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| Women of all ages from around Santiago dressed in black, sporting red scarves and blindfolds, converged on the sporting venue in the early evening after a call-out on social media networks (AFP Photo/Martin BERNETTI) |
Santiago
(AFP) - Thousands of women have mobbed the National Stadium in Chile's capital
for a flash denunciation of sexual violence -- the latest performance of a
battle-cry that has seized public attention during weeks of national unrest.
Women of
all ages from around Santiago, dressed in black and wearing red scarves and
blindfolds, converged on the sporting venue in the early evening after a
call-out on social media networks.
"The
fault is not with me, nor where I was, nor how I was dressed... The rapist is
you!" the group sang, stomping their feet and waving their arms in a
choreographed routine that has in recent weeks been staged around the country
and around the world.
Similar
performances have been staged by women as far away as Paris, Barcelona and
Mexico City.
"It
was a great experience to share this with thousands and thousands of
women," 66-year-old Jacqueline Saintard told AFP after Wednesday's
demonstration.
First
created by the feminist collective LasTesis, based in the Chilean seaside town
of Valparaiso, the performance began to be emulated after reports of police
violence against women and as countrywide demonstrations against the government
gained steam.
Those
protests initially erupted in mid-October over metro fare hikes but quickly
escalated into the most severe outbreak of social unrest since the end of the
dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet nearly 30 years ago.
Furious
Chileans have taken to the streets in the weeks since to protest social and
economic inequality.
More than
3,500 women were killed across Latin America and the Caribbean in acts of
gender-based violence last year, according to UN data.
Women in Chile's capital gather to sing a song against gender-based violence. The song, which has gone viral, originated in the country in the midst of the ongoing social crisis https://t.co/RMXets0Y3f pic.twitter.com/674hjVzVsF— AFP news agency (@AFP) December 5, 2019
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