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 Editorials | March 2007 
Legislating Safety
 Houston Chronicle
In a vacuum, the chances are slim that a statute could make a rapist, wife-beater or sexual predator change his ways. However, an ambitious new law in Mexico could reduce the brutality that plagues Mexican women — but only if the law is considered a start, not a solution.
The sweeping measure, which went into effect last month, represents the federal government's first recognition that complex social, economic and psychological forces make violence toward women in Mexico widespread but rarely punished. The law makes an official commitment to change that.
The very publicity the law has fomented could have a surprising impact on its own. The law was proposed two years ago by the party of defeated leftist presidential runner-up Andres Lopez Obrador. Mexico's conservative president, Felipe Calderon, also supports the law.
For many outsiders, Mexico's most visible women's issue is the unsolved murders of hundreds of women found outside Ciudad Juarez. Juarez, however, is only the most dramatic reflection of pervasive violence against women throughout the region — not only in Mexico, it is important to note. Poor women, in particular, lack power to protect themselves, don't know their rights and can't get redress from authorities.
The new law publicly recognizes this web of factors, weaving together federal, state and local programs that require action from law enforcement, courts, the media and school systems. The legislation also gives state and city governments until May to create laws and other mechanisms that will reduce violence against women. It also requires awareness campaigns that target law enforcement and the public.
A measure this ambitious is bound to attract critics, and many have valid complaints. While the legislation accurately acknowledges that psychological and cultural factors play a role in the violence, it's overly broad in naming "jealousy" and "coldness" as precursors to violence.
Public debate and refinements in the law could clarify these flaws. They must confront the law's lack of funding or infrastructure such as women's shelters that truly add options for women in danger.
But human rights groups nevertheless are right in calling the measure a breakthrough. For the first time, Mexico's government acknowledges that violence toward women is a national liability. And public awareness campaigns, a striking United Nations report recently showed, can markedly reduce violence toward women.
The country's legal and human rights experts now need to relentlessly examine, improve and promote the law's goals until they become a reality. |
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