Gathered on the steps of a busy Hermosillo plaza, a small group of women and girls hold up thin, white candles on an evening in early November. Their faces glow in the soft candlelight as they sing a simple anthem of unity and peace for Mexican girls.
“We’re here at this small altar because we can’t let these day pass without remembering our dead — the ones whose lives were taken by machismo and violence in Mexico,” said Andrea Sánchez, leader the group Feminist Girls Collective in Hermosillo. “We want the world to know that the women and girls of Mexico are being raped, tortured and killed.”
It’s Día de Muertos, or Day of the Dead, and they’ve set up an altar of crosses, candles and paper flowers to honor the thousands of women and girls who have been killed in 2019.
Strung between lamp posts next to the singing girls, are dozens of sheets of paper, each printed with the picture of a smiling child — some of the more than 3,820 girls and women killed in Mexico last year.
On one of the rustling pages is Itzel Nohemí.
The 7-year-old from San Luis Rio Colorado was found murdered near her home on May 30, 2019 — now known in Sonora as “Black Thursday” after three women were murdered and another survived being brutally beaten with a bat.
“We don’t want femicide to be a tradition in Mexico,” Sánchez said. “We don’t want to be here with this altar remembering all those who have been murdered. It’s painful.”
Femicide In Sonora
Last year 117 women and girls were killed in Sonora. The state designated 41 of those murders as femicides.
A femicide is the murder of a woman or girl because of her gender.
But Nuñez, Sánchez and many others believe the real number is much higher.
For one thing, every Mexican state defines femicide differently.
“Femicide was written into the legal code in Sonora in 2013,” Nunez said. “It’s one of the strongest laws in the country.”
It lays out eight criteria for the murder of a woman to be classified as a femicide — including evidence of sexual abuse or domestic violence, among others. And femicide convictions carry a minimum sentence of 30-60 years in prison.
But many activists think authorities don’t use the code to its full extent, and are frustrated that calls to activate a federal Gender Violence Against Women Alert in the state have been rejected. The federal alert would bring resources to the state and create a working group to investigate and target violence against women.
“Now is the time to take this seriously, because if we don’t we’re never going to be able to protect women,” Nuñez said.
Last year, only about 35% of women murdered in Sonora were classified as femicides. In Mexico overall it was 26%. Some states, like Sinaloa (89%) and Veracruz (76%) defined most murders of women as femicides. While states like Guanajuato (5%), Michoacan (7%), Guerrero (8%) and Baja California (9%) reported the lowest percentage murders as femicides.
Activists like Nunez think nearly all murders of women should be categorized as femicides because of the social context in which they occur.
“We’ve seen that in every case there is at least one indicator,” she said. “Men kill each other. And those men kill women, for being women.”
Until women have the same power, access to weapons and involvement in organized crime as their killers, she said, gender is at play.
Prevention And Prosecution
But classifying murders as femicides is just one step. Nuñez also wants more attention focused on prevention.
“Femicidal violence can result in the death of woman, but it doesn’t always,” she said. “That’s why we say ‘Sonora feminicida,’ ‘México feminicida.’ Because there are constantly acts of femicide, and maybe in that moment that woman hasn’t died. But, listen to what we say: ‘She hasn’t died.’ Because sooner or later, that woman is going to lose her life.”
In the last year crimes including domestic violence, kidnapping, sexual abuse and human trafficking in which a woman or girl was the victim were also on the rise in Mexico, according to data from the Public Safety Ministry. Nuñez wants these kinds of crimes to be recognized as steps toward femicide.
State Attorney Claudia Indira Contreras agrees that prevention is key.
“Our job is also prevention, to avoid more women being killed,” she said, adding that her office is working with other entities to tackle the root causes of violence against women.
And she says they’re sending the message that femicides won’t be tolerated in Sonora by doggedly investigating, tracking and prosecuting cases. In 2019, there were 46 femicide convictions in Sonora, in striking contrast with high levels of impunity in homicide cases.
“To confront a real situation, you have to make it visible as such,” she said. “And that’s what we’re doing. We’re registering cases the way we should be.”
But for many, it’s not enough — because women are still being killed.
Anger And Action
Last November, after well-known Sonoran anthropologist and activist Raquel Padilla was brutally murdered by her partner, friends, colleagues and supporters marched through the streets of Hermosillo calling for justice and action.
“We’re in shock,” said activist Krimilda Bernal. “It could be any of us. You can be a homemaker. You can be an academic, an activist. We’re all vulnerable to femicide.”
Women feel helpless, she said. They’re terrified and enraged.
But that’s only made them more determined to keep fighting for change.
