Karol Assunção *
Adital – “Nem uma mais morta”. Esse era o desejo de Susana Chávez (foto), poetisa e ativista social. Defensora dos direitos humanos no México, Susana foi, neste mês, vítima justamente do crime que lutava para pôr um ponto final: o feminicídio. Os recentes assassinatos da poetisa e de mais outras duas mulheres no México reforçaram a necessidade de acabar com a violência de gênero na América Latina e no Caribe.
Motivadas pelos assassinatos de Susana Chávez, de Marisela Escobedo, e de Rubi (filha de Marisela), feministas da região aumentaram ações pelo fim do feminicídio. Um comunicado da Rede de Saúde das Mulheres Latino-Americanas e do Caribe (RSMLAC) convida as organizações sociais a realizarem uma “ação permanente” pelo fim da violência machista.
Todos os dias, mulheres e meninas de várias partes do mundo são vítimas do sistema patriarcal. São assassinatos, agressões físicas e psicológicas, abusos sexuais, tráficos e humilhações somente pelo fato de serem mulheres. Os números não deixam dúvidas da gravidade do problema: de acordo com o Observatório Cidadão Nacional do Feminicídio, de janeiro de 2009 a junho de 2010, 1.728 meninas e mulheres foram assassinadas em 18 estados do México.
A realidade mexicana não é exceção na América Latina e no Caribe. Panamá, Guatemala, Argentina, El Salvador, Paraguai, Colômbia, República Dominicana e Bolívia são outros exemplos de países em que as cifras de feminicídios são preocupantes.
Para RSMLAC, vários são os fatores e os responsáveis pela continuidade do feminicídio na região: “Estados que omitem e descumprem seu dever de garantir a vida e os direitos humanos das mulheres consagrados; sistemas de justiça inoperantes e corruptos que falham reiteradamente em identificar, perseguir e castigar os culpados; além de uma sociedade inteira que tem permitido o uso e abuso do corpo da mulher, coisificando-a como mero objeto. Uma sociedade que, sobretudo, tem normalizado e naturalizado a existência da violência sexista como se fosse uma circunstância própria do fato de ser mulher”.
Por conta disso, a Rede demanda, entre outros pontos: proteção e reparação a vítimas e seus familiares, sanções para os culpados, e desnaturalização da violência contra a mulher. No comunicado, a RSMLAC convoca ainda a sociedade a enviar cartas aos presidentes/as dos países latino-americanos e caribenhos exigindo o compromisso em proteger a vida e os direitos de mulheres e meninas.
Ato
No último dia 10, Susana Chávez, poetisa e defensora dos direitos das mulheres foi assassinada no México. No mês anterior, a comunidade mexicana já havia perdido outra ativista: Marisela Escobedo e sua filha, Rubi. Os recentes assassinatos motivaram as feministas a realizarem um ato, no dia 17, pelo fim do feminicídio na região.
A ação, promovida por movimentos feministas da América Latina e do Caribe, reuniu ativistas e lutadores/as sociais em frente às embaixadas mexicanas de diversos países da região. Na Nicarágua, por exemplo, as manifestantes entregaram uma carta ao representante mexicano no país centro-americano com as principais demandas dos movimentos de mulheres.
* Jornalista da Adital
fonte: www.adital.com.br
Susana Chavez is Una Mas : The Murder of a Ciudad Juarez Activist
7:29 AM BY MAEGAN LA MALA · VIOLENCE|WOMEN|MEXICO
19Jan2011
She is credited with making the phrase “Ni una muerta mas,” (not one more dead woman) but 36 year old Susanna Chavez, an activist and poet who struggled for justice for the countless dead and disappeared women of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico became una mas when her body was found on Dia de los Reyes, January 6. She had been strangled and her left hand had been cut off.
What has happened since her body was found and identified follows the pattern of what some have called cover-ups to outright indifference regarding the death and disappearances in the Juarez region. Mexican officials say that Sanchez’s murder was not related to her activism or drug violence. Rather, Mexican officials seem to be engaging in some victim blaming.
Mexican police have been quoted as calling what happened “unfortunate” , saying that Chavez was partying and drinking with three 17 year old young men. Some accounts have her killed after she told the young men she was a police officer. Other accounts say she refused to have sex with one of the young men.
