WBEZ | Ciudad Juárez

Ground Shifters: Women and girls in Bolivia and Mexico struggle for justice and rights

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 18:01:00 -0600

Today, Worldview presents part of Jean Friedman-Rudovsky’s series on women and girls in Bolivia and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico called Ground Shifters: Stories of Women Changing Unseen Worlds. It was part of an ongoing collaboration between WBEZ and the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women & Gender in the Arts & Media as part of the project "Gender, Human Rights, Leadership, and Media".

First, in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juárez, close to 1,500 women were disappeared over a decade. We'll hear a profile of Marisela Ortiz, an activist who’s spent years fighting for justice for families of what's known as "femicide". Then, we travel to a women’s prison in La Paz, Bolivia. This prison is a miniature city—with shops, businesses, a school and even a union. We find out how its inmates exercise their rights to improve their communal home. Finally, we meet Ana, Brigida and Noemí, young girls in La Paz, Bolivia who are proud to work. In fact, they've unionized, along with more than one hundred thousand child workers across Latin America.

Worldview 12.27.11

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 15:00:00 -0600

Today, Worldview presents installments from Ground Shifters: Stories of Women Changing Unseen Worlds, a series about women and girls in Bolivia and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico by Jean Friedman-Rudovsky. It is part of an ongoing collaboration between WBEZ and the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women & Gender in the Arts & Media. Close to 1,500 women in Ciudad Juárez have been disappeared in the last decade. Friedman-Rudovsky profiles Marisela Ortiz, an activist who’s spent years fighting for families of what's known as "femicide." And, Ground Shifters examines a women’s prison in La Paz, Bolivia that functions almost like a miniature city. It has shops, businesses, a school and even a union. Finally, Friedman-Rudovsky meets Ana, Brigida and Noemí, young girls in La Paz, Bolivia who are among the 100,000 unionized child workers in Latin America.

International community pressures Ciudad Juárez government

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 16:35:00 -0500

Today, human rights contributor Doug Cassel, from the Center of Civil and Human Rights at Notre Dame Law School, recalls the tragic history of Ciudad Juárez. For the past three decades, this town on Mexico’s border with the U.S. has been an epicenter for drug violence and female abductions.

Doug tells says the harsh attention from the international community has forced Ciudad Juárez’s government to better protect its citizens, especially women.

‘Ground Shifters’: Collective healing brings hope to Ciudad Juárez

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 16:31:00 -0500

This week, Jean Friedman-Rudovsky presents a five-part series featuring stories of women and girls in Bolivia and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. It's called Ground Shifters: Stories of Women Changing Unseen Worlds.

Today, we revisit Ciudad Juárez, now ground zero of a drug war that’s killed more than 6,000 people in the last three years. The carnage has left an entire population of families steeped in grief. We get an intimate look at one young woman who recently lost the love of her life. She tells Friedman-Rudovsky how her emotional wounds have helped others to heal.

JEAN: Meet Erika Salazar and Ernesto, her three year old son.

JEAN [with ERIKA and SON mixed in]: Since last June, this is their daily ritual: Mother asks son: where’s daddy? Ernesto points to the sky. And you love him a lot? Yes, he says. And where is he watching you from, making sure you are alright? Up there, answers the little boy with the slight lisp, eyes floating up towards the heavens.

ERIKA: I found out watching the TV news; I thought I saw his body. So I went to where the news said the killing happened and no one was there. I looked for him all over the city and then just as I was heading home I saw the car he had been driving. It was full of blood and the windows were shattered. In that moment, I knew it was him I had seen. So I went to the morgue and he was there. The district attorney hasn’t investigated it at all, just like with many other cases.

JEAN: Erika and Ernesto lives in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico homicide capital of the world, where thousands have died from the years-long “War on Drugs” that many see spiraling out of control. An increasing number of politicians, experts and activists now wonder if the billions of dollars spent were worth the human cost. Recently we’ve learned about “Operation Fast and Furious,” a scheme through which the US government intentionally allowed thousands of guns to flow into Mexico in order to track their sale to violent drug cartels.
Erika’s husband was shot, assaulted and killed for his cash, she says. 29 years-old Loving father of three.

ERIKA: Era los 24 horas estando en la casa. Llorando, sin dormir…

JEAN: At first, I was just in the house 24 hours a day, crying, not eating, not sleeping. Not even showering, and not paying any attention to my kids, she remembers. But then she recalls saying to her self: Erika, enough. You have three kids and don’t have the luxury of falling down.

JEAN: So instead of falling, Erica landed here.

