By Johana O’Higgins – Juntas y a la Izaquierda Paraguay
It hurts more and more to be a woman in Paraguay. There is no answer from the State, and even less from the justice system. The government itself denies the existence of gender-based violence. The lives of women, girls and teens are worth less and less in this patriarchal society.
The case of Fernanda, a 17-year-old teenager, pierces our bodies and fuels our rage. It shocks an entire country that continues to fail us. In Paraguay, we are exposed to being killed, raped, kidnapped, and on top of that, justice does not act or arrives late. The State, far from protecting us, re-victimizes us.
What is the State’s responsibility?
It does not act immediately and does not offer real care and protection mechanisms.
There is no support or psychological assistance with a gender perspective.
The Prosecutor’s Office and the Police, pillars of this bourgeois democracy, are rotten with corruption, inoperativeness and male chauvinist complicity.
The Ministry of Women receives crumbs from the national budget. Since previous years, 2 million dollars have been allocated, which would be only 15,000 guaranies per affected woman: a criminal mockery.
In addition, deaf women do not have access to interpreters in institutional spaces. They cannot call 911, or communicate in police stations, prosecutors’ offices or courts. The system is not designed for them to denounce, and they are often not taken seriously.
We need a WhatsApp hotline for emergencies with guaranteed accessibility and trained personnel. Male violence does not stop due to lack of budget, but it can be aggravated by forced silence.
Meanwhile, there is money for the Joint Task Forces to which 85 times more in terms of budget (approximately 170 million USD) is allocated to repress peasants in the north of the country and disappear girls.
To top it off, money continues to be injected annually into the National Police, which takes millions and millions to repress the people.
And now, on top of that, the Peña-Cartes government, aligned with the IMF adjustment, wants to eliminate the Ministry of Women to replace it with one of “the Family”, with the excuse of saving budget. But this is not savings: it is a cutback of rights that we won with struggle.
Let’s defend our rights, and demand budget for real public policies!
We do not defend the Ministry in the abstract. We want real public policies: with resources, autonomy, without corruption and with the direct participation of women workers and social organizations.
We want policies that focus on shelters, day care centers, interpreters in key spaces, free comprehensive care (psychological, legal, social), subsidies, and comprehensive sex education in all schools.
Sex education and structural machismo
The State also denies us the ESI (Integral Sexual Education). In schools and health centers, the minimum is not taught. It is hidden and stigmatized. Thus, machismo, violence and impunity are reproduced.
It is urgent to implement an education that prevents violence from adolescence, that promotes consent, care and the right to live a sexuality free of guilt and abuse.
But the state is not the only one failing.
We live in a country where domestic violence is naturalized. Where children are demanded to be better, while they are shown the worst face of the world: beatings, silences, frustrations. Where boys are raised to be taught not to cry, to hit to command respect, to distrust their emotions.
And girls are raised to obey, to be quiet, to iron, to take care of little brothers. To hide their menstruation as if it were a shame. To endure in silence because “that’s how it is to be a woman”.
The Paraguayan family: pillar and prison
We are sold that “the family” is the pillar of society, but that same institution is often the primary source of violence, silences and senseless punishments. Nembuepoti replaces dialogue. Fear replaces empathy.
We need a new model: solidarity, violence-free, feminist and socialist.
What does Fernanda’s case leave us with?
It makes it clear that in this country women’s bodies are not respected. That we cannot decide for ourselves. That motherhood is imposed on us or denied to us. That we are judged dead or alive.
Maybe Fernanda didn’t want to have an abortion. Maybe she did. But that’s not what matters now. What matters is that she was not allowed to decide. They appropriated her body, her thoughts, her freedom. They killed her with cruelty, and then, they exposed her to media morbidity.
We demand
– Immediate activation and compliance with emergency protocols for gender violence.
– A real budget to prevent and act against gender-based violence
– A thorough, independent and gender-sensitive investigation to find the perpetrators.
– Aggravated penalties and no impunity for perpetrators of violence and femicide.
– Guaranteed accessibility in the entire judicial and care system: interpreters, WhatsApp lines, inclusive protocols
– Dignified public health care free of obstetric violence for those who decide to become mothers.
– Comprehensive sex education based on prevention, consent and respect.
Not one less!
Justice for Fernanda and for all!
The State and patriarchal capitalism are responsible!
