Femicides

298 femicides occurred in Argentina from January 1 to December 31, 2020. Every 29 hours a woman was killed by a man just because she was a woman.

In this long photographic-documentary project about Femicides we decided to look at the uncomfortable, shifting the focus and putting it on the femicide and on the patriarchal framework in which we live and where male violence nest, and we ask ourselves: Who is this man?.

We are interested in digging into their stories, running the surface of each case: Is this man who works next to you/me in the office capable of that? Is this person who was your schoolmate capable of such cruelty?.

We look at the femicide in order to break with certain pre-established constructions of analysis questioning the social framework where femicide occurs and where patriarchy lie in these acts of violence.

As anthropologist Rita Segato says: "that last gesture that is a crime, is the product of a number of minor gestures that are in everyday life and that are not crimes, but are also aggressions. And that make a breeding ground to cause this last degree of aggression that is typified as a crime... but that would never happen if society were not the way it is".

Femicides are news, appear every day in the media. Generally journalistic treatment lacks a gender perspective and the victim is re victimized.
If it is possible to watch through security cameras in a newscast how a man chases a woman he doesn't know and decides to kill her, how can we not see ourselves reflected in that victim. Nicole, Karen, Lucía, Marita, Belén. There is no woman's name that does not respond to a murdered woman, any of them could have been us. And to be aware of that is shocking and terrifying.

Through these cases, which occurred in different geographical areas of the country, with different social links and classes, we seek to highlight a general global situation, taking these particular stories as a starting point.

We only deal with cases that have already been tried and convicted with the aggravation of femicide and/or gender violence and that are serving their sentences.

© RuedaPhotos Collective - Image from the Femicides photography project
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Lucas Azcona case file. Sentenced to life imprisonment for the femicide of Nicole Sessarego, a 21 year old Chilean student who was murdered on July 15, 2014. In Argentina, life imprisonment means 35 years of confinement, since there is no such thing as life imprisonment.

© RuedaPhotos Collective - Image from the Femicides photography project
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City of Viedma, Province of Rio Negro. Satelital view of the outskirts of the city where the Hippodrome is located and where the lifeless body of Karen Alvarez, 14 years old, was found on October 26, 2014. Karen was raped by several men, beaten with a local stone on her head, and hanged with her own jean.

© RuedaPhotos Collective - Image from the Femicides photography project
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Pablo G. Jofré's hands. He is one of the murderers of Karen Alvarez. Karen was 14 years old when she was taken to the outskirts of the city, near the racetrack. Her body was found two days after she disappeared. Pablo G. Jofré is serving a life sentence in the Provincial Prison of the City of Viedma, Province of Rio Negro.

© RuedaPhotos Collective - Image from the Femicides photography project
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Portrait of Carlos G. Mobilio in the Provincial Prison of Gral. Roca, Rio Negro Province, where he is serving a life sentence for the femicide of Karen Alvarez.1) To sentence Carlos G. Mobilio and Pablo G. Jofré to life imprisonment for being considered co-perpetrators of the crime of aggravated sexual abuse [...] and for having killed a woman through gender violence.

© RuedaPhotos Collective - Image from the Femicides photography project
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Textuals by Pablo G. Jofre from the interview we did with him at Colonia nº 12 penitentiary in Viedma, Rio Negro, Argentina. "My life was locked up. I've been locked up since I was a kid". "My real name is Lucas. I used to do shit with one name and then I was doing shit with another and I used to go from city to city and I always got away because I didn't have an ID". “I stayed here. I met a girl. I needed some love.” "They told me that I had to do a job, they took me... so let's go. When I went to see it was a girl, it was Karen." "I met Karen, yes I met her, I was at her house, I met her brother."

© RuedaPhotos Collective - Image from the Femicides photography project
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Santiago Bongiovanni, son of Mauro Bongiovanni, the femicide of Marita Lanzetti, his mother. He has carried his mother's chain with him since that day.

© RuedaPhotos Collective - Image from the Femicides photography project
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Front of the family house of Maria Eugenia Lanzetti and Mauro Bongiovanni. Marita, as she was commonly called, had a restraining order against Mauro her husband. He violated this order on several occasions. Most of the violence that women suffer takes place in the family environment and inside the home.

© RuedaPhotos Collective - Image from the Femicides photography project
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Mauro Bongiovanni case file. Diagram of injuries suffered in the body of María Eugenia Lanzetti as a consequence of the blows inflicted on her by her husband Mauro Bongiovanni. Maria Eugenia filed a complaint at the police station and was examined by a forensic doctor. A drawing of a male human body was used to represent the injuries sustained on her body, although the victim was a woman.

© RuedaPhotos Collective - Image from the Femicides photography project
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Almost 40% of the femicides in Argentina are carried out with sharp weapons. In most cases, women had previously reported gender-based violence. Left: Mauro Bongiovanni case file. Knife used by Mauro Bongiovanni in the femicide of María Eugenia Lanzetti. Right: extracts from the denunciations made by María Eugenia Lanzetti against her husband Mauro Bongiovani (from whom she was separated). The accusations are for gender violence and because Mauro broke the restriction measures on several occasions

© RuedaPhotos Collective - Image from the Femicides photography project
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Apron of María Eugenia Lanzetti at the time of the femicide. Marita (as they used to call her) was a kindergarten teacher and worked in a kindergarten. Her husband (from whom she was separated) burst into the kindergarten and in front of the children and another teacher who was there in the classroom with Marita, murdered her with a knife.

© RuedaPhotos Collective - Blood traces found at the scene of the femicide of Nicole Sessarego.
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Blood traces found at the scene of the femicide of Nicole Sessarego.

© RuedaPhotos Collective - Image from the Femicides photography project
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Capture of surveillance cameras of stores in the area where the pursuit of Lucas Azcona to Nicole Sessarego minutes before committing the femicide can be seen.

© RuedaPhotos Collective - Image from the Femicides photography project
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Textual from the interview we made to Lucas Azcona in the Penitentiary Nº 1 of Ezeiza, Buenos Aires, Argentina. "I turn around, with this hand I already start touching that railing going up. At the last one I grab it hard and a word comes to my mind that says: let her go, go to your work and nothing else. I let go of that (the railing) and what happened happened." "A person was going to die that day because I felt like it." "I never had a bond with her, we didn't know each other, it was random.

© RuedaPhotos Collective - Image from the Femicides photography project
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Lucas Azcona case file. Photo of a tattoo on Lucas Azcona's arm with the figure of a woman. Poem written by Lucas Azcona and dedicated to his mother. The poem was written inside the prison while he was serving his life sentence for the femicide of Nicole Sessarego.

© RuedaPhotos Collective - Photos from the family album of Lucas Azcona femicide by Nicole Sessarego.
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Photos from the family album of Lucas Azcona femicide by Nicole Sessarego.

© RuedaPhotos Collective - Image from the Femicides photography project
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Portrait of Lucas Azcona at Ezeiza National Prison No. 1, Buenos Aires Province, where he is serving a life sentence for the femicide of Nicole Sessarego. The Federal Court N 15 of the Federal Capital resolved:1) To sentence Lucas Ariel Azcona to life imprisonment for being considered fully responsible for the crime of aggravated homicide for having been committed with malice aforethought and femicide.

© RuedaPhotos Collective - Image from the Femicides photography project
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Self-inflicted scarification (I love you daddy) by Lucas Azcona the day before he was handed over to the police by his father and sister for the femicide of Nicoles Sessarego. They saw on the news the videos from the street security cameras that filmed Lucas Azcona's pursuit of Nicole Sessarego and Milagros, Lucas' sister, recognized him by the way he walked.

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