where is juarez? ¿dónde está la ciudad de juárez?
For those of you who do not know, ciudad Juárez is on the other side of the border of El Paso, Texas
Juárez is about 1600 miles from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, that is not very far if you think about it...
Juárez is about 1600 miles from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, that is not very far if you think about it...
¿WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON? ¿QUÉ PASA GüEY?
Buena pregunta.
THOUSANDS of young women are being murdered simply for the fact that they are women. The Mexican government chooses to ignore the issue. The police refuse to waste any more time and investigate any further.
Crazy, isn't it? I sure think so.
There is no justice for these girls, not only do their families deserve peace, but something should be done so that this entire phenomenon can stop. Women should not be disappearing whatsoever, let alone at such a high rate.
THOUSANDS of young women are being murdered simply for the fact that they are women. The Mexican government chooses to ignore the issue. The police refuse to waste any more time and investigate any further.
Crazy, isn't it? I sure think so.
There is no justice for these girls, not only do their families deserve peace, but something should be done so that this entire phenomenon can stop. Women should not be disappearing whatsoever, let alone at such a high rate.
¿How does this relate a mí?
Funny thing actually...
I am sure many of you know how the instead of making our own products in the United States, many companies have chosen the cheaper route, by going out of the country. There are factories just on the other side of U.S./Mexico border that are duty-free assembly plants called maquiladoras. They are owned by U.S. companies such as:
Hyundai, Sony, General Electric, Ford, Zenith, Sara Lee, and Wal-Mart.
For the U.S., there are many benefits from the maquiladoras. There is an advantage to having the low wage employees, many companies have reported to saving up to $30,000 due to labor per year. The primary advantage to the Mexican border towns such as Juarez is the vast opening of jobs and opportunity for employment. And the maquiladoras provide a thriving export economy for Mexico. This is why the maquiladoras have continued to grow and why women from all over Mexico come to work here.
I am sure many of you know how the instead of making our own products in the United States, many companies have chosen the cheaper route, by going out of the country. There are factories just on the other side of U.S./Mexico border that are duty-free assembly plants called maquiladoras. They are owned by U.S. companies such as:
Hyundai, Sony, General Electric, Ford, Zenith, Sara Lee, and Wal-Mart.
For the U.S., there are many benefits from the maquiladoras. There is an advantage to having the low wage employees, many companies have reported to saving up to $30,000 due to labor per year. The primary advantage to the Mexican border towns such as Juarez is the vast opening of jobs and opportunity for employment. And the maquiladoras provide a thriving export economy for Mexico. This is why the maquiladoras have continued to grow and why women from all over Mexico come to work here.
Some big brand names going on there and most likely you support one, if not more than a couple of these companies. Of course I am not trying to blame anyone here, just try to make this relatable and help you better understand that just because an issue is foreign, it may not be so far from home.
Imagine if in your hometown or anywhere near you, young women were disappearing by the thousands. What if some of them were your friends? Imagine being part of their family or even their mothers... It's a tragedy what is going on in Juarez. Most of us have never experienced anything like this personally but we have to think what if we were in their shoes, wouldn't we too be fighting for the same cause? |
Mi gol.
I am focusing on the femicide and the women of ciudad Juárez. I want to bring awareness to what is really going on. Many of you probably do not really know much about this situation, this a lot of people I know and myself included before a few months ago are completely oblivious as to what is going on, on the other side of our border. Women are being sexually violated, horribly mutilated, and then their bodies are being discarded as if they were garbage in the desert that surrounds Juárez. This has been claiming hundreds of women's lives since 1993, with some thousands that have been unaccounted for; women's bodies have been found in the desert, deserted lots, landfills, and even public areas. Mexican government officials have figured around 350-600 murders have occurred over the years, but there's no way to know for sure of an exact number, especially since thousands of women have disappeared without a trace and they could factor into this number. The fact is there is a severe problem going on, women are being murdered just for the sole fact of their gender. What is causing the killings exactly is unknown, there is no specific target except for that these victims are women. This is why it is called: femicide.
¿qué es femicide?
What is femicide, you may ask? According to Dictionary.com, femicide is "the deliberate, wanton violation and massacre of womenand girls, as in a particular ethnic group by an invading army." It can be compared to genocide.
