Mexico City, March 28, 2021.- Dozens of mothers and relatives of femicide victims traveled this Sunday from around the nation to peacefully protest in the Zócalo in a vigil with candles and photographs of the disappeared and murdered women and girls.

It is not the first time that they have traveled the same path, with the same claim and with the photo of their daughters under their arms. However, this protest in which they recreated the fence that surrounded the National Palace past March 8, Women's Day, has an even more bittersweet taste. This protest takes place on the eve of the Generation Equality Forum, an international meeting "focused on women empowerment and actions in favor of gender equality and focused on civil society", which is organized by UN Women and hosted by Mexico this week.

Paradoxically, feminist groups and relatives of femicide victims were not invited to this Forum as part of civil society, and they claimed the lack of consistency of the Mexican government given the crisis of gender violence and inequality that is experienced in the national life.

“To address gender violence against women it is necessary to coordinate actions from different fronts. In the case of the Mexican government, we need the Gender Violence Alert to be effectively implemented throughout the country. 19 states are not enough because gender violence occurs nationwide. Unfortunately, there is no political will for its implementation. In this way, although it is promoted as one of the most comprehensive mechanisms that exist at the international level, it will continue to be ineffective and untimely”, explained Ana Sofía Suárez, campaigns coordinator for the Avaaz civic movement.

This is demonstrated by the year 2020 figures: 3,752 women were murdered throughout the country, that is, more than 10 women every day; 26 were reported missing and, on average, 2 rapes were reported every hour. The Mexican government has systematically failed the women, girls, and families of the victims, since the impunity rate of the reported cases is 97% [1].

In Mexico, the femicide crisis is the most devastating manifestation of violence and discrimination against women, and it is escalating. While the Mexican government will emphasize being the first country in Latin America to implement a feminist foreign policy internally, in the first 88 days of 2021, more than 142 women and girls have been murdered with impunity due to the lack of effective policies, including the Gender Violence Alert that should be activated immediately upon any cry for help.

Given this reality, throughout the vigil various messages were projected on the National Palace, addressed to the President Andrés Manuel López Obrador: "Mexico is a femicide country and host of the UN Generation Equality Forum", while reminding the Mexican president that "the gender alert could have saved our daughters". One of the most significant moments of the vigil was the projection of the names of the victims of femicide, beginning with Alma, the first girl counted when the wave of femicides began in Ciudad Juárez, in 1993 and finishing with Wendy, the last victim of 2021 next to the hashtag #AlertaQueSeaEfectiva (#AnEffectiveAlert).

“If the necessary measures are not taken to ensure its implementation, thousands of Mexican women and girls will continue to be disappeared and murdered every year. We demand that the government act immediately and end femicidal violence”, said the activist Nax Lozano, from Avaaz.

From the Avaaz civic movement, we join in the claim of feminist groups and families of femicide victims demanding an alert that is effective along with more than 11 thousand Mexican men and women who have signed the open letter to AMLO.