On February 2, Mexican women flooded the streets of Mexico City and social media with chants and hashtags such as #VivasNosQueremos (we want ourselves alive), #NiUnaMás (not one woman more), and #NoEstamosSolas (we are not alone) to protest the staggering levels of violence against women in their country. An average of nine women was killed every day in Mexico in 2018, according to the National Commission of Human Rights.
Around 4000 people gathered at Monumento a la Madre and marched towards Zócalo in the capital Mexico City. The night before, hundreds of women joined bikes rides in thirteen different Mexican cities — with 200 cyclists in the capital alone — for the Rodada for Women’s Lives and Freedom.
The demonstrations were called after an investigation by the newspaper El País revealed that 153 people, most of them women, have been kidnapped on Mexico City’s subway system over the past four years. Protesters demand an end to femicides and that authorities implement adequate security measures for women on public transportation systems.