Hannah Arendt Observatory on Violence Against Women – Mexico
Rosa Icela Ojeda Rivera, Coordinator
The Hannah Arendt Observatory of Violence against Women (OVICOM) was founded in 2005 by Dr. Rosa Icela Ojeda Rivera, who since then has served as Coordinator of the research teams and work that have documented violence against women and femicides in the state of Guerrero, Mexico.
In 2006, OVICOM became part of the First Interinstitutional Commission to Know and Follow Up on Investigations Related to Femicides in Guerrero. The Interinstitutional Commission was composed of a representative of the then State Attorney General's Office, now the Prosecutor's Office, a magistrate of the Superior Court of Justice, the head of the State Government's Women's Secretariat and the Women's Attorney, a representative of the State Human Rights Commission and the Coordinator of the Hanna Arendt Observatory of Violence Against Women.
In 2006, the first investigation into femicidal violence was conducted in 10 states of Mexico, and the results were published in an equal number of reports. In the state of Guerrero, the Investigation Commission was coordinated by Dr. Rosa Icela Ojeda Rivera, and the text was published. Femicide violence in Guerrero, that documented and systematized the femicides perpetrated in Guerrero from 1994 to 2004.
The first 10 reports on femicide in as many states of the Mexican Republic were promoted by feminist academic and then federal deputy Marcela Lagarde y de los Ríos. The research and publication of the reports were funded by the Special Commission to Investigate and Monitor Femicides in the Mexican Republic and the Related Prosecution of Justice of the 59th Legislature of the Chamber of Deputies of the Congress of the Union. The synergy between the 59th Legislature of the Federal Congress, feminists, and academics contributed to generating a consensus that ultimately made possible the approval of the General Law on Women's Access to a Life Free of Violence in 2007.
OVICOM was established in conjunction with academia, specifically the Master's Program in Political Science and the Bachelor's Program in Political Science and Public Administration at the Ignacio Manuel Altamirano International Institute of Advanced Political Studies of the Autonomous University of Guerrero, located in Acapulco. This connection between OVICOM and academia facilitated the inclusion of content promoting gender equality within the curricula of these two programs. Furthermore, it fostered the development of a line of research focused on gender studies, analyzing progress in women's political representation, femicide, and human rights. This research is reflected in publications and theses, which serve as a resource for academics, researchers, graduate students, and other scholars in the field.
In June 2016, the feminist movement in the state of Guerrero formed the "Feminist Alliance of the State of Guerrero" front, which demanded the declaration of a Gender Violence Alert (AVG) for the municipalities with the highest incidence of murders of women. The Gender Violence Alert, an emergency measure to contain femicide, was declared by the National Commission to Prevent and Eradicate Violence (CONVIM) in June 2017. The information that supported this request was provided by the Hannah Arendt Observatory of Violence Against Women (OVICOM), the report prepared by the National Institute for Women (INMUJERES) and the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), making it possible for the Gender Violence Alert to be declared on June 20, 2017 in 8 municipalities of Guerrero: Acapulco de Juárez, Ayutla de los Libres, Chilpancingo de los Bravo, Coyuca de Catalán, Iguala de la Independencia, José Azueta, Ometepec, and Tlapa de Comonfort.
In 2018, the Hannah Arendt Observatory of Violence Against Women published the second report on femicides in Guerrero 2005-2015, continuing the documentation of femicides in the state.
One of the objectives of the academic institution to which OVICOM is linked, the Ignacio Manuel Altamirano International Institute of Advanced Political Studies (IIEPA-IMA) of the Autonomous University of Guerrero (UAGro), is the recovery of collective memory, which is of the utmost importance to contribute to the generation of civility and peace, since Guerrero is an entity historically characterized by the persistence of violence: state terrorism, guerrilla violence, violence from community police from the indigenous peoples, violence from foreign extractive groups and that from criminal violence groups, which multiplied in the period of the “war on drugs”, implemented in 2007.
The Observatory on Violence Against Women's general objective is to influence, through knowledge and systematization of violence against women, its prevention and eradication, and the development of a civic and peaceful culture. Among its more specific objectives is to contribute its findings to the design of public policies and effective actions for the prevention and eradication of violence.
Members:
General Coordination: Rosa Icela Ojeda Rivera.
International Coordination: Marisol Alcocer Perulero
University Coordination: Aleyda Alejandra Hernández Ojeda
Inter-institutional Coordination: Frida Verenice Hernández Ojeda.
Database Coordination: Karina Estefanía Hernández Ojeda
Geo-referencing: Fernando Yasser Terrazas Sánchez Baños.
