2024 Report

Building Bridges for Thirty Years

Opening Words: CDD México’s 2024 Report

Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir México was established 30 years ago, translating into 30 years of history, of commitment, of sowing and reaping. Three decades of resolutely maintaining a profoundly political, feminist, Catholic voice, anchored in the defense of human rights. We have walked together with thousands of women and believers who have decided to transform dogma into hope, guilt into freedom, and obedience into justice.

This report is testimony of this shared journey. With the title “Building Bridges for Thirty Years”, this report shares a glimpse of our path that started in 1994, but also provides a living registry of what we jointly achieved in 2024. We create an active memory: we sow and blossom, we consolidate lessons learned, we create new narratives from a Catholic and feminist dissidence, and we reaffirm a collective and deeply ethical legacy. We show our presence and alliances have grown and put down roots in various regions of the country and we review our achievements during the year: we built bridges based on Catholic, feminist narratives, from the rights secured to collective action, and from an ever-increasingly strong, plural, and coordinated feminist ecosystem. 

Thirty years after our foundation, we proudly sustain that we continue to evolve, inspired by a faith that liberates, by a feminism that transforms, and by a deep conviction that another Church and another world are possible.

We send a heartfelt thank you to all those individuals, collectives, allies, and donors who have accompanied this journey. This report is yours as well. We continue to build the necessary bridges for a dignified, free, and pleasurable life for all.

 

Aidé García Hernández

Director Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir México

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Thirty Years of Sowing and Reaping

For three decades, Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir has sowed ideas, actions, alliances, convictions and hope, consistently cultivating a Catholic, feminist voice that today strongly grows in the public debate and across the country. This section gathers the critical moments throughout our history, from the first steps of an organization that dissented from the Catholic hierarchy, to the consolidation of innovative strategies that have contributed to the advance of sexual and reproductive rights, social justice, secularism, and the dignity of all individuals. These 30 years have been a process of collective sowing and transformative reaping, reaffirming that it is possible to build based on liberty, justice, and love.

Timeline

Map of Mexico: Advancing Justice and Liberty

In 2024, we actively contributed to consolidating more just, free, and diverse regions throughout the country. This map represents the territorial advance of our actions, structured around three key themes: the social and legal decriminalization of abortion, the construction of feminist alliances, and the inclusion of sexual and gender diverse people from a progressive Catholic viewpoint.

The Bridges We Built in 2024

In 2024, Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir reaffirmed our vocation of building bridges between faith, rights, and social justice. Throughout the year, we knit alliances, narratives, and actions that allowed us to advance toward our strategic objectives: transforming beliefs, strengthening access to rights, and actively participating in local, national, and international feminisms.

These bridges are living processes that connect territories, communities, institutions, and resistances. They are the fruit of three decades of collective struggles, critical spiritualities, and commitment with the autonomy of women and those with the capacity to become pregnant. Thirty years have also sowed possibilities for the future; what we achieved in 2024 continues the path toward feminist and intersectional justice, lived and shared.

Bridges from Feminist, Catholic Narratives

We reaffirm our conviction that faith can be feminist, intersectional, and transformative. Through our campaign, audiovisual pieces, pedagogical materials, and participative process, we build bridges between spirituality and social justice, touching hearts and transforming consciences.

Our impact in numbers:

Narratives that heal and mobilize:

  • We launched the campaign #DivinaDiversidad, in which we affirm: Diversity is also a divine creation.

  • We strengthened our reach among Catholic youth with the relaunch of the Catolicadas series with a high-impact digital strategy.

  • We celebrated 30 years with the campaign “May love be with you”, we sang, we raised our voices and filmed our history, revindicating love as a source of political and spiritual power.

Collective transformations:

  • We evaluated our interventions with participative methodologies: 71% of those who attended the movie debates modified their perceptions of harmful gender norms.
  • We designed the spiritual accompaniment guide “Walking Together beyond the Rainbow”, as a queer pastoral tool.
  • We organized community processes where LGBTIQ+ individuals were not only subjects of rights but protagonists of faith-based narratives and dignity.
  • From CDD, we continue demonstrating that beliefs can and should be liberating. In each word, image, and meeting, we build bridges between the sacred and the just.

Bridges to Make Our Rights a Reality

We work to ensure that reproductive justice is a concrete reality in the lives of women and those with the capacity to become pregnant. We strengthen networks, we provide general information and analysis for legislative processes, and we increase access to services from feminist, secular ethics.

  • 5,005 individuals reached with public actions to express demands and mobilize.
  • We distributed 13,838 informational materials across the country.
  • In Tamaulipas, we contributed technical and ethical arguments in virtual and public dialogues.
  • We coordinated and facilitated training for public authorities and health service providers in Hidalgo, Michoacan and Jalisco, promoting access to legal abortion without bias.
  • 2,730 individuals participated in workshops, events, training, and formative meetings.
  • The report “Intertwined Identities: The Layers of Gender-Based Violence”, reached 512,890 individuals through a digital outreach strategy.

Transformations achieved:

  • We accompanied the decriminalization of abortion in Jalisco, Michoacan, State of Mexico, Chiapas, Puebla, and Zacatecas, participating in events, political actions, press conferences, and meetings with allies and authorities.

