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Claudia Sheinbaum (c), candidate for the presidency of Mexico from the MORENA party, is visiting the facilities of the Tlatelolco Cultural Center in Mexico City to sign the National Commitment for Peace, organized by the Society of Jesus in Mexico and the Mexican Episcopate Conference, on March 11, 2024.
Mexico’s presidential front-runner and the politics of violent crime
In June 2022, a man fleeing a drug gang took refuge inside a church in a remote region of northern Mexico. Armed men followed him into the church, killed him, and murdered two Jesuit priests who tried to intervene.
That event has since strained relations between the Catholic Church and President Andres Manuel López Obrador, whom church leaders blame for failing to contain the country’s still-high rates of violent crime.
López Obrador’s presidency will end – he’s term-limited – later this year following an election to choose his successor. The popular leader has endorsed former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum of his Morena party, and she is the heavy favorite in June’s election.
This week, all three presidential candidates signed a document entitled “Commitment for Peace,” drafted by Mexico’s Roman Catholic leadership, that calls for new efforts to lower the country’s violent crime rate. But Sheinbaum, beating back implicit criticism of López Obrador’s failure on the issue, noted that she disagreed with the church’s claim that Mexico suffers a “profound crisis of violence.”
López Obrador’s security minister reported in January that the country’s homicide rate fell 10.8% in 2023, but Mexico's 29,675 murders last year still averaged 81 per day. The challenge of violent crime, and the delicate political dance around it, will continue.
Why pandemic was "perfect storm" for violence against women: Dr. Okito Wedi
Gender-based violence tends to jump in any emergency situation, and the pandemic was no different. During COVID-related lockdowns around the world, Creative Development CEO Dr. Okito Vanessa Wedi says the home was no safe space for women. "Preexisting toxic social norms, together with actually being in a pandemic, losses of jobs, anxiety about the future [and] the restriction of movement" all created a "perfect storm" that turned partners into abusers.
She spoke during "Measuring what matters: How women are critical to pandemic recovery," a livestream conversation on October 28, 2021, hosted by GZERO Media in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Why the pandemic has been worse for women: UN Women's Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
The global fight for gender equality wasn't a resounding success before the pandemic hit, but progress was being made. In many corners of the world, however, COVID-19 turned back that clock significantly. Violence against women—especially in the home—has been skyrocketing over the past year, says Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women and the UN's top advocate for gender equality. And the toll on girls has been just as severe, says Mlambo-Ngcuka, with the UN estimating that as many as 11 million girls who left school during the pandemic will never return. At the same time, it has been women who have shepherded the world through the worst pandemic, as they occupy the majority of frontline healthcare jobs. Mlambo-Ngcuka joins Ian Bremmer on GZERO World.
Podcast: Why the pandemic has been worse for women: insights from UN Women's Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
Listen: Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director for UN Women, joins Ian Bremmer on the GZERO World podcast to discuss the toll COVID-19 has taken on the global fight for gender equality, especially on girls. In fact, the UN estimates that as many as 11 million girls who left school because of the pandemic will never return. At the same time, it is women who occupy the majority of frontline and healthcare jobs.
Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.
How the pandemic has increased violence against women and worsened inequality
This week's horrific Atlanta shooting, which took the lives of six women of Asian descent, stirred outrage and fear across the US at a time when Asian and Asian American women are facing an onslaught of verbal and physical violence. But violence against women has been skyrocketing across the world since the start of the pandemic, says Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women. Mlambo-Ngcuka joined Ian Bremmer on GZERO World to talk about how COVID-19 has turned back the clock on the global fight for gender equality and the toll that it has taken on girls, in particular.
In fact, the UN estimates that as many as 11 million girls who left school because of the pandemic will never return. At the same time, it is women primarily who have been getting the world through the worst pandemic, as they occupy the majority of frontline and healthcare jobs. You can catch Mlambo-Ngcuka's interview on the latest episode of GZERO World, which starts airing on public television stations nationwide starting Friday, March 19. Check local listings.
Women’s movements to watch right now
This Monday, March 8, is International Women's Day, a holiday with roots in a protest led by the Russian feminist Alexandra Kollontai that helped topple the czar of Russia in 1917. More than a hundred years later, amid a global pandemic that has affected women with particular fury, there are dozens of women-led protests and social movements reshaping politics around the globe. Here we take a look at a few key ones to watch this year.
