Mexican president Felipe Calderón announced yesterday that he will be “unstoppable before the issue of gender violence”, as he declared the passage of the first federal domestic violence legislation for the country:

The law — enacted with its publication in the federal register — does not drastically change how violators are currently punished. But it symbolically underscores the government’s recognition of a scourge that is widespread but often ignored in this traditionally macho society.

Officially, the law is the first federal measure combatting domestic violence and other abuse against women, though similar statues were already on the books in many cities and states.

While Calderón may be using the law to grandstand, AP reports that the law was initially proposed back in 2005 by none other than his nemesis, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The law outlines harsher punishments for perpetrators of gender-related violence and

…also spells out authorities’ obligations to issue “emergency protection orders” to help victims of violence, including removing aggressors from homes in domestic violence cases, suspending attackers’ visits to children and freezing assets to guarantee alimony payments.

The AP article points out that Mexico has been in the international spotlight as result of the murder of hundreds of women on the U.S.-Mexico border at Ciudad Juárez, as if this were a way to silence critics who say the government isn’t doing enough to solve the mystery and prosecute the guilty. I’m sure victims’ families would like to see something more than legislation — something like action — in pursuing and punishing the criminals responsible for these terrible murders.

Via / Yahoo! News and AP