NI UNA MAS! Online-Demo against the Mexican government

"Since 1993, 370 women have been murdered in the Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua. At least one-third of these women were sexually abused before being murdered. 75 bodies have still not been identified." According to a press release from Amnesty International (de) from August of this year, "the majority of these crimes have not yet been resolved. According to local human rights organizations, another 400 women have "disappeared" without a trace. Many of the victims worked in factories near the U.S./Mexican border, where they were being exploited by foreign companies in search of cheap labor."

A recent report from the e-news agency Poonal, which covers news from Latin American, points how the local and national authorities show little interest in investigated the crimes:

In this bleak landscape, it is not only the drug-trafficking that is responsible for the extremely high crime rates. Many maquila factories, so-called assembly plants, have also been established. This is where large U.S. or Japanese corporations carry out the most work intensive phases of their production, as is the case of the textile industry. Because foreign investment is brought in and new jobs are created, the Mexican government considers the maquilas to represent an important economic advancement. Nevertheless, for those forced to work in the maquilas, this is highly questionable. The wages paid in the maquilas are miserable, and the work conditions are precarious. And as the maquilas are found within the so-called "free trade zones", the rights they are afforded are distinct: It is prohibited to organize a union within the maquilas, and the internal regulations are so harsh, that few workers even get to know one another.

The overwhelming majority of the employed are women, because they can be paid less. Likewise, few men are willing to undergo such unfair conditions in order to feed their families. Many of the women, either alone or with their children, only come for the jobs offered in the approximately 300 maquilas that have colonized the region. Others work as prostitutes, in bars, or as waitresses in restaurants. Many flee from their husbands or families, and hope to at least find a way to survive.

The isolation, poverty and work shifts, many which end in the middle of the night, make the potential murder of these women easy. Strange however, is that till now, no judicial motive has been yet found for the elevated number of crimes.

Only since Amnesty International did an on-site investigation this summer in order to document the unsolved cases and to begin a campaign directed against the Mexican government has something began to be done. In the meantime, investigations have begun in 228 cases, since many similar incidences began to take place in the state of Chihuahua: "Mexico: Intolerable Killings: 10 Years of abductions and murder of women in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua".

Likewise, the organization href="http://www.geocities.com/pornuestrashijas/enaleman1.html">"Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa" [Bring Back Our Daughters] complains that the authorities did nothing for so long: "Every week at least one woman disappears from Ciudad Juarez, and then nothing is ever heard from her again, unless her kidnappers decide to leave her somewhere to be found without life, evidently brutally tortured and murdered, cruelly raped, sometimes mutilated or burned."

Bring Our Daughters Back demands: There must be an end to the violence in this city which knows no limits! Since 1993, the murder of these young and poor women of Ciudad Juarez has been documented… In 2001, the terror began to appear in the state capital, Chihuahua… When and where is it going to stop?

The organizations from the campaign "Stop the Impunity: Not One More Dead Woman!" demands that the Mexican State put an end to the impunity regarding the death of women in Ciudad Juarez and the pain and suffering of the family members and human rights activists."

Their demands of the Mexican government, put together in an online petition are to be signed by as many people and organizations as possible.

For their part, Operacion Digna, apart from organizing a live internet transmission of a conference, is also organizing a series of coordinated actions that will take place in many cities (among others in New York, Washington DC, El Paso, Phoenix, San Francisco, Portland, Oregon and Minneapolis (all USA), as well as in Madrid, Valencia (Spain), Tokyo (Japan) and Paris (France). Furthermore, at this web site, a news forum is going to be organized, and the possibility will exist to download diverse informational materials in different formats.

The Conference Poster

Press Release from the 15th of October, 2003:

The Mexican state of Chihuahua is the most dangerous place for women of the Americas. Over the last 10 years, approximately 275 women have been killed and at least 250 are missing.

The reaction of the Mexican authorities has so far been ineffective. Laws regarding sexual violence and disappearances are non-existent. False testimonies and false accusations blur too many investigations. The right to life, a fair trial and the right to justice are continuously neglected.

For years now, the families of the victims have protested against the violence and the refusal of the Mexican government to find the culprits and to protect the citizenry. Another group, "Justicia para nuestras hijas" (Justice for Our Daughters), from the city of Chihuahua, has been working since 2002 on a local and international level to bring about justice and the respect for human rights in Mexico, as well as demanding an end to the violence. As a result, the group suffers from the aggressive repression of the Mexican authorities, who beat, torture, slander and illegally detain them.

In a recent report by Amnesty International, the human rights organization pleaded that people throughout the world express their deepest concern over the violence to the Mexican government.

Throughout the world, people engaged with this issue are currently organizing a wide-range of actions, timed to coincide with the Mexican "Day of the Dead". From the 31st of October till the 2nd of November, street protests, rallies in front of the Mexican Consulates, cultural events and religious prayer services will be part of the numerous events held in solidarity with the victims.

As part of these events, Operacion Digna is organizing an online protest against the Mexican government.

