Tanker trucks at the scene of an LP gas pipeline tap.
Illegal taps on LP gas pipelines soared above 20,000 last year, contributing to losses of more than 30 billion pesos (US $1.4 billion) due to gas theft, according to the president of the LP gas industry association Amexgas.
Carlos Serrano told the EFE news agency that there were more than 23,000 illegal taps on gas pipelines in 2020, up from 12,581 in 2018 and 13,136 in 2019.
Approximately 60% of all illegal taps detected since the turn of the century were discovered during the past three years. Serrano described the problem as “extremely serious” while noting the immense cost of LP gas theft.
“Armed groups are taking control of the [distribution] routes and imposing conditions that don’t benefit the final consumer and place society at risk,” the Amexgas chief said.
A security chief for a gas distributor told EFE that theft also takes place in Pemex storage and distribution centers due to corruption and that gas company vehicles are targeted.
The man, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of reprisals from organized crime, said the states most affected by gas theft are Veracruz, Puebla, Tlaxcala, Hidalgo, Querétaro, Mexico City, México state and Guanajuato.
“In those states … the main impact on companies is the theft of vehicles and equipment they use to distribute gas. Tanker trucks and portable tanks of gas are stolen,” he said.
The security chief said that commission agents play a key role in getting stolen gas to businesses and people’s homes, explaining that they while they normally purchase gas from legally established companies they sometimes turn to criminal groups to get the product more cheaply and increase their profits.
He also said there are groups that obtain money from gas distribution companies in exchange for providing protection to them in the areas they operate. Once an organized crime group controls gas distribution in a certain region, it imposes its own conditions on all links of the supply chain and the consumer, he said.
“They affect the final consumer – the housewife, the hotelier, the tortilla maker and the baker. They force them to buy a certain quantity of gas every month … at a certain price, even one that is above their commercially viable cost,” the gas company employee said.
A legal representative of another gas company told EFE that the authorities are flagrantly violating their responsibility to prosecute criminals that operate in the gas sector and prevent theft from occurring.
“Until now we have no knowledge of any investigative file that has been initiated because of these crimes [even] when they are committed flagrantly and reported by entities such as Pemex,” he said.
Theft of petroleum from pipelines has generated losses in recent years that ran into the tens of billions of pesos for the state-owned oil company. But the federal government says it has drastically reduced the problem and that the losses are now a small fraction of what they once were.
One of the suspects taken into custody in Culiacán.
Federal authorities have rescued a United States woman who had been held prisoner for more than a year in Culiacán by the Sinaloa Cartel.
According to officials, the unidentified woman had been moved around to various safe houses controlled by the cartel in the Sinaloa capital since she was kidnapped in February 2020. They said the woman was in good health.
They did not offer a motive for her kidnapping nor say if the woman’s family had been contacted to pay a ransom.
The federal Attorney General’s Office, working with a police task force on organized crime and navy personnel, rescued the woman Monday at one of the cartel’s safe houses after a federal judge issued search warrants for three buildings that authorities demonstrated had links to criminal activity.
The woman was found in the first building searched. The rescue went smoothly with only one shot fired, the Attorney General’s Office said. A man was arrested at the scene.
Authorities found a man with a gun in the second building and arrested him as well before proceeding to the third location where a woman was found with 243 grams of heroin and weighing scales.
All three are suspected members of the Sinaloa Cartel.
Approximately 20,000 women took to the streets in Mexico City on Monday to demand justice in cases of rape, femicide and other gender crimes and an end to the violence that claimed the lives of an average of 10 women per day last year.
Chanting slogans such as “enough impunity already” and “not one woman less,” the participants in the International Women’s Day protest marched through the streets of central Mexico City to the National Palace in the historic center.
This year’s event, about one-quarter of the size of the massive march in 2020, was spurred by anger at President López Obrador over his support for accused rapist Félix Salgado Macedonio, who was chosen as the ruling Morena party’s candidate for governor of Guerrero despite the allegations of several women.
Some women shouted “a rapist will not be governor” as they marched and warned the government they would make their views clear when Mexicans go to the polls to elect federal, state and municipal representatives on June 6.
“Aggressors must go to jail, not into power” and “President, break the [chauvinist] pact” were among the messages written on placards.
