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Amid a rising tide of widespread violence in the country[1] the State of Mexico
issue its first-ever Gender Alert. AWID spoke to Maria Luz Estrada and Patricia
Bedolla of the National Citizen’s Feminicide Observatory to discuss what this
means for women human rights defenders Mexico State.
On July 28 2015 the - National System to Prevent, Treat, Punish and
Eradicate Violence against Women (SNPASEVM) declared, for the first time ever, a
Gender Alert in 11 municipalities of the State of Mexico - Ecatepec,
Nezahualcoyotl, Chalco Valley, Toluca, Tlalnepantla, Naucalpan, Chimalhuacán,
Tultitlan, Ixtapaluca, Cuautitlan Izcalli and Chalco.
Thanks to the pressure and work of women rights organizations and
mainstream civil society organizations, authorities in the State of Mexico were
made to acknowledge the seriousness of the systemic violence against women. A
multidisciplinary and inter-institutional group[2] conducted an
investigation and issued a report, based partially on information offered by the
Observatory and Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights
(CMDPDH), and the government of the State of Mexico. The Observatory notes "said
research was completed via analysis of official statistics, interviews with
authorities and with relatives of victims of femicide".
Maria Luz Estrada points out that "recognition is a breakthrough. The
State acknowledges that there is a serious problem of feminicide impunity, given
that about 70% of women's murders are not investigated; and recognizes that
there are 1500 missing young women, most of them from seven of the eleven
municipalities under this Gender Alert."
Gender Alert
The Declaration of a Gender Alert is a collective action mechanism
established by the “Law on Women's Access to a Life Free of Violence” of 2007.
Article 22 proposes a set of emergency governmental measures to confront and
eradicate feminicidal violence in a given region, and can be exercised by
individuals or by the community itself. According to Estrada the assumption is
that "these measures are temporary, but given the situation in Mexico we believe
they won't be, as we've witnessed serious decomposition of our justice system,
along with public policies that are totally inefficient in eliminating
inequalities, let alone violence against women, which has been a major challenge
for governments."
Since 2008 the Observatory has submitted numerous Gender Alert requests
that have been repeatedly denied. The first request related to the murders of women journalists in
Oaxaca, and as Estrada points out "because there were high levels of
community violence, a situation where they were disappearing and assassinating
women in that area. They did not accept our request and asked us to submit
evidence, meaning we had to prove what was happening, whereas that is the
specific investigation the authorities are required to carry out." Alert
requests were also made for Guanajuato, and starting in 2010 for the State of
Mexico.
According to information gathered by the Observatory, 54% of the murders
and incidents of feminicidal violence have taken place in ten of the State of
Mexico municipalities under the alert. Estrada points out that "between 2005 and
2010 the Observatory recorded 522 cases of women whose murderers remained
unknown. We had 100 unidentified female victims, and documented four thousand
reports of rapes that weren't being investigated or tried, all under the
administration of current President Enrique Peña Nieto."
The Observatory informed and drew the government's attention to how
brutal the murders were, and how victims were then dumped in vacant lots or by
the roadside. Obviously these crimes were not common crimes but clear cases of
feminicide. Patricia Bedolla states that, "rejecting the request for issuing the
Gender Alerts has caused this problem to intensify, and today the issue has
expanded from women being murdered, to include women disappearing. The issue of
disappearance is a new topic which is incorporated in this struggle, we at first
spoke of feminicide and now speak of missing young women in the State of
Mexico."
Protocols and the backdrop of violence
A variety of issues could point to the causes of violence against women
in the State of Mexico. One factor, Estrada explains, is that "Mexico State
serves as a crossroads for internal and external migrants, crossing the border
via the train known as "The Beast". There is the also the different networks of
organized crime, some of them involved in human trafficking, and also organized
crime within the State of Mexico regarding drug trafficking, contraband, where
the issue of women becomes cross-cutting, depending on how these criminal
networks exploit women."
