Many of the missing and murdered women in Ciudad Juarez are employed in the maquiladoras, border factories created to reduce production costs for for first world companies by employing cheaper Mexican labor. Such factories have multiplied greatly since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, is one of the fastest growing industrial cities in Mexico -- young women especially have flocked to Juarez for the new freedoms and employment opportunities available there.

In her (forthcoming) article "The Dialectics of Still Life: Murder, Women, and the Maquiladoras," Melissa Wright (University of Georgia, Athens) links this economic boom to the murders. "Through comparing a maquiladora narrative explaining that the maquila industry is not reponsible in any way for the violence with another maquila narrative explaining the mundane problem of labor turnover, the Mexican woman freezes as a subject stilled by the tensions linking the two tales.

"In the tale of turnover that is told by maquila administrators, the Mexican woman takes shape in the model of variable capital whose worth fluctuates from a status of value to one of waste." What are the implications of this waste, indeed a corporate waste, one "in need of disposal" ? "The Mexican woman, in this narrative, is again an ambiguous figure whose life is dissected for evidence of value and waste. Evidence of heterosexual compulsions of drug use indicate a condition...leading predictably to a young death, while evidence of her innocence and sexual restraint reinforces beliefs that Mexican culture rapaciously destroys its own. Against such forces, the maquilas are powerless. And so their verdict in the stories that absolve them of any responsibility remains death by culture."

In this scenario, there are so many locations upon which the weight of blame can be placed, that the concept of blame and responsibility itself dissolves. And for those who remain invested in this question, at what site does one start? Are the women themselves to blame? (See Voces Sin Eco) Are their killers to blame? Is the maquiladora industry in Mexico to blame? Or are the U.S. and other first world countries responsible for this situation?

Here, one U.S. company shows us all how we can move our production to Mexico: excerpts from the public relations material of QMS, Inc.

Juarez Information explains the advantages of establishing a maquiladora facility in Juarez, including information on average costs of utilities, labor, taxes, & facilities. From the Citi-Guide of El Paso Web site.