To reach the United States, many Central American women migrants cross Mexico, where feminicide and the disappearance of women have reached alarmingly high levels.
Numerous actors and institutions are responsible for the violence against women and migrants: government officials, smugglers, and drug traffickers, as well as historical, political and socioeconomic factors such as inequality, corruption, anti-immigrant policies, poverty, and increased border militarization.
According to some investigations, 80% of Central American women and girls who attempt to cross Mexico are raped.
There is a crisis of missing women in Mexico. Violence against Mexican women has overwhelmed cities like Juarez and Mexico City for years, where disappeared women are found murdered or never heard from again.
Sexual violence is the price
On a national scale, feminicide has increased 55 percent in Mexico between 1990 and 2011.
According to a report produced by UN-Women in 2012, feminicide cases in the country have increased steadily since 2007.
More recently, the National Citizen Femicide Observatory (OCNF), a coalition that documents the crime, identified that only 24 percent of cases were investigated by authorities and of those 1.6 percent led to sentencing in 2012 and 2013.
Women resist violence
And all along the migrant route, Central American migrant women receive help from migrant shelter volunteers and fellow women.
