Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa A.C.

Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa A.C. ("May our Daughters Return Home, Civil Association") is a non profit organization composed of mothers, family members, and friends of victims of the female homicides in Ciudad Juárez. The mothers claim that their cases have gone unsolved in some cases for over 12 years. Their hope is to get the murderers of their daughters arrested and hopefully convicted.

The organization was co-founded by Norma Andrade, mother of Lilia Alejandra Garcia Andrade, who was kidnapped on February 14, 2001 and found dead 10 days later. The other founder is Marisela Ortiz Rivera, Lilia's teacher. Many of the victims have been poor working mothers employed in factories in Ciudad Juárez, which is located in the northwestern Mexican state of Chihuahua, and is located across the Rio Grande from the U.S. city of El Paso, Texas. Since 1993, female bodies have been found in the city, and most of the cases remain unsolved. The group's mission is to put pressure on the Mexican government to solve the murders.

According to Amnesty International, as of February 2005 more than 600 bodies had been found and over 800 women were still missing. [1] In November 2005, BBC News reported Mexico's human rights ombudsman José Luis Soberanes as saying that 28 women had been murdered so far in 2005. [2]

The group worked with filmmaker Zulma Aguiar for her documentary Juárez Mothers Fight Femicide, which came out in 2005.

In January 2010 UK Television News programme Channel 4 News broadcast a report from Ciudad Juarez in which a young girl told how she had been abducted by a gang of men and forced into prostitution. She told the programmes reporter Nick Martin how she had witnessed girls being murdered by the gang and how children were abducted and sold to order to American citizens. The report was recognised by the Foreign Press Association as TV News Story of the Year in 2010 and prompted US Immigration & Customs Enforcement to launch a cross border investigation into the girls claims.

Footnotes

Teresa Ruiz (actress) & Marizela Ortiz Rivera

• 1 Amnesty International, Mexico: Justice fails in Ciudad Juarez and the city of Chihuahua 28 February 2005.

• 2 BBC News, No end to women murders in Mexico 23 November 2005.

• Zulma Aguiar's (Chicana Artist) Research link to Women of Juarez Articles

• Channel 4 News, "Missing in Mexico - Maria's Story" January 2010

External links

• Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa A.C. The official website of the group has versions in English, Italiano, Francais, Portugués, Deutsch, Català, and Руский.
• "Juarez Mothers Fight Femicide" (2005) Filmed in Spanish, English Subtitles 9 min Duration. Produced by Electronic Artist Zulma Aguiar.
• Amigos de Mujeres A fundraising non-profit in nearby Las Cruces, New Mexico.
• Mexico Solidarity Network A 2004 online booklet on the femicides.