GDP declined in third quarter but AMLO still expects 6% growth for the year

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November 25, 2021

President López Obrador gestures to an employment growth chart at his Thursday morning press conference. — President López Obrador shows an employment growth chart at his Thursday press conference. Presidencia de la República

The economy slowed in the third quarter of 2021 compared to the second quarter but annual growth remained strong and President López Obrador still expects GDP to increase 6% this year.

The national statistics agency INEGI reported Thursday that the economy contracted 0.4% between July and September compared to the previous quarter.

Compared to the third quarter of 2020 – a year in which GDP slumped 8.5% due to the pandemic and associated restrictions – the economy expanded 4.7%.

Alfredo Coutiño, Latin America director at Moody’s Analytics, cited surging coronavirus cases in August, supply chain disruptions and a new law aimed at eliminating outsourcing as among the factors that caused the quarter-over-quarter decline.

But he noted in a report that the economy is recovering from the pandemic-induced economic crisis, largely due to strong growth in the United States, which is lifting demand for Mexican exports, especially manufacturing products. Record remittances are also aiding growth.

Coutiño is forecasting annual growth of 5.3% this year. While demand is improving, the government’s push to limit competition in some sectors – such as energy – could drag on the economy, he said.

Unsurprisingly, López Obrador is more optimistic. “The economy is growing and the forecast that we’re going to grow 6% this year will be met,” he said at his regular news conference on Thursday.

Mexico is currently on track to exceed that level of growth as the economy expanded 6.4% in the first nine months of the year compared to the same period of 2020.

The president said Mexico is in a V-shaped recovery after last year’s steep slump, asserting that there are “several indicators” that point to the good health of the economy.

“I believe that the best indicator is the creation of formal jobs and another indicator that also helps to know what is happening with regard to growth is foreign investment. In both cases … there are records, ” López Obrador said.

He said that the number of formal sector workers registered with the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) is at an all-time high of almost 21 million. The Economy Ministry reported Monday that direct foreign investment rose 5.7% in the first nine months of the year to US $24.83 billion.

Among other signs of the good health of the economy, López Obrador said, are gains on the Mexican Stock Exchange and this year’s 15% increase to the minimum wage.

With reports from AP and Reforma

Mexico ranks third among destinations for hostel travelers in 2022

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Rose Egelhoff

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November 25, 2021

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Mexico has risen into the top 10 destinations for young travelers, according to new data released by the online hostel booking platform Hostelworld.

Mexico ranked third in the world for 2022 hostel reservations, up from 14^th pre-pandemic, the data shows. The rise in popularity may have been due, in part, to other countries’ pandemic travel limitations.

“As firm backpacker favorites Australia and New Zealand unsurprisingly drop off the top travel list, travelers turn to Central America to get their adventure fix, with Mexico coming in third and Costa Rica coming in eighth,” Hostelworld spokesperson Alice Ackermann said in a press release.

The top travel destination for 2022 is the United States, the same as it was pre-pandemic.

Hostelworld’s main client base is hostel travelers aged 18 to 35. In 2019, the site was used to make 7 million bookings.

Mexico News Daily

Women took a big hit on jobs due to COVID, and they’re still struggling

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Christine Murray

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November 25, 2021

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Many women lost their jobs as service sectors like retail and domestic care were hit by lockdowns.

At the height of pandemic restrictions in Mexico last year, Lorena Romero’s employer halved her hours — and the single mother of two is still struggling to get her working life back on track.

Romero wants to step up her hours and has looked at various roles — including live-in domestic work positions about two hours from her house. But the need to look after her teenage children, who have not yet returned to school full-time, makes it hard to find suitable opportunities.

“I can’t take that kind of work right now; I need to be close to my kids … It’s been difficult,” said the 35-year-old from Mexico City.

Romero’s predicament echoes that of tens of millions of women around the world during the pandemic. As female-dominated service sectors such as retail and domestic care were hit by lockdowns, many women lost their jobs. Many others stopped work or reduced their hours in order to cope with domestic responsibilities that fell disproportionately on them.

The COVID-related recession destroyed 4.2% of women’s employment worldwide during the pandemic, compared with 3% for men, according to the International Labour Organization, exacerbating a global gender gap where 43% of working-age women are employed, versus 69% of men.