Many of the deaths in Juarez have been of working class and poor women travelling to and from work in the maquiladoras. Other women killed have included sex workers. All of the women are not women whose lives/labor are thought of as valuable by law enforcement. Rather the women are seen as disposable, parts of a larger system of cheap labor that are sexualized and can be replaces easily because of poverty in the area. The murder of Susana Chavez feels like it is already being thrown under the same dirty carpet. The questions no doubt will ask what she was doing and why she was doing it, not what is it about Ciudad Juarez that makes it ok to kill and mutilate a women for any reason.
Advocate for Women Susana Chavez Ambushed, Killed and Dismembered
The 36-year-old woman was a fierce critic of the failure of authorities to halt the murders of women in the city and a well-known poet.
January 13, 2011 |
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — Susana Chavez’s mutilated body was found in an abandoned house five days ago. After three days of searching, her parents recognized her in the morgue with her left hand dismembered, apparently by a saw.
The 36-year-old woman was a fierce critic of the failure of authorities to halt the murders of women in the city, and a well-known poet who back in the ’90s coined the phrase, “Ni una más,” (Not one more), referring to the incompetence of local authorities to find the killers of more than 500 women murdered in this city in the last decade.
The details of Chavez’s grisly murder and efforts by authorities to smear her name after her death have sparked widespread outrage locally and internationally. The news has refocused attention on why a decades-long crisis of violence against women in Juarez persists.
Details of Chavez’s killing are beginning to emerge. Last Wednesday night, a traditional date when Mexicans celebrate the mythical arrival of the Three Wise Kings, Chavez was ambushed a few blocks away from her home, as she was driving to meet friends at a local restaurant to celebrate.
“I waited for her all night long, but she never came back. On Thursday, we began to search for her. Then we learned she was dead. [Authorities] showed us some pictures and that was the way we could identify her,” a middle-aged woman who said she was Chavez’s mother told local media.
Authorities have already identified three suspects, at least two of them under 18 years old. The announcement was rather surprising, since up until now 92 percent of these crimes remain unsolved.
Some have cast doubts on the investigation because authorities initially reported that the victim had met the killers in the street, near the empty house believed to have been the scene of the crime. Authorities said Chavez joined the suspects for a drink and later refused to grant them sexual favors. The reason she was tortured, maimed and later killed by suffocation, using a plastic bag to cover her head, is still unknown. This version has pretty much been dismissed, and no clear reason for the killing has been found, except for the fact that for years she had been very vocal about the executions of women and the failure of law enforcement to find the perpetrators.
Local media have reported that authoriti
es tried to conceal the identity of the victim, fearing the death of the beloved figure would spark protests in the community.
Chavez’s grisly murder has refocused attention on the deaths of women in Ciudad Juarez, where 14 of the 17 murders in the country since the beginning of the year have occurred.
Chavez’s killing happened less than a month after the murder of Marisela Escobedo, the mother who set up shop in front of the state governor’s office to demand the arrest of the killer of her 16-year-old daughter. Escobar alone investigated the whereabouts of the perpetrator, who was eventually set free by a panel of judges, despite confessing to the crime. The judges are currently being investigated for the decision.
The case is bound to set a legal precedent in the country because it is the first time a panel of judges may stand trial for apparently ignoring evidence presented by the state’s district attorney.
“The penal justice system in Chihuahua has collapsed, and now we can’t even demand justice for our dead because we can be killed for doing that,” said Gustavo de la Rosa, an official with the state of Chihuahua’s Human Rights Office.
Chavez’s body was transferred to the local forensic office last Saturday — even though she was found days earlier. Her family located her on Sunday and finally got her released on Monday. Her dismembered left arm was found nearby and was attached by morticians who also applied make-up to her face. (Those who knew her say she didn’t care for make-up).
Her friends, still in disbelief, remembered the woman who walked the streets of Juarez chanting her battle call of “Ni una más.” In tears, they say they fear that they could be next. Then, they remember Chavez’s words to them, reciting the opening lines of one of her poems: “Blood of my own, blood of sunrise, blood of a broken moon, blood of silence.” The words, like a battle cry, fortify them in a struggle that so far doesn’t seem to have an end.
http://www.alternet.org/world/149517/advocate_for_women_susana_chavez_ambushed,_killed_and_dismembered/?page=2