Jalisco delivered four mobile units to coastal towns, aiming to give women facing violence faster help, closer to where they live.
On the Puerto Vallarta boardwalk this Thursday, Jalisco’s Secretariat for Substantive Equality between Women and Men delivered four new mobile units to support women facing violence in Casimiro Castillo, La Huerta, Villa Purificación and Puerto Vallarta. The ceremony was led by state secretary Fabiola Loya Hernández, joined by Puerto Vallarta mayor Luis Ernesto Munguía González, who watched as the vehicles were formally handed over to municipal authorities.
Loya Hernández explained that the units are meant to strengthen local victim assistance teams, not replace them. She underlined that this year alone the state has trained and activated seven additional units, bringing the total to 57 operating across Jalisco. For Puerto Vallarta, where one mobile unit was already in service, this delivery doubles the municipality’s capacity to respond when a woman asks for help.
The announcement comes in a week marked by marches, vigils and official events around the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Local figures show how urgent the issue remains. Municipal records indicate that in 2025, Puerto Vallarta has already registered hundreds of cases of violence against women, from psychological and economic abuse to physical assaults, and a federal center in the city has assisted dozens more. At the same time, feminist collectives point to at least 109 women killed for gender-based reasons in Puerto Vallarta since 2014, a reminder that prevention and protection still fall short.
A new layer of help on the coast
The new vehicles plug directly into Jalisco’s broader strategy against gender violence. The state has lived under a gender violence alert since 2016 at the local level and since 2018 at the federal level, with Puerto Vallarta among the municipalities formally identified as high risk. Under that framework, authorities are required to expand access to protection orders, legal advice and psychological support, especially in places where distance and cost make it hard for women to reach a justice center or municipal office.
Mobile teams are one way the state is trying to close that gap. Jalisco’s own protocol for attention to women victims of violence describes mobile and itinerant services as tools to take information, first contact care and follow-up closer to the communities where women live. Instead of asking someone in danger to travel to a government building, the model sends trained staff out to neighborhoods and rural localities, often working hand in hand with municipal women’s institutes and other agencies.
In Puerto Vallarta, Loya Hernández recalled that officials had already been working with a victim assistance unit in the city. The new unit adds another layer of response, with the goal of reaching women more quickly when a case is reported and improving coordination with other services, from shelters and health centers to the state’s Centers for Justice for Women. For smaller municipalities such as Casimiro Castillo, La Huerta and Villa Purificación, a single mobile unit can mean the difference between having a dedicated team on the road or relying on intermittent visits from the state capital.
At the ceremony on the Malecón, the state official stressed that no vehicle or protocol will work in isolation. She argued that meaningful protection depends on coordination among municipal governments, the state and the federation, especially in regions like the Costa and Sierra where road distances are long and public resources are limited. Her message was clear: a mobile unit needs fuel, trained staff, security back-up and a functioning network of institutions behind it to truly protect the women it serves.
Mobile units for women
The rollout of more mobile units for women also happens against a backdrop of rising pressure on authorities in Puerto Vallarta and neighboring Bahía de Banderas. In recent days, feminist organizations have held public actions to honor victims of femicide and denounce what they describe as a lack of effective implementation of the gender alert measures on both sides of the state border. They argue that while government announcements have multiplied, many of the promised actions, from technical committees to permanent monitoring, have yet to be fully installed or sustained.
State data and recent reforms show that Jalisco is still adjusting its legal framework and programs to match the scale of the problem. The state’s Law on Women’s Access to a Life Free of Violence now explicitly includes mobile protection units among the tools that must be deployed in municipalities under gender alerts. Equality officials report that Estrategia ALE, a state program focused on protection measures, has helped expand the network of units so that more municipalities have at least one team dedicated to responding when a woman requests an order of protection or reports a serious threat.
For women in the coastal and mountain communities that surround Puerto Vallarta, what happens next will matter more than any ribbon-cutting. If the mobile units keep regular schedules, answer calls quickly and can activate protection orders without bureaucratic delays, they may offer a safer path out of violent relationships. If they stall due to lack of staff, fuel or follow-up from prosecutors and judges, they risk becoming another symbol that never quite reaches the women who need it most.
Loya Hernández closed her remarks on the Malecón by linking the new units to a broader vision of equality. She said that real substantive equality between women and men cannot coexist with violence, and that only sustained, coordinated work across all levels of government will make a difference. For now, the new vehicles carry a double weight: they are both a concrete service on wheels and a public promise that authorities in Jalisco’s coast and Sierra region will be closer, not farther, when a woman decides it is finally time to ask for help.
