Domestic Violence in Mexico

Abstract

THE MOST heavily populated city in the world, Mexico City, has only 1 shelter for battered women located in a working-class suburb distant from the metropolitan area. A converted house serves as the shelter with limited occupancy for 3 women. To be admitted to the shelter, a woman must show evidence that she is in the process of filing a legal claim against her partner. In Mexico, violence against women in their homes has remained, in most cases, out of the mainstream concerns of the medical profession, with relatively few publications on the subject in the medical literature. Change takes time. Almost 50 years ago, the phenomenon of violence in the home was rarely discussed as a medical problem anywhere in the world. Within the last 30 years, medical attention has increased, at first focusing on child abuse.1Domestic violence has been underreported as a consequence of what has