Earlier this month, 16-year-old Lucía Pérez was abducted, drugged, raped and murdered in the Argentinian city of Mar del Plata.

The two men who left Pérez at a hospital told staff that she had overdosed on drugs – but when doctors examined the high school student, they found she had suffered extreme sexual violence. She died shortly after as a result of internal injuries sustained during her rape.

Pérez was the latest in a long line of Argentinian women to be killed by men – often husbands, boyfriends, family members or acquaintances of the victim. The Guardian reports that 19 women have been killed in Argentina in the last 18 days alone, while government statistics show that crimes against women have risen by almost 80% since 2008.

Now, thousands of women have joined protests in Argentina and across Latin America to protest Pérez’s killing – and challenge gender-based violence across the continent.

Thousands of Latin American women are protesting the rape and murder of a teenage girl