Ni Una Menos and the Feminist Politics of the Streets in Latin America

🔹 Executive Summary

Latin America is simultaneously a region of vibrant feminist innovation and one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman. According to the UN, fourteen of the twenty-five countries with the highest femicide rates are in Latin America. In Mexico, an average of ten women are murdered every day. In Brazil, over 1,300 femicides are reported annually, with countless more unrecorded. In Argentina, the murder of 14-year-old Chiara Páez in 2015 catalyzed not only outrage but also one of the largest and most influential feminist movements in the 21st century: Ni Una Menos (“Not One [Woman] Less”).

What began as a collective outcry in Buenos Aires quickly resonated across the continent. Women and allies marched in Santiago, Lima, Mexico City, Montevideo, São Paulo, Bogotá, and beyond. The slogan Ni Una Menos became both grief and demand — grief for those lost to femicide, and demand for structural transformation. Over time, the movement expanded from denouncing gender violence to articulating a broader feminist agenda: reproductive rights, economic justice, Indigenous sovereignty, and resistance to authoritarianism.

This research brief argues that Ni Una Menos has redefined feminist politics in Latin America along four dimensions:

1. Mass Mobilization – Unlike elite-driven feminist currents, Ni Una Menos emerged as a street-based populist movement, drawing millions from diverse classes, ages, and identities.

2. Intersectional Agenda – Feminist activism linked femicide with economic precarity, labor exploitation, corruption, and racism.

3. Aesthetic Resistance – Symbols like the green handkerchief (pañuelo verde), performance art (Las Tesis), and chants turned the streets into living archives of feminist politics.

4. Transnational Resonance – The movement demonstrated that feminism could travel across borders without losing its urgency, adapting to local contexts while sustaining continental solidarity.

Yet the achievements of Ni Una Menos coexist with profound challenges. Rates of femicide remain alarmingly high, judicial systems often fail survivors, and backlash from conservative and far-right actors has intensified. Governments across the region have passed laws recognizing femicide and expanding reproductive rights (notably Argentina’s abortion legalization in 2020), but implementation gaps persist. Moreover, feminist mobilization remains vulnerable to co-optation by political parties, fragmentation across class and race lines, and economic crises that disproportionately affect women.

Policy Gaps Identified

• Legal Frameworks: Despite femicide laws in 18 Latin American countries, enforcement is inconsistent; penalties are often reduced, and convictions rare.

• Judicial Impunity: Patriarchal courts perpetuate secondary victimization; survivors are shamed, and perpetrators benefit from leniency.

• Economic Inequality: Women’s vulnerability is exacerbated by austerity policies, wage gaps, and overrepresentation in informal labor.

• Survivor Support: Shelters, hotlines, and legal aid remain scarce, especially in rural and Indigenous communities.

• Political Backlash: Right-wing populists weaponize “family values” to roll back feminist gains.

Policy Recommendations

• Governments: Enforce femicide laws with mandatory sentencing; invest in survivor-centered services; train police and judiciary in gender sensitivity.

• Civil Society: Expand grassroots organizing; strengthen neighborhood assemblies, student unions, and Indigenous feminist collectives.

• International NGOs/Donors: Direct funding toward survivor-led organizations; facilitate transnational feminist exchanges; hold governments accountable through human rights frameworks.

• Tech & Media: Support feminist data initiatives; counter misinformation campaigns; amplify feminist art and storytelling.

Implementation Pathways

• Short-term (1–2 years): Establish femicide observatories; pilot survivor-friendly courts; expand hotlines.

• Medium-term (3–5 years): Embed feminist curricula in schools; create regional agreements through MERCOSUR and OAS; fund grassroots feminist centers.

• Long-term (5–10 years): Transform machismo culture through public campaigns; embed parity in governance structures; build permanent transnational feminist coalitions.

ConclusionNi Una Menos is not simply a protest movement; it is a paradigm shift in feminist politics. It shows that feminism in the Global South can generate theories and strategies that resonate globally. The plazas of Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and Santiago are not just sites of mourning — they are laboratories of democratic reinvention.

For policymakers, Ni Una Menos signals that gender-based violence must be treated as a systemic emergency requiring systemic reform. For feminists worldwide, it demonstrates the power of collective imagination: turning grief into demand, demand into law, and law into possibility.

Above all, Ni Una Menos insists on a promise: not one woman less, not one life disposable, not one future denied. 🔹 Background & Regional Context

1. The Landscape of Gender-Based Violence in Latin America

Latin America is frequently described as the epicenter of femicide. According to UN Women, fourteen of the twenty-five countries with the highest femicide rates are located in the region.

• Mexico: On average, ten women are murdered every day. The Observatory of Gender Equality in Latin America and the Caribbean reported over 3,800 femicides in 2021 alone.

• Brazil: More than 1,300 femicides were officially registered in 2020; the true number is higher due to underreporting and judicial reclassification of femicide as “homicide.”

• Argentina: A woman is killed every 30 hours; over 1,300 femicides have been recorded since 2015.

• El Salvador and Honduras: Among the highest per-capita femicide rates in the world, compounded by gang violence and state fragility.

These numbers only partially capture the reality: many cases are unreported, misclassified, or lost in judicial limbo. Beyond murder, women face widespread intimate partner violence, sexual assault, disappearances, and harassment, with Indigenous, Afro-descendant, migrant, and LGBTQ+ women particularly vulnerable.

The sheer scale of violence produced a sense of collective emergency. While violence against women is a global problem, in Latin America it reached such intensity that it sparked not only legal debates but also mass street mobilization, reshaping the feminist landscape.

