Been very busy but these new links will give you something to read:
Amazing in a Terrible Way
Femicide in Guatemala
Entering the Minds of Serial Killers
Guatemala Femicide
Truth Serum Blog-Mothers day protests
Theatrical to spotlight 'femicide'
Lydia Cacho Ribeiro Honored with UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize
Sex crimes investigator assassinated in Juarez
Friday, May 16, 2008
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Culture shock...
I believe the femicide is an unintended consequence of NAFTA. I do not believe that several future presidents sat around in a college dungeon plotting to rule the world by causing third world countries to “race to the bottom”. Culturally Mexico is a patriarchal society, as are many countries. With the flow of new job opportunities, employers found the women workers to be more compliant and easily dominated. 70% of these jobs went to women and girls. Work papers for underage workers were easy to procure and the $5 or so a day was a big lure. Over time shanty towns cropped up around Juarez, homes built of cardboard discarded from the factories. Women were making money and gaining a little power. In the U.S. during WW11, women took over many of the typically men’s skilled machine jobs. Women worked riveting and welding to continue to produce armaments for the war. When the war was over and the troops came back home there was resentment and many women lost their jobs and were told to go home to their families. It is difficult to unwind the clock and women started asserting their rights as equal human beings. The motives behind having a mostly women’s work force in Mexico are nefarious but the result may be a more independent gender. Men are starting to lose control and their culture is changing. Physical violence is the one constant control that men have over women. Women who were raised to honor thy father are still walking the tightrope of independence and are more likely to submit to a man’s will. Domestic violence, workplace violence, and stranger violence are the ultimate control over women. Add to the climate the fact that the very people in power to protect and punish offences against women are mostly men.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
The Crimes...
Because of the type of information around, I have to apologize in advance for a faulty argument. Statistics are skewed according to who is releasing the numbers, actual crimes are minimized or attributed to overdoses and natural disease and crime scenes have been destroyed. I also must say that I am writing this by memory and will include sourcing when needed. Occasionally I may write a sentence very close to what I may have read weeks ago, I am not intentionally plagiarizing another’s work. I just may have better comprehension skills than I thought.
Around 1993 women and girls began to disappear in Juarez. Many of these women came to Juarez to work and support their families. Amnesty International puts the number murdered at around 400 which may be a conservative estimate considering the fact that many women and girls go to the border area to work and do not have regular telephone contact with their families. Like in the U.S., before the amber alert system, missing children and women were written off as troubled or runaways. The number of women missing is anyone’s guess, estimates range from a couple of hundred to three thousand. Another reason the argument is difficult to make is the lack of real information. Bodies were misidentified and returned to the wrong families. In one case a misidentification and eventual confession through torture led one man to die in prison before being exonerated and another to be only recently released.
Who is killing these women?
Sexual predator or predators…
Absolutely, of the women bearing the same signature aspects of mutilation many of these women were of a particular type. The girls and women were small, long brown hair, and young. This sounds rather generic but when you look at the lifestyles of this particular group they were very similar. The girls came from poor but caring and or cohesive families; they were innocently trying to make things better for themselves and their families by working at the maquladoros, or shoe stores and or going to school. The women were not sex workers, drug addicts, and drinkers (high risk victims) as the police immediately suggested to the families upon receiving a missing persons reports. The Washington post camera works article describes the signature, “Sometime in the early 1990s - police cannot say why or exactly when - the pattern of killings changed. Once confined mostly to drug feuds, brawls and gang fights, the slayings began to include large numbers of women and girls. Many of these killings were almost incomprehensibly brutal. Women were raped and strangled, crushed or mutilated. Some bore knife or teeth marks on the left breast. In some cases, victims' partially clothed bodies had been bound with shoelaces; often someone had carefully arranged the shoes beside the body. Body after body turned up with skin singed black by the sun or bones picked clean by desert vermin”
The Egyptian…
Oh please, this guy was a rapist and a creep, but drug gangs pulling a Bianchi stretches miles beyond incredible.
Organ thieves…
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah
Snuff films…
Sounds reasonable but where are they? I have never read of a survivor speaking of video, still shots were mentioned once or twice as a means to intimidate and torture a victim. If anyone has any info on this please post a comment.
