Fed up with persistent violence, officers within the metropolis of Chihuahua in northern Mexico accredited a ban final week forbidding musical acts from performing songs with lyrics that degrade ladies.
Mayor Marco Bonilla of Chihuahua stated in an video replace final week that the legislation banned the efficiency of songs that “promote violence in opposition to ladies” or encourage their discrimination, marginalization or exclusion.
Mr. Bonilla stated that those that violate the ban may face fines starting from 674,000 pesos to 1.2 million pesos, or between about $39,000 and $71,000.
The Metropolis Council accredited the ban unanimously on Wednesday amid an increase in killings of girls throughout Mexico lately, and as Chihuahua, a metropolis of about 940,000 residents, is combating its personal instances of violence in opposition to ladies. Not too long ago, Mr. Bonilla stated, about seven out of 10 calls to 911 in Chihuahua have concerned instances of home violence, significantly in opposition to ladies.
“Violence in opposition to ladies has reached ranges that we may take into account like a pandemic,” he stated. “We are able to’t enable this to occur, and we can also’t enable this to be normalized.”
It was unclear from his message who would impose the fines or how the ban on misogynistic lyrics could be enforced. Cash raised from the fines might be channeled to a ladies’s institute in Chihuahua and a confidential ladies’s shelter, stated Blanca Patricia Ulate Bernal, a Chihuahua metropolis councilwoman who proposed the ban.
Ms. Ulate Bernal stated in a publish on Fb final week that the legislation will apply to live shows and occasions within the metropolis that require a municipal allow. She added that the ban would assist be sure that ladies have the fitting “to take pleasure in a life freed from violence.”
Mr. Bonilla, Ms. Ulate Bernal and different council members didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
The lyrics ban was handed a few month after Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, criticized songs generally known as corridos tumbados, or lure ballads, whose lyrics glorify drug smugglers and violence.
“We’re by no means going to censor anybody,” Mr. López Obrador stated at a information convention in June. “They will sing what they need, however we’re not going to remain quiet.”
The approval of the ban isn’t the primary time town of Chihuahua has taken a robust stance in opposition to the efficiency of sure songs. Citing excessive ranges of drug violence, Chihuahua banned the long-running band Los Tigres del Norte in 2012 after a live performance throughout which the group carried out three songs generally known as narcocorridos, which rejoice the exploits of drug traffickers. The town additionally fined the live performance organizers 20,000 pesos, or about $1,600, on the time.
