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Gonzalez, Monreal and Monarrez v Mexico

Gonzalez, Monreal and Monarrez (“Cotton Field”) v. Mexico

Warning: This case deals with topics that are especially grave and may cause trauma invoked by memories of past abuse. If you have experienced violence and need assistance, please refer to this list of country help lines provided by UN Women.

Gonzalez, Monreal and Monarrez (“Cotton Field”) v. Mexico (2009): the state must provide transformative reparations for acts of violence against women
Non-intimate partner femicide
Inter-American Court of Human Rights

When you leave your home, do you avoid certain routes, ask to walk with a friend or choose to travel only during certain times of the day? What if women in your community were disappearing and being murdered when they leave their homes during the day – without any action from the state to stop it? In what ways would everyday decisions be affected?

In order for women to equally enjoy their human rights, states have a duty to take effective action to ensure acts of gender-based violence are investigated, prosecuted and, ultimately, eliminated. This includes providing transformative reparations aimed at restructuring the relationships of power to eliminate the gender-based discrimination driving violence against women. Without this action, a message is sent to society that these acts are tolerated and accepted as part of daily life – while women suffer and manage the consequences.

What happened? | What was the decision? | Court recommendations
Learning from other institutions | Significance

What happened?

Claudia Ivette Gonzalez (age 20), Esmeralda Herrera Monreal (age 15) and Laura Berenice Ramos Monarrez (age 17) were living in Ciudad Juarez (Mexico) when they disappeared after leaving work. Laura and Esmeralda had finished their shifts but went missing on their way home. Claudia was not seen again after being turned away from her workplace for arriving two minutes late. Afraid for their safety, the young women’s families repeatedly contacted the police for help – to no avail. Law enforcement officials dismissed the families’ concerns, saying that they were “probably with their boyfriends.” Without any serious or effective investigation into the disappearances, their families were left without help from law enforcement officials.

Gonzalez, Monreal and Monarrez v. Mexico is also referred to as the “Cotton Field” or “Campo Algodonero” case. This is because on 6 November 2001, Claudia, Esmeralda and Laura’s bodies were discovered in the cotton fields of Ciudad Juarez. Five other women were also found murdered in the same field. Each of the young women’s bodies displayed evidence of intense physical and psychological torture, mutilation and sexual abuse. It was apparent that they had been abducted and imprisoned for days by their captors before they were finally killed.

In the investigations that followed, public officials continued to deny the young women justice. During collection of evidence in the cotton field, investigators left many objects behind and did not adequately record what they had collected. Two innocent men were detained by police, presumably tortured and forced into false confessions of the murders. The men’s lawyer was killed during this time. Autopsies of Claudia, Esmeralda and Laura’s bodies were inconsistent and did not document many of the violations they had suffered, including the sexual abuse. DNA results confirming the identities of the girls would not be handed over for two years. These results inconsistently identified the bodies’ genetic relationship to the families. In some cases, the DNA results contradicted earlier identification through other processes.

After receiving continual threats from Ciudad Juarez officials to withdraw their complaints, the mothers of Claudia, Esmeralda and Laura brought their case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (which was eventually referred to the Inter-American Court on Human Rights). Through the mothers’ testimonies, work of advocates and data delivered by civil society organisations, a systematic pattern of violence againt women and widespread discrimination was presented to the Court. The Office of the Special Prosecutor for Crimes related to the Murders of Women in the Municipality of Juarez reports that 4,456 women are reported to have disappeared between 1993 and 2005, most of them between the ages of 15 and 25.

What was the decision?

“This judicial ineffectiveness when dealing with individual cases of violence against women encourages an environment of impunity that facilitates and promotes the repetition of acts of violence in general and sends a message that violence against women is tolerated and accepted as part of daily life.“ (para. 388)

Through its analysis, the Court decided that Mexico was responsible for violating Claudia, Esmeralda and Laura Bernice’s human rights, specifically:

The Court recognised that the disappearances and murders of Claudia, Esmeralda and Laura were gender-based and perpetrated in the known context of violence against women in Ciudad Juarez. While not all violations committed against women constitute a violation of the Belem do Para Convention, these murders were influenced by a culture of discrimination against women, as evidenced by reports from the IACHR Rapporteur on the Rights of Women, Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and Amnesty International – among others.

Accepting that the acts taken against this woman and two girls under 18 were, in fact, gender-based violence, Article 7 of the Belem do Para Convention required Mexico to exercise due diligence in preventing, investigating and punishing them. Before the discovery of Claudia, Esmeralda and Laura’s bodies, Mexican officials should have assumed they had been deprived of their liberty and undertaken all necessary action to prevent any further violation of the women’s rights. However it was obvious that the officials did not act urgently or without delay. Instead, their actions demonstrated mere conformity with formalities and statement taking, all without further action. For these reasons and more, the Court found Mexico had violated the rights to life, personal integrity and personal liberty guaranteed under Article 4(1), 5(1), 5(2) and 7(1), in relation to the general obligation to guarantee those rights under Article 1(1) and the obligation to adopt domestic legal provisions under Article 2 of the American Convention. And, given that the disappearance and subsequent murders of the women were acts of VAW, Mexico was also in violation of its obligations under Articles 7(b) and 7(c) of the Belem do Para Convention.

