Female homicides in Ciudad Juárez

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The phenomenon of the female homicides in Ciudad Juárez, called in Spanish the feminicidios ("femicides") or las muertas de Juárez ("The dead women of Juárez"), involves the violent death of hundreds of women in the northern Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, a border city across the Rio Grande from the US city of El Paso, Texas. Most of the cases remain unsolved [1].

According to the Organization of American States's Inter-American Commission on Human Rights:

The victims of these crimes have preponderantly been young women, between 17 and 22 years of age. Many were students, and most were maquiladora [workers in foreign owned factories]. A number were relative newcomers to Ciudad Juarez who had migrated from other areas of Mexico. The victims were generally reported missing by their families, with their bodies found days or months later abandoned in vacant lots or outlying areas. In most of these cases there were signs of sexual violence, abuse, torture or in some cases mutilation. Source

According to Amnesty International, as of February 2005 more than 370 bodies had been found, and over 400 women were still missing [2]. In November 2005, BBC News reported Mexico's human rights ombudsman Jose Luis Soberanes as saying that 28 women had been murdered so far in 2005 [3]. Despite past and current unsolved murders, in August 2006 the Mexican federal government dropped its investigation [4].

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[edit] Criticism of investigations

There has been growing dissatisfaction, both within Mexico as well as internationally, with the progress of the official investigations, even leading to charges of police complicity. Critics say investigations have ground to a halt because of corruption, incompetence and witness intimidation. They point out that when the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was brought in to help, Chihuahua state officials rejected its findings. The serial slayings have continued despite numerous arrests and claims that they have been solved.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights noted in its 2002 report on the Juárez case that "...the response of the authorities to these crimes has been markedly deficient... On the one hand, the vast majority of the killings remain in impunity; approximately 20% have been the subject of prosecution and conviction" and "an important segment of the killings in Ciudad Juárez took place at the hands of an intimate partner, but their significance has yet to be acknowledged by local officials."

[edit] Arrests

Various individuals have been arrested in connection with the murders. However, the Mexican police have been criticized for making arrests with little or no evidence and failing to detain alleged perpetrators. Additionally, they have been accused of coercing people to confess to murders, destroying evidence, even kidnapping women.

Indeed, in 2003, Catalina Gonsalez Martinez's daughter Christina Escobar Gonsalez was murdered. The murderer was arrested, but claimed that he had killed her in self-defense. He was caught stuffing her badly beaten body into the trunk of his car, but sentenced to only three years in prison by a judge, a further sign of corruption in the judicial system.

One of the first arrests made was that of an Egyptian-born chemist, Abdul Latif Sharif (born in 1947), who was accused but never convicted of several rapes in the United States before moving to Ciudad Juarez in 1994 to escape a deportation hearing in Texas. Since his conviction and imprisonment for the murder of a young maquiladora worker in 1995, the police have arrested two groups of men whom they allege Sharif was paying "from behind bars" to rape and murder on his behalf in an attempt to establish his innocence of the crimes.

However, despite the arrests of Sharif and his alleged co-conspirators, the killings continued, leading the Mexican police and the public in general to consider many theories, among them that the real killer or killers are still on the loose or that the original killer or killers are in jail and copycats have moved to the area since. There are also accusations that there has been a conspiracy of silence and cover-up by Mexican politicians bribed by the killer or killers.

Many people have been surprised at how women could turn up dead while Sharif was in prison, but the police never failed to blame him for many of the murders.

Other suspects convicted in connection with the affair include Víctor García Uribe (El Cerillo), convicted in October 2004 for eight of the murders, and Gustavo González Meza (La Foca), who was arrested on suspicion in some of the killings but died in jail under suspicious circumstances on February 8, 2003. In January of 2006, their lawyer, Sergio Dante Almaraz, was murdered in Juarez. Some suspect he was ambushed by the same police officers who have killed before. source On January 7, 2005, four members of the "Los Toltecas" gang were convicted of six murders and six member of the "Los Rebeldes" gang were convicted of another six murders. Jesús Manuel Guardado and four other "Toltecas" had been arrested in 1999. One was found not guilty. Five of the twelve convicted so far have been bus drivers.

