International Women’s Day will be celebrated on March 8th 2020. This year the #EachforEqual campaign attempts to encourage us all to “challenge stereotypes, fight bias, broaden perceptions, improve situations and celebrate women’s achievements.”
PBI supports numerous female defenders, working in situations of real risk fighting for the protection of a range of rights, including women´s rights. One of the women defenders that PBI has a close relationship with is Alma Gomez, a former revolutionary and the founder of the Centre for the Human Rights of Women (CEDEHM) in Mexico.
Gomez’s words are echoed in recent comments from UN Women saying that in Mexico “a cause for concern is the escalation of generalised violence in several target areas of the country, showing patterns of human rights violations and impunity at all levels, in particular enforced disappearances, torture, arbitrary detention, as well as attacks on human rights activists”.
The CEDEHM aims to stop violence against women through education, advocacy and legislation. “Here we perform an active defense of human rights. Justice here does not walk alone; we have to help it walk and walk well”.
CEDHM acted as legal representatives in the high profile case brought by Marisela Escobedo, a businesswoman who pursued justice to find the killer of her 16 year old daughter Ruby Marisol. Outraged when judges freed the main suspect in the case Escobedo appealed, staged numerous marches and rallies and eventually launched a one-woman protest outside government offices. On 16th December 2010, Escobedo herself was murdered in that square. The next day, her business in Ciudad Juarez was burned and her brother was kidnapped and later found dead. His son and others associated with her were threatened.
Gomez notes, “After the killing, we were in a very vulnerable situation at CEDEHM. We were at risk, because we had been the legal representatives… some workers left the Centre and it was difficult to find replacements, because nobody wanted to work here”.
In addition to providing legal support CEDEHM also advocates for women’s rights. At a state level they check on the implementation of the state plan, designed with a gender perspective, and at the municipal level they campaign for the inclusion of a gender perspective in budgeting and development plans.
Gomez has always been political, saying that she came from ‘a leftist and tenacious’ family. She was involved in political action in the 1960s. The slaughter in Plaza de las Tres Culturas of 1968 was a pivotal moment for her: government forces opened fire on a student protest killing many. Subsequently Gomez joined the Revolutionary Action Movement, a guerrilla organization. She was detained in 1973, tortured and imprisoned without trial until 1976. A presidential decree resulted in her release and she says: “At that time it became clear to me that it was not possible to achieve a social transformation through armed action”.
In 1998 she became the first leftist congresswoman in the Chihuahua congress. In 1994 she co-founded El Barzón Chihuahua, a peasant movement fighting to preserve agricultural lands before going on to found CEDEHM.
Gomez says that the support received from international organisations including PBI “has been essential”.
Alma Gomez fights to support women’s rights in Mexico. PBI Mexico currently monitors the security situation of the CEDEHM very closely, to help the Centre continue its important work fighting for gender equality.