Women's Writes

By Victoria Ashdown

It is International Women’s Day on March 8^th this year, so what better time to open your eyes to the daily injustice suffered by women? In Mexico, since 2006, at least forty-five journalists, writers and bloggers have been murdered or have simply ’disappeared’ for speaking out against injustice. Many of whom were women, who paid with their lives in an attempt to gain equality between the sexes.

Susan Chavez Castillo was a prominent poet and social activist in Mexico. She increased awareness towards injustice and headed marches campaigning against the unsolved murders of women who had been raped by their attackers in Ciudad Juárez. The thirty-seven year old activist was found strangled, with a bag over her head and her left hand cut off in the centre of Ciudad Juárez on 6 January 2011. The authorities were very quick in stating that the murder had no links to Castillo’s poetry or activism. However, the symbolism behind the removed hand arguably speaks volumes about the motives of her attackers. Officials have claimed that the attack was random, and that the deliberately removed hand was an attempt to make the murder look like organized crime.

María Esther Aguilar Cansimbe was a reporter for the daily newspaper El Diario de Zamora in Mexico. She was last seen leaving her home in November 2009, and is now declared as missing. Her disappearance occurred after publishing articles on organized crime and the local corruption of higher authorities. She published many controversial pieces, such as a reveal on the arrest of a local politician’s son in relation to organized crime and a report on police abuse, which forced a high-ranking police official to resign. Cansimbe is still missing; her relatives are giving up hope.

English PEN is committed to helping the causes of these, and many other, cases. They provide support for the families of those who have been unjustly murdered and declared missing. They are also working to change the law in Mexico, to make crimes against journalists a federal offence. They aim to spread the news about these abused women in the form of campaigns, protests, and in publishing obituaries.

So, how can you help? You can help English PEN’s valuable work by writing to the Mexican government to demand an end to impunity and detailed investigations into the cases of writers who have been murdered, or have disappeared. Lend your voice and state that crimes against journalists should be made a federal offence, punishable under the law. Details of where to send letters can be found on English PEN’s website.