Since the 2009 ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human
Rights (IACHR) in the case known as Cotton Field[3], the State of
Mexico has had to institute a criminal Investigation Protocol for murders,
disappearances and sexual violence. The Observatory contributed to its creation,
especially guiding the development of the Penal Protocol to help justice
officials in identifying a crime as feminnicide. Estrada explains " if the
authorities do not have a criminal code to assist them, the Protocol becomes a
manual that they do not use, the only constraint was to establish an
understanding whereby they became able to distinguish homicide from
feminicide,"
Bedolla notes that a problem with these protocols lies in the
interpretation of feminicide. For a good while it has been interpreted by the
authorities “just from the domestic violence perspective; and resulted in the
creation of the violent partner profile and the use of techniques such as
psychological autopsy, the Observatory says it is a misused tool, and should not
be used within these investigations."[4]
Bedolla stresses the need to discuss "what we mean by feminicide". For
instance in cases of sexual violence[5] the burden of proof
operates differently. Ciudad Juarez gave us insights into how women could be
sexually abused without the need of having being raped. The degrading injuries,
the ways in which to inscribe anger onto a woman's body. Something new is women
being held incommunicado. Women are trafficked, deprived of their liberty and
are subsequently killed. Bedolla and Estrada agree that are review of interview
methods is required to highlight how gender dynamics manifest in "the
subjugation, domination, and discrimination in the ways women are
killed.
Both interviewees point out that there are numerous Protocols but there
is no political will. Estrada explains, “The problem with the State of Mexico is
that the perpetrators involved are the very same police officers who rape women,
who are involved in trafficking networks and are embedded within the very fabric
of these networks. This is why this was the first Gender Alert decreed of the
thirteen applications sought since 2008."
Involvement of women's organizations and civil society in the next
steps
To track and monitor proper compliance with the Alert, an
interdisciplinary and inter-organizational group is being established, which
will involve civil society for the first time. Estrada confirms that "The
Observatory will be part of this task force, and we are already working on
establishing follow up agreements with the Ministry of the
Interior.
The Observatory has 12 cases under the Alert Declaration, which will be
used as indicators to show progress being made in investigations, especially in
cases of murders of women that aren't investigated as feminicide, and in cases
of missing young women. They also hope that organizations specialized in
security and such investigations will be involved in the
process.
Estrada and Bedolla insist that other laws and protocols are not needed,
as Estrada explains, "now what we have to do is implement the Alert and the
safety, security and justice measures within it and start working with
authorities. We're facing a very big challenge."
* The author is grateful to Veronica Vidal Degiorgis and Marusia López
.
[1] While this article was being written four women, including a human
rights defender, were killed along with the photojournalist Ruben Espinosa. We
contacted the Observatory and Luz Estrada confirmed the order that the deaths of
Nadia Vera, Yesenia Quiroz Alfaro Alejandra Negrete and Virginia Martin Mile be
investigated as feminicide: "The four women demonstrate elements of the crime of
feminicide as recognized in Mexico City, the ways they were killed, one of them
was a victim of sexual assault, and all have abusive injuries." Furthermore on
August 11 the government of Morelos declared a gender alert for eight of its
municipalities.
[2] The group is comprised of Procuraduría General de la República (PGR),
Secretaría de Desarrollo Social (SEDESOL), Secretaría de Salud, Consejo Nacional
para Prevenir La Discriminación (CONAPRED), Instituto Nacional de las
Mujeres (INMUJERES) y Comisión Nacional para Prevenir y Erradicar la
Violencia Contra las Mujeres (CONAVIM).
[3] In November 2009 the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR)
condemned the Mexican government for violating human rights in feminicide cases
of in Ciudad Juarez against Esmeralda Herrera Monreal, Laura Berenice Ramos
Monarrez and Claudia Ivette Gonzalez, two of them minors, and state violence
against their families. The statement details Mexico's international
responsibility.
[4] According to a research conducted by the Observatory, the psychological
autopsy is a practice that have shown to be, in the field of feminicides, an
"ineffective tool for the accreditation of objective circumstances constituting
a femicide. Its methodology and preparation is subjective and helps to reinforce
the reproduction of gender stereotypes that in many cases could justify the
violence or blame the victims of violence they suffer. ”
[5] According to the World Health Organization, sexual violence includes
acts ranging from verbal harassment to forced penetration and a variety of types
of coercion from peer pressure and intimidation to physical force. For more
details please see: http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/77434/1/WHO_RHR_12.37_eng.pdf
- See more at:
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