Help Mothers of the Disappeared Find Justice

The disappearance of people in Mexico is a shocking reality present in the country since several years ago. According to the official records, 40,180 persons have disappeared up to this date, and the numbers do not stop growing. In fact, in the words of the family members of the victims of this heinous crime, the official numbers could be higher.

The lack of criminal investigations, the lack of punishment and the increasing number of enforced disappearances, have led to the emergence of Collectives of Family Members of Disappeared Persons. These collectives seek justice and carry out investigations hoping to find missing relatives. They have formed in various parts of the country.

The IMDHD assists these collectives to strengthen their influence in public policy. This includes: capacity-building workshops; technical support to support them in their dialogue with governmental authorities; and assistance in the process of forensic identification.

Despite relentless efforts carried out by collectives of family members of disappeared persons and civil society, they have not yet achieved a final solution to the problem of disappearances. Thereby, they have not been able to provide a cohesive narrative in which the voice of the victims becomes central, in order to overcome the official story presented by the government throughout which it criminalizes the victims of disappearances.

Given this existent reality, the Mexican Institute of Human Rights and Democracy (IMDHD) pretends to carry out this project about the memory of the disappeared people in the state of Nuevo León. This exercise could contribute as form of collective reparations to the victims of this heinous crime.

During the period of time in which disappearances have been taken place in Mexico, several people have attempted to document and to spread the word about such phenomenon. These efforts have been translated, essentially, in journalistic articles and documentaries in which some of the stories of the leaders of the groups of victims of disappearances are told, as well as some of the developments of the process of search for the victims of disappearances are recounted.

Nevertheless, up to this date, a project to collect comprehensively the thousands of cases which belong to the collectives of family members of disappeared persons not taken place. This project intends to carry out an exercise of this nature.

Currently, the IMDHD is carrying out this exercise in the State of Veracruz and working on the methodology to carry out this project in the State of Nuevo León.

Once we have achieved our goal of raising $5,000 dollars to carry out this project in the State of Nuevo León, we will start with a workshop on the importance of safeguarding memory and how the testimonies could benefit victims in terms of justice, truth and reparations, after which we will take the testimonies of at least 20 family members of disappeared persons.