INTERVENTIONS ON VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN: FROM
THEORY TO PRACTICE1
As President of the National Human Rights Commission of Mexico, it is
my great honor to come before you and present the main activities
carried out by our Institution in the subject of violence against women
and sexual harassment.
Since the beginning of my administration, in November, 2009, and
within the framework of the 2009-2014 work plan, attention to violence
against women has been an important issue, as one of the guiding axis
for the activities of the NHRC. It is a problem that significantly violates
their rights, given that gender inequalities are a constant challenge for
the consolidation of democracy, development and justice.
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Keynote speech of Dr. Raúl Plascencia-Villanueva, President of the NHRC, Sub-topic
No. 1 “Violence against Women”, in the framework of the 11th International Conference of
National Human Rights Institutions, November 6, 2012.
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Mexico’s General Law of Women’s access to a Life Free of Violence
defines violence against women as any action or omission, based on
their gender that causes any psychological, physical, patrimonial,
economic or sexual damage or suffering, or even death at the private
and public levels and that can occur within the family, work place,
community or institutional environment.
Beyond this concept, it is necessary to consider that many women face
multiple forms of discrimination and greater risks of violence in the
world. Examples of this at the global level are human trafficking and
sexual harassment at work. According to estimates, between 500,000
and 2 million people suffer from human trafficking every year, in
situations involving prostitution, forced labor, slavery or bondage. Girls
and women account for approximately 80 percent of the detected
victims.
One of the consequences of violence against women is that it has a
high economic cost. On one hand, direct costs, such as treatment
services and support for mistreated women and their children as well
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as trials for offenders; and, on the other hand, indirect costs related to
loss of their jobs and productivity.
However, of particularly grave concern is that violence against women
occurs primarily in their homes; beating and mistreatments to the
female partner are perhaps the most common forms of violence
against women. Countries where reliable, large-scale research on
gender-based violence is being conducted, have had an output of 20
percent of women victims of mistreatment by the men they live with. As
a result, many countries have passed laws recognizing that violence
perpetrated by their husbands must be treated in the same way as
violence perpetrated by strangers.
In the case of Mexico, even though most of the Federal Entities or
States have undertaken some kind of legal reform in order to eradicate
all kinds of violence against women, it is necessary to develop a
comprehensive plan that includes sanctions to those that are
responsible.
Proper
guaranties
for
victims
and
coordination
mechanisms among public authorities that render effective all
measures for women protection must also be implemented.
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Also, the NHRC considers equally important to address legal norms
established in international instruments on this subject, which impose
duties to States related to their conduct and the treatment they should
award to this particular group.
In this sense, and as part of the international activity carried out by the
National Human Rights Commission of Mexico, we can point out the
proposal for the creation of an Ibero-American Obervatory on Migration
and Human Trafficking as a way of mainly tackling this problem and
protecting women’s right in the region, in the framework of the XV
Annual Congress and Assembly of the Ibero-American Ombudsman
Federation, held in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, in October, 2010,
with the participation of people’s defenders, commissioners and
presidents of human rights institutions in the Americas and the Iberian
Peninsula.
Likewise, the Mexican State has undertaken legislative modifications in
terms of equality that crystalized in the General Law on Equality
between Women and Men, and the National Agreement for Equality,
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launched by public authorities. Mexico’s General Law on Women’s
Access to a Life Free of Violence is part of this framework.
However, we still have a pending debt with women in Mexico. It is
fundamental to acknowledge national and international efforts to
promote and protect women’s rights, but it is also regrettable that they
still are not enough and that physical, psychological, patrimonial,
economic and sexual aggressions still occur within the family, work
place, community and institutional levels.
For instance, during the last decades, there has been an unfortunate
paradigmatic case of women’s human rights violations in Mexico: the
case of homicides and disappearances of women in Ciudad Juárez,
Chihuahua.
From 1993 to March, 2010, there have been at least 504 homicides of
women in that city. This case has been object of unaccountable
declarations of the National Commission and has even been taken to
international bodies such as the Inter-American Commission on
Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the
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Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women
(CEDAW).