2. Structural Drivers of Violence

The crisis cannot be understood as isolated incidents of “domestic” or “private” violence. Instead, violence against women in Latin America is deeply structural, shaped by:

• Machismo Culture: Patriarchal norms that equate masculinity with control, aggression, and female subordination. Machismo normalizes harassment, justifies domestic violence, and stigmatizes survivors who speak out.

• Economic Precarity: Women represent a disproportionate share of the informal economy — street vendors, domestic workers, unpaid caregivers. Austerity policies, unemployment, and lack of labor protections deepen vulnerability to both economic exploitation and intimate violence.

• Weak Judicial Systems: Courts are slow, inaccessible, and often hostile to survivors. Police frequently dismiss complaints, while judges issue lenient sentences. Conviction rates for femicide remain below 10% in most countries.

• Intersectional Inequalities: Indigenous and Afro-descendant women face layered discrimination. In Brazil, Black women represent 66% of femicide victims. Rural and Indigenous women encounter language barriers and geographical isolation when seeking justice.

• Authoritarianism and State Violence: In some contexts, the state itself is perpetrator — from police brutality during protests to collusion with gangs and paramilitary forces.

Together, these conditions create a landscape of impunity, where violence against women is pervasive yet rarely punished.

3. Historical Roots of Feminist Resistance

Latin American feminism has a long and rich genealogy, often forged under authoritarian conditions:

• 1970s–1980s: During military dictatorships in Argentina, Chile, and Brazil, women’s groups emerged around demands for democracy, human rights, and the disappeared (desaparecidos). Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina, for example, became symbols of resistance by reclaiming maternal identity as political.

• 1990s–2000s: Feminist NGOs gained influence through international conferences (e.g., Beijing 1995) and UN partnerships. Yet these “NGO-ized” feminisms were often criticized for being elite-driven, technocratic, and disconnected from grassroots realities.

• 2010s: A new wave of feminist populism emerged, rejecting both authoritarian repression and NGO technocracy. Ni Una Menos belongs to this third wave: mass-based, intersectional, rooted in street politics, and aesthetically innovative.

Thus, Ni Una Menos did not appear suddenly in 2015; it was seeded by decades of feminist struggle. But its scale, resonance, and radical imagination represented something new.

4. The Spark: Chiara Páez (2015)

On May 10, 2015, the body of 14-year-old Chiara Páez was discovered in Rufino, Argentina. She had been beaten to death by her boyfriend, reportedly after resisting pressure to have an abortion. The brutality of her murder — a teenage girl killed by an intimate partner — struck a collective nerve.

In response, journalists, activists, and academics launched the call for a march under the slogan “Ni Una Menos”. On June 3, 2015, tens of thousands filled the streets of Buenos Aires, carrying banners declaring “Not one less. We want us alive.”

The protest was not the first feminist march in Argentina, but its scale, emotional force, and resonance transformed it into a continental watershed. Chiara’s death became a symbol of systemic femicide, galvanizing a generation that refused silence.

5. The Plaza as Political Space

Latin American protest culture has always relied on the street as a site of political expression, but Ni Una Menos elevated the plaza to a feminist stage:

• Buenos Aires’ Plaza de Mayo became the epicenter, echoing its earlier history as site of resistance by Mothers of the Disappeared.

• Chants, drums, murals, body painting, and green handkerchiefs turned plazas into visual and sonic archives.

• Performances blurred art and activism. Later, Chile’s Las Tesis (2019) staged “Un violador en tu camino” (“A Rapist in Your Path”), with blindfolded women chanting against state violence — a performance that went viral globally.

The plaza was not only symbolic but pedagogical: it taught feminism outside universities, transforming public space into a feminist classroom.

6. From Argentina to the Continent

Within months, Ni Una Menos spread beyond Argentina:

• Chile: Student feminists linked Ni Una Menos to education reform and anti-austerity struggles.

• Mexico: Protesters adapted the slogan to highlight disappearances and cartel violence, with mothers of disappeared daughters at the forefront.

• Brazil: Feminism intertwined with Black women’s activism, confronting racism and authoritarianism under Bolsonaro.

• Peru, Uruguay, Colombia: Marches mobilized thousands, adapting chants to local contexts while maintaining continental solidarity.

This diffusion illustrates the translatability of Ni Una Menos: it functioned less as a rigid doctrine than as an open grammar of feminist resistance, adaptable across national contexts while retaining urgency.

7. Expansion of the Agenda

Though femicide remained central, Ni Una Menos rapidly expanded its scope:

• Reproductive Rights: The green handkerchief (pañuelo verde) became emblem of abortion rights, culminating in Argentina’s legalization of abortion in 2020 after decades of struggle.

• Economic Justice: Protests denounced austerity, wage inequality, and unpaid care work, linking gender violence to structural precarity.

• Indigenous and Racial Justice: Movements emphasized that violence against women cannot be separated from racism, land dispossession, and state neglect of Indigenous communities.

• Resistance to Authoritarianism: Feminists mobilized against authoritarian leaders and state violence, positioning themselves at the frontlines of democratic defense.

This intersectional approach was forged in practice rather than borrowed from theory: feminists on the streets linked issues because their lives demanded it.

8. Why Ni Una Menos Matters Globally

The significance of Ni Una Menos extends beyond Latin America. It represents a new model of feminist politics that challenges global North assumptions:

• Feminism can be populist without being reactionary.

