The following flyer was translated from the blog of the Revolutionary Communist Organization, Mexico, accessed on April 2, 2019.

The Disappearance of Giselle, the Courage and Participation of the People Against the Patriarchal System

April 8, 2019 | revcom.us

 

The Revolutionary Communist Organization, Mexico, received the following flyer about these important protests from the initiative “End Patriarchy and the War Against Women.”

Male domination (patriarchy) permeates the entire world and oppresses women in very cruel ways from the most subtle to even death: Femicide, rape, disappearance, sexual slavery, war booty, sexual torture, child pornography, beatings.

11-year-old Giselle Garrido Cruz was disappeared near her home in San Lorenzo Chimalhuacán, State of Mexico, on January 19, 2019. Eight days later, the Attorney General’s Office of the State of Mexico informed the parents that they had found her lifeless body with signs of rape in a place in Coatepec, municipality of Ixtapaluca, State of Mexico.

Relatives of Giselle, neighbors and friends took to the streets the day after the disappearance, held a rally and marched chanting, Giselle we want you back home! They made posters, hundreds of flyers were pasted on posts, and banners with the girl’s photograph were at the head of the mobilization. Much solidarity was expressed, breaking with the idea that “as long as this doesn’t happen to me”; that kind of selfishness was swept to the side. The demonstration went forward and one of the stops of the Mexibus was blocked. At that point, Lidia, Diana Florencio’s mother, victim of a feminicide in 2017 also in Chimalhuacán, said, “I am here in solidarity with Giselle’s family,” “They must look for her now and we have to do it ourselves,” and called out that, “because the authorities are not going to do it, they did not search for my Diana.” Then, Elena, the mother of Lupita Hernández and the aunt of Evelin Marisol Martínez, young girls eight and nine years old disappeared in 2017 in the same area as Giselle, said, “I join the search for Giselle because I know the pain of losing a daughter and that to date, in my case the police have not told me anything.”

These brave denunciations unleash more of the people’s fury, anger and indignation at this kind of crime, and the actions of these authorities who are not negligent but criminal. For example, in the femicide of Diana Florencio, when the experts found her body thrown in the street raped and murdered, they reported that the body was a male. It was at the insistence of the family that they could identify it. In the case of Lupita and Marisol, a family member exposes that when they went to pick up the disappearance certificate, the authorities responded, “The certificate cannot be issued, because the computer system crashed.” And two years after the disappearance, their answer is “nothing.” In the femicide of Mariana Lima Buendía in 2010 at the hands of her partner and police agent in the State of Mexico, the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the State of Mexico claimed that the autopsy had been performed and it ruled that Mariana had committed suicide, denying all the scientific evidence that proved that this had been a femicide. And in the case of Giselle, when the family went to report her disappearance that same Saturday, they were held for more than five hours and the response was, “The AMBER alert will not be issued until Monday because today is Sunday.” When asked for the videos of the public cameras installed where Giselle passed by, the answer was, “They don’t work.” In all these cases, you can see the systematic actions of the authorities trying to hide the femicides, the disappearances of women and girls, criminalize raped women and persecute families and cover up for the criminals.

The combative actions of the people and the determined exposure by the relatives outraged and mobilized many more people, like Giselle’s friends from her elementary school in a second march that departed from the Port to the Municipal Attorney’s Office. On social media, the news of the disappearance of Giselle had gone viral. The media came all the way out to Chimalhuacán to document the case. In the streets, the criminal actions of the state and its patriarchal institutions were exposed. The truth is that MORE OF THIS IS NEEDED. These protests and broad exposure of the crimes against women need to continue and grow more and more. By relying on the people and by acting independently from the system and its institutions this can shake up society and create conditions for great social condemnation of the perpetrators of these misogynistic attacks, including the state and its system. A significant contingent from Chimalhuacán expressed its solidarity with the January 26 march in Mexico City around the disappearance of the 43 students from the Rural Teachers College Ayotzinapa where they joined other families of disappeared and murdered women. All this forced the authorities to look for Giselle and to find an alleged culprit. We demand punishment with scientific evidence that proves the guilt of the detainee, not some supposedly guilty people to derail people's anger.

DARE TO FIGHT TO END PATRIARCHY AND THE WAR AGAINST WOMEN!

fin.patriarcado@gmail.com

End Patriarchy and the War Against Women, People’s Revolutionary Movement, Norma Esther Andrade; Víctor Rogelio Caballero Sierra, Colectivo Aequus.-Promotion and Defense of Human Rights and Coordination of Relatives of Students Victims of Violence; Justice for Diana.

Giselle Garrido Cruz