Several women talk in front of a wall with graffiti painted on the walls of an Immediate Attention Command (CAI) of the Police during protests in Bogotá. Mauricio Dueñas Castañeda (EFE)
This March 8, feminism walks separately again.
As is the case elsewhere, in Colombia women also walk divided.
In the case of Bogotá, there will be three demonstrations with different routes.
The march promoted by the organization We are a collective face has gathered at the gates of the bunker of the Attorney General's Office, in which it is expected to be the most massive mobilization.
The separatist march will take the center, and in the south of the city there will be a sit-in of the feminist resistance worker.
“We are not all the same and we are not an army that goes to the same place and thinks the same thing,” says Viviana Bohórquez, a lawyer and director of the feminist organization Jacarandas, which helps women access free abortion, as something positive.
She, for example, will attend the concentration in the south of Bogotá.
On Avenida Primero de Mayo, says Bohórquez, teenage pregnancies are a problem for which this Wednesday they will once again demand answers from the State.
We are a collective face, a planning platform for feminist mobilizations in Bogotá, summons diverse women and gender dissidents in a mobilization that responds to the defense of their rights and "the claim of lives that deserve to be lived," they point out in a release.
“There are many reasons to raise our voices together (sic).
We will not remain silent in the face of a society that promotes and remains silent in the face of unworthy and violent conditions against our lives, a society that makes our work precarious, does not recognize care work and subordinates us due to gender prejudices in the workplace," they say in a letter in who demand environments free of violence and warn of "the worrying situation of violence and femicides that continue to occur in the private and public sphere."
Women mobilize against a violence that does not stop.
This year there have been more than 25 femicides in Colombia.
In 2022 there were more than 500, compared to 106 in 2021. Laura Sofía Amaya will participate in the march in downtown Bogotá, which is advertised as a non-mixed space.
To the reasons to protest, she adds the bill to regulate surrogate motherhood proposed by the Government.
Radical feminists reject it and point to it as a form of exploitation, which from the perspective of human rights puts girls, boys and women at high risk.
“We also demonstrate for working women, commemorating historical events and demanding equal pay and recognition of domestic work, against the silence of the government and against the laws that they intend to impose to regulate prostitution,
Women in Latin America continue to face economic injustices, such as the salary difference that oscillates between 15% and 30% and the burden of care historically placed in the hands of wives, daughters and mothers, according to the Efeque agency, which indicates that data provided by different organizations have shown, for years now, a difference between the employment and monetary growth of women compared to that of men for reasons, mostly, linked to stereotypes and burdens that have been assumed as "feminine".
The echo of the economic gap for women is heard this 8M.
Colombia presents an incomplete improvement.
Between 2003 and 2018 there was a reduction from 18% to 12% of the gender gap and theoretically women earn only 6% less than men, according to data from Dane in 2022. On the streets, reality shows that female workers still they face many disadvantages compared to their male colleagues.
The most vulnerable women in the workplace are the youngest, of 1.6 million unemployed, about 45.3% are between 14 and 28 years old.
Women are the ones who are most exposed to informality.
Gustavo Petro has tried to respond to women and the LGTBI movement that supported him, but his silence on allegations of sexual violence involving his government has cost him the discredit of a part of feminism.
The Petro Executive is equal, but the axis of his policy is not exactly women.
This February, the women's social movement united in a sit-in in the center of Bogotá to ask him to declare a national emergency for sexist violence.
It is not the first time that they seek the government to listen to them.
For months they have insisted that a plan be put in place to stop murders and gender violence.
"It is a call to the authorities for the lack of activation of action routes that could save lives and a real follow-up on the cases," Gabriela Romero told this newspaper,
Sexist violence is also primed against lesbian, bisexual or transsexual (LBT) women.
According to the Affirmative Caribbean Human Rights Observatory, in 2022, 14 lesbian women, 4 bisexual women and 24 trans women were murdered in Colombia.
“These figures show that we continue in a hostile society for LBT women and, therefore, we will take to the streets to demand a life free of violence in all spaces, where all —regardless of our class, education, age, ethnicity, orientation sexuality, origin or place of residence—we can be free to be, feel and love”, says the organization.
“We will also take to the streets to demand comprehensive actions on working conditions,
Trans women, transvestites, trans masculinities, trans men and non-binary people have also announced that they will be on the streets of Bogotá, like the Transfeminist Bloc with the slogan: "Because feminism will be trans-feminist or it will not be."
In 8M, free HIV tests
Grace Vanegas
As part of the 8M marches, in Bogotá and Medellín free HIV tests will be carried out for women from 14 years of age.
In the country's capital, the point will be enabled on the outskirts of the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation, between 3 and 6 in the afternoon.
In Medellín, it will be located in the health tent in the Estación Estadio square, between 12 noon and 3 in the afternoon.
No preparation is required for sampling.
It is only necessary to have approximately half an hour, sign the consent, access the blood test and wait for the results.
These are fourth-generation tests that provide reliable results if 20 days or more have passed since the last sexual intercourse without the use of a condom.
Miguel López, co-founder of the corporation Más que tres letras, an organization that promotes education on HIV, explains that the campaign seeks to reach a population group that is rarely told about the virus, but is also at risk of infection when have unprotected sex.
“In 2021, 1,150 women were diagnosed with the virus in Colombia, that is, there was an increase of 5% according to the figures of the High Cost Account.
We want them to be able to take the test in a space where they feel safe and comfortable so that, as the name of the campaign highlights, they can say: we also take care of HIV”, López maintains.
Feminist groups such as Dos Latinas, Hiedras and Bolívar en skirt also promote the conferences.
Based on a timely diagnosis, people can access the HIV treatment that the EPS must cover, both in the contributory and subsidized regime.
The recommendation is that every person with an active sexual life is tested only for checkup, once or twice a year.