While the “she-cession” has all but ended in western countries and some regions such as Africa, its lingering effects are acute in Latin America.

There, women remain 2.6 times more likely than men to have lost their pre-pandemic jobs and many have left the labor market entirely, according to a forthcoming World Bank report. Female employment participation rates are now worse than before the pandemic in almost every country in the region.

Though cases are currently low, Mexico has had one of the highest pandemic excess death rates in the world and the economic recovery has been fragile.

“The recovery has been very much asymmetric and so the gaps have widened across the board,” said Ximena Del Carpio, who leads the World Bank’s poverty and equity practice group. “The women that have fared the worst in the region are mothers with young children.”

Outside the capital, Mexico’s vaccination campaign has been slow and just 50% of the country’s population is fully vaccinated.

One factor that severely set back women in Latin America is that the region had some of the longest school closures in the world, according to Unesco. Making things harder still are social norms around childcare and housework.

On average, a Mexican woman working 40 hours a week will do over twice the amount of domestic work as a man with the same schedule, according to the statistics body INEGI.

The lack of a trusted and affordable market for childcare also means Mexican mothers rely heavily on grandmothers to take care of children. But COVID-19 made that feature of traditional family life more difficult.

“Most people here depend on the grandparents,” said Maribel Hernández, who works peeling prawns in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas. During the pandemic her ability to work depended on her parents looking after her son and disabled brother’s kids.

“If they [my parents] can help, I go out to work but if they can’t I have to stay behind,” she said, adding that daycare centers were for mothers with higher-paid jobs than her own.

One study shows that when a Mexican grandmother dies in a three-generation household, the daughter’s probability of working drops by 12%.

“The issue of the system of care in Mexico is fundamental,” Edgar Vielma Orozco, director of socio-demographic statistics at INEGI, said about the reliance on grandmothers to provide childcare. “You shouldn’t depend on your mother to be in the labor market, there should be a care system.”

Argentina provides a severe example. Before the pandemic, about 1.2 million women, or 17% of the female workforce, were employed in domestic work.

But when COVID-19 struck, Buenos Aires, the capital, went through one of the world’s longest and strictest lockdowns, crippling the economy and destroying jobs as families feared getting sick. As a result, 350,000 domestic workers were still out of a job by last March, according to finance ministry data compiled for the women, genders and diversity ministry.

“For those who work in private homes, the job recovery rate is the slowest of any industry,” including hard hit sectors such as hospitality, said Mercedes D’Alessandro, an Argentine economist and director of gender and equality within the finance ministry.

To try to improve matters, the government has launched a program of wage subsidies for cleaners and other domestic workers.

Critics say it only entrenches outdated gender roles, but the Argentine government hopes it will provide critical employment for thousands of women.

For those women who can work from home, the rise of flexible working during the pandemic has been a bright spot. But for most Latin Americans that isn’t possible given the region’s relative paucity of white-collar jobs. As a result, the responsibilities of domestic care often take precedence over paid work.

For the likes of Leticia Velázquez, it’s a conundrum. In May she quit the Mexican textile factory job she had for more than two decades in the southwestern state of Oaxaca out of fear of getting COVID and giving it to her 84-year-old mother, who lives with her.

“We were seeing colleagues dying,” the 56-year-old said, adding that even if they wanted it, a care home for her mother was not an option. “It costs a lot of money that, frankly, I don’t have.”

Canadian travelers may have been overcharged for hotel quarantine stays

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Rose Egelhoff

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November 25, 2021

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Mexico News Daily has received a tip from a reader and former hotel owner that some Canadian hotels misapplied taxes on hotel quarantine packages, and as a result may have overcharged many customers up to CAD $100.

Canada’s quarantine for returning travelers in early 2021 included a mandatory hotel stay. Quarantine packages often cost upward of CAD $1,000, plus tax.

The former hotel owner was himself wrongfully taxed. After speaking with the hotel manager, he was refunded part of the taxes he had paid.

He advised that travelers request an itemized breakdown of their bill from the hotel to see if taxes were correctly applied. The destination marketing fee (DMF) should only be applied to the room, not the entire package. In British Columbia, the same goes for the short-term accommodation provincial sales tax (PST). Gratuities should not be taxed, he said.

