Facing feminist backlash, AMLO moves airplane raffle’s date forward

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March 4, 2020

López Obrador, left, and lotteries chief Ernesto Prieto with raffle tickets.

President López Obrador said on Wednesday that tickets for the so-called presidential plane raffle will now go on sale next Tuesday after the federal government faced a barrage of criticism for its plan to commence sales on the same day as the national women’s strike.

López Obrador announced on Tuesday that the tickets for the raffle will go on sale on Monday, March 9, the day an estimated 36.4 million women and girls are expected to skip work, university and school to protest against the high levels of gender-based violence in Mexico.

One hundred prizes of 20 million pesos (just over US $1 million) – which together roughly add up to the estimated value of the unwanted luxury jet – will be up for grabs in the raffle, for which 6 million tickets will be on offer at 500 pesos (US $26) each.

Proceeds will be used to purchase medical equipment and cover the costs of maintaining the Boeing 787 Dreamliner used by former president Enrique Peña Nieto. López Obrador had floated the idea of raffling off the plane itself but announced on February 7 that no one will actually walk away with the aircraft, for which the government has failed to find a buyer.

To be run by the National Lottery, the raffle will be drawn on September 15.

Figueroa: 'a chauvinist,patriarchal government.' — Figueroa: ‘a chauvinist, patriarchal government.’

López Obrador has refused to fly in the luxuriously outfitted Dreamliner used by Peña Nieto, and it is currently in a hangar in California.

The president’s announcement that raffle tickets would go on sale Monday triggered immediate criticism from feminist groups, human rights defenders and gender experts.

“The most feminist government that Mexico has had — yeah, right,” the collective Brujas del Mar, one of the strike organizers, wrote on Twitter.

The director of the National Shelter Network, a non-governmental organization that operates shelters for women at risk of domestic violence, told the newspaper El Universal that the president’s decision to start selling the raffle tickets next Monday served as evidence that Mexico is governed by a “chauvinist, patriarchal government that [seeks to] make invisible the state of emergency in … our country, where women are murdered every day.”

Declaring that the sale of raffle tickets has no place on March 9, Wendy Figueroa called on López Obrador to “understand that these [feminist] movements are not against him – they are due to a situation of emergency.”

She charged that the president’s actions – he has also come under fire for his “tone-deaf” response to recent femicides – show that “he doesn’t understand the country’s reality.”

Aleida Hernández Cervantes, a gender expert at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in the Sciences and Humanities at the National Autonomous University, described the plan to start selling the raffle tickets on March 9 as a “political error.”

She charged that it showed a “lack of sensitivity” toward the movement in which millions of Mexican women are participating. Hernández was also critical of politicians who have only recently jumped on the feminist bandwagon after previously ignoring the dire situation women in Mexico face.

“This strike is also a call to them [and] to the government, society, the media, universities, companies, so that each of them … review what actions they must take to respect the rights of women and really join the [feminist] movement,” she said.

Elsa Conde, a member of the feminist group Ciudad y Género (City and Gender), called on López Obrador to have greater sensitivity toward the feminist movement in order to show that he supports its demand for a safer society for women.

It appears that the president was listening.

“The distribution of the tickets will start on Tuesday, it won’t be Monday,” López Obrador told reporters at his regular news conference on Wednesday morning.

He also said that both female and male federal government employees who wish to participate in the national women’s strike will not face any repercussions or have their pay docked.

“I said from the beginning, women and men who wish to participate are guaranteed the right of protest, there will be no reprisals.”

Source: El Universal (sp), Reforma (sp), Milenio (sp), El Financiero (sp)

CORRECTION: The presidential plane is a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, not a 747 as was reported in the earlier version of this story.

Voicing the concerns of Mexico’s indigenous people, in their own language

By

Leigh Thelmadatter

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March 4, 2020

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Irma Pineda Santiago is taking the voice of Mexico’s indigenous people — and her own — to the United Nations.

On January 1, 2020, she began her term as a representative to the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), one of four representatives from Latin America and the Caribbean.

Her personal and professional history have paved the way.