JEAN: Welcome to SABIC, Salud y Bienestar Comunitario, or Communal Health and Wellbeing, where dance therapy class has just let out.

DORA: Aquí se llama Salud y Bienestar Comunitario, es una asociación civil, estamos en la zona poniente de ciudad Juárez…

JEAN: That’s the center’s Director, Dora Davila. Dora explains that residents of this periphery neighborhood created the center eight years ago.

DORA: This center is completely community run. It’s based on holistic healing. Here we work with an all-encompassing concept of health. Health as harmony, as equilibrium, as life—emtional, social, environment and body. We have a wide range of services including floral therapy, reiki, massage, group therapy, dance. We have a very clear concept of gender too—meaning the reconstruction of women’s lives, particularly now as this relates to the current situation of generalized violence in this city.

JEAN: The small building perched on a hill, overlooks the rest of the city. I can understand how Erika must have felt first coming here. The all-glass entrance is filled with plants and sunlight pores in. Children amuse themselves with Legos as their moms drink coffee and prepare for the day.

ERIKA: Yo empecé a trabajar aquí en SABIC por medio de las terapias…

JEAN: Erika says her neighbor, who had also lost a loved one to violence, brought her here for the first time to attend the grief support group. She then involved with dance classes, reiki, and as a peer counselor for other women. Now she works here as an administrative assistant.

ERIKA: My life changed completely. I used to be a housewife and I depended on my husband for everything. Now I am rediscovering myself as a woman, as a worker, as a mother because I am using skills that I didn’t even know I had or that I never put to use. I arrived here destroyed, with my self-esteem on the floor. You could say I arrived here dead inside.

JEAN: It’s hard to reconcile Erika’s reflection of her past self with the woman sitting in front of me. She now has a quiet grace, the serenity of a survivor who is at peace with what life has thrown at her, and the strength of a warrior who knows the battle is not yet over. This is not uncommon in Juarez, notes Dora Davila.

DORA: To be a woman in Juárez is like being in a whirpool from which you can’t escape. It tires you. Women of Juarez are tired of the hours they work in the maquila, tired of living in fear of what will happen to their kids. We sometimes feel like our energy runs out and we aren’t sure where we’ll find enough to keep on. But also, being a woman in Juarez means very brave and very strong. Recently, there is a strong sense of solidarity. To be a woman in Juarez is to be all women of Juarez. All of us who are here say to ourselves “being in Juarez gives my life purpose.”

JEAN: On a recent morning, Erika and two other women gather for their weekly group therapy session. They sit on plastic chairs with bare feet resting on mats and rugs.

ERIKA: Ya saque saque su ropa, fue dificil, mucho mucho pero parece que ya..

JEAN: Erika lives with parents now that her husband is gone. In group therapy, she recounts her previous day. She spent the afternoon getting rid of her husband’s clothes and belongings. It was her first time back home since he died. It was hard, she says to the group. Very, very hard. Seeing all his things, she continues, made me feel like I had fallen again. But with she says her friends helped her move her emotions, from anger, to sadness and finally to relief.

The other women nod understanding Erika’s story in a way I can not. One, who asked me not to use her name, also lost her husband to the city’s escalating violence. She reflects on the struggle that has become that of so many Juarez women and how she like Erika has found a path forward.

ANONYMOUS WOMAN: There are so many women who are alone now. From the moment we lose our husbands we begin a constant challenge—trying to earn enough money from work and also becoming better mothers. We end up sacrificing part of ourselves. We dedicate all our time to work, to our kids, to the daily struggle of keeping our families going and the days pass into years. We are honest, dedicated working people and we have learned so much by being together with other women. We are better able to take on life’s challenges and to have a more positive attitude. The therapy helps us express our emotions and to move forward psychologically.

Despite this, it seems that such intense personal reflection is only for the truly strong. The group has dwindled over time, from 16 to four.

ERIKA: The moment we start to touch on the hard stuff, you find ways to escape. We dont really want to work that hard stuff. People think that pain is normal, that it’s natural, that if you lose a loved one then you have to suffer because if you stop suffering it means you no longer love that person. That’s not the way it should be. Let that person go and rest in peace. Don’t wait for time to heal your pain because that only makes it worse. The sooner you start to heal the better.

JEAN: For this reason, Dora, Erika and the others spread out around Juárez, offering peer counseling and therapy to women who can’t get to the center. This collective experience is crucial for Erika.

