User:Rovalle234/Violence against women in Mexico

Cultural Roots
Liberation theologian Virgil Elizondo once wrote, "The devotion to Mary is the most popular, persistent, and original characteristic of Latin American Christianity". When Spanish conquistador, Hernan Cortes, landed in Tenochtitlan (present day Mexico City) in 1519, he imposed Spains' gender norms and Christian evangelization beliefs on to the indigenous societies. As a result, the ideological gender models of marianismo and machismo were engrained into Mexican society due to Spanish colonization.

Pre Colonial Gender Norms
Pre colonial indigenous groups such as the Mexica, Quechua and the Aztecs believed in a gender complementary and parallel society. Men and women operated in two separate but equal and interdependent divisions. For example, both Aztec men and women had their own political systems in which same-sex rulers were appointed to government. These appointed officials would then discuss political related concerns over the general population and generate solutions together. Men nor women overpowered one another because the Aztecs believed that the creation of a human was equally made by both genders, therefore they were each to be treated and respected equally within society. As a result, women had many political freedoms and the opportunity to achieve economic independence. Women had the liberty to choose from a variety of jobs ranging from being a midwife to a market trader. In addition, they could own various forms of wealth assets including: houses, land and moveable goods. If a women owned land before marriage, she still maintained independent control over her property and could choose who inherited her assets without needing the disclosure of her husband. In fact, the term "woman land" is found across Nahuatl documents, the Aztec language, indicating land was passed down to a woman either through "inheritance, dowries, or gifts". However, the list of rights that Aztec women were once granted was shortened by the arrival of Spanish conquistadors.

Post Colonial Gender Norms
Once the Spanish conquered Tenotchitlan, indigenous societies became male dominated. By the end of the 16th century, women could no longer hold positions in government or religion, neither have control over their own personal assets. For example, in 1530 the Spanish converted the once male and female controlled Mexican urban market into a solely male supervised system. Thus, men had control over price management in the market, and prohibited women from purchasing or owning land without consent of their husbands. Even cacicas, elite women in the Aztec empire, were forced to surrender their power to their husbands once they were married. As indigenous men were given more authoritative power by the Spanish, the "machista" mentality started to plague the minds of men. Under Spanish law, the church granted men authority to punish their wives or sisters if they failed to be obedient. Indigenous women were strongly advised to follow the tenets of the Virgin Mary, often referred by scholars as marianismo. Women were forced to embody the submissive, chastity and modest nature of the Virgin Mary. If the Catholic church suspected a women was not following these pillars they were viewed as evil and were closely monitored. The Spanish conquest changed the division of labor in the Aztec society, women were now expected to remain at home, attend to their husband and children.

Alternative Perspective
Mexican renowned psychologist Samuel Ramos has offered a different explanation as to the origination of machismo. He argues indigenous men adopted a hyper masculine attitude as a result of feeling inferior to Spanish conquistadors. This machista attitude was adopted by indigenous men to compensate for not being able to protect their land from the Spanish.

Maquiladoras & NAFTA
In 1992, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed by the United States, Mexico and Canada. The purpose of NAFTA was to help North American countries remain competitive within the global market. As a result of the agreement, industries expanded and the three countries were able to trade at low cost. American industries such as General Electric, Alcoa and DuPont transferred their factory locations to Juarez, Mexico to take advantage of the cheap labor. In fact 80% of border factories/maquiladoras in Juarez are U.S owned. NAFTA helped create 1.2 million jobs in Mexico, and over 25% of those opportunities were in the maquiladoras of Juarez. This attracted over tens of thousands of poor women from all over Mexico to migrate to Juarez and work at the maquiladoras, earning an average of fifty five dollars for the 48 hours they worked a week. Unfortunately, one year after NAFTA was signed, women's dismembered bodies were found in the deserts of Juarez. From 1994-2000 it is estimated 300-400 women were murdered, one third of them being maquiladora workers. In less than a decade, the once low homicide reporting Juarez became the "murder capital of the world".

