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News > May 19, 2003

The Disappeared

In Juárez’s maquiladoras, murders of women continue

By Kari Lydersen

Pink crosses remember the deaths of women in Juárez.

Cuidad Juárez, Mexico—On top of a hillside where a rutted dirt road curves beside a fence made of old mattress springs, the dusty brown and gray landscape is broken by a line of bright-pink wooden crosses adorned with plastic roses.

There is a saying in the area that, if you want to find Juárez, located just across the border from El Paso, Texas, just follow the crosses. And there are a lot of them.

More than 350 women have been murdered in Juárez since 1993, and hundreds more women have disappeared. Most of them fit a similar profile—young women who came from other parts of the country to work in the maquiladoras, the factories on the border that take advantage of Mexico’s cheap labor to produce goods for U.S. and international companies. Many of the women disappeared on their way to or from work, perhaps while waiting for the buses that take them between the maquiladoras and the shantytowns on the outskirts of town in the late-night or predawn hours.

Government records list many of the women as victims of unknown assailants, and many of the victims themselves are unidentified. They list 93 as victims of a serial killer. A chilling number of the murders—178—are listed as incidents of domestic violence. The women were killed by jealous husbands or boyfriends.

For years, the mothers of these women felt like they were alone in the world. When they would report women as disappeared, the police would suggest the women were out with boyfriends—until they turned up in shallow graves, often raped and mutilated.

In the past two years, increasing international attention has been focused on the femicide occurring in Juárez. This spring, the FBI agreed to investigate the killings, and the Organization of American States’ Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has a file open on the murders. On International Women’s Day, March 8, 1,000 people marched in Juárez and El Paso protesting domestic violence and demanding an end to the killings. A documentary about the murders called Señorita Extraviada has been shown on PBS and in cities around the United States.

Yet it is not enough. The disappearances continue, with four more bodies found in February. As chronicled in Señorita Extraviada, many think the police themselves are to blame for some of the murders. “It’s the police doing it; that’s why they won’t investigate,” said a 25-year-old male cafeteria worker after a shift in early March. “That’s what everyone thinks.”

And the culture of sexism and misogyny in the maquiladora sector continues—a culture in which the women who make up over 60 percent of the maquiladora work force are subjected to sexual harassment and abuse on a daily basis. “All the corporations have the same code of conduct—sexual harassment, mandatory pregnancy tests, humiliation,” says Veronica Leiba, a former maquiladora worker who now works for the labor union CETLAC.

Advocates for the maquiladora workers note wages are so low—not even enough to afford a basic basket of necessities for 45 hours of work per week—that some women are forced to turn to prostitution to survive, a lifestyle that makes them especially vulnerable to predators. Meanwhile, a story that has gone largely untold in recent coverage of the murders is that—alleged police connections and serial killers aside—many women are being killed by their domestic partners, not by mysterious, unaccounted-for assailants.

In the most recent attempt to explain the rest of the deaths, the Mexican government announced in early May that it was investigating whether the women had been murdered by organ traffickers. At press time, federal and state authorities continued to fight over who had jurisdiction over the case.

Esther Chavez Cano, founder of Casa Amiga, Juárez’s only domestic violence resource center, sees the murders as part of a larger picture of machismo and oppression of women in Juárez. Jobs are being lost at the maquiladoras as companies look for ever cheaper labor in Asia, she says. “So domestic violence increases, alcoholism increases. The men don’t have work, and they feel like they are supposed to be the supporters of the family, so they are frustrated, and they abuse.”

A number of U.S. and Mexican feminists and activists have remarked on the seeming absence of men from the frontlines of the fight to end the disappearances in Juárez, including the women’s own fathers, boyfriends or other male family members. But it also underscores the fact that beyond the gruesome murders lies a border culture rife with the attitude that women are expendable—a culture that allows this femicide to keep happening.
Kari Lydersen writes for the Washington Post out of the Midwest bureau and just published a book, Out of the Sea and Into the Fire: Latin American-US Immigration in the Global Age.

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  • Reader Comments

    I live here, on this hemorraging border, the limbo state. There is an open call to all violent predators, that on the border there are no rights, that you can kill women, or better said young, oh so young ladies at will with no repurcussions.  everyone is to blame, from the Mexican police, to our own government, for NAFTA, the thug aggreement between the few, has fermented a stifling, repugnant state of desperation and poverty.  Yet we balame the migrants for attempting to survive.  These young, usually poor maquiladora working ladies (one of the youngest was ten years old, she suffered four heart attacks during her assasination) continue to be victims of our world of indifference, greed and capatalism. 
    NI UNA MAS!  NOT ONE MORE! 
    we shout out that not one more person should be a victim.  Last week, police in Juarez, found the tortured body of a nine-year old boy...the culture of violence is not exclusively genderized, it bleeds into all aspects of border life, it does not respect the fences between nations.  And this has been called the laboratory of the future.  Is this what your future will look like America?  Free trade is neither free, nor about trade, and now the few want to have “free trade aggrements” with the all of the world, they seek markets, not caring about how it manifests itself, tangibly violent.  who will persecute and prosecute the economic terrorists who are to blame for atrocity after atrocity, and who are concocting more?

    Posted by Teresa Beard on May 23, 2003 at 11:31 AM

    Would like to learn more about the current state of labor standards in the maquilladors… what corporations are emplying workers there?

    Posted by DMAX on May 24, 2003 at 5:56 PM

    “NAFTA, the thug aggreement between the few, has fermented a stifling, repugnant state of desperation and poverty”

    Could you explain?

    “one of the youngest was ten years old, she suffered four heart attacks during her assasination”

    Could you explain why you made up such nonsense?

    Posted by Nus on May 28, 2003 at 3:27 PM

    “can you explain” Why is it made-up? Because YOU don’t believe it? Have you not heard “that the truth can be stranger than fiction”? There is a war going on against women and has been going on for years. bush is a part of this war aginst women: look at his record? Men “love” women but only for sex? And are and have been unable to accept the fact that most women are smarter than they are. If you were stranded anywhere who would want some smelly, beer swilling thug polluting the air with farts and other annoying personal hygine “habits”? I will take a well read WOMEN anytime! Knowing that she is going to be good company too.  Put that in your peacepipe and smoke it!

    Posted by Chief Joseph on May 29, 2003 at 5:41 PM

    I work with an orphanage in Mexico over the summer and have become very intersested in human rights issues all over Mexico, especially those that deal with the US-Mexico border. These murders are disgusting and I am still at a complete loss when it comes to action, prevention, and justice on the United State’s part. Has anything at all been initiated by US government to do anything about these horrendous murders? It is still beyond my level of comprehension that people are so ignorant to things like this

    Posted by Emily on May 31, 2003 at 12:26 PM

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