Mexico braced for women’s national strike over murders

WOMEN across Mexico are to strike tomorrow in a mass walkout triggered by soaring rates of femicide and a string of brutal murders.

The walkout, which organisers claim will draw 30 million women, will follow today’s protests on International Women’s Day, and similar mass events over two high-profile murders in the capital, Mexico City.

Anger boiled to the surface when Ingrid Escamilla was allegedly killed and her remains mutilated by her former boyfriend. Then a young girl was kidnapped from outside her school. Her body was discovered days later.

Both cases led to mass gatherings, and the presidential palace was vandalised. On average, 10 women are killed in Mexico each day.

“Women are tired of the situation – not only the more extreme forms of violence that [lead to] femicide, the killing of women just because they are women, but other forms of discrimination and gender violence,” Erika Guevara-Rosas, of Amnesty International said.

“It is the negligent and indolent response from the state that is creating this growing social discontent .”

The Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s government (known as Amlo) is accused of being indifferent to the plight of women.

Twenty thousand people are expected to march in the capital today. “Until now [the president] hasn’t listened. We hope he can listen now because the unity of women may be large in these strikes,” said Arussi Unda, from the feminist collective behind the Day Without Women strike.

“It comes with an economic impact, that’s part of the strategy too.”