Balance 2021 and 2022 projections next to the Chilean network against violence against women

In the sixth and last chapter of the seventh season of women in tune we made a balance of what was 2021 and some projects for 2022 together with Silvana del Valle, feminist and member of the National Coordination of the Chilean Net women.

We reflect on some of the feminist milestones of 2021 and address the various manifestations of violence against women in pandemic context, including femicide violence, and the urgency of acquitting women who have defended themselves from aggressors.We also talked about the most recent occurred in the Constitutional Convention and the feminist articulation within it.

One of the most obvious consequences that Pandemia has had, and with it the moments of confinement and distrust, was to account for the resurgence of violence against women and girls, and how they have affected them stronger in health, social and economic fields,In addition to other historically violated social groups.

Among them is domestic work and care overload for women, a higher unemployment rate, indicating as a majority reason the realization of domestic and care in the house, and more precariousness by having to go to informal work, according toThe study of "Gender and Employment: Impact of the Economic Crisis by COVID-19", of the National Statistics Institute (INE).

In addition, issues that feminist organizations had already warned were deepened: violence in intimate and sexual context during quarantine, lack of access to sexual and reproductive health, which includes postponement in treatments and gynecological citations, an incorrect implementation of the lawof voluntary interruption of pregnancy, and the circulation of defective contraceptive pills that caused at least 111 women to be pregnant without wanting to be.

“From the first moment we began to reflect and, with the development of the pandemic, we were confirmed that all these issues that we had put in the fore were happening that the State was not responding properly and that ultimately we were, the organizations of feminist women, autoconvocated women, who face pandemic at all levels from health to the maintenance of life, ”said Silvana del Valle.

Feminist resistance during pandemic

During this period, various feminist, social and popular organizations, which coordinated and strengthened from the revolt of October 18, 2019, articulated jointly and severally articulated in the context of Pandemia to collectively alleviate the effects of the crisis of the crisis.They also took care of tasks such as containment and guidance to face violence against women in their respective communities and/or territories, deliver or refer to legal, psychological support, among others.

An example was the network feminist initiative we care that it was born in 2020, in which different feminist organizations and colleagues throughout the country were articulated to see what kind of accompaniment and support they could provide in each territory and thus spread it.

Reflection of the continuous organization is the "Plurinational Cadastre of Experiences of Solidarity Economics", prepared by the Tent of Women, published during the first semester of 2021 and that gives an account of 55 experiences of feminist and solidarity economy that precedes the period of Pandemia.

On femicide violence

Regarding access to justice for women, it is still insufficient in the most extreme expressions that sexist violence has such as femicide.Although the concept is more installed than in previous years, femicide violence persists and is supported over time.

During 2021, 54 femicides murdered 54 women and girls.However, SERNAMEG considered 44 femicides the same year.While the gap between the institution and the Chilean network has been shortened from 2010 to the promulgation of the Gabriela Law in 2020, there continues a difference.

"The instinutions do not want to recognize that there are more femicides than they register," said Silvana, emphasizing that the explanation of said gap is in the reluctance of the institutions responsible for enforcing the Gabriela law -which expanded the typification of femicideIn 2020-, who considers him as the murder of a woman because of his gender, regardless of the relationship he exists with the aggressor.

Likewise, the registration of femicides made by the Chilean Network against violence against women states that two of the girls victims of femicide were killed as a femicide punishment, because their father wanted to damage his mother.In addition, four women committed suicide for the violence exerted by an aggressor against him;And a child and five men were collateral victims of femicide violence.

Justice for Nicole Saavedra

Silvana del Valle, who is a complainant of Olga Bahamondes, Nicole's mother, referred to this case as “a success of feminist and lesbofeminist work.There are some important milestones, situations that were not formerly convicted that are being today, ”he said.

However, the case is not yet closed because it is "sleeping" in the Court of Appeals of Valparaíso, after the defense of the Lesbofemicide presented an appeal for nullity.To this is added that five justice activists for Nicole - among them María Bahamondes, Nicole's cousin - are being criminalized by prosecution for demanding justice in 2019.His trial will be held in February 2022.

Other facts that have occurred by the fight of relatives, feminists and lesbofeminists who have carried out in the territories have been the persecution of those who defend and demand justice.“That persecutory activity against those who demand justice, of human rights defenders, is something that has been maintained over time.There have been many situations of persecution to those who defend themselves, when demanding justice is not a crime, ”concluded Silvana del Valle.

Women who defend their lives

Many times, after having resorted to the channels available to the institutions to request help and not receive protection, women are killed.This happened in at least eight of the femicides and in two of the femicide suicides committed for 2021.The same institutionality has sometimes said not to have the ability to act effectively in all situations of violence that are denounced.

A situation that stood out during the conversation of the 6th chapter of women in tune was the one living by women who, after having lived extreme violence by who his partner was, have defended their lives, many times as desperate action.

Given this, the state's response tends to be common: criminalize women who defend themselves.This was how they condemned Katty Hurtado Caamaño at 20 years in prison in Calama, after ruling out the research line on the violence that his partner exercised against him, a situation that even the common son of Katty and the aggressor has affirmed in his qualityof witness.

To the above is added the story of Cinthya Concha in Tomé, who for defending against her aggressor will face oral trial for 2022, before which feminist organizations have been articulated to demand freedom for Cinthya.#Yo also me

From the Chilean network against violence against women, the acquittal for women who defend themselves, as happened with Sara Cadin in the Aysén region for 2020, who, thanks to the feminist action that demanded their freedom and to the work of theirDefensor lawyer, she was definitely dismissed by the court, who considered her action as a legitimate defense.

The whole territory becomes feminist

Regarding the constitutional convention, the Chilean Network together with other feminist organizations have supported the work of feminist women who integrate this institutional space, which promises to move forward in key matters for women in the country and that has been evidenced in action in actionjoint of lifting standards and initiatives in that line.

This work "has a correlation with what is happening in many other spaces and the discussions that we are having as feminist both in institutional places and in our own activism spaces" was pointed out in the conversation, which concluded that "holding what has developedUntil now the Convention, which has a decentralized character and that raises popular participation in different ways, of course we hope the new Constitution is approved ”.

In addition, the audience was invited to save a signature for the #Popular Feminist #iniciativa for a life -free life for women, childgeneric.

Finally, the importance of feminism was relieved as a political force, both in the space of the Convention and in organizational spaces outside the institutionality, as a movement that already set in society and that has been fundamental in the questioning of the established patriarchal orderand in the construction of forms of violence free relationship.Feminism has been key in the approach of other ways to organize society and sustain life, which are not based on the exploitation of women or their lives.

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