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Sexual Exploitation of Latina Women and Children

This section was last updated on June 8, 2006

A Focus on the Rape and Sexual Assaults of 23 Women Protesters By Police for the State of Mexico in the Town of Atenco on May 3rd and 4th, 2006.

 

 

Mexico

Crisis in Atenco, Mexico


Police Officers Rape Seven and Sexually Assault 16 Women During Protest Turned Riot


thumbnail

Alto a las Violaciones de Mujeres

Stop the Violation of Women

Atenco Solidarity Rally - San Antonio, Texas


Latest News


Foto: Belinda Hernández

Solidarity with the victims of Atenco - Europe


Added June 08, 2006

Mexico

Huma Rights Group: There Is No Doubt That Police Sexual Assaults Against Women In Atenco Were A Form Of Torture

No hay duda que agresiones a mujeres en Atenco son tortura.

According to Felicitas Treue, a psychotherapist working with  the non-profit group Collective Against Torture And Impunity, there is no doubt that the sexual assaults faced by 23 women at the hands of policemen during  a police operation in early May 2006 were a form of toture.

As a participant in the round table session “The women of Atenco,” organized monthly by the Friedrich Ebert  Foundation and Communic-ation & Information for Woman AC (CIMAC), the activist stated that these acts of sexual aggression were committed to show that women are objects.

Treue explained that the assaults against women are a demonstration of acts of control by men, be they police, military or a custodian.  These acts are a form of “punishment” for women who “dare” to leave their traditional role. 

Treue noted that women have always been a booty of war.  In this case, they were a "reward" for police officers responsible for enforcing the law. 

In turn, Alicia Elena Pérez Duarte, Special Prosecutor for Violent Crimes Against Women, of the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR), indicated that she has begun an initial investigation into the case of Atenco.  She committed her office to apply principles of equality and non-discrimination in their investigation. 

- CimacNoticias

News for Women

Mexico City

June 7, 2006


Added June 05, 2006

Mexico

Mexico Solidarity Network's Weekly News Summary On Atenco

The International Commission for Observation of Human Rights, made up mainly of European human rights activists, spent the week interviewing Atenco residents, government officials and human rights organizations, and trying - unsuccess-fully - to visit 27 political prisoners from Atenco held in two prisons.  Prison officials also denied visitation rights to family members and conducted several court hearings in private, both clear violation of Mexican law. 

Police officials and Mexico state Governor Enrique Pena continued to deny any grave misconduct on the part of police, and sited the results of lie detector tests conducted in private as "proof."

Most of the 27 prisoners held in Santiaguito Prison entered the fourth week of a hunger strike that has left many in a weakened state.  Demands include release of all Atenco prisoners, justice for those who suffered rape, beatings and torture, and impeachment of Governor Enrique Pena.  The newly formed organization Women Without Fear - We Are All Atenco organized a rotating hunger strike and 24-hour vigilance in front of the prison.  Actress Ofelia Medina led the first group of hunger strikers.

In a biting editorial in Friday's (06/02) La Jornada, Adolfo Gilly highlighted the use of sexual violence to attack social movements as a new, and particularly worrisome, state strategy: "With the police rapes of the women of Atenco, the violence of the Mexican state surpassed a limit.  Of course, before, the state killed, committed massacres, tortured, kidnap-ped, raped and disappeared people.  But since [the 1968 student massacre at] ‘Tlatelolco,’ even with the assassi-nations and disappearances of the 70s and successive years, they had not practiced mass rape of women prisoners as they did recently in the case of San Salvador Atenco - a collective act of barbarity that no uniformed officer would commit without orders from commanders."

- Mexico Solidarity Network

June 4, 2006


Added June 01, 2006

Mexico

Catalonian Legal Scholar: Sexist Bias Exists in Mexico’s Laws

Sesgo machista en leyes mexicanas: especialista catalana

Integrante de la misión española de observación en Atenco

Encarnacion Bodelón González, a Catalonian specialist in legal philosophy with a focus on gender law, has declared that the denial of the validity of the testimony of 23 women sexually assaulted by police officers in the town of Atenco is a form of machismo (formalized sexism) that affects the application of laws in Mexico.

During her visit to the town of Atenco with the Commission this past Tuesday, Bodelón González verified the many testimonies of sexual aggressions, as well as the degree of psychological trauma faced by the victims.

According to Bodelón González , news reports about the possible exoneration of the police officers accused in the sexual assaults, based on the supposed use of lie detector tests, cannot have any probative value because of the unreliability of such tests.

