Indigenous women from the provinces of northern Argentina demonstrated at the entrance to Argentina’s central bank, Silvina Frydlewsky
On November 3, a 12-year-old Wichí girl was injured and found unconscious by the side of a road in Argentina’s Salta province. She had blood on her head and signs that she had been raped and strangled. Although a week has passed, it is not known if the attacker acted alone or in a group. The family fears that this sexual abuse, like many before it, will go unpunished.
While the minor is still in the hospital recovering from the attack, a group of indigenous women from different provinces of Argentina have traveled to Buenos Aires to denounce the violence they have suffered and to take urgent action against the “Chineo”, as the woman is known are demanding the country gang rape of indigenous girls.
“We live in fear, afraid that they will take our daughters away from us. They rape them, they kill them and this has to stop. It is time they listen to us as indigenous women. I’m here to be the voice of those women who can no longer speak for themselves,” says Fabiana Ibarra, from a neighboring community that suffered the minors’ attack. He has traveled the almost 2,000 kilometers that separate Santa Victoria Este – almost on the border with Paraguay – from Buenos Aires to make visible what happened.
This is not an isolated case. Last year, two other Salta indigenous girls were raped and killed by a group of men. There are sexual assaults that go unreported because families choose not to report them; others who remain invisible because they don’t know how to reach the media.
“For us there is no justice. When we want to file a complaint they make fun of us, they say they don’t understand us because we speak in our language and there is no interpreter. And people, even if they know who did it, they won’t say it because they’re scared. The rapists, the murderers threaten the family, the children, the wives and even the husbands. So there is no way to judge these miserable people,” adds Ibarra, a member of the Women and Indigenous Diversity Movement for the Good Life.
Speakers from this organization occupied the entrance to the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic in Buenos Aires this Wednesday to be heard. They condemn the persistent discrimination against these communities and the impunity of those who attack their members and pollute the areas they inhabit. “Here, in this place, there is a budget for death, for bullets. Just a few days ago, a Wichí girl was raped, strangled and trying to save her life. They keep raping our girls and no one cares. We are here to speak with the Central Bank Governor because we believe it is time to set the budget for life so they build a country model for life and not death,” Mapuche leader said Moira on the microphone Hand Millan.
Millán also recalled that four Mapuche women remain in detention in Patagonia after being arrested by the police near Villa Mascardi during the evacuation of the land they occupied. “We won’t go until the central bank governor comes in for a talk. If they want to oppress us, let us oppress them. If they want to kill us, let them kill us. The only difference between our death in the territories and here is that it happens anonymously there, without anyone knowing about it,” the Mapuche adviser warned. At the end of the day they were welcomed by Miguel Pesce. “We heard his racist, arrogant attitude, but he also had to listen to each and every one of the sisters who were very wise, powerful and clear,” the indigenous leader said from outside the bank.
According to the 2004-2005 Complementary Survey of Indigenous Peoples (ECPI), there are 600,329 people who identify themselves as members and/or descendants of first generation indigenous peoples.