The Juarez Project

A Concert for the Women of Juarez

Ni UNA MAS — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 18:31:00 GMT

Skulls and faces: Investigations and the pursuit of justice for women in Juarez

Ni UNA MAS — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 23:02:00 GMT

Skulls and faces: Investigations and the pursuit of justice for women in Juarez

by Kent Paterson

After weeks in Ciudad Juarez, Bender, there to help identify victims, came to a disturbing conclusion: Chihuahua state police officers, the same public servants charged with solving the women’s murders, were likely behind numerous rapes and killings.

Posted on July 11, 2008

Frank Bender once slept with the skulls of murdered women in the comfy quarters of Ciudad Juarez’s Hotel Lucerna. An expert forensic artist with an international reputation for solving cold murder cases, Bender was under contract with the Chihuahua state government to reconstruct and paint the faces of anonymous female murder victims.

“I started imagining these women alive,” Bender said of the skulls during a recent phone interview. “They almost started interacting to me like they were on a metro together on their way to work in the morning. They started like getting a life of their own at that point.”

Invited by his friend Robert Ressler, the famed FBI serial killer profiler, Bender touched down on Mexican territory at a forensic sciences conference held in Chihuahua City in August 2003. There Bender met Jesus Jose “Chito” Solis Silva, Chihuahua’s state attorney general at the time, who in turn introduced the U.S. artist to then-Gov. Patricio Martinez. A surprised Bender was asked by Martinez to come to Chihuahua to help identify femicide victims.

After some haggling, during the fall of 2003 Bender was put up in the Hotel Lucerna on Ciudad Juarez’s Paseo del Triunfo de la Republica and given five skulls to work on by the Chihuahua State Attorney General’s Office (PGJE), the agency in charge of investigating and solving the femicides.

Bender’s Ciudad Juarez experiences are recounted in his biography, "The Girl with the Crooked Nose," written by New York City-based author Ted Botha and published by Random House. Although the book chronicles Bender’s life and work in the United States, and details the veteran artist’s key role in successfully indentifying murder victims and in capturing elusive fugitives, a good portion of the story deals with Ciudad Juarez.

Bender’s background as a budding child artist, creative adult photographer and an astute observer of the human species made the American a promising pick for the Ciudad Juarez probe despite his lack of familiarity with Mexico and the Spanish language, according to author Botha.

To guide his work, Bender studied women he saw in Ciudad Juarez’s streets -- their hair styles, make-up, skin tones and other defining traits that would assist him, in his own words, with harmonizing the face with the skull. “It’s like music or dance,” he said. “You get one note wrong or one step wrong, you can feel it, you can see it and you can change it to go with the flow of the others.”

The Philadelphia resident had no idea what he was stepping into across the Rio Grande. Practicing a difficult trade even under the best of circumstances, Bender underwent a rude awakening in Ciudad Juarez. He soon stumbled across a Mexican police “investigation” in which recovered male and female body parts were mixed and important files missing. He even later compared the insecure evidence room in the old state police academy with a “pig sty.” The building had been burgled and files stolen after Ressler was brought on the scene by Chihuahua state authorities in 1998, Bender learned.

Bender’s impressions of the state of the femicide investigation were made long after former Women’s Homicides Special Prosecutor Suly Ponce assured reporters that the PGJE had cleaned up its much-assailed act.

While he was in Ciudad Juarez, Bender worked closely with the PGJE’s Manuel Esparza Navarette, another ex- special prosecutor who also served as the state law enforcement agency’s liaison to the FBI and acted as media spokesman. Esparza was eventually named by former federal Special Prosecutor Maria Lopez Urbina as among numerous Chihuahua law enforcement officials who had been remiss in the femicide investigations.

Bender hit it off well with the English language-fluent Esparza, but the U.S. contractor quickly grew alarmed by inconsistencies and strange happenings that marked his first Ciudad Juarez stay. Early on, for example, Bender learned that the PGJE openly called supporters of victims’ relatives like Amnesty International “the enemy.”

Unknown to Bender as he painted evenings away with the skulls, the state police night shift commander in Ciudad Juarez, Miguel Loya, and other officers employed by the PGJE were at the height of their alleged involvement in the infamous “House of Death” ring that kidnapped and executed victims -- mainly men but reportedly a woman and a child as well -- for the Juarez drug cartel.

One evening, Bender and Ed Barnes, a reporter for Fox News, were taken by PGJE personnel to a restaurant for a dinner that turned into a vomit-filled stupor. Bender charged he and his globe-trotting buddy were drugged by an unknown sedative likely slipped into the two men’s margaritas.

The incident happened at the especially sensitive moment for the Mexican government. A U.S. Congressional delegation led by Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.) was in town, touring
places where women’s bodies had been dumped and speaking to residents. Much to the reported dismay of Chito Solis, Barnes, meanwhile, was attempting to interview the mothers of femicide victims. In at least two instances, Barnes was informed by mothers that policemen were implicated in their daughters’ disappearances.

After weeks in Ciudad Juarez, Bender came to a disturbing conclusion: Chihuahua state police officers, the same public servants charged with solving the women’s murders, were likely behind numerous rapes and killings.

Bender based his hypothesis on conversations with Chihuahua state policemen who revealed to him sex parties attended by fellow officers. He heard how a couple parties were raided by Chihuahua state cops who did not know “their own people were there.” No legal action resulted against the policemen, Bender said, adding the sex parties could have been initiation rites for soldiers and policemen into the ranks of organized crime.

“You got to prove yourself to work for these people,” Bender contended. “So they have these wild parties and rape and kill a woman and then earn their keep in the cartel.”

Bender’s hypothesis has a lot in common with one propounded by Brazilian anthropologist and organized crime expert Rita Laura Segato, who observed territorial marking, cryptic messaging and criminal in-group bonding in the Ciudad Juarez femicides.

If Bender and Segato are on target, their theories could provide clues to why the bodies of murdered women were found planted near the former state police academy in Ciudad Juarez as well as in the vicinity of the Chihuahua state police headquarters outside Chihuahua City. Most recently, a murdered woman was found near the PGJE’s Ciudad Juarez offices after Mother’s Day this year.

Bender’s sex party revelations are not entirely new. El Paso author Diana Washington Valdez and Mexico City writer Sergio Gonzalez Rodriguez both have reported about the existence of such orgies in the past. But coming from an insider, Bender’s information adds extra credence to an aborted line of investigation.

It could also help explain the now seemingly-forgotten Hector Lastra affair of 2004, a scandal which erupted when the official in charge of screening murder investigations for the PGJE was arrested for running a teenage prostitution ring that allegedly catered to prominent businessmen. Lastra was released on bail and disappeared from public view.

In a 2006 interview, Guadalupe Morfin, who was winding up her stint as President Vicente Fox’s special anti-violence commissioner for Ciudad Juarez, said she considered Lastra affair a critical lead that needed to be thoroughly investigated. Morfin was appointed a federal special prosecutor for crimes against women and human trafficking by the Calderon administration earlier this year, but it remains to be seen if the Lastra affair will be revisited in any meaningful way. According to the Mexico City-based Cimac news service, Morfin’s new mandate excludes cases defined as falling under the rubric of “organized crime.”

In his biography, Bender raises questions about the role of a U.S. citizen, Stephen L. Slater, in the femicide probe. A former New Mexico state policeman and an ex-director of the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy, Slater had enjoyed a long relationship with Chihuahua Gov. Martinez dating back to the early 1990s. Serving as a public safety advisor for the Mexican politician, Slater was asked by Gov. Martinez to take over the femicide investigation in 2003.

Bender calls Slater “the mystery man,” whom he never saw in his office.
Contacted by phone, Slater defended his work and the efforts of Chihuahua state policemen under his direction. Acknowledging he “called the shots” in the femicide investigation for several months in 2003, Slater said he was sensitive of his role as a U.S. citizen in a Mexican law enforcement issue, especially one which was receiving growing international scrutiny. Consequently, Slater tried to keep as low a profile as possible, he said.

According to the veteran ex-cop, he pulled out all the stops to get to the bottom of the femicides. For this reason, Slater enlisted the aid of Ressler and Bender, among others.

“We did our very best, I swear we did,” Slater insisted. “I’ve spent a lot of time in my life thinking about the homicides.” Now retired, Slater said the probe was making some headway before cases suddenly got “cold” or were taken out of his hands. Deciding he could make no further progress, Slater resigned and moved back to the U.S.

Bender also left Ciudad Juarez with a bitter after-taste in his mouth. Looking back, he said the professional disarray he encountered was no accident, but a system of “chaos by design” to protect the criminally powerful.