The Exploitation of Maquiladora Workers
Human rights activist, Esther Chavez Cano once said, "If you want to rape and kill a woman, there is no better place to do it than Juarez". Women of Juarez became an easy target for men to kill as they were constantly being attracted by maquiladora worksites. The factories provided women higher pay wages compared to other employment opportunities in Mexico. Additionally, maquiladoras were as equally as interested in specifically hiring women. Employees prefer hiring women because they have small hands which can assemble intricate goods, are considered to be more submissive than Mexican men, and are less of a threat in unionizing against the factory. In fact, women and young girls compose more than 60% of maquiladora workers. However, maquiladoras do refuse to employ pregnant women, as the Mexican government requires companies to provide monetary aid to pregnant employees. As a result, maquiladoras conduct routinely pregnancy test on their female employees, as well as analyze their sanitary napkins every menstrual cycle. Birth control pills are also offered to female employees, but not other health services. Even with the maquiladoras performing intrusive acts on women and the risks of living in Juarez, women continue to go at a rate of forty to sixty thousand per year. Leslie Salzinger, a sociologist who worked at a maquiladora in Juarez, argues that women continued to go work at maquiladoras for a sense of independence, an opportunity to own their own money.

Failure in Protecting Women
Maquiladora corporations and Mexican officials did not take safety measures in protecting female employees after the rise of femicide cases in Juarez. Instead, Mexican authorities blamed the disappearing young girls for living a "double life", suggesting they worked as prostitutes at night. In fact, in 1999, Chihuahuas State Public Prosecutor, Arturo Gonzalez Rascon, stated "women with a night life go out very late and come into contact with drinkers. It's hard to go out on the street when it's raining and not get wet". Additionally Chihuahuas governer Francisco Barrio did not provide extensive resources to further investigate the murders of women. In 1998 the National Commission for Human Rights issued a report, identifying Mexicos negligence in investigating femicide cases. They were unable to collect evidence, keep record of how many bodies were found, and continuously misidentified corpses. After the report was released, Suly Ponce was appointed as the official prosecutor for the women's deaths, and she testified to witnessing polices carelessness in crime scenes as they would ruin evidence with foot prints. There were only three successful captures of murderers. In 1995 Egyptian chemist, Abdel Latif Sharif, a convicted sex offender and employee of a US maquiladora plant was charged with killing a woman. One year later, in 1996 a gang by the name of "Los Rebeldes" confessed to killing six women and in 1999 the designated bus drivers for the maquiladora workers confessed to committing five murders. Mexican police officers continuously tried to convict more bus drivers for murders. In 1999 four maquiladora bus drivers confessed to 20 murders, however it was revealed they were tortured by police into committing the crimes, another unsuccessful attempt at solving cases.

Discrepancies in Femicide Reporting
In 2012, Mexico created a new crime category for femicides, in hopes of understanding the magnitude of the issue. From 2015-2019 the Secretary General of National Public Security (SESNSP) reported an increase in femicide cases from 411 to 983, a 139% difference. However, not all states within Mexico were enforced to adopt femicide into their penal code, therefore there are still many femicide cases that go unreported. Currently, only 13 out of 32 states in Mexico have included femicide into their penal codes: Chiapas, Colima, Districto Federal, Durango, Estado de Mexico, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Morelos, San Luis Potosi, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas, Tabasco and Veracruz. Still, each state differs the way in which they classify femicides, due to Mexicos vague definition. This increases the risk of cases being misclassified. For example, Chihuahua does not consider the killing of a women, different from a homicide. In an attempt to accurately quantify femicide cases, local activist Maria Salguero has created an interactive map tracking femicides based off of local and national news reports. In addition, community organizations such as Casa Amiga, a rape crisis shelter in Juarez, makes an effort to collect femicide cases at the border. Torreblanca, the director of data analysis at Data Civica, urges the Mexican government to improve the current femicide database, in order to best combat the issue.