• If you paid for one of Canada’s mandatory quarantine hotel packages, were you wrongfully taxed? Did you get a refund? Send us an email to news@mexiconewsdaily.com.

Mexico News Daily

Police recover 6 public transit buses hijacked by Oaxaca student teachers

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Rose Egelhoff

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November 25, 2021

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oaxaca city bus — Buses in Oaxaca city are an easy target for students looking for a ride.

Oaxaca state police have recovered six public transit buses hijacked by student teachers in the state capital.

Bus drivers and public transit businesses reported that the students — known as normalistas —forced passengers off the buses and stole the day’s bus fare.

But when police took back the buses, they checked the student teachers — who were clad in black clothing and balaclavas — and found there was no evidence of robbery. The police let them go and returned the buses to their operators.

Saul Santiago Trejo, a spokesperson for Oaxaca city student teachers, said the buses were only commandeered for transportation purposes to help the students attend a meeting of the CNTE teachers union where the allocation of teaching positions was to be discussed.

Hijacking buses has long been a popular means of obtaining transportation by protesting teachers and student teachers, particularly in Oaxaca, Guerrero and Michoacán.

With reports from Milenio

For Mexico City women, trying to report attempted femicide can be a battle

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MND Staff

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November 25, 2021

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Surviving an attempt on their lives was just the beginning of the struggles three Mexico City women endured.

The newspaper Reforma spoke with three victims of attempted femicide who went to the Mexico City Attorney General’s Office (FGJ) to report the crimes.

Only one of the women was initially successful in getting prosecutors to classify the crime as attempted femicide, but her aggressor was not convicted.

One of the women who failed to convince the FGJ that an attempt had been made on her life was Diana. When she reported that her partner had attempted to kill her she was told that classifying the crime as attempted femicide wasn’t possible because none of her stab wounds measured more than 15 centimeters.

Diana condemned authorities’ lack of empathy and capacity to do their job.

“The authorities aren’t qualified or trained in gender perspectives and they’re quite indifferent to different situations [women encounter],” she said.

“… A lot is said about victims of femicide, which is [a] terrible [crime], but we also count because we were on the verge of being dead,” she said.

“We’re the ones who can testify; we’re here, we’re present,” said Diana, who was sexually, physically and psychologically abused by her partner.

She said the FGJ treated her as if she was the perpetrator, rather than victim, of a crime, telling Reforma that she felt like she had to explain why she didn’t end the relationship before the attempt on her life occurred.

Diana also said that scheduled interviews with her “key witness” were canceled eight times. Despite the difficulties she faced, Diana persisted in her quest for justice and, with the help of organizations such as the National Femicide Observatory, was able to pressure the FGJ sufficiently to get it to reclassify the crime to attempted femicide.

Another woman, Dafne, had a similar experience. She was the victim of a knife attack perpetrated by her partner but was initially told that her wounds weren’t serious enough for him to be accused of femicide.

Dafne said she was re-victimized by the FGJ and that its prosecutors told her children that she was to blame for the attack she suffered.

Although prosecutors said her wounds weren’t serious it was later proven that the knife reached her vital organs, she said.

After what Reforma described as an “exhausting battle,” Dafne succeeded in getting the FGJ to reclassify the crime as an attempted femicide due to a wound inflicted to the back of her neck. The crime was initially classed as domestic violence and wasn’t reclassified until a year later.

Fabiola, the third woman who spoke with newspaper, survived a strangling attack perpetrated by her partner. “… My partner wanted to take my breath away with his hands,” she said.

The crime was classified as attempted femicide by the FGJ but the attacker evaded justice.

“They let my aggressor free without telling me and knowing that my life was in danger,” Fabiola said, adding that nothing was done to protect her from another attack.

“This person remains free because he’s legally protected. For the authorities we [female victims] don’t exist,” she said.

“They have a certain indifference and it’s as if they don’t want to look at [cases of] attempted femicide,” Fabiola said, adding that the FGJ portrayed the crime of attempted suffocation as something minor from which a person can recover in 15 seconds.

Fabiola said the attack also upended her professional life.

