Violence along the United States – Mexico border has reached staggering levels. It is not only those involved in the drug trade that fall victims to the kidnappings and murders, young women have become unfortunate casualties in this crisis.
The killings in border cities like Ciudad Juárez has already totaled 400 in the first two months of 2009. According to Amnesty International, more than 370 women have been murdered in the cities of Juárez and Chihuahua “without the authorities taking proper measures to investigate and address the problem.” This crisis, often called femicide, or the systematic killing of women, has been a cause for organizations and blogs to take to the internet to help raise awareness to the plight of the victims and their families.
Life in Ciudad Juárez
Organizations are calling for justice and greater action by local and national authorities. Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa (May Our Daughters Return Home) is an organization based in Ciudad Juárez co-founded by the mother and the teacher of Lilia Alejandra Garcia Andrade, who was abducted and was found dead in 2001. The organization writes on its blog about the context in which many families live:
In Ciudad Juárez women disappear and are not seen or heard from again, unless their captors decide to make their lifeless bodies reappear and with clear signs that they were brutally tortured and murdered, gang raped or with their bodies dismembered or burned. It is a terrible pain for this society. Isn’t there something that can push those who are able to do something?
The desperation and fear of the families who live in such insecurity when they see their daughters leave the house without knowing if they will return are not reasons to affect anyone’s will to put an end to these incidents.
To date, these crimes have gone unpunished, and no one is looking for the disappeared women…and the murders and kidnappings continue without anyone being held responsible.
The organization has received threats for their work to put an end to the killings, according to the blog Contra el Feminicidio en México (Against Femicide in Mexico).
Documentary film “Juárez Mothers Fight Femicide”
Mexican-American filmmaker and videoblogger at Chicana Feliz, Zumla Aguiar took a special interest in this story and worked closely with the organization to produce the documentary “Juárez Mothers Fight Femicide” which is licensed under a Creative Commons license. The film’s description says:
The video does not try to pound you over the head with more information. It basically looks at the opinions of the mothers in regards to what was the final story with each case. Interviewed are mothers from all social strata but this film points out that the pain is equal and all valid emotions. The fact that the “women are poor” is pointed out by Marisela Ortiz from Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa as a reason why nobody does anything about these murders.
Media as a tool
Another organization Red Solidaria Década Contra la Impunidad (Decade Solidarity Network Against Impunity) uses its blog to share news about its activities fighting against impunity for human rights abuses including the murders of young women in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua and other parts of Mexico.
The international organization Witness has used citizen media to raise awareness and collect signatures for a petition to presented to Mexican President Felipe Calderón. In 2003, in conjunction with the Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights [es] (CMDPDH), they produced a short film called Dual Injustice. The story centers on the disappearance of Neyra Cervantes in Chihuahua, who disappeared in May 2003 and her cousin, David Meza, who who was tortured until he confessed to her murder.
Even though Cervantes’ remains were recovered and Meza was released after being wrongfully imprisoned, those responsible for her death have gone unpunished. Witness is continuing its campaign through a petition drive, which will be presented to President Calderón by Witness founder Peter Gabriel, other well-known Mexican celebrities and the mother of Neyra Cervantes. Some Mexican bloggers are also writing about the presentation of the petition, such as the blog Resiste Chihuahua.
Women’s struggles
As the situation along the border towns remains dire and many crimes unresolved, the women from the organization May Our Daughters Return Home write about their struggles, but also about their hope.
The families that participate in this movement have turned our pain into our strength. After confronting, in addition to the brutal murder of our daughters, the incompetence, stubbornness, cover-up, corruption, and the indifferent attitude from the authorities.
It is difficult to express our heartbreaking pain into words, knowing that our daughters were murdered under those circumstances, it is an immense suffering that does not end, and we cannot stop the tears each time we think of them or see their personal things and their photos. Our anguish and torment grows when we imagine how our murdered daughters’ last moments must have been with the torture and we live without living…
We maintain our hope that some day justice will be served for the disappearance and the premature death of our daughters, as that would be the only way to recuperate our own lives. There is solidarity for those, even those aren’t our companions, who share their own sorrow of losing a part of their own lives.
This blog-post was originally published at Global Voices Online on March 26, 2009.
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About
I am a Bolivian-American who maintains the blog Barrio Flores, while living in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Currently, I am the Regional Editor for Latin America and the Spanish language editor for Global Voices. I am the founder and director of the Voces Bolivianas project, which teaches the use of citizen media to underrepresented groups throughout Bolivia, with the help of a network of national bloggers.
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Zulma Aguiar
Sunday 6th December, 2009, 6:46am
Thankyou Eddie for writing about this piece. I'm glad its stll useful. Cordially, Zulma Aguiar (not Zumla)