By Brenda Lopez Romero
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

MEXICO CITY, Mexico – The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) ruled today that the Mexican State is responsible for the triple femicides that occurred in 2001 in Juarez and Chihuahua. Mexico was legally sanctioned for damages and reparations in the amount of of $847,000 for the victims families. 

The Mexican government was accused of the murders of Esmeralda Herrera Monreal, fifteen years old; Laura Berenice Ramos Monárrez, seventeen years old, and Claudia Ivette González, twenty years old.

Additionally, the Court ruled that Mexico must remove the barriers to the suit for these three murders and was ordered to raise a monument within a year in memory of the victims and maintain a permanent website with information on all the women, teenagers, and girls that have disappeared since 1993.

IACHR also condemned Mexico for the killing and disappearance of women that have occurred since 1993.  The Court considered the homicides as “alarming” and ruled that Mexico violated anti-discrimination rights of women and children, the right to life, integrity, personal liberty, integrity of the victims families, and did not meet its duty and obligation to protect its citizens. 

The Court acknowledged that Mexico had “realized a recognition of partial responsibility … but had not adopted reasonable measures, in accordance to the circumstances of the case, to find the victims alive.”  Furthermore, the Court stated that there was a common denominator in all the cases, the fact that all the victims were females. Mexico attributed the homicides to various motives, but conceded that the overriding factor was the “influence of the culture of discrimination against women.”

The Secretary of State stated “that it was worth mentioning that most of the orders of the judgment refer to actions that the fed and state government have already implemented.” 

For more information, please see:

Los Angeles Times – Court Cites Rights Failure by Mexico in Juarez Killings of Women – 11 December 2009

The Associated Press – OAS Court Condemns Mexico Probes of Women Slayings – 11 December 2009

The New York Times – Mexico: Rebuke on Investigation of Murders – 11 December 2009