Claudia Ivette, Lupita, Brenda, Esmeralda, Barbara, Veronica, Desconocida, Laura Berenice… These are the names of eight young women, who were found assaulted and murdered on a field in Juårez in 2001.
Today, I watched the crosses that have been put on that field to commemorate these women - plain wooden crosses, painted in pink, with the women’s names. There were also two other crosses there, with no names since they represent women who were never identified, and a large “cross” of flowers laid out on the ground in front of the wooden crosses.
More than 350 women have been killed in the city of Juárez the last decade. NGO’s working with women and human rights claim they are victims of organized criminals, with ties to the business community, local politicans or drug cartels (all of which might also be tied to each other). The Mexican judicial system has received strong international criticism, for example from Amnesty, for its failure to investigate these cases. The federal government has put a “special commission” into place, but the activists that I spoke with today said this is merely something it has done to please the international community; nothing really happens, they say.
Local authorities say that no particular pattern shows these women were actually murdered by organized serial killers. But what the women all had in common is they were very young (often teenagers) and very poor. Most of them had come to Juárez from other parts of Mexico, in order to look for jobs in the apparel industry (maquiladoras), since there are no jobs to be had in many parts of the county.
If they get jobs, it is usually paid with something like $4 a day, and they have to walk very long to the factories from their homes - often in so called “colonias populares” which is nice word for slum areas (here in the desert). So, they are vulnerable - and hence easy victims. Many more young men than women get killed in Juárez, but they are typically members of violent gangs or involved in drug business.
It was staff from Casa Amiga that took me to the crosses. Casa Amiga is a crisis center and shelter, which receives women who have been abused by their husbands or boy-friends (it’s the only organization working with domestic violence in this city of 1 700 000). They said men are threatening their partners, saying they will kill them if they dare going to Casa Amiga. This is because they believe they could get away with it in Juárez…
Casa Amiga Centro de Crisis AC
Tomorrow or on Saturday, I will try going back to Juárez (which is glued together with the Texas city of El Paso, where I am staying and where I am writing this), and hopefully I will get to meet members of families of the victims.
I am also trying to get hold of a labour rights activist, who will tell me about local protests to Electrolux’ new fridge factory in Juárez. I am very curious of that story – since you all know, Electrolux has been met with all kinds of protests in for example Västervik, Sweden and Greenville, Michigan, for the _closure_ of its factories there. It is the Greenville factory that will open up here - so you would think people would be happy for job opportunities. Protests typically would come after a factory has opened, if it offers bad conditions, not before. But I will have to see and find out what this is all about!
Gunilla
