The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women reflected the reports and recommendations submitted by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), its member organisations and partner organisations in Mexico. This was the culmination of significant investigative and advocacy work in support of women’s rights in Mexico. In 2024, a record number of 3,601 women were reported missing in Mexico, 40% higher than the previous year.
18 August 2025. The 91st session of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was held from 16 June to 4 July 2025 in Geneva. The Committee’s experts reviewed the report submitted by Mexico under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Numerous civil society organisations were represented at the session, including the FIDH and one of its member organisations in Mexico, IDHEAS Litigio Estratégico en Derechos Humanos and their partner organisation, Equipo Mexicano de Antropología Forense - EMAF. Speaking from 16 to 19 June 2025 before the experts that comprise CEDAW, the FIDH, IDHEAS and EMAF detailed the widespread nature of disappearances of women and girls in Mexico and their link to other serious crimes, such as femicide and trafficking. They also asked the Committee of experts to keep this matter on their agenda.
Prior to the Committee’s review on Mexico, IDHEAS, EMAF and the FIDH had submitted a joint alternative report, based on their research and documented analysis. The aim of the report was to inform the Committee on the disappearances of women and girls in Mexico and to examine the violations committed by the Mexican authorities. The Committee published its concluding observations on 7 July 2025. They contain several of the points detailed in the investigation and analysis reports produced by FIDH, IDHEAS, and EMAF. The alternative report (2025) submitted to CEDAW examines violations perpetrated by Mexican authorities in connection with the disappearances of women and girls. Two reports were cited in CEDAW’s concluding observations: "Who searches for us? Who cares about us?"" (2024) on human trafficking related disappearances of women and girls in the State of Mexico, Mexico and the Guerrero report (2023) on the disappearance of girls and women in the State of Guerrero, Mexico.
Civil society organisations have been reporting the alarming increase in gender-based violence, and disappearances specifically, in Mexico for many years, The trend is not recent; it started in 2007, since then many Mexican states have recorded historically high levels of disappearances among women and girls. In recent years, the trend has increased at an alarming pace. In 2024, 3,601 women were reported missing, an unprecedent number in Mexico’s history, over 40% higher than the previous year. These findings substantiate the concerns expressed by CEDAW in paragraphs 27(a) and (b) of its concluding observations, which highlight that the increase in gender-based violence is exacerbated by the ineffective and inadequate responses of the Mexican State.
In addition to these tragic numbers, the FIDH, IDHEAS, and EMAF also called attention to the case of the women commonly known as "buscadoras" [searchers] who look for their missing loved ones. Most "buscadoras" are either the mothers or sisters of the disappeared. Mexican authorities fail to intervene and assure their protection when "buscadoras" or other family members are harassed or threatened. In some cases, because of the risks involved, "buscadoras" and their families have been forced to move, making it harder to continue their search. The FIDH, IDHEAS, and EMAF described the lack of adequate protection from the Mexican State, a finding substantiated by the Committee in paragraph 21(c) of its concluding observations, which emphasises the insufficient attention paid by the National Human Rights Commission to the "buscadoras" and to the women who are victims of threats, disappearances, or murder. All three of the organisations commended the Committee’s recommendations contained in paragraphs 22(c) and 58, in which particular attention is drawn to the need to: officially recognise "buscadoras" as human rights defenders, put in place appropriate protection measures, strengthen operational and psychosocial support, and ensure the systematic inclusion of "buscadoras" in truth and memory-seeking mechanisms.
The work of the FIDH, IDHEAS and EMAF has also highlighted the shortcomings and failures in the activation of alert mechanisms that compromise the swift and effective search for victims. In this regard, the Committee, in paragraph 28(g), urges the Government of Mexico to "Ensure the coordination and consistent application of emergency response protocols and eliminate delays in the Alba Protocol and Amber Alert activation processes, ensuring adequate resources for their effective implementation across all states".
With regard to trafficking and the persistent lack of protection, the Committee recommends in paragraph 32(a) that the State "Implement effective anti-trafficking protection strategies for disadvantaged groups of women and girls, such as adolescent, migrant, displaced, poor, LBTI, Indigenous and Afro-Mexican women [...]". In this regard, the reports submitted by the FIDH, IDHEAS and EMAF highlight some of the major obstacles to access justice faced by indigenous women, LGBTQI+ persons, and migrants and that when investigations are finally opened, they are often poorly conducted because of the investigators’ sexist or racist prejudices. Investigators look into the victims’ past or their life choices rather than focusing on the matter at hand and causes of the disappearances.
All three organisations pointed to the lack of a holistic approach in investigations into disappearances linked to human trafficking, which results in a focus on isolated cases without consideration to recurring patterns, possible links to organised crime networks, or to the multiple and interconnected elements of these cases. In paragraph 32(b), the Committee recommends that the Mexican State "Address the nexus between trafficking and organized crime networks by strengthening law enforcement coordination and implementing comprehensive prevention strategies". These recommendations fully corroborate our findings and underscore the need to discard a fragmented approach to these cases.
In paragraph 32(c), the Committee emphasises the need to investigate, prosecute and adequately punish law enforcement officials involved in trafficking and to strengthen accountability mechanisms to prevent corruption and collusion with traffickers. Information gathered by organisations in Mexico’s State of Mexico reveals that municipal police often turn a blind eye to organised crime and are sometimes paid to obstruct investigations or conceal crucial information. This form of collusion which in some cases involves local civil servants – including municipal council presidents – and investigative agents and networks of traffickers and organised crime constitutes a major obstacle to the fight against disappearances and access to justice, particularly for women.
In their reports the organisations emphasised the crucial importance of providing comprehensive case management for the victims of disappearances and human trafficking, by ensuring that investigations be launched even when victims do not immediately identify themselves as such, and by also ensuring that psychosocial support is provided without the risk of revictimisation. The Committee is in-line with this approach; in paragraph 32(e), it recommends that Mexico, "Strengthen comprehensive support services for women and girl victims of trafficking, including immediate access to shelters, medical care, psychosocial counselling and legal aid, and strengthen and systematically monitor the effectiveness of anti-trafficking interventions and reparations provided, based on disaggregated data on trafficking patterns and victim demographics".
The only disappointment with CEDAW’s approach is the failure to explicitly link the disappearances of women and girls to human trafficking. The report, "Who Searches for Us? Who Cares About Us?" demonstrates that disappearances are frequently linked to human trafficking networks working for the purposes of sexual exploitation. This observation was emphatically repeated by the organisations present at the session in Geneva, particularly during the informal lunch with the Committee’s experts. The failure to recognise this connection is an impediment to a comprehensive understanding of the problem and encourages impunity, as it enables those responsible for disappearances and human trafficking to circumvent punishment, to a large extent, and thereby perpetuates the cycle of structural violence. This is a problem that FIDH and its partner organisations will continue to raise with local and international institutions.
