LGBT Rights in Mexico - Violence

Violence

Homosexuality is legal in Mexico, but LGBT people have been prosecuted through the use of legal codes that regulate obscene or lurid behavior (atentados à la moral y las buenas costumbres). Over the past 20 years, there have been reports of violence against homosexual men, including the murders of openly-gay men in Mexico City and of transvestites in the southern state of Chiapas. Local activists note that these cases often remain unsolved, blaming the police for a lack of interest in investigating them and for assuming that homosexuals are somehow responsible for attacks against them.

In mid-2007, Emilio Alvarez Icaza Longoria (chairman of the Human Rights Commission of Mexico City) said he was deeply concerned that Mexico City had the worst record for homophobic hate crimes, with 137 such crimes reported between 1995 and 2005. Journalist and author (Homophobia, Hate, Crime and Justice 1995–2005) Fernando del Collado affirmed that during the decade covered by his book, 387 hate crimes due to homophobia were committed in Mexico (98 percent of which remain unprosecuted). Del Collado expressed his concern about a lack of prosecution and reported that according to the Citizens Commission Against Hate Crime because of Homophobia (CCCOH), three homosexuals are murdered per month in Mexico. Del Collado indicated that between 1995 and 2005, 126 homosexuals were murdered in Mexico City. Of those, 75 percent were reclaimed by their families; in 10 percent of the cases, families identified the victim but did not reclaim their bodies (which were buried in common graves) and the remaining 5 percent were never identified. Former assistant attorney for crime victims at the Federal District Attorney General's Office (PGJDF) Barbara Illan Rondero strongly criticized the lack of sensitivity and professionalism on the part of investigators in crimes committed against homosexuals and lesbians:

"I still can't determine if this is due to negligence, lack of preparation or down-right covering up, and is a matter that has to do with the intention of not solving these crimes because they carry no weight of importance".

Alejandro Brito Lemus, director of the news supplement Letra S (Letter S), claimed that only four percent of gays and lesbians who suffer from discrimination present their complaints to authorities:

"In spite of the gravity of the aggressions suffered, the majority of gays, lesbians and transsexuals prefer to keep silent about what happens and to remain isolated in fear of being attacked again in revealing their sexual orientation".