Every year, to mark this occasion, the Government of Catalonia, the Provincial Councils of Barcelona, Girona, Lleida and Tarragona, Barcelona City Council, the Federation of Municipalities of Catalonia, the Catalan Association of Municipalities and the Spanish Government Delegation in Catalonia agree on a manifesto to mark this date and everything it represents.
This year’s manifesto states that “time’s up for male aggressors” and that social rejection of male violence towards women gets stronger and stronger”. The text notes that “there has never before been such extensive and conscious engagement with the issue of gender violence. Recent months have been extremely tough for women and children who experience violence, as the coming months will no doubt be, while the pandemic lasts”.It also addresses men “who are against this sort of violence and who know of a friend, relative or acquaintance who commits it: it’s time to take responsibility and intervene”. The document concludes with “aggressors, a reminder: there will be no room for impunity”.
We invite the whole city to observe a minute’s silence at 12 noon on 25N, in places where the current pandemic allows for it.
A date for standing up and for remembering
25 November was declared International Day for the Elimination of Violence towards Women during the Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Encounter held in Bogotá (Colombia) in 1981.
The women taking part in the meeting denounced gender violence in the domestic sphere and rape and sexual harassment at a government level, including the torture and abuse suffered by many political prisoners.
The date was chosen to mark the violent assassination of Minerva, Patria and Maria Teresa Mirabal, three political activist sisters murdered by the secret police of the Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo when they were their way to Puerto Plata to visit their imprisoned husbands on 25 November 1960. Their mangled bodies appeared in a mountain gully.
Adela (‘Dedé’) Mirabal was the only sister to survive, dying in Belgium in 2014 at the age of 88. These women have historically symbolised struggle and resistance for the popular feminist movement in the Dominican Republic. The UN made the date official in 1999.