Bearing placards and chanting slogans, women march to the zócalo.
Anger at the president’s ongoing support for a man accused of rape, the lack of justice for women victims and the government’s perceived inaction on women’s rights was exacerbated by the installation of a three-meter-high “macho wall of shame” around the National Palace to protect the seat of executive power, which doubles as López Obrador’s residence.
The erection of the metal barrier, which was turned into a memorial for victims of femicide, proved that the government is more concerned about protecting a building than the lives of women, feminist activists and victims’ family members denounced.
Anger spilled over into violence as a minority of radical protesters attacked the barrier with hammers, bats and blowtorches and succeeded in pulling a section of it down. Police stationed behind the fence “fired volleys of flash-bang grenades into the crowd, causing several small stampedes,” The New York Times reported.
The Mexico City Security Ministry said 62 police and 19 civilians were injured during Monday’s protest. At least nine police and one protester were taken to hospital for treatment but their injuries were not life threatening. Mexico City authorities said a group of men infiltrated the protest and attacked policewomen.
Four female photojournalists reported that they were attacked and detained by police in the Hidalgo Metro station while on their way to cover the protest. “From the beginning we identified ourselves; however, they beat us, threw us, handcuffed us and held us [in custody],” an EFE photographer said on Twitter.
Police officials said later they had identified the police commander who gave the instruction to arrest the women and that he and other officers had been suspended, the newspaper Milenio reported.
There was anger among many of the protesters at the Mexico City march.
Protesters denounced that police used tear gas against them during confrontations at the metal barrier but government security official Marcela Figueroa denied that was the case, telling a press conference that the authorities didn’t use any kind of irritating substance to repel and disperse people. She said police only used fire extinguishers after Molotov cocktails were hurled at them. Figueroa also said there was evidence that it was in fact protesters who fired tear gas.
At one stage of the protest, panic overtook the zócalo, Mexico City’s main square, when men were spotted on the roof of the National Palace toting what appeared to be high-caliber weapons. But government spokesman Jesús Ramírez said on Twitter that the suspected weapons were drone defenders used to prevent drone flights over the National Palace because it is a “reserved area.” No one on the roof of the National Palace was armed, Ramírez said.
The protest continued into the night, with groups of women continuing to chant anti-government and anti-violence slogans as a bonfire burned in front of the protective metal barrier.
Ivette Granados, a 49-year-old woman who marched with her 16-year-old daughter, told The New York Times that she didn’t support the use of violence by protesters but added that it appeared to be the only way to get the nation to take notice of women’s lengthy fight for equality.
“I have already seen it throughout history in the peaceful marches of women — they did not give any results,” she said.
“I think that these things make governments and people turn around. And even if I don’t agree, life has shown me that only then do they turn around to see these situations,” Granados said.
Some of the anger turned to violence.
“Look, I don’t agree to destroy monuments or damage, right? But it is also clear to me that a monument is not worth more than the life of a girl.”
Granados and her daughter, Maria Puente, told the Times they were angry about the daily struggle against sexual abuse that women across Mexico are forced to endure.
“Mother and daughter took turns listing off the assaults they said they had suffered over the years: being grabbed in the street, on the Metro or at a party, and men flashing their genitals at them in public,” the Times said.
Mexico, one of the most dangerous countries in the world for girls and women, has been plagued by femicides and other gender violence for years. There were well over 3,000 murders of women last year, of which more than 900 were classified as femicides, and some 16,000 reported cases of rape.
With impunity in sexual abuse cases still rampant despite López Obrador and his government pledging to provide access to justice for victims of all crimes, some sections of the feminist movement have become increasingly emboldened recently, demonstrating that they are prepared to resort to aggressive tactics to bring attention to the grave situation they face.
Many women see their fight against gender violence and the struggle for women’s rights as a matter of life and death.
“We fight today so we don’t die tomorrow,” was one of the slogans chanted during Monday’s march. “Not one more, not one more, not one murdered woman more,” was another.
Baja California winemakers were once again the big winners at the latest edition of Mexico’s premier wine competition, taking home 67 of the 141 medals awarded, while distillers from several states including Oaxaca and Chihuahua shared the spoils in the spirits category.
