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How gender-based violence has become a reality in Mexico

people walking on street during daytime

Last month, feminist activists and collectives seized the Mexican National Commission For Human Rights located in the downtown area. This was a protest towards government authorities and their unresponsiveness dealing with the feminicides occurring every day in our country.

This event was part of a wave of protests all around the country against state impunity, demanding justice for the victims of feminicides and gender violence. A feminicide is defined as the violent death of a woman simply because of their gender, typified in the penal system as the most extreme form of violence towards a woman.

However, the majority of them go unpunished and forgotten by police and state officials.

This year, between January and June, 489 feminicides were registered according to data from the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System (SESNSP) which itself has been exposed in the past for providing incomplete data. That means that not even during a global pandemic in which many of us stayed inside for quite some time, we were actually safe.

In the state of Sonora, Ana Paola, a 13-year-old little girl with dreams of becoming a dancer was sexually assaulted, beaten, and brutally murdered in her own home while her parents went to the supermarket during the COVID-19 quarantine. Hundreds of cases like Ana's go unseen, excused or dismissed by authorities. This is due to "lack of evidence", or sexist prejudices like the feminicide of Danna, a 16-year-old in Mexicali who was murdered and burnt.

The State Attorney General victim-blamed the deceased, saying it was "very sad. They blamed Danna's tattoos, stating residents "must be very careful of our youth and not let them fall into a life of delinquency."

On social media, I've had to deal with trolls minimizing the problem with comments regarding protests stating "those aren't the correct ways to protest", making fun of gruesome murders, joking and comparing the pictures of the corpse with ground meat, victim-blaming, accusing women of being delicate or provocative to assault and just over all trying to discredit the movement.

The things happening in this country are truly atrocities. Girls being raped by policemen, boyfriends butchering their girlfriends because they are pregnant, teachers molesting students and harassing them publicly in classrooms, women being strangled on campus in their ow university because of jealous classmates.

People seem to forget the majority of violent cases towards women were men they already knew and trusted. The most important thing for our president Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador? The mega-projects and austerity measures to adorn his party. A fucking train is of more importance than the lives of hundreds of Mexican women.

It's truly frustrating to read or hear about women disappearing and reappearing dead every day all around you. To hear mothers imploring government officials to please find their little girl. To see your friends go missing and the police telling you "she probably ran off with her boyfriend" only to find out they were in a bag, lifeless, and abandoned in the middle of nowhere.

But most of all, it is even harder and more heartbreaking to discover most men don't think it's a big deal.

We must remember their names, and demand justice. As feminists, we must continue fighting for our lives- quite literally- whatever it takes, until Mexico finally realizes that there is something very wrong with its people. I am a university student, and being a woman in a feminicide state, I fear for my life, but find strength when I hear my fellow feminists taking action and chanting "no estás sola" (you aren't alone).

I hope one day my country finds peace and women are no longer murdered for their gender and we can live freely, rather than survive.

Women founders continue to come up against common challenges and biases

Written by Kelly Devine, Division President UK & Ireland, Mastercard

Starting a business may have historically been perceived as a man’s game, but this couldn’t be further from reality. Research shows women are actually more likely than men to actively choose to start their own business – often motivated by the desire to be their own boss or to have a better work-life balance and spend more time with their family.

The recently published Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurship 2021 found that in the category of 'Aspiration Driven Entrepreneurship’ – capturing those who actively choose to start their own business – women in the UK surpass men: 60% vs 56%. And Mastercard research from February 2022 found 10% of female business owners started their business in the past two years compared to 6% of men – meaning women were 67% more likely to have started a business during the pandemic.

Yet, there are common challenges that women founders continue to come up against - not least the gender imbalance in the household and long-held biases which are still prevalent.

In the UK, women are almost three times more likely to be balancing care and home commitments than men, and this was exacerbated during the pandemic as the additional barriers of school closures and lockdowns meant that the care time of dependents rose significantly on a day-to-day level for women. In addition, women were less likely to have access to a home office, greatly impacting the work they were able to accomplish when working from home was the only option.

It's also widely known that female business owners are still more likely to struggle to access funding for their business ideas. According to Dealroom, all-women founding teams received just 1.4% of the €23.7bn invested into UK start-ups in 2021, while all-male leadership teams have taken almost 90% of the available capital.

Without financial support, and when juggling significant time pressures both at home and at work, how can women grow their companies and #BreaktheBias (as this year’s International Women’s Day termed it)? What tools or support can save them time and money, and give them the headspace they need to focus on building their business?

With female owned businesses collectively estimating revenue growth of £120 billion over the next five years, solving this problem is bigger than supporting women – it’s about supporting the national economy.

Using tech to level the playing field

There are clearly societal issues at play that need to be resolved. But when we look at the rise in technology businesses during the pandemic, we can plainly see an alternative source of support critical for business growth: digital tools.

A third of female business owners say new technologies will be crucial to the success of their business in the future and one in five say it is the most important thing for business growth.

With new technology comes new ways to pay, create, and work. And yet there are barriers that prevent business owners accessing this technology. Women are significantly more likely to say they want to use more digital tools but don’t know what is best for their business and also more concerned about the security of digital tools.

When technology is adopted by businesses – whether using online accounting solutions or messenger services for communicating with staff – it saves them time, allows them to maintain and grow their customer base, and ultimately increases cost savings and profit.

By drastically improving the training and support that is available to women-owned business to access and utilise technology we will allow these businesses to grow and succeed. And we know there is demand for it.

Research done by the IFC and Dalberg shows that female entrepreneurs are more likely to invest time and money in business development. This includes product development, customer base expansion, and digital tools and training and there are plenty of services available offering this type of support – many of them for free.

One such programme is Strive UK – an initiative of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth – which aims to reach 650,000 micro and small business owners across the UK and empower them with the tools they need to thrive in the digital economy through free guidance, helpful tools and one-to-one mentoring.

Working together with small business experts – Enterprise Nation, Be the Business and Digital Boost – we hope to ensure hundreds of thousands of UK female business owners have the tools they need to succeed and reach their ambitious goals. Because this ambition remains strong in the UK, with female business owners largely optimistic about the future despite the multitude of challenges they are facing. Four in ten say they will grow their business in the next five years – compared to only a third of male business owners – and they’re also 35% less likely than men to say they plan to downsize or close the business.

But if we do not empower female entrepreneurs to access the tools and technology they need to grow, there is a risk this optimism could be misplaced. Support programmes that provide business owners with guidance and mentorship can help ensure this isn’t the case, allowing female entrepreneurs to not only survive but thrive in the months and years ahead.