In CLIFF DIVER, the first full-length book in my new mystery series, Acapulco police detective Emilia Cruz keeps a log of women who have gone missing. For her they are las perdidas, the lost ones, and sometimes it seems as if she’s the only who still cares.

I’d like to say that I made this up, that hey–the book is fiction, that there are no women missing in Mexico or anywhere else. But we’ve seen the news from Mexico over the past few years and know that the battles for money and power between rival drug cartels and between cartel interests and the rule of law have taken a heavy toll.

The conflict bleeds south through Central America and beyond; las perdidas aren’t confined to Mexico. Where I live in Central America, notices like the one above often appear in the newspapers. DISAPPEARED the headline cries. The ads are placed by the families and the size of the ad is usually an indicator of the family’s wealth. (Read my post about violence against women in Nicaragua here.)

How Many Are Missing

In Mexico, leaked government documents from late 2012 put the overall number of missing adults and children as 25,000 over the past five years. In the city of Cuidad Juárez alone, the number of “disappeared” women is hard to calculate. Most know a family with a missing female member. This riveting account from the New Statesman of what is happening to women there is well worth a read.

The Cost of Closure

Trying to find out what happened to your disappeared wife, daughter or mother in Mexico can be fruitless and expensive, according to this report from the Inter Press News Service. One source puts the cost at $23,000. FYI, the average annual salary in Mexico is just over $11,000, according to the OECD.

The dead are easier to count

According to The National Citizen Observatory on Femicides (OCNF) from January 2010 to June 2011, 1,235 women were killed in Mexico. Between 2005 and 2011, in the state of Mexico, adjacent to the capital city and notorious for violence against women, the OCNF recorded 922 victims of femicide. In the state of Chihuahua, home to Ciudad Juárez, in 2010 alone there were 600 cases of femicide.

missing women in Mexico

photo courtesy of BBC News bbc.co.uk

So we’ll continue to see advertisements for the disappeared. Some places will be creative in the search for loved ones and justice, such as Chihuahua’s campaign to place notices for missing persons on tortilla wrappers the way faces and information are carried on milk cartons in the United States.  This photo accompanied this story by BBC News late last year.

I wish I’d made up Acapulco police detective Emilia Cruz’s las perdidas. I really do. But maybe fiction can generate some attention to this wrenching problem. Mexico is a country rich in resources, culture, and tradition. No one should be “lost” there.

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missing women in Mexico

CARMEN AMATO

Mystery and thriller author. Retired Central Intelligence Agency intel officer. Dog mom to Hazel and Dutch. Recovering Italian handbag addict.

 

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