Violence against women in Mexico


Violence against women in Mexico includes different forms of "gender-based violence" and may consist of emotional, physical, sexual, and/or mental abuse. The United Nations has rated Mexico as one of the most violent countries for women in the world. after comparing its rankings of these different types of violence to other countries around the world. According to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography in Mexico, 66.1 percent of all women age 15 and older have experienced some kind of violence in their lives. Forty-nine percent have suffered from emotional violence; 29 percent have suffered from emotional-patrimonial violence or discrimination; 34 percent from physical violence; and 41.3 percent of women have suffered from sexual violence. Of the women who were assaulted in some form, 78.6 percent of them have not sought help or reported their attacks to authorities.
There are different explanations for the causes of these high numbers of violence; scholars have looked at the cultural roots as well as economic policies and changes that have led to a recent growth in the amount of gender-based violence. There was a rise of international attention looking at the state of violence against women in Mexico in the early 1990s, as the number of missing and murdered women in the northern border city of Ciudad Juárez began to rise dramatically. Women in the Mexican Drug War have been raped, tortured, and murdered in the conflict. They have also been victims of sex trafficking in Mexico.
While legislation and different policies have been put in place to decrease violence against women in Mexico, different organizations have shown that these policies have had little effect on the state of violence due to a lack of proper implementation.

Cultural and economic roots

, Carmen Contreras, and Alicia Barker-Aguilar, researchers from the Mexican Institute for Family and Population Research, examine the cultural roots that play a role in the current state of violence against women in Mexico. They look into the culture of "machismo" that has created a feeling of superiority or entitlement for men in Mexico. Women, on the other hand, have been traditionally put into roles of subservience and have had less access to knowledge and power to discuss and change the current norms. They call violence against women "an expression of male power," and they include institutional forms of violence, such as lack of access to resources or types of freedom.
Along the same lines, Mercedes Olivera looks at the way that these gender dynamics have changed recently, especially with the introduction of neoliberal economic policies in Mexico. Mercedes Olivera is a researcher at the Center for Higher Studies of Mexico and Central America in the Universidad de Ciencias y Artes of Chiapas, and she is involved in the Independent Women's Movement and the Center for Women's Rights. Olivera argues that as poverty, unemployment, and insecurity have increased in Mexico, more women have started joining the workplace in order to attempt to escape their situations. This progression of increasing numbers of women in the workplace has threatened the concept of a division of labor between men and women, where men's place was the workplace and that the duties of the women are in the home. According to Olivera, this change has affected the men's self-image and harmed their personal sense of "machismo" or superiority.

Types of violence

Femicide

, also known as feminicide, is defined in a report by the World Health Organization as "intentional murder of women because they are women." Similarly, it is defined by UN Women, UNiTe to End Violence Against Women, and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights as "the violent death of women for reasons of gender." Femicide is categorized as a specific type of violence against women or gender violence, which the UN described in 1979 as "a mechanism of domination, control, oppression, and power over women."
Amnesty International estimates that there have been around 34,000 female homicides in Mexico between 1986 and 2009. According to the National Citizen Observatory on Femicide, only 49 percent of the 800 cases of women killed in Mexico between June and July 2017 were investigated as femicide. One activist, Natalia Reyes, reported that only 8 percent of femicides in Mexico are punished. Additionally, in 2012, Mexico was ranked as the 16th country in the world with the highest rates of femicides.
In the years 2011 to 2016, there were an average of 7.6 female homicides per day. In 2016, Mexico had a rate of female homicides of 4.6 femicides per 100,000, and there were a total of 2,746 female deaths with presumption of homicide. In this year, the top three states with the highest rates of female deaths with presumption of homicide were Colima, Guerrero, and Zacatecas. The top three municipalities in 2016 were Acapulco de Juárez, Tijuana, and Juárez. During the years 2002–2010, the state of Chihuahua had the highest rate of female homicides in the world: 58.4 per 100,000. The rates of femicide in the municipality of Juárez have decreased significantly in just 5 years; in 2011, the rate of female deaths with presumption of homicides was 31.49 per 100,000, and by 2016 it had decreased to 10.36 per 100,000.
Year20002001200220032004200520062007200820092010201120122013201420152016
Rate per 100,000 women2.72.72.72.62.52.62.62.22.83.64.55.15.04.64.14.04.6

