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(AMLO, what a disappointment.)
NY Times, May 31, 2020
Mexico’s President Says Most Domestic Violence Calls Are ‘Fake’
By Natalie Kitroeff
The numbers were startling: In March, Mexico’s government said, the
country’s emergency call centers were flooded with more than 26,000
reports of violence against women, the highest since the hotline was
created.
But Mexico’s president brushed aside his own cabinet’s announcement,
suggesting, without evidence, that the vast majority of the calls for
help were little more than pranks.
“Ninety percent of those calls that you’re referring to are fake,” said
the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, when asked about the surge
in calls at a recent news conference. “The same thing happens with the
calls the metro gets about sabotage or bombs.”
Mr. López Obrador, a leftist populist, won the presidency more than a
year ago by promising to transform Mexico into a more equal society, and
he appointed the first cabinet with gender parity in Mexico’s history,
giving prominent feminists top posts.
But the president has been unable to stem the daily murder of women in
the country — and has, at times, appeared to dismiss the problem altogether.
When asked recently about femicide, the killing of women because of
their gender, Mr. López Obrador said the issue “has been manipulated a
lot in the media.” He blamed the killings on “the neoliberal model” and
said “suddenly conservatives are dressing up as feminists” to attack him.
In March, when tens of thousands marched in the capital in the largest
feminist protests in recent history, he said the movement was, partly,
the work of political opponents “who want to see this government fail.”
Now, as the pandemic forces Mexicans to stay at home more often, Mr.
López Obrador has been adamant that the crisis has not made life more
dangerous for victims of domestic violence, because unlike in other
countries, Mexicans “are accustomed to living together.”
While the United Nations has urged countries to step up measures against
domestic violence during national lockdowns, Mr. López Obrador has
called the Mexican family “exceptional” and “the most fraternal
nucleus,” suggesting the bonds of kinship are shielding Mexican women
from abuse.
“They said there was going to be domestic violence, and there wasn’t,”
he said at a recent news conference, contradicting his own government’s
statistics.
“He is the first president to outright deny that the violence is
happening,” said Wendy Figueroa, the head of the National Network of
Shelters, a group that oversees domestic violence shelters across the
country.
This week, his administration was widely ridiculed after previewing a
publicity campaign that urged would-be abusers to “not lose patience”
and “breathe and count to 10”— messages that critics said had no chance
of persuading men not to attack their wives or children.
One of the government videos depicted angry family members calming down
after a narrator suggests waving “the white flag of peace” before
“violence overcomes you.”
Martha Tagle, an opposition legislator, said the campaign “placed the
responsibility for violence against women on the women themselves.”
The group responsible for organizing a feminist protest earlier this
year wrote on Twitter that the Mexican government should “count to ten
yourselves,” since “that’s the number of daily femicides in the
country.” Candelaria Ochoa, the head of the National Commission to
Prevent and Eradicate Violence Against Women, a federal agency, said the
government was still fine-tuning the campaign to specifically condemn
violence against women.
When asked about the president’s comments, Ms. Ochoa noted that most
calls to the government’s 911 help line for all types of assistance are,
in fact, pranks or non-urgent calls.
However, the government’s tally of the rise in domestic violence calls
in March excluded calls that were not real emergencies, indicating that
there had been a real increase.
Ms. Ochoa said that fewer women had been showing up at government-run
offices that serve abused women, but she added that it was possible some
women were less likely to venture out during the pandemic.
“Maybe women are not leaving their houses to report crimes or receive
attention,” she said.
The president has also angered feminists by cutting the budget for day
care centers. Last year, he abandoned a move that would have cut funding
for domestic violence shelters after a swift backlash from human rights
groups.
“He has suspended or eliminated programs that directly support the most
vulnerable communities of women,” said Ms. Figueroa. The need for these
services is particularly high now, she said.
Despite the anger over his statements about domestic violence, Mr. López
Obrador has been praised for elevating prominent advocates for women to
the highest levels of government and giving them control over the
government’s response to the violence.
Olga Sánchez Cordero, the interior minister, stood next to the president
in a recent news conference and said “we have a patriarchal system,”
where “violence against women must be acknowledged.” Among the
president’s closest allies is Claudia Scheinbaum, the mayor of Mexico
City and one of the country’s most powerful female politicians.
“I don’t like what López Obrador says about women, but he is giving
feminists total freedom to enact feminist policies,” said Marta Lamas, a
feminist activist and professor at the National Autonomous University of
Mexico.
“The president doesn’t know everything and he doesn’t have to, because
he has delegated to specialists,” said Ms. Ochoa. “I identify as a
feminist and the president knows perfectly well that the policies I am
developing address violence against women.”
Meanwhile, the daily murder of Mexican women continues. Last week, Diana
Raygoza, a 21-year-old law student, was found dead in her bed, her body
mutilated by 39 stab wounds.
In August, Ms. Raygoza wrote on Facebook that she had just been sexually
harassed and followed by a stranger on public transportation, and that
no one had intervened. The hashtag #JusticiaParaDiana was trending on
Twitter this week as people learned of her death.
“You have no idea how disgusted and uncomfortable I felt,” Ms. Raygoza
wrote on Facebook. “Do we have to wait until something more serious
happens before people react?”
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