The phenomenon of sexual torture against detained women has not been sufficiently analyzed in Mexico, while the role of the State has been almost absolute passivity. However, academic bodies and civil society organizations have traced new routes to discover it.
During the last four years, at Centro Prodh we have heard of more than 110 cases of women subjected to criminal proceedings and survivors of various forms of sexual torture. We exhaustively document the cases of 29 of them and confirm that sexual torture is widespread and that within the state apparatus there are institutional schemes that feed and / or allow its commission.
With this report we want to contribute to the fight for their freedom, but also: contribute to the development of the understanding of sexual torture as a serious violation of human rights, document and analyze the patterns of arbitrary detention and sexual torture against women; reveal the impacts of these practices on criminal proceedings; evaluate the state response, particularly in the fulfillment of jurisdictional obligations and make visible the painful but also resilient experience of a group of women – and their families – who in the most adverse circumstances continue to struggle to achieve justice.
