No More Macho Patriarchy / Neoliberalism Created Violence

Avoid propagating macho, patriarchal system. Minister of Interior (SEGOB) Olga Sánchez Cordero said that the government has an obligation to avoid propagating a macho and patriarchal cultural system. “There have been 3,8000 women murdered. Mexico faces an important problem of violence. The pandemic shows that it is a matter of high priority. We need to make violence visible and address it but also punish it,” she said. Sánchez Cordero stated that women are owed a historical debt, especially those who are victims of violence. “Machismo kills, destroys the lives of women and limits the development of our country,” she said against the backdrop of the International Day for Elimination of Violence Against Women.

Neoliberalism is behind violence. The Mexican government is no longer the main violator of human rights and the neoliberal period is the culprit behind the violence in Mexico, President López Obrador said. “One important thing that makes this government different from the previous ones is that we are no longer the main violator of human rights. There is no impunity,” he said. López Obrador said that the violence in Mexico is due to the inhuman model imposed during the neoliberal period. “All the violence suffered in the country against women and men is the rotten fruit of a materialistic and inhuman economic model that prevailed throughout the neoliberal period. There has been a profound social decomposition because for 36 years what predominated was materialism,” he said. The president noted that violence against women “certainly has to do with machismo,” but mostly with poverty, marginalization and inequality.

Over 1,399 graves, 2,290 bodies. Deputy Minister of the Interior (SEGOB) Alejandro Encinas said that so far during the López Obrador administration, 1,399 graves have been located and 2,290 bodies recovered. “As of Dec. 1, 2019, to date, there have been 1,399 clandestine graves found in almost all the states of the republic. The highest number of exhumed bodies have been in Jalisco and in Guanajuato,” he said. Encinas reported that the last decade has been one of enormous violence against the journalistic union “because 138 homicides have been committed against journalists throughout the country.”

Report on missing persons. So far in this administration, over 630 searches have been carried out in 26 states looking for missing people, mainly in Guerrero, Veracruz, Tamaulipas, Coahuila, Guanajuato and Sinaloa, National Search Commission (CNB) head Karla Quintana said. She noted that according to the national registry of missing persons, 24.5 percent of the missing are girls, adolescents and women. “In this period, from Dec. 1, 2018 to November 23, 3,550 women, girls and adolescents remain missing, while 8,473, were found alive,” she said. Quintana lamented the way media and society reacts to news of missing women and girls, since there is a re-victimization of those who already have suffered either from sexual violence or who are running away from a dangerous place.

No accusation without evidence in Robles affair. President López Obrador celebrated the decision by arrested former minister Rosario Robles to collaborate with authorities, but said accusations without evidence must be prevented. “This is not a mechanism to fabricate crimes because that is an injustice,” he said. A close aid to former President Enrique Peña Nieto, Robles was arrested in the investigation into a massive fraud known as the Master Fraud (La Estafa Maestra) where public money was allegedly funneled to fund PRI campaigns. She is the third person willing to collaborate with the Attorney General’s Office (FRG) in a case that will likely taint former Minister of Finance (SHCP) Luis Videgaray. “Our commitment is not to persecute anyone for political reasons, not to fabricate crimes and at the same time that there is no impunity for anyone,” the president said.

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Click HERE for full transcript in Spanish