Legislators Revoke Law Reducing Penalties for Rapists 'Provoked' By Women
by Julie Watson
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - Mexican women's groups won a rare victory Tuesday when a nationwide campaign forced state legislators to reverse a law that would have shortened prison sentences for rapists supposedly "provoked" by their victims.
The law - which handed out sentences less than those given to cattle rustlers ---- was overturned by a coalition of women's groups that emerged in the wake of a series of horrifying rape-murders in this tough border city.
By appealing to the media and feminists nationwide, and taking the fight to the floor of the nation's congress, the groups managed one of the first victories for women in the northern state of Chihuahua, which has been plagued by savage attacks against women over the past six years.
Mexico's federal Congress had threatened to intervene if the Chihuahua state congress did not revamp the recently approved penal code, which cut the minimum sentence from four years to one if the offender said the victim had "provoked" the attack. Cattle rustlers in the state face six to 12 years in jail.
Legislators said women sometimes charge their boyfriends with rape rather than admit to their fathers that they are having sex, and the clause was designed to prevent that. But feminists said it allowed rapists to argue that they attacked their victims because they said she was scantily dressed or had smiled at them.
Lawmakers agreed to remove the clause Tuesday. They also scrapped a second clause that had lowered the minimum sentence from four years to six months if the victim was penetrated with an object. Under the new law to go into effect next week, rapists face six to 20 years in jail.
Rene Medrano, spokesman for the Chihuahua congress, said legislators unanimously approved the changes Tuesday because of "pressure from the citizens."
Women's groups across Mexico fought against the lower penalties, which were approved in August. The activists held protests in the state capital of Chihuahua City and in the border metropolis of Ciudad Juarez, where more than 200 women have been murdered in the past decade.
"We know for sure they are changing it because the pressure was humongous," said Victoria Caraveo, director of Mujeres Por Juarez, or Women for Juarez, one of three dozen women's groups that emerged after the killings.
Jorge Ramirez Marin, a national congressional leader of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which dominates the Chihuahua state congress, said the August reforms were misunderstood.
But "of course, there are those who think that a woman can't even be touched with a rose petal," he said.
While police have not solved the majority of murder cases against the female factory workers, the horror left behind a solid movement of women activists in this rough city of brothels and table dance bars.
But the families of victims whose bodies were thrown in the desert are still waiting for answers.
Paula Flores, who became a leading activist after her 17-year-old daughter was raped and killed four years ago, did not participate in the recent fight.
"I now put my faith in God, because in the justice system I don't have any," said Flores in her humble home, filled with photos, clothes and trinkets of her daughter. "I prefer now to visit my daughter's grave rather than waste time going to the prosecutor's office."
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press