No more violence against women!

With more than 100,000 people missing, eight missing women per day and more than 10 femicides per day, we have not yet been able to explain the tragedy of violence, we need narratives that explain the phenomena and give us back the word, also kidnapped by violence. How to make the voices of the graves, of the charred bodies, of the murdered searching mothers, of the trafficking survivors who choose to take their own lives emerge?

In the context of International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and in order to make visible a problem that seriously affects Mexico, the artistic exhibition En otra piel, by the Peruvian Aisha Ascóniga, was inaugurated.

The Women’s Museum It is the venue that houses this exhibition and that can be visited until November 27. Here is a selection of her most recent work that focuses on the female body and violence. There are nine pieces in techniques ranging from mixed media on canvas, linocuts and collage to installation.

Aisha wonders about inhabiting the body and when illness is part of everyday life, when this violence is normalized and when people have lived with it since childhood. “Because the ways of shouting and saying no! They are not enough against an aggressor”. Layer after layer of paint and paper cut by the creator, are efforts in commemoration of November 25, the day she seeks to shout no more violence against women!

I want to thank you for this opportunity to continue fighting, it is a great opportunity to continue making visible all these problems that we experience for the mere fact of being a woman”.

In an interview for El Economista, she explains that from the beginning her work was contested, “I have used it to complain about the system or consumerism, at first not with women’s issues, but always making them present in my work with images of them. Throughout ten years it has been gaining more and more strength and I have felt more and more committed to this”.

Today it is more focused on the role of women “because art today is a very powerful weapon to claim rights or make problems visible, in this case of women. Today I feel a great responsibility to be an artist and capture reality”.

He assures that it is important to use art because it is a subtle but strong tool at the same time. “The works don’t need words, they speak for themselves, they allow us to dialogue with someone who hasn’t done it before. It is also the voice for those who do not have the ability to speak or who are victims, art is a good language”.

He was grateful that his visit to Mexico is in commemoration of November 25, and that it is the fruit of more than ten years of work, but above all “to see that it becomes a useful weapon.”

Information is a social good that combats violence against women

The exhibition is carried out in collaboration with the National Institute of Transparency. Regarding this, the commissioner president of the Inai, Blanca Lilia Ibarra Cadena, believes that this exhibition questions us and proposes a metaphor for physical violence that transgresses the body and destroys the soul, and therefore annihilates the dignity of women and girls. “It makes us remember so many historical facts and so many unfortunate events that we know and experience today and that makes us shudder.”

In an interview, he said that art has ceased to be merely contemplative and gives guidelines for viewers to become active agents. In this sense, she explains that this exhibition is transcendent to expose key information to combat stereotypes, manifestations and behaviors that with notable cultural roots that undermine and prevent the free exercise of women’s rights. “This effort is even more relevant in our context, it is not easy to be a woman where discrimination and violence are exercised in all aspects, levels, sectors, violence affects women for the mere fact of being women.”

Globally, it is estimated that 736 million women, that is, one in three, have experienced at least once in their lives physical or sexual violence, in addition to emotional violence. In the case of Mexico, according to data from the Executive Secretariat of the National Security System, between January and August of this year, 594 femicides have been registered. Only in the month of August, femicides increased by 20%, adding 266 women victims of intentional homicide, of which only 67 were classified as femicides.

“Each of these events entails a lot of pain and shows the lack of access to justice, as well as a macho culture that we must combat on all fronts.”

For this reason, he said that the right to information not only works as a citizen control mechanism, or for abuses of power, it is also a social good, a key right that allows us to open and use our rights. “The right to know allows you to know, and in the case of women we believe that it is very important for their daily lives, to improve their living conditions and to demand that their own rights be respected.”

She adds that the information serves to demand that our rights be respected, that surveillance of the authorities in charge of femicides, abuses and crimes committed against us be improved. “Demand so that the authorities are not only under the magnifying glass and rendering accounts, but so that they fulfill their duty.”

He concludes that from Henna there are numerous mechanisms that have been implemented to facilitate access to information for women, for a life free of violence, for example the National Transparency Platformthe Society Service Center and microsites that make very specific topics available.

About the sample:

The exhibition is carried out in collaboration with the National Institute of Transparency and can be visited from November 18 to 27 at the Museo de la Mujer (República de Bolivia 17, Centro Histórico, Mexico City).

nelly.toche@eleconomista.mx

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