Resolutions
Resolutions of the Work Meeting at the Conference
Feminicide = Sanctioned Murder
Gender, Race, and Violence in Global Context
Stanford University, California
May 19, 2007
12:00 pm - 2:00 pm
Attending: Eva Arce, Cynthia Bejarano, Lydia Cacho, Adriana Carmona, Lucha Castro, Norma Cruz, Gemma Cubero, Paula Flores, Rosa-Linda Fregoso, Judith Galarza, Malú García Andrade, Marcela Lagarde, Miguel David Meza Argueta, Marisela Ortiz, Elena Poniatowska, Lourdes Portillo, Pilar Sánchez Rivera, Rita Laura Segato, Teresa Vázquez, Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano, and Gwenda Yuzicappi.
Notetaker: Teresa Vázquez
The Network Without Borders for Women’s Life and Liberty was created at the “Feminicide = Sanctioned Murder” conference, held at Stanford University. On May 19th, 2007 we agreed to the following:
1. At the GROUP level
1.1 The Network is a non-hierarchical citizen’s group designed to monitor, follow-up and undertake direct action.
1.2 The name of the network will be “Network without Borders for Women’s Life and Liberty.”
1.3 The Network will maintain communication via the Internet where we will circulate information about our activities.
1.4 Each member commits to ensuring that resolutions turn into effective actions.
1.5 The Network’s actions and tasks will take place at the local, national, and international levels.
2. At the LOCAL level
We resolve to:
2.1 Restore the existing crosses and paint new crosses and hold a news conference in which we provide information about the crimes. This event will be called “The Action of the Crosses.”
a. Strategy: Place crosses in front of the Procuraduría (Attorney General’s Office), the Fiscalía (Public Prosecutor’s Office), and the Mayor’s home, in Ciudad Juárez.
b. Strategy: Paint crosses on the electrical poles outside the home of the Mayor of Ciudad Juárez.
c. Strategy: Invite artists to collaborate with the painting, making, and installation of the crosses.
d. Strategy: Demand that the city government preserve the crosses as part of the history of Ciudad Juárez.
e. Strategy: Bring the ReDressing Injustice exhibition by Irene Simmons to Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua.
f. Strategy: Involve students from Stanford, El Paso, New Mexico, Chihuahua, Juárez, Mexico City, and other areas in the elaboration of crosses.
2.2 Denounce the suppression of information regarding new incidents of murders and disappearances of women.
g. Strategy: Designate a day of simultaneous, worldwide actions.
h. Strategy: On the first Thursday of each month at 11 AM, carry out protests similar to those of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Invite prominent figures from the Network such as Lydia Cacho, Elena Poniatowska, Lourdes Portillo, Norma Cruz, as well as victims of torture to accompany the mothers in the monthly protests.
i. Strategy: The first action will take place on July 5, 2007.
j. Strategy: Launch a media and publicity campaign for each action.
k. Strategy: All actions will be called on behalf of the Network.
l. Strategy: In solidarity, display photos of murdered or disappeared women from Guatemala, Canada, Brazil, the U.S and other nations.
m. Strategy: Convene an action for the Zócalo (main plaza) of Mexico City, which will include the lighting of candles and hanging of banners denouncing feminicide in Mexico and other places in the world.
2.3 Secure resources and spaces for working toward a common goal: paintings, rallies, and so forth, on specified dates.
n. Strategy: Lydia Cacho will head the media campaign.
o. Strategy: Open spaces of communication in the media.
p. Strategy: Call for the mothers of the victims to resume the protests.
2.4 Work toward convening all the mothers of the assassinated and disappeared women for a social gathering, especially since only 60 mothers are currently active in the movement. The gathering should also include those individuals who have been falsely accused as well as other participants in this movement. The group of mothers will be called: “Strengthened Mothers Demanding Justice.”
q. Strategy: The mothers Paula Flores and Eva Arce will invite other mothers attending CEDIMAX to participate and disseminate information about the planned actions.
r. Strategy: Malú García Andrade and Marisela Ortiz will contact the mothers on their lists.
2.5 Follow-up on the work by the Argentinean Forensic Team.
2.6 Formulate strategies to stop the crimes.
2.7 Take advantage of available spaces for developing greater knowledge and mutual support so that we can continue our protests.
s. Strategy: Draft a message in solidarity with the relatives of victims of feminicide in Guatemala, Canada, Brazil and the United States.
t. Strategy: Draft a declaration that includes all the countries participating in this conference: Guatemala, Canada, Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico and the United States. Lydia Cacho will coordinate the writing of the declaration along with Malú García Andrade, Adriana Carmona, Norma Cruz, Rosa Linda Fregoso and Gwenda Yuzicappi.
3. At the NATIONAL level
We resolve to:
3.1 Promote legislative debates throughout Mexico so that feminicide and feminicidal violence can be typified as crimes.
3.2 Identify and denounce those public officials who worked on the cases and continue to hold public jobs, and demand that they be removed from their jobs and prosecuted.
u. Strategy: Schedule a meeting with the Governor of Chihuahua and with the Attorney General and demand that they remove the implicated public officials from their government jobs.
v. Strategy: Print full-length photographs of the implicated public officials and submit them to the Attorney General, so that he can prosecute them. Lydia Cacho has agreed to work on the photos and the action of the “escraches.”
3.3 Establish a “citizens watch group” for the new penal justice system in relation to gender violence (this system started on January 1st in Chihuahua City).
w. Strategy: Every two weeks, each person participating in the Network will provide an update.
3.4 Monitor the Congress and the media.
x. Strategy: Counter the invisibility and media blackout around feminicidal violence.
y. Strategy. Participate in radio programs to demand news on feminicidal violence.
3.5 Within the framework of feminicide, incorporate the issue of trafficking of women and torture.
3.6 Create a collaborative relationship with news reporters in order to have access to their videos and photographs.
4. At the INTERNATIONAL level
We resolve to:
4.1 Request urgent action from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on the eight “cotton-field” cases in Ciudad Juárez.
4.2 Petition the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for a speedy review of the victims’ files.
4.3 Request that, along with the families, international experts review the files of the murdered and disappeared victims.
z. Strategy: Request that Carlos Castresana join the group of experts.
4.4 Initiate a hemispheric watch group to follow up on international recommendations regarding feminicide.
aa. Strategy: Join the efforts of ISIS Internacional in Chile and share information from the Stanford meeting.
bb. Strategy: Each member of the Network will contact additional organizations.
cc. Strategy: Work to update and disaggregate the cases of feminicides to incorporate the relation between the victim and the perpetrator, and the authorship and motive of the crime.
4.5 Extend the right to asylum to threatened persons or to those potentially vulnerable to gender crimes and feminicide, as well as to their dependents.
4.6 Pressure for the right to information at the international level.
dd. Strategy: In the context of Mexico’s “ley de transparencia” (“transparency law”) request information about the disappeared women.
ee. Strategy: Obtain information from IFAI about violence against women, so that the Network can provide analysis.
4.7 Conduct research and analysis that aims to transform the human rights system from a feminist gender perspective.
ff. Strategy: Prepare a book-length anthology with information from each country.
4.8 Develop a “Global Network Against Feminicide.”
4.9 Organize a worldwide event in Juárez with simultaneous actions in different cities, to take place the first Thursday of each month.
gg. Strategy: Stanford University students will help to coordinate these actions.
