Over the last few years, we've heard about the war on women. Up here, it's a phony issue generated by Democrats looking for a distraction from the Obama record.
 
Unfortunately, we are not hearing about the place south of the border where women are actually being killed. It's a real war in Mexico!

According to journalist Ildefonso Ortiz, "feminicide" is awful in Mexico:

In response to the increasing murders and kidnappings of women in the state of Mexico, the federal government of Mexico issued a “gender based alert.” The alert went out for 11 cities in that state and urges authorities to look into those crimes.

By the way, the state of Mexico is outside Mexico DF, or the federal district that we know as Mexico City. The area has a population of over 20 million people, or slightly less than Texas.

I spoke with a couple of friends in Mexico and they gave me a little context.   

They see the violence in the context of the growing insecurity related to the cartel gangs. In other words, we hear about women but not the men. My friends reminded me that over 100,000 Mexicans have died in these cartel wars since President Calderon confronted the criminal elements with the Mexican Army in 2006.

Also, violence against women is not a new problem in Mexico or Central America as Reuters reported last year:

"Violence against women isn't an epidemic, it's a pandemic in Mexico," said Ana Guezmez, Mexico's representative for United Nations Women, the U.N. entity for gender equality.

"We still don't see it as a central theme of the current administration. You have to send a much stronger message." Experts say the spike in violence against women is worst in areas hit hard by the drugs war, similar to what happens during civil wars like those in Colombia, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Women in conflict zones are often seen as "territory" to be conquered, and raping and murdering women a way to intimidate rival gangs and the local population. Authorities say victims are getting younger and the attacks more violent.

In northeastern Mexico, a major drugs battleground, the number of women slain jumped over 500 percent between 2001 and 2010, according to a study by Mexico's National Commission to Prevent and Eradicate Violence against Women.

Guezmez says public violence against women intensifies when crime gangs take control. "It's associated with rape and displaying the body in public places. A lot more brutal."

The U.S.-Mexico border has long been a dangerous place for women. More than one-fifth of the women killed in Mexico in 2012 were slain in three of the four states neighboring Texas, according to the national statistics agency.

Most infamous is Chihuahua, home to Ciudad Juarez, where hundreds of women were murdered or kidnapped in the 1990s.

With 22.7 murders for every 100,000 women in 2012, Chihuahua is still Mexico's most dangerous state for women.

None of the figures include the many women who have gone missing or those corpses that are so badly mutilated that authorities cannot even identify their gender."

Here is the sad story. Women have always been more vulnerable to violence in a "machista" society. Domestic violence is a problem. Add to this the territorial fights among cartels and you have a deadly place for women.

Do you understand now why so many young women show up on the U.S.-Mexico border with their children? They are looking for a safe place for themselves and their children!
 
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