In examining Mexico’s actions to investigate Claudia, Esmeralda and Laura’s murders, the Court found several deficiencies. These included: irregularities in the handling of evidence; fabrication of perpetrators, delayed investigations; the absence of inquiries that accounted for the general environment of VAW in Ciudad Juarez; and the lack of investigation against public officials for serious negligence. Through its analysis, the Court concluded that Mexico had failed to conduct a conscientious and effective investigation into the murders. Mexico’s judicial ineffectiveness demonstrated the impunity that existed in each case. For these reasons, the Court decided Mexico had failed to meet its obligations under Articles 4(1), 5(1), 5(2), 7(1) of the American Convention and Article 7(b) and 7(c) of the Belem do Para Convention. Because the above acts had prevented Claudia, Esmeralda, Laura and their families access to justice and to judicial protection, Mexico had also failed to meet its obligations under Articles 8(1) and 25(1) of the American Convention.

The Court also noted the multiple reports documenting the culture of gender-based discrimination and VAW in Ciudad Juarez that were published and delivered to Mexican authorities, prior to the disappearance and murder of Claudia, Esmeralda and Laura. The knowledge of this widespread violation should have alerted police to the immediate dangers the three young women faced when they were reported missing. Yet, when the families had contacted public officials for help, some of the officials had mentioned the women were “flighty” or “they had run away with their boyfriends”. This obvious indifference not only delayed the investigation, but reproduced gender-based violence and discrimination by preventing access to justice. In addition, with the discriminatory statements made by public officials in mind, the Court stated (para. 401):

“…the subordination of women can be associated with practices based on persistent socially-dominant gender stereotypes, a situation that is exacerbated when the stereotypes are reflected, implicitly or explicitly, in policies and practices and, particularly, in the reasoning and language of the judicial police authorities, as in this case. The creation and use of stereotypes becomes one of the causes and consequences of gender-based violence against women.”

Due to the public authorities discriminatory behaviour, the Court concluded that Mexico had violated its obligation not to discriminate under Article 1(1), in combination with Articles 4(1), 5(1), 5(2) and 7(1) of the American Convention, as well as Articles 8(1) and 25(1) in relation to access to justice for the women and their families.

The young ages of Laura and Esmeralda also led the Court to examine Mexico’s compliance with Article 19 of the American Convention. Because of their age, both Laura and Esmeralda belonged to a vulnerable group of women. This fact demanded authorities take special measures to guarantee the rights of the girls. Here, it was apparent that public officials had not undertaken any such actions. Therefore, Mexico had also violated the rights of the girls under Article 19 of the American Convention, in relation to Articles 1(1) and 2.

Finally, because of the pain and suffering caused by the public authorities’ ineffective and discriminatory handling of Claudia, Esmeralda and Laura’s cases, as well as the threats made to withdraw their cases, the Court decided Mexico had violated their families’ rights under Article 5(1) and 5(2) of the American Convention.

Court recommendations

Learning from other institutions

Throughout the text of the case document, Claudia, Esmeralda and Laura’s stories were supported by what other institutions and authorities had said about violence against women, gender-based discrimination and human rights. Some of the references to these institutions and authorities included (numbers correspond to paragraphs within the case document):

Significance

Claudia, Esmeralda and Laura’s case was one of the first applications of the Belém do Pará Convention by the Court and changed the way we understand reparations for acts of gender-based violence. The Court’s decision broke from traditional understandings of reparation to demand Mexico address the underlying causes of femicide in Ciudad Juarez.

The Court required that reparations:

(i) refer directly to the violations declared by the Tribunal; (ii) repair the pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage proportionately; (iii) do not make the beneficiaries richer or poorer; (iv) restore the victims to their situation prior to the violation insofar as possible, to the extent that this does not interfere with the obligation not to discriminate; (v) are designed to identify and eliminate the factors that cause discrimination; (vi) are adopted from a gender perspective, bearing in mind the different impact that violence has on men and on women, and (vii) take into account all the juridical acts and actions in the case file which, according to the State, tend to repair the damage caused. 451

Transformative reparations expand beyond financial compensation and basic protections to a profound examination of the causes and manifestations of discrimination against women and girls and a binding requirement to address these so that women and girls can enjoy their human rights in practice. Although the Court focused on the circumstances surrounding the murders of Claudia, Esmeralda and Laura, the decision resulted in the documentation of 300 incidences of femicide in Ciudad Juarez since 1993.

Despite this success, femicide and disappearances have continued throughout Mexico. These extreme forms of discrimination have also continued against the families and defenders fighting to end impunity for gender-based violence. Susana Chávez Castillo is one of those defenders who lost her life calling for justice for the disappeared and murdered women in Ciudad Juarez.

Want more? Read the full text of the case on the IACtHR’s website