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Human rights defenders / Statements / Mexico / 2016 / December

Mexico: Olga Guzmán: Breaking the human rights bubble for everyone to understand

© point-of-views.ch


12 December 2016 (OMCT) – What set off Olga Guzmán Vergara was the inequality she herself faced in her country as a woman. Then her determination to fight injustice quickly moved onto to denouncing all violations of human, social, economic and cultural rights. 

 

While her motivation to speak out for others was easy to find, she was not prepared to discover that her biggest challenge as a human rights defender would be her stigmatization by the general public, leaving her with few allies to count on.

 

“In, Mexico when you say that you are a human rights defender, people immediately think of you as a defender of criminals, that you are against security policies,” said Ms. Guzmán, currently Advocacy Director at the Comisión Mexicana de Defensa y Promoción de los Derechos Humanos. “It might put you at risk because the authorities do not like what you do, and even society does not support your work. So you have both sides against you.”

 

The current global trend towards populism is troubling for Ms. Guzmán who sees in this the conjuring of human rights defenders as “public enemies,” who can bare the blame for society’s ills and someone to “declare a war against,” as did Mexico when it launched in 2006 an all-out war on drugs that triggered a human rights crisis. Yet this is a failure of the human rights movement to make its voice heard outside of a “human rights bubble” of like-minded activists who are in the know, but surrounded on the outside by a generally indifferent and misinformed public.

 

Becoming more society-friendly

 

“I think we have to be more friendly with society, in terms of how we spread our messages,” she said. “How do we get out of this bubble? Because we don’t have to be convinced that torture is a horrible crime, but I think that we haven’t been able to convince the others on the outside.” Ms. Guzmán, who holds a Master’s degree in International Political Science from Kent University, believes that it is the work of human rights defenders to raise awareness and “to make people angry” that human rights violations continue to occur in our age. Putting the public in the victims’ shoes is the only way to do that.

 

Whenever she has met people who were not angry after the disappearance of students, for instance, and who think “they probably did something bad,” Ms. Guzmán reminds them: “You could be the next victim of a human right’s violation. And if you don’t want to become a victim, then support the movement in order to create the structure to avoid this from happening again, and again.”

 

In September 2014, 43 students from a rural school were enforcedly disappeared in the state of Iguala, Guerrero, triggering an uproar among the Mexican and international human rights community.

 

Working in concert

 

Guzmán believes that furthering cooperation between groups, creating more coalitions, sharing ideas and innovating, the human rights movement will also speed up the democratization of the human rights challenges affecting us all.


“Indigenous communities, all the underdogs: women, LGBT communities, youth, they are getting empowered and we are making our voice louder,” Ms. Guzmán concludes as her hope for a change which, she believes, will come from the grassroots.

 

Ms. Guzmán’s organization, CMDPDH, is a long-standing partner of OMCT, and member of the SOS-Torture Network. Together they submitted before the UN Committee Against Torture a case against Mexico that they won, meaning the alleged crimes of torture were recognized and sanctioned. OMCT and CMDPDH have also cooperated on advocacy that will most likely lead to an anti-torture law to be adopted momentarily at the time of writing.

 

This article is part of a series of 10 profiles to commemorate International Human Rights Day, 10 December, and to recognize the vital role of human rights defenders worldwide.

 

To see the campaign video, please click here.

 

OMCT wishes to thank the Republic and Canton of Geneva and the OAK Foundation for their support. Its content is the sole responsibility of OMCT and should in no way be interpreted as reflecting the view(s) of the supporting institutions.

 

Properties

Date: December 12, 2016
Activity: Human Rights Defenders
Type: Statements
Country: Mexico
Subjects: Human Rights Defenders, Justice system, Torture and violence, Women’s rights

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