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Mexico commits to draft a law on enforced disappearances

EFE| El Universal
12:23Tuesday 03 February 2015

Juan Manuel Gómez Robledo, Undersecretary for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights of Mexico's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, admitted that Mexico lacks a record of enforced disappearances. (Photo: Special )

After a two-day presentation before the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances, Mexico promised to draft a law by June at the latest to correct the exposed deficiencies.

Mexico concluded today a two-day presentation before the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances with the promise to draft a general law on this serious problem by June at the latest in order to correct the exposed deficiencies. 

"The General Law on Enforced Disappearance is an immediate challenge. The Congress session started yesterday and we have to achieve the constitutional reform first and then the law before the end of this term, in June," said the head of Mexico's official delegation, Juan Manuel Gómez Robledo. 

The questions posed by the members of the Committee about the overall number of missing persons in the country did not get a satisfactory answer, particularly for rapporteurs Luciano Hazan and Rainer Huhle, assigned to review the information submitted by Mexico. 

Gómez Robledo, Undersecretary for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights of Mexico's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, admitted that " we can not say that there is a single record of enforced disappearances." 

He explained that the existing records include both, missing people and victims of enforced disappearance.

 "There is no doubt that this is something that needs to be corrected," he added. 

According to human rights advocates such as Amnesty International, between December 2006 and October 2014 there were more than 22,000 cases of enforced disappearance in Mexico. 

Hilda Legideño and Bernabé Abraján, parents of two of the 43 missing students of Ayotzinapa teachers training college that were last seen in Iguala on September 26, 2014, showed skepticism at the end of the session on the possibility that the scrutiny will help solve the case. 

However, two mothers of other victims of enforced disappearance said that the scrutiny may accelerate the investigation of their cases. 

"For us the fact that there are extra eyes watching what happens in Mexico is a relief," Guadalupe Fernández Martínez, mother of José Robledo Fernández, who disappeared in 2009, said to EFE. 

Fernández heads the United Forces for Our Disappeared in Coahuila, an association that represents 320 documented cases of missing people in the state. The Mexican delegation, composed of 27 people, included Coahuila governor Rubén Moreira Valdez. 

María Olaya Dozal, whose daughter Alejandra disappeared in 2009 when she was 16, said that the presence of the State of Mexico at the Committee gave her "hope that the Government will feel a greater commitment to the missing people and their families."



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