How 11 Brave Women Are Fighting For End Of Sexual Torture By Mexican Law Enforcement OpEd

[Judi Lynn]

July 5, 2017 COHA


By Sharri K Hall*

On May 3, 2006, the people of San Salvador Atenco in the State of Mexico organized a protest against plans to build an airport that would forcibly remove thousands of people from lands they had inhabited for generations. Current Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, who was acting governor at the time of the State of Mexico, sent in Mexican State police to end the resistance. The Mexican State police were ill-equipped to handle the resistance so on the following day, May 4, they returned with the Federal Police, and helicopters to implement a violent operation. In the conflict that followed, two people were killed and 217 were detained, including 50 women. Law enforcement officials tortured and sexually violated these women in an effort to repress and silence them.[ii] Officers allowed days to pass before victims were treated by medical professionals.[iii] Despite their trying experiences, these women refused to be silent about their experiences and, for more than a decade, spoke out against sexual victimization by law enforcement officials. Since then, public agents in Mexico have been accused of a litany of human rights violations against women including arbitrary and illegal detention, withholding of due process and judicial rights, physical abuse, and sexual torture by means of sexual assault and rape.[iv]

On May 5, 2014, Mariana Selvas, Georgina Rosales, María Patricia Romero, Norma Jiménez, Claudia Hernández, Bárbara Méndez, Ana María Velasco, Yolanda Muñoz, Cristina Sánchez, Patricia Torres, and Suhelen Cuevas[v] came together on the eighth anniversary of their plight and formed the initiative Rompiendo el Silencio (Breaking the Silence).[vi] Rompiendo el Silencio aims to expose the systemic pattern of sexual torture that women in Mexico face upon detention by law enforcement and military agents to intimidate, repress, or humiliate women into submission.[vii] The initiative intends to educate the public about the nature of sexual torture and reveal the victims by making their stories and experiences known to the outside world. Sexual torture is violence against women through which their bodies and their freedom are violated through sexual assault, rape, the introduction of objects, and physical assault. Since 2014, Rompiendo el Silencio has worked tirelessly with diplomatic institutions and human rights organizations such as the United Nations, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), Centro Prodh, and Amnesty International.

Despite valiant efforts from these 11 women, until recently, their voices had gone mostly unheard by Mexican local and federal governments. Ten years after the assaults took place, the IACHR finally brought the investigation before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights into the events that took place in Atenco in May 2006, calling for a much more thorough inquiry into the chain of command to ascertain who may have issued the order permitting the abuse and use of force and calling for disciplinary action against authorities who contributed to the human rights violations and the denial of justice for the women. The IACHR suggested that the State government has sought to minimize and cover up the events. Though the government in the State of Mexico has acknowledged the accusations, it has not convicted anyone in relation to these crimes. Only 21 officers of the 700 ordered to appear at the protest were charged for abuse of authority. All 21 were acquitted. A state police officer was charged for the “non-serious crime” of “libidinous acts” after forcing a victim to perform oral sex; he was also acquitted.[viii] Five doctors were charged with ignoring evidence of sexual abuse, but had their cases dismissed.[ix] Rather than prosecute the law enforcement officials involved, the State of Mexico initially prosecuted the victimized women. Five of the women were imprisoned for more than a year on arbitrary charges such as blocking traffic.[x] Additionally, in May 2017, The State Human Rights Commission of Veracruz (La Comisión Estatal de los Derechos Humanos de Veracruz, CEDHV) issued a recommendation to the Attorney General of the State of Mexico and the President of the Superior Court of Justice and the Judicial Council of Veracruz to release María del Sol Vásquez who has been illegally detained for five years for crimes that she did not commit.[xi] There is not yet evidence to suggest whether the Mexican government will heed these recommendations.

More:
http://www.eurasiareview.com/05072017-how-11-brave-women-are-fighting-for-end-of-sexual-torture-by-mexican-law-enforcement-oped/