Killings of women are shown to be much more brutal than those of men in Mexico. It is 1.3 times as likely for women to be murdered using sharp objects than men. Also, women are 3 times as likely to be murdered by means of hanging, being strangled, being suffocated, and drowning. Finally, women are 2 times as likely to be killed in means involving substances and fire.
With more attention being given to the number of women killed and missing in Mexico, there has been a growth in the amount of activism responding. For example, a popular hashtag in Mexico has been "Ni Una Menos." A group in the city of Nezahualcoyotl called Nos Queremos Vivas has gathered for marches, and has also created self-defense workshops to help young girls protect themselves. There is an alliance of 47 different organizations in Mexico called the National Citizen Observatory on Femicide, which has called for more effective and complete investigations following missing or killed women, increasing accountability on part of the authorities in Mexico. This group is funded by the UN Trust to End Violence Against Women. A collaboration among UN Women, the National Citizen Observatory on Femicide, and Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir opened the first permanent exhibition on femicides in Mexico in 2017; the exhibition is called "¡Ya basta!", which is located in the Museum of Memory and Tolerance in Mexico City.

Femicide in Ciudad Juárez

is a city in northern Mexico in the state of Chihuahua located on the border between Mexico and the United States; it is located within the municipality of Juárez, Chihuahua. The first major cases of female homicides in Ciudad Juárez were in the early 1990s, during which the city and events gained international attention. Over the course of just a decade, hundreds of women were reported missing. According to a report by Amnesty International, in 2010 there were 320 women killed in the city of Ciudad Juárez. The rise in femicides in Ciudad Juárez is related to a rise in crime rates in the city, especially as the city has become a major territory in the drug trafficking industry. Amnesty International has reported the lack of a sufficient response from the authorities in Ciudad Juárez and Mexico, and the irregularities in the investigations following cases of missing or killed women.

2019 and 2020

s in Mexico increased 10% between 2018 and 2019, and from seven a day in 2017 to ten per day in 2019—a total of 1,006 cases officially reported. The designation feminicidio, which involves criteria such as signs of sexual violence and a close relationship with the suspect, may be an understatement because several states do not use the designation at all. Abril Pérez Sagaón, ex-wife of Amazon México CEO Juan Carlos García, was murdered on November 25, 2019, the same day as a march against violence against women. García is the prime suspect in the case; the divorce came after he had fractured his wife's head with a baseball bat 11 months earlier. A judge ruled that it was not attempted murder because Abril was sleeping at the time of the incident and a baseball bat cannot be considered a weapon. The murder occurred three weeks after García's release, but a judge threw the murder charges out. His daughter said the judge, who had earlier released a doctor from charges of sexually abusing a mentally-ill woman, was bribed.
The sharp rise in such murders sparked a series of protests in February 2020 throughout Mexico and present a major challenge for President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his administration, which he calls the Fourth Transformation. One case that drew particular fury was the murder of Ingrid Escamilla, 25, who was skinned and disemboweled followed by graphic photographs of her corpse splashed on the front pages of tabloids and across social media. La Prensa defended its policies of reporting on crime but has indicated it will review its policy about publishing photos. Protesters marched to the offices of La Prensa and burned a newspaper delivery truck. Pasala could not be reached for comment.
Another tragic case was that of Fátima Cecilia Aldrighett, 7, who was kidnapped after school on February 11; her raped and tortured body was discovered on February 15. When the child's mother was late in picking her up from school, she was turned over to an unrelated woman between 42 and 45 without identification. When questioned, a representative of the Autoridad Federal Educativa de la Ciudad de México explained that if a child is not picked up by a parent or guardian within twenty minutes of school closing time, the child should be taken to the local police. Nonetheless, educational authorities insist that children were turned over to their parents according to established protocol. A MXN $2 million reward was offered for the woman's capture. The woman was identified by her landlord, and when police searched her house they found clothing and other belongings of Fatima; a drone was used to find the woman and a man suspected of the actual murder. Gladys Giovana Cruz Hernandez, who confessed to strangling the girl, and Mario Alberto Reyes Najara, who was looking for a young girlfriend, were arrested on February 19.
Some of the protests have turned violent, which has not been helped by AMLO's seeming indifference, calling violence against women the result of "neoliberal policies" of his predecessor and complaining because protesters have painted graffiti on the National Palace.
Members of all political parties have called for legislative reforms; the Chamber of Deputies approved a change in the law to make femicide punishable by 65 instead of 45 years in prison. Legislators also held a moment of silence for Fatima.

