State of the World's Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2014 - Mexico

Mexico's justice system continues to be defined by widespread impunity for military forces and inadequate protection for victims of abuses from state and non-state actors, including human rights activists. Judicial reforms dating back to 2008 have still only been implemented in a fraction of the country's 32 states. The new Victims Law, enacted in January to strengthen protections for victims of crime, reportedly remained unimplemented as of the end of the year. Similarly, the Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders, passed in 2012, was undermined by lack of resources. In addition to these shortcomings, indigenous peoples are hampered in their search for access to justice by language barriers and limited translation services.

These deficits particularly affect Mexico's indigenous population, who faced ongoing violations of their land and consultation rights during the year by large-scale development or resource exploitation projects in their territories. This included, during 2013, continued resistance to the La Parota dam in Guerrero State. The hydroelectricity project would, if implemented, result in land expropriation and the displacement of indigenous communities. Other indigenous protests included the opposition of Nahua and Totonaca indigenous groups in Zautla, Puebla to a mining project and the movement of Yaqui against the construction of an aqueduct in Sonora without prior consultation that could threaten their water access.

Indigenous peoples and activists continued to be threatened or murdered for defending their rights. In July, the body of Heron Luciano Sixto López, an indigenous rights activist, was found after he was abducted from his office. In May, eight members of the indigenous rights group Unidad Popular were kidnapped: three of them were tortured and executed, while the rest escaped and went into hiding. Both crimes highlighted the real challenges that indigenous peoples face in advocating for their rights.

This vulnerability to targeted violence occurs against a backdrop of entrenched discrimination. This is despite the fact that Mexico has a relatively well-developed anti-discrimination framework. At the country level, this includes a Law for the Prevention and Elimination of Discrimination, enacted in 2003. It prohibits racially offensive messages and images in mass media, and discriminatory practices in general. It also mandates the creation of the National Council for the Prevention of Discrimination as a federal agency in charge of preventing and eliminating discrimination, as well as formulating and promoting public policies for equal access to opportunities for all. At the local level, the majority of provinces in Mexico now have specific laws and institutions to address discrimination. Though fairly new, these are playing a major role in combating discrimination and placing the issue on the public agenda. For example, the Council for the Prevention and Eradication of Discrimination in Mexico City has taken a very active role in sensitizing citizens through media campaigns about practices and behaviours that can be considered discriminatory. It has also investigated complaints of discrimination submitted by minority and indigenous groups.

Despite the existence of these laws and institutions, indigenous peoples still face institutional discrimination in many areas of life, including access to basic services. This was reflected in an incident in October when Irma López, a Mazatec indigenous pregnant woman, went to a clinic in the Mexican province of Oaxaca. Despite being in labour, she was denied medical care and had her baby in the clinic's garden. The same month, Susana Hernández, of the indigenous Tzotzil community in the province of Chiapas, died after childbirth in what has been reported as a case of negligence. Both examples are part of a pattern in which indigenous women are denied the full exercise of their right to health or exposed to institutional violence from public institutions. This discrimination extends into other areas as well, such as access to justice and education. This included, in November, a reported incident involving a junior high school student in Mexico City who was subjected to sustained bullying and humiliation on the basis of her indigenous background by her schoolmates. The victim claimed that authorities had been slow to take action after she lodged a complaint to the Public Ministry.

Indigenous women are especially vulnerable to negative stereotypes based on their dress, language or livelihoods. In November, Ali Roxox, an indigenous PhD student from Guatemala, was kicked out of a bakery in San Cristóbal de las Casas in the Mexican province of Chiapas. The employees assumed that she was a street vendor simply because of her indigenous origin. Another case towards the end of the year involved the local congresswoman of the Democratic Revolution Party complaining that she had been denied access to the restrooms by Congress staff because of her indigenous origin. This discrimination is an important enabling factor in the exposure of indigenous people, particularly women, to violence. It also has the effect of reinforcing their marginalization. This was reflected in the announcement in August by the director of the public agency in charge of adoptions in the Mexican province of Chihuahua that 91 per cent of people wishing to adopt were not willing to take a child with indigenous features – yet 95 per cent of the children available for adoption had these characteristics. This situation makes the placement and adoption of indigenous children extremely challenging.