Femicides in Mexico

Women are being murdered in Mexico at an alarming rate but how come this is the first time we have heard of it? Women are fed up of the discrimination and violence they face in Mexico, with lockdown not helping the situation. Lockdown has triggered the domestic abuse as issues such as alcoholism and overcrowding are exacerbated. Additionally, the pandemic has killed work and prevented many women from leaving men who can be the main breadwinners. 

April has been the deadliest month in Mexico in the last 5 years with a record 267 murders of women. However, the government is failing to act. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has dismissed the problem by blaming his predecessors. He told a journalist: "90% of those calls that serve as your base are false, its proven." Therefore, how is Mexico meant to deal with this issue when this is the response by its government? 

A record 26,171 emergency calls about violence against women were made in March, according to government data. Also, over 987 women and girls were murdered in the first 4 months of 2020. Victims can be afraid to call for help if they live with the aggressor. It can also be hard to have time away from the aggressor to call the authorities if you are stuck in lockdown with them.

Several brutal murderers have shocked the nation this year, including the death of 25 year old Ingrid Escamilla. 

Ingrid Escamilla

The victim of a horrific murder where she was skinned by her crazed husband despite telling the police that he was domestically violent towards her several months ago. Her husband flushed her guts down the toilet after stabbing her in the neck. She was stabbed to death in their Mexico City apartment, with footage showing her husband in a car with his head bandaged and blood on his chest while he talked to a policeman after his arrest. 

Her husband and murderer, Erik Robeldo, confessed to stabbing his partner in the throat after a heated argument in which he said that she threatened to kill him. He allegedly told her to stab him three times during an argument over his drinking before disarming her and stabbing her in the throat. During his confession, he admitted to peeling her skin and removing many of her organs, flushing them into the sewer. 

Gruesome images of her skinned body were printed on the front pages of papers across Mexico on Valentines day, resulting in a movement arising to do more against the worrying rise in femicide as well as a backlash against the media. Mexico City prosecutors have called for Robeldo to face the strongest possible punishment, with protestors spraying 'blood' on the door of the Mexican presidential palace and coating it in graffiti. 

Sadly, the reality is that in Mexico, an average of 10 women a day are killed. Instances of femicide have increased by 10% in 2019 to over 1,000. Figures show that 3,142 women were killed in Mexico from January to November 2019, but activists are saying that too few murders are being classified as femicide. This is due to the fact that it is hard to compile evidence that a woman was killed exclusively for her gender. This case was the second highest profile case in a week, after a 7 year old girl, called Fatima, was found wrapped in a bag on the outskirts of Mexico city. 

Fatima 

Fatima was last seen being picked up from school by an unidentified women in Mexico City on February 11, 2020. Later that day, her mother went to the school to pick up her daughter but was unable to find her. The next day, the 7 year old girl was reported missing. This case highlights the brutal slaying of women and girls in the country and how the age of them is not an exempt factor in this. 

Fatima's body was discovered in Tlahuac, a municipality in the south of Mexico City. The girl was sexually abused and beaten before she died. A white vehicle spotted in the area has drawn the intention of investigators. Authorities have interviewed at least 5 witnesses and a property in the Xochimilco neighbourhood has been searched. 

The female suspect had fled her apartment, but photographs, Fatima's shoes and sweater and the clothes the female suspect wore on the day of the girl's abduction were discovered, police said. Relatives have criticised the authorities over their handling of the case, saying police and officials acted too slowly. Fatima's aunt, Sonia Lopez, stated: "Fatima is not with us because the protocols were not followed, because the institutions did not give it the attention they should have." She even said that before the girl's disappearance, Fatima's mother who has health problems, did not receive the support from social services that she should have. 

These cases have sparked an outrage in the city, with tens of thousands of women taking to the street to demand justice for the many victims during a mass protest marking International Women's Day. Recently, the government in Mexico launched a ridiculed series of public service videos about to prevent domestic violence during the stay-at-home order. One ad presented a selection of stressful moments in a typical household. As tension built, it advised everybody to count to ten to calm down and "take out the white flag of peace" then showed the family members smiling and waving small flags. 

The campaign went viral with advocated condemning the government's approach. Some on social media associated with counting to ten to the number of murders of women that can happen in a single day while others posted ten names of women who have been brutally murdered this year. A director of Mas Suenos A.C, a women's community center in Mexico, said that "Counting to ten won't help especially when you're attacked" and added that the campaign is "simply a Band-Aid for something much more serious. We need mechanisms, budgets, proper help for abused women rather than an ad suggesting the victim count to ten and wave a white flag." 

The fact of the matter is that Mexico is facing another epidemic that is largely intertwined with the coronavirus. Women are being raped, murdered and kidnapped with frequency and the problem is growing. While Fatima's murder resulted in the arrest of two people, Escamilla's killing remains unsolved. They are also cursed with a government that has a dismissive response to the femicides that are happening in its country. It has failed to deliver on its promises of reopening government-funded domestic violence shelters and day care facilities that were shuttered due to budget cuts last year and launching a smartphone app to report street harassment. 

Femicides are a major public health problem in Mexico - one that will outlast the pandemic. Several of Mexico's recent victims were girls, such as 13 year old Ana Paola, who was raped and murdered inside her Mexico home on April 2. President Lopez Obrador continues to downplay the problem of violence against women, claiming without factual basis that 90% of calls to domestic abuse hotlines are fake. The reality is that Mexico like most countries has a patriarchal system, therefore, it is difficult to study the gender violence problem and propose concrete, actionable solutions.