Carolina Drake: How the Michoacan Conflict Is Affecting Women in Mexico Carolina Drake - Bustle
go to original January 27, 2014

We’ve all heard about the drug wars in Mexico, but what we don’t often hear is how that conflict is affecting women. The struggle in Michoacán, Mexico continues between the self-defense groups, the Knights Templar drug cartel, and the Mexican army and police.  Media reporting from Mexico have portrayed the various sides of the issue, but there is less coverage (at least in English) about the women in Michoacán.

Journalist Anaiz Zamora Márquez reports that women in the region of Tierra Caliente are a vulnerable group. They don’t have much protection from organized crime and drug cartels, which have flooded the region since 2002. Since then, Michoacán women have been targeted as objects of exchange and victims of gender violence by drug cartels. According to Zamora “it looks like neither the army nor the police have protected the women from aggressions.”

Delia Villalobos, activist and Human Rights spokesperson for indigenous women in Michoacán sustained that: “The situation is difficult to bare for all the population, but specially for the women who are in the middle of all these confrontations,” Villalobos explained.

See the original at Bustle

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

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