Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, a Mexican borderland city across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, USA, has gained world-wide notoriety for more than a decade of serial murder of young women. Authorities do not know for sure when the women of Juárez began to die in such large numbers, however, it was during the 1990s that the situation first came to public attention.

More than 360 bodies have been found so far, the youngest being a five-year-old girl. As of February 2002, 76 of these murders were found to fit a pattern of described as:

"The victims of these crimes have preponderantly been young women, between 15 and 25 years of age. Some were students, and many were maquila workers or employed in local shops or businesses. A number were relative newcomers to Ciudad Juárez who had migrated from other areas of Mexico. The victims were generally reported missing by their families, with their bodies found days or months later abandoned in vacant lots or outlying areas. In most of these cases there were signs of sexual violence, abuse, torture or in some cases mutilation."¹

The Mexican police have made several arrests, the first being that of an Egyptian-born chemist, Abdul Latif Sharif (born in 1947), who had been responsible for several rapes in the United States before moving to Ciudad Juárez in 1994 to escape a deportation hearing in Texas. Since his arrest and imprisonment for a murder of a young maquiladora worker in 1995 the police have arrested two groups of men whom they allege Sharif was paying from behind bars to rape and murder on his behalf in an attempt to establish his innocence of the crimes. Despite the arrests of Sharif and his alleged co-conspirators, however, the killings have continued, leading the Mexican police and the public in general to consider many theories, among them that the real killer or killers are still on the loose or that the original killer or killers are in jail and copycats have moved to the area since. There are also accusations that there has been a conspiracy of silence and cover-up by Mexican politicians bribed by the killer or killers. Many of the victims were prostitutes, others were women who worked in the city's many maquiladoras, and many more, like the five-year-old victim, were very young girls who probably had no way of defending themselves against a larger and stronger attacker.

Sharif was convicted of one murder after his 1996 arrest. Victor Garcia Uribe was convicted in October 2004 for eight of the murders. Gustavo González Meza was arrested on suspicion in some of the killings but he died in jail under suspicious circumstances on February 8, 2003. On January 7, 2005, four members of the "Los Toltecas" gang were convicted of six murders and six member of the "Los Rebeldes" gang were convicted of another six murders. Jesus Manuel Guardado and four other "Los Toltecas" had been arrested in 1999. One was found not guilty. Five of the twelve convicted so far have been bus drivers.

The Organization of American States's Inter-American Commission on Human Rights notes in a 2002 report that the "...the response of the authorities to these crimes has been markedly deficient...On the one hand, the vast majority of the killings remain in impunity; approximately 20% have been the subject of prosecution and conviction." and "An important segment of the killings in Ciudad Juárez took place at the hands of an intimate partner, but their significance has yet to be acknowledged by local officials."

The United States police, according to newspaper reports, have offered help in finding the suspect or suspects in the deaths of these women. In addition, many equal rights and feminist groups have organized vigils in memory of the dead women, as well as public talks to make more people aware of the suspicious deaths of these women. Plans are said to be in the works for a movie called Bordertown examining the crimes and starring Jennifer Lopez as an investigative journalist trying to discover the truth behind the crimes.

In 2004, Sally Field and other famous Hollywood actresses went to Ciudad Juárez to speak about women's rights and demand justice for the dead women.

Footnotes

• Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Situation of the Rights of Women in Ciudad Juárez (http://www.cidh.org/annualrep/2002eng/chap.vi.juarez.htm) (2002) — Report by OAS human rights agency.

References

• Antonio Mendoza, Killers on the Loose: Unsolved Cases of Serial Murder, (Virgin Books 2002), [ISBN 0753506815] — Study of unsolved serial killing around the world, including Ciudad Juárez.

• Simon Whitechapel, Crossing to Kill: The True Story of the Serial-Killer Playground, (Virgin Books 2002), [ISBN 0753506866] — Updated edition of the first detailed study of the Juárez murders.