Breathe
By Verónica Scutia
Testimony given at the Public Hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) on the aggravated situation of women with disabilities and the barriers they face in accessing justice:
Gender violence has consequences on the physical health of women who have suffered it, such as fibromyalgia and myalgic encephalomyelitis. WHO and PAHO reports confirm this. In addition, this violence can result in an acquired disability: organic disability.
Organic disability is an invisible disability caused by the loss of functionality of internal organs and physiological processes. By not being included in the classification that determines them as disability, a serious moral, economic and social damage is generated for those of us who develop it.
The lack of medical, legal and social recognition as a sick person with legitimate disabilities has condemned me to a hell of simultaneous violence due to the loss of autonomy and a state of dependence, mainly by my brother, a drug addict with personality disorders.
I have disabilities due to their brutal violence. I have been the victim of recurrent attempts of femicide and death threats.
In addition, I am a self-employed mother, I do not receive alimony, I have no support network or family. I have no social supports either. I am on my own. I am a caregiver for my son, who has ADHD and psychiatric illnesses resulting from the violence, and he is induced to violate me in an infamous demonstration of vicarious violence. The totality of women around me causes me to become more violent.
He refuses to pay me damages because my aunt and a lawyer he knows claim I am trying to extort money from him. They have threatened to sue me for being sick and not working.
My crime has been to have high abilities, autism, ADHD; and myalgic encephalomyelitis, Sjögren's, electrosensitivity, SQM, ischemic heart disease and fibromyalgia, among other diseases, caused and exponentially aggravated by violence and to be left with an undocumented invisible disability, not recognized by the State.
Scientific research validates a cascade of organic affectations: oxidative-nitrosative stress, vascular, immune, endothelial, cerebral, neuroinflammation and dysautonomia, among many others.
In the tenor of my own life story, I quote what Dr. Marcela Lagarde confirmed to me orally in 2009. I told her that in Spain they were showing that fibromyalgia and myalgic encephalomyelitis are genocide: "It is not genocide, it is feminicide", she replied forcefully.
Alexandra Castellanos, murdered by her husband, the many sick women who have disappeared, those who have died in alleged suicides and those of us who are fighting against the feminicidal violence of our families, who are leaving us to die like Karla González (who died last week) and myself, reinforce what Marcela Lagarde said. This is feminicide.
During the course of the hearing in which the Ambassador of Mexico to the OAS, Dr. Luz Elena Baños, was present, Dr. Andrea Pochak, member of the IACHR and Rapporteur on Human Mobility of the OAS, commented:
"There are problems of violence against women that are exacerbated in the case of women with disabilities, such as the issue of organic disability. The disabling consequences of violence seem to me to be issues on which we should promote higher standards within the Inter-American System and I am very grateful for this information because, beyond the situation in Mexico, this helps us to think about how to improve our performance in the situation of the entire region."
Among the petitions we made to the Mexican State to prevent and eliminate aggravated violence against women with neuroimmune diseases and organic disabilities are those promoted by myself:
The discussion of the law initiative For the Right to Exist, which recognizes fibromyalgia, chemical sensitivity and myalgic encephalomyelitis as serious, complex and potentially disabling pathologies.
Recognition of organic disability.
P.S. All this happened while I was losing my house, with no money and no place to go because of the violence. Thanks to Documenta and my colleagues at the Audiencia.
*Veronica Scutia is a sick woman and activist of neuroimmune diseases: fibromyalgia, myalgic encephalomyelitis and dysautonomia. Autistic. Promoter of the law initiative Por el Derecho a Existir (For the Right to Exist). Pioneer of organic disability in Mexico. Survivor of attempted femicide. With multiple disabilities caused by male violence. Speaker at the IACHR hearing on violence against women with disabilities (IACHR).
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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