• Feminism can be mass-based and aesthetically powerful without losing analytical depth.

• Feminism can travel across borders not through NGOs or academic conferences, but through chants, plazas, and symbols.

In this sense, Ni Una Menos offers both a critique and an alternative to liberal NGO-ized feminisms. It demonstrates how feminist politics can be at once intersectional, popular, embodied, and transnational. 🔹 Case Studies

1. Argentina: From Femicide to Abortion Legalization

Timeline

• 2015: Murder of Chiara Páez → first Ni Una Menos march (June 3) mobilizes hundreds of thousands.

• 2016–2017: Annual marches institutionalize June 3 as feminist commemoration. Movement expands to include labor rights and anti-austerity demands.

• 2018: Massive campaign for abortion legalization begins. Green handkerchief (pañuelo verde) adopted as unifying symbol.

• 2020: After decades of struggle, Argentina legalizes abortion — a landmark victory attributed to the persistence of Ni Una Menos networks.

Key FeaturesArgentina represents the birthplace of Ni Una Menos and the most visible case of its political achievements. What started as outrage over femicide evolved into a mass platform combining gender justice with structural reform.

Achievements

• Legalization of abortion (2020).

• National attention to femicide data (Femicide Observatory established).

• Normalization of feminist protest as legitimate democratic expression.

Challenges

• Conservative backlash remains strong; far-right parties mobilize against “gender ideology.”

• Implementation of abortion law uneven, especially in rural provinces.

Voice from the Field

2. Mexico: Femicide and Disappearances under Narco Violence

Timeline

• 2000s: Ciudad Juárez becomes global symbol of femicide, with hundreds of women murdered.

• 2015–2016: Ni Una Menos adapted in Mexico, highlighting not only femicide but also enforced disappearances.

• 2019–2020: Protests escalate after killings of Ingrid Escamilla (2020) and 7-year-old Fátima. Demonstrations in Mexico City’s Zócalo turn into national news.

• 2021–2023: Mothers of disappeared daughters become central figures, leading marches with photographs of missing women.

Key FeaturesMexico exemplifies the most violent context for women in Latin America. Here, Ni Una Menos intertwines with anti-narco and anti-corruption struggles. Protesters accuse not only perpetrators but also the state itself of complicity.

Achievements

• Heightened public debate on femicide and state negligence.

• Grassroots documentation by NGOs fills gaps left by official statistics.

• Symbolic visibility: mothers of the disappeared now central actors in national politics.

Challenges

• Conviction rates remain below 5%.

• Police often collude with cartels; survivors distrust institutions.

• Protests frequently met with repression and tear gas.

Voice from the Field

3. Chile: Student Feminism and Performance Politics

Timeline

• 2016: Ni Una Menos protests spread to Chile, initially focused on femicide.

• 2018: University students launch “Feminist May” (Mayo Feminista), protesting sexual harassment in academia.

• 2019: Collective Las Tesis performs “Un violador en tu camino” (“A Rapist in Your Path”), choreographed chant against patriarchy and state violence. Performance goes viral globally.

• 2020–2022: Feminists play key role in constitutional reform debates; gender parity principle included in Constitutional Assembly.

Key FeaturesChile shows how Ni Una Menos intersected with student and cultural activism. Young feminists linked femicide to systemic sexism in universities and politics, using creativity to globalize their message.

Achievements

• “Un violador en tu camino” adopted worldwide (Paris, Istanbul, New York).

• Institutional gain: parity principle in Chile’s constitutional process.

• Strong feminist student networks across universities.

Challenges

• New constitution rejected in 2022 referendum, showing limits of institutional change.

• Persistent sexual harassment in academia despite reforms.

Voice from the Field

4. Brazil: Black Feminism and Resistance under Bolsonaro

Timeline

• 2015–2016: Ni Una Menos slogan spreads to Brazil; Black feminists highlight racialized femicide.

• 2018: Assassination of Marielle Franco, Black feminist city councilor in Rio de Janeiro, becomes rallying cry.

• 2019–2022: Under President Jair Bolsonaro, feminists confront authoritarianism, misogyny, and rollback of rights.

• 2020–2021: COVID-19 pandemic intensifies precarity; Black and Indigenous women disproportionately affected.

Key FeaturesBrazil highlights the intersection of race, gender, and authoritarianism. Black feminists insist that femicide is not colorblind; most victims are poor and Afro-descendant.

Achievements

• Strengthening of Black women’s movements and political representation.

• Marielle Franco’s legacy mobilizes new generation of Afro-Brazilian feminists.

• Feminism linked to anti-authoritarian struggles and democratic defense.

Challenges

• Brazil remains one of the most dangerous countries for women and LGBTQ+ activists.

• Far-right discourse demonizes “gender ideology.”

• High rates of police violence against poor and Black women.

Voice from the Field

Synthesis of Case Studies

Across Argentina, Mexico, Chile, and Brazil, Ni Una Menos demonstrates both adaptability and coherence:

• In Argentina, it achieved institutional transformation (abortion legalization).

• In Mexico, it exposed state complicity in violence.

• In Chile, it globalized feminist performance.

• In Brazil, it fused feminism with racial justice and resistance to authoritarianism.

Common threads include:

• Plazas as classrooms: public space as feminist pedagogy.

• Symbols and aesthetics: handkerchiefs, chants, performances.

• Intersectionality in practice: gender linked with race, class, democracy.

