Freakwater have revealed their new video for What the People Want which was directed by Kathleen Judge who has worked with likes of Neko Case, produced stunning posters for the likes of Calexico as well as landmark events such as 50th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act.
The song and video (from their latest album Scheherazade) are a dark and grim reminder that gender-based violence and injustice are very much in existence today as highlighted by the song, animation and the printed news columns in the video. In a recent interview by She Shreds Magazine, who premiered the video, Judge revealed that central to her mind in creating the video was the attacks on women in India as well as “the ‘Highway of Tears’ murders of Indigenous women in Canada, thousands of African American women who have gone missing in the United States, and the women who have been murdered around Ciudad Juázez, Mexico.” Read the interview here.
Just yesterday a CNN feature revealed that since 2007, at least 26,000 people have disappeared in Mexico, many are women and young girls. It was revealed by Amnesty International in 2005 that since “1993 more than 370 young women and girls have been murdered in the cities of Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua – at least a third suffering sexual violence – without the authorities taking proper measures to investigate and address the problem.”
According to the World Health Organisation as many as 38% of murders of women are committed by an intimate partner. They also revealed that “recent global prevalence figures indicate that about 1 in 3 (35%) of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime.”