Despite being across the border from El Paso, Texas, rated the third safest city in America, Juarez is the most dangerous place for a woman in the Americas. Since 1993, there have been some 370 murdered women and more than 500 missing women in Ciudad, Juarez, and the neighboring state of Chihuahua, according to a 2003 Amnesty International investigation, "Mexico: Intolerable Killings: 10 years of abductions and murder of women in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua.”

The majority of these crimes have not yet been solved. Amnesty International reported that of the 370 murder victims, at least 137 were sexually assaulted. The report also said Mexican police have still not identified an additional 75 bodies because of lack of evidence, citing animal interference. Victims as young as six have been raped and tortured, their bodies dumped in abandoned areas, old cemeteries and the desert. Others have simply disappeared without a trace.

The victims share many common characteristics, young, with dark features and long hair, according to the Amnesty International report. Many are factory workers in the hundreds of Maquila factories, assembly plants that have sprung up in the area since The North American Free Trade Agreement. Because they can be paid less, the majority of workers are rural, migrant women, willing to undergo poor working conditions. Poverty, isolation, and work shifts that end in the middle of the night make them easy targets, the report said.

Organizations Work to Bring Attention to the Issue

“Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa/ Bring Back Our Daughters” was formed to bring attention to this issue and appeal to the Mexican government to act. A statement on their website reads, “Every week at least one woman disappears from Ciudad Juarez, and then nothing is ever heard from her again, unless her kidnappers decide to leave her somewhere to be found without life, evidently brutally tortured and murdered, cruelly raped, sometimes mutilated or burned.”

The organizations, “Justicia para nuestras hijas,” “Operacion Digna,” and “Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa,” joined together in 2003 in an on-line demonstration against the Mexican government and the Supreme Court of the state of Chihuahua petitioning them to “stop the femizide.”

Mexican authorities have made very few inroads, despite international pressure. Mexican Federal Attorney General Macedo de la Concha has attributed the deaths to pornography rings, religious cults and organ-trafficking

Women Speak Out Against the Mexican Government

In an address in early March at the Monterrey Institute of International studies, Patricia Cervantes Pertenece, whose daughter Neyra, was kidnapped and murdered said, “My government is so corrupt and are [sic] hiding the truth to protect others—they won’t even try and solve these killings. There is no justice. As a mother, I cannot accept that. “

"There are shameful activities going on when police flat out are not doing their jobs...," said Rep. Hilda Solis, D-Los Angeles in a March 27 Monterey County Herald news story. "We are a very wealthy country...a country that can go to places like Iraq and Afghanistan and help women regain their status, but we can't seem to do anything about the killing of hundreds of women five minutes from our borders," Solis said.

In response to the injustices perpetrated against women globally, the World March of Women adopted the Women’s Global Charter for Humanity on Dec. 10, 2004, in Kigali, Rwanda. Their mandate is to address the issues of oppression, inequality, exploitation and discrimination. It began in 1998 as a response to eliminate poverty and violence against women around the globe. This charter has been circulated in 163 countries and territories by the approximately 6000 groups that participate in the World March of Women.

The charter will be in the United States from April 28 – 30, 2005.

 

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