• Transnational resonance: movement adapted locally but echoed continent-wide.🔹 Voices from the Field

  While statistics capture the scale of femicide in Latin America, it is the testimonies of women — mothers, students, workers, artists — that give the movement its heartbeat. Ni Una Menos is not only a political slogan but also a collective archive of lived experience.

  1. Mothers of the Disappeared

  In Mexico, mothers of disappeared daughters have become central figures of Ni Una Menos. They march with posters bearing faces of the missing, transforming grief into protest.

These women transform private mourning into public indictment. Their presence in marches insists that femicide is not a statistic but a series of stolen lives, each with a name, a face, a family.

2. Student Feminists

In Chile, student feminists linked Ni Una Menos to struggles within universities. Their activism spread through occupations of campuses, where they staged sit-ins, teach-ins, and performances.

Through student voices, Ni Una Menos expanded from femicide to systemic sexism in educational institutions.

3. Black Feminists in Brazil

Black feminists emphasize that femicide is racialized: most victims in Brazil are poor and Afro-descendant. Their testimonies expose the intersection of sexism, racism, and class oppression.

Here, Ni Una Menos is not abstract feminism but an embodied, racialized struggle for survival.

4. Survivors and Everyday Women

Survivors themselves have spoken in marches, breaking silences once enforced by shame.

In these voices, Ni Una Menos becomes a pedagogy of courage: showing survivors that their stories are collective, not individual failures.

5. Artistic Voices

Performance has been central to Ni Una Menos. Chilean collective Las Tesis transformed protest into global choreography.

Their chant “Un violador en tu camino” spread worldwide:

Translation: “And the fault wasn’t mine, not where I was, not how I dressed. The rapist is you. The rapist is you.”

The performance, with blindfolded women pointing outward in unison, dramatized systemic violence — not only by individual men but also by police, judiciary, and state institutions.

Art thus became both testimony and weapon: a collective way of saying what statistics cannot.

6. Chants and Slogans

Across Latin America, slogans condensed collective rage into portable phrases:

• “Ni una menos, vivas nos queremos.” (Not one less, we want us alive.)

• “Nos están matando.” (They are killing us.)

• “El Estado es responsable.” (The state is responsible.)

• “Aborto legal, en el hospital.” (Legal abortion, in the hospital.)

These chants are not mere words; they are pedagogical acts. They teach feminism to new generations, embed memory in sound, and keep urgency alive.

7. Intergenerational Dialogue

Elders who lived through military dictatorships find echoes in today’s feminism.

The movement thus links generations: mothers of the disappeared, daughters of democracy, granddaughters of Ni Una Menos.

8. Transnational Solidarity

Activists recognize their struggles as part of a global network.

Through such testimonies, Ni Una Menos transcends borders, weaving a transnational feminist solidarity grounded in shared vulnerability and shared defiance.

Synthesis

The voices reveal that Ni Una Menos is not just an abstract slogan but:

• A cry of mothers demanding justice.

• A pedagogy for students confronting institutions.

• A racialized struggle for Black and Indigenous survival.

• A performance that turns protest into poetry.

• A chant that keeps the memory of the dead alive in the mouths of the living.

If policy briefs often flatten experience into numbers, these voices restore texture, pain, and hope. They remind us that feminism is not only argued in reports but sung in plazas, whispered in testimonies, shouted in chants, and embodied in marches.

🔹 Policy Gaps & Challenges

Despite its achievements, Ni Una Menos operates within contexts marked by profound structural obstacles. Feminist mobilization has reshaped discourse and secured important legal reforms, but persistent gaps in law, enforcement, culture, and politics continue to undermine progress.

1. Legal Frameworks: Progress on Paper, Weak in Practice

Advances

• Since the mid-2000s, over 18 Latin American countries have adopted laws defining femicide or feminicide as a specific crime (Argentina 2012, Mexico 2007, Brazil 2015).

• Many constitutions now recognize gender equality, and treaties like the Belém do Pará Convention (1994) provide regional frameworks against gender-based violence.

Gaps

• Leniency in Sentencing: Judges frequently reclassify femicide as “ordinary homicide,” reducing penalties and undermining symbolic recognition.

• Procedural Failures: Police often fail to investigate adequately, losing evidence and retraumatizing survivors.

• Access to Justice: Legal processes remain costly, slow, and urban-centered. Indigenous and rural women often lack translation, transport, or legal aid.

Illustration: In Mexico, despite thousands of femicide reports, fewer than 5% lead to convictions. In Honduras, conviction rates are below 2%. Laws exist, but they function as symbolic promises rather than effective protections.

2. Judicial Impunity and State Complicity

Impunity as NormThe persistence of femicide cannot be explained without considering impunity. Judicial systems are structurally patriarchal: they minimize gender-based violence, privilege perpetrators, and stigmatize survivors.

• Victim-blaming: Courts interrogate women’s behavior — clothing, drinking, sexuality — shifting blame from perpetrator to victim.

• Secondary Victimization: Survivors are forced to repeat testimonies multiple times, often in hostile environments.

• Corruption and Collusion: In Mexico, collusion between police and cartels undermines trust. In Brazil, police violence disproportionately targets poor Black women.

Case Example: In Ciudad Juárez, mothers of murdered women have long accused police of negligence or complicity. For decades, cases stagnated in legal limbo, creating a culture of normalized impunity.

3. Economic Inequality and Precarity

Gender-based violence cannot be disentangled from economic structures. Women’s economic dependency and precarity make them more vulnerable to abuse and less able to exit violent situations.

• Informal Economy: Up to 60% of Latin American women work in informal sectors (domestic work, street vending). These jobs lack contracts, protections, or recourse to labor rights.

