Mexican President Sheinbaum visits Juárez and returns homeland in the Sierra Tarahumara

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum inaugurated a new general hospital in Juárez, announced plans for new childcare centers and signed decrees returning tribal lands in the Sierra Tarahumara during a visit to Chihuahua state this weekend.

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President Sheinbaum participated on Saturday, December 21, in the red ribbon cutting ceremony of the new 260-bed Regional General Hospital No. 2 of the Mexican Social Security Institute, known as IMSS.

Sheinbaum, who took office in October as Mexico’s first female president, said her administration would work with state and local leaders to develop Juárez.

“Here (in Juárez) there is a historical debt to the women, not just of Ciudad Juárez, but of the entire country,” Sheinbaum said, according to a partial transcript in a news statement. “Juárez, we no longer want it to be the symbol of femicide, we want it to become the center of the rights of all women in the country.”

Feminicides refer to the hundreds of disappearances and murders of women in Juárez since the 1990s.

Juárez is getting new childcare and women’s centers

Sheinbaum also announced plans for 12 new ones in Juárez Centros de Educación y Cuidado Infantil – Child Education and Care Centers, known by the acronym CECI – to help women of the working poor, including maquiladora and agricultural workers, with child care and to be part of a network of centers throughout Mexico that inform women about their rights.

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“Juárez was an example of the terrible neoliberal period our country has experienced,” Sheinbaum said.

“For decades, and especially with the first (North American) Free Trade Agreement, we were led to believe that the only thing Mexico had to offer was cheap labor,” she said. “So the maquiladora industry grew, and other industries in the country told the lie that as wages increased, so did inflation, and for 36 years they said the competitive advantage was cheap labor. Fortunately, everything changed with the arrival of (former) President Andrés Manuel) López Obrador.”

Sheinbaum was joined at the hospital’s inauguration by Juárez Mayor Cruz Perez Cuellar, Chihuahua Governor Maria Eugenia “Maru” Campos, Zoé Robledo Aburto, the director general of the Mexican Social Security Institute, and the cabinet secretaries of the welfare departments and women’s affairs of the country.

Perez Cuellar is a member of the Morena political party, along with Sheinbuam and its predecessor, López Obrador. Campos is a member of the National Action Party, or PAN.

Mexican president returns homeland in Sierra Tarahumara

On Friday, Sheinbaum was joined by Campos as the president signed two decrees returning traditional communal indigenous lands to the Rarámuri communities in Chihuahua’s Sierra Tarahumara.

One decree transfers 1,485 hectares to the indigenous community of Guasachique and the second decree concerns 693 hectares for the indigenous community in the forests of San Elías Repechique, authorities said.

“In this phase of the second step of the Fourth Transformation, we continue the struggle for social justice and a commitment to national unity; for a future where all Mexicans, regardless of origin, gender, ethnicity or social class, have the same opportunities to thrive,” Sheinbaum said, according to comments from the president’s office.

This article originally appeared in El Paso Times: Mexican President Sheinbaum visits Juárez, returns homeland