Pineda is a Zapotec (or Binnizá) born in Juchitán, Oaxaca, in 1974. Unfortunately, this Isthmus of Tehuantepec community has witnessed violence, even in its recent history. Pineda’s father disappeared unaccountably in 1978.

Despite the difficulties, Pineda earned both bachelor’s (communication) and master’s (education and cultural diversity) degrees to become a poet, essayist, translator (Zapotec/Spanish) and professor at the National Teachers University (UPN) in Ixtepec.

Her writing has appeared in various anthologies and other publications in Mexico and abroad and translated into English and other languages. She has published bilingual books of poetry such as Xilase Nisadó (Nostalgia for the Sea, 2006) and Doo yoo ne ga’ bia’ (From the house of the navel to the 9 rooms, 2009).

She creates and publishes her works in Diidxazá — literally, “language of the cloud people” — a Zapotec dialect of the isthmus, to make it more visible and appreciated. Bilingual versions of her writings feature her own translations into Spanish.

Her work as a writer and teacher naturally led to activism, particularly in the preservation of indigenous languages and cultural rights. For her, the emphasis on language allows her to tackle the rest.

“With the visibility of the language, we can bring to light other issues that concern our communities. For example, in my work, I talk about the violence against indigenous communities by the military, … the constant struggle of indigenous communities against mega-projects … (and) migration. Literature has enabled me to highlight these issues so they can now be discussed in forums such as the United Nations.”

Recognition as a writer, academic and activist granted her opportunities abroad, including residencies in Canada and the United States and academic presentations in the Americas and Europe.

She became the logical choice when it came time for Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI) to choose a representative to the UNPFII, even more so as the nominations were assigned during the International Year of Indigenous Language in 2019.

Pineda considers the post to be a “great honor, above all considering the fact that my work has been about the defense and promotion of the Zapotec language.”

She is one of 16 members of the UNPFII, whose preliminary meeting was held in Finland in February. Their first formal meeting will be in New York in April. In the meantime, forum members continue to coordinate online.

Pineda believes that it is important for international organizations and governments to pay attention to the knowledge and cosmovision of the original peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean. “We have a lot of work to build bridges between various indigenous organizations and governments.”

Mexico News Daily interviewed Pineda at the International Congress on Languages at Risk, where she drew out five main focuses for her term.

The first and foremost is the preservation and promotion of indigenous languages, not only to make them more visible to the world but also more attractive to native communities.

The second is the availability of education, especially to indigenous girls, as they are often pulled out of school early. But in addition to the national curriculum, she wants schooling that is adapted to the values and knowledge of indigenous communities.

The third is related to the environment on both the global and local levels. “When we look at indigenous communities or where they have more control over the land, they conserve the environment better. … If the land is being better cared for, it must mean that indigenous communities know how to do this. We need to learn from these indigenous communities.”

The fourth relates to the rights of women — that indigenous women know what those rights are and have the means to assert them.

The last is the right to consultation. This means that local, especially indigenous, communities have the right to approve or reject projects and other proposals that affect their lives and land.

When asked what foreigners living in Mexico can do to get to know and appreciate Mexico’s indigenous cultures and peoples, Pineda’s response was, “I think that one of the nicest ways … is through the arts — literature, music, textiles, graphic work. … It is a good door though which to start learning about the culture because you are starting from its beauty.”

Pineda does not deny that indigenous cultures have problems and conflicts but those can be contextualized through artistic expression.

Although she hasn’t been with the UNPFII long, she has already learned much, including that indigenous people in many parts of the world share the same concerns: particularly discrimination, language loss and educational issues.

Pineda still considers herself a writer first and foremost. “Poetry (and literature in general) has enabled me to bring the language to many people who had never heard an indigenous language before, … who didn’t even know that such languages existed.”

A sample of Pineda’s poetry in her native Zapotec can be heard here.

Mexico News Daily

Rotisserie chicken: skewered, roasted and ready to use

By

Janet Blaser

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March 4, 2020

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Chicken Florentine Pizza is a good dish for rotisserie chicken.

I could talk about edible bugs – inspired by this story – but I won’t, at least not until I have the chance (ulp) to try some myself.

