NAFTA:
It is important to recognize that the femicide in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua does not exist in a vacuum. The problem has it’s roots in the economic disparity that ravages the US-Mexico border, and we are already seeing this problem spread to other cities facing the same problems.

These murders really accelerated in 1994-1995, which is significant because it was the first few years after the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. This was a time period when we began to see massive migration of people from the Mexican rural countryside to the cities. Most of these migrants were young men and women, coming alone or with little support structure, trying to earn money to send home to their families. This was because of an economic agricultural crisis created by NAFTA.

NAFTA, a trade agreement designed to eliminate barriers to trade, forced Mexico to reduce price supports for Mexican agricultural producers to "level the playing field" for US producers to sell their goods on the Mexican market. However, the US, through a major loophole in NAFTA was allowed to raise already high tax-payer subsidize for our agricultural producers. We did this largely to compete with the European Union and Japan which also heavily subsidize their agricultural producers. However, these subsidies have allowedproducers in powerful industrial countries to drastically undercut producers in the developing world. For example, in Mexico, US subsidized corn is being sold at about 33% below the actual cost of production. This means that Mexican farmers simply can’t compete. Not because they don’t produce corn efficiently, but because they don’t receive the kind of tax payer subsidies that US producers receive.

Now in the US, a very small percentage of the population still farms the land. Most funding is done by a handful of large-agribusiness companies. In fact, the few small farmers left in this country receive very little support. 70% of subsidies go to only 30% of the producers. In Mexico, on the other hand, about a quarter of the population still relies on farming as their primary source of income. This population has been devastated by the flooding of cheap-subsidized agricultural products on the Mexican market. About 1.5 million farmers have had to leave their land and look for work in other sectors. They are moving to the cities, especially along the US-Mexico border, looking for work in the maquiladoras (factories that produce for export), or they are attempting to immigrate to the US, often as undocumented workers, to look for work they desperately need to feed their families.

This migration has created a class of desperately poorand unprotected people, especially women, along the US-Mexico border. In fact, many of the femicide victims were workers in US-owned companies. Most of the victims had not lived in the region for more than a few years. Some of the bodies are unidentified and it is thought that they may be migrants from southern Mexico or Central America who simply don’t have family in the area who know they are missing. Wages in the factories have gone progressively down in the years since NAFTA was implemented as factories replace their workers regularly with new migrants to the area more desperate for work and willing to work for even lower wages.

Women, like workers in the region, are treated as disposable commodities. Something to be used up and thrown away.

Femicides of Juarez and Chihuahua

For more than a decade, the cities of Chihuahua and Juarez, near the US-Mexico border, have been killing fields for young women, the site of over 400 unsolved femicides. Despite the horrific nature of these crimes, authorities at all levels exhibit indifference, and there is strong evidence that some officials may be involved. Impunity and corruption has permitted the criminals, whoever they are, to continue committing these acts, knowing there will be no consequences.

A significant number of victims work in the maquiladora sector - sweatshops that produce for export with 90% destined for the United States. The maquiladoras employ mainly young women at poverty level wages. In combination with lax environmental regulations and low tariffs under the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the maquiladoras are amassing tremendous wealth. Yet despite the crime wave, they offer almost no protection for their workers. High profile government campaigns such as Ponte Vista (Be Aware), a self defense program, and supplying women with whistles have been ineffective and are carried out mainly for public relations purposes.

Small advances in the struggle for justice are due to the perseverance of victims' families who cannot be silenced despite the efforts of state and federal authorities to keep them quiet. Campaigns by local, national and international non-governmental organizations are also important. Often grassroots groups work in a climate of threats and defamation by government officials for making one simple demand - STOP THE FEMICIDE!