Mexico. Latin America's second most populous country heads into March 8 embroiled in a major #MeToo political scandal, as President Andrés Manuel López Obrador defends a powerful member of his party accused of sexual harrassment and rape. That alone is fueling what are likely to be sizable protests this weekend, but there are two other big issues that have spurred the women of Mexico to action in recent years. The first is a growing crisis of femicide — in Mexico last year, a woman was killed every 8 hours (Spanish). The numbers got worse during the pandemic, when quarantine rules forced many women to stay at home with abusive partners or family members. The second is the growing movement to change Mexico's restrictive abortion laws, which strictly limit the procedure in most places outside the capital city. While public opinion is divided on the issue, feminist leaders in Mexico are looking to the recent success of the abortion-legalization movement in Argentina — part of a broader "Green Tide" of feminist organization and power across Latin America.
Poland. Earlier this year, the Polish government approved a draconian new abortion law — now among the strictest in the EU — that all but eliminates women's right to terminate pregnancies legally. Throughout the pandemic, protest groups led by women have hit the streets in opposition to the measure, which is supported by the ruling rightwing Law and Justice Party, but opposed by a majority of Poles. And while protests have died down since the law was passed, it will be a fresh focus this weekend. More broadly, the debate over abortion has become a totem of the wider cultural and political clash in Poland, which pits a conservative national government with strong ties to the Catholic Church and a largely rural political base against an increasingly liberal opposition in the country's big cities. Polish pro-choice activists face an uphill battle, but again — so too did those in Argentina, where the campaign lasted some 15 years.
India. By now you've doubtless heard about the massive farmers protests roiling New Delhi. (If not, see here.) But you've probably heard less about the sizable role that women are playing in the movement, as participants, speakers, and organizers. It's not hard to see why. Consider that 80 percent of working women in India are employed in the farming sector, and half of India's self-employed farmers are women. That means the government's new agriculture liberalization laws — which farmers worry will put them at the mercy of conglomerates — will have a huge impact on India's hundreds of millions of rural women. This issue has become the single biggest political crisis of otherwise-popular Prime Minister Narendra Modi's tenure.
Australia. In Australia, a rape allegation made by a former staffer for the ruling Liberal party has dominated the country's politics in recent weeks, causing a stream of women to come forward with stories of sexual harrasment and assault in Australia's Parliament House, including a separate decades-old allegation of rape against the current Attorney General. Brittany Higgins, an alleged victim who has become the face of the growing movement, says she felt silenced by the government after coming forward in 2019, prompting Prime Minister Scott Morrison to call for an inquiry into the parliament's "workplace culture." A slew of female politicians — from parties across the spectrum — have left politics in recent years because of what many say is the pervasive misogyny of Canberra's old boys' club. (You may recall former Prime Minister Julia Gillard's now-famous misogyny speech from parliament in 2012.)
Japan. Around the globe, women have suffered disproportionately from COVID's social and economic aftershocks. In Japan — where biases that disadvantage women are deeply ingrained — that toll has been especially pronounced: about 7,000 Japanese women committed suicide in 2020, a 15 percent annual increase (the number of Japenes men who committed suicide decreased from the previous year). While the subjugation of Japanese women is not new — Japan currently ranks 121st out of 153 countries on the World Economic Forum's annual Gender Gap list — the way that women in particular are responding to the issue is new. More assertive women's right advocates and groups have begun mobilizing to shine light on the conditions that lead to Japanese women's experiences of alienation, helplessness, and depression. One particular focus in recent years has been the push for reforms to the country's archaic rape laws, which critics say place an unreasonably high burden of proof on alleged victims (victims need to prove that they "fought back" during an assault).
Bottom line: International Women's Day can sometimes fall prey to a kind of cultural kitsch, with lazy appeals to "girl power" and cringey hashtags. But for many women around the world, it's a day to celebrate how far societies have come in the fight for equality, and to reflect on how far we still have to go.
What We're Watching: "Illiberals" veto EU budget, Bangladesh's all-female cop unit, Armenian PM in trouble
EU budget in peril: The European Union now faces an unexpected budget crisis after Hungary and Poland vetoed the bloc's 1.8 trillion euro ($2.14 trillion) spending proposal that will help steer the bloc's pandemic recovery, and fund the Union through 2027. Budapest and Warsaw balked after the EU included a provision that made disbursement of funds contingent on respecting EU rule-of-law norms — including on issues like judicial independence and human rights — which both countries vehemently oppose. The twin veto came as a surprise for many in Brussels, which had recently compromised on this issue by agreeing to only cut funding if the rule-of-law threat directly affects how EU money is spent, and if a simple majority of member states approve. Those terms were seen as narrow enough for Budapest and Warsaw to accept, but the EU's two "illiberal" states are playing hardball. We're watching to see how long Hungary and Poland — which often flout EU democratic norms — are willing to hold the EU budget hostage, or if the bloc will cave to their demands in order to release 750 billion euros in coronavirus relief funds that other member states are desperate to get their hands on.