Oral history laboratory link: Linayme Paulette Reyes Ávila
Documentation and monitoring C: Axel N. Pintos Didriksson.
The research teams have been made up of students and/or graduates of IIEPA-IMA, some of whom now work as public servants, a job in which they stand out for their professionalism, efficiency and commitment
First Working Team: Karina Estefanía Hernández Ojeda in charge of creating the first Excel database, Marisol Alcocer Perulero, Aline Mata Eguía-Liz, Claudia Líbana Nacif Heredia, Geovanni Manrique Pastor and Ana Didexi Sólis Lozano.
Second Working Team: Aleyda Alejandra Hernández Ojeda and Axel Pintos Didriksson.
Third Working Team: Frida Verenice Hernández Ojeda, Linayme Paulette Reyes Ávila, Alejandra Anahí Terán Salazar, Liliana Galeana Hernández, Adán Mariano Salmerón and Fernando Yasser Terrazas Sánchez Baños in charge of preparing the geo-referenced maps that allow us to graphically show the areas with the highest incidence of murders of women.
Fourth team: Frida Verenice Hernández Ojeda, Axel Noé Pintos Didriksson, Aleyda Alejandra Hernández Ojeda and Karina Hernández Ojeda.
OVICOM links:
Official Website: http://ovicom.iiepa.uagro.mx/inicio/
Twitter: @ovicomgro
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ovicomgro/about
The results of OVICOM's activities are disseminated through its website, publication of books, book chapters, and presentations at national forums and in other countries of the Americas, such as the following:
1.- Femicides in historically racialized territories. (2020). https://www.academia.edu/45607411/Feminicidios_en_territorios_historicamente_racializados
2. The other femicides in the state of Guerrero: racialized, by economic condition and territoriality (2020). In the book Democracy and its challenges in Guerrero. Coordinator Raúl Fernández. Ed. Eón/UAGro.
3. Presentation: Intersectionality, an approach to make visible some femicides by “race”, activity status and territory in Guerrero. Congress of the Canadian Association for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Toronto, May 10-12, 2019.
4. Racialized gender violence, femicide and territory. Proceedings of the 1st International Seminar: Latin American Subnational Democracies Facing the Challenge of Violence. Relades, Mexico. 2019.
5. Presentation: Gender Violence: Femicides and Public Policies for Addressing Them in Violent Contexts. The Case of the State of Guerrero. Second International Congress on Urban Planning, Education, Sustainable Development, and Mental Health in a Peace-Oriented Perspective. Universidad Libre de Colombia, Universidad Autónoma Chapingo, and Universidad Autónoma. PANEL 5: Violence, Urban Conflict, and Mental Health. September 26, 27, and 28, 2018. http://mgdesarrollosustentable.uagro.mx/es/images/2DOCONGRESO/Programa-Oficial-Congreso—copia—copia.pdf
6. Presentation: Guerrero: Political violence, femicidal violence and the process of declaring a Gender Violence Alert. Proceedings of the First Congress on Gender Violence against Women, November 23 and 24, 2017. Pp. 131 – 135. https://violencias.crim.unam.mx/sites/default/files/2020-03/Memorias_1erCongreso_Violencias.pdf
7.- Femicides. Gender violence against women in Guerrero. January 2005 to December 2015.https://issuu.com/sereditorespecial/docs/violencia_issuu
8.- Analysis of femicides in Guerrero (2005 – 2015). http://ovicom.iiepa.uagro.mx/inicio/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Análisis-sobre-los-feminicidios-en-Guerrero_CIESAS.pdf
9. Gender violence: femicides and public policies for addressing them in violent contexts. The case of the state of Guerrero.
10. Femicide Violence in Guerrero (2006). Special Commission to Investigate and Monitor Femicides in the Mexican Republic and Related Prosecution of Justice of the LIX Legislature of the Chamber of Deputies of the H. Congress of the Union. The results led to the creation of the General Law on Women's Access to a Life Free of Violence. https://www.academia.edu/45607421/Violencia_Feminicida_en_Guerrero
11.- Alcocer Perulero, Marisol (2014). “Prostitutes, unfaithful women and drug addicts”. Gender judgments and prejudices in the Press about victims of femicide: the case of Guerrero, Mexico. Antipod. Rev. Antropol. Arqueol. No. 20, Bogotá, September-December 2014, 220 pp. ISSN 1900-5407, pp. 97-118. https://revistas.uniandes.edu.co/doi/pdf/10.7440/antipoda20.2014.05
OVICOM's research has been taken up by other authors in research papers, theses, and journalistic works, some of which are the following:
1.-ISBN 0822387352 and 9780822387350
H. Olcott Jocelyn. (2006) Revolutionary Women in Postrevolutionary Mexico. Duke University Press. 352 pp. https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=rCvzS_e2rb0C&lpg
2.- Alcocer Perulero Marisol. (2012) Representation of victims of femicide in the Guerrero press 2005-2009. Thesis to obtain the degree of master in cultural studies. El Colegio de la Frontera Norte.
