MEXICO: Ciudad Juarez- Women in Leading Edge of Social Violence

Date: 
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Source: 
Internal Voices
Countries: 
Americas
North America
PeaceWomen Consolidated Themes: 
Protection
Sexual and Gender-Based Violence

As underlined in the World Health Organization (WHO) report of 2005 on ‘Violence against Women and Achieving the Millenium Development Goals', violence against women is a major obstacle for development. Nevertheless, even though they constitute an obvious violation of human rights, some of these cases of violence continue to have an unjustifiably low priority. One of the best examples is the case of the feminicides of Ciudad Juarez.

Ciudad Juarez is Mexico's sixth-biggest city and is situated in the border State of Chihuahua just next to the US city of El Paso in Texas. It is known to be the most dangerous city in the world and a center for drug trafficking and corruption.

The city has become commonly known as the world's capital of feminicides. This is a theoretical concept developed in the ‘70s to give a name to a type of crime perpetrated against women. In this article, feminicides should thus be understood as an expression of extreme violence against women, based on gender inequality and which involves the responsibility of the State.

Since January 1993 – when the first body of a young woman who had been raped, tortured and killed was discovered - hundreds of women have been killed every year in Ciudad Juarez. In 2009 only, more than 300 women have been victims of feminicides. Most of the victims are between the ages of 15 and 30. In addition to this, local authorities have registered more than 2,000 disappearances since 1993.

While hundreds of women killed in Juarez have suffered rape and death by strangulation, others have been killed by firearms or beaten to death, an occurrence more commonly derived from domestic abuse. In these crimes, a common point must be underlined: they all reflect the will to attack the physical and psychological identity of the victims, all of them women.

At the same time, Ciudad Juarez is also the prime location of Maquiladoras, American and Canadian manufacturing factories. Women play an important role in this globalization process: 90% of the maquiladoras workers are young women. Juarez is now faced with economically independent women in a system which used to be mainly patriarchal. Women, previously working in rural areas or in the family, became independent but not respected and thus, directly exposed to society's violence.

The establishment of global industry and the border situation of the city have consequences on the city itself. It has created a spectacular growth in population as well as important changes in the city's infrastructure. Those who have and will arrive in Ciudad Juarez have to create their own space to live and this space is usually in deserted and generally deprived areas. This puts the residents of Juarez, especially the women, in a dangerous situation. Either they live in deserted areas or they live in the city centre which has been virtually taken over by drug cartels and is characterized by corruption.

The most striking aspect of the feminicides of Juarez is the fact that the perpetrators of these crimes have been living in impunity for nearly 20 years. Two main avenues of reasoning can explain this: Juarez's geographical location on the border of the US and Mexico; and cultural and social factors.

First of all, the border's characteristics cause a failure to establish security in the area. Within the federal system, the articulation between the national and the local authorities is not coordinated enough to permit transparency and efficiency of actions. The presence of drug cartels and corruption further limits the police's ability to take action. Moreover, the establishment of international global industries makes the Mexican State's action against feminicides even more complicated. The border zone is a cultural, economical and political space which is neither American, nor Mexican. For all of the above reasons there is an absence of safety and lack of control over violence on the border.

Second of all, the impunity is also due to the confrontation between patriarchal, social and cultural historical factors of the country and the new democratic values. Even if reforms at the legal level are taking place, it is very difficult to implement them. Women are not particularly aware of their rights and when they are, their prevailing mentality, education or social backgrounds can easily prevent them from getting access to protection or justice.

Nevertheless, and even if it is still not sufficient, the issue of feminicides and the unjustifiable impunity is gaining visibility at an international level. These headways are mainly due to the pressure of civil and international society.

Unlike Guatemala, which adopted a law against feminicides, there is not currently a law in Mexico at the federal level concerning the feminicides. However, Mexico is now part of human rights conventions like the Organization of American States Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence Against Women – ‘Convention of Belém Do Pará' - or the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court which recognizes the strong need to end impunity for the most serious of crimes.

As a consequence, on the 10th of December 2009, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights held Mexico in violation of obligations set up in the American Convention of Human Rights and the Convention Belém do Pará for the death of three young women in Juarez. This is a first step towards international recognition of the feminicides issue. This may result in the condemnation of Central American states for their failure to guarantee women's right to life.

From now on, all eyes should turn to the application and the practical consequences of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights' sentence.