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The second annual J. Paul Taylor Symposium held at New Mexico State University March 29- 31, focuses on justice for women who have disappeared or been murdered in predominately Mexico-U.S border area. More than 400 girls and women have been murdered in Ciudad Juarez, in the state of Chihuahua since 1993, and 400 more are still missing.
The deaths of these women have occurred in a myriad of violence that has also taken the lives of over 1,600 men. Poverty and the search for maquiladora jobs lead these women to Juarez to live and work in high-risk areas where they became prey for rapists, torturers, and murders, their bodies left in the desert, many of them mangled and unable to be identified.
This femicide, as it has come to be known, is an epidemic that Mexican officials are only now acknowledging. The victim’s families and community members have joined together in organizations such as Amigos de las Mujeres de Juarez, justica para nuestras hijas, and the Mexican Solidarity Network in an attempt to have their voices heard.
In 1998, the Mexican National Commission on Human Rights issued a recommendation (44/98) to the government of the state of Chihuahua, which, among other things, called for enforcing the laws applying to bureaucrats who do not carry out their duties with regard to these complaints in a timely manner. To date, the recommendation has not been addressed.
Panelists, from Mexico, the United States, and other countries will join an audience from around the world at this symposium to discuss the victims of femicide, the struggle for justice and human rights, and the strategies that are being applied to these issues. Family members of the victims, human rights attorneys, anthropologists, and other activists seek international awareness.
"Ni Una Mas"