COVID-19 Effects on Violence Against Women
On March 23rd of 2020 Mexicos stay at home orders went into full effect, disabling some women from escaping their abusive households. As a result, the following month of April became the deadliest reported month in the last five years in Mexico as 267 women were murdered. In fact, more women had died by murder in April than of COVID-19 (100 deaths). During the first four months of 2020, a total of 987 women were killed, and 308 of those cases were classified as femicides according to Mexicos Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection. Compared to the femicide rate in 2019, it was reported to have increased by 7.7% after the COVID-19 lock down was initiated. Additionally, reports of domestic violence increased in Mexico. UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres stated, "one negative repercussion of this isolation period has been the horrifying global surge in domestic violence". Over 260,000 domestic violence related calls were made to the Mexican police in 2020 compared to the 198,000 made in 2019. Linea de la Mujer, a domestic violence hotline in Mexico, also reported a 97% increase in calls compared to the year before. Lastly, the number of women and children admitted to the 69 National Network of Shelter locations in Mexico, increased by 50% during the pandemic. The stay at home order in Mexico had unintended consequences as it led to an increase in femicide cases and domestic violence reports.

Government Response
On May 15th, 2020, Mexican president Andres Manual Lopez Obrador stated that 90% of calls made to domestic violence hotlines during the stay at home orders were false. Later that same month, the government previewed an anti domestic violence commercial, urging spouses to count to ten and wave the "white flag of peace" when frustrated. After receiving criticism from the Mexican population, which urged the government to provide tangible resources for domestic violence victims instead, the collection of videos were removed from television commercials. In July of 2020 Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador would announce that the federal women's institute would receive a budget cut of 75%, an estimated 151 pesos ($7,537,752.92 USD).

Invisibility, Normalization and Impunity
While there has been legislation over the last few decades attempting to decrease violence against women, they have proven to have had little effect due to a lack of enforcement by authorities and trust in the government.

In 2020, it was reported by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) that 92.4 percent of crimes in Mexico are either not reported to authorities or investigated by them. In 2016, Mexico received a 67.42 from a scale of 0-100, 0 being no impunity, placing it as 58th out of the 59 countries that were examined in the Global Impunity Index. Specifically only 7% of crimes against women are further investigated after being reported. However, even after investigations are opened, suspect aggressors are rarely caught and taken before a judge. For instance in 2018, Mexicos National Statistic and Geography Institute stated that out of the 1,058,052 cases that were opened for investigation only 58,228 suspects were forced to present themselves in court. As a result, many female homicides continue to go unrecognized by authorities, as no action is taken to investigate the women's deaths.

With the lack of authoritative force in Mexicos' justice system, women and other members of the population have quit reporting cases overall. The National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), revealed that women refuse to report their case to authorities due to their lack of trust in the government, it being a waste of time, not having sufficient evidence, or out of fear of their abuser. Furthermore, Irene Tello Arista, executive director of Impunidad Cero, stated that this underreporting "has a lot to do with discrimination at the time of reporting. Women are treated with prejudices and stereotypes, the authorities ask them is they were drunk, if they had a relationship with the aggressor, if they are sure they want to report". With zero faith in authorities to bring justice to victims and their well-known misogynistic reputation, women have avoided contacting them for help. The Mexican government has recognized this underreporting phenomenon as la Cifra negra, the black figure.

In 2019 the National Survey on Urban Public Security (ENSU), unveiled that 77% of women reported feeling unsafe in Mexico, as an average of 11 women are killed every day. As a result, Alejandro Gertz Manero, Attorney General of Mexico, recommended in August 2020 that all murders involving women should be investigated as femicides.

In Film

 * The documentary, "Luchadoras" directed by Patrick Jasim and Paola Calvo examines the lives of three maquiladora workers who live in Cuidad Juarez. They avoid the dangers of femicide by engaging in female wrestling.