Mexico has a high rate of gender violence, and its most extreme form, femicide, is replicated at least 10 times daily. Many are the names of those women who are murdered. Some are known, others are not, but each victim leaves pain in those who loved them, an emptiness that is impossible to fill with unfulfilled dreams and a personal story. They are not figures, cold numbers, and they are lives. In the last few days, three cases have jumped to the media, they occurred in different contexts, but they have left the same thing: the demand for justice.
Lesly Martínez Colín, Tania Araceli Guzmán Navarro, and Lucía Vázquez Martínez are the three young women whose lives were cut short by partners, bosses, or persons as yet unknown. The bodies of two of them were discarded and found in tragic conditions; the body of another of the girls was found in her workplace. All the cases are being investigated under femicide protocols, and from a gender perspective, only one is a person in custody.
Lucía, the IPN student
Lucía Vázquez Martínez was 21 years old, a student at the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN), and worked at a law firm where she was found dead on Tuesday, May 16. According to her relatives, she was naked. In an interview with Heraldo Media Group, they informed that an employee of the place contacted them by telephone to tell them that the young woman had convulsed. Still, they were informed that she had already died when they arrived.
José Luis “N,” Lucía’s boss, was arrested and presented before the Public Prosecutor’s Office along with four other people, who, according to the deceased’s family, were in a state of drunkenness when the events occurred. They also ensured they were released and held a blockade near the Attorney General’s Office of Mexico City (FGJCDMX). This agency investigates the death of a young woman under the femicide protocol.
Influencer Tania
Tania Araceli Guzmán Navarro was 23 years old. She was an influencer and disappeared last April 21 in the Jaroche neighborhood in Puruándiro, Michoacán. Family and friends searched tirelessly for her, reported her absence, and a search warrant was activated under the Alba Protocol. Days passed without hearing from her, and they held a march to demand her location, which took place in a ravine on the Villa Morelos-Huaniqueo highway. Unfortunately, she was lifeless. Her body was in an advanced state of decomposition, along with six other corpses.
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With the support of the National Guard (GN) and Civil Guard (GC), personnel from the State Attorney General’s Office searched for missing persons, and a foul smell led them to the ravine where they found the seven bodies. Tania Guzman was among the victims. She was well known in Michoacan for uploading content with makeup tips, hairstyles, and changes of looks. Her work earned her several followers, including other influencers who condoled her death.
Lesly, mother of two
LeslyMartínez Colín was 30 years old and a mother of two children aged nine and eight; two years ago, she had ended a relationship with Alejandro “N,” who was 11 years older than her and often used violence against her ex-partner. On April 30, the last day her family heard from her, they reported her disappearance in the Álvaro Obregón district of Mexico City. Her mother said she called her and heard someone shouting at her: “You’ve had it up to here with me”.
Allegedly the man confessed and went from being reported missing to being a suspect in the femicide because he said he murdered the young woman and threw her into a pond. He then took her out and buried her, he said, in Huitzilac, Morelos, but her body was found in Huitzuco, Guerrero.m The man has an arrest warrant for the crime of forced disappearance.
DMGS