ERIKA: Sharing the experiences of others who have gone through what you’ve lived helps to minimize your own suffering. You start find silver linings. For example when I sit down and talk with someone who has gone through what I have, sometimes it’s like I am that person on the listening end. The first time I tried peer counseling it was with a young woman like me. She had lost her husband a year ago before and she was totally destroyed, crying. By telling her “listen, chin up, be strong, everything happens for a reason,” it was like I was saying it to myself, almost like I was looking into a mirror and comforting myself too.

JEAN: Back at home, Erika gives little Ernesto a bath. She says they’ll probably stay with her parents longer than she first thought. She’s just not ready to go back to the home she shared with her husband. That’s how her life is right now, one day at a time.

ERIKA: I used to be a person that planned everything. I was the one, as they say, who built castles in the sky. But everything that happened made me realize that the only thing you have is this moment. We dont know what’s going to happen tomorrow. What happened to me helped me open my eyes and live everyday in the present.

JEAN: Erika’s life today feels almost like a life-after. There was something else before – love, joy, partnership – which she mourns but she knows she can not turn back the pages of time. Instead, she moves forward, without regret, present in her skin, in her space, in her city—unlike the quarter-million Juárez residents who’ve fled over the past four years in fear. Erika could have left too. Her three kids are all U.S. citizens. But, she says she and her children are Juarenses and they won’t be leave.

ERIKA: Juarez is not just violence. There are many good people, many people who receive you with open arms. There are many of us still here with the hope that this is going to change and we don’t let ourselves lose that hope. We are hard working people, we fight to make our lives better. We are united. We have faith our current situation will change. We are from here and this is where were will remain.

JEAN [with ERIKA and ERNESTO mixed in]: Ernesto stands on the couch. His tiny legs wobble as he tries to steady himself on the cushions. Erika kneels below. “Jump, Jump!,” she tells him. Don’t be afraid. He laughs and hesitates. For this three year old, the inches that separate him from the safety of his mom’s outstretched hands, must seem like a one story drop. “I’m right here,” Erika says. “I’ve got you.” Ernesto looks straight into her eyes and springs off the couch, right into her arms. I notice he’s got her full lips and smooth skin. His eyes are someone else’s.

ERIKA: Me amas? Hasta donde? Hasta donde esta tu papi? Es mucho verdad que sí?

JEAN: You love me? Erika asks. Yes, he answers. How much? He mumbles: I love you from here to where my daddy is up there.
[end Erika and Ernesto original audio]

This series is part of an ongoing collaboration between WBEZ and the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women & Gender in the Arts & Media at Columbia College-Chicago called Gender, Human Rights, Leadership, and Media. The Institute develops projects with journalists, artists, human rights workers and activists to investigate global issues.

9.15.11

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 14:31:00 -0500

Amidst concerns of a Greek default, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel said they want Greece to remain in the EU. We talk about jittery markets and the prospect of a new world order with David Hale, founding chairman of David Hale Global Economics. Then, film contributor Milos Stehlik tells us what he saw at the 2011 Telluride Film Festival. And, in the next installmment of Ground Shifters, we return to Ciudad Juárez, ground zero of a drug war that’s killed more than 6,000 people in the last three years. Reporter Jean Friedman-Rudovsky gets an intimate look into the life of one young woman who recently lost her husband. Lastly, human rights contributor Doug Cassel recalls the tragic history of Ciudad Juárez and how international attention has forced the government to better protect women and girls.

Ground Shifters: ‘Justice Buried’ in Ciudad Juárez

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 15:47:00 -0500

Ciudad Juárez, Mexico gained notoriety in the 1990s for its epidemic of female abductions. Over a decade, close to 1,500 women were disappeared from the border town. Today, reporter Jean Friedman-Rudovsky profiles Marisela Ortiz, an activist who’s spent years in fighting for justice for families of what's known as femicide. The story is part of a series on women and girls in Bolivia and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico called Ground Shifters: Stories of Women Changing Unseen Worlds. The series is a collaboration between WBEZ and the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women & Gender in the Arts & Media at Columbia College-Chicago. Series Executive Producer, Steve Bynum. Series Producer/Creative Advisor, Jane Saks

The bustling downtown centro of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico is deceptively festive. Stalls of bright clothes, dance music and colorful sweets line the plaza’s streets. They seem to mock the area’s history.

In 1993, women in Juárez started disappearing. Most vanished from here, the centro, abducted on their way to or from their night shifts at the maquiladoras, the city’s infamous mammoth factories that churn out cheap goods for US import. Often the women were on company transport buses. They were raped, tortured and killed; their bodies dumped on the city’s outskirts.

As of 2005, 600 victims had been found of what’s now known as femicide. Another 800 remain unaccounted for.

