BUENOS AIRES, Argentina. It doesn't matter if the National Congress is fenced off or if the City Police discreetly occupy some corners on the other side. This June 4th, the cry of "Not One Less" merged with the struggle of retirees every Wednesday. Today was a day that left no room for fragmentation and perhaps a cornerstone for unity against Javier Milei's policies of austerity and repression.

Although the feminist movement called for a protest starting at 4 p.m., the collective of people with disabilities had already occupied part of the square in front of the black fence of Congress by noon. The timing is opportune; this Wednesday, the Disability Emergency Bill was voted on in the House of Representatives. After 2 p.m., a group of people with disabilities, their families, and workers in the sector intermittently occupied the street at Hipólito Irigoyen and Callao. 

While the traffic light is red, they stand on the pedestrian crossing, sing, whistle, and show drivers signs that say "Not one step back, not one right less" or "No more disability accommodations." 

One of those participating in the traffic light demonstration is 25-year-old Verónica Donatelli. She comes from Munro and has been a therapeutic companion since 2019. “ It's important that today is also the NUM march, that we unite our struggles. That's something close to my heart because the president's austerity measures are affecting us all ,” she says.

“Flags are never lowered”

As the Plaza de los Dos Congresos begins to fill and flags are raised on both sides, a liturgy takes place in the center of the esplanade. A pastor can be heard saying: "We can combine our faith with the feminist struggle." 

There are songs, bread is shared. When it ends, Andrea Bodoira, 49, who works at a chapel in Merlo with Father Paco Olveira, says that the moment of prayer during the mobilizations began to be organized recently. But for a longer time, the ecumenical table has accompanied the retirees' march every Wednesday. 

“ We fight against the patriarchal structure and its hierarchies , for equality and liberation, which do not correspond to a woman with her head bowed or hunched. That is not what God wants for us,” she asserts. She says she also participated in the fight for the Voluntary Termination of Pregnancy Law (IVA), and that that night, a friend pointed to her green scarf and told her that with the law, it was no longer necessary to wear it. “ I told her no, that flags never come down, that struggles never come down. We are in a moment of regression; there is no other option but to fight. And we want it to be known that we are also in this little field of faith; we embrace each other and call on each other,” she expresses.

“I came so that there is not one less retired woman.”

It's 3 p.m. and the Wednesday column of retirees bursts onto Rivadavia Street toward Congress. They carry signs demanding a decent retirement and chants: "Here's a retiree fighting." Graciela Blanco, 69, comes from Libertad and says she's on the streets because she prefers fighting to dying of hunger inside her home. She has six children, 18 grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren who are now helping her make ends meet. "Shall I tell you how much my pension covers me? I buy medicine, a kilo of bread, a liter of milk, and that's it. My children support me; before, it was the other way around," she says sadly.

Silvia Flores is 66 years old and retired thanks to the pension moratorium. She receives the minimum wage and on Wednesdays she goes to Congress to demand her rights. “The importance of today, of uniting all the struggles, which are many, is that it's the first time in so long. It's a unique force when we all come together because the causes are just. For me, it's incredibly important to see all the support I feel on this day. It's essential to be in the streets and fight,” she says. “ I'm also here today so that there won't be one less retired woman.” 

Feminist movements moved the historic date of Ni Una Menos to June 4th to support retirees in their Wednesday rounds. Minimum pensions—which are mostly collected by women—suffered a 13.3% drop in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the last quarter of the previous administration. 

Furthermore, retirees have seen their 70,000-peso bonus frozen since March 2024. If it had been updated, it should have been $158,620 next month. In addition, the moratorium ended on March 23rd, allowing those who hadn't contributed for 30 years to access a minimum pension. This means that 9 out of 10 women will not be able to retire at the minimum age of 60. Today, Congress is debating the reinstatement of the moratorium.

💚 "Legal abortion anywhere!" they chant from @CampAbortoLegal #NiUnaMenos.

Collaborative coverage with @tiempoarg . pic.twitter.com/mao8QbLPEJ

— Presents (@PresentesLatam) June 4, 2025

Diversity in the streets

Lined up behind the banner of Las Históricas Argentinas and the Antifascist and Antiracist column, LGBTIQ+ people marched, shouting “Not one less, we want to live.” Erika Moreno, a trans activist from Córdoba who lives in Tierra del Fuego, told Presentes : “It is important to make visible the collective transfeminist struggle that we have throughout the country. We are supporting historical reparations so that at some point the bill will be considered to recognize us and repair all the harm that has been done to us. We will continue fighting and winning.”

📢🌈"It's important to make visible the struggle we're carrying out at the transfeminist level across the country," says Erika Moreno, a longtime trans activist from Tierra del Fuego. #NiUnaMenos #10añosniunamemos pic.twitter.com/tKAL7o0bQN

— Presents (@PresentesLatam) June 4, 2025

In the same column, the chant "Lohana and Sacayan said it, we're never going back to jail" was heard. This year also marked the 10th anniversary of the transvestitism of transvestite human rights activist Diana Sacayan. 

