FRANCO
ORDONEZ/CHARLOTTE OBSERVER/MCT
Martha,
43, visited local Mexican police three times last year to report her husband
was punching her in the stomach so hard she could barely breathe. Each time,
the police questioned her story and told her there was nothing they could do
unless she returned with cuts and bruises.
Martha
couldn't take the beatings anymore. She visited local police three times last
year to report that her husband was punching her in the stomach so hard she
could barely breathe. Each time, the police told her they could do nothing
unless she returned with cuts and bruises.
Discouraged and fearful, Martha, 43, who asked that her last name not be
published for fear of retribution from her husband, in March packed some
clothes and left. She's lived with three different relatives since.
''There were times I didn't want to wake up,'' she said, crying. ``I wanted
it to stop. I wanted to die.''
Every day thousands of Mexican women suffer physical and psychological abuse
at the hands of their spouses, despite a federal law passed over a year ago to
protect them. Nearly one-third of the country's 31 states still haven't adopted
the law, which requires Mexican law enforcement to punish acts of violence
against women. Even where the law has been adopted, it's not being applied,
legislators and activists say.
That's because, despite an official push to move beyond the cliche image of
macho, Mexico is still very much a man's world when it comes to violence
against women.
Mexico City's Commission on Human Rights recently reported that complaints
by women against Mexico City law enforcement agencies for failing to respond to
complaints increased more than 12 percent after the law's passage.
''We are enormously concerned about complaints that the justice system isn't
working,'' Emilio Alvarez Icaza, the president of the commission, told Mexico
City's legislators during his April 24 presentation of the report.
But progress is hard to come by in a country where just a few years ago the
punishment for killing a cow in some states was greater than for killing a
woman.
A rapist in Mexico can still escape punishment in 21 states by claiming he
was seeking to satisfy an erotic fantasy. He can escape punishment in 19 states
if he later marries the victim.
The law mandating enforcement on women's complaints of violence, passed in
February 2007, was meant to show that the government was taking the problem
seriously. Legislators have allocated millions for federal and state law
enforcement, a special prosecutor has been appointed and some states have
adopted the federal law.
But activists and government officials say they can count few real
successes. Public administrators, police and sometimes even judges are ignoring
the law, they said.
''One thing is having a law; it's another thing to enforce it,'' said
Marisela Contreras Julian, president of the Commission on Fairness and Gender
in Mexico's lower house of Congress.
Contreras said women who report crimes are turned away or persuaded not to
file charges.
'They say, `You're going to forgive your husband, aren't you?' '' she said.
``It's the culture. . . . And some of these men are abusers themselves.
Therefore, they look for a way to justify the actions.''
Six out of 10 Mexican women have suffered some form of violence inflicted by
their spouses or partners, according to government studies. In 2006, more than
80 percent of women who were murdered were killed in their own homes.
The National Institute for Women in Mexico reports that twice as many
Mexican women suffer abuse than the worldwide average.
''The problem is violence against women is ingrained in our culture,'' said
Liliana Rojero Luevano, the institute's executive secretary. ``It's considered
natural.''
The issue gained worldwide attention after the violent deaths of more than
400 women and girls in Ciudad Juarez beginning in the early 1990s.
Rojero said the Juarez murders, while isolated, are emblematic of the
problems throughout Mexico. Many of the cases remain unsolved, she said,
because people don't consider violence against women a priority.
Margarita Guille Tamayo, director of the National Network, a women's
shelter, answered the phone in March when Martha called asking for help.
''She was crying and hysterical,'' Guille said. ``She kept talking about how
the police would not help her. She didn't know what to do.''
Martha was worried that her husband would beat her 10-year-old son if she
left. She agreed to leave the house only after Guille persuaded her that she
needed to save herself first, and then they could work to rescue her son.
Martha said her husband beat and raped her almost weekly. He would hit her
with a broom or pull her to the ground, or to the bed, by her hair. He would
tell her it was her obligation to have sex with him ``no matter whether I
worked all day or was tired.''
She asked him for a divorce, but he refused. Insulted, he increased the
intensity of the beatings, she said.
The state of Mexico, where Martha lives, shares the record with Jalisco as
the Mexican state with the highest rate of violence against women.
But the state hasn't passed the federal law. Police never arrested her
husband or even brought him in for questioning.
''I did what I thought I was supposed to do,'' Martha said. ``I asked for
help, but they didn't do anything.''