Sixteen wines were awarded grand gold medals at the 2020 edition of the Mexico Selection of the Concours Mondial de Bruxelles, which was held in Chihuahua in late February. The event was originally scheduled for September but postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Eight of the grand gold medal winners were wines from Baja California, home to the Valle de Guadalupe, Mexico’s best known wine region. Winemakers from the northern border state also dominated the 2019 edition of the competition.
Four grand gold medal-winning wines came from Coahuila, two came from Querétaro and winemakers in San Luis Potosí and Chihuahua produced one each.
A total of 68 wines from seven states – the five listed above plus Aguascalientes and Guanajuato – were awarded gold medals while 57 received silver medals.
As for spirits, six were awarded grand gold medals. Three of them were mezcales from Oaxaca, one was a mezcal from Guerrero and two were sotol,a liquor made from the desert spoon plant, from Chihuahua.
Twenty spirits including a mead (honey wine) from Veracruz and a gin from Baja California received gold medals while 13 were awarded silver.
A total of 606 wines and spirits from 18 states underwent blind tasting by 23 judges during the February 24-26 competition. After Baja California, the highest number of medals went to winemakers and distillers in Coahuila, Chihuahua, Querétaro, Guanajuato, Oaxaca and San Luis Potosí.
The fifth edition of the event will be held in Guanajuato at the end of the year.
The full list of the grand gold medal winners, the states from which they come and the wineries or distilleries that made them appears below. Full results are available on the Mexico Selection website.
Spicy and salty combine with flair in these feta-stuffed tomatoes.
Regular readers may have noticed that I write about everything from tomatillos, poblano peppers and arroz con leche to salmon, potatoes and broccoli. While those last three don’t seem very “tropical,” my intent is to share recipes and food topics relevant to living in Mexico. This doesn’t necessarily mean traditional Mexican ingredients (although they’re included!) but rather what can be found in Mexico and may end up on your table, in your grocery bag or in your cupboards.
As I started looking for interesting recipes this week, one in particular came at me from every direction: Baked Feta Pasta, trending on the online social media platform TikTok, being made on talk shows and raved about by celebrities. Since January, #fetapasta has had more than 600 million views worldwide!
Before we look at the recipe, though, it behooves us to understand a little more about what feta is. Like its Italian cousin Parmigiano-Reggiano (Parmesan for short) or its French cousin champagne, in Europe feta is a “protected designation of origin” (PDO) item. That means it must be made in certain regions of Greece from local sheep and goat’s milk.
Cow’s milk feta does exist, but it lacks the sharp tanginess and smoothness of that made from sheep or goat’s milk. In other parts of the world, any compact, white brined cheese can be called feta. For the best flavor, though, look for real Greek feta, or at least feta made from sheep and goat’s milk. I’ve found it in the deli cases in Soriana, La Comer and even sometimes at smaller regional grocery stores.
So what is this extremely easy and delicious dish that it seems everyone loves? Like a recipe we previously ran, cherry tomatoes drizzled with olive oil are baked to bursting in the oven and then mixed with pasta. The difference is that a block of feta cheese is baked along with the tomatoes, and then the whole mixture is stirred into hot pasta to form a smooth, creamy sauce. The tomatoes caramelize and release their sugars and juices, the feta softens, flavors merge and, well, voilà!
The secret to this pasta sauce is caramelizing the tomatoes.
TikTok Baked Feta Pasta
If you can’t find a block of feta, chunks will work too.
2 pints cherry or grape tomatoes
4 cloves garlic, halved lengthwise
½ cup olive oil, divided
Salt
1 block (7 oz.) Greek feta cheese
½ tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
Freshly ground black pepper
12 oz. medium-length dried pasta (bow ties, rigatoni or rotini)
Garnish: Fresh basil leaves
Preheat to 400 F. In a 9×13-inch baking dish, combine tomatoes, garlic and ¼ cup olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and toss to coat. Place feta in the center of tomatoes, top with remaining olive oil. Sprinkle with red pepper flakes and black pepper. Bake, uncovered, about 40 minutes until tomatoes burst.
Cook pasta according to package directions. Reserve 1 cup of pasta water, then drain the pasta. Mash feta and tomatoes with a fork and mix until combined.