Furthermore, during the same time frame, from the 31st to the 2nd, Operacion Digna is going to provide a live stream of the conference to be held at the UCLA in California titled "The Maquiladora Murders", with the participation of Marisela Ortiz from "Bring Our Daughters Home", mothers of the disappeared, the film director Lourdes Portillo, as well as author Eve Ensler.

Operacion Digna is also going to provide an interview with Lucha Castro, lawyer for the group "Justice for Our Daughters", which has been recorded in Mexico and which can be downloaded and heard from their web site.

Likewise, Operacion Digna is going to offer an online news forum, where ALL actions planned for the “Day of the Dead” in support of "Justice for Our Daughters" will be posted.

Further information can be solicited at OPERACIONDIGNA@yahoo.com [Spanisch/Englisch]

Operacion Digna is named after Digna Ochoa, the courageous Mexican human rights lawyer murdered in 2001.

Press release from Amnesty International on the death from Digna Ochoa, 19th of October, 2001. For further information regarding the murder of Digna Ochoa, published shortly after her death, an audio file can be found from Radio Onda: Onda Info 26 [download | listen direct 7220 kB !]
In July , 2003, the Attorney General of Mexico City came to the conclusion that it was suicide.

Police Emergency Line doesn’t work: The case of Lilia Alejandra Garcia

Around 10:15pm, on the night of the 19th of February, 2001, the neighbors of a trash dump in the near of a Maquila in Cuidad Juarez called the local emergency number of the police - 060 - in order to inform them that a naked woman was being beaten in raped by two men in a large vehicle. No police were sent out to investigate the purported rape. Following a second phone call, a police car is sent out, but it doesn’t arrive to the scene of the crime until 11:25pm, too late to do anything. The vehicle of the culprits had already disappeared.

Just four days before ,the mother from the 17 year old Lilia Alejandra Garcia Andrade had registered her child as missing by the Center for Attention to Victims of Sexual Crimes and Crimes Against the Family, as well as the organism of the Mexican government for victims of sexual violence and violence in the family. Lilia Alejandra, mother of an infant and a three year old boy, worked in the Maquiladora Servicios Plasticos y Ensambles (Maquila Assembly and Plastic Services). At around 7:30pm the night of her abduction, Lilia’s colleagues saw her walk away into an unlighted area around the trash dumpster near the factory. Lilia took this path each day in order to reach the bus that would take her home. But this night, Lilia was never to return home.

On the 21st of February, the corpse of a young woman was found in a trash dumpster located close to the telephone where the emergency calls to the police were made. She was wrapped up in a blanket and had obvious corporal signs of physical and sexual violence. The autopsy showed suffocation as a result of strangulation as the cause of death. The body of the young woman was identified by her parents as Lilia Alejandra. The autopsy and investigation came to the conclusion that she had died a day and a half before being found, and that she was held captive at least 5 days prior to her murder. An extract from the police report from emergency line from the 19th of February at 11:05pm says plain and simply: "Nothing to report." The identity of the woman who was attacked on this day was never determined, and no attempt was made to investigate whether or not there was a connection between her case and the abduction of Lilia Alejandra or, for that matter, any other cases. Furthermore, no investigation was carried out by the authorities in order to determine why no follow-up was made to the emergency calls from Ciudad Juarez. The area of the trash dumpster remains to this day unlighted. A small cross bears witness at the place where the corpse was found.

Although such crimes are being committed for eight long years now in Ciudad Juarez, the authorities haven proven themselves incapable of developing an effective system to register and react to emergency calls, which is especially troublesome for the cases in which abductions and rapes are reported. But even worse is the fact that federal authorities refuse to investigate and admit to the mistakes made in this case, and that a connection exists between the abduction and murder of Lilia and the emergency phone calls. Likewise, no reports exist regarding disciplinary actions. A few links regarding these and other cases can be found at: Mexico. Intolerable Killings: Ten years of abductions and murders in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua, AI INDEX: AMR 41/027/2003, 11. August 2003

Onda Info report from October, 2003, regarding the UN investigation on the deaths of women in Ciudad Juarez: [download | listen direct5699kB!]

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More information regarding the women of Ciudad Juarez , the Mexican border region and women and children in the maquilas: http://www.juarezwomen.com/ http://www.womenontheborder.org/ http://www.escapinghades.com/juarex-articles.html http://www.angelfire.com/in2/qualm/maquila.html

More information regarding electronic civil resistance and the Electronic Disturbance Theater: http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ecd/ecd.html http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ecd/EDTECD.html

On the collaboration between Mexican human rights activists and cyber-feminists from the U.S.:
http://www.thing.net/~cocofusco/juarez.html

Ana Lidia Barraza Calder?n, 12 years-old, disappeared on the 7th of May, 2003:

Samanta Yesenia Carrasco Carrasco, 13 years-old, disappeared on the 17th of August, 2002:

Lorena Palma, 16 years old, disappeared: Diana Yazm?n Garc?a Medrano, 18 years old, disappeared:

Claudia Judith Urias Bethaud, disappeared on the 9th of March, 2003:

Erika Nohem? Carrillo Enriquez, 20 years old, disappeared on the 13th of December, 2000.