Violence and Activism at the Border: Gender, Fear, and Everyday LIfe in Ciudad Juárez

Chapter 6. Toward Eradicating Violence against Women at the Border: Conclusions

toward eradicating violence against women at the border: conclusions Chapter 6 Entre los individuos, como entre las naciones, el respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz. [Between individuals, as between nations , respecting the rights of one another is peace.] —benito juárez, 1867 For a Mexico without crime, and for a government committed to a common good —call for a march, october 2, 2004 This book is dedicated to the problems of and active resistance to violence against women on both sides of the border. In it I have examined domestic violence and as well as female homicide. One-quarter of women experience physical assault at the hands of their partners, and hundreds of women have been killed in Ciudad Juárez, some of them raped, tortured, and mutilated in what is known worldwide as femicide. Violence against women is the overarching problem, requiring institutional response and cultural changes, not the least of which are preventive measures—toward eradicating cultures of violence, of impunity, of misogyny, and of male backlash. Femicide and violence appear to be spreading to (or finally acknowledged in) other Mexican cities and in Guatemala, as well. conceptual frameworks I have used three conceptual frameworks to explain egregiously violent behavior: (1) the global economy, neoliberalism’s search for low-cost labor and its iconic Mexico maquiladora model; (2) institutions, both in governance with its weak law enforcement and in civil society activism with its remarkable capacities to frame, dramatize, and disseminate awareness about the horrors of femicide through local and subsequently national and international networks; and (3) culture, drawing from myths, he- 144 violence and activism at the border gemonic ideas about Mexican history, and gender power struggles. All three frameworks contribute to contextualizing, explaining, and perhaps addressing solutions for the stain on the international map that Juárez has become. Global Economy: Cultural Backlash Juárez is the maquiladora capital of Mexico, a place that epitomizes global neoliberalism and the inequalities it engenders. It has long been viewed as a city of vice where women are objectified and sexualized. Under the economic model of export-processing industrial production, conditions foment rampant violence against women. The wages of the majority of women and men are so meager that gender power conflicts occur, and male backlash emerges against women as workers and independent beings with human rights. Gender power relations fall within the cultural framework, but cultures of patriarchy, misogyny, and male control over women are not peculiar to Mexico or to the social construction of masculinity popularly called machismo. Yet Mexican myths about female betrayal and rage (recall discussions notably set forth by Octavio Paz) morphed into a national hegemony and added an ugly legitimizing zest to male rage. What tempers the violence inherent in patriarchy and misogyny? First, governance institutions that prevent crime, protect potential victims , and prosecute abusers and killers. Second, NGOs that challenge impunity. The contrasting female homicide rates—low in El Paso and high in Juárez—reflect institutional strengths or failures. Institutional quality is stymied with another aspect of the global neoliberal context: relatively free but illegal trade in drugs, as seen in the massive increases in trafficking since the early 1990s. The border region is a drug-trafficking gateway where guns and money overwhelm the rule of law. Drug consumers, most of them in the United States, are complicit in the breakdown of public safety at the border. Civil society movements are more or less vigorous in exercising oversight on or challenging law enforcement institutions. Strong activism in Juárez, initially against femicide, inspired movements locally, nationally, and internationally to reinvigorate their energies to eradicate violence against women. These concepts—institutions, culture, and the global economy—all contribute to understanding and explaining violence in the border region . Global economics and cultural concepts enhance insights about toward eradicating violence 145 the context, and institutional perspectives provide specifics: the identification of deficiencies in police practice along with tools and strategies to challenge governments, their responses, and the lethal cultures that tolerate violence. Institutions, Governance, and Violence On one side of the border, there is emergency response to violence if it is reported. Interventions can begin as soon as emergency calls are made to 911 and can proceed through a network of public services to provide shelter, counseling, and civil or criminal remedies in a tangled bureaucratic criminal justice system. The female murder rate is higher on the other side of the...