3.- Figueroa Romero Dolores. (2015) (Consultant) Social and political leadership of indigenous women. Reflective essay for the Simone de Beauvoir Institute.https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Maria-Figueroa-Romero/publication/290728368_Liderazgo_social_y_politico_de_mujeres_indigenas/links/569b3a3d08aeeea985a0e30b/Lidera.
4.- Alocer, Perulero, Marisol (2016). The motives of Janus: Exercise and containment of physical, sexual violence and femicide against women in two Afro-Mexican communities of the Choco coast of Guerrero thesis to obtain the degree of Doctor of Social Sciences, with mention in Sociology, by the Faculty of Social Sciences, Mexico headquarters. https://revistas.uniandes.edu.co/doi/pdf/10.7440/antipoda20.2014.05
5.- Valente Fernández María. (2019) The participation of feminist civil society organizations in the classification of femicide in the State of Guerrero, Mexico. Thesis to obtain the degree of Master in Political Science in the PNPC Program of the IIEPA-IMA-UAGro. Third Generation 2017-2019. http://ri.uagro.mx/bitstream/handle/uagro/1957/TM_09162046_19.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.
6.- Anzo Gómez Perla Aline. (2019) The collective action of the Feminist Alliance for the declaration of the Gender Violence Alert against women in Guerrero 2016-2017. Thesis to obtain the degree of Master in Political Science in the PNPC Program of the IIEPA IMA UAGro. Repository of the Autonomous University of Guerrero. http://200.4.134.60/handle/uagro/1488.
7. Romero, Dolores Figueroa (2019). Policies of Femicide in Mexico: Intersectional perspectives of indigenous women to reconsider its theoretical-legal definition and data collection methodologies. Journal of International Women's Studies, 20(8), 64-86. Available at: https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol20/iss8/5. https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2190&context=jiws
8. .- Alcocer Perulero, Marisol. 2020. “FEMINICIDE OF AFRODESCENTS IN NON-MEXICO O Que não Tem Nome não Exist”. Abya-Yala: Magazine About Access to Justice and Direitos in the Americas 4 (1):163 to 193. https://periodicos.unb.br/index.php/abya/article/view/32247.
9..-ISBN 9788882925307
Hernández Ojeda Frida (2020) “Femicides and impunity in Guerrero, Mexico” on pp 413-424. Part V Feminism and Violence in Carolina Pereyra Linz Mesquita, Juliana Texeira Esteves and Natalia Lipovetsky (Organizers) Feminism and debt. The date of the Sole. https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/65108808/Feminismo_Deuda_04_12_2020_new_pages_1_3_5_9_33_53_70-with-cover-page-v2.pdf?Expires=1623905818&Signature=WZE.
10.- Physical ISBN. 9786525103594 Digital ISBN 9786525103549
DOI. 10248249786525103594 Alcocer Perulero Marisol (2021). “Murder of Black Women in Mexico. Analysis from the Conceptualization of Femicide and Racialization.” In Cristina Gómez (organizer) Racism and neoliberalism in Latin America. Volume 2. Pp. 135-167. https://www.academia.edu/49177862/Assassinatos_de_mulheres_negras_no_M%C3%A9xico_An%C3%A1lise_desde_a_conceitualiza%C3%A7%C3%A3o_de_feminic%C3%ADdio_e_racializa%C3%A7%C3%A3o?email_work_card=vie
11. Press Release Communication Senate of the Republic Guerrero government and federal authorities obligated to declare gender violence alert: de la Peña Gómez http://comunicacion.senado.gob.mx/index.php/informacion/grupos-parlamentarios/29766-gobierno-de-guerrero-y-autoridades-federales-obligadas-a-declarar-alerta-de-violencia-de-genero-de-la-pena-gomez.html
12.- National news article on the news portal La Silla Rota, Gender Alert declared in Guerrero, https://lasillarota.com/estados/declaran-alerta-de-genero-en-guerrero/158848
13.- Alcocer Perulero Marisol (2019). Femicide and homicide of women in two Afro-descendant communities of the Costa Chica of Guerrero: an approach to local dynamics. Ichan Tecolotl. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348027714_Feminicidio_y_homicidio_de_mujeres_en_dos_comunidades_afrodescendientes_de_la_Costa_Chica_de_Guerrero_un_acercamiento_a_las_dinamicas_locales
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