• Unpaid Care Work: Women carry disproportionate burdens of caregiving, limiting mobility and economic independence.

• Austerity Policies: Cuts to social services weaken safety nets, leaving survivors without shelters, childcare, or health services.

Example: In Argentina, feminist economists connected austerity policies with femicide risk: women forced into precarious labor are less able to escape abusive households, while cuts to social programs remove lifelines.

4. Limited Survivor Support Services

While mobilizations have highlighted the need for survivor-centered care, services remain insufficient:

• Shelters: Few and underfunded; in many countries, concentrated in capital cities.

• Hotlines: Operate inconsistently, often understaffed.

• Psychological Support: Rarely integrated into state systems; NGOs provide most counseling services.

• Rural Gaps: Indigenous and rural women often must travel hours to access services, if they exist at all.

The result is a geography of exclusion, where access to justice and care is determined by class, race, and geography.

5. Cultural Stigma and Backlash

Legal reforms cannot dismantle deeply rooted cultural norms overnight.

• Machismo & Marianismo: Cultural ideals that celebrate male dominance (machismo) and female sacrifice/purity (marianismo) continue to shape expectations.

• Blame Narratives: Victims are often told they provoked violence by dressing “provocatively” or leaving the home.

• Media Representation: News outlets frequently sensationalize femicide, reducing women to crime victims rather than full lives.

Backlash

• Religious Conservatism: Catholic and evangelical churches mobilize against reproductive rights, framing abortion legalization as “murder.”

• Far-right Populism: Leaders like Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil) and Javier Milei (Argentina) demonize “gender ideology,” portraying feminism as foreign, elitist, or destabilizing to the family.

• Digital Harassment: Feminists face online abuse, doxxing, and coordinated smear campaigns.

Thus, Ni Una Menos faces not only indifference but also active counter-mobilization.

6. Movement Fragmentation and Sustainability

Mass movements generate energy but also face internal challenges:

• Class Divisions: Middle-class feminists sometimes dominate discourse, sidelining working-class, Indigenous, or Afro-descendant voices.

• Generational Tensions: Younger feminists emphasize intersectionality and LGBTQ+ inclusion, which older activists sometimes resist.

• NGO-ization vs. Street Politics: Some activists worry that institutionalization into NGOs risks diluting radical street energy.

These tensions are not unique to Latin America but reflect broader dilemmas of feminist organizing worldwide.

7. Political Co-optation

Governments sometimes attempt to co-opt feminist energy while failing to deliver substantive change.

• In Argentina, politicians marched in Ni Una Menos protests while blocking abortion reform in parliament (until 2020).

• In Mexico, officials express sympathy while militarization deepens violence.

• In Brazil, progressive language is adopted by centrist politicians without real policy follow-through.

Co-optation risks turning feminism into symbolic capital rather than material change.

8. Regional Inconsistencies

Latin America is not homogeneous:

• Argentina achieved abortion legalization.

• El Salvador and Honduras impose total abortion bans, even in cases of rape or risk to the mother’s life.

• Uruguay and Colombia have progressive reproductive rights but still face femicide.

This patchwork undermines regional solidarity and allows conservative actors to pit countries against each other.

9. The Pandemic Factor

COVID-19 intensified all these gaps:

• Lockdowns trapped women with abusers. Reports of domestic violence surged 30–40% across the region.

• Shelters closed or reduced capacity.

• Economic recession disproportionately affected women in informal work.

• Feminist mobilizations shifted online, but digital divides excluded rural and poor women.

The pandemic revealed how fragile feminist gains remain in times of crisis.

10. Global Implications

The challenges facing Ni Una Menos illuminate global dilemmas:

• How can laws translate into real protection without enforcement?

• How can mass protest resist backlash without exhaustion?

• How can feminism remain intersectional without fragmenting?

These questions matter not only in Latin America but also in South Korea, South Africa, Europe, and Vietnam — contexts where feminist mobilizations face different forms of structural resistance.

Synthesis

Ni Una Menos demonstrates extraordinary capacity for mobilization and transformation. Yet policy gaps persist:

• Laws without enforcement.

• Services without reach.

• Protests without structural guarantees.

• Gains vulnerable to backlash and co-optation.

The movement’s challenge is not only to sustain energy in plazas but to translate protest into durable structures — legal, economic, cultural. This requires bridging divides, resisting backlash, and holding states accountable across the long term.

🔹 Comparative Perspective

1. Ni Una Menos and #MeToo (North America/Europe)

The most obvious comparison is with the #MeToo movement that went viral in 2017. Both Ni Una Menos and MeToo exposed systemic violence against women, but they differ in emphasis and form.

• #MeToo centered on sexual harassment and assault, particularly in workplaces like Hollywood, academia, and corporate offices. Its power lay in testimony — millions of women speaking online, often from professional or middle-class contexts.

• Ni Una Menos, by contrast, began with femicide and disappearance — the murder of working-class, rural, and young women. Its power lay in the street: plazas filled with chants, drums, and bodies demanding life.

While #MeToo faced critique for privileging elite voices, Ni Una Menos grounded itself in mass populism, mothers of the disappeared, and survivors in precarious economies. Yet both reveal the paradox of visibility: testimony (online or in plazas) is simultaneously empowering and risky.

Global lesson: feminist movements resonate differently depending on whether the key site of struggle is the office, the courtroom, or the street.

2. Ni Una Menos and StopMolka (South Korea)

South Korea’s StopMolka protests (2018) against hidden-camera pornography parallel Ni Una Menos in their scale and digital resonance.