The 67-year-old artist decided he at least accomplished something positive during multiple trips: his facial reconstructions led to the identifications of three victims, he added, making the tense work worth all the trouble and danger. Especially inspiring for the American, were the ordinary women who recognized Bender from news photos and approached him in restaurants to say they were praying his work would help solve the femicides.

“It was so genuine, so from the women’s hearts, I could not refuse. I mean, I could not wait to get back,” Bender remembered. Asked if he would return to Ciudad Juarez to help identify other unidentified femicide victims, Bender replied with a resounding, “Yes!”

If the forensic sculptor and artist were to return to Ciudad Juarez today, he would find a city even more violent than the one he experienced during 2003-2004. Since the beginning of the year, nearly 600 people have been murdered, including at least 31 women, according to local press accounts. Women and young girls have been slain in gangland-style shootings, in acts of domestic violence and in sexual assaults.

In many ways, though, not much has changed at all in the border city. Illegal drugs flow through the neighborhoods, posters of the latest missing young woman haunt downtown and the PGJE is still in charge of a growing stack of unsolved murder cases that, with each passing year, could expire under the statute of limitations.

Biographer Botha has his own take on Bender’s involvement in the Ciudad Juarez saga. Botha compares Bender to a hapless actor who walks onto a big, mean stage unprepared for the cruel drama others have cooked up. “But you know, he had this indomitable spirit and this naivete, and this kind of dedication to solving a crime if he could,” Botha said. “He kind of blundered in there and did what he had to.”

The Ciudad Juarez experience left an indelible mark on Bender’s spirit. On the artist’s website, watercolors of foreboding shadowy scenes and haunting pink crosses give the viewer a taste of Bender’s memories of Ciudad Juarez.

2008 Update

Ni UNA MAS — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 23:00:00 GMT

Murders

This year Cuidad Juarez has been engulfed in violence. Army troops patrol the streets and over 450 men have been murdered so far this year in cartel violence. In the midst of this, Casa Amiga Centro de Crisis A.C. has recorded seventeen cases of femicide from January 1, 2008 until May 5, 2008 . The victims have ranged in age from ten to forty-eight years old. One of the victims was eight and a half months pregnant and the fetus was also lost in the crime. Seventeen of the victims could not be identified. In each case where a perpetrator was suspected or found guilty the individual was male. Several of the cases included the sexual violation of female murder victims including the case in which a ten year old girl was found completely nude in her own home with a bag of condoms next to her deceased body. Many of the victims were murdered with knifes or guns. Many were stabbed multiple times in the neck, back and chest. Other victims sustained multiple bullet wounds also to the neck and head. One twenty year old victim was stabbed three times in the neck and eight times in the back. Another victim was shot to death and found with 31 bullet wounds throughout her body. Almost half of the victims left more than one child behind. While some of the female victims were killed and left in their own homes others were left in open fields surrounding Ciudad Juarez . One victim was killed in front of her own home, another was thrown out of a moving car and another was found in a bloody hotel room where 95 bullet shells were also discovered. In one case where the identity is still unknown, a female body was found in el Valle de Juarez where the victim was determined as having been dead over a month. The remains of this unknown victim were found half nude and devoured by animals. As a result of the state of the victim’s body, the cause of death has also yet to be established. Despite the high number of murders that have already taken place this year in Ciudad Juarez the government’s efforts to investigate and determine the perpetrators of these crimes remains very low. According to WALO (Washington Office on Latin America) “flaws in the police and judicial institutions compounded by gender biases, resulted in a blatant failure of Mexican authorities to investigate, prosecute and punish those responsible for the murders, contributing to a climate of impunity.”

Missing

Casa Amiga along with the Centro de Derechos Humanos de las Mujeres have also determined that at least two women have been reported missing this year already. Adriana Sarmiento Enriquez was last seen on Friday January 18^th of this year where her friends say she waited at a bus stop after eating with them upon leaving school. Adriana is fifteen years of age and remains missing six months after her friends last saw her. Hilda Gabriela Rivas Campos, another high school student who is sixteen years of age, disappeared in a similar manner. Hilda was walking through the center of Ciudad Juarez on her way home from school when she was last seen on February 25^th of this year. The families of both of these two young women continue to search for their loved ones.

Threats to Activists

Several human rights and women’s rights activists in Ciudad Juarez work diligently to continue supporting and aiding the victims’ families in their quest to find justice for their daughters. Activists include Cipriana Jurado who works with women’s rights organizations and is also the director of the Worker Research and Solidarity Center in Ciudad Juarez . Jurado is well known for her long-time support for families of female murder victims. On April 2^nd of this year, Jurado was arrested by Mexican police officers and shoved into an unmarked vehicle. Jurado had just recently returned to Ciudad Juarez and was arrested exactly a day after visiting forensic offices in an effort to further investigate a young woman’s murder. The charges made against Jurado in April of this year date back to an incident that took place during a protest in 2005, three years prior to her recent arrest. After hearing of Jurado’s arrest, several activists on both sides of the US-Mexican border came together to protest the charges made against her. The group of protesters met in front of the federal court offices in Ciudad Juarez . Among those protesting Jurado’s arrest was Casa Amiga’s Esther Chavez Cano and members from the Juarez organization Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa. Marisela Ortiz, the current spokeswoman for Nuestras Hijas, reported that she had recently received death threats via telephone and email. Also well known in the Juarez activist community is Chihuahua city lawyer, Lucha Castro, who is also the director of the Women’s Human Rights Center in Chihuahua . Castro also reported having received threats in the same manner as Ortiz. All four of the women mentioned above have been active in a widespread effort to continue the efforts to seek justice for the murdered women of Juarez . What remains puzzling is why these women, after numerous years of involvement in the efforts to end the femicide, are now being targeted and by whom?

Recent Events

Recent events in Ciudad Juarez may help explain the latest threat to female activists working in the city. According to recent reports found on FronteraNorteSur.com, the Mexican government has implemented a military coalition known as “Operation Chihuahua Together”. In a response to increased drug trafficking and increased drug cartel related homicides the government has brought the military into the city of Juarez in an effort to control the drug crisis taking place throughout the state of Chihuahua . Unfortunately, the military presence has been unable to curb the violence. Instead the city’s murder rate has already exceeded the rate for the full year of 2007. If this trend continues, the number of murders will likely double from 2007 to 2008. Increased drug cartel activity, increasing murder rates and military attempts to crack down the violence make conditions exceptionally difficult and dangerous for femicide activists. Activists like Esther Chavez Cano and organizations like Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa, and Justica para Nuestras Hijas continue to organize and fight. On March 8^th of this year only a few weeks prior to the arrival of military forces in Ciudad Juarez the groups mentioned above along with other activists from both sides of the US-Mexico border joined on International Women’s day to protest the violence that continues to target the women of northern Mexico. The protest held on March 8^th of this year marked the 15 year anniversary of the femicide in Ciudad Juarez .

Girl, woman found raped and killed in Ciudad Juarez

Ni UNA MAS — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 23:00:00 GMT


Pink wooden crosses are seen in the place where the corpses of eight murdered women were found in 2001

Girl, woman found raped and killed in Ciudad Juarez

Jul 17, 2008

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AFP) — A child and woman were raped and murdered this week in Ciudad Juarez, bringing to 17 the women killed so far this year in this city bordering the United States, and to more than 400 since 1993, authorities said Thursday.

Brazen attacks on women in Ciudad Juarez rival the ongoing drug gang warfare in the city that this year alone has led to more than 500 killings.

In the past 24 hours, the body of a 12 to 13 year old girl, "stripped from the waist down" and showing signs of rape, was found on a dirt road in a city suburb, local prosecutors said.

A 45-year-old woman also showing signs of having been sexually assaulted was found Wednesday dying from stab wounds in a store basement in a central part of the city, they added.

Police investigators said 17 women have been killed in similar circumstances this year in the city and its surrounds, and more than 400 in the past 15 years.

"Women murders are a sad reality and go unpunished," Maria Tabuenca and Julia Monarrez said in a book on the numerous homicides.

"There's no indication so far of any commitment from federal or state governments to solve these murders," they added.

Women Still Being Murdered in Juarez

Ni UNA MAS — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 22:59:00 GMT

Women Still Being Murdered in Juarez

Friday, July 18 2008 @ 05:12 PM CDT
Contributed by: Oread Daily
Views: 235

It's business as usual in Juarez.

The decomposing body of a teenage girl was found Thursday afternoon at the edge of an agricultural field in Juarez, Chihuahua state police said. The victim was found in the same subdivision that reported an attack last month against a 14-year-old girl inside a grocery store.

WOMEN STILL BEING MURDERED IN JUAREZ

Oread Daily

It's business as usual in Juarez.

