The crime of femicide contained in the Mexican Penal Code has been slightly reformed so that there is no room for misinterpretations or excuses that prevent its application. The congressional commission in charge of the modification has met this week with the attorney general, Alejandro Gertz Manero, who now proposed that "every violent death of a woman be investigated under the protocol of femicide," says Lorena Villavicencio, deputy of Morena , the government party, who welcomes this change in the prosecutor. “Welcome Gertz Manero. To rectify is wise ”. In February, the prosecutor raised a political storm in feminism when he affirmed that applying the criminal type of femicide was complex for the prosecutors and suggested eliminating it. The controversy forced President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to intervene to ensure that there would be no setbacks in this matter. In Mexico, an average of 11 women are murdered a day.
The criminal type, however, was already drawn up very clearly at that time, and now it has hardly been modified in some aspects, enough to allow a painless correction to the prosecution, according to the feminists. The original text, which has already been adapted by many states in the country, specifies eight circumstances that may arise for the murder of a woman to be investigated and tried as femicide, including showing signs of sexual violence, having had previous romantic relationships, suffered. Any of the circumstances described gave rise to an investigation for femicide, but in case it was not clear to the prosecutors, the wording has been riveted. It is enough that “only one” of those circumstances concur.
To the antecedents of violence that occurred in the family, work or school environment, the “community” and “political” are now added, given the realization that many of these crimes are preceded by mistreatment in these environments. The word "community" takes on special interest, because there are crimes that occurred without a relationship between the victim and the perpetrator, and there are not a few in Mexico, and because many indigenous communities are governed by their own rules that do not take into account the concept of genre. "At times, those uses and customs that are applied in these communities seem to be outside the state regulation, in this way, now they will feel concerned," says deputy Villavicencio.
It is also noteworthy that the threats received by the victim through third parties will be taken into account, not only directly, and that at the point where it is mentioned as a gender factor that the woman's corpse has been exposed or exhibited, they have been added the words "thrown or deposited", to assess the process well. It is also incorporated as a determining circumstance for the application of the criminal offense that the victim has been forced to exercise a job or any form of exploitation. Child feminicide is included. Given that many of these crimes are treated as homicide based on kinship, “consanguinity” and “affinity” between the victim and the criminal have also been incorporated as a gender factor. And “labor” and “teacher” relationships have been added to the list of those that show inequality or abuse of power.
In reality, the text of article 325 of the Penal Code lent itself to interpreting all these circumstances that are now incorporated as gender crimes. But in view of the difficulties that, according to the prosecution, the investigators found to prove these circumstances in the process, the wording of the legal text has been much more closed. The penalties for gender crimes range from 40 to 60 years in prison, inheritance rights are lost and aggravating circumstances are contemplated.
“Actually, the prosecution wanted to include many other circumstances, but we believe that those that exist are sufficient and creditable. We are concerned that the inclusion of other elements could serve as a pretext for not qualifying feminicide well, ”says Villavicencio. That is the reason why the murders that occurred in the field of organized crime, which more and more feminists claim as gender violence, have been left out, given the forced labor that many women do for these organizations and the moral use that is makes of their deaths and their corpses. Vengeful, exemplary: genre.
In any case, if every violent death of a woman should be investigated from a gender perspective, as the prosecutor proposes, any of those that occur in criminal groups could be limited to it. But the criminal type, however detailed it is, is never enough if there is no will for a correct interpretation, or training for it. “The entire chain of obstacles and impunity surrounding these murders needs to be broken. Many public servants act indolently and re-victimize. There is no gender or human rights perspective in these processes. The investigation and the judges who reverse the progress of the public prosecutor's office have failed, ”says Ana Yeli Pérez Garrido, from the National Citizen Observatory on Femicide. "The criminal type is not the problem, but this new text and the prosecutor's rectification are welcome," says Pérez Garrido.
In his opinion, prevention is the second key to this issue. "The protection of women before they are killed continues to be a debt at all levels of the Administration", as well as "intervention from the school to break down stereotypes such as romantic love that are causing havoc in this country."
"Our judicial system is absolutely deficient," agrees Deputy Villavicencio. "And it lacks a lot of budget, that's the fault of those who approved it," he acknowledges. "I do not want to exempt them from responsibility when they do not classify these crimes correctly, but it is true that they work in difficult conditions, where there is not even a suitable place to protect the evidence," he adds.
In previous governments, millions of pesos were released for the education and training of police officers, judges and other figures involved in these processes. “Yes, but it didn't help much, I myself have seen how policemen were trained in a hurry, after breakfast and 24 hours before the deadline. Mere paperwork ”. It is well documented the ordeal that victims of violence go through when they have to report their cases, the misunderstanding they receive, even ridicule on some occasions. The lack of information and statistics does not allow us to refine much, but between 70% and 90% of these crimes go unpunished.