¿La provisión de servicios legales en los centros de ayuda especializada para mujeres facilita la tasa de denuncias de agresión sexual en México? (The Role of Specialized Gender Institutions on Reporting: Does the Provision of Legal Services at Women-Specialized Centers Facilitate the Reporting Rate of Sexual Aggression Crimes in Mexico?)

English Abstract: Underreporting is a common phenomenon around the world and has an important role on the identification and eradication of violence against women. This study intends to explore the channels in which a higher reporting rate can be achieved through institutions that facilitate access to justice. Many Latin American countries have recently implemented a certain type of women-aid oriented institutions as a strategy to reduce gender violence by the provision of, free of charge, legal, psychological and medical assistance to victims of violence. Nevertheless, not all these specialized institutions are able to offer the whole range of desirable services. This study takes advantage of the natural experiment constituted by the COVID-19 outbreak and uses a difference-in-difference analysis to estimate the relationship between legal services provision at these specialized institutions and sexual aggression reporting (sexual abuse, rape and equivalent of rape) among municipalities across Mexico. It is shown that in the case of Mexico, there is no statistical evidence to state that the presence of a women-aid institution that offers legal services at a given municipality influences the rate of sexual aggression reporting.