Ni Una Menos to march demanding to be alive, free, and free from debt

The 11th yearly Ni Una Menos (Not one less) march demanding an end to femicides and gender-based violence will take place on Wednesday against the backdrop of a slew of high-profile cases of violence against women that have shaken the country.  “Justice for Agostina, for Dulce, for all of us,” the organization wrote in an Instagram post calling for a march across the country. The names were references to Agostina Vega (14) and Dulce Candia (17), who were both recently found dead after missing for several days in separate cases. The evidence shows they were murdered. A third woman, Noelia Romero (30), was also brutally murdered in Temperley, Buenos Aires province, by her boyfriend.  The main event will gather outside of Congress at 5 p.m. under the banner “We want ourselves alive, free, and free from debt!” The Ni Una Menos march has been carried out every June 3 since 2015 to demand justice for the victims. ‘An alarming reality’ During a press conference, Ni Una Menos spokespersons stated that Agostina Vega’s murder is part of an “alarming reality” in which one femicide occurs every 31 hours in Argentina.  They also criticized the dismantling of public policies carried out by the Milei administration aimed at preventing and addressing gender-based violence, as well as official narratives that deny or downplay the problem. The organization described the Vega case as an example of “organized neglect by the state” and criticized sectors of the judiciary, arguing that the search for the teenager was not conducted with the necessary urgency. “Agostina’s femicide demonstrates, once again, that even when alert systems exist and authorities have the power to carry out searches and arrests, the choice to neglect the case is directly linked to the victim’s circumstances: a poor girl from a working-class neighborhood. The prosecutor attributes the delay in the search to those conditions, even though she was only 14 years old. It is clear that, for the judiciary, these lives do not matter,” said Luci Cavallero, a member of Ni Una Menos. The mobilization will also protest the so-called “false accusations” bill promoted by Senator Carolina Losada, an initiative aimed at raising prison sentences for false accusations.  Feminist organizations argue that the initiative is part of a broader offensive aimed at discouraging reports of gender-based violence and instilling fear in those who dare to come forward.  The collective maintains that the proposal could foster impunity for abusers and become a tool for disciplining women, girls, and gender-diverse people. A massive protest The phrase Ni una menos was popularized eleven years ago following a massive protest that saw around 200,000 people flood the streets of Buenos Aires — and thousands more in other cities — to demand an end to femicides after a series of murders of young women at the hands of men, often their partners. The spark that birthed the movement was the brutal femicide of Chiara Páez, 14, which made national headlines on May 10, 2015. Manuel Mansilla, her 16-year-old boyfriend, beat her to death after learning she was pregnant and refused to have an abortion. She was found buried in the Mansilla family’s home garden. The murder was seen as the last straw of a wave of brutal violence against women. On May 11, radio reporter Marcela Ojeda made a post on the social media platform Twitter (now X) calling for all women to speak out: “Are we not going to raise our voices? THEY ARE KILLING US.” A group of women replied to Ojeda’s tweet with ideas of how to make the cause more visible. And it snowballed from there. The phrase Ni Una Menos is believed to have been originally coined by Mexican poet Susana Chávez, who was murdered by gang members in Ciudad Juárez in 2011. In Argentina, the cause brought in more coverage of femicides and gender-based violence and opened discussions in media outlets, Congress, schools, and the family dinner table. For many young women, the cause became their entrance door to feminism. Although the march became an annual tradition, the idea since last year is to join forces with other causes protesting different government decisions, marching alongside pensioners as well as workers from the Garrahan Children’s Hospital, scientists, and teachers from public universities, among others.