. “As a woman can be abducted in the Metro or on the street and in a Taxi attacked. It doesn’t matter how you’re dressed, where you are or how late it is.”
The short message “I have arrived” has developed into a Routine measure for women in Mexico, given the gender-based violence in the country has never been so alarmingly high. According to the United Nations are murdered in Mexico every day an average of nine women.
For women Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world. The border town of Juarez even has the sad reputation of the capital of the world for murders of Women. The government is sitting idle and has taken no effective measures against violence. A basic problem in Mexico, the weak institutions. The judiciary and police are corrupt and inefficient. Therefore, the civil society searches for solutions and creates its own support networks.
Safe places for women in the night
The gastronomy blogger Jasmín Martínez, for example, decided to found #safe places, an Initiative, citizens are calling actively for the protection of women in the society. “One Night I asked myself on the home, what could I do, if I would feel threatened. I saw that the only places were open, Bars and Restaurants. So it came to me in the sense that these places could be places of refuge for women in Distress,” says Martínez.
Symbolic crosses for the women murdered in Juárez, Mexico.
Already 480 Local and institutions have registered themselves as “safe places”, since Jasmín Martínez has launched its Initiative in February of this year. Also art galleries, car dealerships, publishers, and other companies that have open access to the street, are now registered. “We ask schools about the respective employees so that they Know how to react when a woman enters the place and asks for help. The car dealerships even offer a transport service,” says Martínez.
Initiatives such as these in the Mexican society. Even street stalls in the vicinity of U-Bahn stations put up signs on the street. To read it is: “If someone is following or harassing you, come Stand on this. We will help you.”
Actions against violence against women in the network
In the social media, the voices and actions against violence against women are increasing. The Facebook group “Nos Queremos Vivas Neza” – “We want to live” was founded by women in the city of Nezahualcóyotl, to the East of Mexico city, after the murder of an 11-year-old girl. “We have decided that the injustice to condemn publicly,” says Lupita Alvarado, a member of the Facebook Initiative of the DW.
Networks such as these not only generate a public perception, but even help in some cases, in the investigation of cases, was placed by the authorities to the files. “The parents of the 12-year-old Karina had contacted us. Her daughter had been abducted by a 28-year-old man who claimed to be her friend. We have put pressure on the authorities, and when we found the kidnappers, we brought him to the police. Now he sits for eight years in prison,” says Alvarado.
Although the penalty appears to be too low, it shows confidence that self-help actions such as these can cause a change to make Mexico one day safer for women and girls.