Vicky went to the stationery store, the police didn't look for Rosa, Brenda was kidnapped: this is how women disappear in Mexico

Over the past few weeks, various disappearances of women have alerted the population in several states of the Mexican Republic, but are they extraordinary cases or a terrible daily life that is part of the unstoppable abyss and crisis of about 100 thousand disappeared?

The disappearances of girls and women have very different components from those of the male gender, unfortunately behind many there is sexual abuse.

Seven women have disappeared on average every day, so far in 2022 in Mexico.

Between January 1 and April 14, 748 women have been reported missing by the National Registry of Missing and Unlocated Persons.

Forty-six per cent of all cases are concentrated in the State of Mexico, Mexico City and Morelos.

If combined with Jalisco, Nuevo Leon and Zacatecas, the proportion rises to 71.5%.

According to the official registry of missing women so far in 2022, 320 victims are between 10 and 19 years of age.

This statistic corresponds to the women reported missing so far this year and who remain in that condition, since in the same period 729 have been found throughout Mexico, 12 of them dead.

In the most recent report on Mexico, the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances warned of an increase in women's cases.

“There is a notable increase in cases of boys and girls from the age of 12 and women,” the agency said. Such cases would correspond to disappearances linked to the abduction of children, within or outside the family environment; to disappearances as a means of concealing sexual violence and femicide, recruitment and reprisals. Victims and authorities also reported disappearances aimed at trafficking and sexual exploitation,” he warned.

The Network for the Rights of the Child in Mexico (REDIM) found that every day, 14 people between 0 and 17 years of age were reported missing, not located or located during 2021. This is based on data provided by the National Registry of Missing and Unlocated Persons (RNPDNO) with a cut of April 11, 2022.

According to the data consulted, since registration (that is, since 1964), 82,328 children and adolescents have been reported in this situation and one in five of these persons remains missing or unlocated until April 11, 2022.

While most cases (80.1%) are localized, the NGO noted that for every 100 people aged 0 to 17 who were located, one was found dead.

The crime of Victoria Guadalupe was abhorrent, the little girl of only six years old disappeared after going to the stationery store around 17:15 in the afternoon of Wednesday, April 6.

Victoria's mother went out in her search to which the neighbors joined, but the little girl was not found two days later wrapped in plastic in the same subdivision. The alleged culprit was located since a sandal of the little girl was found in his apartment, the 26-year-old man was originally from Oaxaca.

The disappearance of 15-year-old Rosa María López was recorded on March 21. According to official information, the minor from the town of Cuapech, Cuetzalan went to work and did not return, which is why her family began their search immediately.

One of his uncles posted a post on his Facebook profile in which he shared that when he asked to help with a police officer, he replied that nothing could be done and that the girl would have to be expected to return of her own free will “until the tantrum passes.”

Three days later, his lifeless body was located near his home. So far there are no detainees for his crime.

During the month of March, the state of San Luis Potosí generated alert among the inhabitants due to the increase in cases of abductions and disappearances of women.

In the period from 1 to 31 March, the FGESLP Twitter profile published 64 files to search for people who could not be reached. Of the total, 28 are women who have even been reported as under 18 years of age. The situation became more alarming in the middle of the month, when cases increased considerably.

When questioned on this issue, Miguel Gallegos, spokesman for the State Security System of San Luis Potosí, denied that the situation should generate alarm among the population, despite the considerable increase in the number of missing and unlocated persons, as well as the modus operandi of the perpetrators that has become caught by security cameras.

“Each case is an investigation and a responsibility on the part of the state authorities to clarify the facts. Today was a difficult season. A few difficult days or a complicated week. Today I would also like to call on society not to be alarmed. San Luis Potosi should not be alarmed. The government is working insatiably to achieve social peace,” Gallegos told the microphones of the radio station Factor 96.1.

Brenda was kidnapped and a camera recorded everything

A security camera located inside a home captured the moment when Brenda Magdalena González Ibarra was abducted in the state of San Luis Potosí. According to the report of the Attorney General's Office (FGE), the crime was committed in the Los Alamos Fractionation, a housing unit very close to Tangamanga Park, one of the most popular in the Potosino capital.

