PBI-Mexico accompanies Paso del Norte Human Rights Centre at meeting with members of the European Parliament

On February 25, the Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project posted, “PBI accompanies the Paso del Norte Human Rights Centre in an international meeting with members of the human rights subcommittee of the European Parliament to discuss the situation of human rights and its defenders in city Juarez, on the border of Mexico with the US.”

PBI-Mexico has previously noted, “The Paso del Norte Human Rights Centre, located in Ciudad Juárez, in the state of Chihuahua, was created in 2001 by priest Óscar Enríquez Pérez to address human rights issues in the region.”

It adds, “Today, the Centre’s main areas of work are a comprehensive defense of rights and the accompaniment of victims of human rights violations, with a focus on cases of torture and enforced disappearances.”

On June 6, 2019, El Mexicano reported, “From 2011 to May 2019, the Paso del Norte Human Rights Centre has documented nearly 200 cases of torture that occurred in the different police corporations in Ciudad Juarez.”

That article continues, “Organizations such as PBI-Mexico showed their support for human rights advocates in their fight to combat torture in Juarez.”

On February 7, Wear Your Voice reported, “Through the 1990s and early 2000s, a surge in the killing of women drew international attention and turned Juárez into the ‘capital of femicides’. Many of the victims were workers who were killed on their way to the maquiladoras — foreign assembly plants and factories — or after leaving them. Women’s bodies were dumped in a wasteland or along the side of a road.”

That article focused on the murder of artist and feminist Isabel Cabanillas de la Torre in Ciudad Juarez on January 18. She was a member of ‘Hijas de su Maquilera Madre’ (Daughters of Maquila Worker Mothers) that accompanies the families of victims of femicide.

PBI has been accompanying the Paso del Norte Human Rights Centre since 2013. The centre was the first organization to receive accompaniment from the then newly formed PBI team in northern Mexico.