Combine sauce with pasta, adding the reserved pasta water as needed. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Top with basil leaves and serve.
Whipped feta is an innovative take on typical dips and spreads.
Whipped Feta Dip
Guaranteed to become one of your go-to recipes, use this as a dip or as a spread on toast or sandwiches. Or add a dollop to soup.
8 oz. feta cheese
¾ cup plain Greek yogurt
1 clove garlic, minced
1 Tbsp. olive oil
Salt and pepper
In a food processor or blender, combine feta, yogurt and garlic; process until very smooth. Add olive oil and blend well. For silky-smooth texture, pass through a fine-mesh strainer. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Spicy Chicken Tacos with Corn & Feta Salsa
1½ lbs. boneless, skinless chicken thighs
Salt and pepper
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 red onion, thinly sliced
1 jalapeño, stemmed, seeded, chopped
1 Tbsp. ground cumin
1 Tbsp. oregano
2 chipotles in adobo, plus 1 Tbsp. of sauce
1 cup chicken broth
2 ears of corn, kernels sliced off OR ½ cup frozen corn kernels
½ cup crumbled feta
2 Tbsp. fresh lime juice
For serving: 8 corn tortillas, warmed; ½ cup cilantro leaves; 2 ripe avocados, pitted and sliced; lime wedges, sliced scallions
Season chicken with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until hot. Add chicken and brown on both sides, about 6 minutes. Transfer to a plate; set aside.
In same pot over medium heat, add onion and jalapeño and cook, stirring, until softened, about 2 minutes. Stir in cumin and oregano, chipotles and their sauce. Stir to combine, cook 1 minute. Add broth; put chicken back in pot. Adjust heat to maintain a gentle simmer and cook until chicken is cooked through, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
Using a slotted spoon, transfer chicken to a clean plate. Allow cooking liquid to reduce slightly.
Shred chicken with two forks. Return chicken and any juices to pot and cook until warmed through, about 3 minutes.
For corn salsa: combine feta, corn, 1 Tbsp. lime juice and pepper in a small bowl. Stir remaining lime juice into chicken; spoon onto tortillas.
Serve with corn salsa, cilantro, avocado, lime wedges and scallions.
Corn and feta salsa make these chicken tacos out of this world.
Baked Stuffed Tomatoes with Feta & Roasted Peppers
Classic Greek flavors combine in this spicy, salty mix of simple ingredients. Use Greek feta cheese if you can find it.
4 ripe but firm medium tomatoes
4 oz. crumbled feta cheese
2 roasted red peppers from a can or jar, chopped
2-4 Tbsp. chopped pickled jalapenos or other hot peppers
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ tsp. oregano
¼ tsp. crushed red pepper
Freshly ground black pepper
1 Tbsp. olive oil
Core and hollow out tomatoes. Allow to drain upside down on paper towels. Combine feta, both peppers, garlic, oregano, black pepper and crushed red pepper in a medium bowl. Fill tomatoes with feta mixture. Nestle stuffed tomatoes, right side up, in an 8×8-inch baking dish. Drizzle with olive oil.
Bake at 350 F until tomatoes are tender and slightly wrinkled and filling is warm, about 25 minutes. Serve immediately.
Part of the problem is that Tulum hasn't enough police, says security council representative.
It’s best known for its beautiful beaches and party vibe but the Caribbean coast town of Tulum is also gaining a reputation for crime and violence. In fact, the situation is becoming so bad that a National Security Council representative believes that the ongoing success of the Quintana Roo tourist destination is at risk.
Homicides in Tulum increased 109% in 2018, surging to 23 from 11, before rising 47.8% in 2019 to 34. The upward trend continued last year with homicides up 44.1% to 49.
Several other crimes including home burglaries, muggings, domestic violence and extortion have also increased over the past three years, while small-scale drug trafficking offenses soared 783% between 2019 and 2020, according to National Public Security System data.
James Tobin, a Quintana Roo-based citizens’ representative on the federal government’s National Security Council, told the newspaper Reforma that violence has increased in Tulum due to turf wars between criminal groups.
According to the Quintana Roo government, six criminal groups operate in the resort town including the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the Zetas Vieja Escuela (Old School Zetas) and the Sinaloa Cartel.