"One of the slogans of this Ni Una Menos document is the call to action against the concept of transvesticide. For ten years, we've been fighting not only for Diana's murder, but also for the entire trans, transvestite, and NB population," said Say, an activist and Diana's brother. 

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The mobilization followed another lesbicide in Argentina. On Wednesday, June 3, Gabriel Fernando Danielo murdered Marcela Heredia, his ex-girlfriend's partner. The lesbicide took place in the Buenos Aires town of Moreno. During the reading of the document, feminists demanded justice for Marcela.

This crime occurs amid a context of rising violence against the LGBT community, especially lesbians. This year, there have already been four attacks and attempted attacks against lesbians in Argentina. In 14 days, between February 11 and January 29, Mariana Oliver was attacked in her home in Orán (Salta), a couple was assaulted in public in Buenos Aires, a lesbian activist was stalked in La Plata, and Orlando Alcides Lutz Fogar set fire to the home of a lesbian couple in Cañuelas.

This march also took place after the publication of Decree 366/2025, which substantially modifies the Immigration Law and restricts the rights of migrants. “This Decree 366/2025 criminalizes a population that has been pushed out of the system, and they continue to push us out. It's time for all struggles to unite, and this is the moment for students, retirees, people with disabilities, people in the popular economy, people of African descent, Afro-Argentines, Africans, and Indigenous communities to stand alongside migrants,” said anti-racist activist Sandra Chagas.

Ten years of a powerful movement

It's almost 4 p.m., and Representative Julia Strada (UP) is on Rivadavia Avenue, talking with social activists. "Right now, they're voting on a pension increase, a restructuring of the pension bonus. Later, they'll vote on the pension moratorium, which we know the government deliberately let fall and doesn't want to reinstate," she tells Tiempo .

Strada praises the fact that the NUM's 10th anniversary march coincided with the mobilization of retirees. "The timing is sad, but it's still a struggle that unites all of us who are suffering under Milei's austerity measures. This means we must stop this government, and we must do so at the ballot box," she said.

In line with this, sociologist and legislator Victoria Freire, leader of Patria Grande, highlighted to Agencia Presentes the power of the struggle organized over these ten years. “Ten years after the first Ni Una Menos (Not One Less), which transformed the scene in our country and the general spirit, placing gender violence on the agenda, the context has changed dramatically. We can also recognize that in all this time, we have managed to build a very strong movement. It achieved the right to abortion, to talk about femicides, transvesticides, and feminicides. It managed to generate organizational networks, and today we have the opportunity to look at them, recover them, and know that it makes sense to be on the streets.”

The same fight 

Elsa Schvartzman is 74 years old and from Paraná (Entre Ríos) but has lived in Buenos Aires City for over 50 years. She holds one of the flagpoles of the National Campaign for the Right to Legal Abortion, Buenos Aires City region. 

"We thought it was a good idea to change the day of the march to Ni Una Menos, unifying and uniting the struggle, because at this moment, resistance is essential to moving forward, and the only way to connect with the people is in the streets; that's active resistance," she said. 

For Schvartzman, it's moving that people are taking to the streets in a difficult context, where fear of police repression is at a premium. As a retiree, she said the situation is dramatic. "It's extremely vulnerable, pensions are meager, the cost of living is skyrocketing, there's no affordable healthcare, no medicine, no hospitals, everything is cut off," she added.

Ten complaints, the beginning of a program 

The first Ni Una Menos assemblies this year had a specific mandate: to support retirees. This was summarized in a shift in discourse that became a reality this Wednesday, June 4th: to unite all struggles. 

Just after 5 p.m., Liliana Daunes was in charge of reading the document prepared at the Ni Una Menos assemblies, which began with demands. “We celebrate 10 years since we first took to the streets shouting Ni Una Menos, against femicides, transvesticides, transfemicides, and transhomicides,” the text begins. “We claim to have maintained, expanded, and radicalized the mobilization for a decade, giving collective substance to a cycle of struggles that was historic for its massiveness and radical nature.” They also celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe, and Free Abortion.

"Ten years after Ni Una Menos, today we say Milei Out!" reads the text, which also presents ten demands ranging from challenges to patriarchal, fascist, and racist violence to denouncing the genocide in Palestine. 

After the document was read, everyone present—students, feminists, retirees, children, healthcare and popular economy workers, and people with disabilities—joined the retirees in their traditional round, this time, as there were so many of them, without repression. 

Participating in the collaborative coverage between Agencia Presentes and Tiempo Argentino were: Aldana Somoza, Clara Pardi, Lucas Gutiérrez, María Eugenia Ludueña, Ana Fornaro, Nadia Díaz, and Eugenia Siman.