Mexican women against femicide

Mexican women took over the streets one more time after the death of Ingrid Escamilla, a 25-year-old woman who was found dead, skinned and with some missing organs at her home. Apparently, the murderer was a 46-year-old man that was supposedly her husband. 

Escamilla, as read on Los Angeles Times, was a native of a poor mountain town in central Puebla state and had a master’s degree in tourism business administration.

Anger sparked throughout Mexico after two local media outlets published a leaked photograph of the mutilated body in their front pages. Actually, as read on Express, the newspaper "Pasala", filled nearly its entire tabloid cover with the photo of Ingrid’s dead body with the headline “it was cupid’s fault.”

The Interior Department said in a statement that it “condemns the publication and distribution of such material, given that it re-victimizes people and promotes sensationalism and morbid curiosity. It is an attack on the dignity, privacy, and identity of the victims and their families.”

Also read: What is 'ethnoporno' and how does it affect indigenous Mexican women?

The majority of the people marching were women, including a group of all-female police officers and it began at the Metrobus station of Gustavo A. Madero in Mexico City and ended in the building were Escamilla was killed last week. 

“Femicide is an absolutely reprehensible crime,” Claudia Sheinbaum, the mayor of Mexico City, wrote on Twitter. “It is absolutely appalling when hatred reaches the extremes as in the case of Ingrid Escamilla.”

Escamilla is just one among all the women that have been killed in Mexico during the past years. For example, as reported by the Associated Press, in September of 2019 a young female musician was burned with acid in Oaxaca by two men. Both of them testified that a politician, who allegedly had an affair with her, hired them to hurt the woman. 

As read on CNN, according to Mexico's Attorney General Alejandro Gertz, femicides have increased 137% in the last five years.

Last year, as BBC pointed out, there was a record high of 3,825 women were killed in Mexico, according to official figures. However, less than 10 percent of femicides in Mexico are solved and this is worrying since nineteen states and Mexico City have declared gender violence alerts, which impose emergency measures and are also aimed at raising awareness.

In a statement obtained by CNN, Mexico’s National Institute of Women said the country “faces a major challenge in terms of violence against women.” The statement continued: “The distribution of images of criminal acts, as a form of advocating crime involving sensationalism, viciousness, mockery, and morbidity, causes re-victimization, banalizes violence, and threatens the dignity, privacy, and identity of victims and their families.”