Mr. Director:
These days, we have once again been moved by the cases of violence and abuse against women, which we have seen in the media and which have had a national impact.
We also saw how justice (which does not always live up to its conceptual definition of “Giving everyone their own thing”) was “short” in the case of Antonia Barra.
The women of Temuco took to the streets, because the decision of the trial court was not only not what we expected, but was far from the real sense of justice.
The demonstration was a goal and mobilized the rest of the country.
We cannot ignore that if the party stage changed, it was thanks to social pressure and not because of the actions of those who are responsible for delivering justice. The ball stopped, the sense changed, shot himself straight into the goal and this was held for all. These are the goals we expect from justice.
I make this analogy, because Antonia and pre-trial detention for her so-called assailant are a sign of what the movement for the defence of women’s rights can achieve.
However, the most important match is the one played in the small area, in the nearest environment.
In La Pintana, where I live, in 2019 we had to have played 1,557 matches between justice and those that have been violated by the mere fact of being women. Because that was the number of victimized women, not considering the black figure, according to the statistics of the Undersecretariat for Crime Prevention.
A commune with these rates of violence does not admit that its female authorities shut (and I do not mean its mayor, who has raised its voice) in the face of what is happening at the local level, because in addition to dancing the performance of Las Thesis (with which I flatly agree), it is necessary that they condemn forcefully and clearly to anyone who exercises violence against women against women , even more so when justice has been verified and has ruled in a number of cases that have affected their peers.
For show, a button: Jaime Pavez, mayor of La Pintana for 24 years, was convicted by VIF in 2011 and had no trouble re-electing himself in 2012 in that same position and being elected councillor in 2016, a position he held until 2018, when he was dismissed, not by VIF, but for abandonment of duties. And their fellow female councillors never spoke out.
This is the match we want to play and we want the authorities to score goals, not just on the brava bar.
To allow and validate that authorities remain or that those who have committed violence against women are elected and re-elected in positions of popular representation, that is to tell us that this is also allowed in our homes, on the street, at the university, at work or wherever.
That’s the worst self-goal we can make.
Fernanda Thompson Molina
Law student University of Los Andes.