The decomposing body of a teenage girl was found Thursday afternoon at the edge of an agricultural field in Juarez, Chihuahua state police said. The victim was found in the same subdivision that reported an attack last month against a 14-year-old girl inside a grocery store.

Investigators said the 16-year-old girl found dead was strangled. She is described, reports KVIA in El Paso, as being dark-skinned, with dark hair that was cut short at the forehead and was long at the rear.

The death was the second woman slain in Juárez this week.

On Wednesday morning, the Los Cruces Sun reports, another woman was found in the abandoned Casa Quiñonez retail center in a construction zone downtown . She died at a hospital about an hour after she was found.

The unidentified woman, who was about 45 years old, had multiples cuts and bruises on her body and may have been stabbed.

This brings to 17 the women killed so far this year in this city bordering the United States, and to more than 400 since 1993, authorities said Thursday.

Many say those numbers are way low.

Organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, for example, vehemently believe 400 is a conservative estimate, citing the Mexican government's necessity to undermine the actual count to avoid further scrutiny, for apprehension it will put further strain on political and economic relations with its trading partners.

Many of the murdered women, including the two latest victims, appear to have been sexually assaulted.

"Women murders are a sad reality and go unpunished," Maria Tabuenca and Julia Monarrez said in a book on the numerous homicides.

"There's no indication so far of any commitment from federal or state governments to solve these murders," they added.

The police, who have done such a wonderful job with this investigation for all these years say, however, they are on top of the case.

Less than a month ago, a Mexican judge sentenced Edgar Alvarez Cruz to 26 years in prison for allegedly murdering women in Juarez, Mexico.

Judge Flor Mireya Aguilar, who previously revoked the charges against Alvarez for lack of evidence, reversed herself today and found him guilty.

The same judge has presided over previous femicide cases with controversial findings and rulings.

According to the blog site of Diana Washington Valdez (an investigative reporter for the El Paso Times, and pictured above), Alvarez has repeatedly denied the allegations, and witnesses testified he could not have the committed the slayings attributed to him because he was in Colorado at the time.

Chihuahua state authorities, Valdez points out, have a history of using scapegoats to solve the women's murders, and supporters of Alvarez, including criminologist Oscar Maynez, contend there was no evidence linking the Juarez man to the crimes.

George Gonzalez, a crime investigator cited by Valdez, said the U.S. embassy in Mexico had a role in this latest episode of the notorious Juarez deaths.

"Nothing seems to change," he said. "It's the same old corruption, only this time the U.S. embassy in Mexico, which pressured the Mexican authorities to develop a conviction from the tip it provided, may be to blame for an innocent man's incarceration. Everyone knows the real killers are still out there. The killers know who they are and must be laughing.

"This is the biggest irony. You've got cops that might be crooked seeking U.S. asylum and medical treatment in New Mexico and Texas. The Mexican authorities brought out the army to calm the drug violence perpetrated by drug dealers and their corrupt accomplices. Criminals like (former Juarez police chief) Saulo Reyes are getting the red carpet treatment, even if he is in jail, while families of the femicide victims get brushed aside.

"Nobody called up the army for the girls, nor was any of them ever sent to El Paso, Texas, for treatment. I sort of expected the case against Alvarez Cruz would resurface during this chaotic time at the border, and there it is."

And there it is.

The following is from Newspaper Tree.

Group issues report on violence against women in Juarez
by NPT Staff

Editor's note: The following is an e-mail update sent by Amigos de las Mujeres de Juarez, a group that tracks violence against women in Juarez. It is a sobering assessment of conditions in that city, which, although the murder rate may exceed only slightly that of a violent U.S. city (such as Detroit), has become more and more unstable due to the drug wars and the attendant breakdown in the protections taken for granted in civil society.

***

Murders
This year Cuidad Juarez has been engulfed in violence. Army troops patrol the streets and over 450 men have been murdered so far this year in cartel violence. In the midst of this, Casa Amiga Centro de Crisis A.C. has recorded seventeen cases of femicide from January 1, 2008 until May 5, 2008 . The victims have ranged in age from ten to forty-eight years old. One of the victims was eight and a half months pregnant and the fetus was also lost in the crime. Seventeen of the victims could not be identified. In each case where a perpetrator was suspected or found guilty the individual was male. Several of the cases included the sexual violation of female murder victims including the case in which a ten year old girl was found completely nude in her own home with a bag of condoms next to her deceased body. Many of the victims were murdered with knifes or guns. Many were stabbed multiple times in the neck, back and chest. Other victims sustained multiple bullet wounds also to the neck and head. One twenty year old victim was stabbed three times in the neck and eight times in the back. Another victim was shot to death and found with 31 bullet wounds throughout her body. Almost half of the victims left more than one child behind. While some of the female victims were killed and left in their own homes others were left in open fields surrounding Ciudad Juarez . One victim was killed in front of her own home, another was thrown out of a moving car and another was found in a bloody hotel room where 95 bullet shells were also discovered. In one case where the identity is still unknown, a female body was found in el Valle de Juarez where the victim was determined as having been dead over a month. The remains of this unknown victim were found half nude and devoured by animals. As a result of the state of the victim’s body, the cause of death has also yet to be established. Despite the high number of murders that have already taken place this year in Ciudad Juarez the government’s efforts to investigate and determine the perpetrators of these crimes remains very low. According to WALO (Washington Office on Latin America) “flaws in the police and judicial institutions compounded by gender biases, resulted in a blatant failure of Mexican authorities to investigate, prosecute and punish those responsible for the murders, contributing to a climate of impunity.”

Missing
Casa Amiga along with the Centro de Derechos Humanos de las Mujeres have also determined that at least two women have been reported missing this year already. Adriana Sarmiento Enriquez was last seen on Friday January 18th of this year where her friends say she waited at a bus stop after eating with them upon leaving school. Adriana is fifteen years of age and remains missing six months after her friends last saw her. Hilda Gabriela Rivas Campos, another high school student who is sixteen years of age, disappeared in a similar manner. Hilda was walking through the center of Ciudad Juarez on her way home from school when she was last seen on February 25th of this year. The families of both of these two young women continue to search for their loved ones.

Threats to Activists
Several human rights and women’s rights activists in Ciudad Juarez work diligently to continue supporting and aiding the victims’ families in their quest to find justice for their daughters. Activists include Cipriana Jurado who works with women’s rights organizations and is also the director of the Worker Research and Solidarity Center in Ciudad Juarez . Jurado is well known for her long-time support for families of female murder victims. On April 2nd of this year, Jurado was arrested by Mexican police officers and shoved into an unmarked vehicle. Jurado had just recently returned to Ciudad Juarez and was arrested exactly a day after visiting forensic offices in an effort to further investigate a young woman’s murder. The charges made against Jurado in April of this year date back to an incident that took place during a protest in 2005, three years prior to her recent arrest. After hearing of Jurado’s arrest, several activists on both sides of the US-Mexican border came together to protest the charges made against her. The group of protesters met in front of the federal court offices in Ciudad Juarez . Among those protesting Jurado’s arrest was Casa Amiga’s Esther Chavez Cano and members from the Juarez organization Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa. Marisela Ortiz, the current spokeswoman for Nuestras Hijas, reported that she had recently received death threats via telephone and email. Also well known in the Juarez activist community is Chihuahua city lawyer, Lucha Castro, who is also the director of the Women’s Human Rights Center in Chihuahua . Castro also reported having received threats in the same manner as Ortiz. All four of the women mentioned above have been active in a widespread effort to continue the efforts to seek justice for the murdered women of Juarez . What remains puzzling is why these women, after numerous years of involvement in the efforts to end the femicide, are now being targeted and by whom?

Recent Events
Recent events in Ciudad Juarez may help explain the latest threat to female activists working in the city. According to recent reports found on FronteraNorteSur.com, the Mexican government has implemented a military coalition known as “Operation Chihuahua Together”. In a response to increased drug trafficking and increased drug cartel related homicides the government has brought the military into the city of Juarez in an effort to control the drug crisis taking place throughout the state of Chihuahua . Unfortunately, the military presence has been unable to curb the violence. Instead the city’s murder rate has already exceeded the rate for the full year of 2007. If this trend continues, the number of murders will likely double from 2007 to 2008. Increased drug cartel activity, increasing murder rates and military attempts to crack down the violence make conditions exceptionally difficult and dangerous for femicide activists. Activists like Esther Chavez Cano and organizations like Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa, and Justica para Nuestras Hijas continue to organize and fight. On March 8th of this year only a few weeks prior to the arrival of military forces in Ciudad Juarez the groups mentioned above along with other activists from both sides of the US-Mexico border joined on International Women’s day to protest the violence that continues to target the women of northern Mexico. The protest held on March 8th of this year marked the 15 year anniversary of the femicide in Ciudad Juarez .

