Remembering: The Forgotten Women of Juárez
Podcast Highlight - Forgotten: Women of Juárez, by Oz Woloshyn and Mónica Ortiz Uribe
Please permit me to interrupt your train of consciousness this evening to create awareness about a longstanding and an ongoing issue in Juárez, Mexico. For three years, my husband and I maintained a residence in Las Cruces, New Mexico, a US city that shares its borders with El-Paso, Texas, and Juárez, Mexico. We have been to Juárez several times and even took our families and friends there last year for dessert on a Sunday to celebrate his residency graduation. I wrote about my initial visit here: https://medium.com/@Mosibyl/18-hours-in-mexico-d2355d434735.
Recently, I learned about a crime wave that's been ongoing in Juárez since the 1990s. Now, Juárez has been (and still remains) plagued with drug wars from feuding cartels. But this other crime is different. It targets women directly. It's been linked to the cartel, but the culprits are not just the cartel. Since 1993, hundreds of thousands of women have been raped, tortured, and murdered. Often found in shallow graves in the city and some, whose bodies are yet to be recovered by their families. Most of these women fit into a profile – those of low socioeconomic status who moved from the countryside to the city to better their lives.
As it stands, things have gotten so bad that a lot of locals have become immune to it and even rearranged their lives around it. I spoke to a friend who grew up there, and she talked about how the fear of these killings has made them (the women) more hypervigilant. Women mostly go out in pairs, even to use the bathroom, and won’t dare walk alone.
As someone fascinated with the human mind, especially the lengths it can go, I wanted to know more about this case. So when the opportunity came not only to review a podcast about this issue but also engage the producers of the podcast, I lunged at it.
The podcast, Forgotten: Women of Juárez, is a new true-crime show about the femicides in Juárez that’s well-written and produced. Hosted by Oz Woloshyn, an Emmy and Peabody-award winning producer and writer, and his co-host Mónica Ortiz Uribe, and together, they travel to Juárez to investigate the mysterious disappearance of women over the course of decades. Finding justice for these women proves to be incredibly tricky, given a weak judicial system laden with corruption, a contentious border relationship with the US, and American consumerism.
I hope you give the podcast a listen and share it with your friends too. The hope is to keep amplifying the voices of these women until justice is served.
Links:
Trip to Juárez: https://medium.com/@Mosibyl/18-hours-in-mexico-d2355d434735
My interview with Oz and Mónica: https://podcastbrunchclub.com/forgotten-women-of-juarez/
Podcast: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-forgotten-the-women-of-ju-63028149/
Pink crosses photo source: Latinalista