Instead, let’s talk about the ubiquitous rotisserie chicken, found at pollerías in every Mexican neighborhood and in supermarkets too. Here in Mazatlán, instead of being trussed, the birds are flattened and then skewered onto the rotisserie. (They kind of look like roadkill and it took me a while to get used to it.) Some are simply salted, while in other places the birds are marinated in secret concoctions and then roasted.

However they’re done, the point is that they’ve been cooked for you – and often at the same or even less cost than what you’d pay for a whole, uncooked chicken. Your options are almost endless as to what you can do with this moist, flavorful, ready-to-use meat: create a quick chicken noodle soup, stir-fry or pot pie; use it in nachos, tacos and burritos; make a chicken salad; add to pasta primavera or pesto; add some to a Caesar or Cobb salad … the list goes on and on.

I like to shred the meat: Cut or pull the big sections off the bone, then use two forks to pull it into long, thin pieces.

The other thing I do is make chicken stock. I throw the carcass (minus most but not all of the skin), an onion, a couple of carrots, a stalk of celery and a little salt and pepper in the crockpot with enough water to cover and cook it on low overnight or for 8-10 hours. In the morning, I strain it, freeze some and save the rest in the fridge for a flavor-boost in soup, beans or whatever.

Barbecued Chicken Pizza is one of a long list of options.

While this may seem like a no-brainer, I know I tend to use the same recipes time and again, so I thought I’d share some more unusual ones.

Barbecue Chicken Pizza

2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 medium red onion, sliced
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tube refrigerated pizza crust or prepared crust like Boboli
¾ cup barbecue sauce
2 cups shredded cooked chicken
6 bacon strips, cooked and crumbled
¼ cup crumbled Gorgonzola or Blue cheese
2 jalapenos, seeded and minced
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 425°. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion and garlic; cook and stir 4-6 minutes or until softened. Reduce heat to low; cook 20 minutes or until deep golden brown and caramelized, stirring occasionally. Unroll and press dough onto bottom and ½ inch up sides of a greased cookie sheet. Bake 8 minutes. (If using a pre-baked crust, continue from here.) Spread barbecue sauce over dough; top with chicken, onion mixture, bacon, Gorgonzola and jalapenos. Top with mozzarella. Bake 8-10 minutes or until crust is golden and cheese is melted. –TasteOfHome.com

Chicken Florentine Pizza

1 tsp. Italian seasoning
½ tsp. garlic powder
3 cups cooked cubed chicken
1 cup ricotta or requesón
1 prebaked 12-inch pizza crust
1 package (10 oz.) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry or equivalent fresh
2 Tbsp. oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, drained and chopped
½ cup shredded mozzarella
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 425°. Mix Italian seasoning and garlic powder; toss with chicken. Spread ricotta or requesón on pizza crust. Top with chicken, spinach and tomatoes. Sprinkle with mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses. Bake until crust is golden and cheese is melted, 10-15 minutes.

Chinese Chicken Salad

This has a lot of ingredients but is actually quite easy to prepare. To make chipotle pepper purée buy a small can and whir in blender.

¼ cup rice wine vinegar
2 Tbsp. smooth peanut butter
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh ginger
2 tsp. chipotle pepper purée
1 Tbsp. soy sauce
1 Tbsp. honey
2 tsp. toasted sesame oil
½ cup vegetable oil
Salt & pepper
½ head shredded Napa cabbage
½ head shredded romaine lettuce
2 shredded carrots
¼ pound julienned snow peas
¼ cup chopped cilantro leaves
¼ cup thinly sliced green onion
2 cups shredded rotisserie chicken
½ cup chopped roasted peanuts or cashews
¼ cup chopped fresh mint
Optional: chile oil

Whisk vinegar, peanut butter, ginger, chipotle purée, soy sauce, honey, sesame oil and oil in a medium bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste. Combine cabbage, lettuce, carrots, snow peas, cilantro and green onion in a large bowl, add dressing and toss. Transfer to a platter and top with shredded chicken, chopped peanuts and mint. Drizzle with chile oil, if desired. – Bobby Flay

This chicken is also useful for making a stock that can provide a flavor-boost in soup, beans or whatever.

