WOMEN'S SLAYINGS CONTINUE IN JUAREZ

Three women's bodies were dumped in Juarez on Sept. 6 in areas of
great importance in Mexican history.

Claudia Leticia Estrada, 34, was left at a street crossing in the
Colonia de Independencia. Claudia E. Tiscareno Hernandez, 22, and an
unidentified woman, 20 to 25 years old, were found near 15 de
Septiembre and Monte de las Cruces in the Colonia Miguel Allende.

All three were killed by gunfire. Then their bodies were tossed in
places with names associated with Mexico's War of Independence from
Spain. Mexico will observe its independence on Wednesday.

The three victims brought to 1,000 the number of girls and women
killed in Juarez since 1993.

"Between January and August of this year, there were 167 murders of
women," said Julia Monarrez, a professor at Colegio de la Frontera
Norte-Juarez.

The other 2,000 homicide victims this year in Juarez were men.

Gangs and drug cartels sometimes leave bodies in certain places to
send a message to rivals or the authorities, said Sergio Gonzalez, a
Mexico City author, who has written about the women's murders and drug cartels.

Not only are more women being killed than before, but also the
profile of the victims has changed in recent years, Monarrez and others said.

They are older than in the past, and many of them come from the
middle class, no longer just from poor neighborhoods.

Imelda Maruffo, director of the Red Mesa de Mujeres de Ciudad Juarez,
a network of 13 nongovernmental organizations that keeps tabs on
gender violence, said recent victims ranged from 29 to 39 years old.
In previous years, typical victims were 10 to 19.

Maruffo said the government does not have a reliable database for the
women's murders in Juarez or the rest of Mexico. And the fact that
police say most of the victims, men and women, were killed by
organized crime or drug cartels makes it difficult to sort out each
case, Maruffo said.

Last year, Cristina Aranda, 35, and Patricia Avila, 38, two
councilwomen of the Township of Guadalupe, a farm community at the
eastern edge of Juarez, were among those who were slain. No one has
been charged in their deaths.

Marisela Ortiz, co-founder of Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa (May
our Daughters Return Home), said young women also continue to
disappear in Juarez.

"We find out about some of the disappearances from
government-sponsored signs or fliers that the victims' families
attach to buildings in the Downtown area, or from occasional news
reports," Ortiz said.

"It is lamentable that we have 1,000 victims to show for all our
advocacy work, the threats and attacks many of us sustained. It shows
that we are probably worse off now than before. Juarez is not safe for women."

Molly Molloy, a librarian at New Mexico State University, has teamed
up with Charles Bowden, author of "Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the
Global Economy's New Killing Fields," to bring more attention to the
men's murders in Juarez and collaborate on another book.

"The actual numbers of human beings killed has been obscured by
irresponsible and false stories about femicide(s) that leave the
impression that only women are killed in Juarez, that women are
always killed because of their gender, that all of the women killed
are young and beautiful," Molloy said. "In the huge majority of
cases, women are killed in the same way and for the same reasons as
the 10 times more men who are killed. They are shot to death, and the
person or persons who want them dead get away with murder.

"Many times the women have some working connection with some part of
the drug business and are executed just like the men."

Molloy said she has used newspapers and a master's thesis by Yale
University student Erin Frey for the homicides figures and reports
she distributes and publishes online.

Ortiz agreed that many men's murders have gone unpunished, but she
disagreed on why they were killed.

"Many men were killed because they were involved in risky behaviors,
such as gangs and as cartel workers," Ortiz said. "Others were in the
wrong place at the wrong time or were innocent bystanders. But most
of the women, whether they were killed by a gang, a stranger, a
spouse, a boyfriend or a relative, they were killed because they are
women. Men rarely are killed because they are men."