Many countries have faced social dilemmas throughout the 20th century and those years have brought an enormous presence of violence throughout the globe. No country has been spared from violent breakouts related to ideologies, degradation of human rights and the objectification and sexualisation of women. America hasn’t been spared but Latin America in particular, has known some really difficult times from dictatorships to guerrilla movements to economical fall-outs.

Since the Mexican revolution in 1910, Mexico has struggled to bring an end to violent breakouts, a spurred in criminal activity and great social disparities but with all the efforts of the Mexican officials and social activists being unsuccessful we now witnessed an extremely important issue and problem: the sexual objectification of women in maquiladoras.

With the rest of world, Mexico has had to adapt to new economical measures that accompany globalisation and sustainable development. While American Corporations are saving money and banking large profits with the creation of maquiladoras, export-processing industries, on Mexican land specifically in Juarez, Chihuahua; they are exploiting women and men and fuelling the objectification of women with the management procedures of the plants. That same objectification has led to the creation of an atrocious phenomenon in the ciuadad of Juarez. Hundreds of women have gone missing and have been found brutally murdered and raped; women who work in the U.S. owned maquiladoras. Mexico regroups 3100 maquiladoras, a quarter of which are found in Juarez, employing one million workers with 60% of them being women.

In the book Women and Migration in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, a study published by Duke University, we are presented incredible and accurate information on the way maquilas are run, ideologies behind the management procedures, the way it objectifies women, different theories regarding the brutal assaults and they present specific cases of women that have been raped and brutalised. Throughout the following pages we will examine the information from that book and look specifically at the case of the missing women of Juarez based on the information from the book Crossing to kill: the true story behind the serial killer playground.

On the first hand, we have to look at what maquiladoras are and how they function. Inside the maquiladoras reins a strong sexualized form of feminity which has become a standard regarding production and a serious problem regarding sexual harassment from inside the walls of the American owned Mexican plants. The study published by Duke University chooses to focus on one particular maquila in order to efficiently explain the phenomenon of Juarez and that plant is Panoptimex, a television manufacturer. This specific maquiladoras has known great success in part because of the sexual objectification of women and the pressure it puts on women to be productive. You may ask, what makes this maquila a location of sexual objectification; it is the way men supervisors obsessively watch over the women workers and how they classify them with cards on top of their heads indicating how they have produced throughout the day, creating at once a sexually charged atmosphere and a competitive work atmosphere. All of the employees are labelled, of course women are the main subject of this classification but all employees have to wear different colours indicating a certain position within the plant; new workers have to wear yellow tunics while women workers have to wear light blue while male workers and mechanics have to wear dark blue and all supervisors are required to wear a tie. As mention in the book, women become desiring objects while men become desiring subjects. This sexual atmosphere and the emphasis put on sexuality has become a part of production instead of being an infusion in the workplace as mention in the essay. In this specific maquila we witness a strong focus placed on physical appearances, from manicured hands to make-up application to the wear of high heels. The amount of women working on this plant is absolutely amazing, 70 percent of line workers are women even if the hiring process in itself is highly sexualized with criteria looking like the following: preferably young, slimless women who are not pregnant and who are on birth control with thin and short hands while most recruitment occurs in small villages based on agrarian economy.

In this particular maquila, the floor work ethic is unique to its open visibility management tools with labour control tools being direct contact with the female and male workers which often takes a highly sexualized tone around female workers. By using such discourse, managers, are affirming themselves as the ones that detain the power. While supervisors observe women through the glass windows and doors of their offices they are turning women into sexual objects for their minds. In other words, women are favoured workers compared to men who are isolated and often ignored by the supervisors. While we, in North America, would think that this highly present sexual vibe would affect negatively production, in maquiladoras, it encourages women to be competitive in order to be the best and be the target of more attention, hoping for a chance at a promotion.