• Commonality: Both arose from crisis of violence normalized by culture and ignored by law. In Korea, spy-cam crimes proliferated with impunity; in Latin America, femicide was treated as “private tragedy.”

• Visibility: Korean feminists used hashtags (#StopMolka, #WithYou) to transform private fear into collective marches, just as Latin American feminists used Ni Una Menos to turn grief into continental protest.

• Difference: StopMolka was tightly bound to digital technology and surveillance capitalism, while Ni Una Menos mobilized against a wider nexus — machismo, austerity, and authoritarianism.

Global lesson: technology can be weapon and shield. Korean digital feminism shows how online testimony can mobilize tens of thousands, echoing Latin America’s use of plazas as analog “hashtags.”

3. Ni Una Menos and #TotalShutdown (South Africa)

In 2018, South African women organized the #TotalShutdown march against gender-based violence, declaring that the country should stop functioning until women were safe.

• Commonality: Both framed gender-based violence as national emergency. South African activists declared a “state of crisis”; Ni Una Menos used slogans like “Nos están matando” (“They are killing us”).

• Form: South Africa emphasized strike politics (work stoppage, shutdown of daily life), while Ni Una Menos leaned on marches, performance, and symbols like the green handkerchief.

• Intersectionality: In South Africa, the legacy of apartheid and racialized violence infused the movement; in Latin America, racism and Indigenous struggles are similarly intertwined with feminist agendas.

Global lesson: when violence is normalized, feminist protest must adopt language of emergency — shutdowns, strikes, crises — to force recognition.

4. Ni Una Menos and European Intersectionality (France & Germany)

In France and Germany, feminist debates often revolve around migration, religion, and labor. Veiling controversies in France and migrant caregiver struggles in Germany illustrate how European feminism grapples with borders and inclusion.

• Ni Una Menos teaches European feminists that feminism can thrive not only in elite debates over secularism or quotas but also in mass populist mobilizations connecting gender to economic justice.

• Conversely, European intersectionality offers Latin America tools to analyze internal exclusions: Indigenous and Afro-descendant voices sometimes sidelined within Ni Una Menos.

Global lesson: no feminism is pure; every movement must confront who is included and who is silenced.

5. The Role of Art and Aesthetics Across Movements

One striking comparison is the use of aesthetics:

• Ni Una Menos: green handkerchiefs, street murals, Las Tesis performances.

• MeToo: personal testimony, viral text narratives.

• StopMolka: digital memes, hashtag visuals.

• TotalShutdown: red clothing as symbol of crisis.

Each context shows how symbols condense complex struggles into portable, viral forms. Aesthetic politics allows movements to travel across borders — a handkerchief in Buenos Aires, a blindfold in Santiago, a hashtag in Seoul, a red shirt in Johannesburg — all communicating feminist urgency globally.

6. Shared Challenges Across Borders

Despite differences, feminist movements face similar obstacles:

• Backlash: Far-right populists demonize “gender ideology” (Bolsonaro in Brazil, Le Pen in France, anti-feminist trolls in Korea).

• Co-optation: Governments adopt feminist language without structural change.

• Fragmentation: Class, race, generation, and ideology create internal rifts.

• Exhaustion: Sustaining momentum after massive marches proves difficult.

These parallels underscore the global condition of feminist struggle: progress sparks resistance, visibility invites backlash, and survival requires resilience.

7. Why Ni Una Menos Stands Out

Among global feminist mobilizations, Ni Una Menos is distinctive for its scale, populism, and intersectionality in practice.

• Scale: Millions across a continent, not just single cities.

• Populism: Feminism framed as a mass democratic project, not elite discourse.

• Intersectionality: Issues of femicide, labor, race, and democracy intertwined organically, not imported from academia.

If #MeToo showed the power of individual testimony, and #StopMolka highlighted digital mobilization, Ni Una Menos demonstrated the transformative potential of feminist mass politics.

Synthesis

Comparing Ni Una Menos to global counterparts reveals that:

• Feminism adapts to local conditions yet resonates globally.

• Testimony (MeToo), technology (StopMolka), strikes (TotalShutdown), and aesthetics (Ni Una Menos) are different grammars of resistance.

• All face backlash, fragmentation, and the challenge of translating mobilization into structural change.

Thus, Ni Una Menos is not an isolated Latin American event but part of a transnational feminist wave. Its lesson is simple yet radical: when women declare “not one less,” they speak a language every movement can understand.

🔹 Policy Recommendations

The Ni Una Menos movement has illuminated both the scale of femicide and the structural roots of gender-based violence in Latin America. To move from protest to protection, from outrage to reform, coordinated action is needed across governments, civil society, international organizations, and private actors.

1. For Governments

a. Strengthen Legal Frameworks

• Uniform Femicide Laws: Harmonize definitions of femicide across Latin America to prevent judicial reclassification. Ensure mandatory sentencing guidelines with minimum penalties.

• Specialized Courts: Establish gender-based violence tribunals with trained judges and prosecutors.

• Victim-Centered Evidence Protocols: Ensure police collect evidence rapidly and sensitively, minimizing survivor retraumatization.

b. Enhance Survivor Services

• Expand shelter networks beyond capital cities, with services tailored to rural, Indigenous, and Afro-descendant women.

• Fund 24/7 hotlines with multilingual staff, accessible via phone and digital apps.

• Provide comprehensive survivor packages: legal aid, psychological counseling, financial stipends, and child support.

c. Address Economic Vulnerabilities

• Increase investment in women’s employment programs, particularly in formalizing domestic and care work.

