Diario de un Kamikaze en Recuperación: Juárez is not <i>that</i> violent

I read this bit of news yesterday, where the official report on the “femicides” of women in Cd. Juárez effectively dismissed the claims that (1) they were serial killings, and (2) that the number of women who disappeared—and presumed dead—numbered in the thousands.

This has angered a lot of people, especially the ones working with the victims and the victims’ organizations. What I am about to say will probably add fuel to that fire, since I agree with the report.

But before I start getting into it and get flamed, let me just say a few things about me: I was raised by my mother, I have 4 sisters and 1 brother, and out of my 10 nieces and nephews 6 are female. So anyone who thinks that I would belittle any threat to the women in my family is sadly mistaken—in fact, it would probably be the only thing that would make me turn violent against an aggressor.

I consider any event of rape or murder as a tragedy, whether the victim is female or male. I reproach violence at all levels, but I don’t believe in being sexist when it comes to the victims, or overly emotional in the analysis of the problem, since it will get in the way of searching for solutions to these kind of problems.

I wholeheartedly blame the media in blowing much of this way out of proportion. They seem to have a special talent for it, driven by their ambition to sell more papers—which for me is the lowliest kind of journalism. If you don’t believe me, just recall the whole “narcofosas” incident a few years ago. I still remember watching the NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw and seeing a newsbyte about the discovery of these mass-graves in Cd. Juárez, where it was suspected that over 500 victims of drug traffic were buried. It turned out to be a complete exaggeration, “only” 8 corpses were found. Was there any kind of retraction? Any newsbyte at the international or even local level to correct the facts? The answer is No, because that doesn’t sell.

If you would believe the U.S. State Department, you would get the impression that the border cities are a war zone, comparable to Medellín, or the likes. Or that it is a place on earth where there are pervasive human rights violations—Abu Ghraib anyone?

I have lived all my life here, and I protest such claims without a proper context.

Does it mean that there is no violence in Cd. Juárez? Of course it doesn’t, that would be silly and absurd. Does it mean that there is a “big” violence problem? Aha! Therein lays the question.

Whenever someone uses the term there is a “big” [something] without any kind of context, my inevitable response is “compared to what?” If we were talking about my height, compared to an ant, I’m huge; compared to an elephant I’m not that big. This may sound like nitpicking relativism, but the context in which we say things is important because that programs the beliefs and perceptions that govern our brains.

So, is there a “big” problem with violence against women in Cd. Juárez? Well I’ll start by comparing the statistics in the Milenio article to some other cities in the U.S. that have about the same population (Juárez has about 1.2 to 1.3 million people according to INEGI). I picked New Orleans, LA and Memphis, TN. A quick search on the Bureau of Justice Statistics web site gave me the following figures:

As you can see, from 1993 to 2002 the total of female murder victims for New Orleans and Memphis were 353 and 317 respectively, which are about the same numbers compared to Juarez’ 379—if you take into account that we’re still missing the data for 2004 and 2005 in the BJS web site.

So what does all this mean? Absolutely nothing.

If you do the same exercise for cities like Jacksonville, FL or Austin, TX, the numbers come up 94, and 90 respectively, which only proves that crime rates are different in different areas of the world and within each country. If you look at even more data, you’ll find that the U.S. also experienced a spike in homicides around 1993.

So, things are relative. Why then are we not seeing international protests and BBC coverage about the “massive killings” of women in New Orleans? Well, I would say (1) the N.O. authorities are probably nowhere near as incompetent as the authorities in Juárez, (2) they don’t have an amarillista media like we do and (3) 60% of their population doesn’t live in poverty, without the resources to defend themselves.

Do I believe that the authorities are negligent and should be held responsible for what is happening? Hell yes, I just don’t attribute villainy that which is simply result of stupidity, which is why I wouldn’t blame the president of Mexico for what is going on. So I really don’t see what Ms. Esther Chavez is complaining about since the report just admitted what the problem is: the police authorities did not do their jobs—a super serial killer or multiple serial killers in the city? C’mon.

So let’s stop feeding the media, keep pressure on the authorities, and if you feel inclined, lend a hand to the victims. But don’t come to me with the story that Juárez is a hell hole.