On struggle and conquest: Reflecting on the Mirabal Sisters 64 Years Later
In 1999, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) declared 25 November as the Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, commemorating years of efforts and calling for global action to end gender-based violence. Its origins lie in the murder of the Mirabal sisters, three activists who were killed in 1960 in the Dominican Republic for opposing the Trujillo dictatorship. Minerva, María Teresa and Patricia are popularly known as ‘Las Mariposas’ – The Butterflies -.
Although the struggle against the dictatorial regime was extensive, Trujillo’s behaviour towards the Mirabal sisters was different. Historically, women have been particularly punished for not occupying the place traditionally assigned to them in society. This can be observed, for example, in Latin American dictatorships as well as in Franco’s dictatorship. Resocialisation consisted of teaching the logic of what was supposedly feminine: sewing, cooking, cleaning. The form of punishment consisted of ‘defeminising’ them by shaving their hair, stripping them of their clothes and various forms of humiliating treatment.
Gender-based violence is one of the most widespread human rights violations in the world throughout the centuries, cutting across systems of governance and ideologies and going beyond physical violence to encompass psychological, sexual, economic and structural forms of violence.
The concern for equal rights between men and women was present in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but it took several decades to achieve instruments that were truly binding on states. In 1979, the UN adopted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which entered into force in 1981 and has now been ratified by 189 States. This Convention provides basic elements for the search for gender equality and, together with its Optional Protocol, constitutes the main international instrument for the promotion, defence and enforceability of women’s human rights, as well as for unveiling the bias in human rights practice.
Forty-five years after its adoption, the importance of law as a tool for social transformation promoted by the population can be appreciated. Many female activists and practitioners from different disciplines have been able to take a critical view of law, especially positive law, increasingly clarifying the role it plays in legitimising a patriarchal system based on discrimination, oppression and inequality. Instead, the law can also be used to establish strategies to overcome the various forms of violence and discrimination suffered by women, as well as to raise awareness.
Spain ratified the Convention in 1992, making it part of its domestic legal system. (art.96.1 CE). In May 2023, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, established to follow up on progress made by States, presented the concluding observations of the 9th periodic report on Spain. It welcomed the satisfactory legislative progress and policy efforts. However, it recommended that the Spanish State consolidate in the practice the policies for the prevention of violence against women, reinforcing the identification of situations of vulnerability and the prevention of recidivism.
In a similar manner, organisations such as Amnesty International indicate that in Spain there are multiple obstacles to the protection and identification of victims, and a deficiency in the collection of data which is then reflected in the statistics.
In addition to legislation, human and material resources need to be applied in order to bring a real and tangible change in women’s lives. To this end, training at all levels and, above all, within the judiciary is essential to break with the system of structural oppression and gender stereotypes that contaminate society.
With equality as the force that raises their flag and creativity always present in their forms of expression, women continue their revolution, passing it on from generation to generation and providing each of them with more rights and better social realities. Far from being a merely symbolic date, the Day against the Elimination of Violence against Women has a clear focus: to take concrete practical steps to eliminate gender-based violence through education, legislation, activism and prevention.
Macarena Bertone, FIBGAR collaborator
25 November 2024
