Shaming criminals in Argentina : "los escraches" Favorite 

Practitioner: 

Date: 

Jun 1 1995

Location: 

Argentina

Faced with a lack of prosecution of those accused of crimes against humanity committed during Argentina’s military dictatorship, family members and descendants of the country’s estimated 30,000 disappeared took action. In the mid-1990s, they began gathering outside of accused perpetrators’ homes and workplaces to publicly shame them and raise awareness about the government’s systematic and brutal targeting of its people — and how it had gone unpunished. The human rights group HIJOS (Sons and Daughters for Identity and Justice Against Forgetfulness and Silence) led and labeled this direct-action style of protest “escrache".

After years of organizing and sustained pressure from activist groups like HIJOS, the amnesty laws protecting the perpetrators were repealed. Peaceful protests ensured that the perpetrators could no longer live in quiet anonymity. Now “escrache” is an important tool for activists seeking justice worldwide.
"If there's no justice, there's escrache"

In 2016, this activist tactic was taken up again after Alfredo Omar Feito, a former member of the Junta, the oppressive government of the 70's, was allowed to remain in house arrest.
The escraches have continued until today.

External sources: 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/opinion/atencion-murderer-next-door-escrache-…
https://www.politicargentina.com/notas/201612/18325-la-vuelta-de-un-metodo-de-lo…
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/016344370202400403
https://www.eldiario.es/sociedad/escrache-escrachar-argentina-hijos-represion_1_…
Posted by Fernanda Soria on Apr 3 2021

Staff rating: 

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Effectiveness

How does this project help?

Activates (people)Energizes and organizes people into action. Can include emotion work
Amplifies (issue or campaign)Brings public and political attention to an issue or campaign.  Can include prefigurative action, making the invisible visible.
Strengthens (community)Strengthens, builds and celebrates community through ritual and/or symbol.

Timeframe For change

This project seems to be part of a campaign with a clear short-term goal. Short-term goals tend to be things like: create or repeal a law; get a President impeached; make the city administration repair a sidewalk. A campaign with a short-term goal needs a clear theory of change, complete with targets that can be cajoled or pressured into effecting the goal.
The short term goal of the escrache was to expose and socially alienate argentinian criminals while pressuring the government to take action and persecute them for their crimes.

Notes

The escrache achieved its goal by bringing national and international attention to the fact that many of the military and civil officials of the argentian oppressive regime of the 70's, were still free. When the trials began in 2002, the escraches served to identify, remember, and persecute many of these people who had been forgotten. The escraches were responsible for trials directed to major criminals of the junta.