From Argentina and Sri Lanka to Cuba, mothers and wives have been demonstrating for decades, in a long series of protests against state violence and what they assert to be tyranny around the world.

Demonstrations confirm that mothers possess a special power that cannot be confronted with sticks and bullets when it comes to their children, so what is the story of these demonstrations and their causes?

Mothers in wheelchairs

After more than 4 decades and more than 2,000 protest rallies, Argentine mothers are still protesting, although some are now forced to use wheelchairs.

The story began in 1977, when a few young mothers left their homes at the time to confront the authorities who had kidnapped their children, forcibly disappeared and killed them, and that day, which “falls on Thursday,” witnessed the start of a march that has been repeated every week for more than 40 years.

After the military coup in Argentina in 1976, the military quickly implemented a plan to crush any potential opposition, eventually killing around 30,000 people, nearly all of them from the unarmed opposition.

Over the years of struggle, mothers were subjected to arrest and violent confrontation, but they still continued to protest weekly, despite their average age today, which reached more than 80 years.

With their steadfast perseverance, they largely succeeded in achieving their original goals. In 2016, more than a thousand of those involved in these events were tried and judgments were passed against 700 of them, and the weekly marches are still continuing.

Maternal pressure and international commitment

From Argentina to Sri Lanka, the reasons for the demonstration and the nature of the demonstrators are similar. For years, Sri Lankan mothers have been demonstrating to demand information about sons and daughters who were kidnapped by government forces during the country's civil war and nothing is known about them again.

During the bloody civil war, from 1983 to 2009, between the Sri Lankan government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), UN reports revealed information regarding the enforced disappearances by government forces of LTTE fighters and Tamil civilians during the final months of the war in 2009. .

According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), the fate of thousands of people - most of them Tamils ​​- is believed to be unknown, and they were forcibly disappeared between 2005 and 2015.

Mothers of children, who were transported by government trucks to their camps, have been demonstrating every week for years, demanding that the fate of their children be revealed and the perpetrators brought to justice.

Because of continued persistence, the Sri Lankan government, in 2015, joined a consensus resolution of the United Nations Human Rights Council.

The primary commitment was to create 4 transitional justice mechanisms to promote "reconciliation, accountability and human rights," including an accountability mechanism that includes judges, prosecutors, and international investigators, a truth and reconciliation mechanism, an office for the missing, and a compensation office.

A struggle for children and spouses

"Damas de Blanco" or "Women in White" was founded in 2003 by mothers and wives of 75 dissidents sentenced to prison terms for treason during the "black spring" in Cuba, most of them doctors, journalists and teachers.

For nearly a decade, mothers have protested the arrest of their sons by attending a mass at the "Saint Rita in Havana" church every Sunday, dressed in white, and then walking around the streets with pictures of the detainees.

Faced with constant pressure from mothers and wives, the authorities released the last imprisoned dissidents in 2021, most of whom went into exile in Spain.

However, according to the "Los Angeles Times" (LAtimes), the "Damas de Blanco" group continued to protest and incite the release of all political prisoners, and women protesting faced violence and harassment at the hands of the police.

In 2018, the Cato Institute, a Washington-based liberal think-tank, presented the group with the Milton Friedman Prize, a $ 250,000 award given to a group or individual who has made a significant contribution to promoting human freedom.