Funds for this Initiative will support community-based women's rights groups that are using a variety of innovative strategies to end the wave of systemic violence against women in Juarez, Mexico.
Femicide is one of the most serious problems faced in Juárez today. The city has experienced nearly 400 unsolved murders since 1993. Victims as young as six have been raped and tortured, murdered, and abandoned, and hundreds have vanished. Nearly all the victims have been employees in the nearby maquilas, or factories. Poverty, isolation, and work shifts that end in wee hours of the morning make these young women easy targets of violence, while authorities have turned turned a blind eye.
Since 1993 the Global Fund for Women has supported women at the frontlines responding to the horrific acts of sexual assault, torture, and femicide that have been committed.
By supporting local, women-led initiatives to end gender-based violence in the community and to empower women and girls, the Global Fund is supporting long-term, social change that, ultimately, will benefit all of society.
