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In honor of International Women's Day, members of New Jersey Solidarity held the seminar "For Our Daughters" Monday at the Douglass College Center.
Marisela Ortiz-Rivera, co-founder of Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa - Return our Daughters Home, and Rama Kased, a representative from Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, came together to discuss the struggles and exploitation of women.
"This discussion will allow us to show our solidarity with the oppressed women around the world," said Paola Rizzuto, a Rutgers College sophomore. "We are here to call attention to the violence toward women in Mexico and in Palestine. The silence of the Mexican and Palestinian governments in regards to the rapes, murders and disappearances of women are unacceptable."
Ortiz-Rivera focused on the oppression of women in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
"To be a woman in Ciudad Juarez is a risk," Ortiz-Rivera said. "Women, especially of lower classes, are in constant danger of rape, murder, assault and kidnapping."
Ortiz-Rivera said she had heard that when the bodies of these women are found, authorities are often indifferent - sometimes blaming the women for their brutal deaths and making no efforts to find their attackers.
In an attempt to deviate public opinion from the actual motives of the assassins, they sometimes make excuses, claiming the women's organs were used as a part of the organ traffic, Ortiz-Rivera said. However, no evidence has ever been found to validate these claims.
Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa is an organization in Cuidad Juarez of assaulted women's families and friends that is trying to put an end to the violence. However, speaking out against the government can be deadly.
"My life and the lives of my children were explicitly threatened because I was a member of the Nuestra Hijas de Regreso a Casa," Ortiz-Rivera said.
Organizations like Amnesty International, the United Nations and the Mexican National Commission for Human Rights have all conducted investigations on the violence toward women found in Ciudad Juarez. "By putting the harsh struggles of women on a international level, we can hopefully end the violence," Ortiz-Rivera said. "Collectively, we can do it."
Kased focused on the past struggles of Palestinian women but also spoke on their most recent ones, including their struggles against the Israeli occupation.
The apartheid has denied women basic human rights including protection from the court system, Kased said.
"As women, we share one struggle - regardless of our race, ethnicity or background," Kased said.
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