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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | November 2005 
Women's Advocates Make Slow but Steady Gains Against Violence
 Eliza Barclay - Houston Chronicle
| | Of the 9 million Mexican women who are victims of domestic violence every year, 84 percent will never report it to the authorities, according to the National Institute of Women. |
Mexico City - Sandra Garcia says her father beat her when she was a child. Now 18, she isn't afraid to talk about it, unlike her mother, who kept quiet even as the same man brutalized her and rarely let her leave the house, much less work.
"I'm getting therapy because I don't want to let what happened to me destroy my life the way it destroyed my mother's life," said the young woman, who receives counseling at a Mexico City clinic. "She never reported the violence she suffered because she didn't know how and was too afraid."
In some ways, the plight of the two Garcia women mirrors the current state of Mexico's fledging women's rights movement: There's been progress, but work remains to be done.
A recent survey by the Mexican National Institute of Women suggested that 45 percent of women in the country suffer some form of violence in their lives. Victims' and women's rights groups agree that in the last decade more and more women are speaking out.
The number of groups offering help to victims of domestic and sexual violence has mushroomed. And at the federal level, there have been several recent advances.
On Nov. 16, Mexico's Supreme Court declared marital rape illegal. Also in November, federal authorities announced that they had created a special prosecutor to address violent crimes against women. And they said they will fund another special prosecutor's office that investigates killings and disappearances of women.
But even as the government dedicates more resources to women's issues, women's rights activists say Mexico still has a very long way to go.
"We have made a lot of gains, but women still don't use the laws. Most of them still don't know their rights and we've had trouble reaching them," said Maria Elena Alvarez, the assistant director of the National Institute of Women, the government agency for women's issues. "Some believe violence is their destiny."
Symbol Of Violence
That women in Mexico are often victims of brutal crimes is no secret. The disappearance and murder of more than 400 girls and women in the last 12 years in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua City has come to symbolize the country's culture of violence.
The special prosecutor appointed by President Vicente Fox to look into the Ciudad Juarez killings is Maria Lopez Urbina. She has issued three reports on her investigations. The most recent, in January, said that "notorious inactivity and negligence" had led to "the loss of evidence and inadequate protection of the crime scenes."
Advocates elsewhere in Mexico have tried to demonstrate that killings and violent sexual crimes against women are not limited to the border state.
According to the government's Special Commission on Femicides, about 3 out of every 100,000 women in Mexico were murdered.
Mexico State, which surrounds Mexico City, has the highest rate of female killings — about 7.47 killings per 100,000 women, according to the office of Mexican lawmaker Marcela Lagarde. That state also has a rate of 6.3 rapes per day.
National Problem
The creation of a special prosecutor to look into violence against women shows that the government sees the issue as serious, said the lawmaker, who sponsored a bill to help pay for investigations of the killing of women.
"Violence against women in Mexico is a national problem, and is not just an issue in Juarez and Chihuahua. It was a great achievement when the special prosecutor for the Juarez murders was created in 2004, but we feel that the special prosecutor's work there has come to a close and we now need to move on to address the needs of the entire country," Mexican legislator Diva Gastelum said in a telephone interview. "The 150 million pesos (about $14.4 million) that we have allocated for the new special prosecutor who will specialize in femicides nationwide is a very positive start."
"We also plan to allocate more money so that the state branches of the National Women's Institute can open shelters and expand their violence prevention programs," she said.
In Gastelum's home state of Sinaloa, 25 women have been murdered this year, and 85 percent of the cases were blamed on drug gang violence, according to the state Commission on Human Rights.
Many women remain reluctant to report crimes.
Of the 9 million Mexican women who are victims of domestic violence every year, 84 percent will never report it to the authorities, according to the National Institute of Women.
"Here in Mexico City, we have 16 centers sponsored by the state government, two by federal government and about 16 nongovernmental organizations all dedicated to the attention of victims of domestic and sexual violence," said Ramos Esteban Jimenez, a psychologist who founded the Clinic for the Attention to and Prevention of Violence. "But there are really two realities in this country because outside the major cities, there are very few services and little incentive for a woman to drive six to eight hours to the nearest city for help."
Even if they don't have access to services, women's rights groups say women need to know their rights.
"We focus very hard on diffusion of information, which is easier in the cities but very hard in the rural areas," said Alvarez of the National Institute of Women. "We need to reach even the indigenous women who don't speak Spanish because they are victims, too."
Awareness Campaign
As part of their strategy to combat violence, the institute and the United Nations recently launched a public awareness campaign by publishing and broadcasting images of famous Mexican women, including journalists, actresses and scholars, with fake bruises and cuts on their faces.
"He who beats up one beats up all of us," one ad reads.
Though the institute and other groups applauded the Supreme Court decision on marital rape, not everyone is convinced it will be used for the preventative and punitive purpose it is meant to serve.
Jimenez, the psychologist, is concerned that some women may use the law as a means to punish husbands.
"She has sex with her husband and then roughs herself up to make it look as though her husband beat her and forced her to have sex," Jimenez said. "If there's no witness, how will the judge know if she is lying? Then an innocent man gets 8 to 14 years in jail."
Still, most experts think the court decision will help prevent crimes before they occur.
"This new law represents a very important cultural shift. Women now have the ability to liberate herself from her husband's dominion over the relationship," Alvarez said.
Garcia said she is hopeful women will continue to see progress. She says that she and her husband are on far more equal ground than her parents ever were.
"I know that if he ever became abusive towards me or our son, I could report him and get help," she said. |
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