by Liz Cortes
PICTURE from: Sobhi Damasio, Nazly article, WN Wears your voice, 5th May 2017. https://www.wearyourvoicemag.com/cinco-de-mayo/.
The next audio tells the history of the Lesby Osorio murder, and its influence on feminist movements.
Live with no fear, is the wish of every woman in Mexico, and around the world. Not fear to walk in the streets, not fear to wear what they want, no fear to be themselves. According to the Economic Commission of Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), up to 40% of the women of the region are victims of physical violence and in some countries around 60% suffer emotional violence. The high level of oppression and femicide increases the fear and the wrath of women.
Women are fighting for their rights, against the corrupt government which has shame and blames women for the violence and murders. Cases, as #SIMEMATAN was the social movement, caused unfinished and blaming reported of the death of Lesvy Osorio on March 3, 2017, a student of the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico campus in Mexico City. After finding her body in a payphone with the phone cable in her neck. The authorities publicized that she dropped school, used drugs, and drank with her friends and that she committed suicide as a consequence of her unstable life, without having done any investigation of the case. This with a bare intention of digging deep into the matter and making this woman’s death one more of the history.
The family raged and hurt by the situation, disagreed, and decided to sue those in charge of their daughter’s case, with the expectation that a forensic investigation would be carried out and the truth of Lesvy’s death would be revealed. The lawyer of the family manifested that the security cameras record was altered and they can only see how Lesvy and her sentimental couple argued, Lesvy is hit by Jorge and pushed to a payphone booth, after this the camera is shut off with no reason, and at 2 am of the morning they saw Jorge walking out alone.
2 years later investigations in forensic evidence deduced that it wasn’t a suicide, the cable didn’t have any knot as to allow himself to be hanged and the blood in her nails, as believed she used in self-defense, was from Jorge Luis Gonzales.
The younger’s family and millions of Mexican women manifested her nonconformity against the government and social networks that in past years criminalized Lesvy of her own death. #SIMEMATAN was the tag that millions of women use to criticize the authority’s prejudice of Lesvy’s life, manipulation of information, and injustice. Using it to express what the media and the government will say to blame women if they are killed. Some of the twitters mentioned #If they kill me will be for my way of dressing, live or be, for use public transportation or travel alone, to have relations or doesn’t be submissive to a relationship.
Featured images courtesy of a Knoll Soloff, Andalusia, Latin America, News, Women’s Issues, 10 May 2019.
Translation: “#iftheykillme Authorities your duty is to investigate not justify” by Student during a protest after the death of Lesvy Berlín Rivera Osorio.
Featured images courtesy of a Knoll Soloff, Andalusia, Latin America, News, Women’s Issues, 10 May 2019. #SIMEMATAN began a way of expression of millions of women on Twitter and in social media to say no more to the femicide in Mexico and Latin America. Journalists, artists, and famous manifested identified with the movements, and join them with their writings, music, and some twitters around the world. Some examples are:
On May 2, 2019, the titular of the head of the Mexico City Attorney General’s office (PGJDF), Ernestina Godoy, apologize to the family for “declaring her death as suicide with any proof that all”. Lesvy’s mother, Araceli Osorio, deserve it but it is not enough to heal all her pain and the millions of women have suffered, in the conference, she added that: “we aren’t going to keep only our eyes in you, we are going to keep all our senses to defend women’s life rights”.
De CrisCastilloVel – Trabajo propio, CC BY 3.0, Marcha en la -UNAM contra -feminicidio de -Lesby, Wikipedia, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=58623426
Millions of incidents like these occur daily in Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, and many countries around the world. Labels like
#SiMeMatan -#IfTheyKillMe
#NiUnaMas- #NotOneMore
#NiUnaMenos- #NotOneLess
#VivasNosQueremos- #AliveWeWantUs-
#ParenDeMatarnos — #StopKillingUs
#ElEstadoesResponsable — #TheGovtisResponsible
#ParoMundialdeMujeres — #WorldwideWomensStrike
#AbsoluciónaHigui — #AcquittaltoHigui
#LibertadMilagroSala — #FreeMilagroNow
Are the representation in social media, in banners, in songs, in paintings, in Graffiti, in streets, in news, in the life of many mothers, daughters, students, artists, singers, and dreamers.
