• By complying with the judgment of the Inter-American Court, the Mexican government has the opportunity to reverse a decade of impunity.
  • The UN Committee against Torture urged Mexico to comply with the judgment and raised the topic of sexual torture.
  • Other women, such as Mónica Esparza -who has been imprisoned for 6 years-, have also denounced sexual torture.

Mexico City, May 3, 2019. Thirteen years after the events of Atenco, the women who survived sexual torture said that the full implementation of the judgment of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the review of other women’s files who have also denounced this human rights violation will be a test the federal government’s commitment to the eradication of torture and impunity.

Commemorating the events with a judgment issued by the Inter-American Court for the first time and with the support of their legal representatives, the survivors highlighted that this judgment is an acknowledgment of the fight that they maintained for over a decade and an international reference on the need to prevent, punish, and eradicate sexual torture. They explained that, for this reason, the full implementation of the judgment, especially with regard to the punishment of perpetrators including command responsibility, should be a priority of the government’s human rights policy for this presidential term.

The women expressed their solidarity particularly with Mónica Esparza Castro, who has been imprisoned for over six years after surviving brutal sexual torture that was used to fabricate evidence against her, and who is currently going through a decisive stage of the unfair criminal procedure against her. They recalled that one of the key points of the judgment is the non-repetition of similar cases by creating structural safeguards and reinforcing the Mechanism for the Follow-up of Cases of Sexual Torture.

“We demand that the Attorney General’s Office and the Judiciary amend the case and order the exoneration of Mónica Esparza, who has also survived sexual torture and dared to break the silence,” the women expressed.

They added that they will be monitoring the implementation of the measures ordered in the judgment of their case, including structural measures that will benefit other survivors of sexual torture. In this regard, they recalled that the high-level inter-institutional working group to implement the judgment of the Inter-American Court has already been formed.

In the recent appearance of Mexico before the UN Committee against Torture (CAT), the Committee’s experts questioned Mexico on cases of sexual torture, including the case of the Women of Atenco, and urged the State to ensure that the judgments against the perpetrators of these serious crimes be reached and upheld.

Contact:

Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center
Narce Santibañez Alejandre
Office. 55466559
Mobile number. 04455 8531 2218
www.centroprodh.org.mx