Chihuahua state investigators Monday identified the two women slain last week in Juárez

Ni UNA MAS — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 22:57:00 GMT

Below are two articles from the El Paso Times on two women found murdered last week in Juarez. Also below is my translation of a report appeared today in the newspaper El Norte. I find it interesting that the authorities have designated the downtown area of Juarez as an area of high risk. This is an area of stores, restaurants and clubs that cater to U.S. teens on the weekends. At least two of the women (Karina and Adriana) disappeared during broad daylight. The overall level of violence continues unabated with at least 12 men murdered this weekend.

Sally

Tuesday, July 22, 2008 El Paso Times by Daniel Borunda

Chihuahua state investigators Monday identified the two women slain last week in Juárez.

The body of Erika Ochoa Carrillo, 23, who died of asphyxia by strangulation, was found Thursday at the edge of an agricultural field in the colonia Riberas del Bravo area. Investigators initially suspected she was in her teens.

Esperanza Vitela Betancourt, 58, died of head trauma, investigators said. She died Wednesday at a hospital soon after she was found cut and bruised in the abandoned Casa Quiñonez retail center in downtown.

Daniel Borunda

July 19, 2008 El Paso Times by Daniel Borunda

The decomposing body of a teenage girl was found Thursday afternoon at the edge of an agricultural field in colonia Riberas del Bravo, Chihuahua state police said.

She was the second woman slain in Juárez this week.

An autopsy determined the unidentified girl, who was about 16 years old, died from manual strangulation, state police said.

There were no other obvious signs of violence. The girl, who was dark-skinned and had dark brown hair, was wearing a green-and-white blouse and a beige miniskirt. She had no shoes.

The case was taken over by a task force on the Juárez women's murders.

Wednesday morning, a woman was found in the abandoned Casa Quiñonez retail center in a construction zone downtown, police said. She died at a hospital about an hour after she was found.

The unidentified woman, who was about 45 years old, had multiples cuts and bruises on her body and may have been stabbed. An autopsy was pending.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008 El Norte by Nohemí Barraza

Disappeared -16 young women less than 18 years old

Sixteen women between the ages of 14 and 18 are missing. Of these, three are considered high risk disappearances according to reports from the Special Unit for the Investigation into Missing Persons. Two are the minors Adriana Sarmiento Enriquez and Hilda Gabriela Rivas. Both disappeared in February of this year, while the third is Karina Sifuentes, a minor who has been missing for eight days.

All three disappeared from the center of the city (which is considered a high risk area by the Special Unit) and all are minors. The problem increased last month although overall, the percentage is the same when compared to 2007.

The authorities stated that for these three women, they have implemented operation Alba (NB: similar to Amber alert here), the procedure that helped to find the little girl Airis Estrella.

Nevertheless, this was different because the girl was found in danger.

Edith Acevedo, head of the Special Unit, indicated that they worked at finding all 16 women and 13 of the cases have not been considered high risk now that they have sufficient data to know the whereabouts. “They are away from the city or with their boyfriends, they are away but well” said Cesar Ramirez, spokesman for the (State of Chihuahua’s) office of Prosecutor for the Juarez region. For the current year, 199 reports have been registered for missing women, of which 183 were found. “The majority had family problems, left with their boyfriends or with friends.”
In respect to operation Alba, the authority indicated that this is under the direction of the federal prosecutor, the federal preventive police, Cipol, the city transit police and the (federal) Commission to Prevent and Eradicate Violence. “The investigators are specialized in localizing people and they are investigators with experience and when psychologists are required, they can intervene.

HIGH RISK MINORS

* Karina Sifuentes, 15 years old

Disappeared at 2 in the afternoon from the Cathedral, Sunday, July 13^th. It seems that a friend came from her to go to the movies. She was dressed in a blue blouse and blue jeans. She has long hair, brittle and black with coffee colored eyes.

* Hilda Gabriela Rivas, 16 years old

Disappeared from the center of the city February 14, 2008.

Height 1.65 meters, thin, dark skin with hair light brown below the shoulders.

* Adriana Sarmiento Enriques, 15 years old.
Disappeared from the center of the city February 18, 2008.

Height 1.65 meters, dark complexion, thick eyelashes and eyebrows,(nariz
mediana afiliada) medium nose, dark brown hair below the shoulders. Also light complexion, clear, almond shaped eyes.

SAVE CASA AMIGA

Ni UNA MAS — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 22:55:00 GMT

Casa Amiga always operates close to bankruptcy. They see large numbers of survivors of abuse and run the only secure shelter in the north of Mexico . As the militarization of the border increases, we know, based on the work of women like Cynthia Cockburn, that violence against women will only increase. The U.S. is giving millions to Mexico for more militarization, perhaps some of that money could go to deal with the effects of that militarization. If you know any donors or foundations that can help, please contact Ester or Amigos.

Sally

The following was translated by Molly Molloy. The original Spanish is below.
Ciudad Juarez
Casa Amiga in economic crisis
El Mexicano July 26, 2008

Ana Chaparro

A lack of economic resources for the ongoing work of Casa Amiga is
endangering its capacity to help domestic violence victims in the
city. Casa Amiga's director, Esther Chavez Cano, is broadening her
appeal to the American Union for economic help after being denied
funding from the Mexican government.

Early this week, Chavez Cano traveled to Mexico City to visit
government agencies INDESOL (National Institute for Social
Development) and SEDESOL (Secretariat for Social Development).

"There is no money for organizations like ours that do the work. We
have a project that is approved, but there is no money. The government
has not given any funds to the director of INDESOL, she says the
budget has been cut. This organization exists to help groups such as
ours—we do necessary work that the government does not do, but still,
they say there is no money," said Chavez Cano in an interview.

And with anger in her voice, she added that there is no money, but
there are $30 billion pesos for the federal government's ad campaign
for the government oil monopoly, PEMEX. "It is lamentable that they
do not give money to those of us who are working with honesty and
professionalism, as are many of us in Juarez. It is shameful that
there is no space for us (in the federal budget), " commented Chavez
Cano.

Chavez Cano said that she would appeal to foreign sources to seek the
support denied by the Mexican government. She has set up meetings with
several organizations within the American Union in hopes of getting
support although she did not mention the groups specifically in order
not to jeopardize the chances for Casa Amiga.

Ciudad Juárez
Vive crisis económica Casa Amiga

El Mexicano
26 de julio de 2008

Ana Chaparro / El Mexicano

Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua.-La falta de recursos económicos para
continuar con las actividades que lleva a cabo Casa Amiga, están
poniendo en riesgo la capacidad de ayuda de este organismo, por lo que
su directora Esther Chávez Cano acudirá a la Unión Americana en
búsqueda de ellos ante la negativa de la federación de otorgárselos.

A principios de esta semana acudió a la Ciudad de México para visitar
organismo como INDESOL, SEDESOL.

"No hay dinero para los organismos que trabajamos, tenemos un proyecto
aprobado pero no hay dinero, no le han dado dinero a la señora de
INDESOL, ella dice que el presupuesto se lo han acortado, entonces
esas cosas tampoco la ve por que es una organización que esta para
apoyar a las organizaciones que trabajamos, lo que hacemos que es lo
que no hace el gobierno, pero no hay dinero", mencionó la
entrevistada.

Con un tono de enojo, dijo que no hay dinero, pero si hay 30 mil
millones de pesos para publicidad por parte del Gobierno Federal para
el asunto de Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX).

"Es muy lamentable que no nos den dinero a los que estamos trabajando
con honestidad, con profesionalismo, que somos muchos en Juárez, es
una pena, para nosotros no hay espacio", comentó Chávez Cano.

Ante esta situación, dijo que acudirá al extranjero para solicitar la
ayuda que le fue negada del gobierno mexicano.

Para ello, ya tiene concertadas algunas citas con organismos de la
Unión Americana, de las cuales no quiso dar su nombre para evitar las
demás acudan a ellas y le quiten el recurso que probablemente le
puedan dar.

http://www.oem.com.mx/elmexicano/notas/n787873.htm

Lomas de Poleo lawyer killed in Chihuahua City

Ni UNA MAS — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 21:24:00 GMT

June 27, 2008
Lomas de Poleo lawyer killed in Chihuahua City
by Jeff Berg

The lawyer working for residents of the Lomas de Poleo community in regards to their land dispute was shot and killed in Chihuahua City June 20. Police said the investigation was ongoing, they have no suspects, and the motive is unknown.
Carlos Javier López Avitia, 42, was in a red Ford truck when he was fired upon by armed men driving in a Jeep, according to various accounts in El Diario and El Heraldo de Chihuahua. The men used an AK-47, among other weapons, in the attack.
The death was not widely reported in Mexico, being just one of 10 that day in Chihuahua. But the news spread through Lomas de Poleo and through a community of activists in the U.S. who have been advocating for Lomas residents and following developments in the land dispute.
Father Bill Morton, who was ordered to leave Mexico because of his activities in support of the residents, said what was reported described a terrible violence.
After leaving a hearing at the Agrarian Court in Chihuahua City, Avitia’s vehicle was followed by a Jeep Cherokee.
"He was shot 19 times with an AK 47 in the head and neck and his head was nearly shot off," Morton said. "Two cabdrivers were also killed, but it appears that they were bystanders.
“They let him lay there (in the street) for quite some time. It seemed to be a message to those connected to Avitia. By the time the police arrived, the crime scene was contaminated. People were picking up souvenirs.”
“Even in death you become a curiosity,” said Morton, his voice filled with emotion.