“Now nothing’s left of the life I had built for myself. At almost 40 years old I was a successful architect with my own office and people of whom I was in charge,” she said.

“… I looked for justice and inevitably the people [I worked with] found out what happened. [Then] your employees stop obeying you and your clients don’t ask you to work for them anymore,” Fabiola said.

She also said she has been left with a feeling of guilt, explaining that she was made to feel that she failed in her personal life.

All three women agreed that the authorities have little interest in hearing about violence against women in cases in which the victims didn’t die, and asserted that the government wants to believe that the intention of the aggressors in such cases was not to kill them – despite compelling evidence to the contrary.

With reports from Reforma

Campeche’s Hormiguero ruins offer feast of Mayan zoomorphic facades

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Thilini Wijesinhe

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November 25, 2021

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Structure II at Hormiguero Mayan ruins — Structure II is believed to be a palace.

Situated in the Calakmul biosphere reserve in Campeche and around 23 kilometers from Xpujil, the ruins of Hormiguero are a beautiful ancient Maya site hidden in the jungles, ideal for travelers interested in off-the-beaten-path ruins that few know about.

According to the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), Hormiguero was a medium-sized Maya city that was dependent on Becán, which was the principal city of the Río Bec region.

The ancient Maya are thought to have preferred the area due to the availability of water there. It was already occupied by A.D. 300, reaching its peak population between 600 and 800. The city was eventually abandoned around the mid-10th century.

Archaeologists Karl Ruppert and John Dennison, whom the Carnegie Institution for Science sent on an expedition to Campeche, reported the existence of the site in 1933.

According to INAH, Ruppert and Dennison named the site Hormiguero, meaning “anthill,” after the massive number of “ant houses” they discovered. The houses are believed to refer to the actual anthills on the site as well as the appearance of the structures when they were discovered.

Structure II Hormiguero — Hormiguero was eventually abandoned around the mid-10th century.

Archaeological excavations at Hormiguero commenced in the late 1970s, and archaeologists have noted over 80 structures onsite. However, only a small number of them have been excavated thus far, meaning you can easily explore the buildings that are open to the public.

Conveniently, a visit to Hormiguero can be combined with trips to more famous archaeological sites such as Calakmul and Becán, as well as other smaller sites in the region.

Upon entering the site, you will first see the majestic Structure II, believed to have been a palace. It is so far the largest building excavated onsite.

Built on a five-meter platform and measuring around 50 meters in length, it has 11 rooms across two levels. The building’s facade has three sections — a central zoomorphic area and two towers on either side.

The towers have stairways in front and temples on top, which may have been simulations — i.e. intended as decorative and not really functional — and are characteristic of the Río Bec architectural style.

The rooms to the side of the towers also have zoomorphic features – carved animal forms that can also be representations of gods.

Structure V at Hormiguero Maya ruins — Structure V features a temple at the top, and its corners are decorated with masks believed to be of Chaac, the Mayan rain god.

But perhaps the most notable section of the Structure II facade is the large serpent figure with open jaws that forms the central entrance. The serpent motif is thought to be a depiction of the Maya creator god Itzamná. It has detailed features, including fangs, eyes, a nose and earflaps.

Architecture enthusiasts will not tire of observing the building styles and features of Structure II. The rear of the building is also interesting.

Note that while entering Structure II used to be allowed, when we visited the site during the pandemic it was cordoned off to the public.

North of Structure II is another beautiful building called Structure V, with a pyramid base and a central stairway and temple on top. The temple has a stunning zoomorphic facade, and its corners are decorated with masks probably of the Maya rain god, Chaac.

Also worth seeing is the four-room building attached to the east side of Structure V.

The partially excavated Structure VI has several rooms and two towers with simulated temples. A zoomorphic mask was discovered on the facade’s central entrance.

Hormiguero Maya ruins — A visit to Hormiguero can be combined with trips to more famous archaeological sites such as Calakmul and Becán. INAH

The refreshing forest surroundings of Hormiguero make exploring it a pleasant experience in the usually hot climate of Campeche. Don’t forget to keep an eye out for howler monkeys.

Thilini Wijesinhe, a financial professional turned writer and entrepreneur, moved to Mexico in 2019 from Australia. She writes from Mérida, Yucatán. Her website can be found at https://momentsing.com/

Anti-poverty organization urges 30% hike in minimum wage

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MND Staff

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November 25, 2021

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Increasing the minimum wage by roughly 45 pesos is necessary to fight poverty, one expert says.

The minimum wage should increase by 30% in 2022, says an anti-poverty organization that has been critical of the federal government’s efforts to combat poverty.

Acción Ciudadana Frente a la Pobreza (Citizen Action Against Poverty) submitted a formal proposal to the National Minimum Wage Commission (Conasami) for the daily wage to rise to 185.2 pesos (US $8.60) from its current level of 141.7 pesos.

Members of the Conasami council were due to begin discussing next year’s hike on Thursday. The minimum wage, one of the lowest in the Americas, was raised 15% at the start of this year.

Acción Ciudadana coordinator Rogelio Gómez Hermosillo said an increase of about 45 pesos to the minimum wage is essential to combat poverty, which has increased during the coronavirus pandemic.

He said it’s “proven” that an increase of the size ACFP is proposing won’t have any negative effects on the economy.

“Don’t be fooled or confused, it’s not a generalized salary increase,” Gómez said. “It’s already clear that an adjustment to the minimum wage in Mexico doesn’t have any effect on macroeconomic variables such as inflation but it is significant in terms of reducing working poverty.”

ACFP said in a statement that 61% of people with a fixed salary don’t earn enough to rise above the poverty threshold. The working poor consists of 19.3 million Mexicans, it said.

For work to be “a dignified way out of poverty,” the first step is to increase the minimum wage, ACFP said.

Conasami must announce an increase to the daily minimum wage by December 31. The new rate will take effect January 1.

With reports from Reforma

Girl, 15, jailed after attempting to escape arranged marriage in Guerrero

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MND Staff

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November 25, 2021

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Members of the National Guard, state police and neighbors gathered at the Joya Real police station, where Anayeli was being held, on Tuesday. — Members of the National Guard, state police and neighbors gathered Tuesday at the Joya Real police station, where Anayeli was being held. Tlachinollan Human Rights Center

A teenage Mixtec girl was jailed in the Montaña region of Guerrero this week after fleeing her home to avoid an arranged marriage.

The family of Anayeli, aged 14 or 15 according to differing media reports, had arranged for her to marry a slightly older boy on Monday. The girl’s mother agreed to a payment of 200,000 pesos (US $9,275) from the boy’s family, who hosted a party Sunday to celebrate the imminent nuptials.

A cow was slain and cooked to feed the guests, beer and soft drink flowed and a group of banda musicians provided entertainment. The boy’s parents also provided food and beverages for a gathering at Anayeli’s home last Friday.

Everything was set for a Monday wedding but on the morning of the big day Anayeli slipped out of her home in Joya Real, a community in the municipality of Cochoapa el Grande, and went into hiding at the home of a friend, identified as 15-year-old Alfredo “N.”

Anayeli’s disappearance prompted her family and that of her would-be husband to go to the community police to seek their assistance to locate her. Officers found the girl at Alfredo’s home and took both adolescents into custody, locking them up in police cells.

According to the Montaña Tlachinollan Human Rights Center, police told Anayeli she would only be released if she agreed to marry or her family compensated the boy’s family for the 56,000 pesos (US $2,600) it spent on the two pre-marriage events. They said her disappearance on the day of the wedding had “offended” the boy’s family.

Anayeli and Alfredo spent Monday night behind bars but personnel from the human rights center and the Guerrero Attorney General’s Office as well as state police arrived at the Joya Real police station on Tuesday morning and secured their release. The pair were subsequently placed in the custody of the DIF family services agency, the newspaper El Universal reported.

The state is investigating and community police, the local police chief and the parents of Anayeli and her would-be husband could face charges related to the girl’s arrest and intended marriage. The wedding didn’t take place and as a result the boy’s family didn’t make the 200,000-peso payment.

Neil Arias Vitinio, a lawyer with the human rights center, said that arranged – or forced – marriages involving young girls is a normalized practice in the Montaña region and for that reason many people were angered by Anayeli’s disappearance.

