Juarez Mothers Demand Justice for their Murdered Daughters

[struggle4progress]

Kent Paterson | May 9, 2008
Americas Program, Center for International Policy (CIP)

... Despite the international outcry, scores—perhaps hundreds—of murders and disappearances of young women remain unsolved. Refusing to let the memories of their loved ones die, mothers of femicide victims and their supporters are once again taking to the streets. On International Women's Day 2008, protestors from both sides of the border filed past the familiar cross monument in honor of murdered women that guards one of the entrances to Ciudad Juarez from El Paso at the foot of the Santa Fe Bridge ...

While recognizing official, multi-agency efforts to at least acknowledge the murders and disappearances of women, the Mexico City-based CMDPDH concludes that victims' relatives are still locked out of the justice system ...

... <Humberto Guerrero, case manager for the non-governmental Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights (CMDPDH)> contended, "... we think it is deceptive to enter into a numbers game since it diverts attention away from the principal problem in these cases, which is access to the justice system as well as impunity ..."

Starting in the mid-1990s, the response to the femicides from Chihuahua state and Mexican federal law enforcement officials and elected officials might be summed up as a multi-layered exercise in denial, delay, delusion, dollars, and diversion. Numerous "investigations" were characterized by the lack of investigation, the loss or theft of key evidence and files, the mistreatment of victims' relatives, and even the hiding of bodies from loved ones ...

http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5201