Sexual harassment and assault

The National Institute of Statistics and Geography in Mexico reported that almost 3 million sexual attacks, ranging from rape to groping or other forms of sexual harassment, occurred between the years 2010 and 2015. In the year 2009, there were 2,795 convictions of rape, but there were 3,462 prosecutions and 14,829 complaints of rape in Mexico. It has been shown through numerous surveys that the majority of women in Mexico do not report rape to authorities; these studies have shown that as few as 15 percent of rapes are reported. An INEGI report in 2017 found that of the women attending school in the prior 12 months, 10.7 percent of them were sexually assaulted.
It is reported that the main location of sexual harassment in Mexico is the workplace, in which the victim rarely files any complaints since there are no rules in place to address the problem and punish the aggressor. Another common location where sexual harassment occurs is on public transportation. A survey conducted by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography found that 96 percent of women in Mexico City have experienced some form of sexual harassment in a public space, and 58 percent have been groped. UN Women's Safe Cities program coordinator in Mexico, Yeliz Ozman, believes that while this is due to the problem of male entitlement in Mexico, it is made worse by the overcrowded public transportation and when women have to work odd hours. In 2016, the government of Mexico City started offering free rape whistles to women at public transportation hubs. They also provide women-only subway cars and pink buses to help protect women.
A national women's strike against violence is scheduled for March 9, 2020. This follows a strike at nineteen schools of the National Autonomous University of Mexico that were taken over to protest sexual harassment and violence. On February 26, 2020, twenty professors were fired from the four colleges of the Autonomous University of Mexico State for sexual harassment.

Domestic violence

A 2003 survey conducted by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography in Mexico found that 47 percent of women over 15 in a relationship have experienced some form of domestic violence, and that 96 out of every 100 victims of domestic violence in Mexico are women. More recently, in 2016, INEGI found that 43.9 percent of women in a relationship have been attacked by their partner at some point. There are many different types of domestic violence that can occur, including emotional abuse, intimidation, physical abuse, and sexual abuse. A survey conducted by the National Institute for Women in Mexico found that 98.4 percent of all cases involving maltreatment of women include emotional abuse, 16 percent include intimidation, 15 percent include physical abuse, and 14 percent include sexual abuse. According to a 2006 survey in Mexico, 38.4 percent of married women suffer from emotional, physical, financial, or sexual abuse from their husbands. As of 2011, this rate had decreased slightly to 28.9 percent.
Nadine Gasman, head of the Instituto Nacional de las Mujeres reports in October 2019 that 267 women and girls are victims of violence every day in Mexico.

Immigration and violence against women

There are tens of thousands of migrants going through Mexico from Central America and other countries on the journey to the United States. Most of these migrants are from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Migrants are at great risk for different kinds of violence as they make their journey, including kidnapping, threatening, and assaults. According to human rights groups situated in Mexico, there are increasing numbers of women and girls attempting to migrate as well. Women and girls are at special risk as they make their journey north, particularly to sexual violence and to sex trafficking. A report by Amnesty International estimates that 6 out of every 10 women migrating through Mexico may be a victim of sexual assault. Migrant women are at the risk of sexual violence by gangs, human traffickers, other migrants, and corrupt officers. The risk of sexual assault and rape is so high for migrant women that smugglers, or coyotes, require women to have contraceptive injections before leaving. It is hard for researchers to get statistics on violence against migrant women because these women are unable to report the assaults for fear of being deported, in addition to the existing stigmas behind sexual violence that cause many sexual assaults to go unreported.

Politics of gender-based violence in Mexico

International agreements and legislation

The Mexican government is party to a range of international efforts and agreements that aim to enhance the living standards of women and lower gender inequality within the country: First and foremost, they signed in favour of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 which guarantees the fundamental rights of men and women equally. The Mexican State was also part of the United Nations General Assembly Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1979. In 1993 Mexico signed the first international document recognising ‘gender violence’ as a type of violence, by the United Nations ‘The Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women’. Followed by the Bélem do Pará Convention agreements signed in 1994 promoted by the Inter-American Commission of Women, which criminalises violence against women with an emphasis on sexual violence.

