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A12 WORLD NEWS
Monday 13 January 2020
In Mexican capital, red shoes to protest killings of women

By PETER ORSI wearing when her body
Associated Press was found.
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Sti- "Those pairs of shoes are
letto heels. Clogs. Trainers. missing their owners," she
Tiny, child-size Crocs. said, fighting back tears,
Activists placed hundreds "the women who have
of painted-red women's been torn from us."
shoes on Mexico City's sun- The capital's new chief
drenched main square Sat- prosecutor, Ernestina Go-
urday to call attention to doy Ramos, acknowledged
gender-based violence in Friday that she faces an
a country where, on aver- "enormous" challenge in
age, 10 women and girls delivering public security
are murdered each day for the city and promised
and less than 10 percent of justice in femicide cases.
the cases are ever solved. "May it be heard loudly
As residents and tourists and from afar: There will be
milled about the plaza, or no impunity in the matter of
Zocalo — the historical, femicides," Olga Sánchez
political, cultural and reli- A portrait of Eugenia Machuca Campos sits amid women's red shoes placed by activists to protest Cordero, López Obrador's
gious heart of the country violence against women in the Zocalo, Mexico City's main plaza, Saturday, Jan. 11, 2020. interior secretary, said the
Associated Press
— demonstrators marched same day.
to the massive front door of cent months over violence have pledged to make ures for the year. Violence against women
the colonial-era National against women, including femicide and other gen- "On the contrary. They is a problem that well pre-
Palace and placed five angry anti-rape protests der-related crimes a prior- keep on killing us," said Eliz- dates the current govern-
pairs on the paving stones in which demonstrators ity. In November, Mexico abeth Machuca Campos, ment. In the 1990s and
as a uniformed guard tossed glitter and defaced City Mayor Claudia Shein- a 39-year-old artisan and early 2000s, Ciudad Juarez
looked on. monuments; thousands of baum declared a gen- women's rights activist from was notorious for the un-
"Not one more killed!" they women in blindfolds chant- der violence alert for the Ocoyoacac in the neigh- punished killings and dis-
cried to the beat of a drum. ing the feminist anthem "A capital, meaning that 20 boring State of Mexico, appearances of hundreds
"The shoes represent ab- Rapist in Your Path," a viral of Mexico's federal entities whose sister was murdered of women and girls. Today
sence, visualizing absence," phenomenon across the have now done so. Shein- there in 2017. She said a activists often point to the
said 60-year-old artist Elina Americas and around the baum said the measure suspect was detained and State of Mexico, the coun-
Chauvet, who first realized world; and more low-key would raise awareness of sentenced but at the last try's most populous, as a
the piece of performance- marches and even knit-ins. the problem and deliver minute the charge was flashpoint for femicides.
protest art in 2009 after her The common thread run- better results. changed from femicide to Sacrisanta Mosso Rendón
sister was killed by her hus- ning throughout: Authori- But for those at Saturday's homicide — something that wore a T-shirt with the
band in a domestic vio- ties' inability to solve the protest, little to nothing has activists and groups such names and photograph
lence case in the northern problem of gender-based been seen as far as results. as Amnesty International of 17-year-old daughter,
border city of Juarez. "The violence in one of the There were 3,662 femicides, say is frequently done by Karen, and 12-year-old son,
red is for the blood that has world's most dangerous or gender-related killings Mexican governments at Erik. Karen was raped and
been spilled, but it is also a countries to be female. of women, in 2018, before multiple levels to juke the murdered are their house in
work that speaks of love." President Andrés Manuel López Obrador took of- stats on gender violence. Ecatepec, State of Mexico,
The performance was the López Obrador, who has fice, and the rate contin- Machuca brought to the in 2016, she said, and Erik
latest in a string of pub- been office a little over 13 ued apace in 2019 though Zocalo a photo of her sis- was also home at the time
lic demonstrations in re- months, and allied officials there are not yet final fig- ter and the shoes she was and was strangled. q

Haitians remember victims of massive

earthquake 10 years on

to the victims at a ceme- response is widely seen as A small group of protesters
tery outside Port-au-Prince, a failure by both the Hai- led by well-known Haitian
joined by clergy, officials tian government and for- comedian Mathias Dandor
from his government and eign governments and aid were pushed back from
foreign ambassadors. groups. the ceremony by police,
"The earthquake of Janu- Marie-Andre Michelle 42, but reached the memorial
ary 12, 2010 left deep and said her children, aged 15 afterwards and destroyed
indelible scars in the mem- and 18, had died in the the wreath of white flowers
ory of an entire people," he quake and even though left by Moise, leaving their
said. she didn't know if they were own in its place.
A resident walks past a cross during a memorial service honoring The 7.0 magnitude quake buried at St. Christophe They said they were protest-
the victims of the 2010 earthquake, at Titanyen, a mass burial
site north of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday, Jan. 12, 2020. that hit Haiti's capital and cemetery, she had saved ing years of government
Associated Press surrounding areas just be- to buy flowers to leave at mismanagement, includ-
fore 5 p.m. left a death the memorial in their honor. ing Moise's failure to take
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) ago, although the ceremo- toll ranging from around "'I am not sure if my kids are on corruption or improve
— Haitians on Sunday re- ny was marked by a protest 100,000 to more than on this site. Bodies were the economy or security.
membered the victims of against political misman- 300,000 people. Thousands picked up from the hospi- "The negligence of the
the massive earthquake agement now and then. still don't have adequate tal like animals," she said. state has cost thousands of
that killed more than President Jovenel Moise shelter a decade later, "'God only knows where people their lives," Dandor
100,000 people a decade laid flowers at a memorial and the long-term quake they are now." said.q