In Bodelón González’s opinion, what happened in Atenco “is one more example of how our patriarchal culture has made women invisible” and reinforces the idea that women’s autonomy, dignity and veracity can be denied before the law.

Bodelón González: These sexual assaults were carried out by the same [federal] law enforcement who has [ordered other acts of repression in Mexico].  These sexual attacks are evidence of a strategy of terror not only toward the community of Atenco, but toward a particular demographic profile of free thinking, autonomous women.  This attack was meant to send a message to the women of Mexico.” 

Bodelón González noted that through her interviews with the victims (many of whom remain in prison), they have received no medical treatment or services for victims of sexual assault.  The few women who have been release have only received limited help from non-profit organizations and the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).   

The consequences of this extreme violence against the community of Atenco, the jurist said, could seen in the fact that the women and children of the community who were not attacked are very fearful, and present symptoms of post-traumatic stress and anxiety.

Bodelón González called upon national and international feminist organiz-ations to organize a support effort to end this violence against women.

-Lourdes Godínez Leal

CimacNoticias

News for Women

Mexico City

May 31, 2006

LibertadLatina Note:

Catalonia is a region, and nationality within Spain.

 


Added May 27, 2006

Mexico

Feminists Demand That National Public Security Undersecretary Miguel Angel Yunes Resign In Wake Of Atenco

Exigen feministas la renuncia de Miguel Angel

Feminist members of Consortium for Parliamentary Dialogue and the Equality and Integral Health for the Woman (SIPAM) have demanded the immediate resignation of National Public Security Undersecretary Miguel Angel Yunes for his failure to accept responsibility for the sexual violence committed by federal and state police officers in Atenco on May 3rd and 4th, 2006.

In a communiqué, the organization’s signatories staed that the petition will be delivered to an official responsible for the Preventive Federal Police (PFP), in whose headquarters they will carry out tomorrow a long wait in repudiation by the crime abuses of the past 3 and 4 of May passed in San Savior Atenco. 

Yunes is accused by feminists of being directly responsible for the criminal sexual violence committed by officers of the PFP, which is under Yunes’ control.  They also accuse Yunes of wrapping the actions of the PFP in the a cloak of legitimacy, putting in doubt the truthfulness of the complaints filed by the [23] victims, and effectively justifying the sex crimes committed by the officers.

In the face of the indignation of women who protest these brutal acts, the abuse of power and the criminality perpetrated by police forces in the Atenco operation, the feminist organizations demand that Yunes not only resign, but that he be put at the disposal of the investigating authorities.

The feminists also demand that the police accused of involvement in the rapes and sexual assaults be made examples of, and demand an end to state repression against popular social movements.

- Lourdes Godínez

Cimac Noticias

News for Women

Mexico City

May 25, 2006


Added May 24, 2006

Mexico

Amnesty International: Federal Attorney General Should Take Over Rape Cases From State Of Mexico

AI exige a PGR atraer los casos de violación.  

Amnesty international (AI) has declared that the rapes and sexual assaults perpetrated against detained women by police forces in Atenco constitute acts of torture.  Together with Mexico's Friar Francisco Vitoria  Human Rights Center, AI has requested that the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR) take over the seven cases of rape suffered by women arrested during a police operation in San Savior Atenco this past may 3rd and 4th, 2006.

Liliana Velázquez, president of AI in Mexico, said that the investigation into the case should be done in an exhaustive and impartial manner.

- El Universal

Mexico City

May 24, 2006


Added May 24, 2006

Mexico

Amnesty: Mexico's Human Rights Efforts Inadequate And Deceptive

Ven decepcionante trabajo en derechos humanos.  

Amnesty International has indicated that the actions carried out by the Mexican federal government in the field of human rights are "insufficient and disappointing" due to the impunity that prevails in Mexico, and due to persistent practices such as arbitrary detention, torture and violence against the women.

Liliana Velázquez, president of AI in Mexico, expressed her concern because, on the one hand, the administration of President Vicente Fox has failed in its intent to judge and to punish those responsible for the crimes of the past [the Dirty War] and on the other hand, the special prosecutor of the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR) to investigate the murders of women in City Juárez (in Chihuahua state) has not held itself accountable [for inaction in those cases].

Liliana Velázquez: "Impunity is commonplace [in Mexico], and we ask ourselves… is this the exception or, now, the rule."

- El Universal

Mexico City

May 24, 2006


Added May 24, 2006

Mexico

Supreme court Chief Justice: Nations Judges Cannot Be Indifferent To Human Rights

"Jueces no deben ser indiferentes." 

