Blog #3: Factors

Please watch this video on Dual Injustice: Femicide and Torture in Ciudad Juarez:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e5419nIVp8&feature=related

Ciudad Juarez, Mexico has been portrayed as an area plagued with drug cartels, political and police corruption, prostitution, and migrant-smuggling rings as well as a rapidly ballooning population.  Much of this population was due to the Macquiladora Factories being built in this region.  Very rapidly, female factory workers in search of better opportunities began migrating to the city and these factories looking for cheap labor with much eager to employ them.  Over time, Juarez became a city with much activity and a bustling nightlife.  Unfortunately, many of these women started disappearing and being murdered. 

Most of these murdered women in Juarez were from the lower levels of society.  They were young, poor, and vulnerable and ultimately were more likely to be attacked.  Due to the nature of their work, women were often held and forced to work overtime.  As a result, this often meant walking long distances alone at night. 

Corruption, laziness, irresponsibility of investigations, and apathy of investigators can be blamed for why murders continue to occur.  In Mexico, homicide is a state crime and therefore falls under the jurisdiction of the state police.  Local authorities are not responsible for investigating crimes; however they are often the first to arrive at the site of a murder and can affect how well the crime scene is preserved.  They have disgracefully failed in investigating the murders of women and collecting and preserving key evidence, such as clothing, fibers, fluids, and even the victims’ remains. They have mixed up DNA tests, destroyed important evidence, and have allegedly returned some young women’s remains to the wrong families.  There are groups of volunteers that organize searches in the desert areas and they discover bodies and evidence left behind by authorities.  Authorities have ignored important leads, and have incorrectly identified victims, or failed to identify them at all.  This is all to be blamed on the judicial system and injustice that is occurring there.       

Authorities have carried out arrests simply to reduce public concerns over the murders.  Many detainees have been tortured into providing false confessions.  Methods of torture include beatings, electric shocks, simulated executions, suffocation, and deprivation of food and water.   This behavior by authorities reflects a desire to scapegoat convenient suspects. 

Since homicide is a state crime in Mexico, the federal authorities do not become involved and investigate unless the murders are directly linked to federal crimes such as weapons or drug trafficking, or if the murders were committed specifically for the purpose to commit a federal crime.  When a federal crime occurs and authorities become involved, they have encountered resistance from the state police.  State Authorities have refused to share evidence, autopsy reports, witness information, and other any other information that may help authorities investigate the murders.


References


Washington Office on Latin America: Crying Out for Justice: Murders of Women in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. March 2005.  
Nathan, Debbie: The Juarez Murders. Amnesty International Magazine.
Fregreso, Rosa Linda. "Mexican encounters: the making of social identities on the borderlands. University of California, Berkeley, 2003.
NACLA Report on the Americas. Combating Impunity and Femicide in Ciudad Juarez. May/June 2008.  

Blog #2: The Dead Women of Juarez

Please watch video on Juarez Mothers Fight Femicide:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK0f_7XeYJA

Over the last twenty years, bodies of girls and women began appearing in the desert on the outskirts of Cuidad Juarez, Mexico, a city of 1.4 million just across the border from El Paso, Texas.  Many of these women were raped, beaten, mutilated, and tortured.  This was the beginning of an epidemic of brutal rapes and murders aimed at Juarez’s, young, poor, women.  To date, more than 400 women have been murdered in the cities of Juarez and Chihuahua.  More frightening, there have been over 4,000 registered complaints of women who have disappeared.  In Spanish, this phenomenon is called “Feminicide.”  These victims of feminicide, predominately young women between the ages of 12 through 22 would after a day of going to school or work disappear.  They would later be found murdered and buried in shallow graves in the desert or at construction sites around the city.  Many of these young women were maquiladora workers.


Ciudad Juarez is a city known for its pollution, drug cartels, and violence. Maquillador Factories began opening and operating in Juarez over the years and have lured thousands of women throughout Mexico in the hopes of financial and social independence. The maquiladora workers usually come from small villages and rural areas, and move to Juarez in search of work. Many of these women have worked in family economies, including working on a farm, taking in laundry, or making and selling tortillas. Others have worked for wages in agriculture or as domestics, and some have taken up maquila piecework before migrating to Juarez. They all share the same desire to escape poverty and this helps motivate their decision to move to Juarez.  Many of the workers of the maquiladors live in the outskirts of the city in makeshift houses constructed from cement, cardboard boxes and live without electricity and running water.  Each day women have to walk through the rural dark dirt roads and take company buses that transport them to work. Despite the harshness of life in Juarez, the young women keep coming at the rate of forty to sixty thousand a year. They seek jobs in these factories, which pay higher wages than anywhere else in Mexico. The chance to have an independent life also attracts these women to the city to work in the maquilladors.


These murders flourish in a city where everyone knows that you can kill a woman without consequence.  Many cases have not been adequately investigated and are unsolved.  Few have been punished for these horrendous crimes, denying justice to the victim’s family members.  The combination of poor investigation techniques, flaws in the judicial system, and the use of torture to extract a confession, has contributed to the murders in these areas.  The families of the victims are denied justice that they deserve.


Mexico has ratified International Instruments and domestic legislation on torture, but sadly this practice plays a key role in the criminal justice system.  It is systematically used as an investigative tool and is the basis of numerous unfair convictions.  As a result, the guilty remain unpunished.  Hundreds of families will only see justice when Mexico seriously investigates and punishes those who are responsible for the murders of these women and fully investigates the disappearances of many more women.    

 

Introduction: Blog Post#1           September 16^th, 2010

Femicide refers to the intentional killing of women and girls.  Violence against women is a worldwide problem that denies them of their dignity, equality, development, and peace.  The violence against women both violates the freedom of women of their human rights and fundamental freedom.   

Femicide occurs throughout the world and includes Iran, Afghanistan, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, and Congo. While the crime rate have generally been on the rise in these countries in recent years, the murder rate of women has gone up at a rate almost twice as much as men.  Women are being violently murdered often-following rape and sexual mutilation.   

These countries contain a culture that devalues and discriminates against women.  Many of these women and their families have given up on authorities for protection, and have fled their homes to the United States or other countries for refuge.  Over the years, authorities alleged negligence and poor handling of the investigations has left most cases of murdered women unresolved and casts a serious doubt on the few convictions.  The use of allege torture to fabricate culprits indicate that authorities in these countries use tainted evidence, rather than properly investigating the murders.  Although many of these countries have ratified international treaties and have domestic legislation on torture, reports have shown that these practices of injustices against innocent persons have played a key role in the criminal justice system and is the basis of numerous unfair convictions.  

Hundreds of women and their families will continue to see femicide occur unless authorities and the criminal justice system seriously investigate and punish the individuals who are responsible for disappearances, tortures, and murders.  The unfairness and elimination of torture as an investigatory tool should also be abolished in all countries.

Femicide is an important and problematic issue that should be mentioned more often by the media and the public.  Women should have the same opportunity as men, and should not live in fear.  It is important to be aware that many women in other countries do not have the rights or freedoms that women have in the United States. I hope that in this blog I can bring knowledge and awareness to this problematic and complicated issue.