A Continuing Injustice is Addressed in Mexico

As an update to our previous posts concerning the hundreds of young women who have been killed over the past decade in Ciudad Juarez, I was happy to see that the United Nations has finally begun to recognize the horror that this city has endured.
It was reported by Reuters that last Thursday, a U.N. panel –specifically the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women — accused Mexico of “grave and systematic” rights violations for the lack of effort that’s been put in to solve the murders of these young women.
They stated that the committee was “greatly concerned at the fact that these serious and systematic violations of women’s rights have continued for over 10 years.” In the report, it also “notes with consternation that it has not yet been possible to eradicate them, to punish the guilty and to provide the families of the victims with the necessary assistance.”
Although the Mexican government claims that the murders’ origin “lies in entrenched cultural patterns of discrimination,” an incredible film I mentioned in the previous post on the slayings, Senorita Extraviada, suggests otherwise. Director Lourdes Portillo delves into the possibility of bigger involvements with the murders, like the Mexican police, the government, or drug trafficking.
Let’s just hope that this address by the panel will motivate the government to finally take some action on this horrifying encroachment of women’s rights.