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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | November 2005 
President Fox Urges End to Domestic Violence
 Xinhuanet
| | Although Mexico and the rest of the world have progressed in terms of gender equality, there are still challenges to overcome. |
Mexico City - Mexican President Vicente Fox on Friday called for an end to all forms of domestic violence, especially those against women.
All familial and social aggression must end, as this scourge "offends human dignity and hinders the development of society, democracy and liberty," Fox said at a ceremony here commemorating the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
He called for a halt to violence against women, which affects 25 million women in the country and is most serious in the areas around Ciudad Juarez in the Chihuahua state, close to Mexico's border with the United States.
Fox said Mexico must eliminate the unjust legislation that punishes cattle thieves more harshly than rapists. He noted that migrant women are also victims of violence.
"Unfortunately we live in a macho society which still forces women to submit, or tries to. We cannot tolerate this situation now that it has come to ...light," said Fox.
Although Mexico and the rest of the world have progressed in terms of gender equality, there are still challenges to overcome, he said.
Patricia Espinosa, head of the National Institute for Women, said at the ceremony that the government is developing a campaign to reduce violence against women.
She talked of the murder of women, saying that it has extended from Ciudad Juarez to elsewhere in Chihuahua with many of the murderers walking free.
Eighty-four percent of attacks - sexual, physical or psychological - on women are not reported, and of the 16 percent that reach authorities, only half ended with a penalty for the assailants, she said. |
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