The regrettable homicides and disappearances of women in Ciudad
Juarez, Chihuahua constitute a complex phenomenon that goes back
to 1993, when it was possible to detect an increase in the number of
homicides and disappearances, as well as in the degree of violence.
This also allows the detection of a systematic pattern of human rights
violations that have led to multiple investigations of the NHRC, acting
with the aim of clarifying the facts and proposing the implementation or
modification of practices to provide a greater and better protection of
human rights in said locality.
As a result of the timely investigation of these reprehensible events
carried out by the NHRC, this National Institution issued the following
declarations:
 Recommendation 44/98, on May 15, 1998;
 The Preliminary Report, on April 7, 2003;
 The Special Report, on November 25, 2003;
 The Follow Up Report, on November 24, 2004;
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 The Comprehensive Evaluation Report, on August 25, 2005;
 The Second Evaluation Report, on January 29, 2008; and
 The Third Evaluation Report, on July 17, 2009.
Even today, authorities maintain the efforts to prevent and eradicate
violence and impunity of crimes against women in this city. Research
studies carried out by the NHRC recommend reinforcing the
collaboration between the authorities involved in order to facilitate
investigations and make it possible to know the exact number of
homicides.
However, the National Commission keeps promoting several actions to
address violence against women and in favor of equality between
women and men. This Institution will also keep on working to stop
women’s homicides in our country and fight against their impunity, as a
fundamental action of justice and signal of the Mexican State’s
determination to eradicate violence against women. The NHRC of
Mexico will keep seeking justice, ending impunity and sanctioning
those responsible of these offenses.
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Among the activities on the matter of human rights protection, such as
those carried out in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, the NHRC also
develops activities in order to promote the respect of women’s rights.
As an example of this, and in compliance with the General Law for
Equality between Women and Men, the NHRC established the
Program on Equality between Women and Men in 2006. This Program
has now merged with the Program on Women’s Issues, which gets to
know and investigates alleged violations in this matter. Through this
Program, the NHRC works to contribute to eradicate practices of
discrimination and aggression based on gender that still prevail in all
sectors of the society, by monitoring legislative harmonization in all
Federal Entities on specific laws on violence against women, programs
and actions on equality and support to victims of violence carried out
by local governments, as well as programs and actions on equality
between women and men and on violence against women.
Said Program also attended 1208 complaints filed by women, the
majority of which were about discrimination, sexual harassment and
violence between January, 2011, and September 30, 2012. Likewise,
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there have been 350 activities organized relating to their protection,
among which we can point out courses, conferences and workshops
with the objective of creating awareness among public officers and the
society as a whole.
Also, the NHRC has the Program of Attention to Victims of Crime
(Províctima) that seeks to promote the adoption of measures to
improve victims’ access to justice, to guarantee protection programs,
and to provide economic, social and psychological assistance to
victims of crimes related to violence against women. This Program has
as its main goal to carry out activities seeking to protect and safeguard
the fundamental rights of victims of crime in Mexico. The Program also
provides orientation to access justice and health systems, as well as
psychological attention for the victims. Through these types of actions,
the NHRC joins women’s crusade and acts in favor of the recognition
of their rights.
However, another worrying issue that needs our attention is the
discrimination of pregnant women at work. In this sense, it is necessary
to create awareness among authorities and demand from them the
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compliance with the norms, particularly with the International Labor
Organization
Agreement
183
on
maternity
protection
and
Recommendation 191 on the Protection of Maternity.
We must also consider the economic aspect involved in the issue of
violence against women. In the case of Mexico, almost 7 million
women are head of their household. Along with being mother and wife,
in several occasions they have to work in order to pay all family
expenses or to complement the economic income. According to official
figures, 50.2 million people are economically active in Mexico, out of
which 19.3 million are women. The partial occupation and nonoccupation rate of women is 16.1 while it is 9.4 in the case of men.
