A young Mexican mom who strangled a man with a T-shirt after he raped her has been convicted in his killing and sentenced to more than six years in prison — in a case that sparked protests and backlash in the country.
The Mexico State Court found Monday that while Roxana Ruiz had been raped, she was guilty of homicide with “excessive use of legitimate defense,” adding that hitting her attacker in the head would have been enough to defend herself.
Ruiz’s lawyers swiftly slammed the ruling as “discriminatory” and vowed to appeal, arguing that it sets a bad precedent in a country plagued by gender-based violence.
“It’s sending the message to women that, you know what, the law says you can defend yourself, but only to a point,” said Ángel Carrera, Ruiz’s defense attorney.
“He raped you, but you don’t have the right to do anything.”
Women’s rights activists also condemned the court decision, saying that it is representative of Mexico’s poor record of holding accused rapists accountable.
On top of her prison sentence of six years and two months, the 23-year-old single mother was also ordered to pay more than $16,000 in restitution to the family of the man who raped her.
Outside the courtroom, supporters carried signs and chanted “Justice!”
A tearful Ruiz stood before the crowd, thanking feminist groups and those who had supported her through the years-long judicial process.
Speaking to the crowd, she said she was thinking of her 4-year-old son.
“My son, I hope to see him again. I hope to stay with him, to be the one who watches him grow up,” Ruiz said.
In May 2021, Ruiz was selling French fries in Nezahualcoyotl, one of the 11 municipalities in the State of Mexico with an ongoing gender alert for femicides, and another one for forced disappearances of women.
While having a beer with a friend, Ruiz, an indigenous Mixteca woman and a single mother, met a man she had seen around the neighborhood.
After hanging out, he offered to walk her home and later asked to stay the night because it was late and he was far from his house.
Ruiz agreed to let him sleep on a mattress on the floor. But while she slept, he climbed onto her bed, hit her, tore off her clothes and raped her, according to Ruiz’s lawyers.
Ruiz fought back and struck him in the face, causing a nosebleed.
The man then allegedly threatened to kill her.
In the struggle that followed, Ruiz grabbed a T-shirt and used it to strangle her attacker.
In a panic, Ruiz stuffed the man’s body in a bag and dragged it out to the street, where passing police caught her red-handed.
Despite telling police she had been raped and acted in self-defense, Carrera said a forensic exam was never taken — a crucial step in prosecuting sexual violence cases.
Instead, an officer allegedly told Ruiz that she probably wanted to have sex with the man at first and then changed her mind.
“I regret what I did, but if I hadn’t done it, I would be dead today,” Ruiz said in an interview last year.
“It’s evident that the state wants to shut us up, wants us to be submissive, wants us closed up inside, wants us dead,” she added.
Women’s rights groups have repeatedly accused Mexican authorities of revictimizing survivors and failing to judge cases with a gender perspective.
Ruiz spent nine months in jail on the charges and was finally released to await trial.
Angelica Ospina, gender fellow for International Crisis Group in Mexico, said she worries that Ruiz’s sentencing may empower victimizers while discouraging women from reporting gender-based violence or defending themselves.
The case points to just how “normalized” gender-based violence is in Mexico and other parts of Latin America, Ospina said.
According to government data, nearly half of Mexican women have experienced sexual violence in their lifetime.
“When a woman defends herself, the system is particularly efficient in processing and sentencing her without taking into consideration the conditions in which she killed the man,” Ospina said.
With Post wires
