Translated by Danica Jorden
They could have found her earlier. The lack of official response to victims of sexist violence is no longer surprising, but it is still infuriating. Instead of leading the criminal justice investigation, a female prosecutor handed it over to the Buenos Aires police, opening the way for complicity by omission of duty. The police force had to dismiss three of its members, two of whom took part in, and obstructed, the search parties. One of them was a brother of two of the men who were arrested.
For weeks, Araceli’s parents, friends and neighbours were desperate: No one was keeping them informed. They had to organize a demonstration in front of a prosecutor’s office that refused external assistance and insisted upon classifying the case as a “whereabouts inquiry”. So many times, the official response to the emergency was lazy and apathetic. They didn’t look for her at the right time or in the way they should have; they did it late and inefficiently. They cared about the headlines, not Araceli. This kind of inaction not only causes families, friends and neighbours more pain and adds to their sense of injustice, it also impacts criminal investigations and creates impunity. It leads to fewer leads and information, and obscures what happened. They didn’t look for Araceli.
Seven people have been arrested for Araceli’s femicide and three police officers have been relieved of their duties. All of them are men. Does it not bear pointing out the sexist pact between women killers, the police and the courts? It happens repeatedly: When the police slap the hand of a man who has violated a no contact order, and instead of arresting him tell him not to make a fuss and just leave; in every police report not taken and every prior incident not reported; in the coverups, the false leads, the tipping off of suspects so they can escape. Femicide never kills alone. It’s a group crime, sustained by gender loyalty and macho complicity. In certain cases, it’s also sustained economically by the financial ties that bind the police and drug dealers, whose businesses control and exploit the precarity of poor neighbourhoods.
We in the women’s, lesbian, and trans movement have denounced and politicized this: Shouting “Not One Less”, we held a women’s strike in October and an international strike in March. Males need to be a “killjoy” amongst yourselves and stop being complicit in sexism, just like your antipatriarchal brothers.
We shall continue to demand that a gender perspective be employed at the very outset of a criminal investigation. When a woman disappears, femicide is the first thing that must be suspected and investigated. This is evidenced by reality: A woman is killed every day in our country just because she is female. It’s a cruel context that prosecutors, judges and judicial officials always deny when they say the girls committed suicide, they just went out partying or they’ll be back. It’s not dysfunction or inefficiency: It sullies the victims and their families each time it happens. They turn their backs on what we are shouting each time we come out and fill the streets with girls, women, and trans people, and antipatriarchal, non-sexist men.
This time it’s Araceli; in 2014, it was Melina. Over the last 9 years, at least 329 girls between the ages of 16 and 21 were murdered [in Argentina]. These crimes demonstrate the common characteristics of a new type of femicide located in the outer boroughs. The girls are being killed by guys who saw them grow up, kids like them who shared the same street corner, the same fun times and moments of relaxation in the neighbourhoods where the girls live. Where are today’s public policies aimed at preventing these murders? How do we support these girls who identify macho violence and are empowered when faced with masculine aggression?
They also didn’t search for Darío Baradacco. It was a pregnant women who located and followed Araceli’s alleged killer in the Rivadavia I neighbourhood in the 1-11-14 slum. Federal agents didn’t find him, as the national government carefully announced. While government agencies looked the other way and the police led on the movements, social groups headed by women organized search parties to find Araceli. In the face of complicity and coverup, we women resisted, took care of each other, sought justice, and we continue to demand prevention so we don’t have to mourn another female.
We must denounce a judicial system that rushes to criminalize us for abortion, for protesting and defending ourselves, and is disinterested in enacting strategies to safeguard and protect us. We shall be in the streets on 3 June, strong and united, for the girls who were murdered, for all of the ones who are living and for everything we are doing to be alive and free. For Micaela and Araceli. For all girls and each one individually. For the club girls and the activist enthusiasts, for the girls who dream of getting married and the girls who love the nightlife, for those looking for work and those at university or in high school, for the ones who get along with their parents and the ones who hate theirs. For all of us. On Friday 12 May at 6pm, we’ll hold our first organizational assembly for 3 June, a time to meet and join forces. Our passion moves us. Ni Una Menos, Not One Less female. We want us Alive and Free.
Danica Jorden is a writer and translator of English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian, danicajorden1 (at) gmail (dot) com.
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