In April 2022, the discovery of 18-year-old law student Debanhi Escobar's body in a water tank in Monterrey, Mexico, drew international attention to the ongoing violence against women in the country. Throughout Mexico, more than 24,000 women were missing as of last year, according to the government. And in 2022, 70 percent of Mexican women surveyed by the government said they had experienced violence in some form.
Human-rights workers have also disappeared. Journalists are being targeted as they raise awareness of these issues — 153 reporters have been murdered and another 29 "disappeared" since the late 1990s, according to the Columbia Journalism Review. Nine journalists were murdered in the first three months of 2022, matching the number killed in 2021.
Women in the country are speaking out. Last year, thousands of protesters in Mexico City marched on International Women's Day to bring awareness to the issue of femicides and ongoing violence.
Who is helping?
- Familiares en Búsqueda María Herrera Poza Rica (Families in Search María Herrera Poza Rica) is a collective started by Maricel Torres, whose then-17-year-old son Iván Eduardo Castillo Torres was kidnapped in 2011. The organisation uses social media to organise searches for loved ones in Veracruz state and share and collect information. It has found mass graves throughout the state, and its Facebook page has 4,200 followers.
- SocorroBot is a chatbot for WhatsApp that guides families through what to do when a relative is missing.
- The Committee to Protect Journalists works to protect journalists around the world, especially those risking their lives to cover human-rights abuses.