Bangladesh launches all-female police unit: The scourge of violence against women in Bangladesh came to a head last month, when thousands of protesters flocked to the streets demanding change, prompting the government to implement the death penalty for rape convictions. For years, Bangladesh's government stood accused of facilitating a culture of impunity around gender-based violence (1,350 women were raped in the first 10 months of this year alone, likely a gross undercount because many sex crimes are not reported). In the wake of mounting public pressure, there are now some promising signs that the government is taking gender-based violence more seriously. This week, the first all-female police unit was launched to fight online abuse against women, who are disproportionately victims of digital crimes like revenge porn, sexual blackmail, and social media hacking. Indeed, Bangladesh has seen a massive increase in online sexual abuse as internet use has doubled over the past five years. Cause for optimism to be sure, but weeding out a web of legal and cultural norms that favor men remains extremely difficult.
Rape and impunity (not only) in Bangladesh
Last month in Bangladesh, a video showing the gang rape of a 37-year old woman went viral on Facebook. Eight men implicated in the crime were apprehended, but the incident — along with several other high profile cases of sexual violence — has provoked massive protests in the capital, Dhaka, and other parts of the country. There were calls for the Prime Minister to resign.
The protesters have a lot to be mad about. Back in January, mass protests over the rape of a university student in Dhaka brought thousands into the streets. The government promised to create, "within 30 days", a special commission to investigate rising reports of sexual violence in Bangladesh. More than nine months later, it still doesn't appear to exist.
In the meantime, local activists have counted more than 1,000 public reports of sexual assault so far this year. In a country of 170 million, that is doubtless a gross undercount.
In response to the recent protests, the government announced that, as of yesterday, the penalty for rape convictions will be elevated from life imprisonment to execution.
But activists say that's almost beside the point. As in many cases of injustice involving gender-based violence around the world, the problem isn't only that the punishments aren't severe enough for those convicted — it's also that a broader web of legal and cultural norms in many parts of South Asia favor men, creating an atmosphere of impunity around sexual assault altogether. "Capital punishment, apart from being inherently inhumane, has not really proved to be a deterrent," says Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "The death penalty for rape exists in other countries, and yet the crime persists. What is needed, instead, are systematic efforts to end the barriers to justice."
What does that mean in practice? For one thing, women in Bangladesh often fear coming forward with rape claims at all, because of poor legal protections for them and a culture that stigmatizes victims of sexual violence. Over the weekend, for example, a famous Bangladeshi actor suggested that "wearing indecent dresses" is an invitation to rape. And last year a 19-year old student at a conservative Islamic school there accused her headmaster of sexual harassment. Five days later she was burned to death on the premises. The UN recently called out Bangladesh's "social, behavioral, and structural misogyny."
What's more, as Zyma Islam and Nilima Jahan of the Dhaka-based Daily Star point out, the law's definition of rape is narrow, outdated, and rarely enforced. Small wonder then that conviction rates in Bangladesh may be as low as 3 percent.
Bottom line: The government's decision to impose stiffer penalties on those convicted of rape is a step forward, but harsher punishments are one thing — changing the legal and moral structures of a conservative society is another. How — and how fast — does that change happen?
A look around the world at protests over violence against women
The protests in Bangladesh are part of a wave of demonstrations that have occurred in countries around the world over the past year -- inspired in part by the #metoo movement that began in the US in 2017. Here's a look at several that stand out.
Australia. Just before the pandemic struck, the rape and murder of a 21-year old Arab Israeli exchange student brought thousands into the streets in January to denounce a string of high-profile violent attacks against women.
India. Two weeks ago, the rape, torture, and killing of a low-caste woman allegedly by upper-caste Indians in the State of Uttar Pradesh brought protesters into the streets after local authorities appeared to try to cover up the crime. In March, four men were executed for raping a woman on a bus in 2012, in a case that galvanized greater action and attention to violence against women in the country. Scrutiny of sexual violence has become a pointedly political issue in recent years, with several senior members of India's ruling BJP party implicated in rape cases.
Mexico. In March, tens of thousands of women across the country went on strike to call attention to an epidemic of gender-based violence that kills as many as ten Mexican women every day.
Nigeria. The rape and murder of a 22-year old woman in late July sparked sizable protests (hashtag #wearetired) in a country where polls show that up to one in three women experiences sexual assault by the age of 25, but laws against sexual violence are rarely enforced.
Spain. In March, tens of thousands of women across Spain took to the streets to protest gender-based violence, in an echo of protests that took place last year when a court soft-pedalled the conviction of a group of men who in 2016 gang raped an intoxicated 14-year old girl.
Where you live: Is the issue of violence against women becoming more prominent in your country? If so, we want to hear about it.
UPDATE: This story has been updated to include quotes from Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia Director at Human Rights Watch.