Femicide

“I don’t feel safe because once I step out on the street, I don’t know if the second step I take will be my last.” These words come from Guillermina González, the sister of one of more than 400 young women who have been killed since 1994 in a city just minutes from El Paso, Texas. Teresa Rodriguez, co-author of The Daughters of Juárez, based on the true accounts of serial murders in Juárez, Mexico, hopes one day these young women will lead normal lives, one that is no longer fearful of senseless violence. Rodriguez has worked for over a decade to bring attention to this string of unsolved murders. She describes Daughters as “a sad example of how truth can be more frightening than fiction.”

“There were many times I doubted whether the book should be written,” Rodriguez admits. “After our original publisher closed its doors and returned the manuscript to us, I had it at home, gathering dust on a shelf.” Ultimately, the families of the victims motivated her to continue. “They were desperate for someone to listen. All they wanted were answers and justice.”

Yet, after 14 years of successive killings, answers and justice have yet to surface. Juárez is a so-called “perfect setting” for murderers. The young, transient, working-class women are both plentiful and powerless; in other words, they are disposable. “Perhaps there was a mission for me,“ Rodriguez reflects. “There was a mission I had to accomplish for these women who no longer had a voice. This book had to become the vehicle to tell the world about their suffering.”

Most of the petite, attractive victims were raised in poor, Catholic homes. They went to and from work on foot or by bus, alone and vulnerable to their male captors. But what motivates men to rape and mutilate girls as young as seven years old? “Here [in Juárez], you had many women who were working for the first time and some men resented it,” Rodriguez said. “These women now had a voice when it came to economic matters and that was a threat to their manhood. When you have dire economic need, little education, and machismo, you have all the elements for an explosive situation.”

The Daughters of Juárez might seem like a sensationalized murder mystery, but Rodriguez ties us firmly to reality with detailed, personal narratives. “I am the farthest thing there is from sensationalism and proud of it,” she insists. “Not even the best fiction novelist or horror movie producer could have come up with the astonishing facts that I have documented in this book. My interviews and investigations were based on people I met and spoke to at length and on repeated occasions.”

Her intimate attachment to the women of Juárez — both living and dead — compliments a thorough treatment of the facts. Armed with details, Rodriguez humanizes a massacre. “I wanted each of them to have a name, a face and a family,” she explains. The portraits that emerge are unsettling: twelve-year-old Irma Lozano was raped and suffocated in broad daylight after her shift at a maquiladora. A recurrent setting in Daughters, maquiladoras are transnational assembly plants that pay three to five dollars a day — not enough for food and shelter — to mostly female employees. Irma was working to support her family, who were unable to survive on a farmer’s income.

Encouraged by the passage of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) in 1993, U.S. companies crossed the border to cut costs and avoid taxes. Home to over three-hundred maquiladoras, Juárez is a hallmark of corporate globalization. “After the factories began operation,” says Rodriguez, “many families who lived in other states of Mexico came here in search of better opportunities and they brought their children with them.” Many of the victims worked on assembly lines and some were even killed near their factories, implicating that plant managers and businessmen were possibly involved in the crimes.

It is clear that the killers have power and money, perhaps shielding them from punishment. The investigations have been marred by incompetence and an official lack of concern. Local authorities frequently blame the victims, insinuating that they led double-lives as prostitutes or dancers. “These murders didn’t happen to women who came from well-to-do families,” Rodriguez notes. “The perpetrators knew perfectly well whom they were targeting.”

Hundreds of cases remain unsolved, indicating an alliance between the killers and corrupt Mexican politicians. Even Vicente Fox — president of Mexico until 2006 — minimized the tragedy, accusing the media of “reheating” cases he said were “solved.” Local activists and family organizations have taken it upon themselves to raise awareness through public demonstrations. A group of women donned black tunics and pink hats at celebrations, reminding the public that the mourners are still awaiting justice. Drawing attention to the inadequacies of local law enforcement is the best–and only–tactic available to many victims’ families. They wisely understand that publicity places pressure on investigators and hastens justice.

Rodriguez agrees, commenting, “We certainly take notice every time there is a missing person in our country.” Indeed, the U.S. media responds with immediate and constant coverage — especially if she is pretty, white and wealthy. Considering thousands of U.S. citizens enter Juárez everyday, we to the North are shamefully unaware of the city’s anguish. “Just because the crimes are happening south of our borders is no excuse for us not to care,” she maintains. “When will it become okay to care? When it happens to a young lady from the U.S. who crosses into Juárez and never makes it back?”

Rodriguez envisions a day when she can return to the border city and find young women and girls “working and studying, without thinking that the next step they take, once they leave their houses, will be their last.” The women of Juárez, activists or not, carry on the battle, confronting less overt forms of violence and oppression every day. The Daughters of Juárez may become a catalyst for change. It is already shedding light on official corruption and impunity in the city. Equally important, the book is an outlet for the victims’ families and communities who asked Rodriguez to “relay to others in the United States their sense of frustration.”

For now, her greatest challenge may be reminding us that the story does not end with the close of her book.