The latest arrest was made on August 15, 2006 by U.S. Marshals in Denver, Colorado. Edgar Alvarez Cruz is being charged with 14 of the murders. These are the cotton field murders and the Cristo Negro murders. Alejandro Delgado Valles alias El Calá,and Jos Francisco Granados have also been arrested in connection with these 14 murders. Two of the men are said to be drug addicts and the third a psychopath. Undoubtedly they are all poor. [5]. The daughter of Norma Andrade, founder of Nuestras Hijas de Regroso a Casa was among the cotton field victims.

[edit] Reactions

On May 30, 2005, President Vicente Fox told reporters that the majority of the Juárez killings had been resolved and the perpetrators placed behind bars. He went on to criticize the media for "rehashing" the same 300 or 400 murders, and said matters needed to be seen in their "proper dimension". [6] [7] In response, the congressional special commission for the killings said that the president needed to be better informed about the situation. [8]

A group of mothers, families, and friends of the victims, called Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa A.C. ("Our daughters to come back home, civil association") was formed to raise awareness about the situation and put pressure on the Mexican government to pay attention to these cases, some of which have gone unsolved for 12 years. Members of the group, including co-founder Norma Andrade, demand that proper investigations be carried out.

Another family organization, Voces sin Eco ("voices without a sound") was founded in 1998. They painted pink crosses on black telephone poles to draw attention to the problem and align themselves with family values.[1]

An informal group, which the press named Las Mujeres de Negro ("the women in black"), originated in November of 2001 in Chihuahua City, following the discover of eight corpses together. They attended the protest, which interrupted the celebration of the Mexican Revolution, wearing black tunics (as a sign of mourning) and pink hats. Since then, they have marched across the desert from Chihuahua City to Juárez and planted crosses (sometimes with plastic limbs attached) in prominent places.[2]

To protest the lack of progress in the cases, a huge free concert was held by famous Latin artists such as Alejandro Sanz, Alex Ubago, Manu Chao, Lila Downs and others on September 18, 2005 in Mexico City's central Zócalo square. [9]

El Paso post-hardcore band At the Drive-In released a music video for their song "Invalid Litter Dept." that details the deaths. The video features several photos of newspaper clippings and articles about the murders.

In 1999, singer Tori Amos reacted to the accounts of the murders with her song "Juarez" on the album To Venus And Back.

In 2001, filmmaker Lourdes Portillo released one of the first documentaries dedicated to the victims of the murders, "Señorita Extraviada".

In 2004, Mexican norteño group Los Tigres del Norte released a song called "Las Mujeres de Juárez" (The Women of Juarez) on their Pacto de Sangre album. Juarez mayor Hector Murguia denounced the song, saying that it painted a false picture about the "real face of Juarez."

In 2006, filmmaker Zulma Aguiar released a documentary about the murders called Juarez Mothers Fight Femicide. She worked with Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa A.C. and is giving all proceeds from the film to the group.

[edit] Footnotes

  • "Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa A.C." is a non-profit association of mothers by mothers in Ciudad Juárez who claim that their cases have gone unsolved for over 12 years, and wish to get the murderers of their daughters convicted.

[edit] References

  • Antonio Mendoza, Killers on the Loose: Unsolved Cases of Serial Murder (Virgin Books 2002), ISBN 0753506815 — Study of unsolved serial killing around the world, including Ciudad Juárez.
  • Simon Whitechapel, Crossing to Kill: The True Story of the Serial-Killer Playground (Virgin Books 2002), ISBN 0753506866 — Updated edition of the first detailed study of the Juárez murders.
  • Charles Bowden, Juárez: The Laboratory of Our Future (Aperture New York 1998), ISBN 0893817767 — A very personal and detailed book with many pictures portraying the street-photographers of Juárez, that aim to improve the situation by documenting the daily crimes.
  1. ^ Wright, Melissa. "Paradoxes, Protests, and the Mujeres de Negro of Northern Mexico." Gender, Place, and Culture 12.3 (2005): 177-192.
  2. ^ Wright, Melissa. "Paradoxes, Protests, and the Mujeres de Negro of Northern Mexico." Gender, Place, and Culture 12.3 (2005): 177-192.

[edit] External links

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