Amnesty International issued a report asserting that Mexican police have failed to take the necessary actions to investigate the abductions and brutal murders of women and girls in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua, Mexico. According to the report, there have been “”njustifiable delays in the initial investigations… and a failure to follow up evidence and witness statements which could be crucial.” More over, “failure of the competent authorities to take action to investigate these crimes, whether through indifference, lack of will, negligence or inability, has been blatant over the last ten years,” the document charged.
The majority of victims, usually workers at US-owned assembly plants and factories known as maquiladoras, were raped and strangledÑtheir bodies left in the Chihuahua desert. Mother Jones stated that while Amnesty International is holding the Mexican government responsible for improving the investigations of the murders, other groups argue that the United States and Mexico should work together to solve these crimes because the murders are occurring in a region where American companies are benefiting from the labor of these women.
Amnesty has reported that over the last ten years approximately 370 women have been murdered, 137 of which were sexually assaulted prior to their death. Seventy-five bodies still not been identified.