Chicken Alfredo Roll-Ups

2½ cups whole milk
4 oz. cream cheese, softened
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
Juice of 1 lemon
2 Tbsp. fresh parsley or cilantro, minced
Salt & pepper
4 cups shredded rotisserie chicken
12 cooked lasagna noodles

Preheat oven to 350°. In large skillet over medium heat, melt butter. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, 1 minute. Whisk in flour; cook 1 minute more. Pour in milk, whisking constantly, and bring to a simmer. Stir in cream cheese and Parmesan and simmer until sauce thickens, 2 to 3 minutes. Add lemon juice and parsley. Season with salt and pepper. Spoon a thin layer of sauce onto bottom of a baking dish. Spread sauce onto each cooked noodle, top with chicken, then roll up snugly. Place roll-ups in baking dish seam-side down. Spoon remaining sauce on top. Bake about 20 minutes. – Delish.com

Janet Blaser of Mazatlán, Sinaloa, has been a writer, editor and storyteller her entire life and feels fortunate to write about great food, amazing places, fascinating people and unique events. Her work has appeared in numerous travel and expat publications as well as newspapers and magazines. Her first book, Why We Left: An Anthology of American Women Expats, is available on Amazon. Contact Janet or read her blog at whyweleftamerica.com.

AMLO buys first ticket in airplane raffle, a ‘vaccine against corruption’

By

Cody Copeland

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March 3, 2020

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The president displays a photo of Peña Nieto and his cabinet aboard the presidential plane.

President López Obrador bought the first raffle ticket for the presidential plane at his Tuesday morning press conference and announced that the tickets would go on sale to the public next Monday.

He said that the raffle will act as a kind of “vaccine” against government corruption, claiming “we’ll see if someone dares to do something like this again.”

López Obrador has refused to fly in the luxuriously outfitted plane used by the former president, and it is currently in a hangar in California, where the costs of its upkeep have totaled almost as much as actually flying it. He said it will be returned to Mexico after maintenance work is finished.

National Lottery director Ernesto Prieto announced that the tickets were distributed all over the country on Monday. The ticket numbers run from seven zeros to 5,999,999.

“Today I am going to turn in the first ticket sale for the presidential plane. I’m going to hand over number 0 so that [President López Obrador] can pay with this 500-peso bill,” he said at Tuesday’s morning press conference.

The president attempted to sell the Boeing 787 Dreamliner used by his predecessor, Enrique Peña Nieto, for domestic and international flights but unable to find a buyer, decided to hold a raffle for it in January. The plane had a price tag of US $130 million.

The raffle has been described by opposition politicians as a smokescreen intended to divert the public’s attention away from insecurity and slow economic growth.

At the press conference, López Obrador showed reporters a photo of Peña Nieto aboard the presidential plane with members of his cabinet and called them “pharaohs” and “sexennial monarchs.”

“Those were the times of pharaohs, of sexennial monarchs, and it wasn’t just the previous government. Let’s not forget that it was Calderón who bought the plane,” he said, reminding the press that the Dreamliner is a long-haul aircraft not meant for domestic flights.

“It’s for flying [at least] five hours daily … and landing it after a relatively short distance is not recommended.”

He said that once the plane is returned to Mexico in April or May, his administration will organize public visits “because this is a vaccine against this epidemic [of corruption], a good preventative vaccine.”

Sources: Milenio (sp), Reforma (sp)

Despite green light from judiciary, legalization of pot stalls in Senate

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MND Staff

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March 3, 2020

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Legislation to legalize the recreational use of marijuana has stalled in the Senate less than two months before the end of a Supreme Court (SCJN) deadline to decriminalize and regulate the plant, according to an upper house lawmaker.

Senator Miguel Ángel Mancera, leader of the Democratic Revolution Party in the upper house of Congress, said that there is no consensus between the representatives of the different parties and as a result little progress has been made toward legalization.

“[Legislation for] recreational use is not moving. It’s more difficult than outsourcing,” the former Mexico City mayor said, referring to the congressional battle over outsourcing last year.

In contrast, there is consensus on the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes, Mancera said.

One reason for the lack of agreement is that President López Obrador said last week that he only supports legalization of the plant for medicinal purposes.

