Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Alive they took them away.
Alive we want them back.
Justice!
Justice!
Resign!
Please resign.
What's wrong with you?
Get to work!
At the northern border of Mexico
lies Ciudad Juarez Chihuahua.
The city is the epicenter of a war
between the drug cartels
which since 2008 has left
more than 9000 people dead.
It is a terrifying figure for a population
of a million and half people.
710 Women of all ages
have died from the assassins' bullets.
These figures considerably exceed the 'femicides'
of the decade from 1993 to 2003
when more than 500 women of humble background
were killed, mutilated and dumped near the city limits.
This sad scenario of city living
has worsened in 2011
with the forced disappearance of 227 young women
whose whereabouts are unknown.
A daily living drama for Juarez families
as Ricardo Alanis's. He is
the father of a missing college student,
18 year old Janet Alanis Esparza,
who went missing on March 16, 2009
from the campus of Universidad Autonoma
in Ciudad Juarez.
I have done this since my daughter disappeared,
every day for 2 years and 8 months,
sometimes doing inquiries,
sometimes just walking,
walking, watching at midnight.
Ricardo and his wife Olga Esparza
head the committee of mothers and families
with missing daughters.
They demand results from the investigating authorities
and personally inquire after the whereabouts of loved ones.
The authorities don't want to do anything.
They only go if you tell them what time she was last seen,
what she looked like. They want a photo,
they want to know who was with her, the name,
but they don't do an investigation.
So we have to go watch, spend our money.
Parents have lost their jobs.
We do not work
because the important thing is to find them.
I have been unemployed for almost 2 years.
Ricardo is supported by
Red Mesa de Mujeres of Juarez,
a non-governmental organization
that since 1993,
when the 'femicides' started,
fight for the rights of women
and currently tracks the disappearances.
Several of these disappearances
are linked to other crimes,
such as murders of women
and also the crime of trafficking.
For criminologist Oscar Maynez,
who was the coroner investigating the problem
in the black decade of 'femicide',
the situation of insecurity for women in Juarez
is serious
because they continue to get killed
and continue to disappear.
On the one hand we no longer have bodies
on the periphery of the city
but girls continue to disappear.
On the other hand we have murders of women
that are executed
and when I say that word 'executed'
it is because they have the characteristics of
the settling of scores of organized crime.
Not that women are involved in organized crime;
it just seems to be the mechanism of elimination
of people today,
with firearms.
About the problem of missing women,
its causes and who are directly responsible,
also speaks the state prosecutor in the northern zone,
Jorge Gonzalez Nicolas.
The official version however does not convince
social organizations,
much less so the families of the victims.
These are the researchers we have.
We are the ones who work every day,
looking for our daughters.
Authorities say they will take action
but they don't.
Let me tell you, the actual number is much too high
but it is also important to note
that 75 or 80% of these women
are located by the prosecution of the state.
Others return on their own
or reappear in their environment out of the blue,
leaving more or less 10 or 12% of people who really
cannot be found.
These cases of young women,
who cannot be found,
are a matter of grave concern to the prosecution
because it is a huge social problem
and of course a source of anguish for mothers.
We do not exclude the possibility of human trafficking.
The most serious of all
is that the Criminal Code of the State of Chihuahua
does not recognize the disappearance of women
as a crime
untless victims are located, ***,
deprived of their liberty or dead,
when nothing can be done.