Not One More Colon
Yesterday, on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, Panama joined the world in having actions to call attention to violence against women, a human rights violation that has increased since the pandemic, and that many governments are not taking the necessary serious steps to address as they should.
There is an urgent task to unlearn the current social, cultural and formal education that allows the current norms that lead to violence against girls and women. We need a moral, political, social and cultural commitment from childhood to adulthood to achieve a society where we can all, men and women, enjoy the same guaranteed rights and conditions of equality under the law.
The artistic installation, Red Shoes is in essence to raise awareness about the most extreme manifestation of violence against women, femicide. Each pair of shoes is a life, a story, Women of all ages – girls, adolescents, older adults – who have been victims of a society that continues to place women in positions of subordination, exclusion. Chevy Solís, who belongs to Espacio de Encuentro de Mujeres (Women's Meeting Space), in Panama Republic of Panama, explains that “with this installation they intend to create a space to raise awareness among the population so that they become aware of this problem”. #Mepasó, mostly stories of women who lived through situations of sexual harassment or abuse in childhood and adolescence, shows how early the fact of being born a woman in a patriarchal society begins to feel in our bodies, which can end in femicide.
The march also had the participation of girls that have been gathering and learning about feminist foundations, Black Women from the province of Colon, AfroResistance, Voces de Mujeres Afrodescendientes en Panama, and Hijas de Alkebulan.