Yaku’s election claims reviewed; Covid cases peak after holidays; Planning for government transition begins; Violence against women surges in pandemic

Jueves, 8/3/2021

Hola, Todos –

Actividades –
Nada.

Otras cosas –

Titular – Mujeres, sin empleo y víctimas de violencia (Women, unemployed and victims of violence) – <Happy International Women’s Day> Confinement because of Covid has aggravated violence against and increased the workload of women. Sonia Martínez, an attorney, law professor and researcher into gender violence, said that in just marzo of 2020, ECU 911 in Azuay received 215 calls for help due to intrafamilial violence which is almost double the usual number. This does not take into account that many women do not report violence. Azuay reported 3 femicides in 2019, 5 in 2021, and 1 this year. According to a study by the Cooperación Técnica Alemana and the PREVIMUJER program, domestic aggression against women increased 30% during the quarantine. Fernanda Ramírez, an industrial engineer and women’s rights activist in Azuay confirmed the substantial increase in reports of intrafamilial mistreatment citing poverty, overcrowding and lack of resources. The presence of the aggresor makes it harder for women to have spaces where they can be free.

Sociologist Susana Malo said that unemployment for women has reached 8.7% where the national average is 7%, and women are one of the sectors most affected. Sofía Sánchez, the only women among the 5 new asambleistas for Azuay agreed that the confinement has aggravated violence and that besides working or teleworking, women have to do housework and child care. One of her proposals for the assembly is to fund the Ley Orgánica Integral de Prevención y Erradicación de la Violenia contra las Mujeres which currently does not have a budget.

Women’s groups protest against femicides, domestic violence in Ecuador on International Women’s Day. (El Comercio)

Caricatura del Día – Today’s political cartoon iby Rafa is titled “Grito de Todos” (Scream of all). It’s a version of Munch’s The Scream and the main figure on the bridge is followed by two others labelled acosos y desempleo (harassment and unemployment). The water below is labelled Machismo, and floating in the water is Covid.

Oposición que Reserva Marina de Galápagos se amplíe (Opposition to expansion of Galapagos Marine Reserve) – The article interviewed Luigi Benincasa, director of the Asociación de Atuneros de Ecuador (ATUNEC) about a proposal by international environmental groups and another proposal in the Asamblea for Ecuador to swap international debt for increasing the area of the Galápagos Marine Reserve. <The details are too complicated for me to follow.> Benincasa is against the proposal since small artesanal fishing boats can’t go out that far among other reasons.

Recopilan la información para transición del poder (Information for the transition of power being collected) – On 6/2, Pres. Moreno created the Comité de Transición to coordinate the delivery of information to the new president who will assume power on el 24/5. The committee, composed of the Ministry of Labor, General Secretary to the President, and Technical Secretary of the Planifica Ecuador program will collect information on all the institutions of the Estado such as investment projects, the state of contracts and sectorial cabinets (social, economic, production, safety and infrastructure). The information is due on the 29/4. Authorities of the GADs (Gobiernos Autónomos Descentralizados) have until junio to present their development plans. <This is how orderly transitions of power are supposed to be done, and they don’t include riots and attempted takeovers of the Legislature.>

15 días tiene el TCE para resolver reclamo (The TCE has 15 days to resolve the claim) – The Tribunal Contencioso Electoral has until 15/3 to resolve the claim presented by Yaku Pérez and Pachakutik (PK). The TCE is organizing the 44,000 pages in 436 cuerpos (volumes or sections or divisions?) in order to review them. The electoral calendar calls for campaigning for the second round to start on 16/3. <Does the TCE have enough people to go through 44,000 pages in a week? That’s more than 6,000 pages per day.>

Ecuador supera los 294,000 positivos (Ecuador exceeds 294,000 positives) – The Ministerio de Salud issued information that Ecuador registered 294,503 accumulated cases of Covid with 16,039 deaths. Of the deaths, 11,258 were confirmed from Covid and the other 4,781 were probably from the disease. Ecuador suffered a peak in infections during the last week in diciembre, all of enero and the beginning of febrero due to local fiestas in Quito and during Christmas. The government announced an investment of $200 million to vaccinate about 9 million people, or 60%, this year. Until now, only 70,000 doses have arrived in the country and 64,920 peoople have received their first dose.

Actualizan tarifas de transporte (Transport fares updated) – After new interparish bus fares were approved, inconveniences arose on some routes in Quingeo and Victoria del Portete. The problems were corrrected and starting today, EMOV will initiate controls. The fares that will change are:
Start of route                                Destination    old fare       new fare
Terminal El Arenal                         Quingeo        $1.00         $ .75
Terminal El Arenal                         Alpacruz           .80            .90
Terminal El Arenal                         Monjas         $1.00            .90
Terminal El Arenal                         Macas             .65         $1.00
Terminal El Arenal/27 de febrero    El Verde          .85           .95
Terminal El Arenal/27 de febrero    Chocar        $1.00           .90
Terminal El Arenal/27 de febrero    Quingeo       $1.00          .75

And that´s all for today so Hasta ? –

Jeanne
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Editor’s note: Jeanne’s Periodico is a translated digest of news from the Cuenca daily newspaper El Mercurio. If details, such as event dates and times, do not appear in the translation, they did not appear in the newspaper (please don’t ask her for them). The text between the carrots, or guillemets (< … >), is Jeanne’s personal opinion and not part of the news translation.