From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Subject: Mexico: NEGLECT FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS AS HUMAN RIGHTS
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: PACH
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 22:16:57 GMT

/** carnet.mexnews: 68.7 **/
** Written  3:42 pm  Apr 15, 1992 by sipro in cdp:carnet.mexnews **
`NO PRISONERS FOR ABORTION', THE NEGLECT FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS AS
HUMAN RIGHTS
 
In Mexico City's prisons for women, only one woman serves her
penalty for having `committed the delict of provoking an abortion'.
The other women charged of the same delict, never reached the
cells, but were (are) extorted and practically obliged to pay some
300 US dollars, to avoid imprisonment, states Yoloxochitl Casa
Chousal in the Women's supplement of La Jornada of April 6.
 
The investigation on `Women and Human Rights, the penalization of
abortion in Mexico', carried out in three women's prisons in the
capital by Lucero Gonzalez from the independent Comision Mexicana
de Defensa y Promocion de los Derechos Humanos (Mexican Commission
for Defense and Promotion of Human Rights), concludes that defense
of civil and political rights has been prioritized, to the
detriment of human rights violations against women.
 
The special commissions created to improve women's conditions do
not have the same resources or decision-making power as parallel
instances in the United Nations, for example, Gonzalez indicates.
Nevertheless, the special women's commissions count with the
support of the international women's movement to denounce the
widespread violence inflicted on women in prisons and refugee
camps.
 
The concepts of gender violence and women's human rights implicitly
include the right to free maternity, deduced from the universal
human rights to life, information, health and freedom. Denial of
the right to free maternity has led and is leading to the death of
thousands of women each year, caused by (clandestine) medical
malpractices and to humiliations and extortions of women.
 
The only woman kept prisoner in Mexico City, charged of provoking
an abortion, is a professional midwife of 81 years old, imprisoned
for one year. She practiced an abortion to a 16 years old girl,
whose father discovered it and brought the midwife to court. Here,
they told her that `a murderer is usually given two to three years,
but you can also pay 300 dollars'. Lack of money left the midwife
no other option than to serve her sentence. The girl and her
boyfriend are locked up for three years in the Tutelar Council for
Minors.
 
Interviews with the 600 inmates of the Tepepan women's prison give
an impression of
Some 80% of the interviewed women admitted to have had at least
one abortion, although they all emphasized that it had come
`spontaneously'. They indicated not to have received any sexual
education or information until entering in the prisons, where
minimal information was given. They had hardly any knowledge of
anticonceptives, their use, variety etc.
 
Some 90% of the interviewed told to have had their first sexual
experiences in early childhood as victims of sexual violence, 50%
had had her first pregnancy as a result of (incestuous) rape. One
13 year old became pregnant of her father. At the moment of giving
birth, the woman in charge of delivering the baby neglected the
baby who died, while waiting for the mother's palcenta to come out.
The father of baby and mother hid the dead baby in a shoebox and
buried it. The mother\daughter has been brought to the Tutelar
Council for Minors, as the director of the prison said `to protect
her, not to punish her', the father to the Male Tutelar Council.
 
Apparently this is a common way to end up in prison, although none
of the women is sentenced formally for abortion, but for robbery,
fraud, health delicts or homicide. It is nevertheless daily
practice that women (usually between 18 -30 years old) are brought
to prison, who still suffer complications from an abortion. Justice
keeps them marginalized, their lawyers come see them, if much,
twice, and they ususally are unaware of their rights.
 
The sixty percent of the Tetepan women has three years primary
school, the other 40% are illiterate, are in majority employed in
the informal sector and came as migrants form the central and
southern states of Mexico to Mexico City. Gonzalez concludes her
research with the impression that the imprisoned women, especially
those imprisoned for abortion though inofficially, are treated as
complices and victims at the same time.
** End of text from cdp:carnet.mexnews **

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