Avitia, who was married and the father of four young sons, had represented residents of Lomas de Poleo for about three years.
The dispute pits a dwindling number of residents of Lomas de Poleo, a small community on a bluff overlooking Anapra, Juarez, and Sunland Park, N.M., against the wealthy industrialist Pedro Zaragoza Fuentes.
The Mexican constitution allows homesteaders to claim of up to 20,000 square meters per family, provided that federal agrarian authorities regulated the settlements, and the residents claim that they have proper title to the land. But Zaragoza claims that his family held title to the land, and that the residents of Lomas de Poleo moved in illegally.
Over the years, a small community grew in the area, with federally registered schools being built in 1980. These two primary schools are still registered, and the Corpus Christi Parish helps the spiritual needs of the Lomas residents.
Something else also built over the years -- tension between the settlers and Zaragoza. With the nearby Santa Teresa border crossing being approved and opened, the value of the land skyrocketed as did the legal bills, violence, and accusations on both sides.
In 2003, workers from the Mexican Federal Electric commission dismantled the power system that had just recently been set up, because of a federal court order requested by the Zaragoza family, which has claimed that many of the residents were new arrivals hoping themselves to speculate on the land.
It was also about this time that the first ‘goons’ were hired to intimidate and bully the residents of the mesa. Not long after, barbed wire fences and guard towers were built around the community, forcing residents to pass through gates.
Incidents of violence were reported in Lomas de Poleo, with several deaths occurring and two children perishing in a house fire, with both sides blaming the other. A number of bodies of young women also have been found, victims of the ongoing femicide that has gripped Juarez for years.
The court system has been busy with lawsuits and injunctions filed by both sides, and until recently, 62 of the landowner disputes filed against Zaragoza were being handled by attorney Avitia. Several other suits are being handled by Barbara Zamora Lopez, a well known human rights lawyer based in Mexico City.

However, in recent months, speculations about Avitia’s activities concerned Lomas residents.
According to a story published in April at www.arrobajuarez.com, 57 of the 62 cases Avitia was working on had lapsed.
Jon Williams, a professional photographer and documentarian who has been following the Lomas del Poleo dispute, said that Mexican agrarian law requires that any case that involves land must be followed up on and brought up to date every four months.
“The LDP Alliance (one of several local activist groups that are working on the issue) met on the Monday after Avitia was killed. They were confused and upset, and were trying to piece things together, and the question was raised about whose side he was on,” Williams said.

But, said Williams, “(Avitia) was in Chihuahua City following up on one of the cases" when he was killed.

Facing the Dead

Ni UNA MAS — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:28:00 GMT

How much can we learn from a battered skull? A new nonfiction work explores what a forensic sculptor can teach us about the intersection of art, science and murder.

Arlene Getz

Newsweek Web Exclusive

Updated: 12:04 PM ET Jun 16, 2008

Officially, the first corpse turned up in 1993. Alma Chavira Farel was 13 years old. She'd been raped, sodomized, beaten and strangled—and her body was the first of what would come to be called the feminicidios. After a decade in which the death toll continued to mount, Amnesty International estimated that as many as 400 women had been killed in the Mexican city of Juárez. Almost all were poor young workers from the assembly plants sprouting on the border as U.S. companies began taking advantage of low wages and tax incentives offered by the North American Free Trade (NAFTA) agreement signed the year that Chavira died. The mystery of their murders has never been solved.

The tragic saga of the dead of Ciudad Juárez—directly across the river from El Paso, Texas—has been covered by those who care. Amnesty called the murders intolerable and condemned the Mexican government for ignoring them; other human-rights groups have leveled similar criticisms over the years. Ted Botha's new book "The Girl With the Crooked Nose" (Random House) looks at the crimes from a different perspective. The book, which Botha describes as a nonfiction thriller, views the murders through the eyes of Frank Bender, a Philadelphia forensic sculptor who puts faces on the dead. Bender's job is to take a skull and reconstruct the features of its owner. For reasons he doesn't fully understand, the Mexican police on the case ask him to help identify some of the feminicidios. He winds up spending days in a Juárez hotel room with crumbling skulls, facing down death threats and an infection from the bad water as he tries to create identifiable likenesses of the dead women.

TV shows like "CSI" and "Bones" have lent a glamour and excitement to forensics. Botha's book offers a real-life glimpse of the grunt work, bureaucratic politicking and poor pay as Bender tries to win recognition for what was once an unrecognized specialty. Bender moves from commercial photography to crime work almost by accident. A free spirit (the self-portrait dominating his work space shows him nude, his penis depicted in three dimensions), he saw his first skull when he tried to cadge free anatomy classes by studying the bodies at the Philadelphia medical examiner's office. Shown the body of a woman—toe tag No. 5233—whose head was partly shot away, he realizes that he can sculpt his vision of what she once looked like. So accurate is his depiction that when photos of the bust are released the victim is identified as one Anna Duval.

Botha's writing is lively and versatile. Since we first met as young reporters covering apartheid in South Africa, he added a diverse body of work to his credit. Previous books include an account of an overland odyssey through Africa ("Apartheid in My Rucksack") and a study of New Yorkers who collect what others have dumped on the sidewalk ("Mongo: Adventures in Trash"). "The Girl With the Crooked Nose"—named for one of the Juárez victims—was, he says, a "baptism by fire" into the world of police work. "When I first started the book," says Botha, "I didn't know the difference between an anthropologist and a pathologist." He learns fast, though, and skillfully weaves his narrative back and forth between Bender's early work and the Juárez cases that would come to obsess him in spite of the risk. On one occasion, Bender even rashly tells his Mexican police contact his belief that the killings were part of an evil alliance between organized crime and the state police. "I think the police rape and kill the women to prove themselves to the drug cartel," he says. "That's how they show their loyalty. Let's face it--the cartel isn't going to use a policeman unless he proves himself." Later, trying to sleep in his isolated apartment in a former police academy, he realizes that "perhaps it hadn't been wise" to tell a state policeman his theory that his colleagues could be murderers.

Bender's real skill is in the intersection between art and science. Skulls can only reveal so much, especially if parts have been beaten or shot away. In one case—a skeleton found in a thicket in North Philadelphia—Bender takes his inspiration from a Ship 'n Shore blouse found near the body. The classic feminine brand wasn't typically worn in that part of North Philadelphia, leading Bender to surmise that the victim was an ambitious young woman. He portrays her with her eyes looking optimistically upward, her hair in a pompadour that he instinctively feels suits her face; he dubs her the Girl with Hope. She remains unidentified, though, and eventually becomes part of an exhibit in Philadelphia's renowned Mütter Museum. There she might have stayed had not a local office cleaner seen a picture of the head in a discarded newspaper. When the cleaner visits the exhibit, she recognizes the bust as bearing a distinct resemblance to her niece. Her tip leads police to dental X-rays that confirm her identity as Rosella Atkinson, aged 18 when she went missing.

Inevitably, not all of Bender's cases have such conclusive endings. The Juárez murders have never been properly solved; the girl with the crooked nose remains nameless. And if Bender's talent brings him fame, it fails to bring fortune. Indeed, Bender makes so little money from forensic sculpting that at one point he is forced to take a job on tugboats. Botha correctly shies away from trying to romanticize Bender, documenting his affairs and marital problems in the same dispassionate tones that Botha uses to describe his work. While this matter-of-fact style prevents the corpse counts from becoming too gruesome, it is less successful in conveying a nuanced portrait of the sculptor himself. Readers may not come away from the book feeling they've fully grasped the essence of Bender, but they certainly won't have that feeling about the value of his work.

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/141051

Another Murdered Woman In Juarez

Ni UNA MAS — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:11:00 GMT

Woman found slain in Juárez

By Daniel Borunda / For the Sun-News

Article Launched: 06/11/2008 06:14:27 AM MDT

EL PASO —The decomposing body of a young woman was found buried under rocks in west Juárez in a case reminiscent of the women's murders that plagued the city in years past.

