The attacks are concentrated in entities such as Mexico City, Jalisco, Guanajuato, Querétaro, Quintana Roo, Morelos, Guerrero, San Luis Potosí, Michoacán, and Oaxaca.
In those states, the search collectives face not only crime, but also local governments that, through omission or complicity, stopped protecting them.
What do searching mothers represent beyond their mission?
In its November 2024 diagnosis, the Movement for Our Disappeared highlighted that mothers represent the majority within the search collectives. However, there is no official figure on how many there are.
In Mexico, Mother's Dayis not a day of celebration for thousands of women, but a day of mourning, anger, and resistance.
Since the Morena government began, at least 16 searching mothers have been murdered in the country. Simply for trying to find their missing children amid unstoppable violence and an unprecedented crisis of impunity.
According to the organization IM-Defensoras, 16 mothers have been murdered since 2019, and 15 of these crimes were perpetrated by unknown individuals. Three more cases are added to that figure, documented by the Movement for Our Disappeared in Mexico in the years 2014, 2016, and 2017. None of these cases have received full justice.
La violencia contra las madres buscadoras va en aumento
The searching mothersnot only bear the unbearable pain of their children's disappearance, but they also face stigmatization, poverty, criminalization, and direct violence.
The lack of state attention has forced them to become experts, investigators, spokespersons, and activists, risking their lives while authorities repeat empty speeches and promises that never come.
Attacks against searching mothers are on the rise.
Between 2020 and 2024, 1,383 attacks against 321 human rights defenders and 22 organizations were documented. Among the attacks are cases of forced disappearances, threats, harassment, attempted murder, and limitations on access to justice.
Of the 15 reported attempted murders, in at least eight, organized crime was identified as the perpetrator.
Ceci Flores se ha convertido en un icono de la lucha de las madres buscadoras
Women of all ages and backgrounds participate in this work. Young women, girls, adolescents, older women, indigenous women, women with disabilities, migrants... all united by the same pain.
Marcha en memoria de las madres buscadoras
Many have had to interrupt their studies, life projects, and jobs, while others have been left alone in charge of their families. Many of them turn to informal employment or self-employment to survive and continue searching.
But while they walk under the sun searching for human remains with their own hands, the federal government keeps its narrative. They constantly deny the statements of the searching mothers.
El fiscal general, Gertz Manero, ha negado las declaraciones de las madres buscadoras
It is evident that Morena's security strategy has proven to be a complete failure in containing violence and protecting those in need.
This May 10, there are no flowers or cakes for many mothers in Mexico. Instead, there is pain, anger, a historical debt that the Mexican State continues to leave unpaid.