Speaking before an audience at the National Autono-mous University of Mexico (UNAM), Mexico’s President of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN), Mariano Adze, stated that the nation’s judges should not be indifferent to violations of human rights, because they are responsible for protecting those guarantees through their acts of sentencing.

In presenting the opening speech of the forum, Mariano Adze said that all judges, "from the level of a municipal magistrate who knows of arbitrary acts by a cacique [overlord, town boss] in remote mountain areas… to judges in courts that are forums for national issues... have an irrevocable responsibility to protect the fundamental rights of the people." 

- El Universal

Mexico City

May 24, 2006


Added May 24, 2006

Mexico

Human Rights Commission Calls PFP Federal Police Report “Partial & Fixed”

"La PFP no se puede deslindar."

(The PFP Police cannot distance themselves [from the events at Atenco, in which their officers also face investigation].)

Mexico’s Federal Preventive Police (PFP) cannot distance itself from the facts in the San Savior Atenco case.  The only institution authorized to determine if public servants incurred responsibility for violating funda-mental guarantees is the National Commission of the Human Rights (CNDH). 

CNDH Second Inspector General Susana Thalía Pedroza added that the report provided by the PFP in regard to the case is "partial and fixed."  Therefore, the CNDH must assume its responsibility. 

During an interview with El Universal, Pedroza assured that the CNDH possesses photographs, videos and other evidence of the ‘fingerprints’ that remain on [the bodies of] these women as consequence of the abuses and sexual violations that they suffered. 

Pedroza said that in none of the six complaints of rape presented by the victims to the CNDH involve sexual intercourse, but, she added, the Penal Code of the State of Mexico also includes in its definition of rape... vaginal, anal or oral penetration by any part of the body or by an object, against the will of the person. 

- Liliana Alcántara

El Universal

Mexico City

May 24, 2006


Added May 23, 2006

Mexico

Human Rights Commission: Seven Women Were Raped At Atenco

CNDH ombudsman José Luis Soberanes

CNDH: Women who alleged rape are telling the truth

CNDH: The victims have not under-gone gynecological exams because of the state of trauma that they are in.

Upon presenting their preliminary report in regard to the violent acts at Texcoco and San Salvador Atenco on May 3rd and 4th, 2006, the National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH) asserted that "nobody can say that the 19 Mexican women and the four foreigners lied in their accusations rape and sex abuse... we have we have accredited their reports with detailed minutes, videos, medical opinions and photographs.  As a result, we have presented our findings to the public prosecutor’s office for the state of Mexico. 

CNDH national ombudsman José Luis Soberanes reported that as a result of the raid by municipal, state, preventive, and federal police officers, 211 complaints have been received; some individuals refer at more than one violation of their human rights.

- La Jornada

Mexico City

May 23, 2006


Added May 23, 2006

Mexico

Repression, Rape and Torture by Police In Mexico State

Algunos testimonios de violaciones a los derechos humanos de las mujeres detenidas en San Salvador Atenco.

Testimonies of human rights violations by women detained by police in Atenco.

- Americas.org

May 23, 2006


Added May 23, 2006

Mexico

Mexico's National Human Rights Commission Confirms 23 Rapes and Sexual Assaults at Atenco

Confirma CNDH agresiones sexuales hacia detenidas de Atenco

After confirming the 23 cases of sexual aggression against the women protesters of the San Savior Atenco protest, the National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH) has announced concerns about irregularities in the elaboration of the medical certificates for the detained women. 

Presenting their first report in regard to the [May 3rd and 4th] violence in Atenco, Susana de la Llave, second inspector general of the CNDH said that itself “all the elements exist to presume that 23 women suffered sexual attacks” during the events in Atenco. 

Detailed minutes, medical opinions, photos and videos have been documented by the CNDH. 

Susana de la Llave… “The 23 women coincide in time, form and place, but the description that do of the sex abuse is different.”   “With this documentation, nobody can allege that these women lied.”

Among the irregularities in the elaboration of the medical certificates, de la Llave said that the documents lack of chronological order in the description of the external wounds, and they contain partial description of wounds. 

- Lourdes Godínez Leal

CimacNoticias

News for Women

Mexico City

May 22, 2006


Added May 23, 2006

Mexico

CNDH: 23 Women Were Abused

Top officials from the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) said on Monday that 23 cases of sexual abuse and rape have been documented following the violent clash between protesters and police in San Salvador Atenco earlier this month.

- El Universal /

Miami Herald

Mexico City

May 23, 2006


Added May 22, 2006<