A task force on the women's slayings took over the investigation after the body of the unidentified woman was found Monday evening at the edge of colonia Felipe Angeles not far from Cristo Negro mountain, state police said. The woman was between 20 and 24 years old, was thin and had brown hair. She was wearing a turquoise-colored blouse and had a silver flower-shaped barrette with blue stones on her hair.

The case comes as Juárez is dealing with about 450 homicides so far this year believed to be linked to a war among drug traffickers.

On Tuesday, state investigators identified a girl shot and killed Monday evening as 12-year-old Alexa Belem Moreno Melendez. She was shot in the head while riding in the back seat of a black Chevrolet Tahoe with Chihuahua plates that was strafed with gunfire. No one else in the vehicle was killed.

The girl's death was possibly referred to on a banner found hanging from a bridge Tuesday morning threatening revenge on hit men it called "mata inocentes" (killers of innocents).

At 10 p.m. Monday, two men were gunned down near a pool table in the Mavis bar, raising to eight the number of homicides that day.

By Tuesday evening, only one death had been reported, that of a man wrapped in bandages dumped in an alley, news reports said. Also Tuesday, the Juárez police academy graduated 92 new officers as part of efforts to bolster the police force.

Daniel Borunda reports for the El Paso Times, a member of the Texas-New Mexico Newspapers Partnership, and may be reached at dborunda@elpasotimes.com; 546-6102.

Mexican Government Is Still In Denial

Ni UNA MAS — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:08:00 GMT

Mex. Official Says No Evidence of Serial Murders

By Frontera NorteSur

Posted on June 9, 2004

Federal Investigator Finds No Evidence of Serial Femicides in Juárez, Chihuahua Disagrees

June 7, 2004

In a strange turn of events, after a new federal investigation turned up no evidence of serial killings among the first 50 women's murders it examined in Ciudad Juárez, it is now Chihuahua state law enforcement that is arguing for a pattern of serial murders in the border city. In the past, while federal officials were considering their possible involvement in Cd. Juárez, it was the state that was attempting to push the number of deaths downward.

On Thursday, June 3, 2004, the federal Special Investigator of Crimes Related to Women's Homicides, María López Urbina, gave her first major report to an audience that included Mexican President Vicente Fox and federal Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha. According to López, "...in this first group of analyzed cases there are no indicators of serial crimes among them."

López and her team examined 50 of 307 femicides that have occurred in Cd. Juárez since 1993. An AP article indicated that these cases were the first examined because they were the first received by federal investigators from the state of Chihuahua. López repeatedly dodged questions about whether any of the 50 cases were from among the more than 100 which fit a serial pattern.

Because details of which killings were examined by federal officials were not discussed, it is unknown whether any of the cases related to any of the eight bodies found in a cotton field in Cd. Juárez in November 2001 were examined. Many of these cases are related to the ECCO computer school and there are other cases related to this same business in Chihuahua City (although the federal investigation is not looking into killings there). However, these cases would appear to fit a serial profile.

Manuel Esparza Navarrete, who for years has been the spokesperson for Chihuahua's special investigation into the killings and is now the spokesperson for the combined state-federal investigation, said that law enforcement has established the presence of "serial killers in Ciudad Juárez." Strangely, in 2002, Esparza himself minimized the number of killings. At a time when the press, NGOs and the head of Chihuahua's Supreme Court were saying that there had been 93 femicides that fit the profile of abduction, rape and murder, Esparza said that there had been only 67. To see more on this go to www.nmsu.edu/~frontera/feb03/today.html.

State Law Enforcement Investigated

Another finding from López Urbina's report is that 81 of 167 Chihuahua law enforcement officials and agents that were or are currently involved in the investigation of women's murders in Cd. Juárez are now under investigation themselves. They are being investigated for alleged negligence in investigating the crimes.

López said she would not name any of the 81 people because they are currently being investigated by Chihuahua law enforcement. She did however state that seven state lead investigators are among those she indicated. According to the Cd. Juárez newspaper El Diario, there have only been seven lead investigators since the office was created in 1998.

Families Barred From Attending Meeting, Activists Followed

When families of some of the Cd. Juárez victims went to Mexico City and tried to enter López Urbina's press conference they were told they were not on the list of those invited and were not permitted to enter the function, according to an article in El Diario. Only Ramona Morales, the mother of victim Silvia Rivera Morales, was on the official list.

However, after Morales and other family members saw Commissioner Guadalupe Morfín Otero entering the event with her family, they were finally admitted to the event. Morfín was the first federal official sent to Cd. Juárez to look into the killings. She was not given strong prosecutorial powers though and is focusing instead on making the city safer.

Once inside, Alfredo Limas--a member of a Cd. Juárez anti-violence NGO -- said that he and family members were followed around the room wherever they went. Limas, a professor at the Autonomous University of Juárez, said "I had a woman following me, listening to what I said, she went wherever I went, always fixed on me."

Sources: El Diario (Cd. Juárez), June 4 & 5, 2004. Articles by Arturo Loyola and Armando Rodríguez. El Norte (Cd. Juárez), June 6, 2004. Article by Rosa Isela Pérez. Associated Press, June 3, 2004.

* * *

Body of Strangled Woman Found in Cd. Juárez

May 25, 2004

The body of a young woman was found on Monday, May 24 in Ciudad Juárez, near the border of the Francisco I. Madero and Nuevo México neighborhoods. According to police, the unidentified victim had been strangled but showed no other signs of physical violence. Tests are currently being performed to see if the woman had been sexually assaulted. The victim was found partially undressed.

The woman's body was found at 5:00 a.m. on Monday by a maquiladora worker who notified authorities. Police officials estimate that the woman was killed between 1:00 a.m. and 2:00 a.m. on Monday morning. Police also indicated that the woman was killed elsewhere and that her body was later disposed of on Calle Jesús García, near the corner of Francisco R. Almada.

City police were the first to arrive at the scene and then notified state police and the Joint Investigation for Women's Homicides (Fiscalía Mixta para la Atención de Homocidios de Mujeres).

Investigators remained at the scene until 10:00 a.m. when the body was taken away. Agents swept the surrounding area for possible evidence.

The woman was described as being between 25 and 28 years old, thin, with dark skin and long hair. She was wearing a blue miniskirt and a blue blouse with a floral pattern.

To help identify the victim, police stated that she had a mole on her right cheek.

Already a number of families have gone to the Forensic Medicine Service's morgue to try and identify the body, police said.

The Cd. Juárez newspaper El Diario stated that the killing was the city's second murder of a woman in 2004. It listed the other case as that of Rebeca Contreras Mancha, a 23 year old mother, who was raped and strangled. Her body was found on March 10, 2004.

In the Contreras case the government has a number of people in custody including the drug trafficker Eduardo Almeida Campos aka "El Sixto".

Other press accounts have suggested that Contreras was murdered because of her involvement with cocaine sales in downtown Cd. Juárez. Almeida allegedly controlled street-level cocaine sales.

A case that El Diario failed to mention was that of Cristina Escobar González, age 25. She died on March 13, 2004 from a blow to the head allegedly suffered during a struggle in a hotel room with Francisco Javier Martínez Lira, age 19. Martínez was detained as he was trying to get Escobar's body into his car. Martínez was identified at the time as a Lear maquiladora worker from Torreón, Coahuila. Drug use may have been a factor in the case.

On March 27, 2004, Martín Lazcano Sepúlveda allegedly murdered his wife, Lorenza Verónica Calderón, after he grew worried that she would discover that he had raped her four-year old daughter. Lazcano was arrested on April 4, 2004 after a neighbor called authorities out of worry for injuries that his step-daughter had sustained. Calderón's body was discovered buried at the couple's home. Lazcano, who was allegedly under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs, later confessed to the crimes.

Sources: El Diario (Cd. Juárez), May 25, 2004. Article by Armando Rodríguez. El Norte (Cd. Juárez), March 14, 2004. Article by Carlos Huerta. El Diario (Cd. Juárez), April 5, 2004. Article by Roberto Ramos. El Norte (Cd. Juárez), April 6, 2004. Article by Salvador Castro.

* * *

Frontera NorteSur: on-line news coverage of the US-Mexico border
To see their site or subscribe for free to their daily news service go to:
http://frontera.nmsu.edu

FNS is an outreach program of the Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico

Greg Bloom, Editor
Email address: gbloom@nmsu.edu
(505) 646-6817

MEXICO: Activists Lash Out at Government Report on Juárez Killings

Ni UNA MAS — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:09:00 GMT

By Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Feb 17 (IPS) - Activists in Mexico are upset over a report by a special prosecutor's office on the killings of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juárez, which they say buries many of the key facts and arguments relating to the murders.

