WUNRN
MEXICO - WOMEN ACTIVISTS GET
NATIONAL ATTENTION CITING CASES OF POOR, INDIGENOUS WOMEN IN LABOR TURNED
AWAY FROM HOSPITALS
In this Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2014, photo, Irma Lopez, holding her son Sabino
Slavador, talks during a interview in her house in San Felipe Jalapa de Diaz,
Mexico.
(Photo: Luis Alberto Cruz, AP)
March 27, 2014 - MEXICO CITY (AP) — Women's rights
advocates sought international help Thursday in ending what they call a pattern
of poor indigenous Mexican women being turned away from hospitals while in
labor, forcing them to give birth on lawns, patios or parking lots.
Activists working in villages in southern
Mexican health officials have said the cases are isolated and unavoidable
due to overcrowding and limited resources at some rural health centers. But
women's advocates appealed to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on
Thursday, saying they believe there is a systemic problem of prejudice and
callousness toward indigenous women in the Mexican public health system.
"These are not isolated cases. We have a pattern. We are not talking
about one woman. There are many and nothing is being done to solve the
problem," said Regina Tames, director of the Reproductive Choice
Information Group, a non-governmental organization based in
Pablo Kuri Morales, deputy health secretary for preventive care, said most
of the births in
"This is something the government of
The problem garnered national attention last year when a photo showed a
29-year-old woman of Mazatec ethnicity squatting in pain immediately after
giving birth in October on the lawn outside the Rural Health Center of the
village of San Felipe Jalapa de Diaz. The woman, Irma Lopez, and her son,
Sabino Salvador, survived with no health problems, but the picture upset many
Mexicans when it was widely shared on Twitter and Facebook and shown on the
front pages of some national dailies.
News about the outdoor birth prompted two other women to go public with
their own harrowing tales of having their babies born outside the same center.
Less than a week later, authorities fired the director of another hospital
after a video showing a woman giving birth in a waiting room was posted on
YouTube. Television news channels in
"This probably has been going on for a while," said Tames.
"What's new is that people are outraged and want to do something about
it."
Earlier this month, President Enrique Pena Nieto urged hospitals not to
refuse care to women in labor. Also, Oaxaca Gov. Gabino Cue recently announced
a $550,000 investment to set up 50 new delivery rooms across the state.
But just this week, local media reported the case of a woman feeling
contractions who had been sent away by a hospital and was only re-admitted
after photographers began arriving.
None of the women or babies have died or suffered from major health
problems, but Tames said authorities shouldn't wait for a death before adding
more resources to understaffed rural clinics and hospitals.
Most of the cases that have gone public have occurred in
A handful of similar cases have been reported in
The human rights commission will study the cases heard Thursday and can
send resolutions that are non-binding based on what it finds.
Although authorities fired the director of the first health center to draw
attention to the problem, the
Lopez hopes the attention her case has brought to the state will help lead
to better care for indigenous pregnant women.
"I hope that we find the support in the end. We are peasants and
housewives."