Marking international women’s day, mothers and families of disappeared and murdered women marched in Mexico City’s center to demand justice for the victims and an end to the systemic roots of femicide. The country has suffered a contagious effect over the last several years, with femicides and violence toward women rapidly spreading to regions that had previously never seen such violence.
Marking international women’s day, mothers and families of disappeared and murdered women marched in Mexico City’s center to demand justice for the victims and an end to the systemic roots of femicide. The country has suffered a contagious effect over the last several years, with femicides and violence toward women rapidly spreading to regions that had previously never seen such violence.
Many of the victims and activists hold the government responsible for its complicity or lack of response to the spreading epidemic, which has translated to an impunity rate of 98.5 percent of crimes going unsolved or uninvestigated. This impunity coupled with a drug-war strategy that has left more than 70,000 dead over 6 years, rampant police and military corruption and human rights abuses, as well general insecurity, only picks at the scab of a wound that is growing deeper.
Victims and activists say that it was more than two decades ago that they began ringing the alarm bells of the first cases of femicide in Mexico (mostly in Ciudad Juarez). They say now, 20 years later, that no advances have been made.
“Femicide” – Participants of the march gathered on the stairs of Mexico City’s iconic monument, the Angel of Independence.
A group of mothers and family members of disappeared women from Ciudad Juarez led the march. The group has made recent headlines for a weeklong march called “The Walk for Life and Justice”, they held from Ciudad Juarez to Chihuahua City in January, demanding from authorities information and access to forensic evidence of nearly 200 unidentified female bodies and remains in the Ciudad Juarez morgue.
“No more deaths (of women)”
“#YoSoy 132 Ciudad Juarez – Committee of Mothers” – Several of the participants on the ”Walk for Life and Justice” have since received death threats and intimidation by local and state police for their demands for justice. One of them, Marcos Espinoza Rendon, of the nationwide student movement, #YoSoy132 (I am 132), received threatening anonymous phone calls and has been followed by police.
“Help us to find her”
“This is my mom”
Many women who have disappeared or are victims to femicide leave behind children and families.
“Victims of crimes because of gender”
Many marchers carried signs to mourn and remember the life of activist, lawyer, human rights defender, and victim to feminicide, Digna Ochoa. In 1988 while Ochoa was investigating a case of state persecution toward political activists and union organizers, she was allegedly abducted by local police and raped. Later in 1999 while working for the human rights center “Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez (Prodh)” in Mexico City she was again kidnapped and interrogated. The Inter-America Human Rights Court recommended that she receive protection, and she was thus granted political asylum in the United States in 2000.
In 2001 She returned to Mexico City to resume work at the Prodh. On October 19th, 2001 Ochoa was found shot in the head in the Prodh offices with a note that threatened the same to other human rights defenders.
During her life she was recognized and awarded for her defense of human rights by Amnesty International. Global Exchange and the Ludovic-Trarieux International Human Rights Prize posthumously recognized her for her defense of human rights.
Activist and victim, Norma Andrade (left) of the organization “Return our Children Home” was one of the key organizers of the march. Andrade’s daughter was kidnapped and murdered in 2001 in Ciudad Juarez. For her activities in demanding justice for her daughter’s unsolved murder and supporting other mothers of missing children in Juarez, Andrade has received death threats and has survived two assassination attempts. In the first attempt in 2011, a group of gunmen confronted her outside of the school where she worked in Ciudad Juarez and shot her 5 times. In 2012, after having had moved to Mexico City for her safety and protection, a man attempted to stab her in her home.
Andrade was friend and fellow organizer with Marisela Escobedo Ortiz, who in 2010 was gunned down in cold blood in front of the Chihuahua State Capital building while holding a vigil for her murdered daughter and demanding prosecution for the confessed killer.
“They were taken alive, we want them back alive!”
“Architect, Ferny, Killed, 2010”
Participants of the march protested in front of the offices of the Chihuahua State Government in Mexico City to decry the impunity and high number of femicides in Chihuahua State which is the epicenter of violence toward women in the country.
Marchers displayed the images of disappeared and murdered women to police stationed outside of the offices.
“Not one more death (of women)”
“Help us in finding her”