"The report is humiliating and disgraceful, because it falsifies and plays down the facts," Esther Chávez, president of Casa Amiga, a non-governmental organisation that provides support to the victims' families, told IPS.

Ciudad Juárez, a city of 1.3 million people which borders El Paso, Texas, has been shaken by the hundreds of murders and disappearances of women which have occurred there since 1993.

According to human rights groups, a large number of the victims had been raped - some by multiple attackers û and tortured. Theories about the motives for these crimes range from satanic rituals to pornography rings and "snuff" films in which someone is actually murdered. Human organ trafficking is also suspected.

But according to an extensive report by the Special Prosecutor's Office investigating the Ciudad Juárez killings, which was released on Thursday, "the exact dimensions of the problem have been distorted," thus creating myths and unfounded rumours.

"If it was such a minor problem, why didn't they say so before? Why have they spent so much money investigating it? I think the government wants to downplay the situation, but even if only one more woman is killed, we will continue to cry out," Chávez said in a telephone interview from Ciudad Juárez.

Marimar Monroy, of the non-governmental Mexican Commission for Defence and Promotion of Human Rights, said the Special Prosecutor's Office report appears to promote the message "that violence against women, and ‘femicide', aren't important matters."

"This problem is not about numbers, it's about a climate of violence that is persistent and unacceptable," Monroy told IPS.

The prosecutors' inquiry concluded that there was no pattern of serial killing among the 379 murders of women in Ciudad Juárez registered in the last 11 years, and that sexual violence was involved in only 78 of the killings.

Furthermore, it stated, 125 of the women died in their own homes at the hands of relatives, friends or acquaintances, and most of the murdered women lived in a highly "criminal and violent" environment.

The Special Prosecutor's Office, which comes under the Attorney-General's Office, reported that the largest number of killings of women in

Mexico

occurred in Toluca, near the capital.

According to statistics on the number of homicides per 100,000 population, the next in rank is Tecate, in the northern state of Baja California, followed by the resort city of Acapulco on the Pacific coast. Ciudad Juárez ranks fourth.

And with respect to missing women in Ciudad Juárez, activists put the number at more than 4,000, but the official inquiry mentions only 47 documented cases.

The report admits that the local authorities in charge of investigating the murders in Ciudad Juárez had been markedly negligent in the past, which had aggravated the climate of violence against women.

The facts and conclusions of the report are dubious, because discredited sources of information were used and important facts have been ignored, said Chávez, one of the most active voices in

Mexico

to denounce the violence against women in Ciudad Juárez.

In recent years the Mexican government has come under heavy pressure from local and international human rights groups for the spate of killings of women in Ciudad Juárez.

In response to the pressure, President Fox named a Special Prosecutor's Office and a special commission for the Juárez cases. And now, on Friday, he replaced the Juárez special prosecution by a new body called the Special Prosecutor's Office Investigating Crimes Related to Violence against Women in the Country.

But the working methods of these bodies, and the reports they produce, have been seriously questioned by activists.

Esther Chávez commented that the latest report on the Ciudad Juárez killings was "hurtful," because "basically it's making a comparison between the situation in Juárez and other places, which is no consolation and does nothing to alter the fact that most of the crimes remain unpunished."

Most of the murdered women were in the 15-30 age group, and many were from low-income social strata and worked in maquiladora factories, which operate in tax-free zones and assemble products for export using imported materials.

These factories are concentrated in Ciudad Juárez and other Mexican cities along the

U.S.

border. Their work force mainly consists of young women, many of whom are living far away from their families.

In Ciudad Juárez, a number of factors û migration, unemployment, social exclusion, a large floating population, human trafficking and drug trafficking, among others - converge to give the city its particular characteristics. Together with the social dynamic generated by the large number of national and foreign maquiladoras, they have brought levels of extreme violence to the city, according to government reports. (END/2006)

Another young woman is missing in Jaurez

Ni UNA MAS — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:29:00 GMT

On February 25th, Hilda Gabriela Rivas Campos (16 years old) left her home to seek work at a local market.
She was last seen by a friend who worked near the market, who Hilda asked to hold some work documents for her while she went with a man who had offered her money to intervene in a discussion with his wife. She has not been seen since that time.

Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa (NHDRC)has been working with the family and have tried different strategies for finding Hilda Gabriela but have had no results to date given some recent changes on how local authorities look for missing persons.

NHDRC tells us during the search for Hilda they found out that within the modifications that the “New Reformation to the Penal Justice System”
promoted by Patricia González, Attorney General of the State of Chihuahua, and that took effect January 1st; what before was the Office for the search of disappeared WOMEN, now is “Office for the search of absent and/or disappeared PEOPLE (now for the search of both women and men). This office only has three agents of the Public Ministry and eight investigating agents for the searches, according to data provided by Edith Acevedo of the same office.

All of which is insufficient to actually find missing people considering that now this office will have to look for all the missing people and not only women who disappear. Though this case is officially considered of high risk, since she disappeared in a zone where many women has been kidnapped, and her characteristics fit within the profile of most of the women who have been kidnapped and victims of serial sexual violence also known as femicides, Hilda Gabriela represents one of more than 40 reports of disappearances of women in 2008 up to this month of March.

For these reasons MSN joins NHDRC in requesting your urgent help in writing to the state Government and the Attorney Generals Office of the State of Chihuahua with the following demands:

A) Creation of a new office for the search of DISAPPEARED WOMEN, in the building with the Public Prosecutor of Crimes Against Women and the office of Attention to Victims, with ample and exclusive resources for its good operation.

The hiring and accreditation of at least two private investigators, experts in the search of disappeared women of high risk, that will in addition to current cases will investigate non-solved cases of homicides of women with sexual connotations or that do not correspond to domestic violence. These experts should not have previously worked somewhere of the Mexican Republic or in dependencies of the Mexican government.

C) A weekly meeting with the directors of the different police departments, as well as with representatives of the different government institutions that signed the Alba Protocol, with the purpose of accountability and implementation of strategies to find the disappeared minors, and to assure that everyone involved participates in their search.

ACTION: To communicate via telephone or email to the offices of the Attorney General of the State of Chihuahua with the Patricia González, for the purpose of demanding an urgent meeting between her, the Governor of the State of Chihuahua, and Nuestras Hijas de Regreso A Casa.

Contact info:
Attorney General: M.D.P. Patricia González Rodríguez pagonzalez@buzon.chihuahua.gob.mx y pagonzale@buzon.chihuahua.mx

Av. Vicente Guerrero 618, Col. Centro, 31000, Chihuahua, Chih.

Secretary: Lic. Rodolfo Leyva Martínez
r.leyva7@hotmail.com

Tel. For the offices of the State government of Chih. 01152 614 429 3300

Femicide lecturer shares horror stories

Ni UNA MAS — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 20:44:00 GMT

Award-winning producer, writer and director Barbara Martinez Jitner speaks about her experience working alongside other women in horrible factory conditions on the U.S.-Mexican border after showing one portion of her video series March 19 in the University Center Sunnen Lounge.

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.

HILDA GABRIELA RIVAS CAMPOS IS MISSING

Ni UNA MAS — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:22:00 GMT

PROCURADURÍA GENERAL DE JUSTICIA DEL ESTADO

UNIDAD ESPECIAL DE INVESTIGACIÓN DE

PERSONAS AUSENTES O EXTRAVIADAS

AYÚDANOS A LOCALIZARLA

HILDA GABRIELA RIVAS CAMPOS

16 AÑOS DE EDAD

CARACTERÍSTICAS:

Estatura:	1.65 metros aprox.	Complexión :	Delgada.
Tez:	Morena.	Color de ojos:	Café Oscuro.
Cejas:	Depiladas y arqueadas.	Tamaño:	Grandes.
		Tipo:	Ovales
Nariz:	Mediana y chata.	Boca:	Mediana.
Tipo:	Recta.	Labios:	Gruesos.
Cabello:	Teñido color castaño oscuro.	Tipo de Cabello:	Ondulado.
Longitud:	Debajo de los hombros.	Señas particulares:	Ninguna.

Vestimenta: Se desconoce.

Fecha:	25 de febrero de 2008.
Lugar:	Colonia 16 de Septiembre.

EN CASO DE CONTAR CON INFORMACIÓN COMUNICARSE A LOS TELÉFONOS:

(656) 629 3300 Ext. 56454 y 56455 en Ciudad Juárez;

(614) 429 3300 Ext. 14363 y 14346 en Ciudad Chihuahua.

