What is the game of the couple that governs Nuevo León, when they extract a five-month-old baby with a serious health problem, to spend a few days at home?... and then, of course, they upload photos to Instagram

@lydicar

That was probably the hardest and most painful coverage I had ever done. It was 2014 and thanks to a colleague and friend –Ale del Castillo– I was able to sneak into the operation that the then Attorney General's Office carried out at Mama Rosa's shelter in Zamora, Michoacán. That year I had had to cover self-defense groups, I had stayed under the car in a crossfire between Templarios and Viagras, I had been afraid of dying. But I hadn't seen so much pain, for so long... I hadn't seen as much misery as the one I saw in Mama Rosa's shelter. Emotionally, mentally and physically – my period was disrupted for a couple of months due to stress – seeing the child abuse in Zamora was harder than being in the crossfire.

Children who were born there, their mothers and fathers were born there. Girls whose children had been taken away. Girls and boys raped; girls and boys exploited and forced to beg; girls and boys living in miserable conditions, while donations from civil society – clothes, food, mattresses, diapers – rotted in locked rooms.

I remember that those three days I collected testimonials from children whose parents had been convinced to leave them there, either because they had “bad behavior” and the family had no tools, did not know how to educate them; and people both in the DIF and in other Private Assistance spaces assured that Mama Rosa, who was a saint, would surely be the solution.

The reality is that the shelter had complaints of kidnapping minors for at least 20 years; most dismissed by authorities; because the victims were poor families and the defendant was, well… considered a saint. Mama Rosa was a character that the Mexican intelligentsia liked a lot.

Saints

For the elites of this country, for writers, and even for a Nobel laureate, Mama Rosa was a saint and a character from novels. They loved the anecdote of the holy girl, coming from a family of rancid ancestry in Zamora, who one day at the age of 13 took an orphan to her house for dinner, and since then she has not stopped welcoming children and more children, until he formed his own shelter, his “great family”. And then he taught these little orphans whom he loved and cared for –although he always spoke with bad words, which gave him his “human touch”–. And these little orphans had their orchestra…

This myth fulfilled all the clichés loved by soap operas in this country: that the “problem” of the poor, of the “orphans”, is solved for the love of God, through private assistance, through vocation to "good" women, be they these pink moms or Marianas Rodríguez.

They really like this discourse and this fantasy, because it allows them to look away and it is not necessary to answer other questions: why are there so many orphans?, why is there child abuse?, what is the role of the State to resolve this?, what protocols should be established?, how much of the treasury budget is necessary to allocate?, what role does educational prevention policies play in child abuse, adolescent pregnancy, inequality, the lack of a project to young people, the war against drugs…?

Better to think that an army of “good” women, who have received the call of God, will take care of the poor little orphans. And these little orphans will be very grateful. Almost like a Macario Indian, grateful, noble and docile. Almost like a child.

Mariana Rodríguez played a bit of that when this weekend she took a five-month-old baby with a serious health problem out for a weekend, to spend a few days at home... and then, of course, she uploaded photos to Instagram.

Mariana Rodríguez Inc.

Mariana Rodríguez has her name as a registered trademark before the Mexican Institute of Intellectual Property, with the number 20415289, as documented by my colleague Daniela Rea. “Every image, every word, every breath that she registers on her networks pays off financially. According to a table published by the newspaper Excelsior, when Mariana had 1.2 million followers on Instagram (in October 2021 it reached 2.1) an individual story was valued at $400, a post in the feed at $1,200, and $2,500. for a giveaway”.

How many dollars will the baby that the DIF “lent” you one weekend as if it were an object have paid you back?

Mexico is one of the worst countries for children. First places of sexual exploitation, child abuse, child pornography. Sex tourism destination –remember the case of Succar Kuri, in Cancun documented by Lydia Cacho–; in all this terror, it is also a place of illegal adoptions. With Mama Rosa, the notary of Zamora, in Michoacán, she changed the surnames of all the children who came to the shelter, whether they had living parents or not, because Mama Rosa was "so good" that she made all of them her children and gave them their Surnames: Verduzco, Verduzco.

This is what an illegal adoption sometimes looks like.

Devout traffickers

2005, Casitas del Sur, in what was then the Federal District, another story about private initiative hit the headlines: Casitas del Sur. The authorities in the capital sent children who were in the middle of a legal dispute to this shelter, which was also run by religious people – this time they were from the Restored Christian Church. Suddenly in the shelter they refused to present some children, alleging that their relatives were dangerous for the children. This is how Ilse Michel, the three Cuadrilla brothers, the Ojeda brothers disappeared.

Ilse made her own way home years later. The Cuadrilla brothers too, carrying years of mistreatment on their backs. Nothing is known about others yet. But the same thing that happened in Casitas del Sur in Mexico City, happened in Monterrey: it was documented since 2008 in the Refugio de Amor shelter that “children are sold”.

While all this was happening, in Mexico there was not and to date there is no reliable data on how many girls, boys and adolescents are institutionalized in the country, either in DIF shelters or shelters, and managed with public money, or in private assistance institutions.

And here, let me make a disclaimer: not all shelters are trafficking centers in disguise. Okay. But we don't know which ones do and which ones don't, because there is no effective supervision by the DIF. We do not know how many institutionalized children there are, in which shelters, how their health is. Who can take them out and who can't. We do not know anything. We do not want to see or look at childhood. We know, yes, that very serious crimes have been committed in some shelters, such as rape, abuse, trafficking, illegal adoptions, and that the authorities did not investigate, alleging that the shelters were run by nuns, very religious, very good women.

In the face of all this, seeing the first lady of Nuevo Leon take a five-month-old baby with a serious health problem home one weekend turned my stomach.

Who authorizes babies to leave a shelter for the weekend?

What is the protocol for doing that? Is there at least one protocol?

Do we know if Mariana Rodríguez has the necessary capacity and responsibility to care for a baby who has a serious health problem?

Do we know if your husband was properly tested to make sure the governor wasn't a risk to the baby?

Was she given specific tests to make sure that baby would not be mistreated or harmed in any way while she was out of the shelter? Or does the “use and custom” prevail that the first lady is the DIF sovereign of his entity and we must take for granted the enormous goodness of his heart?

Who else can check children out of the shelter?

Who signed the permission for Mariana to use photos of the baby on her Instagram account –which by the way makes her a lot of money–?

Or was there not even permission?

The Network for the Rights of Children in Mexico (Redim) sent a statement. He expressed his concern that “a public servant, head of the Office “to love Nuevo León” and also the wife of the Governor of that state, extracted a 5-month-old child with a disability from the DIF Capullos center, on the grounds that a weekend coexistence permit”.

Add:

The excessive and unnecessary exposure of this child is also worrying, if in fact there is a legitimate interest in his life and his future. The various photographs of him posted on social networks, without adequate treatment to protect his identity and in some cases even using colors identified with the campaign of the political party that brought the current governor and his wife to office, are proof of it".

Finally:

“It will be very important to know what is the assessment that is made from these instances on the protection of this child to live in a family, to not be revictimized or used a weekend to generate benefits in terms of popularity and in social networks monetized. The review of the adoption and visit protocols will be crucial to verify that the norm was not breached. The Nuevo León State Human Rights Commission must also determine the responsibility of Mrs. Rodríguez and Mr. Governor, since they are people who are public officials and in view of the possible impact on the rights of this child.