[WHRD ALERT] MEXICO/ Human rights defender Ana Enamorado at risk for her work in searching for disappeared persons

For 13 years, rights defender Ana Enamorado has searched for her son, Oscar Antonio López Enamorado, a Honduran youth who was disappeared in Jalisco, Mexico, on January 19, 2010. In order to engage in the search and to demand justice for her son, the defender had to leave her home country and settle in Mexico.

Unfortunately, ever since June 2022, Ana Enamorado has identified a number of attacks against her that are related to her work in searching for her son and other persons in the migrant community.

Due to such attacks, Ana sought incorporation into the Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, but as of now, the mechanism has not conducted an evaluation of the risk involved or implemented the measures that are required to guarantee her protection.

It is important to note that Ana Enamorado accompanies other mothers of disappeared migrants in Mexico during her own search and demand for justice. Along with national and international civil society organizations, she has denounced the indifference, omissions, and unwillingness that law enforcement authorities have shown in the case of her son, and in investigations and searches for other disappeared migrants in Mexican territory.

According to the Registry of Attacks of the National Network of Women Human Rights Defenders in Mexico and IM-Defensoras, five women defenders were assassinated in the country while searching for their disappeared family members in 2022.

We of the National Network of Women Human Rights Defenders in Mexico and IM-Defensoras demand that the Mexican government implement all necessary measures to assure the protection of defender Ana Enamorado and to guarantee a safe and secure environment for all searching women in Mexico, whose work is crucial for resolving the   human rights crisis that has impacted the country for decades.

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