Blog 5: Femicide as a Whole

The killing of women is a significant problem in Juarez and Chihuahua City, Mexico.  Women have been disappearing for more than ten years and they continue to occur.  In Mexico, there is a mandatory 72 hours waiting period before a family can report their children missing, making the notification process all the more difficult.  Mothers however, are no longer waiting before taking action.  Mothers are proactive after they became suspicious that their daughters are missing.  They have learned to move quickly as they have no choice.  They go on one-woman public relations campaigns to help publicize their missing daughters.  Mothers call the radios, use the Internet to bring awareness, and post posters all over town. 

            Mothers have gone to the media and documenters to express their frustration and disappointment with the authorities.  Journalists travel to Juarez for answers on why these disappearances are occurring.  One journalist said, “This is not a place you walk into lightly, there are no white people hanging out around these areas”. A journalist asked three people from Juarez to accompany him and act as his guide and they refused.  One of the individuals said “To be with you is a death sentence.”  This year, three Mexican Journalists have been murdered.    

            

Juarez, which is located just across the border from El Paso, Texas, has a homicide rate for women that far exceeds the Mexican national average and is three times that of the comparable sized city of Tijuana.    El Paso on the other hand has one of the lowest crime rates in the United States, while Juarez is a lawless wasteland where some of Mexico’s most notorious and violent drug gangs exist.   

Determining the motives on why women are being murdered, raped, and tortured is an on-going mystery.  The murders could be linked to domestic violence or prostitution.  Some have speculated that the women have been murdered for their organs on the black market.  Another theory is that they are occurring as part of an initiation ceremony for new members into one of Mexico’s drugs cartels or gangs. Perhaps these murders are going on because no seems to care about these women other then their family members.  The authorities pretend that they are investigated, but probably aren’t doing anything important and don’t give a shit about these families.  The women are young, vulnerable, poor, and easy prey for these dirt bags that only want a quick fix.  Unfortunately, to this day, these crimes continue to occur in Juarez and Chihuahua.   

Femicide is most prevalent in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua City Chihuahua, but it also occurs in other states at a lower rate (Veracruz, Michoacan, Oaxaca, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon).  Femicide occurs all around the world.  There are women being murdered in the Middle East who are considered to be inferior to men. In Guatemala, which has one of the highest murder rates in Latin America, women continue to face constant violence and murder threats.  Figures show that on average, 17 people are murdered there every day!

My hope for this blog is to bring awareness to this issue.  Women in the United States should be leading the effort internationally to ensure women around the world receive justice regardless of their ethnicity or religion. 


References
Prieto-Carron, Marina. "No More Killings! Women Respond to Femicides in Central America" Gender and Development Vol 15, No. 1, March 2007. 
Russel, Diana E.H., ed. "Femicide in Global Perspective (Athene Series)". New York: Teachers College P, 2001.
"Femicide, The Politics of Killing Women". New York: Twayne, Maxwell Macmillan Canada, Maxwell  Macmillian International, 1992.