Human Rights Violations: I am afraid, I don't understand what is happening: Norma Andrade

La Jornada: "I am very afraid. I do not understand what's happening," says activist Esther Norma Andrade after the attack she suffered last Friday at the door of her house in the Culhuacan neighborhood in the Borough of Coyoacán, which left her injured.

In an interview with La Jornada, the founder of the organization Our Daughters Return Home--which seeks justice for victims of femicide in Chihuahua--expressed rage, anger and helplessness, because "I have to hide myself in my own country."

Last December, Andrade and his daughter Malu Garcia were attacked by a stranger with a gun in Ciudad Juarez, so she sought refuge in Mexico City. "I thought that I would have no problem here, I have kept a low profile, I have not spoken to the press. But I see that it isn't so." Because of this, she is demanding that the federal government and the government of Chihuahua implement the protective measures called for by both the National Commission for Human Rights and the Interamerican Commission for Human Rights after the attack in December.

She remembers that in 2002 the then coordinator of the PAN bloc in the House of Representatives, (now President) Felipe Calderon, met with her ​​and other mothers of femicide victims. "He said, 'I put myself in your shoes'. Today I wonder: Where is the gentleman who was going to put himself in my shoes? Why, if I am Mexican, do other countries have to offer me protection and I can't get it in mine?

Physically I go out, but not psychologically. I feel very afraid.That makes me angry because it's not my nature. I hate to have to hide. Perhaps it was overconfidence. In Juarez, when you go out, you look in all directions, trying to notice if someone is following you in a car, but here in Mexico City, I forgot that. I felt safe, tranquil.

... Andrade knows that her safety is at risk and her greatest concern is for her two grandchildren. That's the main reason she is considering the possibility of leaving the country.

"Actually, I have no expectations that they will capture the person who attacked me. I do not trust the authorities. I have not heard a word from Calderon, not even to show that he is aware. Why, if I am Mexican, do I have to hide like a thief? Where is my President? Maybe I'm the lowest (from the lower class) of Mexico, but why do I have to go? Why can't my government protect me? ...  I wonder: where is that deputy who, in 2002, said he would put himself in my shoes?" Spanish original