Violence at the Consulate: the allegations that cannot be ignored

By: Graciela Rock

After I published a text in this same space narrating the violence exercised by Jorge Islas López against me during my time as an official at the Consulate General of Mexico in New York, documents came to light confirming the existence of complaints against him, as well as a letter addressed to Dr. Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, signed by 15 other female officials, former officials and former collaborators of the Consulate denouncing Mr. Islas.Jorge Islas focused his "defense" through statements on his social networks in which he limited himself to denying the accusations. And today, after I spoke about the letter and the accusations on Azucena Uresti's program on Radio Fórmula, Islas stated on that same program that there were complaints about my functions from Mexican users of the Consulate General, and thatthese complaints existed, yes, due to deficiencies in the service, caused by the decisions of the Consul General to require the consular staff to receive more people than there was capacity. This caused constant confrontations between the consular staff and the users. Islas never showed his face, and sent other officials to attend to the crises. The edited audio shared by Mr. Islas comes from one of these crises and at the time was used by protesters to demand the dismissal of Islas himself.among the contradictions and lies of Jorge Islas stands out his argument that there are no complaints against him; however, he clarifies that those that exist did not find elements of misconduct. That is to say, there are complaints, he was notified of them, they did find elements in his conduct and he lies about them. 

Proof of this are official documents, some of them made public by the website La Silla Rota, and which should be included in Jorge Islas' personnel file, such as the Report of Conclusions of the Personnel Commission, which states that, after the interviews conducted, it is determined that Mr. Islas did not comply with Article 58 of the Foreign Service Law, in its numeral XV: [.Jorge Islas tries to create a scenario in which the complaints against him arise from a personal conflict with me, omitting to respond to the fact that the public complaint is signed by 15 other women, some of them active officers, who would have much to lose by raising their voices. In addition, he belittles the complaints arguing that they do not refer to specific incidents, when he was notified of all the complaints, in which events and situations are described with clarity of manner, time and form.It should not be necessary for the entire staff of an institution or office to be victims of harassment or violence to be taken with the utmost seriousness, one complaint is enough, and there are many complaints, in the public letter alone there are 16.Mr. Islas not only insists that there are no complaints that prove his systematic violence against women who worked under his charge in the Consulate, but on the contrary, he has written thanks from those of us who requested office changes or resigned. Mr. Islas' revictimization includes omitting that independent service providers were asked to leave a written thank you, as well as questioning why we did not all denounce at the time, an argument commonly used by rapists and their defenders to undermine the value of the victims' testimonies.Jorge Islas López exercised violence, harassment and bullying against women at the Consulate before, during and after I was there. This is evidenced by OIC/AQ/615-9399 of December 2019, which refers to two separate complaints against Jorge Islas, and OIC/AQ/113-328 of February 2020, referring to another complaint against him.Although Mr. Islas tries to turn the complaints about his violence into a personal debate with me, it is not. There are many women who point to Jorge Islas, who have denounced his violence and harassment; these denunciations can be found in the files of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.Mr. Islas is proud to say that there are no disciplinary proceedings against him. Indeed, he is proud of that, and that absence of sanction is the reason for our previous silence, but also for the fact that today we are once again subjected to his harassment. Mr. Islas intends to attack my character to defend his violence, but I remind him that, even if he succeeds in silencing me, he cannot silence us all, not anymore.