Songs as “Cancion sin Miedo” —“SongWithoutFear” by Vivir Quintana ft. El Palomar, becoming a hymn for feminists and Expression of the pain and indignation of every woman violated, force, tortured, outrage, stripped of herself.
Every country has taken this song and shaped it with their women, with their fighters. This song has resounded in the hearts of many women and is a representative song against corrupt governments, and a call to speak up, and loud.
Another representative song is “Si Me Matan (If They Kill Me)” composed by Silvana Estrada, characterized by her “poetic style”, composing to love, freedom, sacred, life, justice, lose, and reunion. She wants to join every woman as a sister, and the fear is something that all of us overcome.
She published “trying to calm the painful and enormous wound that gender violence leaves us every day in our country and the world”. She mentioned that writing this song took her a lot of time to achieve because she wanted to find a way to compose a healing song for herself and others.
In her music video in collaboration with PRIM Public Project, (a historic space where union, culture, and creativity are celebrated – about PPP, Proyecto Publico, https://www.proyectopublicoprim.com/aboutppp) she mentioned that “in Mexico, more than 10 women are murdered per day”, a very worry and the scary number of deaths, most of them are not clarified until the date.
At the beginning of the song, you can see an empty, and abandoned building with a sensation of peace and loneliness, Silvana is sitting in front of different women of different ages.
She began singing: If they kill me
If they kill me,
when they find me
may they always say
may they always say?
That I was a singer,
living dreams.
That, like everyone,
I grew up with fear.
And, even then,
I went out on my own
to see the stars above,
to go for a sunny stroll.
And, even then,
I went out on my own
to see the stars above
to love life, love.
If they kill me
if they find me,
cover me in flowers,
cover me with earth.
For I shall be a seed
for the ones who come behind,
we are no longer silent,
nothing holds us back.
And let the songs be heard
like a warm mantle
healing the wound
of what we’ve lost.
That a cry, like thunder,
grasps us out of the grief.
They’ve taken so much from us
They’ve taken away our fear.
May hope prevails,
just like the sky is blue.
Looking at each other’s faces.
Sister, I love you.
translation by Paulina Duran.
All the women presented cry, even when I listened to her, I feel the pain and fear, that every Latin American woman carries, is released. we have been afraid, a lot… but now that they have taken so much from us, we can no longer allow them to take away from us out of fear the most precious thing that we have: life.
Silvana got to show the vulnerability transformed now in union and strength. she praises the women’s dreams and lives. this is so joyful; every single woman that has felt fear now feels understood. Every single effort to go out alone, walk late to home, or be driven by a stranger is now worth and sing of the fortress. Silvana gets her target of “soothe the painful and enormous wound” that femicide cause.
RESOURCES:
Original song- Silvana Estrada, Si Me Matan, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeU7rb-dBow.
Si Me Matan – Silvana Estrada (Lyrics Esp & Eng), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SirZ_TT5AzE, YouTube, 4 May 2021,
“Si me matan” de Silvana Estrada una revolucion con esperanza, https://rollingstone.com.mx/si-me-matan-silvana-estrada-entrevista/, ROLLING STONE MEXICO, 24 March 2021.
Instituto Interamericano De Derechos Humanos, http://www.iidh.ed.cr/multic/default.aspx?Portal=IIDH,
IIDH.
Meow, MAG, Por Olivia Meza de la Orta, https://meowmag.mx/el-canto-de-esperanza-y-fuerza-de-silvana-estrada/, 15 March 2021.
Knoll Soloff, Andalusia, If They Kill Me, Latin America, News, Women’s Issues, https://www.latinousa.org/2019/05/10/iftheykillme/, 10 May 2019.
#SiMeMatan, Twitter, https://twitter.com/search?q=%23SiMeMatan.
Feminicidio de Lesvy Berlin, Feminicidios en Mexico, Wikipedia, https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminicidio_de_Lesvy_Berl%C3%ADn, last date edited 3 dic 2021, 01:35
PPP, Proyecto Publico, location General Prim 30, 32 & 34, Col. Juárez, C.P. 06600, CDMX, https://www.proyectopublicoprim.com/aboutppp.
