The Mexican Cristina Gamero was 35 years old and was a director of a multinational company when she was arrested in Mexico City, held inside a patrol circling throughout the capital for more than eight hours and when, finally, they took her directly to the women's prison of Santa Martha Acatitla, she knew the reason why everything was happening. She had been accused of a fraud of 33 million pesos (about two million dollars). Moments before arriving, late at night, she still believed she was there because of a debit on her credit card; Nothing else crossed his mind, he didn't understand what was happening. In the darkness and with the inconsolable tears of her mother and the rest of her family, she looked at that gigantic gray metal door and thought to herself: "I hope all this is because of the card."
It was in 2008. In Mexico there was talk then of a "political alternation" that until recently had seemed impossible. The hegemonic party, the most powerful political force at the time, the PRI, had been defeated in the 2000 presidential elections, when Vicente Fox Quesada, the standard-bearer of the National Action Party (PAN), won the presidency. Not only did a new path begin in the democratic life of the country, almost as something symptomatic, a security policy was also inaugurated that marked the line in the following six-year periods. Mexico City was the scene of a very particular way of operating by the police corporations and in the blink of an eye television was filled with live arrests, transmissions of operations and other shows that were very far from what they repeated until the tiredness on the screens: justice.
Gamero was at the peak of her career, she was a very young woman who held a management position in the multinational company in which she worked, traveled to several cities around the world constantly and felt "almighty", she mentions with some humor. Until it wasn't anymore. For more than a year, her company — which was merging with another — kept her on the sidelines while they investigated an alleged embezzlement of which she, she says, had no knowledge. So sure was she that nothing would happen and of her innocence that she didn't worry too much and didn't consult with lawyers or anyone to give her guidance.
His case is replete with irregularities and violations of due process. While inside the patrol car, for example, she remembers hearing one of the men guarding her say by phone call that he was not on duty and that he was "doing a chambita" (a job). The police also did not show her an arrest warrant – she would later discover that they did not have it at the time of the arrest and that was why they had her touring the city for hours – and she did not go through a Public Ministry, her case was so "extraordinary" that they took her directly to the Santa Martha Acatitla Women's Center for Social Reintegration. without being shown. Perhaps the most emblematic memory of this way of acting of the Mexican authorities is in the case of the French citizen Florence Cassez, accused of kidnapping along with her partner, the Mexican Israel Vallarta, and whose arrest was given live on Mexican television.
Cristina Gamero at the anniversary of MGE Systems.Courtesy
"There is always a man behind every woman imprisoned in Santa Martha"
Cristina Gamero remembers that since her arrival at the prison it rained every day. He doesn't forget, it's impossible. The rain and night still give her back the feeling of loneliness, helplessness and despair she experienced when she was arrested. During the time she was incarcerated, Gamero, who from a very young age had been a student with excellent grades and an exemplary career, took refuge again in books and began studying law only a few months after entering. The cases began to come into her hands as if she were already a practicing lawyer. Her colleagues in the prison soon learned about her and thus she was able to know the files of many women who had been locked up for years, even decades, without having even received a sentence.
This is how she learned the testimonies of many women with whom she lived every day and realized that the vast majority of them were unjustly imprisoned or had been judged without a gender perspective. "There is always a man behind every woman who is imprisoned in Santa Martha, always, without fear of being wrong. In all the cases I have seen in these almost 13 years, the common denominator is a man: the husband, the father, the friend, who forced them to commit crimes even indirectly," she says. "I'm not saying some of them aren't criminals, but the vast majority are there because they had an unfair process."
The lawyer, who is now around 50 years old, recounts just some of the cases that exemplify what she says: the case of María Catalina, one of the first that came to her when she had just received her professional degree already out of prison, and from which she achieved acquittal. Then, the case of Betty, which came to his hands through the Mexican filmmaker Diana Garay, who had made the documentary Mi amiga Betty, of 2013, about a woman sentenced to 30 years in prison for the murder of her mother, all for a process full -also- of irregularities and violations of her rights. Or the testimonies of two indigenous women also imprisoned in Santa Martha, Angélica and Reina, who do not master Spanish and, nevertheless, never had, in principle, an interpreter. Both women had fallen prey and were tried for crimes their partners had committed.
He also received testimony from Cristina Flores, who was accused of kidnapping for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was instructed by a close friend to go to a home where, unknowingly, they kept a kidnapped person. Flores remained in jail despite the fact that it was proven that the circumstances surrounding the crime of which she was accused exonerated her of all responsibility.
In addition to women, Santa Martha Actitla, like so many prisons and prisons in Mexico, is full of people without economic resources: "women are abandoned by their husbands, by their children ... They don't have money, they do anything to get ahead. It seems to me that in Mexico there is a need for good lawyers who defend people who do not have money. There must also be justice for them," says Gamero.
As when she was very small, the lawyer, who already had a degree in Business Administration, had taken refuge again in the study and in all the academic activities she could. That led her to develop in the future, and when perhaps she needed it most, an alternate career that she now exercises as a commitment. "Studying law for me meant a path to personal, moral freedom, a path to freedom of thought, spiritual freedom and a way to be able to help people who do not have the resources to be able to get a good defense," he says. For this reason, Gamero created the civil society Firmeza y Justicia S.C., "so that people can feel confident that they will have an adequate defense, a criminal defense that will not cost them dearly and that will be effective."
All the cases of the women in prison that came into the hands of Cristina Gamero, such as those of María Catalina, Betty, Angélica and Reina, were taken by her when she began her career as a lawyer, as pro bono, that is, she did not charge anything to get them out of prison.
Attorney Cristina Gamero.Courtesy
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