POPLab

Yajaira Gasca and Melissa Esquivias

Rosa María, workshop leader of a program by the State System for the Integral Development of the Family (DIF, by its acronym in Spanish), told in one of her conferences about “positive upbringing” a story she heard about a 13 year old girl who was murdered in the Santa Clara neighborhood in León, Guanajuato.

She mentioned no details and the case is not registered in the reports of the Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection of León.

However, Rosa María took advantage of the case to tell a dozen parents that the origin of that death was a lack of values.

The woman -who introduced herself as a teacher in Family Sciences- was selected to distribute content related to “respectful upbringing”, so defined in the Positive Parenting program, which began in 2022.

Adriana Ramírez Lozano, DIF director, in the GUIA Alliance event as a part of the Positive Parenting program.
Photo: Guanajuato State Government.

Rosa María is one of the volunteers who participates in the diffusion of the program. DIF first trained personnel from the municipal systems. These in turn oriented volunteer family fathers and mothers that then became “knowledge replicators” in schools, workshops or community centers.

During the talk to which POPLab had access, the facilitator made incriminating comments about the girl victim of femicide and made other expressions of a misogynistic and homophobic type.

These workshops are replicated in and out of educational spaces in Guanajuato through different civil associations to which the state government has transferred these public funds. But it has also placed care for vulnerable population groups in their hands, and in exchange has given these organizations more than 81 million pesos between 2017 and 2023.

Under this scheme, the state administration in the charge of the PAN member Diego Sinhue Rodríguez has delegated its responsibility in the execution of different public policies to give attention to children and adolescents, women in vulnerable situations and people with addiction disorders. This is evidenced in the contracts and the registry of support from the state itself, consulted for this investigation.

Not only that. The government has multiplied the doors or instances of the administration to grant funds: the Secretary of Social and Human Development (Sedeshu), the System for the Integral Development of the Family (DIF), the Public Health Institute of the State of Guanajuato (ISAPEG), and the Administration and Investment Trust to finance works, infrastructure, projects and priority actions in matters of social development and public security (Fidesseg).

The Fidesseg was created in 2019, by the decree of Diego Sinhue Rodríguez’s government.

The allocation of public resources at the same time from different areas of the state government itself to the same civil organizations violates the rules of operation of social programs, as will be explained in this report.

Rehabilitation centers, assistance sites for children and adolescents -known as Casas Hogar- community work organizations, schools, including institutions where women are discouraged from exercising their legal right to termination of pregnancy, are on the lists of associations that receive government resources through Sedeshu.

An example is the Bajío Community Foundation, one of the organizations that works on projects of the Positive Parenting program in communities of four municipalities: Silao, Irapuato, Salamanca and Abasolo, and that only last year received 20 million pesos from the government.

New headquarters of the Bajío Community Foundation in the Industrial Park Marabis Castro del Río, in Irapuato, Guanajuato.
Photos: Juan José L. Plascencia.

This figure increases to 31.6 million if we take into account the resources provided between 2017 and 2022, through Sedeshu, the Secretary of Migration and Fidesseg.

These Catholic groups also charge for each program or study plan. For the elaboration of the Positive Parenting manuals, DIF paid 268 thousand pesos to institutions such as the Catholic University of Uruguay, Reaching U, Faith and Joy, the American Children's Foundation and the University of Montevideo.

The University of Montevideo is a private institution that has direct links to Opus Dei. It is inspired by the teachings of the founder of this Christian order, Saint Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, as recognized in the postulates that it disseminates on its official page. Their mission is defined as follows: to carry out the Work of God in all aspects of their lives.

Other associations receive state funds to rehabilitate women in situations of addictions, activities that are instilled with criteria of Catholic morality. So it goes at the House of Jesus for Women’s Rehabilitation, where they work under the mission of “the preservation of girls, adolescents and young women in moral danger”, as stated in a notice hanging on a wall.

This center is located in the western region of the state of Guanajuato, on the highway that connects the municipality of Purísima del Rincón with the state of Jalisco. The headquarters is an estate with high pink walls, with a cyclonic mesh that could exceed five meters high. The wall hides this addiction care center run by Catholic nuns from the Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

María Teresa Velasco López is the nun who appears in the constitutive act as the legal representative of this exclusive rehabilitation center for women, and who at the same time leads the House of Social and Cultural Protection for the Girl, a female Casa Hogar in the municipality of San Francisco del Rincón, where she is identified as mother superior.

