Obstetric violence and gender perspective: Recommendation 3/2015 of Mexico City Human Rights Comission

Abstract

In Mexico more than 6 000 women a day go to public health institutions for medical care related to any stage of pregnancy, childbirth or postnatal period. In Mexico City, the local Ministry of Health reported that 32 260 births and 17 228 cesarean deliveries were attended in 2014, giving a total of 49 488 such services in medical units. Some of those women who accessed health ser­ vices often report that they received abuse, whether physical, verbal or psychological; they are not agree with some medical treatments, and they say that have received inadequate treatment which were cruel and degrading by the medical staff; that came to jeopardize their physical and emotional integrity, as well as the products of pregnancy. Regardless of the outcome each woman has faced in the hospitals, hardly ever abuse is evidenced or resolved in state instances aimed to determine the administrative or criminal responsibility, leaving a sense of defenselessness in the victims who suffer such violence. In the search for justice, women and their families go to non­judicial authorities with the ex­ pectation that recognize that the treatment and its consequences have placed patients in a state of vulnerability that violates their human rights. This is the context in which those women and their families went to the Mexico City’s Human Rights Commission to lodge complaints, which once formed investigated generated the Recommendation 3/2015, published on May 28th, 2015. This document incorporates a gender perspective and evidence institutionalized practices in pu­blic health in Mexico City that replicate models of intervention that cause violence against women and reproduce a context of institutional violence.