Photo By: REUTERS/Imelda Medina
Femicide, the killing of any woman or girl, is one of Mexico’s most notorious issues. Over the last five years, the number of femicides has grown 137 percent (Vivanco). In 2019, 10.5 women were killed per day (Torres). Throughout the last few years, femicide has claimed the lives of millions of innocent women. Protests have erupted as Mexicans are angered at their government for failing to protect their female citizens. However, besides the fact that many women are targeted and brutally murdered, they may never get the justice they deserve, as 92% of the cases go unpunished (Lettieri 6). Almost all the cases in which femicide occurs, bring no justice to the victim nor their family.
Despite this ongoing issue, the current President Andrés López Obrador has managed to blame these murders on a “moral decay” in the country (Torres). Despite several protests, many of which involving clashes with the police and even the “spray-painting the presidential palace and clashing with police” (Vivanco), the president actually views the protests as a threat to his government. He has claimed that the other “side” of this movement are those against the government and for them to “fail.” He even went as far as to say that these same protests were organized by “conservative interests” just to “make him look bad” (Vivanco). Or when in one instance, when he refused to address these gender-based killings, because these “femicides [may] distract from the raffle," a raffle organized by his administration to sell a presidential airplane (Torres). Not only does he barely acknowledge these murders but depicts it as a threat to his government and authority. He may recognize these murders, but does not take effective action to combat them, as it may distract from his agenda.
However, it must be recognized that his administration has not completely dismissed these femicides, as there have been some attempts to remedy the issue. AMLO, along with his administration has encouraged “Mexicans to “love thy neighbor,” as published in “Ten Commandments vs Violence Against Women,” consisting of so-called ‘rules’ such as claiming that it is “cowardice to hit a woman” and “no to hate crimes against women” (Vivanco). As if simply loving one’s neighbor, and saying no to violence against women is what will amend the deaths of thousands of women. These are merely words that provide a lousy and rather futile ‘solution’, that actually undermines the severity of these femicides by plastering a “just say no” rule over it.
Additionally, in 2007 Congress passed legislation to “ensure the right of women to live free from violence and discrimination enshrined in the General Law of Access for Women to a Life Free of Violence” (“Femicide and Impunity in Mexico” 5). However after this law was passed, 6 states had not incorporated this law into their region, choosing to ignore this potential shield for women. This reveals that not all Mexican states may view femicide to the same degree of severity, resulting in a tendency to “downplay” the problem, as governmental figures are “always found [to be lower than] the figures coming from NGOs” (Sánchez and Rodriguez). The data being used may not even be accurate, and as a result, fail to report all the lives of the innocent women that have been taken.
Aside from the president and his government taking inadequate measures, state officials such as investigators and medical professionals allow for these femicides to run rampant in the country. Many officials fail to fully and appropriately investigate these killings and dismiss them as “spontaneous or accidental acts” rather than gender-related motives. Or worse, these officials may blatantly ignore these killings because many of these women are often “poor, indigenous or migrants” (Prieto-Carrón 31). By refusing to classify these crimes as homicides instead of femicides, it allows for these murders to continue by failing to protect the many women that are being killed. Homicide encompasses both men and women, however, femicide is the killing of women because they are female. Or, they may simply refuse to take any measures at all, dismissing the death of a woman altogether.
Furthermore, this lack of attention can be attributed to a misunderstanding of what femicide is, with the definition of the word itself being inconsistent throughout the 32 states. For example, in the state of Mexico, in order for a murder to be classified as femicide, “the victim must show signs of sexual assault or mutilation or have experienced a history of abuse” (Sabatini and Galindo). These conditions must be proved and corroborated by evidence on the victim, otherwise, it is considered as a regular homicide. Thus, because femicide is defined and classified differently from state to state, so is the degree of punishment, if any. For example, in Tamaulipas, in order to claim femicide, at least three of these circumstances must be proven: “Article 337 of the Criminal Code -- [in] which the victim is requested to submit “evidence of repeated physical violence” and “a history of psychological violence or harassment by the perpetrator against the woman” (“Femicide and Impunity in Mexico” 14). These conditions may be difficult to prove, especially because many femicides may be committed by a stranger to the victim and not by someone they have a history with. Lawyers and other officials fighting for justice may struggle to bring justice to the heartbroken families of these victims because of the conditions required to prove that the murder was in fact femicide.
Moreover, the actual systems used to provide the evidence for these crimes are also tarnished, as many times these femicide cases are delayed or not even reviewed in the first place. As found by the National Centre Against Femicide, between 2010 and 2011, “authorities reported that 60% of cases are still pending to be processed and only 19% have been consigned” (“Femicide and Impunity in Mexico” 8). More than half the cases are waiting to even be looked at, and even worse, a mere 4% have actually been sentenced, according to the same source.
