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| Mothers of Disappeared Young Women from Juárez Maintain Vigil. (Photos: Miguel Dimayuga) |
Mexico City - President Enrique Pena Nieto agreed to receive the mothers of disappeared young women from Chihuahua, but not until 2015.
Since Wednesday, June 12, the mothers have been maintaining a permanent vigil outside the premises of the Secretariat of Government Relations [SEGOB]. Bertha Alicia Garcia, Silvia Band Pedroza, Rosa Maria Apodaca Granados and Juana Ibarra Castorena announced that this was the response they received from Los Pinos [The Pines, Mexico's White House]:
The only thing that we want to ask, the mothers said, is that he promise to stop the helplessness and insecurity experienced by young people in Ciudad Juárez.
Shouting "They took them alive, We want them back alive!", the women marched yesterday along Reforma Boulevard from the Stele of Light to Los Pinos, accompanied by Malú García Andrade, the legal representative of the organization Our Daughters Return Home.
The group was received by Ricardo Martín, representative of the General Office of the President, who informed them that due to previous commitments assumed by the Executive, it was impossible for him attend to them personally before 2015.
"We are sorry, but the president's schedule is completely full for 2013 and 2014, so Enrique Peña Nieto cannot personally attend to you over the next two years."For this reason, the mothers of Brenda Berenice Castillo, Fabiola Janeth Valenzuela Banda, Patricia Jazmín Ibarra Apodaca and Gabriela Espinoza Ibarra--all of whom disappeared between 2009 and 2011--decided to hold a rally in front of the Senate to demand that the elected representatives mediate with the president that he might receive them.
The only thing that we want to ask, the mothers said, is that he promise to stop the helplessness and insecurity experienced by young people in Ciudad Juárez.
Shouting "They took them alive, We want them back alive!", the women marched yesterday along Reforma Boulevard from the Stele of Light to Los Pinos, accompanied by Malú García Andrade, the legal representative of the organization Our Daughters Return Home.
The group was received by Ricardo Martín, representative of the General Office of the President, who informed them that due to previous commitments assumed by the Executive, it was impossible for him attend to them personally before 2015.
"More important to Peña is inaugurating events and being well received overseas than the women of Ciudad Juárez," emphasized Malú Garcia upon announcing the "official response".The mothers of the disappeared young women said they do not trust the Chief Executive or his government, and that their demand to be received by Peña Nieto derives from their need to exhaust all national channels and resources, since that is a requirement for appearing before such international mechanisms as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
"We look that they do not have means for arguing before international eyes that they have done everything possible to help us. We are proving that's not true," they made clear.They pointed out that the lack of response from the authorities demonstrates once again that attending to women is not a government priority.
"They left us there as if we were insects, but I remind them that if they had done something awhile ago, our daughters would not have disappeared," declared one of the mothers.Spanish original