The opening of these maquiladoras in ciuadad Juarez has created new social issues, but a startling fact is the approximate 200 women who have been found murdered between 1994-1999 in the city. Women workers are defined in many ways; it all depends whom you ask. The maquila industry thus managers and supervisors of plants, view women as a variable capital in part because of the high rate of turnover. The turnover phenomenon refers to the coming in and out of women into the factories which lowers the value of the Mexican women over time and it also dictates the flexibility of the labour power. This phenomenon is considered a positive pattern allowing them to have fewer employees on times of hardship and increase workers in times of high productivity demands. These murders have gone unsolved, in part because of the lack of devotion from government officials. These same government officials, have a view of women that dates back to colonial times; since the majority of these women have gone missing at night, they are considered bad girls for being out so late and not a considered to be a concern to authorities. Related to the previous comment, many Mexican elites firmly believe that these women were offering themselves to their attackers in part because of social erosion and the shock of cultural values by the influence of the United States. Another problem in stopping these crimes is the strong belief that these crimes are too atrocious to have been committed by a Mexican, thus they have to be the product of a foreigner. The ignorance of human nature from the special prosecutor has certainly contributed to the slow action-process of the Mexican government. Another theory regarding the occurrence of these murders comes from juanese activists, who firmly believe that the economic independence of women as well as their sexual and social freedoms has caused men to have outburst of jealousy which would have led to the murders. Many theories have been presented to explain the phenomenon but none have put an end to the missing women. One thing that is certain is that maquilas are not admitting that there is a correlation between the plants and the murders even if the vast majority of the women that have disappeared were coming back from the maquiladoras either forced to crossed unilluminated and unpatrolled areas of the desert or abducted from the buses assuring transportation from the plants to the villages. Even more startling, is the march 1999 rape and brutal attack of a 13 year old maquiladoras worker by one of the bus driver and the lack of acknowledgement of a connection between the attacks and the industrial activity on the part of the elite class.

On the other hand, even if women continue to have the highest turnover rate, they are still making the majority in these industrial activities. Women possess many qualities and assets that make them such valuable labour force. They are known to have better dexterity, to pain better attention to detail and to possess a greater amount of patience when comes time for tedious and precise work; women, especially Mexican women are culturally set to be more submissive to men’s authority; and they are known to be the ones that don’t complain because they are thankful to be working and to be providing an income even if it is ridiculously low. Many of these women have to go undergo a series of test before they are employed by the maquiladoras. To me the most horrific violation of these women’s sexual rights has to commonly undergo pregnancy tests while male supervisors closely monitor these women’s cycle and force them to prove that they are menstruated. In other words, her disposability and her turnover rate (from value to waste) create an appealing set of characteristics for the supervisors to employ women and take advantage of them.

Another issue this the one of the many sexual assaults taking place at the U.S-Mexico border by border patrol agents, what is called militarized rape in the book. To me this is especially stunning because border patrol agents should be agents of trust and peace; they should not be men with records of abuse or excessive violent military training raping women because they feel they have been placed in a position of power. These officers are systematically degrading women because these migrant women are often seen as alien bodies on their land (US land), this belief is then supported by American Border Patrol Agents who believe that these Alien women should be put their disposition for punishment. It is also important to understand where and how and what type of militarized rape becomes a tool of control and one of national security:

These were the types of rape occurring along the U.S.-Mexico border but many conditions favours a pre-disposition of the use of militarized rape: a strong preoccupation with national security, when the majority of the population believes that the question of national security is one of military control and the male-domination in police and military security.
A startling fact is reports from many women, that being rape was the price they had to pay to access American land. Many of these women were threatened with deportation, confiscation of papers and apprehension by these men in an authoritative position. There is a strong belief amongst these men, that women are a racialized enemy because they are seen as representative of a particular nation and of its future. This kind of belief facilitates the rape of these women by American elites. Over the years many cases have been reported to officials and many officials have remained silent and still in the face of the fear and helplessness of these women. Many of the cases were dismiss due to the fact that the concerned women did not attend the preliminary hearing because they were afraid and no resources were offered to them to help them face the events and its perpetuators. Others were dismiss due to lack of evidence, evidence which had been loss in part because of the incompetence of police officials. In one of the cases, police officials took 3 hours to arrest the suspect in the rape of Juanita Gomez, the suspect had had time to shower and change clothes. Most of these women were attacked in government facilities: cells, police cars, police stations. Regarding the prevalence of the rapes, many factors contribute to the continuity in this human rights violation: the ineffective and inadequate complaint process initiated by the INS, the lack of competence in the investigation of these complaints, the lack of background checks of possible candidates in the hiring process, and the infamous code of silence that exists amongst police officers and military officers creates a barrier in the investigation process. In order words, border rapes are a demonstration of power and male dominance and control.