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By: Amber Russell

Posted: 3/27/08

Femicide, which is a relatively new term, means the systematic killing of women. This term is well known in Juarez, Mexico because of the many brutal murders that occur there every year. In the past 15 years femicide has become a horrifying trend plaguing the town's young, migrant female workers and students.

"Women in Mexico are devalued. They are sold into the sex trade or have their organs harvested for a profit," said Barbara Martinez Jitner, a Latin American producer, writer and director who came to speak at Webster University. "They are worth more dead than alive."

Since 1993 over 450 young women, who are predominately factory workers, have been abducted, raped, assaulted and murdered - many found with their organs harvested - in Juarez, Mexico, said Martinez Jitner.

No one has been held accountable for these crimes.

Her lecture, titled "Femicide at Our U.S. Border: To Be a Woman in Juarez is a Death Sentence" was held March 19 in the University Center Sunnen Lounge.

"This (lecture) was overwhelming. It's amazing that this could happen for 15 years and the government and media don't show it at all to the public," said Lauren Beck, a freshman international relations major.

The lecture was accompanied by Martinez Jitner's documentary "La Frontera," which means "The Border" in Spanish. The documentary portrayed the life and struggle of an indigenous woman of Oaxaca, Mexico. Eva Canseco migrated from her homeland in Oaxaca to Tijuana, Mexico to work in a factory. She was fired because she was too old. Canseco was only 30.

"The border factories want women workers because women will accept whatever they pay us," Canseco said.

Martinez Jitner is on tour during March for International Women's Month in order to bring awareness to this growing epidemic. Femicide is spreading throughout Mexico, from the border towns of Juarez and Chihuahua to as far south as Guatemala. In a substantial number of cases, the women were very young, about 14 or 15. The factories in question are Mexican divisionsof U.S. companies that have been established along the United States-Mexico border. There are 1,000 factories in Juarez alone. Juarez is located directly across the border from El Paso, Texas.

Ngozi Williams, a junior international relations and human rights major, said she has not heard about femicide in Mexico in any of her classes at WU. She said people are unaware of this problem because some Americans don't consider Mexico an international country.

"My assumption as to why no one has been discussing this issue may be because (Mexico) is so close," Williams said. "How can anything so atrocious be happening right next door to us?"

Martinez Jitner posed as a factory worker in a border town to uncover the harsh working conditions and violence associated with the factories. She said female factory workers put in 10-hour shifts at all hours of the night and day. They are forced to live in shantytowns on the outskirts of the city because they cannot afford to pay rent. These struggling young women are abducted along their long walks to and from the factories. The companies they are employed with provide no security for the workers. There are no streetlights because there is no electricity, and no one is around to protect them from being kidnapped by unknown assailants.

Martinez Jitner said these women are considered an "expendable workforce" by the corporations they are employed with and have, in the process, become expendable human beings. In Mexico, there is a caste system where the poor and uneducated are treated as lower life forms and women are considered inferior to men.

Public awareness is the most effective way both Mexicans and Americans can combat this violence toward women and bring justice to the offenders, according to international human rights groups and the families of the victims. Martinez Jitner suggested signing a petition on the Amnesty International Web site, www.amnestyusa.org.

"The Mexican government is providing little or no help investigating the disappearances and the murders of these young women," said Martinez Jitner.

Martinez Jitner is one of the first Latina executive producers of a primetime network television series, "American Family." She is an Emmy award winner, as well as a four-time Golden Globe nominee. Martinez Jitner has worked in television and film as a writer, director and producer. She is also a documentary filmmaker. She has worked on such films as "Selena," "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" and "Bordertown," which is based upon true events surrounding the violence and murders in Juarez.

Many families of missing women are conducting their own investigations. They are seeking help from the American government, the United Nations and international human rights organizations. The mothers of the missing women have formed protest groups in an effort to reveal the government's lack of interest. The groups also condemn the law enforcement officials for their lax investigative procedures and failure to arrest and prosecute those responsible for these crimes.

One such organization, Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa, which means "May Our Daughters Return Home," has a Web site with information on the abductions and killings as well as a petition to the Mexican government to find the missing girls. Nuestras Hijas' Web site is www.mujeresdejuarez.org.

This Web site and countless others, along with Martinez Jitner's lecture tour, all have one primary purpose: to make the world aware of the missing and murdered women and to show the inefficacy of their government to stop and prevent these horrific crimes.

"Their government along with the U.S. government, do not care about this situation because they are making money off of this through NAFTA," said Emily Kothe, a junior English and international human rights major.


NAFTA


The citizens of Mexico and many international human rights organizations believe there is a correlation between the abductions, rapes and murders in the border towns of Mexico and the North American Free
Trade Agreement.

In 1993, NAFTA brought about free trade between Mexico and the United States. Many American businesses opened assembly plants along the Mexican border to pay low wages to migrant Mexican workers. General Electric, DuPont, Panasonic, The Gap and RCA are some of the factories who have set up shop in Mexico.

During his time as president of Mexico, Carlos Salinas de Gortari changed the Mexican Constitution. He served from 1988 to 1994, and in that time he made changes that require indigenous peoples (natives of Mexico) to pay taxes on the land they own. Many of these families moved to border towns to work at the new factories so they could pay the taxes on their land.

NAFTA requires companies to pay workers a living wage. The workers make $5 a day. The migration to border towns was supposed to be temporary for many families - just to make enough money to pay the taxes they owed on their land. But this Third-World wage of $5 a day couldn't stand up to the First-World (U.S.) prices for goods and services in the border towns.

The female workers are treated harshly by their male superiors in the factories and when they disappear, the government doesn't consider the case a high priority.

Barbara Martinez Jitner, a Latina television producer, went undercover in a NAFTA factory in Mexico in order to investigate the poverty, abuse and abductions connected to the border town factories.

She said the Mexican government will not recognize these crimes. The government will try to silence groups who are fighting for justice for their daughters by offering them a house and a small amount of money.

Martinez Jitner said these people are displaced with nowhere to go, and that is a major factor in the increased border security. She said the Central American Free Trade Agreement will cause many of the Mexico-based factories to move south to Central America, and the displaced migrant workers will then come to the United States.

"There is a definite correlation with the mass femicide in Juarez and the factories, but they don't want to be held liable," Martinez Jitner said. "That's why the companies want to get out of the border towns and head to Central America as fast
as possible."

Martinez Jitner said the U.S. government is aware of the problem and is anticipating a surge of illegal immigrants from Mexico if the factories move south and leave many workers without jobs. She also said this is the main reason for the increased security at the border and the reason for the border wall.

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© Copyright 2008 The Journal

 

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