“We’re not thinking about that kind of measure,” he said at his morning news conference on February 26 in response to a question about the government’s plans to legalize marijuana for recreational use. The government is only planning to legalize marijuana for “medicinal” and “health” purposes, López Obrador said.

The president’s remarks put him at odds with the SCJN, which published eight precedents on the recreational use of marijuana in February 2019 that determined that prohibition of the drug is unconstitutional.

The court initially set an October 31, 2019, deadline for lawmakers to legalize pot but granted the Senate a six-month extension to April 30 after the upper house suspended debate on legalization for a variety of reasons.

Among those given: a lack of agreement between lawmakers of the ruling Morena party, critical observations about the proposed bill by federal government departments and civil society organizations, and pressure from companies that have tried to hasten the legislative process.

López Obrador’s lack of support for the legalization of marijuana for recreational use further complicates the passage of legislation through the Senate, especially considering that the ruling Morena party leads a coalition with a clear majority in the upper house.

Despite the president’s opposition, Morena upper house leader Ricardo Monreal said that he was confident a draft bill for the legalization of marijuana for both medicinal and recreational purposes will be approved by Senate committees, paving the way for its consideration by all senators.

Legal marijuana would likely generate significant tax revenue for the government, and the Mexican Medicinal Marijuana Association says that Mexico could become the biggest medicinal marijuana producer in the world in five years if the government gives the green light for the cultivation of the plant.

Sales of legal marijuana could generate close to US $1 billion annually in tax revenue, according to one Morena party senator.

The National Association for the Cannabis Industry predicted in September that legal marijuana will bring enormous economic benefits to industry and medicine. It estimated that the number of recreational consumers of marijuana could reach 7.2 million people, who could generate annual sales of as much as $5 billion.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Fish fraud: Consumers pay for the ice too when they buy frozen seafood

By

MND Staff

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March 3, 2020

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Frozen fish is expensive when the ice is included in the weight.

Mexico City consumers are being ripped off when they buy frozen fish and shrimp at supermarkets because they are charged for the protective layers of ice that cover them, a new study has found.

Conducted by the ocean conservation and advocacy organization Oceana, the study Agua por Pescado (Water for Fish) analyzed 82 samples of fish and shrimp bought at 10 different supermarkets operated by 10 different chains that have a presence in the capital.

The study found that in 98% of cases, the ice with which the seafood was glazed was charged at the same price as the fish and shrimp. Up to 57% of the total weight of a product purchased was not fish or shrimp but ice, Oceana found.

Profeco, the federal consumer protection agency, is unable to sanction the offending supermarkets because there is no legal framework that regulates the practice of seafood glazing. In any case, it is unclear whether the protective layer of ice is placed over the seafood by the supermarkets themselves or by processing plants.

In an interview with the newspaper Milenio, the transparency campaign director at Oceana México described the findings of the study as “alarming.”

Renata Terrazas said that in no cases were those purchasing the glazed fish and shrimp notified that they were also paying for the ice that covered them.

“The percentages [of ice] range from 4% to 57% and in all cases, they [the supermarkets] charged for the ice,” she said, explaining that the total weight of one sample of imported shrimp was found to be 57% ice.

“We bought a kilogram of shrimp that ended up being only 430 grams shrimp and the other 570 grams were water,” Terrazas said.

“We’re buying water at the price of fish and shrimp and they’re not telling us. When you go to the supermarket and see a kilo of imported catfish or tilapia at 90 or 100 pesos, the reality is that’s not the final price. You’re not buying a kilo of fish; you’re buying 700 grams or even half a kilo [but] they sell it to you as if it were a kilo of fish.”

Terrazas said that imported seafood was found to be covered with thicker layers of ice than Mexican products. The ice-to-seafood ratio was highest among shrimp and fillets of catfish and tilapia, she said.

“We found patterns: the highest percentages [of ice], 30% to 57%, were all imported products. [All of] the domestic product has less than 30% glazing; on average it has less than 20%,” Terrazas said.

The ocean conservation organization Oceana studied 82 samples of frozen seafood bought at stores in Mexico City.