The main lure for the gangs is the retail drug trade: many tourists go to Tulum to party and take drugs in a “tremendous way,” according to Tobin, and they are prepared to pay to get their hands on the ones they want.
Another problem, he said, is there aren’t enough police officers in Tulum, which became its own municipality in 2008 after separating from Solidaridad, where Playa del Carmen is located.
“…[There are] 150 police for 80,000 residents, … they can’t deal with the situation, they’re overwhelmed,” Tobin said.
“We have to pay a lot of attention to Tulum because the success of Tulum could be killed. [Otherwise] what will happen in the end is that it will become a fertile ground for criminal groups,” he said.
Juan Noriega, executive director of the Tulum Hotel Association, said the business owners he represents have all been affected by the increase in violence and crime in one way or another.
“All of them have been affected to a greater or lesser degree; the insecurity is latent in some cases and patent in others,” he said.
“… Hoteliers are alarmed because their customers, the tourists in other words, are being harassed by the criminals and when they seek help from the authorities they don’t get a response. … I’m talking about one issue – [drug] trafficking,” Noriega said.
He said the situation is most serious in the hotel zone, which is located on the coast about five kilometers outside the town.
Quintana Roo Public Security Minister Lucio Hernández acknowledges that drug trafficking and turf wars are problems in Tulum, telling Refoma that the recent arrival of the Sinaloa Cartel – the criminal organization once headed up by notorious convicted drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán – is one factor behind the increase in violence.
He said his ministry has also received reports of hotels and restaurants in Tulum being victims of extortion and is dealing with the situation.
Tulum was a sleepy fishing town with limited tourism capacity until relatively recently. However, the number of tourists, especially visitors from the United States, has increased rapidly over the past decade, and there has been a development boom – replete with its own problems – to accommodate them. There are now more than 7,000 hotel rooms in Tulum, making it one of the major destinations in Quintana Roo.
Tourism in the coastal town is only set to grow in the years ahead as a new airport is slated to open in 2023.
The headdress and mask of the Red Queen, now on display in Palenque. inah
The Red Queen of Palenque, a 7th-century Mayan ruler’s wife whose remains were discovered in 1994, has a new resting place in the museum adjacent to the Palenque archaeological site in Chiapas.
The Pabellón Reina Roja, or Red Queen Pavilion, was officially opened by President López Obrador on Sunday.
Speaking at the event, Culture Minister Alejandra Frausto said that people will be able to visit and admire the Red Queen in her native land at the new facility.
“We’ve come to open again the home of the Red Queen Ixik Tz’aka’ab Ajaw [Lady Ruler of Generations], the queen who will be an ancestral symbol for contemporary women as she was in her time for the Mayan culture,” she said.
“The Red Queen will be an inspiration and symbol for girls, adolescents and Mayan women of today” as well as all other Mexican women, Frausto said.
A sculpture of the queen in Palenque’s Alberto Ruz Lhuillier Museum. inah
“… The Red Queen is in her home, may she remain here and may people know her and learn about her culture through her,” the minister said.
The stone sarcophagus of the Red Queen – consort of Pakal the Great, a ruler of the Palenque city state – was found in 1994 by Fanny López Jiménez and other National Institute of Anthropology and History archaeologists. The woman was dubbed the Red Queen because her remains and other objects in the sarcophagus were covered with bright red cinnabar powder.
The Red Queen is believed to have died in A.D. 672, 11 years before Pakal, who was ajaw – ruler or king – from 615 until his death in 683. Her remains had been deposited in a subsection of Temple XIII, located next to the Temple of the Inscriptions, where Pakal the Great’s tomb was discovered by the archaeologist Alberto Ruz Lhuillier in 1952.
Interred with the queen was an elaborate headdress and a 116-piece mask, among other items. Made of 110 pieces of malachite, two of obsidian and four of white jade, the strikingly realistic mask was partially placed over the face of the deceased queen prior to her burial.
A garment worn by Mayan royalty known as a k´ub covered the queen’s chest and shoulders. It was decorated with more than 170 small discs of jade, omphacite and albite and also featured a small rosette and miniature carving of a monkey’s head.
