We have all heard the stories of the recent number of deaths connected with Mexico’s current drug violence. Since 2006, more than 22,700 people have been killed. In 2009 alone, 9,635 people were killed.
However, what have not often been mentioned in the news is the often gender-based nature of the killings that have occurred and still occur in Juarez. Since 1993, more than 500 women between the ages of 12 and 22 years of age have gone missing. They have later been found sexually abused, mutilated, or left for dead. More than 50 have been killed since January 2010. The deaths mainly have occurred among poor women who travel home late at night from the maquilas. Many believe the murders have been linked to gang initiations, domestic violence, or selling of organs.
In 2004, the Mexican government set up a task force to investigate these crimes, but this failed due to corruption, incompetence, or witness intimidation. Alicia Elena Perez, a special prosecutor for crimes against women, who resigned in 2007 out of frustration of the system stated, “Our culture in general is one of abuse of power. Violence against women is just part of this dynamic.”
However, local organizations refuse to give up and have set up their own task forces in response to the government's failed efforts. Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa AC (Civil Association for the Return Home of Our Daughters), an organization comprised of mothers and family members of victims, has raised awareness and pressured the Mexican government to take action. Some mothers have sent their cases to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. As a result, in December 2009, the court found the Mexico government negligent on preventing the violence, ordered the Chihuahua state government to reopen investigations, punish officials associated with corrupt investigations, and to build a monument in memory of the victims by end of the 2010. Hopefully, these investigations will bear fruit. It will take more than a monument to bring justice for these women.
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