• Expand conditional cash transfers tied to women’s safety and education.

• Integrate unpaid care work into national statistics and social policy to recognize and redistribute burdens.

d. Accountability Mechanisms

• Establish independent femicide observatories mandated to publish annual data on prosecutions, convictions, and survivor services.

• Require public reporting from ministries of justice and security on progress toward reducing femicide.

• Institute citizen oversight boards, with participation from feminist organizations, to monitor compliance.

2. For Civil Society & Feminist Movements

a. Strengthen Grassroots Organizing

• Build neighborhood feminist assemblies, particularly in marginalized communities.

• Train community promoters (promotoras) who can provide immediate support to survivors and act as liaisons to formal institutions.

b. Intersectional Inclusion

• Ensure Black, Indigenous, rural, LGBTQ+, and migrant women have leadership roles within feminist coalitions.

• Translate campaign materials into Indigenous languages and prioritize accessibility.

c. Feminist Data Initiatives

• Develop participatory mapping of femicides and disappearances to supplement official statistics.

• Document survivor testimonies and publish people’s reports to challenge state narratives.

d. Sustainability & Care

• Create networks of feminist mutual aid, including mental health support for activists.

• Guard against burnout by embedding practices of collective care in movement strategy.

3. For International Actors (NGOs, UN, Donors)

a. Funding Priorities

• Channel funding to grassroots, survivor-led organizations, not only professionalized NGOs.

• Provide flexible, long-term grants that support both mobilization and care infrastructure.

b. Accountability Pressure

• Use international human rights frameworks (CEDAW, Inter-American Court) to hold states accountable for femicide impunity.

• Support transnational litigation on landmark femicide cases.

c. South–South Solidarity

• Facilitate exchanges between Ni Una Menos and feminists in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, where similar struggles against systemic violence unfold.

• Build regional feminist observatories across MERCOSUR and the OAS.

4. For Technology & Media Actors

a. Media Responsibility

• Train journalists to report femicides with dignity, avoiding sensationalism and victim-blaming.

• Support feminist media outlets that center survivors’ perspectives.

b. Platform Accountability

• Social media platforms must adopt rapid takedown protocols for images or videos linked to gender violence.

• Introduce survivor-centered reporting tools to prevent digital harassment of feminists.

c. Amplify Feminist Aesthetics

• Support dissemination of feminist art, performance, and campaigns (e.g., Las Tesis).

• Fund digital archives to preserve chants, murals, and testimonies as living feminist heritage.

5. Cross-Sector Recommendations

a. Education & Cultural Transformation

• Integrate comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) into national curricula, emphasizing consent, gender equality, and anti-machismo.

• Fund public campaigns to challenge cultural norms of victim-blaming and normalize gender equality.

b. Institutional Parity

• Mandate gender parity in political representation at local and national levels.

• Embed feminist participation in policy-making bodies on justice, security, and education.

c. Crisis Preparedness

• Ensure gender-sensitive response protocols in crises (pandemics, natural disasters), recognizing that emergencies intensify domestic violence.

• Include feminist organizations in emergency response planning.

Synthesis

The recommendations converge on a central principle: ending femicide requires more than legal reforms; it demands systemic transformation across law, economy, culture, and politics.

• Governments must institutionalize protection.

• Civil society must sustain intersectional mobilization.

• International actors must provide resources and accountability.

• Media and technology must reshape narratives and platforms.

Only through multi-level, coordinated action can the cry of Ni Una Menos move from slogan to reality.

🔹 Implementation Pathways

Transforming Ni Una Menos from mass mobilization into lasting structural change requires clear implementation roadmaps. Reforms cannot occur overnight; they demand sequenced action across short, medium, and long-term horizons. The following pathways translate recommendations into phased strategies.

1. Short-Term (1–2 years): Building Immediate Safety Nets

a. Survivor-Centered Services

• Hotlines & Shelters: Expand national 24/7 hotlines staffed with trained counselors. Prioritize building temporary shelters in secondary cities and rural zones.

• Rapid Response Units: Deploy police units trained specifically for gender-based violence, equipped with survivor-sensitive protocols.

b. Judicial & Police Training

• Gender Sensitization Courses: Train judges, police, and prosecutors to reduce victim-blaming and secondary trauma.

• Fast-Track Courts: Pilot expedited processes for femicide cases to prevent judicial backlog.

c. Feminist Data Initiatives

• Establish national femicide observatories publishing monthly statistics.

• Mandate collection of disaggregated data (race, age, location) to reveal intersectional patterns.

d. Public Awareness Campaigns

• Launch nationwide media campaigns: “Ni Una Menos es responsabilidad del Estado” (“Not one less is the responsibility of the state”).

• Highlight survivor voices to destigmatize reporting and shift public discourse.

Example: In Argentina, the establishment of the “Observatorio de Femicidios” in 2015 provided baseline statistics that legitimized feminist demands and informed policy debates.

2. Medium-Term (3–5 years): Institutionalizing Structural Change

a. Legal & Judicial Reform

• Harmonization of Laws: Align femicide definitions regionally (through MERCOSUR and OAS frameworks).

• Specialized Tribunals: Scale up dedicated gender-based violence courts nationwide.

• Accountability Mechanisms: Annual performance reviews of police/judicial response published publicly.

b. Economic Justice Initiatives

• Formalizing Care Work: Recognize domestic labor legally; extend labor protections and social security.

