In response to the femicide of Camila Villavicencio and the violation of the rights of people with disabilities in Chile

Just like CLACSO Working Group on Critical Studies in Disability We wish to express our sorrow and outrage at the femicide of Camila Villavicencio, a Chilean deaf woman and activist for the rights of the deaf community, which occurred in October 2022, and our concern about the discrimination and human rights violations suffered by her and her family, also part of the deaf community, expressed in an irregular process that has hindered access to justice and discriminatory attitudes on the part of judicial officials and police forces.

In our Ibero-American region, heteropatriarchy, intersecting with ableism, places girls, adolescents, and women with disabilities at greater risk of sexual, economic, physical, psychological, and all other forms of violence. Our commitment as a group of researchers and activists with a critical perspective within the field of disability in Latin America leads us to stand in solidarity with Camila, her family, and the deaf community in Chile and throughout our region. Therefore, we call upon the State of Chile to fulfill the commitments it made upon signing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in order to address the barriers to justice for deaf people; and we call upon the Chilean justice system to conduct a judicial process that is inclusive and inclusive of deaf people.
gender perspective and inclusion, ensuring equity and non-discrimination for all people with disabilities, especially women and girls who are victims of sexual violence.

We also call upon the media and social organizations working against the oppression or discrimination of other social groups to join in denouncing this serious situation. The invisibility of violence against women and girls with disabilities is reflected in the scarce, biased, or misinformed coverage by some media outlets and in the low priority given to this issue by some social organizations. We believe that the strength of the ties between the disability rights movement, the feminist movement, and other social movements with whom we share structural conditions of oppression is fundamental to advancing toward the elimination of all forms of violence against women and girls with disabilities.

#JusticiaParaCami @justiciaparacami

December 29th 2022
CLACSO Working Group
Critical studies in disability

This statement expresses the position of CLACSO Working Group on Critical Studies in Disability and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.