Feminist Performance of Global Significance Rejects Violence Against Women

March 8, 2020

Several feminist groups performed a performance to represent the “bonds to which women are subjected” and reject gender violence on Friday, in Medellín (Colombia). EFE / Luis Eduardo Noriega

They were inspired by the performance “Let me be the ruler”, by Rosa Mesa (Spain), to “make the bonds visible”, vindicate the feminist struggle and generate reflection on insecurity.

By EFE (Confidencial)

HAVANA TIMES – Some twenty feminist activists participated this Friday in a feminist performance in the center of the Colombian city of Medellín to make visible the violence against women in the city.

The artistic intervention, which at times interrupted vehicle traffic, concentrated members of the groups “Putamente Poderosas”, “El Derecho a No Obedecer” y “Lunes de Ciudad”, in addition to the Citizen Oversight of the Development Plan. “They are killing us for being women, and that is very serious,” said Melisa Toro, promoter of the symbolic act they called “Tied for being women.”

Several feminist groups in a performance representing the “ties to which women are subjected” and rejecting gender violence on March 6, in Medellín (Colombia). EFE / Luis Eduardo Noriega

The activists were inspired by the performance “Let me be the ruler”, by the Spanish artist Rosa Mesa, to “make the ties visible”, vindicate the feminist struggle and generate a reflection on how insecure women feel in this city.

In the activity, the activists stood on a sheet stained with “blood” and formed a circuit of women with their faces completely covered and tied by red laces.

Performance to be heard

“They don’t listen to us. The woman must first be killed, raped or mistreated so that they pay attention to her,” said Toro, of the “Putamente Poderosas” collective. She also added that types of immediate attention for women are still missing, because public policies in this regard are still “very lukewarm.”

“We understood that being united is the main route to be safe,” said Toro, whose references are the struggles in Argentina and Spain for their “strong movements and female conscience.” The group “El Derecho a No Obedecer” stressed in a statement that, according to the Security and Coexistence Information System (SISC), more than 5000 women were victims of sexual violence in 2019 and 49 women were killed in Medellin.

So far this year five women have been murdered in the city, four of them in femicides, including the one that occurred last February 25 on the hill El Volador, which led to the installation of the Public Security Council for Women.

After that murder, the Undersecretary of Human Rights of the Women’s Secretariat, Ana Milena Montoya, said that the municipal administration is “committed to the lives of women in Medellin” and said they reject “any act of femicide and any violence against women “.

In Nicaragua, so far this year, 13 women have been killed, after confirming the recent femicide of two women in the tourist city of Granada.