Despite significant progress towards building a solid human rights framework, the Mexican Government must nevertheless "bind itself to a new sense of urgency in solving the enormous human rights challenges it faces," Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said today as he wrapped up an official visit to the country.

"Despite [legislative developments and constitutional reforms]… my visit has been very sobering with regard to the daily realities for many millions of people here in Mexico itself, said the High Commissioner at a press conference.

"Many of the people I have spoken to have painted a very bleak — and consistent — picture of a society that is wracked by high levels of insecurity, disappearances and killings," he explained, as well as noting the ongoing harassment of human rights defenders and journalists, violence against women, and terrible abuses of migrants and refugees transiting the country on their way to the United States.

Yet, according to official statistics, 98 per cent of all crimes in Mexico remain unsolved, with the majority never even being properly investigated. Among these crimes, the High Commissioner spotlighted Mexico’s high levels of homicide and enforced disappearances.

"For a country that is not engaged in a conflict, the estimated figures are simply staggering: 151,233 people killed between December 2006 and August 2015, including thousands of transiting migrants," he said.

Adapted from the UN website