Press Release 10 May 2020, Saltillo, Coahuila. Ninth Mothers’ Day March–Searching for Our Missing Children.

United Forces for Our Disappeared in Coahuila (FUUNDEC), United Forces for Our Disappeared in Mexico (FUNDEM) and Human Rights Centre Fray Juan de Larios

One more year, the mothers of the disappeared spent Mother’s Day searching for their disappeared children and husbands. It is another year in which they continue to demand the Mexican State for access to truth and justice. For the last ten years, the Mexican State continues to ignore these demands and has shown insensibility to the suffering of mothers from Mexico, Central America and other parts of the world.

Witnesses from Mexico will testify today to Parliament’s International Human Rights Subcommittee about the missing students of Ayotzinapa, and call for overdue Canadian action

MEDIA ADVISORY

(Ottawa, April 28, 2015) The mother of one of 46 students from a teacher-training college in the Mexican community of Ayotzinapa who were killed or forcibly disappeared during a September 2014 attack by Mexican police and gunmen will testify before Parliament’s Subcommittee on International Human Rights this afternoon, along with a surviving student and a lawyer for the families of the victims.

Their goal is to make visible a disturbing pattern of grave abuses perpetrated by state security forces, and call for attention to serious failures on the part of government authorities to protect human rights in Mexico, a country that Canada has designated a so-called “safe country”.

The members of the Mexican delegation who will testify to Canadian MPs are:

• Hilda Legideño Vargas, whose son Jorge Antonio was forcibly disappeared in the September 2014 attack;

• Jorge Luis Clemente Balbuena, a student leader at the Ayotzinapa teachers’ college;

• Isidoro Vicario Aguilar, a Me’phaa indigenous lawyer with the Tlachinollan Human Rights Centre, an award-winning NGO that represents families affected by the September 2014 attack and a prior attack in December 2011, in which two other Ayotzinapa students were killed.

The three witnesses will testify to members of the MP Sub-committee on International Human Rights from 1 to 2 PM on Tuesday, April 28, 2015.

Their appearance before the Subcommittee follows a tour through BC, Ontario, and Quebec to raise awareness about the attack on the Ayotzinapa students and an ongoing climate of danger for those who speak up about human rights violations in Mexico.  The tour is supported by more than 50 organizations in Canada.

Tomorrow is the International Day of the Disappeared. Mexican families draw attention to the fate of their relatives

August 30th is the International Day of the Disappeared. This day raises awareness of the fate of individuals whose whereabouts is unknown to their relatives and/or legal representatives in cases of involuntary disappereances because of armed conflict or authoritarian regimes. In preparation for this day, different human rights organizations and families of the disappeared are carrying out different events tomorrow throughout Mexico. Please support the families by sending a twitter to Mexico’s president asking him to #findthedisappeared@PresidenciaMX

If the twitter messages come from abroad, you will giving the families a lot of support.

Mexico says 22,322 people now ‘disappeared’ – Americas – Al Jazeera English

Mexico says 22,322 people now ‘disappeared’ – Americas – Al Jazeera English.

Briefing note. Discussion of the Declaration of Absence in Cases of Disappearance

The effects of the crisis on unemployment, wages and benefits have put Mexicans in a situation of economic insecurity. Disappearances complicate the economic circumstances of a victim’s family. The disappeared contributed with an important share of the household income through wages and social benefits such as health care and government housing assistance in the National Workers Housing Fund Institute (Instituto Nacional para el Fomento de la Vivienda de los Trabajadores or INFONAVIT). Families of the disappeared cannot receive any pension payments because the whereabouts of the victim is unknown, and therefore she or he cannot be declared dead. Also, the situation of uncertainty and worry for their loved ones has impacted families’ physical and emotional health. Health expenses therefore add to the costs of investigation and litigation in the absence of state authorities’ investigations in the context of economic and physical insecurity in the country.

If families want to retain social benefits and receive some form of pension, they have to apply for the presumption of death of the victim, which takes up to six year at least to complete. This impacts families emotionally because once the person is presumed dead, investigations end. Thus, families feel they betrayed their disappeared by having to choose access to basic services over looking for their missing relative.

Mexican families carry out their own investigations to find the disappeared

Mexican families carry out their own investigations to find the disappeared.

Report on Torture in Guerrero from Tlachinollan Human Rights Centre

Vidulfo Rosales, one of our speakers in the No More Blood Speaking Tour that took place in Canada in March 2012, works for Tlachinollan.  This Human Rights Centre has recently presented a report on torture in the state of Guerrero. The situation of this state has been characterized by high levels of impunity, discrimination against indigenous communities and drug-related violence. Click here to access report in English Info CAT 49 -Tlachinollan – MEX (ENG)