Mexico may be the image of white beaches, expensive resorts and the holiday adventures of Carrie Bradshaw and co to most women, but to those native to North West Mexico, their country is an ongoing battle which has seen brave, young women step forward to take on the most dangerous jobs imaginable. Warning: the following women will give you strength and fill you with pride.
The war between the Sinaloa and Juarez Cartels has plagued the state for years and claimed the lives of over 30,000 people since President Felipe Calderon took office in 2006 and declared war on the drug smugglers and subsequent death squads which have taken control of North-West Mexico. In June 2010 Manuel Lara Rodriguez, Mayor of Guadalupe Distrito Bravos, was murdered outside his home in Juarez; violence capital of Mexico, ravaged by drugs cartels. Articles at the time told of how police were having to start their working days an hour early to make time to collect the numerous dead bodies from the streets each morning in towns of the state of Chihuahua and struggled to appoint and maintain an honest police force.
Praxedis Guerro was one such town which had struggled to find anyone willing to take up the job of Chief of Police, after the former chief had been brutally decapitated, until a criminology student at the age of just 20 stepped forward in October 2010 to be protectorate of her home town. Marisol Valles Garcia made international news headlines as “the bravest woman in Mexico” and rightly so; in the same week that she was sworn into her new position other headlines from neighbouring towns told of a woman’s head being found in a bag on the streets of Ciudad Juarez, three bodies hung from a bridge in Tijuana, and the murder of eight people in Praxedis Guerro itself just days before.
Garcia had not intended to fight the cartels, however. Her new police strategy was designed to pull ordinary citizens away from the involvement of the drugs wars and leave the colossal task of the drugs trade to the federal forces. Instead Marisol wanted to focus on rebuilding the townships, emphasize crime prevention and build social development programmes.
Since 2008 five women took up chief of police positions in North West Mexico, a beacon light of hope that women would not let their country fall. Amongst these five was Hermila Garcia who became Chief of Police in Meoqui in October 2010 and refused to have bodyguards as a symbol of her stand. Garcia, 38 had taken on the high profile role in an area where men were scarce due to the amount that had been murdered or fled through fear. She lasted less than two months as chief before being shot on her way to work in December last year, but her sacrifice did not dampen the courage of other young women.
Not long after the death of Hermila Garcia came another story of a heroic, young woman in the village of Guadalupe which sits near the U.S border and a channel for drug smuggling into neighbouring Texas. Irma Erika Gandara, 28, became the last police officer in Gudalupe after her seven colleagues resigned leaving Gandara as the sole law-maker in the town. Gandara was abducted from her home by masked gunmen in December 2010, believed to be dead.
Less than 5 months into her position as Chief of Police in Praxedis Guerro Marisol Valles, Garcia fled to the USA with her husband, son, parents and sisters after the dramatic increase in death threats and intimidation she was receiving. She has since sought refuge in the USA and is awaiting a decision to remain there. Although her departure may seem like the final nail in the coffin for the courageous women of Mexico, hundreds of women across the country continue the fight as normal officers and the message those who have been killed or forced to flee have left behind is far more significant now than ever. Marisol, Hermila, Irma and the countless other female officers murdered or missing in Chihuahua are a sign that the drug cartels have fear too; they fear these women who stand against them without weapons, without protection but with a voice and with a determination to bring about change and to protect their people-and this is why they were targeted, to silence the beginning of what will hopefully be change.
As recently as April this year, more stories appear about the deaths of female officers in the Juarez region. Thirty-three year old Paola de la Rosa Garcia was shot multiple times in the hallway of her home and the new Chief of Police in Praxedis Guerro and her family were attacked in their home, in June, leaving all three victims in a critical state. The cartels should not underestimate the number of women willing to stand up for their country.
The fight continues…..
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