Forgotten Women of Juárez

Hundreds of women and girls have been sexually brutalized and murdered in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, since the 1990s. According to one resident, the killings have become so normalized that they no longer make the front page of the newspaper.  Femicides  is the word often applied to the tragic recurrences in this border city, a central location for U.S.-Mexico trade. The hosts of  Forgotten: Women of Juárez , Oz Woloshyn and Mónica Ortiz Uribe, take their time to explain what that word means to this community. The show always includes the victims’ full names and highlights details about their lives. Many were attending computer school while working at a local factory; that ambition, Woloshyn argues, might have led to their abductions. The hosts examine the many tentacles of this “reign of terror”—ones that also extend into Americans’ jean pockets, windshield wipers, and illegal drug usage. The duo illustrate how cartel members, police officers, FBI agents, industrialists, and government officials make the lives and deaths of the women of Juárez invisible. Simply listening to the show isn’t the solution to this enraging problem. But the people of Juárez, says one resident, can no longer shoulder the knowledge of these atrocities on their own.