Linkage and Comprehensive Care for Women
VAIM is a policy that frames all consular actions and services with a gender perspective.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs │ November 6, 2023
Linkage and Comprehensive Care Policy for Women
The information contained in this section is subject to constant changes and modifications.
With the objective of providing information of interest on topics of consular protection, legal advice, health, psychology, among many others, the Mexican consular network implemented the consular protection strategy for girls and women through Mexico’s representations in the United States, Canada, and Europe in 2016, 2022, and 2023, respectively.
The accumulated experience from collaboration with numerous groups and local authorities has made it possible to implement the cross‑sectoral care that unites all consular processes and services in favor of Mexican girls and women abroad.
The Linkage and Comprehensive Care Policy for Women — VAIM — is continuously evolving to strengthen mechanisms of action and interaction, favoring comprehensive development and reproducing positive values. The priority of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is to safeguard the rights of girls, adolescents, and women, and to facilitate tools for empowerment, reducing situations of risk and/or vulnerability.
The Linkage and Comprehensive Care Policy for Women — VAIM — aims to foster the comprehensive development of Mexican girls and women through the implementation of diverse strategies based on the consular services offered by Mexico’s representations in the world.
Through the execution of multidisciplinary actions, VAIM recognizes girls and women as rights‑bearing individuals who act as agents of change in society.
Strengthening alliances with different organizations and the exchange of good practices allows incorporating mechanisms with a gender perspective to promote and protect consular and preventive protection actions in favor of Mexican girls and women located in different latitudes.
To all Mexican girls and women who live or travel outside of Mexico and require assistance, particularly those in situations of vulnerability (e.g., victims of violence, immigration advice, support for women of the LGBTQ+ community).
VAIM provides a coordinated and cross‑sectoral response of consular and preventive assistance and protection through the execution of programs that provide services in different areas, highlighting assistance to victims of violence. Consular personnel have physical and human tools to identify information about associations, groups, and institutions that can support on various topics, including:
- Higher education programs and learning of diverse trades.
- Workplace discrimination.
- Assistance to persons who are victims of any type of violence.
- Legal advice.
- Psychological and emotional therapies.
- Business training workshops.
- Language learning.
- Health programs.
- Job placement assistance.
- Financial guidance.
Find here some recommendations to keep yourself safe:
- If your integrity or safety are at risk, request a protection order.
- Inform trusted family members and/or friends.
- Prepare an emergency bag.
- Save/take photos of important documents.
- Call the emergency numbers in your locality.
- Mexican Embassies and Consulates, through their allies, can help you make a safety plan.
With the purpose of identifying the different types of violence, some concepts are defined for easy recognition:
Sexual harassment: Violence in which, even though there is no subordination, there is an abusive act of power that leads to a state of defenselessness and risk for the victim.
Trafficking in persons: Recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons by means of threat or use of force or another form of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power, or a situation of vulnerability or receipt of payments or benefits to obtain the consent of a person who has authority over another, for the purpose of exploitation.
Sexual harassment (hostigamiento sexual): Exercise of power in a real subordinate relationship of the victim to the aggressor in work and/or school environments.
Economic violence: This type of violence occurs with economic limitations, such as controlling income in economic earnings, as well as a lower salary for the same work in the same work area.
Family violence: Abusive act aimed at dominating, submitting, controlling, or physically, verbally, psychologically, patrimonially, economically, and sexually assaulting women inside or outside the family home, whose aggressor has a relationship of kinship by blood or affinity through marriage or cohabitation.
Physical violence: A non‑accidental act using physical force, weapons, or objects that cause injuries, whether internal or external, or both.
Institutional violence: Acts or omissions by public servants of any level of government that discriminate or aim to delay, obstruct, or prevent the enjoyment and exercise of women’s human rights, as well as access to and enjoyment of the public policies intended to prevent, address, investigate, sanction, and eradicate the different types of violence.
Workplace violence: Violence exerted by persons who have an employment relationship; it consists of an act of abuse of power that harms the victim’s self‑esteem, health, integrity, freedom, and safety, preventing their development and attacking against equality. It can consist of a single act or several acts that include harassment and sexual harassment.
Property violence: A type of violence that affects survival. It manifests in the transformation, removal, destruction, retention, or diversion of objects, personal documents, goods and values, patrimonial rights, or economic resources intended to satisfy needs, covering shared or personal assets of the victim.
Psychological violence: It occurs with harm to emotional stability, such as abandonment, indifference, infidelity, insults, humiliations, devaluation, destructive comparisons, rejection, threats, etc., which result in the victim experiencing depression, isolation, devaluation of self‑esteem, and even leading to suicide.
Sexual violence: Act that degrades or harms the body and/or sexuality of the victim and therefore undermines their freedom, dignity, and physical integrity. It is an expression of abuse of power by a male figure over the woman, denigrating and conceiving her as an object.
Mexican representations in the world are Safe Zones
Mexican Embassies and Consulates are Safe Zones. Through the combination of various physical and strategic elements, analysis of situations in the consular district, data delimitation, and coordination plans among the different areas of assistance, as well as the application of assistance protocols, it is possible to implement a network of specialized services in favor of girls and/or women who require it, identifying possible protection cases.
Be assured that in the Safe Zones they are governed by a confidentiality policy that protects at all times the identity and procedures of the girls and women who require assistance.
Contact: Consulate General of Mexico in San Diego
Phone: 619‑231‑3847
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