In the last six years, the Guanajuato government has granted 4.5 million pesos to this congregation through different agencies, according to information obtained via transparency. However, there is no public information about the impact of their social work.

The House of Jesus for Women’s Rehabilitation.
Photos: Juan José L. Plascencia

Another organization, the House of Jesus, has 28 centers nationwide that serve people in a state of vulnerability, among which they practice Catholic evangelization, according to the information they present on their website.

Compromised Freedom of Belief

The evangelizing approach of these associations, however, compromises fundamental rights such as religious freedom and the free development of personality, the first of them established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the second in the Constitution.

In an interview for this investigation, Tani Ramírez, executive director of the Network for the rights of Children in Mexico (la Red por los Derechos de Infancia en México, Redim, in spanish), assured that, although in assistance centers it is said that religious practice is optional, the day-to-day routine for children does not allow this to be a reality; that is, they are forced to participate.

The director of Redim detailed that this coercion towards religious practice violates article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states: “everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance”.

The Constitution also protects this right.

Ramírez assured that in general terms that children are not seen as people subject to rights and much less those that remain isolated in social assistance centers. For this reason, they are forced in a way to profess these doctrines, mostly Catholic.

“What free development of personality? The religious organizations might say it’s not required but of course it is. If everyone goes, it is not compulsory, but the structure of their lives and their days in there does not allow non-adherence, it is encouraged, it is rewarded, and that could even be violating articles from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that comes into question when with these types of organizations.”

She also added that there is a component of profitability for civil organizations that assume these special protection tasks: depending on the children and adolescents they have at their shelter, they receive more or less money.

In the city of León, Guanajuato, every may 24th a celebration of the Virgen de la Luz, a tradition rooted in the municipality for 291 years.
Photos: Juan José L. Plascencia.

In the information obtained by transparency and public records of Sedeshu, the criteria for the definition of amounts are not shown and the impact of the work of dozens of civil associations -effective or negative- is not disclosed.

During the investigation, 18 organizations were found to which the state grants designated resources to support state DIF organizations, the Secretary of Social Development and Fidesseg, which are run by Catholic congregations who carry out evangelization work in the care of the population entrusted to them.

Since its creation in 2019 and its execution in 2021, Fidesseg has turned into the most generous source of resources for religious civil society organizations. This trust was established by government decree, after an agreement between governor Diego Sinhue and leaders of different state business chambers.

Until February 2022, Fidesseg had a balance in its accounts of 266 million 764 thousand 985 pesos, but it is estimated that in 2023 so far, it has received 902 million more pesos. This information was presented by the MORENA opposition of the local congress, and it was obtained from the public account the executive presents quarterly to the legislature.

The state government decided to classify the information about the trust accounts.

Governor Diego Sinhue at the closing of the Planet Youth 2022 forum.
Photo: Juan José L.Plascencia

This fund has its origin in the Payroll Tax (ISN) that is collected from the payments of salaries and labor benefits to employers. In 2019, the encumbrance increased from 2.0% to 2.3% and it was established that the 0.3% difference would be applied to social development and public safety projects, through civil organizations, but allocated through projects by Fidesseg.

Currently, the ISN is at 3%, for in 2021 the local Congress once again approved an increase through legal modifications.

Since 2021, the trust has awarded more than 621 million pesos to 155 projects of which only the list published on the Sedeshu web portal is known, although it does not detail what they consist of.

From the Fidesseg fund, from 2021 to date, 57 million 700 thousand pesos have been distributed to Casas Hogar in which they serve children and adolescents, and addiction rehabilitation centers, where evangelization work is carried out.

Sedeshu director Libia Denisse García and Monseñor Víctor Alejandro Aguilar, bishop from Celaya, Guanajuato.
Photo: Facebook.

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Sedeshu has the Support to Promote Civil Society Organizations program (2017 and 2018), which since 2019 is called We Add to the Development of Society. Through this program, since 2017 more than 16.7 million pesos have been allocated to religious organizations that appear in the register of associations benefited by fiscal year obtained via transparency.

