Ciudad Juarez is a Mexican border city in the state of Chihuahua, opposite the city of El Paso, Texas. The two are separated by a ‘highway’ that acts as national border, and it is a boundary lined by layers of fence. The fences are supposed to be barriers to cross-border transit, but who knows what happens in the world of the criminally powerful because perhaps this border is meaningless to them.
Regardless, the city is home to an extraordinary amount of killing and the world hears the reports of endless gunplay and countless massacres in the drug-gang warfare that has been raging for the past few years in northern Mexico. Well, this city is one of the free-fire zones. Hundreds of people a year are murdered in Ciudad Juarez, even, “women and young girls have been slain in gangland-style shootings, in acts of domestic violence and in sexual assaults.” [Wikipedia]
A crisis centre in the Mexican city recorded seventeen cases of femicide occurring between January 1, 2008 and May 5, 2008. Victims ranged in age from ten to forty-eight years old. None could be identified. Earlier in the decade a forensic artist from New York City accepted an assignment from a Chihuahua state official to assist in identifying victims, and he decided the state police apparatus contained elements “likely behind numerous rapes and killings.”
Some of the femicide victims are killed in their homes, others are left in fields surrounding the city to be devoured by animals. Femicide victims are found surrounded with brazen evidence of their last minutes – such as a profusion of condoms. Others are thrown from cars, others are found in hotel rooms shot to death with a hundred bullets. Fifteen year old school girls disappear from bus stops after chumming with friends. The remains of countless victims are never identified, and by some speculation, far more often, never found.
Some of the femicide victims are killed in their homes, others are left in fields surrounding the city to be devoured by animals. Femicide victims are found surrounded with brazen evidence of their last minutes – such as a profusion of condoms. Others are thrown from cars, others are found in hotel rooms shot to death with a hundred bullets. Fifteen year old school girls disappear from bus stops after chumming with friends. The remains of countless victims are never identified, and by some speculation, far more often, never found.
There are plenty of reports and backgrounders on the internet, and Amnesty International has taken up the cause on the behalf of so many families searching for the women. The seriousness has grown steadily over the past ten years and shows no sign of abating, but it’s becoming clear these are ritualistic sex crimes. The shocking number of disappearing girls also speaks to the high likelihood of human trafficking in the sex trade.
