#BudapestConventionMx Dignity for Mexican Women & Children Online #SheTransformsTech

Dear World Pulse Community:

On March 6th, 2012, the European Commission invited Mexico to ratify the Budapest Convention against Cyber crime.

This Convention assists countries providing a legal framework & investigation methodologies for different cyber crimes, making an emphasis on child pornography & the need for international collaboration in the resolution of such crimes. This legal framework would also assist in cases of gender-based violence in the digital space as well: we are made aware of cases nation-wide, 24x7 & some cases involve hundreds of women as well as teenagers & girls. Be it broadcast of intimate content without consent, virtual trafficking, sextorsion/extorsion, online harrassment.

The Octopus Conference held in France the same year, gathered 280 experts from 80 countries, 15 organizations & international initiatives & 30 participants in the private & academic sectors, to improve cooperation against cyber crime at all levels. The main objective of this conference was to show the importance & transcendence of this Convention. After the Octopus Conference, the European Commission asked Mexico again to ratify the Convention, requesting as well that the national legislation on this regard started out because the situation then - and now- "creates difficulties for effective international cooperation".

According to the U.N, Mexico ranks as the first place in the world in child pornography distribution, and the second place in production, a situation that affects more than 800,000 children in the country. 

As for the treatment of women online, part of our collective efforts with activist Olimpia Coral Melo & as a consequence of a tireless national network of women from all backgrounds, we have made cyber crime such as Broadcast of Intimate Content without Consent (what society knows as 'revenge porn') a topic of national interest, and it has been recognized as a crime in 20 of the 31 States in Mexico. This work will continue, but none of the cases so far has been prosecuted favorably, due to the lack of methodologies & agreements provided by this Convention.

In Mexico, total impunity of cyber crime is part of the structural violence (defined as the systematic ways in which a regime prevents individuals from achieving their full potential, according to Johan Galtung) rampant in Mexico & increasing due to the CVD-19 pandemic.

I am starting the campaign #BudapestConventionMx influencing key activists in the women's movement & players, such as cyber security & investigation experts, in order to facilitate access to justice & the prevention of violence online against the most vulnerable.  For this campaign, we will also need international support, as in my experience several organized groups have the protection of the State. We need international visibility.

Some of my peers have expressed that there are no conditions for such thing given the lack of response of the Executive orders - to that we answer, if there are no conditions, we have to create them.

B.Sc. Sandra Muñoz Specialist in Cybersecurity Technologies

CISO/Project Director of the Mexican Association against Cyber Crime

National Front for Sorority / Digital Defenders 

Non-Violence studies at the School of Authentic Journalism

60 Most talented women in Mexico - Women in Evolution forum

PHOTO CREDIT: Hazel Zamora