The Missing Girls of Juarez

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I just watched a series called The Bridge about the missing girls of Juárez. The bridge is the border between El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez. The story highlights the many missing women and girls who have disappeared in Juárez since the early nineties.

I couldn’t stop thinking about what is referred to as “the city of the dead girls.” So I decided to dig a little deeper.

A Dangerous City for Women:

Ciudad Juárez is known for being a dangerous city. It’s also infamous for the ongoing crisis of femicides (the murder of women and girls).

Four international points of entry connect Ciudad Juárez and El Paso: the Bridge of the Americas, the Ysleta–Zaragoza International Bridge, the Paso del Norte Bridge, and the Stanton Street Bridge.

These bridges make Ciudad Juárez a point of entry and a major transportation hub into the U.S. for all of central northern Mexico.

Thirty Years of Murdered Women:

In 1993, 14-year-old Alma Chavira Farel was the first. She was found strangled to death.

From there, the count of the missing and the dead rose. Bones surfaced in the desert surrounding the city. Fragments were handed to mothers who wondered what happened to their daughters.

Most of the women killed were young and working-class. They typically worked in the factories that cropped up after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

This made doing business in a border town like Juárez advantageous. Some of the dead were replaced within the week, treated in both life and death as disposable labor.

Norma Andrade’s Story:

Norma Andrade is one of the founders of May Our Daughters Return Home (Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa).

May Our Daughters Return Home is a Mexican organization fighting impunity for the abductions and murders of women in Ciudad Juárez. It is a non-profit organization composed of mothers, family members, and friends of victims of female homicides in Ciudad Juárez.

Norma has a personal story that led her to try to raise awareness about femicide. Her daughter, Lilia Alejandra, was murdered in 2001. Lilia Alejandra was working in a factory when she disappeared. Ten days later, she was found dead.

Norma fights tirelessly for justice, not just for her daughter but for all victims of femicide. Despite two attacks on her own life, Norma continues her advocacy, highlighting the perception that in Juárez, a woman is “disposable”.

Where Have All the Daughters Gone?

Kidnapping reports in Ciudad Juárez have reached their highest level in a decade. Ransom kidnappings increased sharply in 2023, peaking in 2024.

With the decrease in migration to the border, criminal organizations have begun to kidnap the local population to replace the income they previously generated through the extortion of migrants.

The Global Impact of the Juárez Tragedy:

The murder of women in Juárez has attracted global attention since 1993, given suspected police and government inaction to prevent the murders and bring perpetrators to justice.

This was primarily due to spurring international human rights advocacy and influencing the development of specific legislation against gender-based violence.

Only two per cent of cases end in a criminal sentence, and only one in 10 victims dares to report their aggressor. The rate of impunity exceeds 95 per cent, according to the United Nations.

International Condemnation:

The cases drew widespread international attention and condemnation from human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights.

The Mexican government was criticized for its inaction, impunity, and negligence in the investigations.

Visibility of Femicide:

The term femicide (or feminicidio in Spanish) gained international prominence to describe the gender-based murders in Juárez and elsewhere. It highlights the particular brutality and misogyny involved.

This helped frame the issue not just as general crime, but as a specific form of violence rooted in structural inequality and discrimination.

Mothers Movements:

The persistent activism of the victims’ mothers, who protested and demanded justice, became a powerful global symbol of resistance.

Their advocacy kept the issue in the spotlight and made information accessible globally.

Stories That Still Echo:

Below are some of the women who were discovered and identified. Some cases were part of the official acknowledgments of state responsibility for investigative failures.

• Maria Elena Chavez
• Olga Alicia Carrillo Perez
• María Sagrario González Flores
• Brenda Berenice Rodríguez Bermúdez
• Cecilia Covarrubias
• Cecilia Covarrubias’s unnamed 24-day-old daughter (who disappeared with her mother and was never found)
• Guadalupe Luna (19 years old, one of the eight bodies discovered in a mass grave in November 2001) 

Alma Chavira Farel:

In 1993, women in Ciudad Juárez began disappearing. Fourteen-year-old Alma Chavira Farel was the first to disappear.

Her body was found on Jan. 23, 1993. She had been raped, beaten, and strangled before being dumped in a vacant lot.

From there, the count of the missing and the dead rose.

Lupita Perez Montes:

A 17-year-old high school student, Lupita, was last seen on January 31, 2009, rushing to catch a bus home.

Her mother, Susana Montes Rodriguez, launched an exhaustive search, stopping buses and checking hospitals the night she went missing. She continues to search and hand out fliers.

Esmeralda Herrera Monreal, Laura Berenice Ramos Monarrez, & Claudia Invette González:

These young women were among eight victims whose bodies were found in a cotton field in November 2001. This case became known as the “Cotton Field Case”.

The families’ legal efforts eventually led to a landmark 2009 judgment by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. It found the Mexican state responsible for failing to prevent and prosecute the disappearances and deaths.

Adriana Enríquez Fierro:

Fifteen-year-old Adriana was murdered in 2008. Her mother, Ernestina Enríquez Fierro, once trusted the police. But after her daughter’s murder, she faced indifference from the authorities.

Ernestina realized she was up against deep-seated impunity and misogyny. She now shares her story to raise international awareness about the systemic failures in the justice system.

María Sagrario González Flores:

Maria Sagrario González Flores was 17 years old when she disappeared in April 1998. Her murder remains unsolved.

Silvia Morales:

Sixteen-year-old Silvia was found brutally murdered in the desert. Her mother, Ramona, made daily visits to her daughter’s tomb and prayed that no other family would suffer the same fate.

Eight days later, another young woman’s body was found with similar signs of torture. It was a stark reminder of the ongoing threat in the city. 

A Survivor’s Story:

One survivor, referred to as “Maria” (name changed for safety), shared a harrowing account of her ordeal. She was lured at 16 with a false job offer, then kidnapped and forced into a human trafficking ring.

After witnessing the brutal murder of another girl who attempted to escape, she managed to go into hiding and eventually testified to the FBI. Her story sheds light on the extreme violence and sexual abuse the victims endure.

The Murdered Girls of Juarez:

Most victims are tortured and mutilated. Sometimes the killer leaves a signature; a breast or a nipple is sliced off. The bodies are then dumped in a wasteland.

The average age of the victims is 16; all were poor. Their deaths, says Amnesty International, ‘have no political cost to the authorities’. Many suspects are in custody, but the killings go on.

Human rights organizations accuse the authorities of incompetence. There have been allegations of torture used to obtain false confessions. Women are frightened to go out, day or night, reminded of danger by the pink crosses marking places where bodies were found.

Blaming the Victim:

Hundreds of factories, often internationally owned sweatshops, have drawn tens of thousands of women from all over Mexico to seek work.

The police have often blamed the girls for the abductions, accusing them of bad behavior. Public pressure forced the maquila (maquiladoras) bosses to provide buses to ferry the girls home safely.

Maquiladoras (also known as “twin plants”) are manufacturing plants in Mexico with the parent company’s administration facility in the United States. Maquiladoras allow companies to capitalize on Mexico’s lower labor costs and also benefit from doing business in the United States.

The murders sparked waves of protests in Mexico and around the world. They used creative symbols like pink crosses and glitter to demand accountability and an end to the violence. These demonstrations contributed to putting gender violence at the top of Mexico’s political agenda.

When the skeletal remains of a young woman are found, it is considered an “achievement” because there is closure for their family. It gives them a place to go and mourn their daughters who died so young.