North American Free Trade Act Severely increases Femicide in Cuidad Juarez

North American Free Trade Act Severely increases Femicide in Cuidad Juarez .
by: Allison Santiago 

Femicide in Juarez has been a hot topic  over a number of years but as said in a article called, “Femicide Made in Mexico” it has severely  increased, “Since the passage of NAFTA in 1994,  which allows for an economic open door policy between the U.S. and Mexico, Juarez has been filled with factories owned by various multinational corporations. Currently over 400 maquiladoras operate in Juarez and produce tens of billions of dollars in good for export into the U.S. annually (p1,2).”

 http://www.ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements/north-american-free-trade-agreement-nafta

It has severely increased due to the fact that women are mostly employed, young women are employed because they are seen as less likely to organize unions, and strike for better salary. Since these big manufacturing factories have migrated to Juarez the death and sexual abuse rate has increased.

 there has been a on going phenomenon of girls and women who have been killed since 1993 in the northern Mexican region of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, a border city across the Rio Grande from the U.S the murders in Ciudad Juarez have caught the media, and worlds attention due to the fact on how the moderate of women rise every year.I gathered more information regarding the recent murder rates in Juarez, and Chihuahua, and they have shown to be consistent over the many years.

In this quote that I got from a document called, Female Homicides in Ciudad Juarez, http://enwikipedia.org/wiki/feamle_homicides_in_ciudad_Juarez

there are starting facts of the increased murder rate.  “ As of February 2005 more than 370 young women and girls have been murdered in the cities of ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua. More recently, prosecutors from the state of Chihuahua reported that in 2010, 270 women were killed within the state, of these murders 247 occurred in Juarez. In 2011 Chihuahua’s attorney general, Carlos Manuel Salas, announced during a briefing in august 2011 that 222 women had been killed in Chihuahua since January of that year. Of these 222 murders, 130 of them occurred in Cuidad  Juarez. In total more than 300 women were murdered in Mexico in 2011.”(pg3) 

Memorial crosses of some of the femicide victims; Facebook Page: US Support for the Women in Juarez.

These facts and statics have shown that the murder rate against women has never seen its low, that it has always been on a all-time high. Ever since the 1990’s there hasn’t been a dramatic change in these rates, there hasn’t even been a slight change, in fact they have risen over the years. Women Femicide in Juarez needs to meet its end, young women don’t to die and on go massive amounts of pain to satisfy the pleasure of someone else. They should be able to travel safely without having to worry if they are even going to make it back home, or make it to the job. They shouldn’t have to worry if that was the last time they will ever see their family and children. Results show that there is a direct coloration between the North American Free Trade Act and these murders. The distance they have to travel to get to there jobs puts them at risk but the women in Juarez have no other option. These Factories are their only source of income. They risk their life to make only several dollars a day.