By Tatiana Balvin
The fear of walking the streets of the center of Medellín is even greater for women, in which three female representatives from different sectors that come together in this area of the city agreed: Fenalco, Bellas Artes and Museo de Antioquia.
This perception of insecurity is reaffirmed by the center’s figures. According to the Medellín Security Secretariat, during the first months of 2023 in La Candelaria, 1,615 complaints have been made for theft, an increase of 7% compared to the previous year, the commune with the most cases in the city. The most common modalities are robbery, tickling and raponazo, of which 39% are women victims.
“I do not feel safe in the center, because I am afraid that my computer, watch or whatever I have on me will be stolen, for two years I have felt totally insecure,” said María del Rosario Escobar, director of the Museum of Antioquia.
This perception coincides with that of Paula Andrea Botero, Rector of Fine Arts: “a few years ago I felt safe, like a warrior in the center, but now unfortunately I have the feeling of threat all the time, I am alert all the time and I take risks When I go out at night, it’s sad,” added the academic.
However, this is not the only crime on the rise in this commune, in 2023 in the center 27 residences and 146 commercial establishments have been stolen, in addition the area leads the cases of personal injuries: of the 878 complaints that have been filed in the city , 180 belong to the center and in 46% of the cases the victims are female.
And it is that in the center this year people have not behaved well, of the 25,587 corrective measures for misconduct, 10,062 correspond to neighborhoods of commune 10 (39% of the total for the city). The fines issued by the police are mainly given for carrying weapons and consuming prohibited substances in public spaces.
In this sense, the executive director of Fenalco Antioquia, María José Bernal, pointed out that women and the population in general do not feel safe in the center due to many factors, including the uncontrolled traffic of homeless people.
Although in the public scenario the panorama is worrisome, in the private or at home it is not a safe place either. Although La Candelaria does not lead the cases of domestic violence, there is an increase in the indicator of this crime. This year there are 120 cases, compared to 86 in the same period of the previous year; 72% of the complaints are made by women.
“We are immersed in a cultural system of extremely high dependency and low self-esteem that generates the ideal conditions for many women to accept abuse,” notes the director of the Museum of Antioquia.
Likewise, the Rector of Fine Arts assures that there is no reason to judge those women who repeat acts of violence, since many enter into circles of violence unconsciously according to their perspective, “repeating practices and naturalizing them simply because in our imagination that it is the ideal of affection, love or family. What we must tell women is that this is not normal and we must show them other models of being a woman”.
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