This Friday (11) the Argentine court overturned Manuel Mansilla’s conviction for the murder of his girlfriend Chiara Paéz, in May 2015. Femicide was the trigger for the emergence of the “Ni Una a Menos” movement against gender violence. , which reached other Latin American countries.
At that time, the Argentinian population watched in amazement as 15 murders of women took place in less than three months — one every six days —, the perpetrators of which were, for the most part, the victims’ partners.
The Supreme Court of the province of Santa Fe overturned the conviction and ordered a retrial of the case on the grounds that Mansilla’s sentence of 21 years and 6 months in prison was unconstitutional. This is because he was 17 years old and therefore a minor at the time of the crime.
In practice, the decision also reduces the possible conviction in a new verdict, which cannot exceed 15 years.
Mansilla confessed to the crime at the time. Chiara was 14 years old and eight weeks pregnant when she was beaten to death by her boyfriend. The girl’s body was found buried in the backyard of the boy’s grandparents’ house, in the city of Rufino, about 500 kilometers from Buenos Aires.
The sentence now annulled had been determined in 2017, when the movement that his crime originated had already completed more than two years.
Less than a month after Chiara’s murder, calls for demonstrations went viral on social media and took thousands of women to the streets of Argentina. Later, the protests against gender violence spilled over to other Latin American countries, such as Chile, Mexico and Uruguay.
June 3 has since been marked as a day of marches against gender violence in several countries, giving rise to the “Ni Uma a Menos” movement — which began to incorporate other feminist agendas, such as the right to abortion.
In 2021 alone, there were 256 femicides recorded in Argentina, according to data compiled by the civil organization Ahora Sí Que Nos Ven.
Among the victims, 42 had previously reported against the aggressors and 24 had judicial protection measures, such as anti-panic buttons and proximity restrictions.