The other bags from which more than four pesos have been distributed have come out of the System for the Integral Development of the Family (DIF) and the State Institute of Public Health. The first dependency has delivered 2 million 725 thousand 382 pesos and the second one million 281 thousand pesos, all to a single organization that manages a center for the rehabilitation of women with addiction disorder.

On a visit to the place, it was confirmed that it is run by nuns from the congregation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Additionally, five organizations located in León that have received a grant from the municipal government that exceeds 1.4 million pesos are managed or directed by nuns or priests from diverse catholic congregations, like the Legionaries of Christ.

One of them is the O’Connel Foundation, directed by the priest Patrick O’Connel, member of the Legionaries in León.

Minors living in the Casa Hogar San Antonio, in the city of León, Guanajuato, accompanied by a priest.
Photo: Facebook.

This media repeatedly requested through messages a position on the distribution of resources from Libia García Muñoz Ledo, Sedeshu secretary, through their communication link, Miguel Áranda Mendiola. However, until the closure of this investigation, the official did not respond.

Ciudad de los Niños, history of abuse

La Ciudad de los Niños (Children’s City in english), a children’s and youth shelter founded in the municipality of Salamanca in 1978 by the priest Pedro Gutiérrez Farías, operated during 39 years until it was forced to close its doors after a federal court and the National Human Rights Commission corroborated a number of human rights violations of more than 300 children and adolescents, which had time ago denounced to DIF and the State Attorney.

Ciudad de los Niños shelter, in Salamanca, Guanajuato.
Photo: Archivo POPLab.mx/Edith Domínguez

In the last 13 years it remained active, between 2004 and 2017, the assistance center in Salamanca and its affiliates located in Irapuato and Moroleón -also created and directed by Pedro Gutiérrez and supervised by the state DIF- received from Guanajuato’s PAN government and municipal administrations more than 45 million pesos through the organizations run by the priest. This is revealed by journalist Kennia Velazquez’s report, published in 2017 with the auspices of the International Center for Journalists in alliance with Connectas.

The priest died in november 2020, while preparing for the reopening of the center for which, according to what he announced, he had already obtained new permits.

Disability Rights International (DRI), an international organization dedicated to promote the participation in society of people with disabilities, produced a report on violence in institutions across the country for children and adolescents, and adults with disabilities in 2020, and included this case that occurred in Guanajuato

The Priest Pedro Gutierrez Garías, founder of the Ciudad de los Niños shelter.
Photo: Archivo POPLab.mx/Edith Domínguez

In the review of particular cases, it found frequent patterns of violence, sexual abuse, forced sterilization, forced abortion and trafficking for labor or sexual purposes of children and adolescents in Casas Hogar shelters.

Lisbet Brizuela, DRI’s director for Mexico, exposed how harmful the institutionalization model is for children, despite the role of Casas Hogares being socially accepted, and even more so if they are directed by religious people, as it supposes a guarantee of good treatment.

However, children and adolescents are denied the right to live in family and in community, and they are also exposed to cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment and even torture.

Lisbet Brizuela added the component of trauma suffered by children when they are separated from their families and forced to live segregated, considering that their isolation is a way to help them. Likewise, they are forced to have a religión.

Brizuela insisted on the lack of transparency with which these institutions that house, according to INEGI figures, more than 24 thousand homeless children nationwide, without considering the high black figure that could be due to the irregularity in which some Casas Hogar are found.

In a public way, the governor has exhibited his alliance with different religious groups for them to actively participate in the design and application of public policies of a social nature.

Eight National Congress on Religious Freedom.
Photos: Juan José L. Plascencia

During the eight Congress on Religious Freedom, held in the city of León last June 28th, the president described a multitude of congregations -mainly Catholic, Christian and Evangelical- as fundamental pillars in the design and execution of public social policies.

“As a state government we recognize religious freedom, as a part of the fundamental rights of the person, but we also see it as one of the pillars on which the strategies for the regeneration of the social fabric rest,” he mentioned.

The event was broadcast by the public television station of the state government -TV4- through a special production. This outlet broadcasts weekly Sunday masses since the COVID-19 pandemic.