Recorded October 13, 2004
Below is the original description of the event.
Between 1993 and 2003 more than 300 women were murdered in the border town of Ciudad Juárez. In at least 86 of these cases, the victims exhibited signs of extreme violence including torture, rape and mutilation. Most of the slain women were poor immigrants from rural Mexico between 15 and 25 years of age.
The lecture will explore the causes of this extreme violence as well the reasons why the Mexican State has failed to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes.
Mariclaire Acosta Urquidi is the former subsecretary for Human Rights and Democracy in the Secretariat of Foreign Relations Office in Mexico. Her career in the field of human rights has led her on missions ranging from investigating the treatment of immigrants in the United States to studying the effects of violence in Colombia. Currently she is a member of the Advisory Council on Foreign Relations and a board member for the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL).