Co-ChairNorth, Ruth’s Blog: 1st April 2024
Greetings!
You may have noticed that I haven’t written a blog for several weeks. This is because Michael and I had a holiday of a lifetime in South America. Having visited Colombia last year and hosted Sister Santusa from Bolivia, we wanted to visit other countries in that Continent. We saw some amazing things and the holiday will live long in our memory.
One of the highlights of our holiday was to visit Buenos Aires, the capital city of Argentina. After a tour of this beautiful city we found ourselves in the Plaza de Mayo, which is bordered by the Cathedral and the Presidential Palace, and I realised that this is the public square where the Mothers and Grandmothers of the ‘disappeared’ meet every Thursday to petition for the recovery of their disappeared children and grandchildren who were taken by the Military during the ‘Dirty War’ of 1976 to 1983. Many of the kidnapped women were pregnant and allowed to have their babies but were then murdered and their children were given up for adoption to couples who were sympathetic to the Argentinian Military Dictatorship. 30,000 citizens who have disappeared have been unaccounted for. Since then, the ‘Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo’, have demanded answers about what happened to their loved ones.
Every Thursday, the Mothers and Grandmothers fill the square, wearing white scarves on their heads, to represent the nappies of their grandchildren, which have been embroidered with their names. They march into the square and then stand in silent protest in solidarity against rape and violence. Through DNA testing they have been able to trace some of the children but there are thousands that are still ‘missing’.
As I stood in that square on the marker facing the Presidential Palace, I thought about the thousands of women and children who are suffering in Gaza, Sudan, and Haiti as well as Argentina. We must stand in solidarity with all victims of abuse, rape and violence. Surely, wearing black once a week is a small price to pay to support women who are suffering. Will you join me on ‘Thursdays in Black?’
Blessings
Ruth
