Women - Victims of Silence and Invisibility along U.S., Mexican Borders

Three young women aged 16, 17 and 20 reported having been raped by masked men. Civilian border-watchers heard their cries, less than 100 yards from the Arizona border. They were helpless, but the reports didn't slow deportation proceedings against them. It was early May in 2008, and a few days later, two more women were found alive but badly beaten near Arivaca, south of Tucson. During the same week, yet two more women reported having been raped. The rapists are known to hang women's bras and panties from tree limbs as trophies. According to Tim Vanderpool of The Tuscon Weekly, under the desert’s cloak of night, rape is the norm and the "Price of Admission" for women wanting illegal entry into the United States. As dawn approaches, for many of these migrant women, daylight brings the brutal harshness of reality, triggering the memory of what they’ve lost in their desperate journey north, in hopes of finding a better life. On Wednesday, April 28, 2010, Tim Johnson of McClatchy Newspapers reports that Amnesty International released its INVISIBLE VICTIMS: MIGRANTS ON THE MOVE IN MEXICO report, which reveals that as many as six out of every 10 Central American women and girls are raped as they pass through Mexico hoping to cross illegally into the United States...more