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By KELIN DILLON

Throughout 2020, reports and complaints surrounding human rights violations in Mexico (mainly against the illegal actions of government authorities) increased by 35.7 percent from the year previous, with a total of 252,066 complaints registered by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi) on a state and national level.

According to the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH)’s National Human Rights Censuses in the Federal and State Scope report, 25.8 percent of complaints filed named the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS) as the violating party, while 29.3 percent pointed to state government mayors as the responsible violators.

The report likewise indicated which of the country’s states are most prone to human rights violations, with Jalisco earning the top spot by a large margin with more than 125,000 complaints, trailed far from behind by Mexico City with 13,000-plus complaints, and Baja California coming in a close third at 12,191 registered complaints.

The data revealed that only 489 public servants were punished after these violations were filed, a decrease of 38.3 percent from the year previous, as well as only 15,052 measures to protect and defend human rights taken in 2020, 42.7 percent less than in 2019.

“It should be noted that the health contingency derived from the pandemic generated by the covid-19 virus and the implementation of official measures to prevent its spread, such as the decrease in installed capacity and the partial reduction of activities, had an impact on the number of training and dissemination events and participants, immediate attention services, complaint requests received and known complaint files (attended, qualified, concluded and pending),” said the Inegi.