Marisela Ortiz says it all began when a student of her student Liliana Alejandra Garcia, went missing. Lilia’s mother, a teacher friend, sought Marisela’s help.

"At that time, we only focused on finding the girl and then seeking justice," says Marisela. "She had been raped by many men and then strangled to death. Her body appeared 8 days after its disappearence. We made our actions very public and so soon, other mothers and fathers with disappeared daughters asked us to help them in their search. Little by little because of this solidarity and cohesion among affected families, we decided to formalize our efforts. We officially began our organization in 2001—helping and supporting the femicide victims, and the sons and daughers who were orphaned when their mother was disppeared or killed."

The organization is called Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa. Marisela and co-founder Norma Andrande became the most well known anti-femicide campaigners in Juarez. Their tales inspired Hollywood movies and sparked worldwide human rights campaigns.

Marisela, a powerful presence with hair dyed auburn, has not stopped to rest since. She still works as a school counselor.

Her political routine? Take to the streets, talk to government authorities, press conferences and above all, she says, keep up constant pressure.

This may sound like standard activist fare. But remember, this is Ciudad Juarez: ground zero of the drug war — over 6,000 murders in the last three years, all supposedly drug-related.

But that’s not always the case, and being in the public spotlight means you are more likely to be consumed by the city’s tidal wave of violence.

The costs of (not) speaking out

Last December, a Juarez mother became enraged when authorities let her daughter’s convicted murderer flee the city. The determined mom planted herself in front of the state capital building in Chihuahua, vowing she’d stay put until her government brought her daughter’s killer to justice. A week later, just steps from the seat of government, the mother was gunned down in broad day-light. No one has been arrested. I asked Marisela if she’s scared.

"Of course I am," she admits. "For those of us who defend human rights, fear becomes an inherent part of your actions. I think if we didn’t feel fear we wouldn’t be human. Fear is necessary but you have to learn how to control your fear so that it doesn’t paralyze you. When someone has taken a gun to your head and said 'you are going to shut up, you are going to stop with these public statements,' it’s terrible. Your life changes completely. You have to say goodbye to many of your normal daily routines. You have to even say goodbye to many of your loved ones because those relationship are never the same again. I felt obligated to separate myself from my daughters. They were under threat too and so I had to say, 'there’s no other choice. You guys have to leave because to live here means constant danger and risk.'

"I have never considered leaving. I couldn’t do something so incongruent. We are struggling to better this community so how could I abandon something that I have struggled so hard for, something for which I’ve almost had to give my life? I couldn’t. I am not leaving Juarez. Not until I am in a coffin."

On a chilly winter evening at Marisela’s school, I meet Laura, 17, and Silvia, 15. Oh, and he’s one, Silvia says, nodding her head towards the little guy on her lap. Classes just ended for the day. Students scamper and shout school in the yard. The sisters sit quietly. They wear thick black mascara, and their mother must have been a beauty because they are stunning.

"Her name was Elena Guadiana," says Laura, recalling her mother. "We know that it was on a Saturday. She went to do extra hours at the maquiladora and she never came back. That’s all we know. My memories of her are fuzzy, almost nothing. I remember things like smells, the smell of burning sugar. But that’s all I remember. Nothing else."

It’s amazing that Laura remembers anything at all, as she was just 3 years and ten months old when her mom disappeared. The two sisters were essentially raised by Marisela and others in the group.

Now, they are notably teenagers - with a surface confidence protecting an inner child not much deeper. But their strength is palpable. Over time, they’ve become active members of Nuestras Hijas.

"This group is important for me," insists Laura. "It’s been very helpful for me to vent things those difficult thoughts. And to know that I don't have to talk about anything and that’s ok, too. With my mother gone, I want to do something so that what happened to her doesn’t happen again. We are here to support others going through what we went through, just as we were supported in our rough times."

Laura's sister Silvia agrees. She used to want to be a policewoman, until she says she realized police are corrupt. Now she's put her dreams of being an architect on hold to raise her son.

"I think that in every march, when we go to the streets and hand out flyers, we are making up for what we weren’t able to do for our mom," Silvia says. "That’s what I’ve come to believe and that’s why I do what I do. Now as an adult, I try to do for others what I couldn’t do before."

Empowering women, changing laws

Soon the room fills with girls Silvia and Laura’s age. The steel bar door closes and the workshop begins. The workshop leader quiets the group and explains: Few of us have the chance to tell our stories— to find our voice in this city. That’s what we’re doing here for the next few months.