Around 1993 women and girls began to disappear in Juarez. Many of these women came to Juarez to work and support their families. Amnesty International puts the number murdered at around 400 which may be a conservative estimate considering the fact that many women and girls go to the border area to work and do not have regular telephone contact with their families. Like in the U.S., before the amber alert system, missing children and women were written off as troubled or runaways. The number of women missing is anyone’s guess, estimates range from a couple of hundred to three thousand. Another reason the argument is difficult to make is the lack of real information. Bodies were misidentified and returned to the wrong families. In one case a misidentification and eventual confession through torture led one man to die in prison before being exonerated and another to be only recently released.
Who is killing these women?
Sexual predator or predators…
Absolutely, of the women bearing the same signature aspects of mutilation many of these women were of a particular type. The girls and women were small, long brown hair, and young. This sounds rather generic but when you look at the lifestyles of this particular group they were very similar. The girls came from poor but caring and or cohesive families; they were innocently trying to make things better for themselves and their families by working at the maquladoros, or shoe stores and or going to school. The women were not sex workers, drug addicts, and drinkers (high risk victims) as the police immediately suggested to the families upon receiving a missing persons reports. The Washington post camera works article describes the signature, “Sometime in the early 1990s - police cannot say why or exactly when - the pattern of killings changed. Once confined mostly to drug feuds, brawls and gang fights, the slayings began to include large numbers of women and girls. Many of these killings were almost incomprehensibly brutal. Women were raped and strangled, crushed or mutilated. Some bore knife or teeth marks on the left breast. In some cases, victims' partially clothed bodies had been bound with shoelaces; often someone had carefully arranged the shoes beside the body. Body after body turned up with skin singed black by the sun or bones picked clean by desert vermin”
The Egyptian…
Oh please, this guy was a rapist and a creep, but drug gangs pulling a Bianchi stretches miles beyond incredible.
Organ thieves…
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah
Snuff films…
Sounds reasonable but where are they? I have never read of a survivor speaking of video, still shots were mentioned once or twice as a means to intimidate and torture a victim. If anyone has any info on this please post a comment.
The Disappearing Women of Juarez
"After an altercation with some neighbors, Maria and her husband called the cops. When they went to the police station to lodge a complaint, the police arrested the couple and kept them in jail for 24 hours. During their detention, the police raped Maria. They took her to a cell that was littered with pile upon pile of women's clothing. When Maria asked what all these clothes were doing there, the police told her, "They belong to the women we've taken." With a shiver, Maria remembered that many of the murdered women's bodies had been found wearing the clothes of other disappeared women. (Later, some time after Maria's ordeal, when it was announced that the government was assigning a Special Prosecutor to investigate the Juarez murders, the police inexplicably burned one thousand pounds of evidence-- women's clothes.) Then they took Maria's picture, telling her, "If you report us, we will find you...and kill you and your family."
Maria says the police showed her a photo album, filled with pictures of girls with long hair. Pictures of these girls being dragged by their hair through the bushes. And more. According to Maria, the photos showed each girl laying in the middle of a circle of men who raped her, one by one. Then they beat her. Then they turned her over and raped her anally. The photos showed the men laughing. There are photos of the women's faces. Maria said, "They had expressions of pain and suffering. You could see them cry and scream. Her face--it showed the pain she was feeling. They looked very sad." There are photos of the men pouring gasoline on the women before they set them on fire.
After her release, Maria filed a report and identified the police who were involved in her rape. They were all arrested, but none of them were ever punished. Some time later, Maria got a job in one of the maquiladoras. On her first day at work, she sensed that someone was looking at her. She turned to see the factory security guard staring right at her. It was one of the men who'd shown her the photo album in jail."
Maria says the police showed her a photo album, filled with pictures of girls with long hair. Pictures of these girls being dragged by their hair through the bushes. And more. According to Maria, the photos showed each girl laying in the middle of a circle of men who raped her, one by one. Then they beat her. Then they turned her over and raped her anally. The photos showed the men laughing. There are photos of the women's faces. Maria said, "They had expressions of pain and suffering. You could see them cry and scream. Her face--it showed the pain she was feeling. They looked very sad." There are photos of the men pouring gasoline on the women before they set them on fire.
After her release, Maria filed a report and identified the police who were involved in her rape. They were all arrested, but none of them were ever punished. Some time later, Maria got a job in one of the maquiladoras. On her first day at work, she sensed that someone was looking at her. She turned to see the factory security guard staring right at her. It was one of the men who'd shown her the photo album in jail."
more theories to follow...
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