How Mexico disappears the missing

by Emiliano Polo.

Mother’s Day in Mexico has increasingly become a day of protest for women whose children have disappeared in the context of a deepening national crisis. This year, demonstrations in cities such as Mexico City and Guadalajara on May 10 demanded both recognition for the search efforts undertaken by families and guarantees for their safety, particularly in light of the growing number of searchers who have been murdered. These protests stressed a disturbing pattern: those who step in to do the work the state has failed to carry out are now being targeted themselves. In reclaiming public space and visibility, these women not only confront institutional abandonment but also redefine courage as a form of political resistance towards a government that promotes impunity to hide its incapacity. 

Behind the more visible violence of organized crime and drug trafficking in Mexico lies a more profound, less acknowledged crisis. While homicides and cartel-related violence dominate headlines, the fate of over 125,287 missing persons—according to the Ministry of the Interior’s registry—remains unknown. The impunity around the tragedy results from both deliberate government action and inaction.

The Mexican government has thoroughly undermined its own capacity to respond to this crisis by slashing budgets, weakening judicial and investigative institutions, and manipulating official databases to obscure the exact scale of the missing persons crisis. The Office of the Attorney General, for example, has ignored its legal responsibilities, particularly in identifying the thousands of bodies buried in clandestine graves and in establishing a comprehensive National Program of Exhumations.