On Feb. 10, the FUERZA Farmworkers’ Fund, a mutual aid fund that supports farmworkers in rural Vermont and New Hampshire, and La Casa co-hosted a panel featuring Mexican women’s rights activist Olimpia Coral Melo. In 2021, Melo spearheaded advocacy for Mexico’s first law outlawing digital violence — also known as “revenge porn,” according to Melo — against women.
Other panelists included University of Chicago Catalan and Spanish professor Bel Olid and Mexican gender rights attorney Martha Ortega de Zárate. The event was co-sponsored by the anthropology department, the Central Americans United Student Association, the Council on Student Organizations, the Dartmouth Center for Social Impact, the Dickey Center for International Understanding, the Division of Institutional Diversity and Equity, the Ethics Institute, the First Generation Office, the Guarini Institute for International Education, the history department, the Latin American, Latino and Caribbean studies department, the Leslie Center for the Humanities, Living Learning Communities, the Office of Plurality and Leadership, the Spanish and Portuguese department and the women’s, gender and sexuality studies department. Approximately 60 people attended the lecture in the Shabazz Mural Room, according to attendee Vadin Thadhani ’26.
The three panelists focused on raising awareness about sexual harassment and assault, the mental, emotional and physical impacts of sexual violence and strategies for prevention. They drew on their personal experiences and encouraged attendees to recognize and prevent harm whenever possible. Zárate and Melo gave their remarks in Spanish, which were translated by student translator Elizabeth Cervantes Roman ’27.
During the event, Melo shared her journey advocating for the passage of the Olimpia Law, which criminalized digital violence against women in Mexico in 2021. Melo said she was motivated by her personal experience with digital violence, when her then-boyfriend shared a video featuring sexual content of her via WhatsApp without her consent. The video was then made public on Facebook and uploaded to dozens of porn pages, ultimately going viral in Mexico, according to the United Nations Population Fund.
When Melo sought help from the police, they forced her to watch the video with them and asked whether she had been raped or if the footage had been recorded without her consent, Melo said. Although Melo said she had not been raped and the video was taken with her consent, she emphasized that she never agreed to its distribution. In response, the officers placed two law books before her and challenged her to find legal text that declared that the non-consensual distribution of a consensually filmed video was illegal, Melo said.
“They told me to go home and educate myself,” she added.
After her experience with the police, Melo said she realized that many other women had faced similar situations. She began advocating against digital violence toward women in 2014, with her work leading to the passage of the Olimpia Law in Mexico in 2021, Argentina in 2023 and Panama in 2024. The law criminalizes disseminating images of intimate and sexual content without the consent of the person involved, with penalties of up to six years.
Melo encouraged women attending the event to “organize [themselves], love each other and change what needs to be changed.” In an interview with The Dartmouth after the event, she added that she had initially “doubted” herself and her ability to create systemic change.
“Can a woman even change the law in Mexico by herself?” Melo asked through a translator. “Can a group of women change the law in Mexico by themselves?”
Before Melo shared her experience, Olid introduced the event by discussing their 2008 book, “Cry Loudly, Estela.” According to Olid, the book emphasizes the importance of having conversations with children about sexual harassment and nonconsensual touching and was motivated by their experience as a survivor.
Olid said they faced struggles when trying to publish the book because parents felt talking to children about sexual harassment would “bring bad luck.” Olid said that despite the stigma around the book’s topics, conversations about sexual abuse increase children’s chances of reporting abuse and receiving the support they need.
“This came directly from my experience that my abuser actually only stopped when I started screaming every time that he came close to me,” Olid said. “I was a little person, but I had a scream, and then the adults in the house could not ignore it anymore because I was screaming.”
Following Olid’s remarks, Zárate presented a “violence meter” framework for identifying abusive behavior in relationships. The framework highlights the importance of recognizing harmful patterns — such as gaslighting and manipulation — for young adults who are navigating new relationships, Zárate said.
Thadhani, a non-Spanish speaking attendee, said the event was “powerful” because he could “feel the emotions” behind the speakers’ messages even before they were translated into English.
Student organizer Camila Cazón-Guzman ’26 said the panel was “a reminder of why we need to resist” oppressive structures. She added that it was “inspiring” to hear from Melo, who “fought patriarchal systems in Latin America.”
Guzman noted that Melo’s Digital Violence report about systemic violence against women in Mexico found that victims were predominantly women, between the ages of 18 and 30 years old and are often university students.
“It’s important as young people that we understand what relationships should and shouldn’t look like,” Guzman said.
FUERZA Farmworkers’ Fund co-founder and Spanish and humanities professor Maria Clara de Greiff also said these conversations about sexual assault prevention “are a must” and need to happen “not only one time, but every day.”
“It’s about awareness,” de Greiff said. “It’s about breaking up with the invisibility. It’s about knowing what our rights are. It’s about recognizing everything that is happening.”
