Mexico Women’s Day: Massive Marches Demand Equality

Tens of thousands of women marched through Mexico City and across the country Sunday to mark International Women’s Day, in what has become the largest political protest event in a nation where advocates say gender-based violence often goes ignored or unpunished. The demonstrations demanded an end to gender-based discrimination by the country’s institutions.

Women March Against Gender-Based Violence

In Mexico, approximately seven out of every 10 women have experienced physical, sexual, emotional, or economic violence, according to several studies.

Natalia Soto marched Sunday for her best friend, Ariadna Fernanda López, who is believed to have been killed in Mexico City. López’s body was found in 2022 along a highway in the neighboring state of Morelos. “We come every year and this year, we shout for her,” said Soto.

Two people have been arrested in connection with the case, which remains in jurisdictional limbo. The state attorney general in Morelos claims Fernanda López died after suffocating on her own vomit, while Mexico City’s attorney general’s office says she died from blunt force trauma.

An average of 10 women are killed per day in Mexico, according to the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) and other advocacy organizations. However, only one in 10 cases involving femicide result in a conviction.

In the weeks leading up to Sunday’s march, two women who attended Autonomous University of the State of Morelos were reported missing and later found dead. Around the same time, another woman was reported missing in the State of Mexico after taking a motorcycle taxi to a party, and was also later found dead.

Yesenia Zamudio marched for “those who have been torn from us.” Zamudio’s daughter, María de Jesús Jaime Zamudio, a student at the National Polytechnic Institute, was murdered in 2016. A fellow student and a professor were named as suspects; the student has been convicted, and a warrant is out for the professor’s arrest. “We have to go out and march, to shout, to demand justice and an end to femicides. And if we have to break things, we will break them. And if we have to burn things, we will burn things, but we cannot remain silent,” said Zamudio.

Women Draw Strength From Each Other

On Saturday evening, a group of women gathered in Mexico City’s Tepito neighbourhood to hold a poster-making workshop. More than 25 people attended the event, which has been held for four years and also takes place in six other states on the eve of International Women’s Day. Selene Bárcenas, one of the workshop leaders, said a medical condition prevents her from attending the marches, and this is how she contributes to the movement. Andrea Buendía, a workshop participant, said she draws strength from the women who march alongside her. “When you’re at the march and you look around at all the messages that each person carries, I think it makes it more powerful,” she said. “When I go to march, I do it mainly for my niece. I always think that I don’t want anything to happen to my niece at all.”

Mexico elected its first woman president, Claudia Sheinbaum, in 2024, and she has declared 2025 the year of the Indigenous woman. Sheinbaum’s government has also unveiled programs to provide pensions to women between the ages of 60 and 65, open 200 childcare centres, and help women become homeowners. Amneris Chaparrol, director of the Centre for Gender Studies and Research at National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), said while the programs seem positive, not much has changed for women on the ground. “It also sometimes scares me a little that these struggles are being co-opted and reduced to just a checklist,” said Chaparrol. “I believe there are changes that are needed that are more profound.”