Justice for Inés Fernández Ortega and Valentina Rosendo Cantú

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This action is temporarily paused until Mexico's new Administration assumes power. Once we have details to contact the new President, we will reopen the email action.

Two Indigenous women, Inés Fernández Ortega and Valentina Rosendo Cantú, were raped by Mexican soldiers in separate attacks in 2002.

Both women showed great courage in reporting their ordeals, but their cases were dealt with by military courts with a poor record in tackling abuse of civilians by soldiers. Searching for justice, the women appealed to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Two years ago, the Court ordered the Mexican government to undertake a full civilian investigation, to compensate the victims, and to reform the military justice system.

The government eventually admitted responsibility for the rape and abuse of Inés and Valentina, in March 2012 and December 2011 respectively, and began to fulfil its obligations to the women. But the perpetrators are yet to be brought to justice and many other steps demanded in the Inter-American rulings have not been dealt with.



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Monday 1 October marked two years since the Inter-American Court published its judgements. On 1 December Mexican President Felipe Calderón will hand over power to his successor. He has not, as we hoped, taken steps comply with the judgements before leaving office.