Lack of feminicide strategy will fail Mexican women

Subject

Gender violence.

Significance

A Mexico City judge has ordered the National Commission to Prevent and Eradicate Violence Against Women (CONAVIM) to issue a Gender Violence Alert in the capital. The ruling followed an appeal against CONAVIM’s decision in June not to issue the alert, as well as several nationwide demonstrations against gender violence. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) said on August 22 the National Guard would address the issue; Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum later announced several measures to tackle the problem in the short term.

Impacts

• The National Guard -- a military police force with no training on community issues -- will be of little assistance in tackling the issue.
• Sheinbaum’s measures will solve nothing in the long term, leaving scope for unrest from increasingly militant women’s rights organisations.
• Unaddressed structural shortcomings in the judicial system will hinder investigations and justice for victims.