Five Years After "Not One Less"

We launched the #ForAQuarantineOfRights campaign for women around the world

“In 1995, Susana Chávez coined the slogan 'Not one more,' which has become synonymous with the fight against femicides in Mexico. The writer and activist, who wrote Blood In homage to one of the many women killed, who was found murdered in 2011. That slogan was followed by 'Not one less woman, not one more dead woman'.

Today marks 5 years since the founding of Ni Una Menos, a massive movement that has managed to transcend artificial borders and become international in the South and the North, deploying social networks with public demonstrations in the streets to collectively affirm our sisterhood against structurally racialized patriarchy.

The unique circumstances of this June 3rd find us grappling with an invisible enemy: the Covid-19 pandemic. Immediately after the WHO declared its global spread, the UN warned that persistent inequality would worsen for women, exacerbating the caregiving crisis. In April, the unemployment rate for women rose to 15.5%, with Black and Latina women facing even higher average unemployment rates. Furthermore, 70% of healthcare workers are women, working on the front lines and exposed to a greater risk of infection and discrimination, often labeled as lethal “carriers” of the virus. It is in prisons where the virus is spreading most rapidly. Women in prison, who represent 60% of all inmates in Argentina, do not have fixed sentences, suffer from overcrowding, and the coronavirus has worsened their situation, preventing visits, for example. 

In addition to persistent historical inequalities and the vulnerability of Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and LGBTTTQI+ populations, the lack of statistics further obscures the differentiated impact. Recently, the UN Expert Mechanism stated, “The spread of COVID-19 has exacerbated and will continue to exacerbate an already critical situation for many Indigenous Peoples: a situation already rife with inequalities and discrimination. Rising national recessions and the real possibility of a global depression will further aggravate the situation, raising fears that many Indigenous people will die, not only from the virus itself, but also from conflicts and violence linked to resource scarcity, particularly of clean water and food.”

In times of crisis, those who suffer the most from these economic measures are usually women, who earn 27% less than men, have the most precarious jobs and a double workday since, as the survey carried out by INDEC in 2013 on unpaid work and use of time maintains, women dedicate twice as many hours as men to housework.

The gender inequalities we see in the world of paid work are amplified in working-class neighborhoods, with a material impact on women's lives: economic dependence exacerbates vulnerability. If women, lesbians, transvestites, trans people, and non-binary people have no access to paid work with rights, how can they cope with violence? How can they manage their households?

The coronavirus pandemic has shaped a new public space and, simultaneously, forced women back into the domestic sphere and, in many cases, into living with potential femicide perpetrators and aggressors in emergency situations. This has had significant implications in terms of increased gender-based violence, femicides, and transfemicides, as well as restricted access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services, contraception, and voluntary terminations of pregnancy, especially since the bill's submission to the Chamber of Deputies was interrupted by the start of mandatory preventive social isolation. 

In 2020, 134 femicides and at least 9 transfemicides were recorded in Argentina. When we are afraid to seek help, knowing that abusers could monitor our phone calls, we cry out, "Stop killing us!"

The impact of COVID-19 on women living in vulnerable conditions or in confinement in Argentina is even more severe. They are invisible to the statistics. The vast majority are adapting their routines and supporting themselves and their families in care communities. 

Communities that are fundamental to the resilience networks necessary to achieve gender equality. Facing the reality of maintaining quarantines in working-class neighborhoods and mourning the death of Ramona Medina, a community leader in Villa 31 of Buenos Aires, after the first case of COVID-19 spread through these neighborhoods where women are at greater risk. Ramona cried out that seven at-risk individuals were living in overcrowded conditions. She exposed the fact that "staying home" depends on class privilege. Migrants, those working in the informal economy who earn a living on the streets, and Indigenous communities in the Qom neighborhood of Chaco—all have seen their situation worsen. There, police officers sexually abused two underage girls. They also doused them with alcohol and threatened to set them on fire. But not a single officer was arrested. We shout, "Not One Less!"

The impact of social isolation and quarantine measures, exacerbated by structural racism, deepens the social exclusion of Afro-Argentine, Afro-descendant, and African populations without access to documentation. Patriarchal, racist, and colonial violence directly impacts the sustainability of their lives.

A comprehensive approach is needed to address gender violence in relation to the lack of rights, and to consider access to housing and work from a perspective that takes into account the gendered aspects of inequality. 

The pandemic threatens to undo the progress we feminists have historically made, but we remain steadfast, weaving networks in the struggle, lovingly and bravely, to change everything that needs changing. Because, as the African American Pat Parker said: “The Revolution is not clean, or pretty, or fast.”

For a more just, equitable, anti-racist and anti-colonialist society. 

Today more than ever we shout again:

NOT ONE LESS, WE WANT TO BE ALIVE AND FREE!

June 3 2020
CLACSO Working Group
Epistemologies of the South

This statement expresses the position of the Epistemologies of the South Working Group and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.

---