In Mexico, thousands of women and girls go missing every year due to the indifference of the country’s authorities. The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and its Mexican partners are publishing a Policy Brief alerting to the scale of this crisis.
Paris, 26 March 2025. In a Policy Brief published in collaboration with Idheas Litigio Estratégico en Derechos Humanos A.C. and Equipo Mexicano de Antropología Forense A.C. (EMAF), FIDH outlines how impunity, complicity with organised crime, and the failures of the authorities in preventing, investigating, and prosecuting these crimes hinder any effective response.
This document follows the ongoing work of these organisations. Two documentation missions conducted in the states of Guerrero and Mexico, two epicenters of this phenomenon, led to reports published in 2023 and 2024.
The disappearances of women and girls now affect the entire Mexican territory and continue to rise in a context marked by organised crime and human trafficking. As of March 2025, the National Registry of Missing and Unlocated Persons (RNPDNL) recorded 28,729 women reported missing or unlocated, representing nearly 23% of the 124,987 disappearances registered in the country.
This Policy Brief was presented at a side event during the 69th session of the United Nations (UN) Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), with the support of the Feminist Opportunities Now (FON) program. It highlights several structural failures that prevent an effective state response to address these disappearances.
The document denounces:
– the normalisation of violence against women and girls, deeply rooted in a patriarchal and machista culture that perpetuates prejudices, discrimination, and extreme violence patterns;
– the lack of responsiveness from authorities, who often handle these cases negligently, considering them as "voluntary departures" linked to romantic relationships or an unstable family situation;
– the complicity of certain officials with criminal networks, fostering a climate of widespread impunity;
– the absence of a coordinated approach among state institutions due to a confusing and deficient distribution of responsibilities;
– the overlap of legal frameworks, particularly between laws on enforced disappearances and those on human trafficking, which hinders the identification and prosecution of perpetrators;
– the lack of rigor in handling forensic evidence, compromising investigations and preventing the dignified return of bodies to families.
In light of these alarming findings, FIDH urges Mexican authorities to take immediate and concrete measures to effectively combat this phenomenon and, more broadly, sexual and gender-based violence. It also calls on UN bodies and other member states to demand that Mexico uphold its international human rights commitments.
The full Policy Brief is available here: https://www.fidh.org/IMG/pdf/fidh_policybrief-femmesmexique_en.pdf
