This story is part of a continuing series investigating 2015 issues in gender and sexuality.

Wearing a round farmer’s straw hat and loose black pants, Alfonsina Sandoval Urbina spoke out against allegedly corrupt government officials in Mexico with the only weapon she has left: her topless body. 


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A small town farmer in the rural outskirts of Veracruz, Urbina has been actively protesting semi-nude against political human rights violations since 2002, along with a group of nearly 700 men and women.
 
“We are nude for justice, if anything else, and [when we first began] we were completely naked,” Urbina said.
 


Alfonsina Sandoval Urbina and Judith Romero Sanabia of the 400 Pueblos Movement talk about their reasons for protesting topless in Mexico.(Photo courtesy of Anthony Alvarez)

Neon Tommy caught up with the protesters, who call themselves the 400 Pueblos Movement, during the group’s biannual visit to Mexico City as they occupied sidewalks and crosswalks in downtown early this January.

Female farmers lined the streets of downtown Mexico City as members of the 400 Pueblos Movement protest semi-nude. (Photo courtesy of Anthony Alvarez)
With traditional Cumbia music blaring through speakers, protesters danced along intersections, holding up signs criticizing local politicians. Women protested topless. Men stripped to their underwear, wearing loincloth depicting photos of the alleged corrupt politicians.
 


“As you can see we do not interrupt the vehicle lanes, and instead of yelling out obscenities we dance,” said Nereo Cruz Aguilar, the group’s spokesperson. “We do not condone obscenities. The biggest offense is the naked body, due to the political parties that have victimized us.” 
 
 

The group is based out of Veracruz and comprised mostly of indigenous Nahua (Aztec) people. They first began speaking out against local injustices following Sen. Dante Delgado’s term as governor of Veracruz from 1988 to 1992. The group accused Delgado and several other politicians of unlawfully stripping 200,000 acres of land from the residents and imprisoning 350 farmers in 1992.
 
 

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The next year, the group led various protests in the capital of Mexico. They were able to successfully gain the release of 103 members wrongfully arrested but continued to hold peaceful demonstration, including hunger strikes, in the capital, demanding restitution from the government for the land seized and appropriate punishment for the authorities responsible, explained Aguilar. 
 
 

With no resolutions made by 2002, a group of female protesters was desperate to get some attention from lawmakers. They used the only recourse they had left: their bodies.
 


 “It was December, we were in the midst of a hunger strike that was in its 15th day, but none of the officials had even come out to see why we were starving,” group member Judith Romero Sanabia said. “That’s when the group, led by Urbina, all stripped completely nude to capture the attention of the media.” 


 
Sanabia explained that after having been stripped of their land and their basic human rights, the women felt that the only weapon they had left at their defense was their naked bodies.

Members of the 400 Pueblos Movement strip down to their underwear and dance to music during their nude protest in Mexico this past January. (Photo courtesy of Anthony Alvarez)

At first the capital received the protesters “with rejection” because Mexican culture looks down on women undressing in public or in front of other people “because it looks bad,” Sanabia told Univision back in 2007. With modesty and Catholic morals the norm in Mexico, the success of the nude protest opened the door for future rallies. 
 
“Before anything we are farmers, and this is the form we [chose to] demonstrate in.

Whoever is shocked by this does not live in reality,” Aguilar said. “This has been done in Europe, in the United States and in other countries. It is the presentation that calls them in.” 
 


Since then, the 400 Pueblos Movement has continued to return to the capital of Mexico each year to raise awareness toward politicians they claim to be corrupt. Aguilar explained that many of the farmers prepare in advance for the journey. Back in their villages they produce as many crops as they can, utilizing whatever land they still have in order to raise enough funds to support themselves during their time protesting, Aguilar explained. 
 


Similar to the tents set up during the Occupy Wall Street movements in the States, the group often camps out in various public parks within the city of Mexico, using public restrooms and showers during their stay. Aguilar also noted that during their time in the city, protesters stay for as long as they can afford, with many families sending their loved ones money from back home to help keep them demonstrating. 
 


“We do not know when we will go back [home],” Sanabia noted in January. “We have been living here for 7 months. Every day we protest.”

Currently the group has returned to their home state of Veracruz, but has continued to gain support from local leaders willing to strip down in solidarity so progress can be made. 
 
 

According to the news publication Agencia Imagen del Golfo, the local leader Marco Angel Arroyo of Xalapa, the capital of Veracruz, threatened to strip naked in the state’s Legislative Palace if the State Congress continued to ignore an initiative presented by him related to the disappearance of land and a request to the Attorney General’s office to exercise criminal action against the politician Miguel Angel Yunes Linares for alleged embezzlement. 
 
 

Should this happen, Arroyo said he would stand alongside members of the 400 Pueblos Movement. 
 
In response, the congress informed Arroyo that minors are often present during hearings, should he decide to expose himself. They also stated that they will decide to address his initiative when they see fit and that all efforts are being analyzed and otherwise noted, wrote the Agencia Imagen del Golfo in an article published Sunday. 
 


Until the local politicians responsible for the injustices in Veracruz are held accountable for the crimes they committed, Urbina and many other protesters maintain they will not stop returning to the capital of Mexico to raise attention about these issues in the nude. 
 


“We want them to see us, we want them to hear us, and we want them to be aware,” said Urbina.

Reach News Editor Celeste Alvarez here or follow her on Twitter here.