60 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / MARCH 2020
since he assumed office on De-
cember 1, 2018, the pace of femi-
cides across the country has in-
creased markedly. María scoffed
at the government’s claim that
there were only 112 femicides in
the State of Mexico in 2018. Ac-
cording to her count, there were
456, and she expects the yearly
totals to continue to rise. “The
authorities have no idea how
many there have been,” she said,
placing her arms on the table for
emphasis. “Ni idea.”
I pulled up her map on my lap-
top. The whole country appeared
carpeted in red pins, each one
representing a case of femicide. I
zoomed in on Ecatepec, with
1.7 million inhabitants, the larg-
est of the moons orbiting Mexico
City. In the satellite image, the
surface of the earth here looked
scraped to the bone. “Ecatepec is
a trash can for human beings,”
she said. “A dumping ground for
corpses. Many people say it’s the
worst part of the country.” When
the government subdivided
Ecatepec, it did so without plan-
ning, she said. “Everything is
spread out. People have to travel
two hours to get into Mexico
City. There is no street lighting.
You have to cross vacant lots. It
gives refuge to predators.”
Forty percent of the victims
María has identified had a man
in their family or social circle in-
volved in organized crime. She
calls these “feminicidios por perte-
nencia de un enemigo,” femicide
related to an enemy, often distin-
guishable, she said, by the use of
high-powered American weap-
ons such as AR-15s and semi-
automatic handguns. “It’s a way
of damaging an opponent, to kill
their women. This pattern is
common in Ecatepec.” Accord-
ing to María, the victims of femicide
get younger with every passing year.
She said the state prosecutors are sat-
urated with cases and carry out very
few investigations. Police lack the re-
sources to order DNA tests and are
untrained in the basics of investiga-
tive practice. Instead, María said,
“They blame the victim. They say she
wasn’t in school, she was taking
drugs, she got pregnant and ran off
with a boyfriend. Or they’ll say she
committed suicide.” She estimated
that there were around four thousand
orphans as a result of femicide. “No
one knows where they are, with
whom, if they’re eating, if they’re go-
ing to school, if they’re with the family
of the aggressor. Sometimes the chil-
dren of victims are sold.”Asked to identify the most violent
part of town, María narrowed it down
to two neighborhoods on the east side
of the city with a combined area of
three and a half square miles, where
the digital pins were most concen-
trated: fifteen cases in the roughly
hexagonal barrio of Ciudad Cuauhté-
moc and twelve in the triangular Jar-
dines de Morelos subdivision. ThisPhotographs by Sonia Madrigal from the series La muerte sale por el oriente
Top: “Untitled,” 2015, Nezahualcóyotl. Bottom: “Untitled,” 2016, Chimalhuacán © Sonia Madrigal