Women in Mexico: Recognition, femicides and protest

A Mexican court refused to extradite to the U.S. an alleged drug trafficker nicknamed the “Queen of the Pacific” while Colombian authorities captured a supposed female figurehead in the Sinaloa gang. Despite the criminal connections of these two ladies there has been several pieces of positive news for women in Mexico over the past few weeks.

In Mexico City, the metropolis’ government passed a law that codifies the crime of femicides. The reform to the local criminal code was enacted two weeks ago and includes sentences of up to sixty years in prison.

Under the new categorization femicides are defined as gender-based murders that may include sexual abuse or discrimination against woman. This was the criterion being applied to the arrest of a man arrested and charged with femicide only three days after the law was enacted. According to local police the suspect “got annoyed because the (daughter of his girlfriend) was biting her fingernails and hit her several times causing her death.”

Other Latin American countries are ether considering or have already made femicides a stand-alone crime. In Peru, for instance, Minister for Social Development Aída García Naranjo said last week that she would introduce a proposal to try to combat an increased number of murders against women.

Meanwhile, Mexican women’s rights activist Consuelo Morales was one of the seven winners of this year’s Alison Des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism from Human Rights Watch (HRW). The human rights group recognized Morales for her “courageous efforts in finding and end to impunity and to help the victims of the ‘war on drugs’ in Mexico.” HRW praised her work for the Monterrey-based Citizens Supporting Human Rights group that “documents these abuses, litigates key cases, and provides critical support for victims of both security forces and violent drug cartels.”

Lastly, a group of women in Mexico City have organized protests against cantinas that illegally discriminate against them. The Women to the Cantinas group claimed that several establishments have refused to serve prospective female clientele while male customers harassed others.

The manager of one of the bars in question denied that his employees discriminated against women. One customer made it be clear that he was certainly not pleased with the protests:

There are places for everyone; for women, for gays,” a resident Archie Bunker who declined to give his name told Reforma. “Can’t there be a single place just for men? I come here because of the tradition that we run women out.”

Then, declaring himself “a misogynist,” he fled into the night with the rest of the regular male customers.

Online Sources- seattlepi.com, RCN Radio, Human Rights Watch, elmundo.es, Milenio, LAHT, La Republica, Fox News Latino
Image – Azteca Noticias