Politics

Women murdered in Ciudad Juárez honored on International Women’s Day

Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, Mar 8 (EFE) – Feminist groups and relatives of victims held a vigil on Friday on the occasion of International Women’s Day in Ciudad Juárez, a city infamously known for the murder of women in the early two-thousands.

Activists and mothers of murdered or disappeared women held an early morning vigil Friday at a memorial in the cotton field where eight women were found murdered in 2001 in a case known as the “Juárez murders,” which sparked the struggle for legal recognition of femicides, the killing of a woman or girl, in particular by a man and on account of her gender.

Imelda Marrufo, representative of the women’s organization Red Mesa de Mujeres de Juárez, said that “this March 8 will be commemorated with much pain and thirst for justice due to the high incidence of crime and violence.”

“Since 2019, we have recorded data that there are more than 150 women murdered per year (…). So far in 2024, 24 murdered women have been registered,” said the activist.

She explained that in 2023, two women were raped every day in Ciudad Juárez, and another three suffered sexual abuse.

The phenomenon is not new, lamented Rosa María Hernández Díaz, mother of Diana Rocío Ramírez, who disappeared in April 2011.

She says her daughter’s case has not progressed and there are still no lines of investigation, so March 8 is an opportunity to raise her voice.

“We do not celebrate, we fight against violence, we fight to move forward, especially we mothers of missing daughters, it is a constant struggle to move our families forward for these changes,” said Diana’s mother, who hopes to find her alive.

Luz del Carmen Flores, the mother of Luz Angélica Mena, who disappeared in August 2008, denounced that the authorities have stopped investigating and are leaving the work to the families.

“They never have anything new, they always have what is brought to them, so the authorities do nothing for the investigation. (When) you go to ask and the answer is: what do you bring us? (They) are supposed to be the authorities,” he said.

March 8 is relevant in Mexico because, in addition to male violence, with more than 10 women murdered every day, the country is on its way to elect its first woman president in the June 2 elections, in which the main candidates are the ruling party’s Claudia Sheinbaum and the opposition’s Xóchitl Gálvez. EFE

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