Aluna's research: “If not us as women, who? If not now, when?”

In Mexico, being a human rights defender (HRD) means challenging the ideological, economic, political-military, and psychological strategy that has been laid out by the Mexican State and by factual powers (such as companies organized crime), a strategy through which violence and repression against dissident groups and social movements are exercised on a regular basis.

Moreover, being a woman HRD involves challenging the norms, politics, and cultural stereotypes; overcoming conditions of inequality that entail a lack of social recognition for their work; balancing activism with the burden of domestic and caregiving work; and surviving the discrimination and violence, among other factors, that violate their freedom and inhibit their participation in public life.

The aim of this research is to make the women defenders’ situation visible and analize the violence against them, its causes, its psychosocial impacts, and the coping strategies—both individual and collective—that they develop to transform these impacts. We believe that it can be a mirror in which other women see themselves reflected, identify with each other, and differentiate themselves from each other, but, above all, in which they find references about what it means for a woman to assume a role in human rights defense in Mexico.