A macabre discovery in Jalisco state has revealed the industrial-scale horror of Mexico’s disappearance crisis. In March, volunteer search groups uncovered a sprawling extermination camp operated by a criminal organisation, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, in Teuchitlán. The site, equipped with crematoria where bodies were systematically destroyed, contained charred human remains and belongings such as shoes and clothing, the only remaining traces of those who’d vanished. The gruesome finding exposed the extent to which enforced disappearances have evolved into a systematic practice in Mexico. The camp’s proximity to federal security installations raised troubling questions about collusion between state personnel and organised crime.

Jalisco state accounts for over 15,000 recorded disappearances – the highest number in Mexico – but the crisis extends throughout the country. For families engaged in desperate searches for their loved ones, the trauma of loss is compounded by threats and violence aimed at stopping their quest for truth.

A problem with a history

Enforced disappearance has a precise legal definition under the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons, in force since 1996. It is ‘the act of depriving a person of their freedom by state agents, or those acting with state authorisation, support, or acquiescence, followed by an absence of information or a refusal to acknowledge that deprivation of freedom and to give information on the whereabouts of the person, thereby impeding their recourse to legal remedies’. Cases remain legally active until the victim’s fate is determined.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights first found a state responsible for enforced disappearances in a 1988 ruling on Honduras. Manfredo Velásquez, a Honduran student, had been kidnapped by men linked to armed forces in 1981 and courts failed to investigate properly. The Court found the state of Honduras responsible for Velásquez’s detention and the lack of adequate judicial protection.

Mexico’s problem with disappearances stretches back decades, with its modern form taking shape during the political repression of the 1960s and 1970s. The first documented case involved Epifanio Avilés Rojas, who disappeared in Guerrero state in 1969, and exposed the military’s involvement in clandestine detentions. During this period, the government used disappearances alongside secret prisons, torture and extrajudicial killings to suppress political dissent.

The nature of disappearances has changed over time. Initially a political weapon against activists and intellectuals, today they reflect a complex political economy where population groups seen as disposable are exploited and then eliminated to conceal illicit activities. The crisis escalated dramatically after 2006, when then President Felipe Calderón militarised the fight against drug cartels. This decision triggered unprecedented violence, with enforced disappearances becoming a tool both for criminal organisations and state bodies and personnel. Around 90 per cent of Mexico’s 121,000-plus documented disappearances have occurred since 2006. The scale of this humanitarian catastrophe is further evidenced by the estimated 52,000 unidentified human remains throughout the country.

When the United Nations (UN) Committee on Enforced Disappearances finally gained access to Mexico in 2021 – after an eight-year delay by the Mexican government – it found these practices continued at federal, state and municipal levels, often involving organised crime. The committee’s report revealed near-total impunity surrounding these crimes: only between two and six per cent of disappearance cases had been prosecuted, resulting in just 36 convictions.

A nationwide pattern

The Jalisco camp represents one particularly horrific manifestation of a systematic practice occurring throughout Mexico. This nationwide crisis involves multiple entities with varying motives. In states such as Jalisco and Tamaulipas, criminal organisations often collude with local authorities to enforce territorial control through disappearances, while simultaneously recruiting forced labour, eliminating opposition and instilling terror in communities who might otherwise resist.

Security forces are deeply implicated in many cases. Two notable examples of this are the 2011 abduction of 19 construction workers in Nuevo León and the 2014 disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College, perhaps the most internationally recognised case. The Ayotzinapa students went missing in Guerrero state on their way to a protest after local police intercepted the bus they were travelling in and handed them over to the Guerreros Unidos criminal organisation. Subsequent investigations revealed that military personnel witnessed the attack but failed to intervene. Government officials later engaged in elaborate cover-ups, including evidence destruction and coerced testimonies, all to obscure state complicity.

Criminal organisations have integrated disappearance into their economic operations. They force kidnapped people into drug production or other labour, use them as human shields in territorial conflicts and eliminate those who refuse to comply, while state authorities look the other way or actively participate.

Young people are disproportionately affected. In Jalisco, a third of missing people are between 15 and 29 years old. Women and girls are targeted, with disappearances often linked to human trafficking and sexual exploitation. The border city of Ciudad Juárez has become notorious for femicides, with over 2,500 women and girls disappeared and murdered since the 1990s. Many victims were young women employed in factories known as maquiladoras, their bodies showing signs of torture and sexual violence. The 2001 Cotton Field case, where three women’s bodies were found in Ciudad Juárez, exposed systematic negligence by law enforcement. Despite a 2009 ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights condemning Mexico for failing to protect women, impunity remains the norm.