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women 2012

The 2012 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women showed its concern with the raising levels of insecurity and gender-based violence in the country:
“It is deeply concerned that the public security strategy to combat organised crime, combined with persistent impunity and corruption, have contributed to the intensification of already existing patterns of widespread discrimination and violence against women in the State party, rooted in patriarchal attitudes, and to the minimisation and invisibility of this phenomenon. The Committee is concerned that women and girls have been subjected to increasing levels and different types of gender-based violence, such as domestic violence, forced disappearances, torture and murders, especially femicide, by state actors, including law enforcement officials and the security forces, as well as by non-state actors, such as organised crime groups.”
The Committee encouraged the Mexican State to prosecute and punish perpetrators of violence towards women. To increase the efforts and resources to improve public security, by providing a systematic training on gender-based violence to law enforcing actors and all other public security forces. They emphasise that the existence of legislative inconsistencies at the state and municipal level should be tackled, including impunity and every other discriminatory penal and legal driven action or non-action.
Appropriate monitoring and sanctions should be carried out to all law enforcing actors and judiciary who acts against the interest of women protection. Being strictly necessary to collect consistent and veridical information on violence against women and make gender-based violence a state primary issue.

General Law on Women's Access to a Life Free of Violence (2007)

The General Law on Women’s Access to a life Free of Violence introduced the 1st of February 2007 with the aim of prevent and eradicate gender-based violence, by combining the efforts among the Federation, Federal entities and municipalities. It establishes the regulations to guarantee Mexican women a life without violence, according to the constitutional principles of equality and justice. As well as to enforce democracy to strengthen sovereignty of the state and its laws. This law recognises all the international treaties on Human Rights and gender-baser violence that the Mexican state ratified.
The GLWALFV in point IV, Article 5 in Chapter I defines 'Violence against women' as: Any act or omission, based on their gender, that causes them psychological, physical, patrimonial, economic, sexual damage, suffering or death, in the private and the public matter. It recognises 6 types of violence: psychological violence, physical violence, patrimonial violence, economic violence, sexual violence and any other analogous forms that harm the integrity or freedom of women. Furthermore Article 21 of Chapter V recognises 'Femicide violence' as: the extreme form of gender violence against women, produced by the violation of their human rights in the public and private spheres, produced by misogynistic behaviours that can lead to social and state impunity which can culminate in homicide and other forms of violent death of women.
Reports by Amnesty International have shown that this law has not been very effective due to poor implementation and a minimal change in police investigations following reports of different kinds of violence.

Gender Violence Alert Mechanism

One policy that has been put in place to increase response by local officials is the Gender Violence Alert Mechanism. In this program, citizens may opt to receive a gender alert when violence against women is increasing in their municipality. This alert is the set of governmental and security forces actions, to eradicate femicide violence in a specific area enhanced by individuals or the community. It looks to guarantee women's security, lowering violence levels and eliminating inequalities by:
  1. Establishing an institutional and multi-disciplinary group with a gender perspective that monitors the situation.
  2. Implement preventive, security and justice actions to confront and reduce femicide violence.
  3. Report on the area and the behaviour of the indicators of gender-based violence.
  4. Allocate the necessary budgetary resources to face the Gender Violence Alert Mechanism
  5. Transparency on the causes that triggered the alert and the security conditions of the area where these measure have to be implemented
In the state of Mexico, the state with the highest population, the federal government found the state of femicides severe enough to issue an alert on gender violence on July 31 in 2015. This is the first time the federal government had to Since then, there have also been alerts released in Morelos, Michoacán, Chiapas, Nuevo León, Veracruz, Sinaloa, Colima, San Luis Potosí, Guerrero, Quintana Roo, and Nayarit. This regulation has also been shown not to be very effective, since authorities often see it as a punishment or a political attack, and choose to hide from facing any repercussions rather than address the problem and make changes in how they investigate violence against women.

Invisibility, Normalisation and Impunity

While there has been legislation over the last few decades attempting to decrease violence against women, they have proven to have little effect due to a lack of enforcement. Many female homicides have gone unrecognized by authorities, so there is no action taken to investigate the women's deaths. In fact, femicide has been criminalised in the Criminal Codes of only 13 states of Mexico.