Thousands of women in Buenos Aires went on strike last Wednesday to demand an end to femicide and inequality, starting with ruidazos (the banging of pots and pans) in workplaces and houses across the city and ending in a twilight rally at the pink palace.

The global International Women’s Strike – which took place across 50 countries – has its roots in Argentina’s first ever women’s strike called in October last year by the #NiUnaMenos collective after the brutal rape and murder of 16-year-old Lucia Perez in Mar del Plata. It prompted a wave of demonstrations against gender violence across South America.

In Argentina – where NGOs estimate one woman is killed by domestic violence every 30 hours – Wednesday’s demonstration drew an estimated crowd of 250,000 from all age groups, professions and feminist factions. Their demands? Political action against femicide, the decriminalization of abortion, equal pay, a secular state, and longer parental leave.

On an all-female stage of feminist leaders, politicians and the famous grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, activist Liliana Daunes said: “We strike because we are part of a collective and international history. We are here because when the women of the world organize, the earth trembles.”