In the early hours of Saturday, March 26, the video of the scene began to be disseminated on social networks. Brenda was outside the home of a couple of her elderly neighbors, with whom she engaged in a conversation about a water pump that ran the risk of short-circuiting. At that moment, the perpetrator of the crime broke in. So far, Brenda's whereabouts have not been known again.

Nayeli disappeared and was found dead: all her flesh was torn off

A week after the San Luis Potosí State Attorney General's Office (FGESLP) issued a search form for the disappearance of Nayeli Alfaro Silva , the authorities reported the discovery of a body which, they said, corresponds to that of the 25-year-old woman. Although the event was reported to relatives, they pointed out various irregularities such as the fact that they were unable to recognize the body, as well as the disappearance of the victim's romantic partner.

According to Nayeli's mother days after her disappearance, it was around 7 in the morning of March 24, 2022 that her daughter was last seen. Her romantic partner would have been the last person to establish contact with her.

“I was impressed because it's a skeleton. I'm not seeing a single piece of meat (...) We don't accept that. We await the results of the DNA tests,” said Lorena Silva, Nayeli's mother, but a few days later the authorities confirmed that the tests had been positive and that it was her daughter's body, later the husband was arrested after he was at large.

María Fernanda Contreras Ruíz disappeared and her lifeless body was found on April 7 in the Exhacienda de Santa Rosa neighborhood, in Apodaca, after her case, it was revealed that in the first quarter of the year alone, at least 18 women disappeared in Nuevo León, of which at least 10 have been located.

Days later Debanhi Susana Escobar Bazaldúa, a young man of 18, also disappeared, she was last seen last April 9 in the municipality of Escobedo, Nuevo León, after attending with two friends a party at a farm located in the Nueva Castilla neighborhood.

The search form for Debanhi, issued by the People Search Commission in Nuevo León, points out that the last time they saw her she was wearing a white camisole, dark skirt and black Convers-type boot sneakers.

As physical characteristics it was detailed that she is a woman with a thin build, white complexion and brown hair, light, straight and long. Meanwhile, in particular signs it is described that he has a scar on his chin and on his right hand, he also wears braces.

Impunity, revictimization and banality of crimes

Gender-based violence by institutions leads to high rates of impunity for crimes affecting women; according to Marcela Lagarde, “inadequate and inadequate care by institutions, in addition to being unacceptable, aggravates the problem and encourages it”; while for Dalia B. Carranco “questioning the crime itself or the extent of the harm it suffered is, in itself, an impediment for women seeking justice” (2020, p. 3) and “the fact that many of the allegations of crimes against women and girls are not properly prosecuted or go unpunished already shows us an enormous obstacle: the problem of violence against women is trivialized and minimized”.

In this regard, the Commission on Human Rights of Mexico City, in its Report on Gender-based Violence in the Prosecution of Justice in Mexico City states:

“Women who face violence often do not have access to effective institutional remedies that allow them not to be victims of any kind of violence because they are women, to stop it when they are exposed or subjected to it, to have protection when they are subjected to violence, that there is adequate investigation when they are it was exercised, to obtain justice for the events suffered, to know the truth of what happened, and above all not to be re-victimized and violated by the authorities when they come before them. The result is that the vast majority of these crimes go unpunished; in addition to the tendency to normalize violence and blame those who suffer it, suggesting that violence is only exercised by people in borderline situations or in marginal cases.

(...) “The information gathered shows that despite the social rejection of the discriminatory and violent practices faced by women, some of which culminate in lethal expressions, the lack of a gender perspective in the care of victims and the investigation of cases contributes to the fact that institutional violence and its negligence or failure to maintain impunity and continue to impede the full enjoyment and exercise of the human rights of the injured parties.”

(...) “For women victims of violence, there is a double victimization, institutional and social, which forces them to hide pain and shame. The traumatic effects last over time and for many victims it is not easy to find support from their families, partners, or the psychological support staff assigned by the authorities, so the victim ends up stopping talking about the assault in order not to embarrass or not offend. The search for justice, which begins with a complaint process that can be long and painful, is one of the ways in which the victim can begin to regain the balance of their life through the potentially reparative capacity of the sentence.”

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