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MEXICO:
Murders of Women Not Limited to
Ciudad Juárez
Adrián
Reyes
MEXICO CITY, (IPS) - A
Mexican congressional commission
is drawing up a nationwide map
of murders of women, which
totalled 625 in just four of the
country's 31 states last year
alone -- almost double the
number recorded since 1993 in
Ciudad Juárez, which has gained
international notoriety over the
past decade.
In the case of Ciudad Juárez,
located on Mexico's northern
border with the United States,
drug traffickers and pornography
rings have been singled out as
the prime suspects.
Yet the problem is not limited
to this one highly publicised
city. Preliminary figures
provided by state prosecutors to
Mexico's lower house of Congress
reveal that in 2004, 112 women
were murdered in the northern
state of Baja California, which
also borders on the United
States, as well as 203 in the
impoverished southern state of
Chiapas, which shares a border
with Guatemala, 204 in the
southwestern state of Veracruz,
on the Gulf of Mexico, and 106
in the federal capital, Mexico
City.
The first nationwide report on
murders of women and the
principal causes behind them
will be released between October
of this year and January 2006,
according to parliamentary
Deputy Ruth Hernández, a
representative of the ruling
National Action Party (PAN) and
member of the Special Commission
to Monitor Investigations
Related to Femicide.
”Violent murders of women are
not a new phenomenon,” Hernández
told IPS. ”This is something
that has been happening for some
time now, which the prevailing
culture of impunity has served
to cover up and minimise. We
need to take stock of the
situation in our country and
correct our laws.”
The study will not be limited to
gathering statistics from the
last five years. It will include
analysis conducted by
researchers at the National
Autonomous University of Mexico
(UNAM), the Colegio de Mexico
and the Colegio de la Frontera
Norte.
A number of civil society
organisations are also
contributing the knowledge and
experience they have accumulated
in confronting this issue.
The report is intended to serve
as the basis for reorienting
efforts to fight this type of
violence, which often takes the
form of ”crimes of hatred
against women,” especially in
the border city of Ciudad Juárez,
said Hernández.
In Mexico, she added, there is a
culture of violence and impunity
fostered by certain ingrained
habits among the authorities,
who classify these crimes as
”simple homicides”, turning a
blind eye to underlying
patterns.
Moreover, police investigators
frequently lack the methods
needed to properly evaluate and
handle evidence, while judges
often pass down rulings that
continue to allow these murders
to go unpunished.
Hernández underlined the need to
have a full picture of the
current reality in order for
Congress to reform laws and
establish severe sanctions for
public officials who foster
impunity for these kinds of
crimes through negligence,
ignorance, or even complicity.
”Violence against women is
neither new nor exclusive to
Mexico, but we have to make our
own situation more visible in
order to confront it and
implement solutions. Impunity
prevails in Mexico because there
has been no serious study and
analysis of what is happening
throughout the country,” said
the lawmaker.
Esther Chávez, a representative
of the non-governmental
organisation Casa Amiga, based
in the northern Mexican state of
Chihuahua -- where Ciudad Juárez
is located -- told IPS that
solving the more than 300
murders of women in this border
town is one of the biggest
challenges facing the current
and future governments.
”We believe that drug
traffickers have overpowered the
state along the U.S. border,
which is why they can act with
such violence towards women,”
she said.
As long as the local and federal
authorities fail to properly
investigate these murders, and
limit themselves to locking up
innocent people now and then to
make it look like they are
making progress in the war on
crime, Ciudad Juárez will
continue to send out the
”macabre message” that ”we women
can be used and thrown away like
garbage, without anyone saying
anything about it,” she added.
Chávez believes that the current
administration of President
Vicente Fox has shown greater
interest in investigating the
murders in Ciudad Juárez than
that of his predecessor, Ernesto
Zedillo (1994-2000).
Nevertheless, the bodies of
murdered, mutilated and sexually
abused women continue to show up
regularly in the nearby desert
and garbage dumps.
”Ciudad Juárez is the most
widely known case, but we also
need to analyse what is
happening in the rest of the
country, for measures to be
adopted that guarantee gender
equity,” Marisa
Belausteguigoitia, director of
UNAM's gender studies programme,
said in an interview with IPS.
Belausteguigoitia is a member of
a multidisciplinary team of
experts working with Mexican
legislators to delve into the
causes behind the murders and
propose methodology for
investigation of these crimes.
Both Belausteguigoitia and
Chávez see the marks of drug
trafficking, the so-called
”white slave trade”, pornography
rings and domestic violence in
the murders committed in Ciudad
Juárez. Neither gives much
credence to the theory that the
crimes are related to the
traffic in human organs.
The UNAM researcher said that
the federal Attorney General's
Office should take over control
of the investigations, since the
drug trafficking industry is
apparently involved.
The preliminary reports gathered
by the Chamber of Deputies
indicate that violence against
women culminating in murder is
most persistent in Mexico City
and the states of Baja
California, Chiapas and Veracruz,
followed by the southern state
of Campeche; Chihuahua, Mexico
and Morelos (both of them in
close proximity to the federal
capital); Sinaloa in the
northwest; and Quintano Roo in
the southeast.
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