The Right of Women to a Free Violence City. a Case Study about Public Transportation in Mexico City

According to Women Human Rights, the government of the Federal District has made significant efforts, particularly recognizing that gender violence hurts the principle of respect to human dignity, makes difficult the participation of women in similar conditions and slows down the whole development of countries in political, social, economical and cultural life, on January 29^th 2008 the “Law Access of Women to a Violence Free Life” is approved for the Federal District, through which it is agreed that women have the right to live a life free from any kind of violence. In the framework of this law, the Institute for Women designed a program to prevent, support and punish sexual violence against women traveling on public transport in the city through actions aimed at promoting the rights of women, law enforcement and citizen oversight. This program includes various activities such as: Modules Care and Reporting Sexual Abuse cases in the Subway Public Transport System, Program "Athena" which is an exclusive service for women and separation of men and women in the Metrobus, Light Rail and Subway Public Transport System.

In this way The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of actions to prevent sexual violence that have been in public means of transportation: in the practice of daily mobility, in the perception of transport security, and feminine representations are built from this policy of gender equality.

The main hypothesis suggests that government actions in public transportation contribute to the generation of spatial justice, and with it in the exercise of the right to the city as a human right for women. Nevertheless, on the other side we hypothesize that the program intervention has generated paradoxical effects because they help to reproduce traditional representations of feminine and masculine in the city.