The large problem is that the police, the government, and the media are not paying attention to this issue and do not look into it. Many say that it is related strictly to the drug cartels. Juarez is constantly in the news especially for the cartel-related violence.
Straight from Alicia Gaspar de Alba and Georgina Guzman's book,
"Making a KILLING: Femicide, Free Trade, and La Frontera”, here's an idea:
"Since the days of Prohibition, Juarez has been a place for First World visitors to come and indulge in any number of illicit pleasures (alcohol, guns, drugs, sex). It is also the site where global capital has been making a killing to the tune of billions of dollars in annual profit…Because pollution laws are conveniently lax, the factories can emit fumes and dump waste without much concern or coversight. For all these reason, the U.S.-Mexico border has been made into something of an international sacrifice zone."
Many activists have created connections between the femicides and NAFTA, observing that many of the women killed in Juarez are young mothers who migrate to this region seeking employment. They then become easy targets because they are separated from their family and are typically alone when traveling home. Use of the term femicide, and the creation of anti-femicide feminist organizations, spread from Mexico to many other Latin American countries.
The large problem is that the police, the government, and the media are not paying attention to this issue and do not look into it. Many say that it is related strictly to the drug cartels. Juarez is constantly in the news especially for the cartel-related violence.
Straight from Alicia Gaspar de Alba and Georgina Guzman's book,
"Making a KILLING: Femicide, Free Trade, and La Frontera”, here's an idea:
"Since the days of Prohibition, Juarez has been a place for First World visitors to come and indulge in any number of illicit pleasures (alcohol, guns, drugs, sex). It is also the site where global capital has been making a killing to the tune of billions of dollars in annual profit…Because pollution laws are conveniently lax, the factories can emit fumes and dump waste without much concern or coversight. For all these reason, the U.S.-Mexico border has been made into something of an international sacrifice zone."
Many activists have created connections between the femicides and NAFTA, observing that many of the women killed in Juarez are young mothers who migrate to this region seeking employment. They then become easy targets because they are separated from their family and are typically alone when traveling home. Use of the term femicide, and the creation of anti-femicide feminist organizations, spread from Mexico to many other Latin American countries.
A LITTLE PIECE DE REALIDAD.
“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.
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.
¿why are these mujeres being murdered?
There is a wide range of ages of those killed, the youngest of the victims that are known are five years old and the oldest in their seventies. Meanwhile the majority of the victims are teenagers and young women in there twenties.
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”, or “the little Indian girls from Mexico’s south.” These young women are described as “poor, dark-skinned, and indigenous.” A lot of these women come to Juárez to find work in a maquiladora. Las maquiladoras is the Mexican name for manufacturing operations in a free trade zone, where factories import material and equipment on a duty-free and tariff-free basis for assembly, processing, or manufacturing and then export the assembled, processed, or manufactured products. Meaning labor is cheap, Mexican women work for approximately one-sixth of the U.S hourly rate. Employee turnover is also relatively high, reaching up to 80 percent in some maquiladoras, due in part to stress and health threats common to this type of labor. Workers are paid very low wages, live in poor conditions, and have low job security.
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”, or “the little Indian girls from Mexico’s south.” These young women are described as “poor, dark-skinned, and indigenous.” A lot of these women come to Juárez to find work in a maquiladora. Las maquiladoras is the Mexican name for manufacturing operations in a free trade zone, where factories import material and equipment on a duty-free and tariff-free basis for assembly, processing, or manufacturing and then export the assembled, processed, or manufactured products. Meaning labor is cheap, Mexican women work for approximately one-sixth of the U.S hourly rate. Employee turnover is also relatively high, reaching up to 80 percent in some maquiladoras, due in part to stress and health threats common to this type of labor. Workers are paid very low wages, live in poor conditions, and have low job security.
¿So why won't the mexican government investigar más?
The Mexican Government and the 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, employee, and a bad girl, una prostituta, who goes out drinking and dancing after working at the Maquiladora. Though none of this can be proved amongst the majority of women who have been found dead of whether they really did lead double lives or not, but the government would rather ignore the situation then take time to investigate.
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.
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.
LA CULTURA MEXICANA
The Mexican culture is very different despite the feminist movement changing the culture to a certain degree, but the women basically live in a world run by men with laws and regulations and standards set by men. They have distinct gender roles that are known as "machismo." Machismo is as much about power relationships among men as it is about establishing the dominance of men over women.