Because they're women
by Dawn Madura
The Metropolitan
The sister of a woman savagely raped and murdered in Ciudad Juarez cried before a crowded room adorned with prayer candles and Day of the Dead skeleton statuettes Saturday.
The event took place to raise awareness about femicide: the killing of women because they are women, an ongoing crisis in several Mexican cities. According to "Intolerable Killings: Ten years of abductions and murders in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua," a new report by Amnesty International, which hosted the event on the CU Boulder campus, 370 women have been murdered in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua, Mexico, since 1993. Only one case has ended in a conviction.
Marilu Andrade, one victim's sister, appeared to shake with rage as she described how the Mexican authorities failed to respond to emergency phone calls after Lilia Alejandra Garcia Andrade's kidnapping, and then contaminated and destroyed evidence found on Andrade's body 24 hours after her death.
Andrade said the case of her sister is a small example of how authorities have improperly handled hundreds of cases of women's deaths, and "It is for this reason we believe that officials ... know who the perpetrators are, that they know who is out there killing these women," Andrade said through a translator.
Since becoming involved with the International Caravan for Justice, which will be speaking in 56 cities between Mexico and Canada, Andrade has grown familiar with many other victims' families.
Andrade's gestures became sharp and furious as she told the stories of a five-year-old girl and a 64-year-old woman who were similarly sexually abused and murdered. The little girl, Andrade added, was punched 115 times.
"We realized that in Ciudad Juarez," said Andrade about the ambiguous victim profile, "people are killing women because they are women."
According to the International Caravan for Justice's own records and investigation, 4,552 women have disappeared in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua since 1993. However, the group claims that local authorities only recognize 102 disappearances.
"In the eyes of the authorities, there is no problem," Andrade said.
Authorities in Ciudad Juarez have convicted one man for the deaths of six of their reported 102 missing women. However, said Andrade, there are allegations claiming this man and others were tortured into confessing and the bodies of "his" six victims have not been found.
The people responsible for the killings-known by the state as "serial killers"-are speculated to be involved in drug trafficking or organized crime. There are also speculations that the killers are crossing the border from El Paso, where sex offenders are often released into halfway houses.
Spreading across Mexico are, "rumors that those responsible are being protected," Amnesty International's report stated, which is a notion the International Caravan for Justice fully supports.
Andrade said traveling with the International Caravan for Justice has given her a sense of hope, but she explained that it is still very hard for her. Andrade has taken on the responsibility of fighting for and caring for families of many victims, who she feels need her strength.
"I know that one day I'm going to end up just breaking down because it's something that consumes you completely," she said.
According to the Amnesty International report, President Fox recently declared the femicide in Ciudad Juarez a "national priority," and Mexico's National Human Rights Commission has assigned an independent prosecutor to investigate the cases.
Although encouraged by this, the Amnesty International report said, "The women in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua would appreciate immediate, effective and concrete government action to improve their safety and resolve existing cases."
On its way through Colorado, the International Caravan for Justice also stopped at two locations in Denver, including the Auraria Campus Oct. 25. |
