LETTER FROM MEXICO
Mexico today shows two faces regarding women’s rights: on the one hand, the reassuring face of a new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, who promised to improve their situation during her campaign with her slogan “It’s women’s time” (“It’s time for women”). On the other hand, a profile that is still archaic and worrying, which still criminalizes women and children, victims of sexual abuse.
the 1Ahem In October, the Head of State proclaimed during her inauguration: “I don’t arrive alone, we all arrive” (“I don’t come alone, we all take power”) and has included in the Constitution new inalienable rights for women: salary and real equality, parity in all administrations and the right to a life free of violence; a historic demand of the feminist movement that has shaken the country in recent years. Now a minimum retirement at age 60 also appears in the Constitution, four years earlier than for men, in recognition of the double shift of work they do.
At the local level, eighteen states out of thirty-two have legalized abortion, four of them in October and November. On November 25, International Day against Violence against Women, the most populated city in Mexico, Mexico City, adopted it, while the green sea (“green tide”) demonstrated in front of Congress.
But, along with these advances, obtained largely thanks to this unprecedented mobilization of Mexican women, a 14-year-old boy remained at home for eight months, under house arrest, accused of homicide. Esmeralda had been raped by her cousin, three years older than her, and had not reported the rape or her pregnancy until she lost the 36-week-old child in a miscarriage in January.
At the hospital, in one of the states that still criminalize abortion, the medical staff has the obligation to notify the judicial authorities, who concluded that a “fetal strangulation”. The prosecution requested three years in prison and 500,000 pesos (about 23,000 euros) in compensation for the minor’s father, her alleged rapist. However, Esmeralda had told the inspectors about the rape she had suffered, and the penal code of the state of Querétaro considers it “Any sexual relationship with a minor is rape.”.
“Cruelty of the prosecution”
If the local feminist association Adax_digitales had not learned of the case in August, Esmaralda could have ended up in a prison. “We saw the file, we immediately understood that the assessment had been poorly done and, above all, we always believed what the child said”says by phone Mayra Dávila, founder of the association and Esmeralda’s lawyer, whose mother is dead and her father is illiterate. “I was very angry at the hearing because of the cruelty of the prosecution in asking for compensation for the rapist, for a poor girl who no longer has a mother to defend her.”says who has a daughter Esmeralda’s age. When I left, I spoke about my indignation to a journalist friend, without thinking that the case would go viral. »
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