Mexico: Majority of Women Experience Gender Violence
11/29/2011
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In all the stress about the border, Americans sometimes forget how backward Mexican society is, particularly in terms of its aversion to education and fondness for crime.

Another area of retro is Mexico’s wretched treatment of women. A few years ago, Mexico City instituted a fleet of women-only buses because Mexican men’s public abuse of women could not be curbed by a campaign urging respect. Even the New York Times noticed: On Single-Sex Buses, Relief From Unwanted Contact.

Below, women appreciate public transportation without sexual harassment on no-men buses in Mexico City.

A recent report shows that harassment and violence against women is endemic throughout Mexican society.

The Pew Hispanic Center reported, “The current Mexican share of all foreign born living in the U.S. — 32% — is the highest concentration of immigrants to the U.S. from a single country since the late 19th century.” The presence of those 13+ million Mexicans is absolutely detrimental for the cause of women’s safety and equality in this country. In fact, it would be hard to choose a worse group of immigrants for America to admit.

6 In every 10 Mexican women victims of violence, rights panel says, MENAFN News, Nov 26, 2011

Six out of every 10 Mexican women over the age of 15 have been the victims of gender violence that has left them with physical and mental traumas, among other ill effects, Mexico’s independent National Human Rights Commission, or CNDH, said.

As part of the commemoration of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the CNDH said Friday that to help end gender violence it is currently preparing a diagnosis of femicides and other vicious crimes against Mexican women.

Other effects of gender violence include “sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies and births, educational and social backwardness, poverty and economic dependence, unequal distribution of food in the home, as well as inequality in the workplace and the professions,” the organization said. 

The CNDH insisted on the need for society as a whole to take part in preventing conduct that will prejudice women’s well-being and retard their development, which is why it has promoted various ways of raising awareness among authorities so they notice and come to the aid of female victims of crime and violence.

It also recalled that the constitutional reform enacted in June, and which includes principles established by international agreements on human rights, will allow authorities to strengthen measures for reducing and eliminating violence against women.

The CNDH said that this year 201 women are known to have gone missing in the country, a figure far above the 17 cases registered last year.

The latest case registered by the organization was that of a mother who recently filed a complaint following the disappearance of her daughter in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, a city where so-called “femicides” have been a constantly repeated tragedy for several years.

The commission said that the case will be investigated through the National Information System for Missing Persons and Unidentified Fatalities, while the CNDH will determine whether or not there were “human-rights violations.”

Figures from Mexico’s National Citizens’ Femicide Watch show that between January 2009 and June 2010 there were 810 femicides in Mexico “motivated by gender hate and discrimination.” EFE

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