Share

Share this

Share on Facebook Share on Facebook Tweet Share on Twitter Share on WhatsApp Share on WhatsApp

SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTER

Yessi Montero, a 34-year-old trans woman, was reported missing, and on March 24, her lifeless body was found with signs of torture on the side of a road in Veracruz. That same day, another 34-year-old trans woman, whose name is unknown, was murdered in the street in the state of Oaxaca. More than 1,000 kilometers away, in Colima, 22-year-old Yaneth 'N' was murdered in her home on April 3. All three women had gunshot wounds. 

Veracruz activist Jazz Bustamante told Presentes that seven hate crimes have been committed in Veracruz so far this year, “four against transgender people and three against gay men,” she explained. In Oaxaca, there have been two trans femicides, according to press reports. In Colima, journalist Roberto Macías reported for El Punto Informativo that Yaneth's murder is the first trans femicide of the year in that state.

The demand for justice from these trans women has remained low-profile. Regarding this, Jazz Bustamante explains that both families and human rights defenders “are afraid to speak out” because they face hyper-local contexts where “the law of criminal cells” prevails.

He adds, “That doesn’t mean the victims don’t have the support of their communities; they do, sometimes also of their families, of the same people from the sexual dissidence groups in those localities, but it is very difficult for them to go out and demonstrate to demand justice in that context because their own safety is at stake.”

Yessi Montero: “It was a hate crime”

Yessi Montero was a waitress, 27 years old, and originally from the coastal municipality of Vega de Alatorre, Veracruz. Her family reported her disappearance, and on March 24, 26 kilometers from her hometown, in a stretch of farmland in the town of Cuatro Caminos (municipality of Nautla), she was found dead; her body showed signs of torture. 

“The press reported everything as if she were a man and didn’t see the relevance of the fact that she was a trans woman. I saw the relevance of telling her story and making her identity visible, and that she was a visible trans woman in her community. I also saw the relevance of telling how she was murdered because it was a hate crime, and to determine it as such, it’s important to talk about the aggravating factors, the cruelty, and the exploitation of her gender identity. Yessi Montero was tortured, her genitals were mutilated, she was given the coup de grâce—what other proof do you need that it was a hate crime?” says Jazz Bustamante, who has dedicated herself to documenting these types of crimes in the state of Veracruz for more than ten years, Presentes

Presentes called the Veracruz Prosecutor's Office to find out if it was being investigated as a hate crime. When the question was posed, the line went unanswered.

Article 144 of this state's Penal Code includes the grounds for prosecution of "hate crimes based on the victim's ethnic or national origin, language, race, color, sexual orientation, or gender identity." Bustamante asserts that this provision is not applied because "there are no experts who know or are willing to recognize that these are hate crimes."

Transfeminicide in Oaxaca: her mother identified her

A 34-year-old transgender woman was murdered in downtown Matías Romero Avendaño, located in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca. Reporter Fernando Santiago of the news outlet Noticias, Voz e Imagen reported that the victim's mother identified her daughter, whom he refers to as VRV, and mentioned that she sold plants online.

“She was attacked by unknown individuals (…) she had gunshot wounds to the head, the so-called 'coup de grâce' and was left lying face down on the sidewalk in front of the «Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe» clinic,” the published note states.

Members of the National Guard (national police force) arrived at the scene and confirmed the death. The reporter adds that “the city is under heavy security by members of the National Guard, the Navy (Semar), the Army (Sedena), the State Preventive Police, the Municipal Police, and the State Traffic Police.”

The report mentions that members of the Gender Prosecutor's Office recovered the body and that ministerial agents initiated an investigation for the crime of homicide.

Presentes contacted the specialized unit for gender-based violence crimes of the Oaxaca State Prosecutor's Office, who stated, "This prosecutor's office has no jurisdiction in that municipality (Matias Romero)." Several attempts to contact the Prosecutor's Office by phone were unsuccessful in providing information about the incident or the focus of the investigation.

According to press reports, this would be the second hate crime this year in Oaxaca. In January, Citlalli, a 47-year-old muxe woman, was murdered. 

Yaneth was murdered in Colima, one of the most violent states.

Yaneth was 22 years old and was murdered on the afternoon of April 3rd inside her home located south of the city of Colima, Colima (a Mexican state on the Pacific coast). According to a report by local journalist Roberto Macías, armed men entered her home and, due to gunshot wounds, Yaneth “died almost instantly.”

Likewise, journalist Marina Rodriguez reported that it was neighbors who called the emergency numbers and after that "elements of the different police corporations arrived immediately to verify the facts."

Presentes contacted the Colima State Attorney General's Office to inquire whether the case is being investigated with a gender perspective and as a femicide, given that the state's 2019 protocol for addressing femicide cases stipulates that it must be applied "to all women, including trans women: transvestites, transsexuals, and transgender people." Furthermore, since 2020, guidelines have been in place for officials in the Attorney General's Office's Forensic Services and Sciences departments regarding the handling of cases involving sexual orientation or gender identity.

The response was: “The status of the investigation is confidential. Forensic experts are already investigating what happened in Gregorio Torres Quintero (the neighborhood where the incident occurred) and will determine those elements with the victim's family.”

On social media, users condemned the incident and linked it to the growing insecurity following the militarization of the state. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's security strategy has involved deploying hundreds of members of the National Guard, the Ministry of Defense, and the Navy.

According to an analysis by Insight Crime, since 2016 Colima (with fewer than one million inhabitants) has led the per capita homicide rate in all of Mexico. The increase in this violence is closely linked to the state being considered an “invaluable drug trafficking corridor.”

5 out of 10 trans women were killed by firearms

In Mexico, five out of ten trans women had their lives taken with a firearm, according to the report "Gender Violence with Firearms in Mexico ," prepared by Intersecta, Data Cívica, EQUIS Justice for Women and the Ecumenical Studies Center.

The report highlights that, currently, six out of every ten Mexican women murdered died from gunshot wounds. It notes that in Colima and Guanajuato, this figure rises to almost eight out of ten. Furthermore, it states that this change “is associated with the transformation of public security strategy and the intensification of militarization in our country since the government of Felipe Calderón (who declared the 'war on drugs' in 2006).” 

The report adds that “in the case of people from the LGBTIQ+ community, it is trans women, women in vulnerable situations and sex workers, who top the figures for lethal violence with firearms.”