Femicide in Mexico

THE BORDER REPORT

Only a fool would assume women don’t play a role in the splintering tensions of Mexico’s cartel woes but this year’s proving to be a particularly nasty one for femicide in northern Mexico. They’ve been strangled, dissolved in acid, one was thrown in front of a train, others, like this unidentified woman, were shot in the head, their bodies laid out on the street. A message to somebody, no different than the fate of their male counterparts.

In Chihuahua, a state whose largest city, Juárez, has become almost synonymous with femicide, 31 women have been murdered this year; or about a woman a week. The dead include Tanya Lozoya, a 15-year-old from the U.S., killed at a party with two men, and Alicia Enriquez, a woman who was shot several times in the head. Last year, 89 women; the year prior, 25.

Intelligence reports that I’ve obtained over the past few months show that most of last year’s cases involved women accompanying their murdered husbands and boyfriends or were hunted down by rival cartels.

You can read more of this story at BorderReporter.com