The event in honor of International Women’s Day, also known as 8M, brought together thousands of people at Esquina Democrática (Center of Porto Alegre) on the afternoon of this Thursday (14). Postponed due to flooding last week, the demonstration marked six years since the murder of councilor Marielle Franco, who died on this date in 2018.
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“Marielle is one of the women who unifies the feminist struggle”, said state deputy Bruna Rodrigues (PCdoB). “She makes black women and white women, with their different feminisms, meet to demand that they stop killing us. Today we meet once again to demand that this state – which is the fourth state that kills the most women – has a state secretariat for women’s policy.” Bruna refers to data from 2020, when 78 women were victims of feminicide in the state. In 2023, the number rose to 87 dead women.
In addition to the end of violence against women, the protesters demanded equal wages, full-time daycare and other public policies that guarantee female emancipation. The demand for an end to the genocide in the Gaza Strip was also highlighted.
“Our country is one of the most advanced when it comes to legislation, but it is in the law, it is not in our lives”, said Fabiane Dutra, who presides over the Brazilian Union of Women of Rio Grande do Sul. “We need everyone guaranteed rights. To guarantee them, we need to be involved in politics, whether in neighborhood associations, academic directors, we need to exercise our citizenship.”
Professor Juliana de Souza, from the MultipliCidade collective, denounced the dismantling of public policies and the protection network for women victims of violence in Porto Alegre. “Last year, three women lost their lives to the patriarchy’s power over our bodies. We need to affirm a feminist agenda for our city. We need women to be in spaces of power. Because it is in our homes that we feel when the queue at the health center does not move forward, when we wait for an appointment with a specialist, for our families, when social assistance does not arrive, when education is not of good quality, we are the ones who must build another project for our city”, he highlighted.
After gathering at Esquina Democrática, the protest continued along Avenida Borges de Medeiros and ended at Largo Zumbi dos Palmares.
