Their bodies lie on the desert floor, crying out to a public that has lost too many of its own. They seem to wonder how many more have to fall before authorities commit themselves to an investigation of those responsible for the homicides that have devastated Ciudad Juarez, which sits on the Mexican side of the U.S.-Mexican border. Over the past decade, hundreds of women have been murdered in this city, and while all of the cases remain unsolved, public outrage over the nostalgic investigatory effort of Mexican authorities into these crimes intensifies daily.
Since the inception of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1992, over three hundred maquiladoras – large production plants set up primarily by American corporations in order to avoid tariffs and use cheap, Mexican labor – have opened in Ciudad Juarez. Women make up over 70 percent of the maquiladora workforce in Ciudad Juarez, and since most of them live miles from their respective factories, they have to take buses to and from work. The relatively comfortable conditions of the maquiladora contrast sharply those of the shantytowns in which most of their employees live. In fact, buses returning night-shift workers usually stop at the outskirts of these towns, leaving workers with a considerable walk to their houses. Many of the women never make it home.
Their bodies are found dead, usually raped, and often mutilated. The exact number of women killed in this border area over the past decade is disputed. Some accounts put the number of murders at around 600, adding that there have been at least that many disappearances. Others put the figure substantially lower. The Associated Press puts the number of murdered women at 340. While the exact figure remains blurry, one thing is painfully clear: hundreds of women have fallen victim to a vicious murder spree in Ciudad Juarez, and all of their cases remain unsolved.
Authorities in Ciudad Juarez have been accused of lackadaisically investigating the murders and even playing a part in the crimes themselves. Only a handful of arrests have been made in connection with the homicides, and they were unsatisfactory to the families of the victims. When the suspects were brought to trial, many of the families, unconvinced the people in custody were the true perpetrators, offered to pay for DNA testing, which they felt would show that authorities had arrested innocent people and further their belief that authorities may have been involved in the crimes. However, the families’ offer was rejected and the trials went ahead as planned.
Recently, NGOs and other groups have pressured officials in Ciudad Juarez, as well as officials at the state and national level, to conduct a more thorough investigation of the crimes. Moreover, a United Nations team was formed to look into the deaths and disappearances. This September, the government in the state of Chihuahua, of which Ciudad Juarez is a part, offered forty-seven 235-square-foot homes and their surrounding lots, which are each said to be worth $12,000, to some of the victims’ families. The offer, however, lacked a promise by authorities that they would step up their efforts to find, arrest and convict those responsible for the killings. The offer actually upset some activists who claim it to be another example of authorities sidestepping their responsibilities to the victims’ families and an attempt to shift the focus away from the lack of results in their investigation.
So when will the killings stop? When will the tormented families of the fallen women find solace? When will the killers be found and brought to justice? While I don’t have the answers to these questions, having grown up along the border in Southern New Mexico I’ve experienced first-hand the spirit, courage, and resiliency of the Mexican people living in Ciudad Juarez, even in the face of these unthinkable atrocities. Large protests have been held in the border city demanding a more effective investigation. Recently, the city’s first rape crisis center was opened.
It is apparent that the people of Ciudad Juarez are capable of pulling themselves up by the bootstraps. However, it would be ignoble of us, the GW student community, to turn our back on the incredible injustice occurring just south of the U.S.-Mexican border. Let us not ignore this cruel reality, but rather, let us embrace the grieving families and do everything we can to end their suffering. Spread their story. Engage in, and write letters of, protest. Do anything you can to make sure that those responsible for the killings in Ciudad Juarez do not go unpunished. For, as Cedric Bixler proclaims in his band At The Drive Inn’s song entitled “Invalid Litter Department,” which was written in response to the murders, if we turn the other cheek, we will be “dancing on the corpses’ ashes.”
– The writer is a sophomore, majoring in international affairs.
