CITYSunTimes Online Extras November 2009
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COVER STORY
Getting Away With Murder
Photograph by Greg Bloom
Local author tackles “femicide” at U.S. /Mexico border
By Katherine Koenig
[Part one of a two-part series, published October 2009]
This unspeakable story depicts some of the most chilling hate crimes ever imagined.
More frightening than any Stephen King novel, it’s an appalling true-life horror story. Just across the border of El Paso, the young women of Juárez, Mexico are losing their lives in a terrifyingly, consistent manner.
Bodies started appearing in the desert near the El Paso / Juárez border in 1993 and continue to do so to this day. A record number of murders in 2008 underscore the fact that little is being done to stop the violence. Most disturbingly, most deaths remain under reported, uninvestigated – and the killings continue.
Despite the number of victims and the audacity of the murderers, authorities have been ineffective. Local award-winning author Stella Pope Duarte bravely tackles this horrific injustice in her recent book, If I Die In Juárez (amazon.com). She offers a voice to the victims and families who want the world to know that their daughters didn’t deserve this fate, and that the murderers are still out there.
“In one way or another, these crimes have affected us all,” says Duarte. “They are one of the worst cases of human rights violations in the history of our global community. Ending these crimes must be a priority for us all.”
“Femicide” in Juárez
The term “femicide” has been coined to describe the mass murders by the popular media, defined as the systematic killing of women due to their gender.
“Femicides are part of machismo, in that men who feel empowered and are dominant over women feel they can punish, abuse and murder with impunity,” says Duarte.
Juárez has been nicknamed “the capital of murdered women” in recent years. The border city draws thousands of young women from small, poor towns in southern Mexican states to work in assembly plants or “maquiladoras” operated by major U.S. corporations including General Electric, Alcoa and DuPont. The sweatshops operate 24 hours a day.
Most victims are slender, dark-haired girls between 14 and 18 and many are killed on their way to or from work. Bodies have been found with blue factory-issued aprons still on – dumped in the desert or next to the roads.
“It’s the brutality of the murders; the defacement of the women,” says Duarte. “It is very shocking. I read forensic reports; I’ve been to the city municipal building in Juárez; I’ve spoken to investigators; I’ve spoken to organizations that work with the women; and for a while there I was trying to run away from it, because of the pain. I have children, and as
a mother, you don’t want to know that they did this to these poor little girls.”
According to the American State’s Inter-American Commission on Human Rights:
“Victims were reported missing by their families, their bodies found days or months later abandoned in vacant lots, outlying areas or in the desert with signs of sexual violence, abuse, torture or in some cases mutilation.”
The heinous crimes appear to be the work of woman-hating killers that include police, drug cartels and serial killers. Some think economic empowerment of the women may have also stirred a pathological resentment among some unemployed men.
“The women here in Ciudad Juárez are expendable, disposable women,” according to one activist. “It’s a problem of government indifference, of impunity and of machismo.”
“No crime is committed in isolation,” adds Duarte. “When one part of our globe is suffering as in these heinous crimes, we all suffer. In one way or another, these crimes affect us all.”
Read this month’s part two of this story, “No Voice, No Protection,” here.
COVER STORY Online Extra | CITYSunTimes November 2009