Ciudad Juárez is a city that was said to hold great potential for future prosperity. With the introduction of NAFTA in 1994, the promise of a better life lured many to migrate to the border town. Juarez grew exponentially in size and became filled with maquiladoras (foreign run factories) owned by various multinational corporations looking to employ mostly young women, a group believed to be docile and unlikely of unionizing or striking for more pay. Despite its industrial growth, the year 1994 marked a rather dim future that would come to define Ciudad Juárez.
Although the cost of living in Juárez increased, it did not cease being the poverty stricken city it was before the growth. The newly erected maquiladoras stood incongruous with the vacant lots, abandonned cotton fields, desert, and shanty towns that surrounded them. These conditions founded the perfect environment for anyone with a license to kill. It is on these abandonned lands where hundreds of women’s corpse would be found and their families would mourn their deaths without ever truly knowing the truth behind their disappearance or seeing the culprits behind it in jail.
femicidejuarez 