Hollywood Celebrities Join March to Protest Slayings in Cuidad Juarez
by Olga Rodriguez
Associated Press
February 14th, 2004
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - Hundreds of people gathered Saturday to join actor Jane Fonda and playwright Eve Ensler in a march to denounce the slayings of women in this rough border city.
A group of about 1,000 people listed to a talk on gender violence before heading to the border to join other marchers coming from El Paso, Texas.
Jody Evans, a business woman from Los Angeles, wore a pink beach hat to the march and carried a sign bearing the single word "justice."
"The unresolved violence and the lack of care for the life lost, it's what brought me here," said Evans, 50, who joined protesters demanding justice for hundreds of women slain here since 1993.
Actresses Sally Field and Christine Lahti are also expected to take part in the massive march, which is co-sponsored by Amnesty International and the nonprofit organization V-Day Foundation led by Ensler, author of the "Vagina Monologues." The foundation combats violence against women worldwide.
"I'm a woman and I feel these mothers' pain like a dagger in my heart," an emotional Fonda told reporters after meeting with some of the mothers of the victims late Friday. "I'm here to show my support."
The group of marchers will start in El Paso, Texas, across the border from this city of 1.3 million. Participants will use the Lergo Bridge to cross over the Rio Grande and head into Juarez, where they will hold a moment of silence at a municipal monument.
Mexican authorities say 258 women have been killed over the past decade in Juarez. Nearly 100 of the killings were similar, with the victims sexually assaulted, strangled and dumped in the nearby desert. That tally also includes the cases of more than 150 other females who have been killed under other circumstances.
Mexican and international human rights groups put the number of Juarez slayings at more than 300 since 1993, when the body of the first victim was found.
While there have been more than a dozen arrests, only one man - an Egyptian resident of the Unite States - was convicted of killing one of the first victims. Meanwhile, bodies have continued to turn up in Juarez.
The families of the slain women - as well as relatives of some of the men detained as suspects who say their loved ones have been falsely accused - hope the international attention brought by the march will pressure the Mexican government into solving some or all of the killings.
Many of the victims' relatives blame police corruption and incompetence for allowing the murders to continue. They say police have engaged in evidence tampering, torture, forced confessions and sloppy forensic work.
"This (international attention) is the only thing that has made the government do its work," said Carmen Argueta, whose son David Meza was charged with the killing of his 19-year-old cousin. "Since Amnesty International was here, there has been more awareness and more pressure on the government."
A benefit performance of Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues" acted by Fonda, Field, Lahti and other Mexican actresses was scheduled for late Saturday.
The show debuted in Mexico City two years ago and it has helped to raise money for Casa Amiga, a rape crisis center that grew out of the violence against women in Juarez.
Copyright 2004 Associated Press | found at SignOnSanDiego.com