The partner of a lesbian woman from Arandas, Jalisco, was who she believes has been admitted against her will to a “gay conversion center” by her family, is speaking out about her predicament.
Posting on Twitter (@Alondra_LRZ), Alondra Zamudio said she had not heard from Verónica Fonseca Díaz for some time and feared she has been forced to undergo conversion therapy, which is often referred to in Spanish as Esfuerzos para Corregir la Orientación Sexual e Identidad de Género (ECOSIG).
Zamudio has filed an official missing persons report for her partner with the Comisión Nacional de Búsqueda, while various LBGTQ activist groups this week publicized the case. On Wednesday, Andres Treviño, from the Jalisco state government’s sexual diversity division of its Human Rights Sub-secretariat, said there was “sufficient evidence” to believe that Fonseca was being subjected to conversion therapy, which while not illegal per se in Jalisco, would be a violation of a person’s rights were it not voluntary.
The nonprofit Union Diversa de Jalisco (UDJ), which has consistently called on state legislators to ban conversion therapy, noted this week that “people admitted to these centers are sometimes stripped naked, (forced) to drink tap water, (served) limited meals, confined, (subjected) to physical and psychological abuse, electric shocks and, in some cases, rape.”
Jalisco authorities said Thursday evening that Fonseca had been located in the town of Teuchitlán.