Entrance to the Red Queen Pavilion and the rest of the Alberto Ruz Lhuillier Museum is included in the price of a ticket to visit the Palenque archaeological site, one of Mexico’s most impressive pre-Hispanic cities. The site is about eight kilometers outside the city of Palenque, located in the northeast of Chiapas.
Low hotel occupancy is predicted in Cancún this weekend.
The U.S. Department of State has issued an alert advising citizens not to travel to Mexico this month for spring vacations, citing the high number of Covid-19 cases.
It’s also warning citizens that they will need to prove that they are Covid-free upon returning to the U.S.
“U.S. citizens should reconsider spring break and other nonessential travel to Mexico due to Covid-19,” the U.S. Embassy said on its website. “Cases and hospitalizations remain high in most of Mexico. Consular services, like appointments for emergency passports, are limited in many locations due to the pandemic … For those returning to the United States by air, there is a requirement to present a negative Covid-19 viral test …”
In February, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control issued a level 4 travel health notice for Mexico, suggesting that citizens avoid all travel to the country as well as travel in general, given the difficulty of social distancing in places like airports and other transportation facilities.
Although travel numbers in the U.S. are still a long way from what they were before the pandemic, officials’ concerns about increased travel this month may not be unwarranted: domestic and international airline travel in the United States is creeping back upward: according to the Transportation Security Administration, passenger counts in all U.S. airports exceeded 1 million every four days during February.
However, given the inconvenience of having to get tested for Covid upon returning to the U.S., many would-be travelers may be choosing to stay closer to home. Mexico’s tourism ministry is predicting that Cancún — a popular vacation destination for U.S. visitors — will have among the lowest hotel occupancy rates of many of Mexico’s major beach destinations this coming weekend, even though the beaches are open and it will be a long weekend for Mexicans in celebration of Benito Juárez’s birthday.
Cancún is expecting to see 49.5% hotel occupancy, compared to Puerto Vallarta, for example, which is expected to see 70.5%. Mazatlán is expecting 68.2% occupancy, while Los Cabos may see 55.9% and Acapulco 55.2%.
Victims' names adorn barrier in front of National Palace.
Mothers of murdered girls and women and members of feminist collectives have turned a metal barrier erected around the National Palace in Mexico City into a memorial for femicide victims.
The names of thousands of victims of femicide are now painted across the three-meter-high barrier, which went up Friday in anticipation of Monday’s International Women’s Day march. It was quickly denounced by critics as a “a macho wall of shame.”
Activists added to the memorial by laying flowers, crosses and candles in front of the metal fence. One poster left next to the barrier read: “For those who hugged their mom without knowing that it was going to be the last embrace.”
The memorial-cum-protest was augmented on Sunday night by the projection of messages such as “Femicidal Mexico” and “Legal Abortion Now” onto the facade of the National Palace.
President López Obrador defended the metal barrier on the weekend, saying it was installed not because of fear but rather to avoid “provocation” and prevent confrontation and damage to historic monuments. The president’s office issued a statement calling the barrier “a wall of peace.”
Messages such as ‘Legal abortion now’ were projected onto the National Palace Sunday night.
(Acts of vandalism and violence committed by a minority of protesters have marred recent women’s marches, including the one on International Women’s Day in 2020.)
The National Feminist Collective charged that the government has taken more action to protect the National Palace – the seat of executive power and López Obrador’s residence – than it has to protect women from violent crime.
Activists who participated in the transformation of the barrier into a memorial told the newspaper El Universal on Sunday that there have been so many femicide victims in Mexico that “there are not enough walls to name them all.”
Reading the names of those who appear on the “wall,” and contemplating the extreme violence they suffered at the end of their lives, was a harrowing and infuriating experience for many women.
“It pains me to know that I could be one of them, that any woman I know could be here. … It makes me angry and it hurts a lot. It’s very sad,” said 21-year-old Verónica Cifuentes.
“I’ve seen [my name] Verónica, the [same] names as those of my friends and family members. It’s so real, you know that you could be there,” she told El Universal.
Flowers, crosses and candles have been placed in memory of the victims.
The mothers of three femicide victims who spoke to the newspaper Reforma said that the “wall of shame” minimizes their demands for justice.
