In 2023, led a Federal Penal Code reform criminalizing child marriage, making Mexico the first Latin American country to classify it as a grave crime.
In 2023, as a federal deputy, Eufrosina Cruz led and achieved a significant reform to Mexico's Federal Penal Code that classified child marriage and similar forced or arranged marriages involving minors as a serious criminal offense (delito grave). This reform closed longstanding legal loopholes that had allowed such practices to persist, particularly in indigenous and rural communities where customary practices sometimes normalized child marriage.
The reform made Mexico the first country in Latin America to formally classify child and similarly coercive marriages as a grave crime under national penal law, setting an important regional precedent for child protection and women's rights legislation. This achievement built directly on Cruz's decades of work highlighting the intersection of indigenous customary practices with gender-based rights violations, extending her advocacy beyond adult political participation to the protection of children, particularly girls, from forced marriage.
The reform was celebrated by child rights and women's rights organizations across the region as a critical step toward eliminating a practice linked to school dropout, early pregnancy, and cycles of poverty and abuse among indigenous and rural girls. It reinforced Cruz's legacy as a legislator who translated her personal history of overcoming gender-based discrimination into concrete, life-changing legal protections for some of Mexico's most vulnerable populations.