Ángeles Cruz Martínez
La Jornada Newspaper
Tuesday, November 25, 2025, p. 11
Violence follows women wherever they are, including the digital environment. In Mexico, 9.4 million of them have been victims of cyberbullying and this is followed by moral and physical damage and even death, said judges, specialists and deputies in a forum held on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
Claudia Escoto, from the Mexican Association of Cybersecurity and Digital Law, pointed out that the wave of digital transformation that occurred as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic has been positive in promoting economic competitiveness and improving people’s quality of life, but violence against women in cyberspace has also increased and is not an isolated phenomenon, she said.
The forum convened by the National Association of Women Judges in Democracy was moderated by Yas-mín Esquivel, minister of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN), who highlighted that from home, where they are supposed to be safer, the female population has been victims of violence and then when they went out to school, at work and even when they ventured into politics. “Everywhere they go there is violence.”
Do not make complaints invisible
The minister referred to data from the United Nations, according to which between 16 and 58 percent of women report violence or harassment online and 90 percent of the fake news spread online contain sexualized images of women.
The consequences are serious because cyberbullying has the potential to destroy mental health, truncate careers, and even spills over into real life with physical violence, sometimes lethal.
The participants highlighted that in Mexico there has been progress with laws that protect women’s rights such as olympian lawcreated in Puebla by the now federal representative Nora Merino.
It is necessary that the regulatory framework be applied, “that there is no tolerance and that complaints are not made invisible”; On the contrary, the construction of an egalitarian society is achieved where there is no room for any type of violence against women, stated Esquivel.
He also stressed that this is not the exclusive task of the State, but must include the home, schools and the media.
Escoto highlighted the new challenges posed by violence in the digital environment, about which analysis is lacking to integrate the issue into the framework of human rights.
The definition of precise and standardized terms on a national and international scale to refer to this problem is pending. Because of this lack, today victims do not know how to name their experiences nor is there an adequate response from the authorities.