“So, if you see Mexican shrimp in the supermarket at 380 pesos a kilo as opposed to imported shrimp, which on average is 270 pesos, you might think that [the imported product] is cheaper and buy it. However, imported shrimp has, on average, 31% glazing compared to 13% for the domestic product. When you do the math, they’re practically the same price,” she said.

The campaign director said that the solution to the fraudulent practice of charging for ice as if it were seafood lies in the implementation of a “policy of traceability” that provides information about the processes that seafood goes through “from the boat to the plate.”

Terrazas said that Oceana is speaking to federal agricultural authorities, including the National Aquaculture and Fishing Commission, about that possibility but added that the cooperation of Profeco, the Economy Ministry and the Federal Commission for Protection Against Health Risks is also required.

“If all of the relevant actors aren’t present, the policy of traceability cannot be built along the whole chain,” she said.

However, it will be Profeco that has the responsibility to ensure that consumers are not defrauded at the point of sale, Terrazas said.

Oceana is also proposing that all seafood sold in supermarkets be labeled with information including the scientific and commercial name of the product; where it was caught; when it was caught; how it was caught; who caught it; and the processes it went through after capture (freezing, glazing, packing, etc.).

That would help stamp out the widespread practice of fish being advertised and sold as something other than it actually is.

A 2019 study by Oceana analyzed 400 portions of fish purchased from 133 fish markets, supermarkets and restaurants in Mexico City, Cancún and Mazatlán. Through DNA testing, the study found that 31% of the samples were not as advertised.

“Every day, hundreds of consumers in Mexico ask for one species and get another,” Terrazas said after the study was published in March 2019.

Source: Milenio (sp)

AMLO overrules minister’s attempt to remove tree-planting program director

By

MND Staff

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March 3, 2020

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From left, May, López Obrador and Albores: a crack in the cabinet.

A new crack has appeared in the cabinet of President López Obrador.

The president said on Tuesday that Welfare Minister María Luisa Albores acted without his authorization when she published a decree in the government’s official gazette last Friday that announced that the official Javier May had been stripped of responsibility for the tree-planting employment program known as Sembrando Vida (Sowing Life).

May tendered his resignation from the Welfare Ministry on Monday, stating in a letter that Albores had “unilaterally repealed” the powers he requires to operate the reforestation program.

However, López Obrador said that he hadn’t accepted the resignation and that May would remain at the helm of Sembrando Vida, one of the government’s signature welfare programs.

“He presented his resignation but I didn’t accept it,” he said. “That decree was not consulted, it wasn’t even presented to me and it will be reversed.”

The president conceded that there are differences of opinion within his cabinet but sought to downplay them, asserting that he prefers to have free-thinking men and women in his government. He said that the differences are similar to those that exist in families and that part of his job is to bring people together.

“We need to reconcile, come to an agreement, close ranks … [but] with each person maintaining their freedom and discretion. That is guaranteed in this government,” López Obrador said.

The president rejected the suggestion that Sembrando Vida was at risk as a result of the spat between Albores and May.

“The program is going very well,” he said, adding that the two officials have now made up.

Despite that claim, Sembrando Vida fell well short of its goal in 2019, the newspaper Reforma said, reporting that only 78 million trees were planted, just 13.5% of the target of 575 million. The scheme also fell well short of the target of creating 200,000 jobs, and 17,000 people were found to be collecting pay without actually planting any trees.

The president’s public dressing-down of his welfare minister comes eight months after former finance minister Carlos Urzúa quit due to differences of opinion with other cabinet members.

Other cabinet-level officials who have resigned from López Obrador’s administration include former immigration chief Tonatiuh Guillén López, who criticized the government’s treatment of migrants, and the ex-head of the Mexican Social Security Institute, Germán Martínez, who said that “pernicious interference” of a “neoliberal essence” by the Finance Ministry placed the agency’s services at risk.

Source: Reforma (sp), El Universal (sp)

Vatican will send investigators to combat church sex abuse in Mexico

By

MND Staff

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March 3, 2020

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The Vatican is sending two prelates who conducted an investigation into sexual abuse in Chile.

The Vatican will send its two leading sex crime investigators to Mexico this month on a fact-finding and assistance mission.

Catholic Church authorities in Vatican City and Mexico announced on Monday that Archbishop Charles Scicluna and Monsignor Jordi Bertomeo will visit Mexico between March 20 and 27.

