BUENOS AIRES, Oct. 19 (UPI) — Argentine activists have called for women to walk out of work for an hour and to wear black on Wednesday in protest over the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl.
Lucia Perez died in early October in Argentina’s city of Mar del Plata. Two men who left her at a hospital said she overdosed on drugs but upon analysis doctors found evidence of extreme sexual violence, Clarín reported.
Argentine prosecutors said officials arrested three men over Lucia’s death, which was caused by cardiac arrest after being assaulted with a foreign object. She was drugged with marijuana and cocaine prior to the rape, authorities added.
“This Wednesday, go black for all our companions murdered, kidnapped, raped and abused,” the Rebelión Feminista group said in a statement.
Wednesday’s protest has been called “Miercoles Negro” — Black Wednesday in Spanish.
In July, Argentine President Mauricio Macri announced a plan to fight against “femicide” and domestic abuse directed toward women through the establishment of a network of women’s refuges.
Femicide is a gender hate-crime term describing the violent and deliberate killing of a woman. Macri’s plan, which will increase funds for the electronic tracking of men known to violently target women, will begin next year.
Argentina adopted a law in 2012 establishing tough punishments for femicide perpetrators, as have many other Latin American countries facing similar problems, but women’s rights groups believe it is not enough. In 2015 in Argentina, 235 women were killed in incidents related to gender violence.
Last year, more than 200,000 people protested against violence toward women in Buenos Aires. Protests were also held in more than 80 cities across Argentina, as well as in neighboring Chile and Uruguay.
The protests were organized after a 14-year-old girl was beaten to death by her boyfriend because she was pregnant. In an earlier case the same year, a woman was killed by her estranged husband after she asked for a divorce. She was a kindergarten teacher and her husband slit her throat in front of her classroom.
