“My family was defending my rapist”, “I love you alive, I want to live”, “The police rape us”, “Mexico Feminicida”, “We’re not going to drop it”, “Police rapist”. These were some of the phrases painted at the foot of the Independence Monument Column during the protest against violence against women last Friday, August 16.
These pints represent the fed-up of women against insecurity and violence, but also against the inaction of the authorities; they are a demand to curb sexist violence, so the Restoratives with Glitter collective calls for keeping them and that they are part of the memory of a society that demands a life free of violence for its women.
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Restauradoras with Glitter is a collective composed of a multidisciplinary group of women specialists in restoration, cultural heritage conservation, anthropologists, historians, sociologists, artists and more.
“The Angel of Independence is not the only monument that is used to manifest a social need in the world, on the contrary. These messages are part of a demonstration, of a social cry that a rule of law should be maintained that guarantees the safety of all of us who make up this society,” he said in an interview with Political Animal, Sofia Vera, restaurateur and member of the collective.
For the members of the collective, the important thing is not the pints in the Monument but these represent the cry of justice and to make visibility of the aggressions, harassment, rapes and femicides that a woman faces every day in Mexico.
“In this case, women protested for their lives, for the lives of their daughters, and for the lives of their mothers. For the right to have a life like anyone else without fear of being violent, in the face of murders committed by someone known or sexual connotations,” Sofia Vera said.
Read: For one, for all: Women’s voices in protest #NoMeCuidanMeViolan
“The deterioration of a monument is reversible, violence is not”
According to figures from UN Women Mexico’s Violence and Femicide of Girls and Femicide of Girls and Adolescents in Mexico, from 2015 to 2018 there were 194 femicides of girls and adolescents; in addition to 3,044 cases of child corruption; 671 intentional homicides; 12 thousand 545 intentional injuries and 201 cases of child trafficking.
“There is no day that the news of a missing girl or a girl found raped, tortured, mutilated does not pass. I definitely don’t think it’s the future anyone wants for the country,” he added.
Therefore, the restaurateur insisted not to lose attention in the pints to the monument, and to concentrate on the cry for help of those women who manifested themselves.
“We are joined by this status as a woman who feels insecure in the country and in that sense a brotherhood with those who have suffered violence. We put shoulder to shoulder to stop paying attention in a few pints on the Angel of Independence when what we want is to be given answers about our safety,” Vera said.
A historical archive of the demonstration
Next Wednesday 28 August at 6:00 in the morning the collective Restaurateurs with Glitter will go with the authorities of the Ministry of Culture to deliver the petition they launched on social networks, in which they ask to register the pints in the Angel of the Independ to create a historical archive to the collective memory of this country.
“We know they’re going to welcome us, but we’re not sure who we’re going to talk to,” said restaurateur Sofia Vera, a member of the collective.
Resemnations with Glitter hope to formalize the request to keep a file with the pints and that a concrete response be given to the actions that the government of Mexico City and the federal government will take to deal with the situation of violence Women.
“We want a stance, because so far there hasn’t been any. This protest has been demonized to deflect the objective of the demonstration with the pints in the Angel.”
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According to Sofia, the collective also seeks to stand in solidarity with all the women who left the messages at the monument because, in the end, “we all feel the same”.
Glitter restorers calls for women’s way of demonstrating as a cry for help, and for proper documentation so that the demand is not forgotten. “The simple fact of removing reality is invalidating what they are asking for.”
The collective also demands that a professional and thorough documentation of the pints be carried out and that the feeling that inspired them be taken into account.” This was not a girl’s prank,” they point out.
So far Reaisrs with Glitter has 540 members who have joined the initiative to keep the messages in the Angel of Independence. The letter they will deliver on August 28 with their requests includes just over 400 signatures.
“We are not for vandalism, that was not what was lost here but the value for human life and that is what we want to rescue. To fix the monument we have professionals, what we now want to confirm is that we raise their hands the people who have to make sure that no more human lives are lost,” Sofia Vera said.
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