BOLETIN DE PRENSA

Ni UNA MAS — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:15:00 GMT

Discriminatory treatment of the women of Justicia Para Nuestras Hijas in the Congress of the state of Chihuahua

In the second session of Congress on March 3, 2008, the mothers of the disappeared and victims of femicide, members of the organization Justicia Para Nuestras Hijas, with the aim of supporting the proposal that Deputy Victor Quintana was introducing for the creation of a Special Commission to Investigate the Femicides.

The action planned by the mothers was to present themselves at the official area to support this initiative but the security guards for the Congress tried to block their passage.

The intention was that the deputies (congress men and women) would see the real existence not only of the mothers of the victims but also of the problem of the lack of justice of the cases that they were representing with photos of the assassinated and disappeared women.

Recess was called for the session with the pretext that the mothers were creating "disorder". This was totally false because those of us that were there saw that none of the women that intended to enter the congress ever spoke one word or behaved in a disorderly fashion.

The President of the Congress suspended the session. This was unequal treatment for women and the problems that they face. For example, the meeting before was concerning the case of the accounts of the city of Chihuahua. There was a large contingent of support for Mr. Blanco, with true disorder. In this case, the meeting was not suspended but the participants were granted their full rights under the Article 30, section 13 of the Organic Law of Legislative Power.

Press bulletin from Justicia para Nuestras Hijas. March 3, 2008

Mexico to Focus on Crimes Against Women

Ni UNA MAS — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 17:59:00 GMT

Friday, February 01, 2008

By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO, Associated Press Writer

MEXICO CITY —

Mexico has created a new federal position to prosecute violence against women and human exploitation, as rights groups urge the government to do more to investigate the killings of women, especially along the U.S. border.

The position, announced on Thursday, will replace a similar post created in 2006 and will add migrant smuggling, child labor and other human exploitation to its caseload.

The new prosecutor, Guadalupe Morfin _ who previously served in a similar post aimed at combatting violence against women in Ciudad Juarez _ will report to Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora.

The attorney general told Radio Formula that he welcomes the expanded role for his office.

Human exploitation "is a serious problem that we see daily, and we don't have the adequate structure to deal with it," Medina Mora said.

Since 1993, an estimated 423 women have been killed in Ciudad Juarez, across the U.S. border from El Paso, Texas _ at least 89 between 2004 and 2008, the National Human Rights Commission reported Tuesday.

In about 100 of the Juarez killings, women were abducted, often sexually abused and strangled before their bodies were dumped in the desert. Many were last seen in the city's downtown area or taking buses, and their bodies often did not resurface for months.

Commission President Jose Luis Soberanes called the investigations into the deaths "terrible."

UN launches global campaign to fight violence against women

Ni UNA MAS — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:42:00 GMT

25.02.08 21:31

( dpa ) - The United Nations launched Monday a campaign to end violence against women around the world, saying that one in three women is likely to be beaten, coerced into sex or abused in her lifetime.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon opened the annual session of the Commission on the Status of Women, which is dedicated to establishing gender equality and involves society, governments and world organizations.

Ban said violence against women ranges from prenatal sex selection to abortions.

"No country, no culture, no woman young or old is immune to this scourge," he said. "Far too often, the crimes go unpunished, the perpetrators walk free."

He called on the UN Security Council to set up a mechanism dedicated to monitoring violence against women and girls, but he warned that what works in one country may not in another and urged each government to devise its own strategy.

The World Health Organization said the most common form of violence is physical violence inflicted by domestic partners. Women aged 15-44 are more at risk of rape and beating than from cancer, traffic accidents, war and malaria.

WHO said 40 to 70 per cent of female murders were at the hands of domestic partners in the United States, Australia, Canada, Israel and South Africa.

In Colombia, one woman is reportedly killed every six days by her partner or a former one while "hundreds" of women were abducted, raped and murdered in and around Ciudad Juarez in Mexico over a 10- year period.

The UN said between 250,000 and 500,000 women were raped during the massacre in Rwanda in 1994 and up to 50,000 were raped during the Bosnian war from 1992 to 1995.

Several UN taskforces have been created to fight violence against women. They include the UN Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict and UN Trust Fund to End Violence. Resolutions have been adopted for the purpose of raising awareness on the issues of violence against women.

TERRIFYING MURDERS

Ni UNA MAS — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:46:00 GMT

Murders of Women in Juarez Shock the World

In the small Mexican town of Juarez, since 1993 around 400 women were brutally murdered. No one knows why, but the crimes continue.

Nikolina Štanfel

Photo: wikimedia,; AFP

Walking in the desert area of the Mexican town of Juarez, on February 17, two teenagers searched for details like bottles and cans which they could sells. Instead of that, they ran into blood stained rocks: three women’s corpses, barely hidden. After they informed the police, they found a fourth body not far from the others.

Juarez’s dead women

This is not a singular happening for the town near the Mexican-American border, which reached world fame and a place in Wikipedia due to many years of systematical, brutal murders of hundreds of women with no known reason and without end. The wave of murders started back in 1993, with “the dead women of Juarez” case, followed by many international organizations for human rights and sexual discrimination, by the state attorney’s office, and by the police. Books have been written and several documentaries and movies have been made on them. However, the mystery has still not been solved. The authorities have not found an efficient way to stop the disapperance of hundreds of women.

Kidnapping, raping, suffocation

The main question mark in these crimes is the motive. There are no acceptable theories on why in 15 years, around 400 women were killed, and hundreds are still missing. Most of the bodies found, show signs of sexual violence. Witnesses say that it is not a matter of usual raping, but a matter of releasing wild instincts. Women had traces of biting, thrusting, hitting and slitting. According to the autopsy report, about 70% of the cases died of suffocation or due to beating. The motive is even harder to find because these women have no specific common features.

They are mainly young women between 17 and 22 years of age, but there also some victims who are younger, between one and four years old. They are hack workers in a corporations owned by Americans and which use cheap a Latin-American workforce. For this reason, many think that these crimes are connected with the American corporations which have branch-offices in the town. Working in inhuman conditions, the workers are imposed unreachable norms, and failure is strictly punished. Although a connection between the brutal murders and the work in factories has never been proved, they think that it can not be a coincidence that most of the women killed were working in some of these American factories.

Unique mystery

In Ciudad Juarez, like in many other Mexican towns, there is a high rate of criminality, corruption within the authorities, the drug business is widespread, poverty is high, and many think that in the whole story the ‘machismo’ element has an important role, that is the lust for male domination. However, if we take this element in to consideration, we have to think that every border Mexican town should have a similar rate of rape and murder of women. The dead women of Juarez are a unique case, which contributes to the mystery of the town.

The first official victim was Alma Chavira Farel, who was found beaten, raped and suffocated on January 23, 1993 in Ciudad Juarez. They believe that she was not the first victim of these murders, but only the first one to be found of about ten women who went missing before her. By the end of the year, the police officially recognised 16 more similar murders, but it was never confirmed if they were committed by the same murderer or if there were more. As the murders continued year by year, criminologists and a state attorney monitored the horrifying rate of killing, but they never found out whether it was the work of one person, a gang or whether the murders have no connection with one another. Some crimes bore the same ‘signature’ and they think that in Juarez there are at least three serial killers.

Several arrested, murders continue

The first suspect was Abdel Sharif, who supposedly raped and murdered a women, and whose former girlfriend filed charges against him for attempted murder. Sharif was condemned to 30 years in prison, but this did not stop the murders in Juarez.

Later, a member of the local gang ‘Los Rebeldes’, Olivares Villalba, confessed he took part in the murder of 18-year-old Rosario Garcia. According to him, six more members of the gang took part in the crime. He was condemned, and part of the gang was arrested and then released. The police even tried to prove that the murders were the result of a conspiracy in which Abdel Sharif and his gang were involved, but the did not manage to do so, and the number of murders only grew.

The police hoped to solve the case when a girl who survived kidnapping, raping and beating in 1999, told her horrible experience. They accused a bus driver who drove the workers from a factory, and the police began to arrest several of so called ‘Los Choferes’. They filed charges against them for a total of 20 murders, but they denied the accusations and stated that the Mexican police mistreated and tortured them. The American FBI joined the investigations, but after they went to the town, they left with no more answers than before and the murders continued.

No woman is safe

These murders have come to a level where we must do everything in our power to solve them, said a Mexican official and cooperator of the FBI for Dallas Morning News.

There is no precise information on the total number of victims. Different associations offer differing numbers, because many women are still considered missing. The most accepted theory is that between more than 300 women were killed between 1993 and 2005, and about 400 are missing. In the past years, the rate of murders has grown. Despite the monitoring of the media, of the FBI, of the public and of the police, there are still no answers. Only the facts are certain, no woman is safe in Juareze, and there will be other murders.