"El violador eres tú": the cry of Chilean women conquers the world
For some months now, the riots caused by the rise in prices have been sweeping Chile. To these, since November 25, World Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, a chorus of women has joined the streets to protest against patriarchy and gender-based violence. In fact, it is estimated that an average of 42 sexual abuses per day take place in Chile, of which 92 per cent have never been convicted. The voices of the protesters rise in unison and sing a song of revolt:
"The fault was not mine, it doesn't have to do with where I was or how I was dressed. The rapist is you. They are the Carabinieri, the judges, the state, the president. The oppressive state is a macho rapist. You are the rapist "
The song, entitled "Un violador en tu camino, el violador eres tú" (a rapist on your path, you are a rapist), is the result of the idea of a Chilean feminist collective, Las Tesis, whose members are four women from from Valparaiso, one of the cities most affected by anti-government dissent. Words are accompanied by gestures in a flashmob of explosive force, which has now become viral. A woman next to the other, her eyes covered by a black blindfold and the drumbeats that movements that emulate the positions of an arrest as a sign of denunciation of the violence perpetrated by the Chilean police, accused of having committed abuses and punitive violence against women, took to the streets to protest.
From Santiago de Chile, the cry of women against gender-based violence has crossed national borders and spread throughout the rest of the world, since no country is, unfortunately, immune to this deadly virus. The feminist exhibition also conquered Piazza Duomo in Milan and the Geochicas group took action to map all the cities affected by the flashmob.
A case of violence that shook not only Chile, but the whole world, was the murder of Daniela Carrasco, a thirty-six-year-old street artist, better known as "El mimo", due to her traditional disguise. The activist was found hanged from a fence in the capital, but this death is still shrouded in mystery. According to the feminist movement Ni una menos (Not one less), the woman was allegedly tortured and raped by the military forces who had arrested her to intimidate the women who took part in the civil grievances.
