112 Global News Post 1

Violence against women is on the rise in Mexico. How do Mexicans perceive it? by Rich et. al.

This article details the struggle that Mexico is facing against rising cases of femicide and other gender-based acts of violence. In the period from 2015 to 2020, femicides, or the killings of women, rose 137 percent. Despite this growing and very alarming statistic, it seems that the law enforcement and government of Mexico is not responding to the situation as strongly as people think they should be. In fact, a study was done by Global Voices, an international community of volunteers that works to leverage the power of the internet to build understanding across borders, to assess how deeply citizens of Mexico care about this issue of rising violence against women and how well they believe it is being handled.

In this study, it was found that most of the 625 Mexican respondents, “regardless of their partisan affiliations, gender or age, were either moderately or extremely concerned about crimes committed against women in their country” (Rich et. al., 2021). When respondents addressed the question of how well Mexican President López Obrador and his administration’s response to crimes against women was faring, however, the response was much more divided along political lines. Members of López Obrador’s MORENA party displayed a more positive view of his efforts, while the leftist Working Party and right-wing National Action Party members were more likely to have negative views.

There are many issues perpetuating these acts of femicide and violence and many barriers to properly addressing the dangers that go beyond just politics. For example, the media has been shown to romanticize cases of domestic violence or femicide by claiming they were acts of failed love, rather than senseless and deliberate crime. Moreover, socioeconomic disparities among women are making them more susceptible to violence, and this is only being exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Victim’s mothers are often blamed for the acts committed against their daughters rather than men being held accountable for their actions. Femicides are rarely investigated, are often underreported and misrepresented, and simply don’t receive enough support or attention from the media or government. Even though so many Mexican respondents communicated clear concern over this issue, differences in legal standards for femicide in the 32 states of Mexico and the lack of enforcement for the few laws that do exist are preventing any meaningful action or progress to be made in regards to this issue.