The Inter-American Human Rights commission is deliberating a case against the state of Mexico for police violence against women dissidents that has serious implications for the perpetration of sexual violence by police everywhere.

“The person that I was before 2006 doesn’t exist anymore,” stated Barbara Italía Mendez in front of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IAHRC), when asked how the sexual torture she suffered at the hands of Mexican police in 2006 has affected her life.

Mendez went on to describe all the negative effects she suffered, ranging from insomnia to an inability to engage in intimate relationships – or even receive a hug. In her remarks she reiterated that despite severe state repression and complete disregard for her human rights, she would never give up the fight for justice for all the women who were sexually tortured in San Salvador Atenco.

During this IAHRC hearing on March 14, 2013, after hearing Mendez’s testimony, representatives of the Mexican government publicly apologized and said they “hope to find a friendly solution to this issue.” For close to seven years, the Mexican state has virtually ignored women’s complaints regarding the sexual torture they suffered after being arrested at a protest on May 3 and 4, 2006. The government has not prosecuted the police or politicians involved – yet once exposed to the international spotlight, it maintained that it has sufficient mechanisms to bring justice to the case.

Popular Resistance to Government Development Projects

The women testifying before the IAHRC describe how when they went to support a protest in San Salvador Atenco, a municipality located right outside the mega metropolis of Mexico City, they were arrested and then sexually tortured. The protest related to the federal government’s plans to build an airport on top of the “Ejidos” in Atenco – communal farmlands created in the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920). Due to popular resistance from a local organization – The People’s Front in Defense of the Land (FPDT) – the Mexican government was eventually forced to cancel that plan in 2002. The fact that one town was able to defeat a large-scale development had significant implications for the neoliberal government of Vicente Fox, especially given other recent events: Mexico had just approved the multi-billion dollar development Plan Puebla Panama. This neoliberal plan intended to “promote the regional integration and development” of southern Mexican States with Central America and Colombia. If more towns reacted to these projects the same way as the people of Atenco, Fox’s development plans would be spoiled. Thus, repression continued against the people of Atenco, with many of the protest leaders living with arrest warrants and the government monitoring the movement’s activities. To this day, the government still wants to build an airport in the area, and it is unclear whether it will once again try to build it in Atenco.

In 2006, a group of flower vendors in the neighboring municipality of Texcoco were prohibited from selling their flowers in the central plaza and reached out to the FPDT to help them defend their right to vend. On May 3, 2006, FPDT joined the flower vendors in protest, and when some participants were detained, movement militants erected a road blockade on the main highway. Enrique Peña-Nieto, the current Mexican president, who at the time was governor of Mexico State, in which Atenco and Texcoco are located, ordered a police operation against the protests, claiming that it was “necessary to restore order.”

On the evening of May 3, 2006, 2,500 police agents, including the Federal Preventative Police, State and Municipal police, raided the town of Atenco. As news spread of the repression, many activists involved with the Other Campaign, a Zapatista-aligned movement, independent journalists and sympathetic community members came to support the people of Atenco and Texcoco. The violent police operation continued throughout the following day, leading many to take refuge in private homes. The police raided these establishments, leading to two deaths and the arrests and detention of over 210 people – including 47 women. Two young students were killed, five foreign protestors were illegally deported and at least 26 of the women detained were sexually tortured.

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