After a year of being raped by her father on a weekly basis in hotel rooms, 16-year-old Graciela Hernandez (not her real name) became pregnant. When she and her mother reported the rapes and resulting pregnancy to authorities in their home state of Guanajato, Mexico in 2002, investigators were abusive and skeptical and suggested that the sex was consensual.

“Violated Twice:” Mexican Rape Victims are Regularly Denied Abortions

By Kari Lydersen
Infoshop News
November 9, 2006

After a year of being raped by her father on a weekly basis in hotel rooms, 16-year-old Graciela Hernandez (not her real name) became pregnant. When she and her mother reported the rapes and resulting pregnancy to authorities in their home state of Guanajato, Mexico in 2002, investigators were abusive and skeptical and suggested that the sex was consensual.

Hernandez told them repeatedly that she did not want to have the baby, that she could not love it since it was her father’s and the result of rape. She wanted an abortion, which is a legal right for women who have been raped in Mexico. Aside from a nationwide exemption for rape and several other exemptions on a state by state basis, abortion is illegal throughout Mexico and women can be jailed for having an abortion.

State officials convinced Hernandez to change her story to say that she and her father had consensual sex, so he would not go to jail. However incest is not considered rape in Mexico, but rather a two-party “crime against the family,” and under-age victims face the same criminal penalties including possible jail time as their adult attackers.

Since incest is not considered rape, Hernandez was not allowed to have an abortion. She delivered the baby, and still lives with her parents and child, according to researchers with Human Rights Watch who documented her case and those of other rape victims in Mexico for a 2006 report.

Hernandez got support from Las Libres, a Guanajato women’s rights group founded by Veronica Cruz, who recently received Human Rights Watch’s annual award for “International Defenders of Social Justice.” Cruz founded Las Libres five years ago to help women access their legal right to abortion after rape in Guanajato, which is considered to have the country’s most restrictive state anti-abortion laws. In the time the organization has existed, Cruz said, the government has failed to provide even one abortion to a rape victim. Women with enough resources can legally pay for an abortion from a private clinic if they are raped, but low-income women have nowhere to turn. Las Libres provides legal aid and funding for abortions along with peer counseling and other services; so far this year they have helped 10 rape victims get abortions.

The group also works to combat the overall sexism and impunity that usually allows rapists to escape unpunished and puts women through a “second rape” if they try to report the crime and receive medical treatment or an abortion.

“They say women are liars and are inventing the rape to get an abortion,” said Cruz. “Or they say they invited the rape, that they’re easy. They say how were you dressed, did you like him or not. In Mexico women are treated as sexual objects, not people. If a woman is walking alone in the street, anyone can insult her or touch her body. Even in her own house, she can be raped and abused.”

She said that rape victims who become pregnant are legally supposed to have three options – to keep the baby, put it up for adoption or terminate the pregnancy.

“But in reality there are only two options,” Cruz said. “The third one doesn’t really exist.”

In fact, a 2003 study found 74 percent of low income women weren’t aware rape victims are legally entitled to abortion. Human Rights Watch found that many doctors are also not aware of this right; and doctors regularly try to dissuade women from having abortions -- one doctor told a patient to bring a hearse and coffin for the fetus. Hence many women – rape victims and otherwise – turn to illegal abortions and suffer serious health consequences including infection, hemorrhaging and even death as a result.

Even if a rape victim does decide to bear the child and put it up for adoption, Cruz said hospital staff and patients will pressure her to keep the baby.

“They say she’s not a good mother, she’s not a real woman,” said Cruz. And in some states, a woman is required to keep a baby for six months before putting it up for adoption. If she doesn’t, she can be charged with the crime of child abandonment.

“Women are always supposed to be mothers, it is supposed to be the highest priority in our lives according to society, especially to the men in power,” said Cruz.

Women who try to seek abortions have not only been harrassed and intimidated, but bounced from one agency to another in a bureaucratic maze that is expensive and lengthy to navigate. Abortions are not allowed after three months in Guanajato, so in many cases the delay alone prevents women from getting one. This was the case for a young mentally disabled woman who was raped and impregnated by a neighbor in Guanajato. Her mother helped her seek an abortion, pleading that she couldn’t afford to feed another mouth and that “this child will keep reminding (her daughter) of what happened,” according to the Human Rights Watch report. But the public prosecutor told the mother “abortion is a crime,” and the pregnancy was beyond three months before she could obtain an abortion.

The Guanajato attorney general told Human Rights Watch researchers that in five years no rape victim had requested an abortion, even though Las Libres had worked with numerous women who had indeed reported a rape and sought an abortion.

Though there are no reliable statistics, rape is thought to be exceedingly common in Mexico. It is estimated that at most, one in 10 victims report the crime. Government officials have reported an estimated incidence of about 120,000 to 130,000 rapes per year; but Human Rights Watch women’s rights advocacy director Marianne Mollmann said the real number is probably closer to one million.

In many states sex with a minor is only a crime if the child is “honest” and “chaste,” and in many states the age of consent is 12, 13, 14 or “at puberty” regardless of age. And the criminalizing of incest victims means that incest cases are rarely prosecuted. In 2005, for example, the state of Guanajato investigated a woman for incest after her father, who had been molesting her since age six, reported her to authorities. The woman’s husband told Human Rights Watch that the local public prosecutor threatened to arrest his wife on incest charges.

Women generally have little control of their bodies and sexuality; they are expected to submit unquestioningly to their husbands’ sexual demands. In 1994, the Supreme Court ruled that men could force their wives to have sex for the purpose of procreation. This ruling wasn’t overturned until 2005.

The massive increase in immigration, meanwhile, has meant many women are infected with HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases when their husbands come home after working in the U.S. and having unprotected sex with prostitutes or others.

“A woman can’t ask her husband to use a condom, because that would be like saying she had been with someone else,” said Mollmann. “The ABCs of HIV prevention – abstinence, being faithful, using condoms – don’t apply for these married women because they can’t be abstinent, they are being faithful and they can’t force their husbands to use condoms.”

A 2003 government study found that one in 10 Mexican women suffer physical abuse at the hands of their partners, and 46 percent of women over 15 suffer some kind of abuse (physical or emotional) in their home.

Mollmann noted that outgoing Mexican President Vicente Fox, whose home state is Guanajato, had promised the country would improve rape victims’ access to abortion through, among other things, designing and enforcing clear procedures for victims. Currently, only three of 32 judicial districts have clear procedures for providing abortion to rape victims. But, Mollmann said, it remains to be seen what incoming president Felipe Calderon will do about the issue.

“It’s the state’s obligation, even though it was the old administration that made the promises,” said Mollmann. “The international community needs to pressure the new government to make sure they follow through.”

And Cruz said the larger battle is changing social attitudes, including attitudes among women themselves.

“The church and the government control women’s bodies, but women have no control over their own bodies,” said Cruz. “Abortion is a right, not a crime. We need to make it a socially legitimate option for women.

Kari Lydersen is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, In These Times, LiP Magazine, Clamor, and The New Standard.