Mexico - Universal Periodic Review

UPR 31, November 7, 2018
Recommendations by Canada

Recommendations

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Thank you, Mr. President.

Canada commends Mexico for its commitment to strengthening the international human rights system. We appreciate Mexico’s efforts to improve its justice and law enforcement systems.

Canada recommends that Mexico:

1. Adopt comprehensive policies for the protection of human rights defenders, journalists and religious leaders, and ensure that existing mechanisms are adequately funded and staffed with trained personnel;
2. Develop and effectively implement guidelines for the investigation of femicide in those states where they do not yet exist;
3. Ensure nationwide access to safe, timely and high-quality sexual and reproductive health services for all individuals, without discrimination; and
4. Develop an adequate legal framework as well as public policies and programs to address displacement, which disproportionally affects Indigenous communities.
5. Conduct prompt, thorough, independent and impartial investigations into all cases of enforced disappearance.

Recognizing the high rate of impunity for human rights violations and abuses, we encourage Mexico to implement these and other relevant laws to the fullest extent possible. 

Background

According to UPR Info, Mexico received 366 recommendations in the first two cycles of the UPR, of which 341 were supported (acceptance rate of 93%). Canada’s previous recommendations were related to the justice system, civil society, protection of journalists, and poverty.

While Mexico has excellent human rights laws, poor implementation and enforcement have created a prevailing climate of impunity, the worst in the Americas according to the Global Impunity Index.  In 2017, two important new laws were passed on enforced disappearances and torture. Mexico has improved its compliance with human rights mechanisms since the last cycle, welcoming Rapporteurs for Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of Expression, Indigenous Peoples and Safe Water and Sanitation in 2017.

Mexico guarantees fundamental freedoms and has implemented a specific mechanism to protect human rights defenders and journalists. Yet, Mexico registered the fourth highest number of killings of human rights defenders (32) in the world last year, with leaders of indigenous communities often specifically targeted.  Mexico is also the most dangerous country in the world for journalists, with 14 killed in 2017.Religious leaders also face deadly attacks: 27 religious leaders were killed in the last five years.

Women, particularly those from rural, poor and indigenous communities, are at much higher risk of social, economic and political marginalization. A third of more than 50,000 murders of women in the past three decades have occurred in the last six years. Measures to prevent violence against women have not been uniformly implemented.  Mexico ranks 76 out of 173 countries on a broad-based index of gender indicators.  Furthermore, abortion legislation varies considerably throughout the country, limiting many Mexican women’s access to safe, timely and quality sexual and reproductive health services.

Forced internal displacement is also a serious issue, with an estimated 329,000 persons displaced since 2006, disproportionately affecting vulnerable indigenous peoples, who number some 60% of the total.