‘People are feeling impotent; marching raises our hopes’, says Claudia Hasanbegovic, the femicide lawyer WRV’s Marilyn Thomson spoke to for this alarming piece on the backlash against feminism in Argentina under Milei and civil demonstrations resisting against it.
Thousands upon thousands of people have been taking to the streets in Argentina since President Milei came to power in Argentina, protesting against the attack on equality rights historically enshrined in the Constitution.
For the past few months, every Wednesday a group of pensioners has been demonstrating outside Congress against the government’s economic policies, which have led to increasing poverty and an erosion of people’s income. The pensioners were joined on March 19 by a large group of football fans from different clubs who mobilized in support of the pensioners. This led to a confrontation with the police who used teargas and rubber bullets to clear the streets. Caught in the middle were many old people who were clubbed and beaten by police, with a reported 640 people injured and 114 arrested.
On March 24, the 49th anniversary of the 1976 Military Coup in Argentina, Human Rights organisations united to demand ‘Never Again’. Banners called for Memory, Truth, and Justice, and commemorated the 30,000 disappeared and other victims of the coup. They protested against Milei’s economic policies and the current government’s attempts to silence dissident voices, just as the military dictators did. More than 20 human rights organisations marched together with the Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and Estela de Carlotto, the leader of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, spoke at the demonstration: ‘We have the strength of our people’s history, and that’s why Milei and [Vice President Victoria] Villarruel aim to deny the genocide and dismantle our achievements in terms of memory, truth and justice,’ de Carlotto stated.
This is just the latest of many street protests by citizens. In February huge demonstrations in Buenos Aires and other cities brought together a wide range of people: pensioners; students; Indigenous people; women’s, trans, and LGBTQ+ pride organisations; disability groups; church groups; health workers and many others in support of women’s and LGBTQ+ rights. They were demonstrating against the social policies of Milei’s government and the misogynistic, homophobic, and transphobic views that he shared with the world at the Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland in January.
The president gave a long, rambling speech at the summit in which he attacked feminism, diversity, inclusion, abortion, environmentalism, and gender ideology, saying that progressive policies are a ‘cancer that must be eradicated.’ Milei wildly asserted that gender ideology is child abuse, and that homosexual couples are associated with paedophilia. He also attacked the abortion law in Argentina and radical feminism which he described as ‘a distortion of the concept of equality’, a way of demanding privileges and pitting half the population against the other.
On International Women’s Day thousands of women and girls took to the streets in Buenos Aires and other cities with their demands. The 8 March was heavily policed with officers lining the major avenues.
‘We go out on the streets with our green scarfs held high and proud, to reassert that the feminist and trans-feminist wave is still alive and moving to defend the historic rights we’ve conquered,’ the National Campaign for Abortion stated.
A statement from the NiUnaMenos collective read: ‘Congress can’t ignore the popular power of the masses and those on the streets without putting the very idea of democracy at risk. Life, freedom, desire and rights are on our side’.
Milei vs femicide
The International Women’s Day protests are a direct response to Milei’s many controversial attacks on women’s hard-won rights. The President wants to erase the legal definition of ‘femicide’ (the killing of women because they are women, often a result of domestic violence) from the Penal Code. He said that sentencing is much tougher for the crime of femicide than when a man is the murder victim, which means that under the law a woman’s life is worth more than a man’s. For Milei, eliminating the legal definition of femicide will uphold equality for men.
The Minister for Justice, Mario Cuneo Libarona ratified the president’s statement saying that the administration defended equality before the law. This despite the fact that in the first month of 2025 there was one gender-related killing every 24 hours. According to a report in the newspaper Pagina12, 60 per cent of the aggressors were the partners or ex-partners of the victims.
A few days after this announcement, sources in the Casa Rosada said they were reassessing the decision because if they eliminated the crime of femicide they might have to release hundreds of prisoners sentenced for femicide, as it would no longer be a crime.
‘This would be an atomic bomb against women’, Claudia Hasanbegovic, a feminist lawyer who works on cases of femicide, told LAB. She explained that the proposed change to the law would mean that femicide would not be recognized as a gender-related crime. A change in the law would also affect the provision of benefits in the Ley Brisa de compension para huérfanos which provides financial support for children when their mother is killed and their father imprisoned for femicide, which benefits over 250 children each year until they reach the age of majority. Claudia added:
‘[Milei] is taking away all the social policies that helped women. He hasn’t yet changed the law on abortion because he is scared of another Green Wave [the massive continental campaign that led to the law being approved] but his policies are making it more difficult for women to access abortion medication and services, and this particularly affects poor women.’
An anti-feminist agenda
This is a continuation of the government’s anti-feminist agenda by which it says it will put an end to ‘positive discrimination’ – which are those policies that favour women. Since Milei was elected in December 2023 he has attacked women’s rights, closing down the Ministry for Women and Gender Equality, cutting funding for the violence against women helpline, reproductive rights programmes, maternal health services and some education programmes such as sex education in state schools.
The latest blow is a cut to the provision of medication for HIV patients and a 40 per cent reduction of staff in the HIV/AIDS prevention service. Funding has also been cut for the Bonaparte Hospital which specializes in mental health and offers counselling services for survivors of domestic violence and a mobile service in poor communities supporting local mental health programmes, which is especially important for women.
Since taking office, Milei has implemented a number of austerity measures in healthcare, the latest includes 1,400 layoffs at the Ministry of Health. In a press conference, presidential spokesperson Manuel Adorni said the ban would include hormone therapy and pushbacks in legislation on trans rights.
