Mexicable Project, Part I

Feminicidio, translated as femicide or feminicide in English, is the deliberate killing of a woman or girl because of their gender. Femicide has been recognised as a crime in Mexico since 2007, however it remains a huge social problem. Gender-related killing of women and girls is a worldwide tragedy, and not unique to Ecatepec or Mexico at large – and yet, despite growing awareness over the last few decades, incidences of femicide in Mexico have continued to rise to an average of ten per day.² Gender-based violence of all forms is widespread, with more than half of all Mexican women estimated to have faced emotional, physical, sexual or economic violence from men, either strangers or partners, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography.³

These groups argue that the on-going crisis is not simply a problem of violent men, but the problem of the laws and cultures that allow violence against women and girls to continue with impunity. They criticise the Mexican government’s lack of political willpower to enforce legislation and to take the problem of femicide more seriously. As a result, some estimates from Mexico’s national human rights commission suggest that 90 per cent of registered femicides go unpunished, with no convictions.⁵

Far from being a niche issue, femicide exposes a complex web of social, cultural, and economic inequalities facing Mexican women and making them more vulnerable to gender-based crime – from a culture of machismo and male dominance⁶ to a gender wage gap of almost 35 per cent.⁷ As feminist anthropologist Marcela Lagarde y de los Ríos explains, femicide occurs when social conditions and practices allow for it – when gender inequality is tolerated and violent attempts against the lives and liberties of girls and women become normalised and accepted. If the government is incapable of guaranteeing respect for women’s lives and rights, Lagarde argues, then this makes feminicidio “a state crime.”⁸

The protest movement against femicide expresses the community’s shock, outrage, and mourning for those who have lost their lives, but it is also seen as a call for greater change – devoting more resources to investigating femicide cases, enforcing tougher sentences, and investing in women’s rights to safety and freedom.

A United Nations report from 2018 advised that women-centred community efforts to coordinate with local justice, health, education, and social services – like those practised by the Instituto de la Mujer – are vital to the fight against femicide, alongside effective preventative and criminal justice measures to promote women’s safety and empowerment and ensure offender accountability.¹⁰

Inspired by his conversations and collaboration with community organisers at the institute, van Helten’s mural design represents two women from different generations acting in concert to improve the lives of women in Estado de Mexico. Colour is often used in Mexican architecture, and Van Helten chose to feature the colour pink to link the two women’s portraits – pink is prominent in the streets of Ecatepec, but it has also become the unofficial symbolic colour of the movement against femicide, and is used to commemorate its victims.

Bringing together these symbols, the painting was created in support of the social movement against femicide and for the advancement and empowerment of women and girls as a priority for the state. Like the social movement, the painting intends to memorialise women’s lives and to draw attention to the bearing of femicide on women’s psyches.

Part of a constellation of murals commissioned by the government along the Mexicable route, the mural is visible to commuters riding the cable car above.

Van Helten also painted a mural, titled Valeria, on one of the cable car stations – Station #6 “Deportivo” – in the seven-stop Mexicable line.

Launched in late 2016, the country’s first public cable car service was designed to bypass Ecatepec’s notoriously congested streets. The Mexicable system not only suits Ecatepec’s mountainous setting, but helps overcome the city’s chaotic sprawl – a consequence of limited urban planning and of Ecatepec’s population spike following the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City.¹² The lack of planning not only led to traffic congestion and punishing commuter journeys but is also, according to activist María Salguero Bañuelos, another factor impacting women’s safety in Ecatepec: “Everything is spread out. People have to travel two hours to get into Mexico City. There is no street lighting. You have to cross vacant lots. It gives refuge to predators.”¹³

Powered by solar energy and equipped with surveillance security, the Mexicable has been praised for providing a quick, safe, and accessible mode of transport for the municipality’s low-income workers,¹⁴ and for improving safety for the female commuters among them. Safe public transportation is one of UN Women’s key strategies for ending violence against women and girls, allowing women to exercise their right to freedom of movement and their right to use and enjoy the city and its public spaces.¹⁵