The two investigators conducted an investigation in 2018 into the Catholic Church in Chile, where their work in exposing the protection of pedophile priests resulted in an offer of resignation from every active bishop in the country.

Church officials said Monday that the purpose of the two men’s deployment to Mexico was not to carry out an investigation but to complete an assistance mission to help the Mexican church combat abuse. Mexico has a decades-long history of sex abuse by priests and subsequent cover-ups.

Despite the assertion that Scicluna and Bertomeo will not conduct a probe into the Mexican Catholic Church, the Vatican embassy in Mexico City has expressly asked victims to come forward to speak with the two men, the Associated Press reported.

It has provided an e-mail address to which victims of church abuse can send their testimony and a telephone number they can call, and has guaranteed complete privacy and confidentiality.

The two prelates spoke with more than 60 victims in Chile and as a result prepared a 2,600-page report of church abuse in the South American country. Their report played a crucial role in helping Pope Francis understand that he had completely misread the problem of abuse and cover-up in the church he leads, AP said.

Following the announcement that the sex crime investigators will come to Mexico, the Mexican bishops conference said in a statement that it had requested the mission, asserting that it would be of assistance to the country’s most vulnerable, including children.

“We are certain it will help us respond better to these cases, looking for civil and canonical justice under the principle of ‘zero tolerance’ so that there is no impunity in our church,” the conference said.

In addition to speaking with victims who decide to come forward, Scicluna and Bertomeo will meet with Mexican bishops and other church leaders.

Their mission comes as church leaders in Mexico are beginning to publicly acknowledge the history of abuse as well as the concealment of that abuse. The Mexican Catholic Church admitted recently that over the past 10 years, it conducted internal investigations that examined sexual abuse allegedly committed by 271 priests.

The admission came after the lower house of Congress approved legislation that stipulates that the perpetrators of child sexual abuse can be prosecuted no matter how long ago their offenses took place. The Senate has not yet voted on the legislation but is expected to pass it when it does.

Two ruling party senators have also presented a proposal to create an independent commission to investigate clerical sex abuse but it has not yet faced a vote and some lawmakers have opposed the idea.

The Associated Press reported that Vatican officials have long known that only a small fraction of sexual abuse cases in Mexico, the world’s second largest Catholic country after Brazil, have been reported to them.

However, more victims are now coming forward to tell their stories. One is Ana Lucía Salazar, a television personality who was abused repeatedly as a young girl by a Legion of Christ priest in Cancún, Quintana Roo.

Her case was covered up by the church for 30 years until she spoke out last year. The attention she brought to the problem of sexual abuse in the Mexican Catholic Church compelled bishops in Mexico and the Vatican’s ambassador to publicly denounce the Legion, a Catholic institute founded by Mexican priest Marcial Maciel in 1941.

Scicluna, Archbishop of Malta, conducted an investigation into Maciel in 2002 and 2003 that found that he had raped and molested his seminarians. The priest was forced to give up his religious duties and retire to a life of atonement and prayer. He died in 2008.

Source: Associated Press (en)

Senator calls for controls on sexist messages in reggaeton music

By

Cody Copeland

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March 3, 2020

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Senator Jara, left, wants controls over song lyrics such as those sung by Maluma.

A Morena party senator has proposed a bill that would regulate song lyrics and other media content that promotes machismo culture and violence against women.

Senator Salomón Jara Cruz from Oaxaca wants to reform the federal laws of Radio and Television and of Public Administration as a means of confronting the problem of gender violence.

“We have all seen commercials, posters and ad campaigns based on the exploitation of women’s bodies and perpetuating the stereotype that converts them into sexual objects at the disposition of men,” he said.

“The same happens in several genres of music whose lyrics present women as objectified and hypersexualized products, whose value depends exclusively on their physical appearance and sexual use.”

Jara proposed investing the Ministry of the Interior with greater powers for preventing and sanctioning the media for content containing messages of violence against women. The bill would enable the state to allocate funds collected from fines to the campaign.

