This week the Mexican legislature passed a landmark bill aimed at compensating the victims of drug crimes. Yet it’s another group of victims who continue to seek justice nearly three years after the tragic and sadly preventable ABC Nursery fire.
A citizens group known as the Movement for Justice on June 5 (El Movimiento por la Justicia 5 de Junio) has called on Mexican president Felipe Calderón to push for the implementation of the regulations in the Nursery Law.
"We call all the parents of affected families, to join forces with us and force President Calderon, that he enact regulations that should have been done April, "said Jose Francisco Garcia Quintana, spokesman for the the Movement for Justice on June 5. Quintana added that the lack of implrmentation of the Nursery Law, which was passed last year, has put into danger children that rely on the services of daycare centers throughout Mexico.
The following 2010 video via Al Jazeera English looks at the June 2009 blaze that killed forty-nine children in the state-run nursery:
Under the yet to be implemented Nursery Law, all Mexican day care centers will be subject to new safety rules as well as greater federal oversight over existing nurseries.
Aside from the Movement for Justice on June 5, other victims’ families groups have also spoken out in order to try to prevent tragedies like the ABC Nursery fire from occurring again. Last week, for instance, some of the victims’ families urged that the Attorney General’s Office halt the impunity that has prevented the prosecution of those possibly responsible for the tragedy. They criticized ruling party presidential candidate Josefina Vázquez Mota for having former minister Juan Francisco Molinar Horcasitas and ex-Sonora Gov. Eduardo Bours on her campaign staff.
“How can this women…have these people in her campaign while she herself says in her campaign ads that she will imprison all corrupt politicians? How can I believe her if (Molinar and Bours) are for responsible for the deaths of 49 children and 75 injured?” proclaimed Maria Elena Valenzuela, mother of one of the dead in the ABC Nursery fire.
Video Source – YouTube via Al Jazeera English
Online Sources – El Informador, Azteca Noticias, Milenio.com, Latin American News Dispatch
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