They promote reforms to increase sanctions for crimes of aggressions with corrosive substances

Mexico.- In order to increase the penalty for those who injure another person by means of corrosive, toxic or irritant substances, the PRD deputies, Elizabeth Pérez Valdez and Olga Luz Espinosa Morales, promote reform to article 294 of the Federal Penal Code.

The document, sent to the Justice Commission, mentions that, if the injuries were inflicted through the use of corrosive, toxic and irritating substances, as a whole or separately, the sanction will be increased up to twice the corresponding one for a qualified injury. , without prejudice to the various sanctions established by the corresponding law.

It adds that, if the crime is committed against a person with a disability, the penalty will be increased by two thirds of the penalty with which the qualified injury is punished. Those responsible for this crime may not be subject to measures such as substitution and commutation of sanctions, preparatory and early release.

The deputies state in the initiative that attacks with corrosive substances are crimes without gender aggravation in 25 of the 32 states of Mexico. This legal characteristic and the lack of procedures with a gender perspective to judge this violence contribute to impunity, because the applicable penalties are lower.

The aim is, they add, to make visible the violence committed by corrosive substances whose injuries leave permanent effects on the victim's body, but also on their psyche, a form of violence that, despite its considerable increase, there are still no official figures for it.

According to the Carmen Sánchez Foundation, in the last two decades there have been 28 victims of violence against women under this modality, but only 22 have managed to survive; The entities that report these crimes the most are Mexico City, Puebla and the State of Mexico.

According to the report, in 85 percent of the cases the intellectual author was a man: 5 of them were couples and 11 sentimental ex-partners of the victims; in 90 percent, the attack was directed at the face; most of the crimes were committed in the street, but 4 of them were in the house or at the front door.

Likewise, in 96 percent there has been no sentence and only 4 aggressors have already been linked to the process: 3 for attempted femicide and one for family violence.

Given this scenario, the deputies Pérez Valdez and Espinosa Morales maintain, it is essential to legislate on the matter, as well as to make these attacks visible as femicide violence related to stereotypes of control, power and subordination, which are part of the viciousness with which the crimes are committed. injuries.

The Federal Criminal Code, in its articles 288 to 301, refers to the corresponding sanctions for injuries, which do not exceed a sentence of 10 years; however, the effects that these generate in the body and mind of the victim are forever, in addition to the economic and social cost that they entail.

For a correct classification, the legislators emphasize that it is necessary to specify the difference between "corrosive, irritant and toxic" substances, since an incorrect use of the definitions would create a legal vacuum in their application.

They argue that the corrosive substance is the one that causes visible destruction or irreversible alterations in living tissue by chemical action at the contact site; the irritant is the one that is not corrosive, but that causes a reversible inflammatory effect on living tissue; and the toxic one is the one that can cause structural or functional disorders that cause damage or death if absorbed in relatively small amounts by humans, plants or animals.

With information from the Chamber of Deputies

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