• Women’s Employment Programs: Subsidize training and hiring in high-growth industries for women survivors.

• Cash Transfers: Implement conditional transfers linked to education, health, and safety for women at risk.

c. Education & Prevention

• Integrate Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) at primary and secondary levels.

• Train teachers to address gender equality and anti-violence curriculum.

d. Cross-Border Cooperation

• Establish a Latin American Regional Femicide Observatory, with pooled data and best practices.

• Facilitate judicial cooperation across borders in trafficking and disappearance cases.

Example: In Uruguay, feminist advocacy secured integration of gender-based violence prevention in national education programs — a model replicable regionally.

3. Long-Term (5–10 years): Transforming Culture and Governance

a. Cultural Transformation

• Nationwide Campaigns: Multi-year campaigns to dismantle machismo and normalize gender equality, modeled after anti-smoking or road safety efforts.

• Feminist Media Production: Fund independent feminist media outlets, films, and digital platforms that reshape narratives.

b. Political Representation & Parity

• Enact gender parity laws ensuring 50% representation in legislatures and local councils.

• Invest in leadership pipelines for Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and working-class women to diversify representation.

c. Sustainable Feminist Infrastructure

• Create permanent women’s ministries with guaranteed budgets.

• Institutionalize feminist participation in policymaking — advisory councils attached to ministries of justice, health, and education.

d. Transnational Feminist Networks

• Build a Continental Feminist Assembly that convenes every two years, linking activists, policymakers, and researchers.

• Encourage South–South solidarity with Africa and Asia, where parallel struggles against femicide and state violence unfold.

Example: Argentina’s abortion legalization (2020) illustrates how sustained feminist mobilization over years — combining street protest, legal advocacy, and cultural work — can culminate in transformative legal reform.

4. Cross-Cutting Principles

Across all stages, implementation should follow three guiding principles:

1. Survivor-Centeredness: Survivors must shape policy design, monitoring, and evaluation.

2. Intersectionality: Address the differentiated experiences of Indigenous, Afro-descendant, rural, LGBTQ+, and migrant women.

3. Transparency & Accountability: Regular public reporting, citizen oversight, and international monitoring must ensure commitments translate into outcomes.

Synthesis

The cry of Ni Una Menos — “Vivas nos queremos” (“We want us alive”) — cannot be answered by symbolic gestures alone. It requires short-term protection, medium-term institutional reform, and long-term cultural transformation.

• In the short term, safety nets and immediate protections save lives.

• In the medium term, institutionalization ensures reforms outlast political cycles.

• In the long term, cultural transformation dismantles machismo at its roots, embedding feminism into governance and daily life.

Only by following this sequenced pathway can Latin America move from the urgency of protest to the durability of justice.

🔹 Conclusion

The cry of Ni Una Menos — “Not one less” — began in grief but has become one of the most transformative feminist mobilizations of the 21st century. It emerged in Argentina in 2015 after the brutal murder of Chiara Páez, but it did not stop there. It spread across the continent, carried by mothers of the disappeared in Mexico, students in Chile, Black feminists in Brazil, and countless survivors who refused silence. In every plaza, march, and performance, the slogan expanded its meaning: not just a demand to end femicide, but a call for a new social contract built on gender justice, equality, and dignity.

The research presented here shows that Ni Una Menos is more than a protest — it is a pedagogy, a politics, and a promise. It teaches through chants and murals, it governs plazas as parliaments of the people, and it promises a world where women live free of fear. Yet the movement also reveals the limits of law, the resilience of patriarchy, and the intensity of backlash. Latin America has some of the strongest legal frameworks against femicide, yet impunity persists. Governments pledge support, yet survivors still lack shelters, counseling, or protection. And for every feminist march, there is a counter-march denouncing “gender ideology.”

This contradiction — between mass mobilization and fragile protection — underscores the urgency of sustained action. Laws must be enforced, institutions must be reformed, cultures must be transformed. Feminism cannot remain confined to the plaza; it must enter courts, schools, ministries, and media systems. At the same time, the vitality of Ni Una Menos lies in its refusal to be tamed — its chants, its art, its bodies in the street ensure that feminism remains a living force, not an abstract policy.

Globally, Ni Una Menos contributes a crucial lesson: feminism is not only for elites or institutions. It can be populist without being reactionary, intersectional without being fractured, and transnational without being homogenized. Unlike movements that circulate primarily through social media hashtags or academic debates, Ni Una Menos spreads through plazas, handkerchiefs, and chants — tangible, embodied forms of solidarity. Its resonance with #MeToo, #StopMolka, and #TotalShutdown shows that feminist languages differ but remain mutually intelligible: grief, rage, and hope are universal.

For policymakers, the movement insists that femicide is not an isolated crime but a systemic emergency. For civil society, it demonstrates the power of grassroots organizing and the necessity of intersectional inclusion. For international actors, it reminds us that solidarity must be more than rhetoric — it must translate into resources, accountability, and protection.

Above all, Ni Una Menos offers a vision: a continent where no woman is treated as disposable, where memory honors the dead, and where futures are reclaimed for the living. Its message reverberates far beyond Latin America: until women are safe, no society is truly free.

As this report concludes, the task remains unfinished. The plazas are still filled with chants of “Nos están matando” — “They are killing us.” But alongside the mourning, there is also defiance, creativity, and solidarity. If governments, institutions, and societies heed the call, Ni Una Menos can become not only a cry of resistance but a blueprint for feminist futures everywhere.

Not one less — not in Argentina, not in Latin America, not in the world.