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Amnesty International
Mexico
-
Inés Fernández and Valentina Rosendo seek justice after
soldiers raped them
© Centro
de Derechos Humanos de la Montaña Tlachinollan
Human rights lawyer Vidulfo Rosales (centre) has
championed their cases
© Centro
de Derechos Humanos de la Montaña Tlachinollan
17 August 2011
For more than nine years, two Indigenous women in
Despite a lengthy investigation and
But on 12 August, Fernández and Rosendo were given some hope that the soldiers
who raped them might finally be brought to justice.
The investigations into their cases have now been moved to civilian courts,
after
“For us, this is a significant advance, as civil society has constantly fought
for these cases to be transferred into the civilian justice system,” Vidulfo
Rosales, a human rights lawyer at Tlachinollan Mountain Human Rights Centre in
Guerrero, which is representing the two women.
“But many limitations remain – we’re worried that there’s a margin for
impunity, for those responsible to be exonerated. The Attorney General’s Office
has an obligation to begin a criminal investigation immediately, to penalize
the soldiers Inés and Valentina have already indicated are
responsible.”
The decision to transfer Fernández’ and Rosendo’s cases into civilian courts
comes after a recent Supreme Court ruling which determined that human rights
violations by Mexico’s armed forces against civilians should not be tried in
military courts.
This follows an Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruling last year, ordering
Despite this decision, a number of other recent cases of violations by the
Mexican military remain under military jurisdiction, including the enforced
disappearance in June of at least six men by the Navy in
Widespread human rights violations have been reported across
“It sets an important precedent for these cases to be moved to
“
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Subject: Mexico - Indigenous Women Raped by Soldiers Find Justice
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Mexico - Indigenous Women
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By Emilio Godoy
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"I want the government to admit that it made a mistake
with two indigenous women," she added, after the Court condemned
In February 2002, 17-year-old Rosendo was washing clothes
in a river near her home in the
A month later, three soldiers raped Inés Fernández in her
house in the nearby
In both cases, the Court found the state guilty of failing
to guarantee the two Me'phaa Indian women's rights to personal integrity,
dignity, legal protection and a fair trial, to a life free of violence, and to
not be tortured. Inter-American Court rulings are binding and cannot be appealed.
"They are two very similar sentences," Alejandra
Nuño, the Centre for Justice and International Law's (CEJIL) director for
Central America and Mexico, told IPS after the two rulings were reported
Monday. "They refer to the presence of the soldiers, discrimination, and
violence against women. And rape is classified as torture, in a case that has
no precedents in
When she failed to obtain justice in
The IACHR referred the cases to the Court in May and August
2009.
The
"The state cannot continue to deny these incidents,
when the serious harm caused in these indigenous communities is abundantly
clear," Abel Barrera, executive director of Tlachinollan, told IPS.
"Inés can't live in peace, and Valentina can't return to her
community."
Abuses by the military and police are a permanent feature
of life in rural areas in Guerrero, and reporting them to the Mexican justice
system has had little to no effect, according to human rights organisations
that have documented the cases. The authorities say the security forces are
deployed in Guerrero to fight drug trafficking and small guerrilla groups.
The Court, presided over by Peruvian Judge Diego
García-Sayán, ruled that the state violated three inter-American conventions:
the 1969 American Convention on Human Rights, the 1987 Inter-American
Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture, and the 1998 Inter-American
Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence Against
Women.
In its sentences, handed down on Aug. 30 and 31, the Court
called for a thorough civilian investigation into the crimes against the two
women, and ordered the Mexican state to make a public apology to them in both
Spanish and the Me'phaa language, publish the sentences in the official
government gazette, and open a centre that would provide multidisciplinary
health services for women in the area where the abuses took place.
It also calls for reforms of
The Court ordered the state to pay some 87,000 dollars in
damages and compensation to Fernández, her husband Prisciliano Sierra and their
children, and 75,000 dollars to Rosendo and her daughter Yenis Bernardino.
It must also pay 48,000 dollars to Tlachinollan and CEJIL
to cover legal costs.
"It was not easy to seek justice. I left my town, and
my husband left me. The government called me a liar," Rosendo, in a beige
blouse and blue jeans, said with tears in her eyes.
