Women and young girls in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico are being stalked and systematically murdered. In 1993 young women started disappearing and turning up in fields or dumpsters, mutilated, sexually abused and murdered. Many of the victims were employees of the maquiladora industry and disappeared while traveling to or from work. Other victims were teenage students. Poor and working class girls in Ciudad Juarez are living in terror as murderers roam the streets. The smallest daily glitch such as missing a bus can be a death sentence for a girl in Ciudad Juarez.
Ciudad Juarez, (“Juarez”) is a border town in Chihuahua with an estimated population of 1.4 million. Approximately 300 maquiladoras (assembly plants) make up the industrial complex. Young females, in search of opportunity, have come to Juarez to work in the factories constructed following the passage of NAFTA. Eighty percent of the factories in Juarez are American-owned. Lear, Amway, TDK, Honeywell, General Electric and Kenwood are just some of the US based companies that have factories in Ciudad Juarez. Lear and Amway are Michigan based, with Amway’s headquarters here in my hometown in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The women range in age from approximately 16 – 24, with some as young as 12 or 13. The younger girls lie about their ages to get the factory jobs. Many men in Juarez resent the fact that young women are getting the factory jobs. The rapid industrialization of Juarez abruptly changed the gender roles traditionally seen in Mexico. The violence that resulted may be partly due to the emergence of the maquiladora based economy and fierce competition between men and women for jobs.
The number of the dead is not clear, but the body count is anywhere from 400 to possibly as high as 800. The police “response” has been indifferent at best and criminal at worst. The police have routinely laughed and dismissed the parents when they report their daughters missing, claiming that the missing girls are probably leading double lives as prostitutes or strippers. Many of the families have been forced to investigate their children’s disappearances on their own, at their own expense. Eight former police officers have been arrested in connection with the murders, none of whom have been convicted. There has been speculation that police officers have committed some of these murders or have been bribed to keep quiet. In 1999, Abdel Sharif Sharif, an Egyptian national and convicted rapist (in the United States) was arrested for the murder of a seventeen year old girl. The police used this arrest to convince the public that they had solved the murders. Even after he was arrested, the murders continued at the same rapid rate.
There are many theories about who is killing all of these women. Some hypothesize that it is the work of a few serial killers, maybe even coming in from El Paso, Texas or drug traffickers and gang members that kill women for sport. Because the police do not take these cases seriously, men who commit violent acts against women don’t fear consequences. It is possible that the murders are being committed by a number of copycats or are random criminal acts. Criminals in Juarez have learned that killing a girl is not considered important by police.
The majority of the victims were less than eighteen years old. Almost half of the victims were subject to sexual violence beyond the basic act of rape. Many had bite marks, stab wounds, ligature and strangulation marks on their necks. Some had their breasts bitten or cut off. Autopsies determined that some of the missing young girls were alive for a few days before being murdered. Investigators believe the girls were held captive and repeatedly raped and tortured before being murdered. The girls may have been kept as sex slaves by wealthy businessmen from either El Paso or Juarez or by drug gangs.
In November of 2001, eight decomposing corpses of girls, 15-21 years of age, were found in a cotton field a few yards away from the headquarters of the office of the Association of Maquiladoras (the group that represents many of the US owned factories). Two men, both bus drivers, were taken into custody in connection with the eight murders. Both men Victor Garcia and Gustavo Gonzalez Meza claimed that the Juarez police tortured them both and forced them to confess to these killings. They both separately reported having water poured on their genitals and then given electric shocks. Gonzalez even claimed that the police threatened to cut open the womb of Gonzalez’s pregnant wife if he did not confess. Both men did confess to these crimes after allegedly being tortured. Gustavo Gonzalez was represented by a well known local attorney named Mario Escobedo, Jr. Escobedo was a vocal critic of the police and their interrogation tactics. On February 5, 2002, while talking on his cell phone, Escobedo’s SUV was pumped full of bullets and he was killed. It was determined that the state police killed Escobedo in what they claim was a case of mistaken identity. Almost one year later to the day (February, 8, 2003) Gonzalez died in police custody under suspicious circumstances.
The other accused bus driver, Victor Garcia was represented by another locally prominent attorney, Sergio Dante Almarez. Garcia was convicted of the cotton field murders, but this conviction was subsequently overturned by a court in July of 2005, due to lack of evidence. In January of 2006, Sergio Dante Almarez was also murdered in a similar fashion to Escobedo. Almarez was in his Suburban and he was attacked by gunmen in a Ford Expedition with New Mexico license plates.
Considering all of the possible theories and motives, there are a few reasons why this slaughter continues in Juarez. All of the victims have been either poor or working class and female. The killers are careful about victim selection. The fact that none of the girls have survived to tell their story adds to theory that these are professional killings. None of the victims have been American despite the fact that there is heavy cross border traffic by American teens. If these killings were all random, it would make sense that at least one victim would be American or a girl from a rich or prominent Juarez family. The killers stake out and prey on the poor and vulnerable because they have the least amount of resources or recourse.
There is a level of corporate responsibility on the part of the factories that employ the young women of Juarez. If they are a minute late to work the doors are locked. There are examples of women being turned away from the maquiladoras at midnight and subsequently disappearing. Claudia Ivette Gonzalez was four minutes late to her assembly plant job. The management at Lear sent her away and she started home on foot. Her corpse was one of the eight that were found in the cotton field in 2001.
Despite some progress in Juarez and attention on an international level, the killings are still taking place. In an article written in the El Paso Times as recently as July of this year, the strangled body of an unidentified teenage girl was found in a field. It is imperative for the police and the government of Mexico to properly investigate and prosecute these murders. American corporations have some responsibility in regard to these crimes. The American government needs to play a role as well as Americans frequently visit Juarez.
