Global Women's Voices: Share Personal Stories

Yuriria, Mexico

Submitted by:

“This is one of the stories I remember. But is one of the many I hear in my work. Maybe that’s why I can’t give many details or maybe I just rather not remember.”

A sex worker in Tabasco, South East Mexico was being bribed by the local police in order to be able to work on the streets. The women paid money every night to the officers before they went to their corners. After a while the police officers demanded more bribed money.

This woman stood up for herself and said that “she had to work hard in order to get her money.” The officers responded by beating her up until they left her unconscious. She was taken to a hospital. After she woke up, the sex worker went to the authorities and filed a report. Three days later, a group of men came to her house where she was raped and then beaten for the second time.

This time she didn’t go to the authorities or the hospital. Instead she withdrew the charges. The civil organization that had helped her file the report the first time, Brigada Tabasco, asked her to file the report again and to add the charges from her last incident. But she hasn’t, she’s scared.

She is so scared, that instead of earning money through sex work she panhandles to survive.
No governmental institution has stepped up to help her, no media was alerted for her case, and everything was filed away. When you live in one of the worst parts of the country for Human Rights, the answers and help is limited.

“She just doesn’t want to be murdered”

updated: 7/2/2004