GENEVA (5 March 2026) – Mexico’s mandatory and
prolonged use of pretrial detention for certain types of
crimes, along with failures to provide gender-specific
healthcare and ensure proximity to families at the
country’s only women’s federal prison, violated the
rights of 22 women detainees, the UN
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against
Women (CEDAW) has found.
The Committee made public
its Views
today after reviewing a case filed by 22 women held in
pretrial detention at the Federal Social Rehabilitation
Centre No. 16 (CEFERESO 16), Mexico’s only federal prison
exclusively for women, some of them since 2009. The charges
against them related to organized crime. According to
Mexico’s Constitution, such crimes call for mandatory
pretrial detention at the charging stage. Yet years later,
most proceedings have not advanced, and they have not had a
meaningful hearing in a federal court, while three of them
were acquitted in 2023-24, more than 10 years
later.
“These women were kept in pretrial detention
for an excessively prolonged period, some of them for over
15 years, without proper review of the detention measure,
and without any gender-sensitive assessment of its
disproportionate impact on them as women,” said Committee
member Erika Schläppi.
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According to the information
brought before the Committee, the number of women in
pretrial detention in Mexico increased by 10.3% in the first
six months of 2020, compared with the increase of 1.9% for
men. Overall, 51.7% of women detainees were in pretrial
detention at the federal level in 2020, compared with 41.34%
of men.
Despite being the only federal women’s
prison, CEFERESO 16 lacks continuous and permanent medical
personnel, including general practitioners, gynaecologists,
psychiatrists and paediatricians, who are necessary to the
care of women detainees and their children. In addition,
most of the women detainees do not receive visits from their
families as they live far away and lack of economic
resources. In 2023, 12 women committed suicide at CEFERESO
16, prompting the National Human Rights Commission to issue
a recommendation, stressing the lack of adequate measures to
ensure access to health.
The Committee received
written testimonies from the 22 plaintiffs. Among them,
Patricia Melo Tapia was held in pretrial detention following
her arrest in June 2011. She suffered from gastritis and
colitis and sought a transfer that would allow her daughter
to visit more easily; however, this was denied. Despite her
lawyer’s repeated appeals for appropriate medical
treatment, she died of untreated septic shock, acute liver
failure and probable ovarian cancer in 2020.
Ivonne
Hernández Carbajal, arrested in September 2012, alleged
that she and her two teenage children were tortured at the
time of arrest. Both children were subsequently
institutionalized, and she said she had received no visits
for eight years. She also described years of untreated
allergies and insomnia.
The plaintiffs brought their
complaint to the Committee, alleging Mexico had violated
their rights under the Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women, and said they were disproportionately impacted by
public policies and legislation.
In its findings,
CEDAW held that Mexico’s mandatory pretrial detention in
this case resulted from both legal provisions and entrenched
judicial practices that impose the measure automatically,
without assessing individual circumstances, violated the
principle of proportionality and “unjustifiably
excluded” women from alternative or mitigating measures.
The Committee also found that prolonged pretrial detention
had disproportionate effects on women, especially regarding
their ability to maintain contact with families. The
Committee further warned that the 2024 and 2025
constitutional reforms had aggravated this structural
problem by expanding offences subject to mandatory pretrial
detention and restricting meaningful judicial review of its
necessity, proportionality, and reasonableness.
The
Committee also noted that Mexico did not refute the specific
allegations of inadequate medical care, and considered that
the failure of detention centres to address women’s
specific needs constituted discrimination.
“These
women in detention face structural discrimination owing to
the lack of gender-sensitive alternative mitigating measures
as a result of the government’s failure to address their
specific needs and the absence of effective gender-sensitive
mechanisms for the review of prison-related decisions,”
Schläppi said.
The Committee called for comprehensive
and appropriate reparations, including financial
compensation for the 22 victims. As a matter of urgency, it
urged Mexico to ensure specialised medical and psychological
care tailored to their needs. In line with the ruling by the
Inter-American Court of Human Rights in García
Rodríguez et al v Mexico, the Committee also called on
Mexico to amend the constitutional and legislative
provisions and eliminate mandatory pretrial detention, which
has a disproportionate effect on women, and to review the
complainants’ precautionary measures through a gender
lens, including caregiving responsibilities, with the aim of
ending pretrial detention where possible and replacing it
with non-custodial alternatives. It also urged the State
Party to adopt urgent steps to mitigate harm caused by
prolonged detention, including facilitating transfers to
facilities closer to families, taking account of gender
considerations and women’s roles as primary
caregivers.
