Abstract

OSPINA-ESCOBAR, Angélica. Bodies to Be Raped, Disposable Bodies. Women Who Inject Drugs and Prohibitionism in Mexico. Rev. interdiscip. estud. género Col. Méx. [online]. 2023, vol.9, e1018.  Epub Oct 20, 2023. ISSN 2395-9185.  https://doi.org/10.24201/reg.v9i1.1018.

This article analyzes how the punitivism y and prohibitionism in relation to drug use function as structural conditions that naturalizes the sexual violence experienced by poor female who users. The analysis is based on nineteen in-depth interviews with women who inject drugs in Ciudad Juárez and Hermosillo. The results show that drug use appears both as a survival strategy and as a space for experiencing pleasure and autonomy in an extremely violent context. The punitivism associated with substance use among women is represented by extreme sexual violence, the denial of access to justice and the psychologization of problematic drug use. These mechanisms establish a daily grammar of cruelty against drug users, reinforcing the disposability of their bodies and achieving their social and political demobilization. Recognizing sexual violence as an effect and consequence of the construction of women living in poverty and drug users as a disposable population is fundamental to progress in the recognition of their rights as citizens.

Keywords : punitivism; stigma; sexual violence; problematic drug use; drug policy.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )