Artwork by Laura Molina
http://www.lauramolina.com
“Roses are the Mexican’s favorite flower. I think, how symbolic – thorns and all” (Gloria Anzaldua)
Amalia Ortiz
"Women of Juárez" The Spoken Word
“Not all the victims are rural, not all of them are outsiders to the border metropolis, not all of them worked at a maquiladora, live alone, or had indigenous features. But most of them are Mexican, impoverished, and young. There was a time when no one knew about the Juarez femicides, as these crimes have come to be called to signify the misogyny of the perpetrators.
The Mexican Government’s new line, after years of inept investigations and covert maneuvers to derail progress on any of the cases, is that the femicides are nothing but an invention of some crazy feminists and the attention grabbing mothers of a few dead prostitutes, a way of making Juarez look like a modern-day incarnation of the Spanish Inquisition out to hunt down, torture, and sacrifice young women, an image that city officials and merchants say is spoiling tourism to the city.
You already know that between 1993 and 2008, more than 500 poor Mexican women and girls, some as young as 5, some in their sixties and seventies , were violently slain in Ciudad Juarez.
You know their bodies were found strangled, mutilated, dismembered, raped, stabbed, torched, or so badly beaten, disfigured, or decomposed that the remains may never be identified. Their bodies bore the signature of serial killers, the bodies half-clothed, hands tied behind their backs, evidence of rape, genital mutilation.
You know their brutalized bodies were dumped in deserted lots around Juarez, downtown plazas, and busy city intersections. They’ve been found in trash dumpsters, brick ovens, vats of acid, and abandoned cars, as well as on railroad tracks, under beds in hotel rooms, across the street from a police station or the headquarters of the Maquiladora Association.”
This is an excerpt from the book: “Making a KILLING: Femicide, Free Trade, and La Frontera” by Alicia Gaspar de Alba, with Georgina Guzman.
Since May 1993, over 500 women and girls have been found brutally murdered on the El Paso/Juárez border. Thousands more have been reported missing and remain unaccounted for. This pattern of femicide is now being repeated in both Guatemala and Colombia as multinational corporations move into Central America.
FAQ’s on Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico
• Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico was founded in 1659
• Population today is at 1.3 million
• It is the oldest Colonial settlement and one of the largest industrial border cities not only in the Americas but in the world.
• Some multinational corporations who have taken advantage of what NAFTA has to offer: Phillips, RCA, General Electric, Panasonic, ALCOA.
Who are these women being murdered? Does a pattern emerge?
There is a pattern that can be found amongst the women who have been murdered. They are known in Mexico as “las inditas del sur”, when translated from Spanish to English it means “the little Indian girls from Mexico’s south.” These young women are described as “poor, dark-skinned, and indigenous.”
Many of them come from impoverished rural areas of Mexico to find work in the multi-national corporations or “maquiladoras” as they are called in Mexico.
There is a "Blame the victim mentality":
Both the authorities (Mexican Government and Mexican Police) and the media employ the logic of blaming the victim. The women who have been murdered have been accused publicly of leading “una doble vida”, the double life of a good girl (student of employee) and a bad girl (sex worker) who goes out drinking and dancing after working at the Maquiladora.
The women are accused of being prostitutes publicly in newspapers and on televised reports. Authorities describe them as the type of women who are just “asking for it” because of how they dress and the company they keep.
Fact: Of the first 137 bodies that were found intact, 74% were still clothed wearing long pants.
Theories presented as cause for the murders of “Las Hijas de Juárez” (daughters of Juarez)
• Serial Killers, Satanic Cults, Snuff Films, Organ Harvesting (Some of the bodies of the women have organs cut out)
• Egyptian Chemist: (October 1995 Egyptian arrested for assaulting a prostitute and who was later thought to be masterminding the crimes from his jail cell.)
• Gangs: Los Rebeldes and Los Choferes,
• Corrupt Mexican police
• Men who are resentful for their jobs being lost to women
• U.S. Border Patrol Agents
• Drug Cartels
Sex Offenders: El Paso, Texas is a dumping ground for the rest of the state’s sex offenders. Since 1995, there have been 600 registered sex offenders who roam around and easily walk across the border over to Juárez.
Working conditions exploitative of women:
• 60% of the 200,000 maquiladora workers today are female workers.
• They work for ($2.00 hourly) 12 hour shifts, the plants are open 24 hours.
• They are not allowed bathroom breaks which result in kidney infections.
• Girls as young as 12 years of age also work in the maquiladoras.
• Beauty pageants are held and disguised as “moral boosters” and work incentives.
• Enforced birth control through pill or Norplant implants; and strict monitoring of their reproductive cycles through monthly menstrual checks. The women are required to submit bloody tampons or menstrual pads to the factory nurse each month to prove that they aren’t pregnant. They must submit to urine tests when they apply for a job.
If the women arrive one minute late when the doors open at the maquiladora plant, the “jefe” closes the door leaving the women outside of the plant in the dark. One young woman was murdered because they locked her outside of the plant because her bus was late getting her to work.
Mexico’s patriarchal society & Femicide:
Alicia Gaspar de Alba’s book called, “Making a KILLING: Femicide, Free trade, and La Frontera” describes Mexico as a very patriarchal society. There is the “private” woman who stays at home cooking, cleaning and taking care of the family. There is the “public” woman who works outside of the home in the maquiladoras. The women, who lead social lives outside of work by doing what we would look at as “normal”, are meeting up with friends for happy hour going out dancing in nightclubs. “Those women” are referred to as the “Maqui-locas”, or out of control women.
In Chaper 2 of Alicia Gaspar de Alba’s book titled “Poor Brown Female”, she writes about the “Tres Marias Syndrome”.
In a Mexican patriarchy women fall under these three biblical archetypes:
• La Madre (the mother who stays home leading a “private life”)
• La Virgen (the Virgin who “bore Christ”, stays home until she marries leading a “private life”)
• La prostituta; maqui-locas (the women who work in the Maquiladoras who lead “public lives”)
In Mexico’s society men have begun to feel that their masculinity is being challenged because their wives or girlfriends are now making money by working at the Maquiladora. These young women have gone from being “La Virgen” and “La Madre” to the “Maqui-Loca”...the prostitute as authorities have claimed. The patriarchal system at home and in society is being challenged; relationships have changed resulting in domestic violence.
Alba believes that this violence is a form of "rage". She makes the following claim:
“There is a tremendous sense of the need to control women. And in Ciudad Juárez that is threatening the traditional Mexican society where women have largely been expected to be in the home. Alba continues to theorize that ” it is possible that this new workforce made up of women working outside the home is creating a disruption in society as usual, and that men are threatened by it.
Alba believes that collective blame lies with the Mexican Government, the elite families who influence the government with their money, and U.S. Corporations who exploit the Mexican people for their work.
Alba presents her argument: Collective blame for the Femicide of the “Hijas de Juárez”
“I argue that the Ciudad Juárez murders are an extreme manifestation of the systemic patterns of abuse, harassment and violence against women who work in the Maquiladoras – treatment that is an attributable by-product of the privileges and lack of regulation enjoyed by the investors who employ them under the North American Free Trade Agreement. I begin by acknowledging the critical relationship between women, gender violence, and free trade that has been noted by some scholars. But I also seek to understand how the absence of regulations to benefit workers in standard free trade law and policy perpetuates the degradation of maquiladora workers and creates environments hostile to working women’s lives, including discrimination, toxicity in the workplace, and threats of fatal assault.”
How to Help
The Cross Petition: through Amnesty International
In my Chicana Thought class, one student brought in several pink crosses which she made out of sticks. She asked us to write the following message on the cross in either Spanish or English. "Stop the Violence against Women"
Here are directions on how to do the same thing in your town or state.
The Cross Petition: Directions on how to do this in your area.
"Amnesty USA: Take Action for the Women of Juarez"
Video by Amnesty International on the Women Killed in Juárez:
"Women Killed in Juárez"
Documentaries on Women of Juárez, Maquiladoras
"On the Edge: Femicide In Juárez”
"Senorita Extraviada"
Movie on this subject: “Bordertown” with Jennifer Lopez
"Bordertown" movie trailer
This song is for Las Hijas de Juárez:
"Las Nina" by Lila Downs
Rest In Peace mis Hermanas