No silence on femicide

Latin American women have been coming together in the streets of Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland to pay tribute to murder victim Juliana Cayena Herrera Bonilla and ask for justice in her name.

Juliana was a 37-year-old Colombian woman, a 3D graphic designer who had arrived in New Zealand 10 years ago with the purpose of studying, and who ended up making a life here. A neighbour of Juliana’s, a 35-year-old man, has been arrested and charged with her murder.

The news of Juliana’s violent death at her home in Christchurch was a call to action for Latin American feminists residing in Aotearoa. Many of us have been involved in feminist organisations in our own countries and were dismayed by the terms used to report the news, “Colombian woman murdered in Christchurch”.

Was this a murder or a femicide? And how is it possible that nobody in New Zealand is talking about femicide? Femicides are still invisible in the media, the law, the public policies, and public debate here. There is no typification of the crime in the law, no numbers or statistics, and little mobilisation in the streets. There seem to be an immense silence around it, and this is why as Latin American feminist living in New Zealand we feel compelled to start a public conversation about why we should be using the term “femicide”.

We are asking for this in the name of Juliana and because, as one of our slogans says, we demand #NiUnaMenos, (which translates to Not one woman less): we do not want one more woman taken away from us through femicide.

Although the definition varies from context to context, in general terms, femicide is the killing of women because of their gender. The word gives attention to the gender politics of murder. It recognises that femicide is not about isolated cases of murdered women, but is a societal issue resulting from patriarchal structures where men continue to feel entitled over women’s bodies and lives.

The term was popularised in the 1970’s by feminists in the US; it was a key term to make visible the systematic nature of the violence exercised on women. Femicide is a reality that kills approximately 4000 women each year in Latin America. In New Zealand it is difficult to estimate what the number might be due to the lack of a category of its own. However, an article published in 2021 estimates that 158 women could have died from femicide from 2011 to 2021.

According to the New Zealand Family Violence Death Review Committee, from 2008 to 2018, 125 women were killed by their partners, which is the only information available around femicide. The cases where femicides happen at the hands of partners, ex-partners and family members account for 40 percent of femicides globally. This means that in New Zealand there are potentially many cases of femicides not accounted for.

In Latin America, as in other places, feminist movements have fought for years to voice this reality suffered by women and demand action. In fact, it is through the advocacy of these movements that femicide has come to exist in policy, leading to global initiatives such as the establishment of regional, national, and local Observatories against Femicide, an initiative taken up by the UN and supported by CEDAW (International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women).

More recently, a second term has been advocated from within Latin American feminists struggles, that of feminicide (feminicidio) coined by Mexican anthropologist Marcela Lagarde. In addition to highlighting the systematic nature of the killing of women, feminicide speaks about how the whole of society and the state must take responsibility for these crimes because of the impunity, institutionalised violence, lack of policy and lack of diligence that surrounds the issues of violence against women. It also calls for the state and its institutions to assume their duty of individual and collective reparation.

In 2015, Colombia passed the Law Rosa Elvira Cely on feminicide, after the cruel murder of Rosa Elvira by her intimate partner and pressure from the massive feminist mobilisation that followed. This law identifies feminicide as a specific crime and demands the Colombian State works intensively on prevention strategies that guarantee a life free from violence for all women.

Specifically, this law demands the state creates a specific legal process for acts of feminicide, include gender education in the education system, education of public servants on feminicide and all forms of violence against women, and development of a national information system with multiple agencies to produce data regarding all forms of gender-based violence, including feminicide.

In coming together as Latin American feminists in Aotearoa we recognise the great value that we can add to the feminist movement here, and our willingness to be part of that conversation. Many of us had struggled to find feminist organisations active in our cities here in New Zealand, and we strongly missed the power and beauty that emerges when women get together to defend their rights. This happens massively in the cities of Latin America on International Women’s Day on 8 March and on Day to End Violence Against Women on 25 November.

We have a lot of experience advocating for women’s rights because the places we come from are extremely violent to women. We have many lessons to share as it is Latin American feminist movements, in all their diversity, that have achieved major advancements in women’s rights through law and policies.

While we recognise that New Zealand is a safer place for women than many of our home countries, there is still a lot of work to do until we can call Aotearoa a place free of violence against women.

Juliana will always be a symbol to Latin American feminists in New Zealand. It was her sad loss that brought us together to start building a collective from where to address issues of gender-based violence that continues to affect as us women, and specifically as migrant women.

We are interested in weaving bonds with other collectives from various backgrounds, in advocating, building community and coming together around feminism and other social justice issues. We sure will be taking Auckland streets again to commemorate 8 March and 25 November if the Covid situation allows. Hope to see many more out there with us.

In memory of Juliana Cayena Bonilla Herrera: a video link of the protest

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