UIC--International Studies Program

Coffee, Chocolate and Conversation with Human Rights Activist
Verónica Cruz

Friday, November 10
1:45pm, FREE

Jane Addams Hull-House Museum
800 S. Halsted St.
Residents' Dining Hall

Seating is limited. Reservations required.
call 312.413.5353
Please notify us at the time of reservation if any special accommodations for the event are needed.

Join us for coffee and a conversation with Verónica Cruz, a leading Mexican women's rights advocate and founder and head of Las Libres (The Free Women), the only organization in the conservative state of Guanajuato to help rape victims access safe abortion.

Human Rights Watch gave its highest award to Cruz on November 2, 2006. In Mexico, where abortion generally is illegal, rape victims have the legal right to an abortion under all state criminal codes. However, women and girls who seek to exercise this right face multiple hindrances. In Guanajuato, abortion has been legal in cases of rape for more than 30 years. Yet, in 2000, the state legislature attempted to amend the state penal code to strip rape victims of this right. In response, Cruz organized masses of women publicly to protest the new law. As a result of this pressure, then-governor of Guanajuato Ramón Martín Huerta vetoed the law. Cruz leads the fight against this injustice by connecting rape victims with medical and legal services, training youth to hold health workshops for peers, and challenging policy makers to ensure meaningful/true access to abortion as allowed under the law.

Elena Gutierrez, from UIC's Gender and Women's Studies and Latin American and Latino Studies programs, will also be involved in the conversation.

“Verónica is an inspiration for human rights activists everywhere – she channels her outrage over injustices into effective action,” said Marianne Mollmann, advocacy director with Human Rights Watch's Women's Rights Division. “She is a true inspiration to the people who really matter – the women and girls in Guanajuato who desperately need her support.”

This event is part of the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum's Conversations on Peace and Justice, a series of events that celebrates Jane Addams' efforts in both opposing militarism worldwide AND of working in our neighborhoods to create the conditions for peace to flourish. The Museum is a part of the College of Architecture and the Arts at UIC.

Co-sponsored by: The International Studies Program at UIC, Latin American and Latino Studies at UIC, The Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media at Columbia College, and Human Rights Watch