By The International Crisis Group

The number of women active in Mexico’s criminal organisation has risen steadily in recent years. Women often view joining criminal groups as a way of protecting themselves from gender-based violence and acquiring the power and respect they lack in law-abiding society. Searing personal accounts, media reports and data analysis of the prison census all point to the conclusion that Mexican women are joining criminal outfits in greater numbers. Frequently from poor backgrounds and broken families, young women offenders report that they drifted into criminality through their partners or connections they forged at drug use hotspots. Male crime bosses tend to value women for their perceived competence, respect for hierarchy and ability to evade police attention. Women’s presence in illegal groups has strengthened these organisations. It has also more deeply embedded crime in the fabric of Mexican society and within families. Deterring women and children from lives of crime will require the state and non-governmental organisations to provide alternative pathways to earning a living through initiatives in, for example, jails, drug rehabilitation centres and schools. The ascent of women in Mexican crime groups represents a striking departure from how they have traditionally intersected with these organisations. Women and their bodies have long been targets of Mexican criminal outfits. When these organisations battle for turf, they often commit femicides and “disappearances” of women – namely, killing them and disposing of the remains – in part to demonstrate dominance in a geographical region. Witness how crimes against women have increased in areas where illegal organisations jockey for control: killing sprees erupted in the border city of Ciudad Juárez in the 1990s and more recently in Zacatecas, Puebla, Veracruz, the State of Mexico and other places where criminal groups are vying for power. But increasing numbers of women are attracted to the benefits they can reap from joining a criminal organisation. Gender-based violence is rife in Mexico, and judicial redress is virtually non-existent. Young women interviewed for this report almost uniformly experienced abuse in their homes and communities. Most noted that the support of criminal groups and the status they acquire within them can offer protection, recognition and even dignity – in addition, of course, to income.

Brussels: International Crisis Groups, 2023. 39p.

By  Colombian Organized Crime Observatory, Arlene B. Tickner, et al.

In Latin America, the participation of women in organized crime has been in the shadow of academic and public policy debate due to the male dominance in the different criminal economies and the tendency to see criminal activities as a “man’s activity”. However, a more detailed analysis of drug trafficking, human trafficking, and migrant smuggling, based on the application of a gender lens, allows the appreciation of the different roles that women play. After examining a series of documents, data and information collected through fieldwork, this investigation by the InSight Crime and Universidad del Rosario’s Colombian Observatory of Organized Crime, increases the complexity of female roles inside organized crime and questions the tendency to present women only as victims, or in some cases, as victimizers. From cooks and coca harvesters to owners of their drug empires or trafficking and smuggling networks, women operate in a versatile manner and move in a broad spectrum of roles, challenging the existent division of labor based on gender while at the same time coexisting with criminal organizations that continue to impose a patriarchal system. Through the description of these roles, the development of two case studies – one regarding women and gangs in El Salvador, and another tackling human trafficking and migrant smuggling in the Colombia-Venezuela border town of Cúcuta- and the construction of profiles of some of the greatest protagonists of organized crime in recent times, the investigation takes the shape of a woman. The document also analyses…..

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  the use of violence by women, a characteristic that is usually attributed to men and masculine behavior. However, violence is a tool often used by women in some organized crime structures. Based on this, as well as the examination of the main factors that push women to organized crime activities, a series of public policy recommendations are set forth for governments and local authorities. These are aimed at understanding a phenomenon that, aside from being under-analyzed, is continuously growing.   

Washington, DC: Washington, DC: InSight Crime, 2020.   41p.