Maluma - Cuatro Babys (Official Video) ft. Trap Capos, Noriel, Bryant Myers, Juhn

Watch this video on YouTube

The proposal cited a study from the University of Chile titled “Gender violence in reggaeton,” which was sponsored and published by that country’s Ministry of Culture. The study claims that the popular musical genre routinely expresses physical, psychological and symbolic violence against women.

The analysis of 70 reggaeton songs only found 11 free of gender abuse in the lyrics. The other 59 allegedly contained 568 references to violence against women.

The most violent song according to the study was “Cuatro Babys” by Colombian singer Maluma. Researchers claim to have found 44 references to violence in the tune.

“What’s worrisome about these messages is that they aren’t broadcast at two in the morning via regulated outlets, but they are what we hear on the radio and see on television at prime time,” said Jara.

He lamented that such songs are “what our daughters and sons are exposed to, my daughters and granddaughter, the girls and boys of all of Mexico.”

The proposal emphasizes that drastic times call for drastic measures.

“It’s not about censorship, but about the authorities applying the law, and the mandate is very clear: guarantee that women have a life free of every type of violence,” said Jara.

“In the face of the crisis, some propose the usual easy way out: inefficient penal populism. We’re proposing a … paradigm shift to disrupt and redefine normalized patriarchal structures, and to force the state to assume responsibilities that previous regimes gave up on.”

The initiative was submitted to the Senate Commissions of Gender Equality and of Legislative Studies for review.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

36mn women and girls expected in next week’s national strike

By

Cody Copeland

-

March 3, 2020

0

Women at a recent protest against gender-based crime.

An estimated 36.4 million women are expected to join the national women’s strike next Monday, based on the support the movement has received from schools, businesses, the media and government departments.

The strike was triggered by growing violence against women, which came to a head last month with the gruesome murders of a 7-year-old girl and a 25-year-old woman. Femicides have more than doubled in the past five years.

The biggest educational establishments to join the strike movement are the National Autonomous University, the Metropolitan Autonomous University and the National Polytechnic Institute. The three institutions combined count 282,117 female students.

Private universities like the Ibero-American, La Salle, Anáhuac, Pan-American, Del Valle, Monterrey Tech and the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico have also expressed their support for the strike.

The estimate also takes into account the 13.1 million girls enrolled in the nation’s pre-school to secondary schools, both public and private, as well as the 1.2 million female teachers in those schools.

If all female teachers and students in Mexico’s educational system were to join in the women’s strike, the movement promoted by the hashtag #UnDíaSinNosotras (A Day Without Us), would see 16.6 million participants from the nation’s classrooms alone.

The country’s private businesses and public agencies will potentially provide another 22,032,000 women to the demonstration, a number representing 40% of the nation’s labor force.

A total of 9.4 million women are expected to join the strike from supporting companies like Walmart, Grupo Gigante, Coca-Cola and Bimbo.

Firms like Google, Bayer, Gandhi Bookstores, Sephora, Smart Fit, Chopo Medical Laboratories, Mercado Libre, Lenovo, Cabify, Petco, Devlyn, Warner Music, Grupo La Moderna and others have also shown their support.

Banks such as Banorte, BBVA, HSBC, Banco Azteca, Santander, Scotiabank, Citibanamex, Mifel and BanBajío have also joined the movement by giving their female employees the day off.

A number of federal, state and municipal government agencies have announced on social media that they support the national strike. A national survey by the federal statistics agency Inegi estimates that there are 2,878,000 women working in public institutions across the country.

The ministries of the Interior, Health, Culture, Economy, Environment and Natural Resources, Defense, Treasury and others have all expressed their support for the demonstration.

Among the high-profile supporters is Irene Espinosa, the only deputy governor at the Bank of México. “The numbers on violence against women are too high,” said Espinosa last week. “They’re unacceptable and we’ve normalized it.”

In addition to participants from the educational, public and private sectors, an estimated 8.8 million women dedicated to running their households are expected to join the strike and leave it up to their husbands to make sure their homes run smoothly next Monday.

In total, the national women’s strike has the support of 60 universities, 42 private companies, 21 state governments, 13 government agencies, 12 autonomous entities, 11 banks, seven non-governmental organizations and two political parties.

Source: Milenio (sp), Bloomberg (en)