  • We trained health personnel, decision makers, and public authorities in highly-resistent contexts, promoting ethical and stigma-free implementation of legal abortion.

  • We participated in the forum I Support Decision Making (Michoacan), the Intersectional Anti-Racism Meeting (September 28 Alliance), and The Meaning of Legal Abortion (Jalisco) and Access to Safe Abortion (State of Mexico) gatherings, together with local collectives and authorities.

  • We promoted debate and activities on the elimination of abortion from Mexico City’s penal code.

Political advocacy and feminist ethics:

  • We presented the Decalogue for Secularism during the electoral process, urging candidates and religious institutions to respect the secular State.

  • We documented 29 violations of the secular State between March and August, strengthening our tools for demands and accountability.

  • We published the report “Intertwined Identities”, developed through a collaborative methodology, that makes the various layers of violence visible through an intersectional perspective.

    • 74.8% considered it useful to better understand gender-based violence; 62% modified their perceptions after reading it.
    • 5 decision makers who received the report incorporated the eradication of gender-based violence into their interventions.
    • 2 public institutions manifested their interest and willingness to incorporate the  report’s findings into their strategic areas of action.

  • We ethnically and spiritually accompanied women and LGBTIQ+ individuals in the exercise of their rights, from an intersectional perspective.

This year, we consolidated our wager to make rights a reality: in laws, in services, in public discourse, and in daily experiences. Because justice cannot wait.

Bridges within the Feminist Ecosystem

We deepen our participation in networks, agendas, and platforms that nourish the local, regional, and international feminist ecosystem. We strengthen alliances, we amplify our voices in multilateral spaces, and we generate bridges between organizations, communities, and institutional actors.

  • We participated in key spaces like CSW, CPD, and the Fifth Meeting of the CRPD in Colombia, as part of the official Mexican Delegation.

  • Within this latter event, we organized the panel “Look at the Rewards”, recognizing governmental and civil society commitments on sexual and reproductive rights.

  • We participated in the Summit of the Future in New York and the Reproductive Justice Litigation Baraza in Uganda, positioning the Catholic, intersectional, feminist perspective in global debates. At the same time, we participated in the “Block and Transform” meeting, from which feminist responses to the rise of fascism and fundamentalisms were strengthened and united, fomenting solidarity and strategic collaboration in the mid- and long-term among various actors and social movements.

  • We joined the Inter-Institutional Group on Reproductive Health within the federal government, as key actors in the construction of public policy on the issue.
  • We sustain our efforts within the Mexico City Group to Prevent Adolescent Pregnancy (GEPEA-CDMX), following up on the national strategy from a rights and gender perspective.
  • We continue our participation as part of the National Women’s Ministry’s Advisory Council to continue promoting efforts that benefit women.
  • We abide by our commitment to human rights through the Citizen’s Council of the Mexico City Human Rights Commission. 

Strategic alliances:

  • We actively participate in the ecosystem conformed by Ecumenicals for the Right to Decide (EDD) in Honduras and the Dominican Republic Christian Alliance (ACD), strengthening collective agendas toward substantive equality, secularism, and sexual and reproductive rights.

  • As members of the Center for Evidence-Based Advocacy (CEBA) and the Fòs Feminista ecosystem, in 2024, we strengthened our training and intervention strategies to advance in the defense of sexual and reproductive health and rights.

  • In 2024, we collaborated with CDD Argentina to strengthen the Latin American Feminist Advocacy group, to promote emblematic cases for the decriminalization of abortion and consolidate defense strategies against anti-right attacks.

    We continue believing in feminist policy that constructs, along with others, from the shared, the diverse and the transformative. Our strategic alliances are bridges that widen horizons, position our causes on strategic agendas, and sustain a movement that fights for dignity and freedom everywhere.

Our Resources by Topic

In 2024, CDD clearly reaffirmed our commitment with the causes that sustain our collective struggle. We promote the defense of sexual and reproductive rights, we counter the various types of violence based on gender that persist in our lives, and we stand for full recognition and inclusion of sexually and gender diverse people. These strategic decisions go beyond responding to urgent demands; they are conscious acts of political resistance. Every investment of resources becomes a solid bridge toward social justice.

We will continue to build bridges!

Thank you to CDD’s team, for showing up daily, for making political commitment a way of life and building together. To our Board, for their guidance, their collective perspectives. To our feminist allies, for walking with us in sisterhood, creativity and rebellion, challenging fundamentalisms together and opening pathways toward justice.

And thank you, most sincerely, to the foundations and organizations that trust in our vision and support our work:

  • Arcus Foundation
  • Anonymous Donors
  • Fòs Feminista
  • Fòs Feminista Action
  • Fondo de Mujeres del Sur (LDS) Foundation
  • Global Affairs Canada
  • Wellspring Philanthropic Fund
  • Women’s Equality Center

Thank you for believing, for accompanying, and daring to envision a feminist, Catholic viewpoint that liberates, transforms, and opens pathways toward a future in which everyone can decide with liberty and dignity.

We continue to build bridges