Mother’s Day is celebrated on May 10 in Mexico. Every day thousands of mothers get up to look for their missing children, to take care of their children and be housewives, to balance professional life with motherhood, to give birth while in prison, etc.
While there are 3,000 different reasons to recognize moms, Here we leave some that we cannot forget… although it seems that the authorities do.
seeking mothers
According to the National Registry of Missing and Unlocated Persons of the Ministry of the Interior, from June 12, 1921 to May 10, 2023 there are a total of 112 thousand 224 missing people.
Only in the current six-year term, since December 1, 2018, there is a total of 42 thousand 770 people disappeared and not located.
Every day thousands upon thousands of mothers of these missing persons go out with a shovel, a pick and the hope of finding their missing sons and daughters. The work that the Prosecutors’ Offices, the public ministries and even the forensics should do is done by them.
There are hundreds of groups of searching mothers who are not only looking for their children, but for all the disappeared in the country. And as if this were not enough, these mothers are threatened and killed.
According to the Movement for Our Disappeared in Mexico, only between 2022 and 2023 6 mother seekers have been assassinated. This May 10 they do not celebrate, they demand not to have to be seeking mothers.
working moms
According to INEGI’s National Occupation and Employment Survey (ENOE), during the fourth quarter of 2022, 56 million women aged 12 and over were reported in our country. Of these, 67% (38 million) are mothers.
11% of those moms are single. 7 out of 10 single mothers are economically active and 97% of them are employed. Now, regardless of whether the mothers are single or have a partner, there are millions who go to work every day and juggle motherhood with professional life.
And it is that they do have it more complicated. A survey applied by the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO) reveals that 8 out of 10 mothers in the workforce today had to adjust their workloads or work schedules to take care of their children. In parents it is only 2 out of 10.
Although 29% of the people surveyed had to pause their professional career for personal reasons, in the case of mothers the percentage rises to 51%. For men who are fathers it is only 20%.
moms in prison
Can you imagine what a May 10 is like in prison? The monthly notebook national penitentiary statistical information, Until February of this 2023 there are a total of 13,073 women in prison, which represents 5.67% of all persons deprived of liberty in Mexico.
According to the National Survey of the Population Deprived of Liberty (ENPOL) of INEGI, up to 2021 at the national level, 67.8% of women in prison reported have minor children. This graph shows the comparison of mothers and fathers in prison, with the number of children.
The Reinserta organization reveals that in our country 500,000 girls and boys have mothers and fathers in prison. In addition, 10,000 boys and girls have been born in prison in the last 10 years.
What does this mean? If the minor is born in prison, he can be with his mother inside the penitentiary center until he is 3 years old, when they have to separate. If the conditions for women in prison are already very unequal for women, imagine for children.
5 out of 10 women feel insecure inside the prison and in 90% of the cases they are not provided with products to cover the basic needs of the children inside. And not only that, we must talk about access to water, decent and sufficient food, medical services, play centers for early stimulation of children, safe places, etc.
Mom doesn’t get paid for housework and care
Thousands of mothers in Mexico are in charge of doing housework, taking care of their children and often also going out to work.
According to the Satellite Account of Unpaid Work in the Households of
Mexico 2021, the economic value of domestic and care work was 6.8 billion pesos. This is equivalent to 26.3% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Women contributed 2.6 times more than men. That is, women spend a greater number of hours per week in unpaid work compared to men.
The total working time of women is 3 thousand 246.9 weekly hours. For their part, men spend 2 thousand 826.9 hours. Most of the work for women per week is dedicated to domestic and care work, work that does not receive pay.
Although women have massively entered the labor market in recent decades, men have not been incorporated to the same extent into unpaid domestic and care work at home.
The situation becomes much more complicated when mothers are full-time caregivers of people with disabilities or in prostration.