Lorena Gutiérrez said the wall is a sign of the federal government’s indifference toward the “collateral victims of femicide,” adding that the barrier is a metaphor for its intention to turn its back on women’s calls for justice.
“What they’re doing and showing to the world with this barrier is a vile act; it’s a wall of shame, simulation, indolence, corruption, ineptitude and impunity,” she said.
Gutiérrez said that in the case of her daughter, who at the age of 12 was raped and murdered by three young men, there has been little justice since the crimes were committed in 2015. One of the men is is jail but the other two are free. Gutiérrez expressed doubt that they would ever be brought to justice.
Irinea Buendía, whose lawyer daughter was murdered by her policeman husband – who was convicted after a legal battle that lasted more than 10 years – told Reforma that with the erection of the barrier, President López Obrador is sending a message that he has no concern for femicide victims and their families.
“It tells us that he doesn’t see us or hear us, we practically don’t exist for him because he says that women are better attended to now than at any other time but the discourse leaves much to be desired because that’s all it is – discourse,” she said.
“… He always has other information [to deflect criticism] and now it culminates with this fence, … we realize that he doesn’t want to take a position against violence toward women, he doesn’t want to … prevent, punish and eradicate [crime against women],” Buendía said.
Soledad Jarquín, whose daughter was also murdered, said it was regrettable that the government has responded to women’s legitimate calls for justice with a wall.
“What a shame that Andrés Manuel López Obrador is responding to us in this way,” she said.
“… What we want is for them [the government] to solve the cases, for there to be justice in the cases of our daughters. And this is not the first barrier that they’ve put in front of us,” Jarquín said.
López Obrador on Sunday once again addressed the installation of the metal barrier and the subsequent criticism in a video message posted to social media.
“We’re never going to repress the people; … it’s better to install a fence than to put the riot police in front of the women who are going to protest, as was the case before. We have to avoid violence, avoid anyone being harmed or injured,” he said.
López Obrador: ‘Better to install a fence than deploy riot police.’
“I’m a humanist and I’m not against feminism. I’m against corruption and manipulation, I’m against authoritarianism and hypocrisy,” the president added.
López Obrador repeated a claim he has previously made that conservatives – a word he uses broadly to describe those who oppose him and his government – infiltrate women’s marches and cause violence.
“Imagine allowing them to vandalize the National Palace because that’s what they want – a scandal. … We installed this fence to protect the palace,” he said.
The president said that he supports the right to peaceful protest before calling on people not to succumb to violence.
“These provocateurs are very authoritarian and I’m going to say it – the conservatives are fascists. [They’re like] Hitler, Franco, Pinochet, that’s the way they think. What’s that got to do with feminism? On the contrary, that’s the opposite of the feminist movement,” he said.
“I’m not sexist, I’m in favor of the rights of women, I’m in favor of equality, I always have been. When in the history of Mexico was there a female interior minister? For the first time the interior minister is a women, for the first time a woman is public security minister, for the first time in history half of the cabinet are men and half are women. … Now half of the legislators in Congress are women – that’s because of our fight and we’re always going to respect men and women and above all we’re always going to fight for equality.”
Tatiana Clouthier: a verbal slip highlighted entrenched gender attitudes.
When Tatiana Clouthier, Mexico’s new economy minister, was in her 20s and finishing her first civil service job, she found out that she was on the lowest salary level of all her colleagues. “That was my first shock of understanding what it means to be a woman and to earn less,” she says, in a video interview with the Financial Times (FT).
A dozen years later, by then a member of Congress, she was warned by a male colleague about her career: “Your children are small and your husband is very handsome and young — you’ll put your marriage at risk.”
That was in the early years of the millennium, barely half a century since women won the right to vote in 1953. Macho Mexico has made progress since then.
Women now hold nine of the 19 posts in Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s government. Indeed, in June 2019, gender parity in Mexico’s government, Congress, judiciary, autonomous institutions and election candidacies was enshrined in the constitution. So, too, was “language that makes women visible and included.”
But even though Clouthier — who managed López Obrador’s triumphant presidential election campaign in 2018 — has experienced sexist values first hand, a recent verbal slip showed how deeply entrenched gender attitudes remain in Latin America’s second-biggest economy.
