Juarez Murders Just Tip Of Iceberg

by Adrian Reyes

(IPS) MEXICO CITY-- A Mexican congressional commission is drawing up a nationwide map of murders of women, which totalled 625 in just four of the country's 31 states last year alone -- almost double the number recorded since 1993 in Ciudad Juarez, which has gained international notoriety over the past decade.

In the case of Ciudad Juarez, located on Mexico's northern border with the United States, drug traffickers and pornography rings have been singled out as the prime suspects.

Yet the problem is not limited to this one highly publicized city. Preliminary figures provided by state prosecutors to Mexico's lower house of Congress reveal that in 2004, 112 women were murdered in the northern state of Baja California, which also borders on the United States, as well as 203 in the impoverished southern state of Chiapas, which shares a border with Guatemala, 204 in the southwestern state of Veracruz, on the Gulf of Mexico, and 106 in the federal capital, Mexico City.

The first nationwide report on murders of women and the principal causes behind them will be released between October of this year and January 2006, according to parliamentary Deputy Ruth Hernandez, a representative of the ruling National Action Party (PAN) and member of the Special Commission to Monitor Investigations Related to Femicide.

"Violent murders of women are not a new phenomenon," Hernandez told IPS. "This is something that has been happening for some time now, which the prevailing culture of impunity has served to cover up and minimise. We need to take stock of the situation in our country and correct our laws."

The study will not be limited to gathering statistics from the last five years. It will include analysis conducted by researchers at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the Colegio de Mexico and the Colegio de la Frontera Norte.

A number of civil society organizations are also contributing the knowledge and experience they have accumulated in confronting this issue.

The report is intended to serve as the basis for reorienting efforts to fight this type of violence, which often takes the form of "crimes of hatred against women," especially in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, said Hernandez.

In Mexico, she added, there is a culture of violence and impunity fostered by certain ingrained habits among the authorities, who classify these crimes as "simple homicides," turning a blind eye to underlying patterns.

Moreover, police investigators frequently lack the methods needed to properly evaluate and handle evidence, while judges often pass down rulings that continue to allow these murders to go unpunished.

Hernandez underlined the need to have a full picture of the current reality in order for Congress to reform laws and establish severe sanctions for public officials who foster impunity for these kinds of crimes through negligence, ignorance, or even complicity.

"Violence against women is neither new nor exclusive to Mexico, but we have to make our own situation more visible in order to confront it and implement solutions. Impunity prevails in Mexico because there has been no serious study and analysis of what is happening throughout the country," said the lawmaker.

Esther Chavez, a representative of the non-governmental organization Casa Amiga, based in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua -- where Ciudad Juarez is located -- told IPS that solving the more than 300 murders of women in this border town is one of the biggest challenges facing the current and future governments.

"We believe that drug traffickers have overpowered the state along the U.S. border, which is why they can act with such violence towards women," she said.

As long as the local and federal authorities fail to properly investigate these murders, and limit themselves to locking up innocent people now and then to make it look like they are making progress in the war on crime, Ciudad Juarez will continue to send out the "macabre message" that "we women can be used and thrown away like garbage, without anyone saying anything about it," she added.

Chavez believes that the current administration of President Vicente Fox has shown greater interest in investigating the murders in Ciudad Juarez than that of his predecessor, Ernesto Zedillo (1994-2000).

Nevertheless, the bodies of murdered, mutilated and sexually abused women continue to show up regularly in the nearby desert and garbage dumps.

"Ciudad Juarez is the most widely known case, but we also need to analyze what is happening in the rest of the country, for measures to be adopted that guarantee gender equity," Marisa Belausteguigoitia, director of UNAM's gender studies program, said in an interview with IPS.

Belausteguigoitia is a member of a multidisciplinary team of experts working with Mexican legislators to delve into the causes behind the murders and propose methodology for investigation of these crimes.

Both Belausteguigoitia and Chavez see the marks of drug trafficking, the so-called "white slave trade," pornography rings and domestic violence in the murders committed in Ciudad Juarez. Neither gives much credence to the theory that the crimes are related to the traffic in human organs.

The UNAM researcher said that the federal Attorney General's Office should take over control of the investigations, since the drug trafficking industry is apparently involved.

The preliminary reports gathered by the Chamber of Deputies indicate that violence against women culminating in murder is most persistent in Mexico City and the states of Baja California, Chiapas and Veracruz, followed by the southern state of Campeche; Chihuahua, Mexico and Morelos (both of them in close proximity to the federal capital); Sinaloa in the northwest; and Quintano Roo in the southeast.