Students demand punishment in cases of sexual abuse at the Polytechnic

Laura Poy Solano

Newspaper La Jornada
Saturday March 26, 2022, p. 6

Students and feminist organizations of the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) marched to the offices of the general directorate of that house of studies to demand the installation of a resolution table that guarantees the investigation and, where appropriate, punishes the acts of harassment and sexual harassment. reported at the Polytechnic. They also demanded a new Protocol for the Prevention, Detection, Attention and Punishment of Gender Violence that do not blame the victims or protect the aggressors.

After a protest of more than four hours, the general director of the IPN, Arturo Reyes Sandoval, met with students to listen to their complaints and meet their demands. Officials from the Polytechnic Management Unit with a Gender Perspective participated in the meeting, which was held behind closed doors, sources from the institution assured.

The protest began shortly before 1:00 p.m., when a contingent left a Metro near the Zacatenco campus. Upon arrival at one of the entrances, the protesters were denied access, so women dressed in black and with their faces covered broke the glass of a guardhouse and entered.

Once inside the campus, they advanced to the general address, some of whose walls they painted, and they placed a complaint stall on the glass doors of the building. After the arrival of the protesters, staff from that university were evicted, despite the fact that the students reiterated that it was a peaceful protest.

Around 4:00 p.m., IPN officials proposed the installation of a dialogue table, which the secretary general, Juan Manuel Cantú, would attend, which was rejected by the students, who demanded the presence of Reyes Sandoval.

The protest was carried out after a complaint of sexual assault against a student from the Center for Scientific and Technological Studies (Cecyt) number 7, spread on social networks and Internet portals. On March 23, the Polytechnic issued a statement in which it stated that As a result of the information collected so far (with the student, the students involved and their parents), it is reported that the alleged crime did not exist.

IPN feminist organizations denounced that The victims are not listened to, they are abandoned, the facts are denied and the aggressors continue to be protected, so they rejected the information released by the Polytechnic. They assured that other cases have been reported in Cecyt 4 and 8, without any investigation or sanction to date.