During her morning press conference, President Claudia Sheinbaum said that addressing the problem of missing and unlocated persons is a national priority for the Mexican government, as is seeking the facts around these disappearances and bringing justice to the victims and their families.
“I will always be on the side of the victims and of justice. That is why we will continue the task of searching for, locating, identifying and caring for the families of the disappeared,” the president said.
She added that in keeping with Mexican humanism, attention to the victims of disappearance and other crimes, as well as their access to justice and well-being, “requires our utmost attention.” To achieve this, work is already underway in coordination with the three levels of government, which is essential to avoid impunity.
“We act with sensitivity and empathy towards those searching for their children or loved ones; we listen to the needs of the relatives of missing persons. Our duty is to support them through the National Search Commission and the Executive Commission for Victim Support and to stay vigilant so that the public prosecutor’s offices and the judiciary each do their part to find their relatives and those responsible are punished. Every state, municipality, federal authority, public prosecutor’s office and judicial body must assume its responsibility,” Sheinbaum stressed.
The president recalled that, in the past, disappearances in Mexico were perpetrated by the state, and are now mainly linked to organized crime. It is a serious crime that must be prevented, addressed and punished. Action will be taken within the limits of the law and with the full force of the state.
In view of this, she pointed out that peacebuilding and the fight against impunity is a central theme of her government, and she has moved to take immediate action.
On Monday, March 17, the president will sign a decree to strengthen the National Search Commission, expanding its capacity for care, context analysis, and the acquisition of technological equipment to aid the search with scientific evidence.
She added that next Thursday, March 20, she will send several reform initiatives to the Mexican Congress, including a reform of the General Population Law to consolidate the Unique Population Registry Certificate (CURP) as the sole source of identity for individuals, which would allow it to be cross-referenced with all the administrative records that exist in the country. This will generate alerts that facilitate the identification of signs of life of people reported as disappeared.
Sheinbaum specified that the Ministry of the Interior will participate in this work through the National Population Registry and the Agency for Digital Transformation and Telecommunications.
The second initiative, she said, is a reform of the current General Law on Forced Disappearance of Persons, Disappearance by Private Individuals, and the National System for the Search for Persons, to create a single forensic information database fed with data from the expert services of the 32 state prosecutor’s offices and the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic, as well as from the state and federal Forensic Services.
Similarly, a priority will be to create a National Human Identification Platform that communicates and updates all administrative and forensic records of any authority throughout the country, including, the Electoral Register of the National Electoral Institute (INE). This will enable fingerprint comparison and the ability to carry out searches that identify signs of life and/or identify deceased persons.
The President further explained that the National Center for Human Identification will manage the National Platform for Human Identification, ensuring access to all resources, including DNA identification, with the support of scientific institutions and in collaboration with the Attorney General’s Office, the state attorney generals’ offices, the National Commission and the State Search Commissions, as well as the Digital Transformation Agency.
Sheinbaum added that new protocols will be incorporated into the law that will allow for immediate search alerts for all corporations and entities in the country, as well as for the immediate opening of investigative files for the crime of disappearance or non-location without having to wait 72 hours, as is still the case in some states of the republic.
To this end, she added that the crime of disappearance will be equated with that of kidnapping and both penalties and investigative procedures for the crime of disappearance will be standardized in all state prosecutor’s offices and the Federal Prosecutor’s Office.
Finally, she explained that figures for disappearance investigations by state prosecutors’ offices and the Attorney General’s Office will be published monthly with help from the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System. Additionally, more resources will be allocated for the Executive Commission for Victim Care to ensure that accompaniment, support and advice are available to all relatives who have a missing person.
Mexican Press Agency is part of ALMA, which is dedicated to news and information about Mexico and Mexicans in the United States and is a fiscally sponsored project of Social Focus, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Redwood City, California.