Marisela told me she started these programs because the battle of Juarez’s women shouldn’t just be about those who are gone — but about empowering those who are still here. Mothers who’ve lost daughters participate too.

"Some of these workshops are aimed at empowerment," Marisela says. "So that the women starting taking responsibility in society and stop taking on the role of victim that society gives them. They end up stronger in the struggle and better able to support other women. We’ve been able to accomplish this with some of the women, but not with all. This de-victimization work is very difficult. Many women themselves dont want to let go of the victim role because it becomes a refuge for their emotional necessities."

In the past ten years, Nuestras Hijas campaigns changed Juarez law. Now the state is required to search for a woman who disappears. Before, authorities would simply say: “It’s not illegal to leave Juárez. Maybe she just crossed the border.” And not do anything. The organization has rescued women from human trafficking rings and even managed a few convictions. Over 90% of Juarez’s femicides have gone virtually uninvestigated, let alone with an arrest.

But international notoriety triggered by grassroots work like Marisela’s likely put an end to the mass maquiladora bus abductions years ago. These women also helped set a daring precedent for those who seek justice in Juarez: fear will not keep us silenced.

"Here, we are emotionally involved because the majority of us in the organization have been directly affected by the loss of a loved one, a relative and so we have common objectives," says Marisela. "Nothing separates us no matter how different we are. Some did not have the chance to go to school, others [had] few economic opportunities in their lives, [and] others suffer because their families don’t support their activism. None of that has mattered when it’s come to our work. We focus more on our what we can acheive rather than on what we lack."

Everyone has a theory to explain the Juárez femicide phenomenon. The maquilas brought hundreds of thousands of young women to an already dangerous border town, often alone. They made easy victims. Or, the justice system, saturated by impunity, fed by corruption. Or that Juarez—transformed into one of the world’s largest free-trade zones – made even human life dispensable. Maybe it’s all of this, rolled into one.

Without clear cause, there is no clear solution. And the problem grows.

"Frankly, over the last three years, female disappearances have increased 400% and in these last three years is when we’ve seen the highest number of women violently killed," Marisela points out.

"This has been hidden behind all the other violence of the street war between drug cartels. This has allowed the government to put the femicide issue to the side, though it wasn’t a real priority for the government to being with. They will never give you any real figures. In fact they try to hide the severity of the problem. Impunity is an inherent part of femicide. Femicide is not only the assasination of a woman but everything that surrounds that act, including impunity and institutional violence. Even after these women are killed they continue to be raped by our government institutions."

Memories, identities buried deep

Las Lomas are a set of hilly peaks just west of Juárez. The locale serves as the unofficial cemetery for Juarez’s women. It was a preferred dumping ground for their bodies in the 1990’s. I don’t consider myself a particularly spiritual person, but standing there, I felt something around me in the winter breeze; as if their ghosts surrounded me.

A local told me that police rarely bothered to come up here. Mothers would climb the sandy soil hills looking for—and often discovering—their daughters bodies; mutilated and decayed.

Today, a built road stretches to the top and nearby residents come on the weekends to enjoy the view. There’s a soccer field for afternoon games. Eight wooden crosses, painted pink, stand off to the side, covered by tall brush. One more, at the top of a high post, leans sideways, barely hanging on. Passersby, even if they do notice, don’t even glance in that direction.

Worldview 9.13.11

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 14:46:00 -0500

Yesterday, in a major speech, U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald defended the Patriot Act and said the most important shift in fighting terror over the past decade has been the new level of cooperation between intelligence and law enforcement. We get reaction and analysis from human rights lawyer Scott Horton from Columbia Law School. Later in the hour, we turn our eyes to Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, a city that gained international notoriety in the 1990s for its epidemic of female abductions. In the next installment of our series Ground Shifters, reporter Jean Friedman-Rudovsky profiles Marisela Ortiz, an activist who has spent years fighting for the families of “femicide.”

Jean Friedman-Rudovsky chronicles ‘women warriors’ in Ciudad Juárez and Bolivia

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 17:15:00 -0500

This week, Worldview kicks off a series that’s part of an ongoing collaboration between WBEZ and the Institute for the Study of Women & Gender in the Arts & Media at Columbia College-Chicago. The Institute develops projects with journalists, artists, human rights workers and activists to investigate global issues.

Jean Friedman-Rudovsky was their fall 2010 fellow. She’s a freelance journalist based in La Paz, Bolivia. We feature five stories from Friedman-Rudovsky about women and girls in Bolivia and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. She tells us why she named her series Ground Shifters: Stories of Women Changing Unseen Worlds.