It is fundamental that improvements achieved in terms of equality are
put into practice in order to prevent women from being victims of
discrimination. For this reason, the NHRC carries out diverse
educational and promotion activities. The Campaign to Promote Equity
between Women and Men in the Household: Shared Family
Responsibilities, “It is better if we all cooperate”, has the objective of
promoting a human rights culture and contributing to the eradication of
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family violence, a problem that affects one out of three Mexican
households, through the participation of personnel of local Human
Rights Institutions, parents, students and teachers from different public
schools.
An important aspect in which I would like to put a special emphasis on
is that of sexual harassment at work. This is a reprehensible act that
must be fought with the training and awareness of public officers, as
well as through the promotion of a culture of filing a criminal complaint.
Of all the complaints received by the aforementioned Program on
Equality between Women and Men, a high number relates to sexual,
work and psychological violence against women by public officers. It is
urgent to double our efforts to eradicate it, and the filing of criminal
complaints is the first step.
On this matter, it is important to highlight that, as in many cases, the
number of criminal complaints is always lower that the number of
crimes. Many women do not file criminal complaints of sexual
harassment at work based on fear of retaliation by the public officer,
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such as acts of discrimination and that can go as far as losing their
jobs.
Sexual harassment is a denigrating behavior. According to the
International Labor Organization, sexual harassment is considered as
“a sexual behavior that affects the dignity of men and women, which is
unpleasant, unreasonable and offensive for the one who suffers it.”
Sexual harassment is a form of gender violence that generates an
intimidating and humiliating working environment for the person who
suffers it, and that generally involves a man violating a woman’s rights,
manifesting a condition of vulnerability for her and that is a cultural
phenomenon in many places of the world.
On the other hand, when men are the victims of sexual harassment,
complaints are considered as non-reliable and more difficult to
prosecute given the belief that this situation only occurs to women.
The NHRC considers this behavior as non-acceptable. Therefore,
taking into consideration the importance of this issue, on the 5th of July,
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the first High Level Symposium on Sexual Harassment at Work was
held, organized by the NHRC, the United Nations and the Organization
of American States.
During this event, equality between women and men was underlined
as a necessary condition for the development of a nation and that
needs to be adopted by the all legal systems in order to guarantee it.
The importance of recognizing that gender-based differences prevail
and reprehensible actions of sexual harassment arise was also
acknowledged. The strengthening of the legal framework on this matter
and the effective protection and dissemination of women’s rights are
tasks that will allow us to come closer to the levels of equality, liberty
and dignity that every State should aspire to have.
Likewise, during this Symposium, it was stated that sexual harassment
is an antisocial practice that offends the right to sexual liberty, a decent
job, and physical and psychological integrity of men and women.
Finally, the Symposium also emphasized the necessity of society and
authorities working together towards common goals. These would
consist of having sexual harassment considered as a form of
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discrimination based on gender and a manifestation of gender violence
that goes against the most basic principles of equality.
Last but not least, I would like to note that on September 18 of this
year, the NHRC joined the United Nations Secretary General’s
Campaign “Unite to end Violence against Women”. During the
ceremony, I announced the NHRC Campaign: “Unite for Human Rights
to end Violence against Women in Mexico” that constitutes a number
of strategies at the national level that seeks to eradicate these violent
practices in our country.
Through this Campaign, among other activities, the NHRC will develop
a Unique Statistical Register of Complaints on violence against women
that will allow to better design public policies and carry out specialized
courses in order to eradicate violence. Several symposiums and
conferences around the country will also take place.
Based on what I have expressed so far and in conclusion, the NHRC of
Mexico reiterates its commitment to keep on working to have women
and men enjoying their rights on an equal basis, as well as to
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strengthen a culture of equity and a society free of violence and
gender-based discrimination.
The eradication of violence against women in any of its manifestations
has to become a State priority and National Institutions have to be
attentive to the effective respect of their rights, bolstering their
protection and promotion. But also, every person has to make an effort
to build a better world for our children.
Thank you.
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