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In the sprawling Mexican border town of Ciudad Ju?rez, home to a legion of maquiladoras, or foreign export assembly plants, industrial work, foreign money and desperation fuel an ongoing mystery that has plagued the town for years...In the last nine years, more than 300 young women have either been kidnapped or disappeared. Some are found dead, their bodies dumped and hastily buried outside town. The vast majority are never heard from again, their families left wondering, assuming the worst...Organized crime and prostitution are rife, but the women and their families that populate Ju?rez?s slums keep coming, hoping to be one of the estimated one million Mexican workers employed at some 3,000 maquiladoras for between $4 and $9 a day. ..But the factories ? their proximity to the U.S. border and the influx of foreigners and U.S. dollars they bring ? also attract a darker kind of industry. ..Drug cartels and prostitution have flourished in Ju?rez, thriving on Americans who cross the border with relative ease. Money can buy anything on the streets of Ju?rez, including sex with a young girl for as little as $20 and the silence of corrupt police and officials...Trying to navigate the layers of crime and corruption behind the mystery of Ju?rez?s disappeared can be deadly, but a handful of hardened human rights groups shoulder the burden. Activists at the Ju?rez-based Casa Amiga help grieving families cope with their loss and raise awareness about the dangerous risks women take to make a meager living in Ju?rez...The group has blanketed the town with the pink crosses that have come to symbolize Ju?rez?s missing women. Large pink crosses also mark a mass grave where women?s bodies were found...
- Copyright
- Nadav Neuhaus
- Image Size
- 1296x864 / 132.7KB
- Contained in galleries
- Immigration on US-Mexico border