Rosendo had to learn Spanish after she was raped, and she
now lives in an unrevealed location somewhere in
Her nine-year-old daughter is in third grade. "She is
desperate, and asks why we move all the time and she has to make new friends. She's
not growing up with a normal childhood," said Rosendo, who goes to therapy
every Sunday.
Both Rosendo and Fernández have been harassed and received
death threats over the years, and have been stigmatised by neighbours, as rape
victims.
This is not the first time the Inter-American Court has
ordered the Mexican state to reform the military justice code -- which has
become one of the flashpoint issues for the executive, legislative and judicial
branches.
Conservative President Felipe Calderón announced that he
would introduce a bill in Congress to that effect. But the Supreme Court has
failed to pronounce itself on the steps to be taken in order to comply with the
"We are going to keep a close watch on how
On Oct. 1, the government said it would live up to the two
sentences, but did not specify how or when. It has between six and 12 months to
fulfil the various provisions.
The
The first involved the 2001 murders of three young women in
Ciudad Juárez on the
In both cases, human rights groups have complained how long
the government is taking to comply with the sentences.
For that reason, a number of non-governmental organisations
want to establish a committee to follow up on compliance with the rulings.
This year, the Court is to issue a decision on the case of
environmental activists Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera, peasant farmers
who were arrested and tortured by Mexican soldiers in Guerrero in 1999 and
sentenced in 2000 to six and 10 years in prison, respectively, on trumped-up
charges of illegal weapons possession and growing marijuana.
Although they were released in November 2001 by then
President Vicente Fox (2000-2006) after a major international outcry, they were
not pardoned, nor did they receive damages for the abuses and torture they
suffered.
The militarisation of Guerrero "is aimed at keeping
indigenous people from organising," said Barrera, winner of this year's
Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, rewarded by the Washington-based RFK
Centre for Justice and Human Rights.
_____________________________________________________________________
WUNRN
CJA - The Center for
Justice & Accountability
Bringing Human Rights
Abusers to Justice
Website offers
multilingual translations.
IACHR - Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights - Organization of
American States (OAS) - http://www.cidh.oas.org/DefaultE.htm
MEXICO - INTER-AMERICAN
COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS CITES MEXICO VIOLATION IN CRIMES AGAINST WOMEN IN
CIUDAD JUAREZ
On
July 7, 2009, CJA joined several humans rights and women’s rights organizations,
law school clinics and law professors as an amicus, urging the Inter-American
Court of Human Rights to find that the government of Mexico did not fulfill its
human rights obligations because it failed to effectively investigate,
prosecute and prevent crimes against women and girls in Ciudad
Juárez.
ABOUT OUR BRIEF
In our brief, CJA recognized the global consensus that
gender-based violence violates the basic human rights of women and children and
that Nation-States must provide effective protection from such violence.
Our brief asked the court to address the issue with a broad range of
remedies. The remedies must not only be based on criminal justice.
They must also include ways to address the factors of economic, social, and
political disempowerment that perpetuate the cycle of violence against women in
Ciudad Juárez.
The brief urged the court to craft its remedies while relying on Articles 7, 8
and 9 of the Convention Belém do Pará. These articles outline a
comprehensive set of State obligations to eradicate violence against women, and
to protect women from all forms of gender-based violence. They also
reflect the importance that this hemisphere places on providing women and girls
with safe communities.
We urged the court to send the message that States must comply with their
international human rights obligations by exercising due diligence when
investigating and responding to gender-based violence, and that they must
ensure that local authorities do the same.
ABOUT THE CASE
On November 4, 2007, the
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) filed a case against Mexico
for the disappearance and murders of Claudia Ivette González, Esmeralda Herrera
Monreal and Laura Berenice Ramos Monárrez. The murders occurred in Ciudad
Juárez, a city on the border of the U.S. and Mexico, where gender-based
violence, including abduction, rape and murder targeting women has become
endemic. The bodies of the women, two of whom were minors, were discovered on
November 6-7, 2001 in an abandoned cotton field known as Campo Algodonero. The
case was submitted to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which held two
public hearings on April 28-29, 2009.
UPDATE
On
December 10, 2009, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued an opinion
finding Mexico in violation of human rights conventions under the American
Convention of Human Rights and the Convention Belém do Pará. The Court ordered
Mexico to comply with a broad set of remedial measures including a national
memorial, renewed investigations and reparations of over $200,000 each to the
families in the suit.