“They said, ‘Why did the girl do that if she already knows how things are here?’ [or] ‘She made a mockery of the [boy’s] family’ [or] ‘The girl accepted.’ But how can a girl have the capacity to take the decision to get married?” she asked.

Anayeli’s 14-hour incarceration came less than two months after a 15-year-old girl was held in a police lockup in Cochoapa el Grande for 10 days after fleeing the home of her father-in-law, who allegedly attempted to rape her on repeated occasions. Angélica was sold into marriage at the age of 11 but went to live with her in-laws after her husband emigrated to the United States.

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The federal government’s women’s rights agency launched a strategy earlier this month to prevent violence against women and girls in the Montaña and Costa Chica regions of Guerrero and put an end to forced marriages. But according to Arias Vitinio there is no concrete plan nor sufficient funding to stop the violence and forced marriage problems.

“Signing an agreement isn’t sufficient. It’s necessary to go to the communities and speak with the people, we have to explain to them that marrying off girls and boys has consequences,” the lawyer said.

People below the age of 18 were banned from marrying across Mexico in 2019, but the sale of young girls into marriage continues to take place in some indigenous communities, especially in southern states such as Guerrero and Oaxaca.

During a trip to the Montaña region last month, President López Obrador rejected claims that the practice was widespread, asserting that a media campaign had made the sale of girls for marriage or prostitution appear to be a bigger problem than it really is.

“I’m not here to look at that because it’s not the rule,” he said. “There are a lot of moral, cultural and spiritual values in the communities. It might be the exception, but it’s not the rule.”

The Network for Children’s Rights in Mexico promptly condemned the federal government for downplaying the seriousness of Mexico’s child trafficking problem, including the sale of young girls, saying it is a crime that the Mexican state must investigate and eradicate.

With reports from El Universal and Reforma

2,500 migrants accept offer of humanitarian visas

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MND Staff

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November 25, 2021

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Migrants blocked a Tapachula highway on Tuesday after the INM cancelled plans to review migrant documents on Monday. — Migrants blocked a Tapachula highway on Tuesday after the INM canceled plans to begin reviewing migrants documents on Monday.

Migrants who left Tapachula, Chiapas, on November 18 have accepted an offer by the National Immigration Institute (INM) to provide them with humanitarian visas.

The fast moving caravan, primarily composed of Haitians and Venezuelans, planned to catch up to a slower caravan in Veracruz which left Tapachula almost a month earlier. However, its members, who number at least 2,500, accepted the INM offer in Mapastepec, 108 kilometers into its journey, through its leader Luis Rey García Villagrán, the INM said in a statement.

“We are going to transfer [the migrants] to 10 states of the country … we have offered them … accommodation in shelters and employment opportunities in addition to the visas,” INM official Héctor Martínez Castuera said.

The visas are good for one year and include permission to work and the right to move around the country. That will mean only one direction for most of the recipients, who want to earn dollars in the United States.

The migrants are being taken to INM offices in Puebla, Querétaro, Hidalgo, México state, Michoacán, Guerrero, Colima, Jalisco and Guanajuato for their visas to be processed.

The dissolution of the caravan signals victory for the migrants who decided to storm out of Tapachula, and broke the law by doing so. Many waited for months — some for years — in Tapachula for paperwork from the refugee agency COMAR, which director Andrés Ramírez admitted this week was near total collapse.

The first caravan was offered visas by the INM less than a week after its departure, insisting that they would only be made available to people deemed vulnerable. Initially, most of the convoy were distrustful of the offer, but gradually the majority of the migrants that surrendered themselves to immigration authorities — vulnerable or otherwise — were awarded visas.

The remaining 500 or so migrants arrived in San Juan Evangelista, Veracruz, on Tuesday, 520 kilometers from Mexico City.

With visas in hand, many migrants will head to the U.S. border.

President López Obrador urged Biden to reassess the U.S. position in Washington D.C. on November 18. “Myths and prejudices must be put to one side. For example, stop rejecting migrants, [because] to grow you need a workforce that, in reality, is not sufficiently available in the United States or Canada. Why not study the demand for labor and open the migratory flow in an orderly fashion?” he said.

Meanwhile, thousands of other migrants blocked a highway in Tapachula on Tuesday demanding the INM follow through on its promise of visas.

Mexico News Daily