With an increase of large companies in many of Mexico’s industrial areas, many young women are recruited to work in laborious jobs such as manufacturing and assembly-line production. These factories are known as maquiladoras, in which many young women of lower-income backgrounds are able to earn a living (Luévano 71). However, this neoliberal model has actually pushed many women into lower-income jobs, such as “street vendors, domestic servants, prostitutes, and even 'mules' transporting drugs inside their bodies, in which violence practically comes with the job” (Prieto-Carrón 29). These women are stepping out into the public sphere, in cities where these jobs are often exploitative and dangerous. In cities like Juarez, where femicides occur most frequently, there is a common stereotype these women are labeled: a “public woman”, or a prostitute, simply for working outside of the home. Thus, it undermines their work and for many, almost justifies their death when they are the victim of femicide. This is only reinforced by the police when they “told the worried families and friends of women and girls who had gone missing that they most likely lived ‘double lives’”(Wright). That they were probably off working taboo jobs that their families were unaware of, which in turn led them to their own death. In fact, in the very words of Juarez’s government: “normal Mexican families, with normal, private women safely at home, had nothing to worry about” (Wright 714). This is essentially blaming the women themselves for their own death by working outside the home. Furthermore, it is a way of minimizing the lives of these women from an issue of basic human rights to a lousy justification.
When it comes to discussing femicide, one must acknowledge the perpetrators and their potential motives. It is found that the majority of perpetrators are male, “frequently family members or friends of the victim, and often a current or former intimate partner” (Nowak 3). Femicide is often a result of a preexisting relationship, one of which with someone who these women are close to. In fact, research has now shown that “60 percent of women in Mexico who were murdered by their partners or their accomplices had previously reported domestic violence to public authorities who did not respond” (Prieto-Carrón 30). It truly is heartbreaking to see that many times their report of abuse is negated, receiving attention until after the crime has been committed. However, the number of femicides only seems to increase with an average of 10 women being murdered per day (Sandin). Yet, the president himself has claimed that women are actually “more protected than ever” and that “90% of calls to the emergency services over domestic violence were false” (Sánchez and Rodriguez). The single person who has the authority and influence to terminate this issue doesn’t even believe that women are in danger, or simply doesn’t take it seriously.
Additionally, many times before a woman can even file an official report for domestic violence, they must undergo a series of medical examinations and receive a certificate. Many times, this certificate may be the only valid piece of evidence in order for these women to receive legal protection. However, what often occurs is that these medical examiners tend to underreport these injuries “due to the difficulty of determining what this violence constitutes” (Creel and others). It is made significantly more difficult to protect themselves from their perpetrator, simply because they may not even have a chance to report it or their injuries may not reach a certain level of severity to even be considered domestic violence.
In many Latin American countries, there is often a stereotype regarding the role of women and men in the household. It is translated from a Machismo stereotype defined as a “strong or aggressive masculine pride”, according to Oxford Languages, where the role of women is in the household and their spouse, working in the public sphere. In fact, these cultural attitudes are often reflected in the media, from commercials to soap operas, “which reproduce myths justifying violence against women, such as 'women like to be beaten', or 'he was drunk or under the influence of drugs. Although it may not be the case for every household, it is no coincidence that “two-thirds of the Juarez-Chihuahua femicides are a result of domestic violence” (Luévano 74). Many femicides may stem from a household where the woman may have been facing domestic violence. In a 1987 study conducted in attempts to understand the motives of male sexual murderers, Deborah Cameron and Elisabeth Fraser found that many of these households, typically of a lower income, when the male is unemployed “feel that their status in the household and the community is undermined” and thus may result in using violence towards their spouses in order to “impose their authority” (Prieto-Carrón 29). Essentially, because ‘traditional roles’ are reversed, the macho attitude acts as a justification for this violence against their wives. Or in other words, as Mercedes Olivia puts it, these men find that “the stereotypical self-image of the macho makes it difficult to accept roles that are inferior either objectively or symbolically to those of their mates” (Meredith 239).
Several organizations, such as the “National Citizen Observatory on Femicide—an alliance of 49 human rights organizations from across Mexico—has increased accountability and access to justice in femicide cases across Mexico” (“The Long Road To Justice”). Also, international organizations like UN Women have partnered with key state institutions to analyze the “scope, trends, characteristics of femicide in the country”, in order to understand the roots of this issue, according to the same source. But, because femicide is such an expansive issue, action must also be taken by the government to medical investigators who are currently failing to do so.
The underlying stereotypes that marginalize women are costing the lives of millions of women unless effective action is taken. They must do better. For every life that has been taken, there must be justice. Otherwise, this impunity will only cost the lives of more innocent women.
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