In a virtual news conference soon after starting her job in January, she referred to her female deputy, Luz María de la Mora, by her first name, and the diminutive “LuzMa.” She addressed her male deputy, Ernesto Acevedo, by the honorific “Doctor,” even though both officials have PhDs.
For feminists in Mexico, comments such as this prove that social change is sometimes only superficial — and that, despite major strides, there is still a long way to go.
Studies show Mexican women want jobs, help with their caregiving roles, and freedom from violence, Clouthier says. Yet, on all three counts, results are mixed — and Covid-19 has made things tougher still.
“Women are the most affected by Covid and super vulnerable in employment terms,” says Fatima Masse, director of inclusive society at IMCO, a leading think tank.
She notes that 73% of women who lost their job at the start of the pandemic are back at work, but 57% of job losses in January compared with December were among women and “nearly 800,000 women who had recovered their jobs in December 2020 lost them again in January 2021.”
As in many countries, Mexican women bear the brunt of caring for children and elderly or ill relatives. López Obrador was criticized when he took office for scrapping subsidies to children’s nurseries and giving women cash transfers instead, which did not always covering nursery charges.
Activist Arussi Unda: there is progress but a lot of resistance.
Clouthier says a law designed to ensure the right to “dignified care” was passed in the lower house of Congress last November, but critics say no new funds or institutions have been proposed to support this.
“They consider that cash transfers are like offering a welfare state — that’s inaccurate,” Masse says.
Violence is one of the thorniest issues holding back women’s participation in the workforce. Women who have jobs outside the home can more easily escape violence, Clouthier says, and she is offering 20,000 micro-credits worth $1,200 specifically to women at the helm of small businesses.
But in the first nine months of 2020, nearly one in 10 homes reported some kind of domestic violence in a country where two-thirds of women have suffered violence — 44% at the hands of their partners. Some 11 women a day are murdered. A recent study found 24% of crimes classified as femicide between 2012 and 2018 led to convictions, but more than twice as many murders of women were not classed as femicide, suggesting near total impunity.
López Obrador has ignited a storm of protest for refusing to criticize his party’s candidate for governor of the state of Guerrero in the June midterm elections, even though Félix Salgado Macedonio faces multiple allegations of rape — including one by a woman who says he drugged her first.
Women were further dismayed when López Obrador admitted he had been clueless about what women meant by a social media campaign urging “break the pact” — a reference to patriarchy — and had needed to ask his wife.
“He’s the head of state. Words build realities,” says Arussi Unda, spokeswoman for Brujas del Mar, a feminist collective which rose to prominence last year when it organized “a day without women” strike.
Statistics show that women work more than men, earn less and struggle to climb the corporate ladder in Mexico.
When IMCO — the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness — analyzed 155 listed companies, it found that Mexico’s 9% female board representation was the lowest among similar economies or European nations. Only two chief executives were women.
IMCO has indicated that Mexico’s GDP would increase by 15% by 2030 if 8.2 million more women joined the workforce. The country currently has one of the world’s lowest rates of female participation in the workforce, a little above Bangladesh but below Romania and Kyrgyzstan.
Clouthier says she is working with the U.K. government on a pilot scheme to analyze Mexico’s gender pay gap. Graciela Márquez, her predecessor in the job, also a woman, launched schemes to help women export artisanal products, but Clouthier acknowledged progress so far is “baby steps.”
She also acknowledges that coding, e-commerce or tech skills are vital for women seeking to re-enter employment. However, encouraging girls into science, maths, technology, engineering and technology subjects does not yet figure on the education ministry’s radar.
So when La-Lista, a new media venture, kicked off in January, chief executive Bárbara Anderson made sure the first story was about female role models — the 14 women who made Mexico’s access to Covid-19 vaccines possible.
“The credit went to the men but the success of getting the vaccines depended on these 14 women, some of whom had to be connecting to their computers at 2 a.m., when their kids were in bed, to talk to officials in other countries,” she told the FT.
“Cultural change is very slow,” says Marta Lamas, a professor at National Autonomous University, who has fought for women’s rights for half a century. Or as Unda puts it, particularly regarding gender violence, “I don’t think we’re going backward but we’re meeting a lot of resistance ahead.”