Migrants transiting through Mexico are another vulnerable group targeted for disappearance. Cartels often abduct migrants for extortion or forced recruitment. The 2010 San Fernando massacre in Tamaulipas, where the Zetas cartel executed 72 migrants who refused to work for them, stands as a stark example of these practices.

Civil society’s crucial response

Faced with governmental complicity and inaction, civil society organisations have proved themselves essential in documenting disappearances, supporting victims’ families and demanding accountability. Groups such as the Mexican Institute of Human Rights and Democracy track cases and collaborate with international bodies to document state involvement in disappearances and advocate for policy reforms. Legal advocacy organisations such as IDHEAS Litigio Estratégico have brought cases before international tribunals, triggering previously long stalled investigations.

The most remarkable response comes from grassroots collectives formed by families of the disappeared. Throughout Mexico, hundreds of groups like Guerreras Buscadoras transform personal grief into collective action. These organisations, predominantly led by women – mothers, wives and sisters of the disappeared – conduct search operations, combing remote areas for clandestine graves. They perform exhumations, collaborate with universities for DNA analysis and maintain secure databases to document findings and prevent evidence tampering. Their persistent efforts have uncovered numerous mass graves and forced authorities to acknowledge the true magnitude of the crisis.

These family collectives regularly organise public demonstrations, creating powerful moments of collective memory and demand for action. On 10 May, Mother’s Day, mothers’ collectives hold Dignity Marches to demand the safe return of their children. On 11 August, International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, they march in cities throughout Mexico. Every 28 September, parents of the 43 missing Ayotzinapa students lead protests in Mexico City under the rallying cry ‘They took them alive! We want them back alive!’

Years of pressure from civil society culminated in the 2017 General Law on Forced Disappearance, which formally recognised enforced disappearance in national legislation and established a National Search Commission. While a significant achievement, the law’s implementation has proven problematic.

Structural barriers to truth and justice

The López Obrador administration, in place between 2018 and 2024, initially prioritised emblematic cases like Ayotzinapa but momentum soon waned. Some institutional advances came, such as the 2019 creation of an Extraordinary Forensic Identification Mechanism to address the backlog of unidentified remains, but systemic challenges persist.

Implementation of the 2017 law is inconsistent across Mexico’s federal system. Many states lack functional search commissions despite legal mandates to create them. A comprehensive monitoring report published in early 2025 identified critical deficiencies: inadequate information systems for tracking disappearances, insufficient forensic capacity, abandoned longstanding cases, an absence of strategic planning, negligible prevention efforts, poorly trained personnel, limited victim participation in policy development and minimal penalties for perpetrators.

Resource constraints hamper efforts to prosecute those responsible, while the military – implicated in numerous disappearances – remains shielded by national security legislation. Families seeking justice frequently face intimidation, and some family members have been killed.

In May 2024, Teresa Magueyal was assassinated by armed men on motorcycles in Guanajuato state. She had spent over three years searching for her son José Luis, who disappeared in 2020. She was the sixth mother of a disappeared person to be murdered in Guanajuato within a few months. Despite knowing the risks, Teresa had regularly participated in field searches with her collective Una Promesa por Cumplir (‘a promise to keep’), investigating areas controlled by criminal organisations. Another prominent mother, Norma Andrade, has survived two murder attempts. She co-founded an organisation for mothers of femicide victims in Ciudad Juárez after her daughter, Lilia Alejandra, was murdered in 2001.

Prospects for meaningful reform

The discovery of the Jalisco extermination camp has generated unprecedented public outrage, sparking nationwide protests. Responding to this pressure, President Claudia Sheinbaum has declared combating disappearances a national priority and announced several initiatives: strengthening the National Search Commission, reforming identity documentation to prevent identity theft of disappeared people, creating integrated forensic databases, implementing immediate search protocols without waiting periods, standardising criminal penalties, publishing transparent investigation statistics and enhancing victim support services.

President Sheinbaum has promised no impunity over the Teuchitlán case, committing her administration to establishing truth through scientific evidence and prosecuting all those responsible. Shortly afterward, the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances announced the opening of an urgent procedure examining Mexico’s disappearance crisis – a step that could elevate these cases to the scrutiny of the UN General Assembly. International oversight is needed to ensure state compliance with human rights obligations.

For meaningful progress, Mexico must undertake comprehensive reforms that address the structural underpinnings of the crisis. Critical measures include demilitarising public security, strengthening independent prosecutors and forensic institutions, guaranteeing transparent investigations free from political interference and providing sustained support for victims’ families.

The recent developments – public outrage, presidential commitments and international scrutiny – create a potential inflection point for addressing this national trauma. If there was ever a moment when conditions favoured substantive action, it’s now.

What’s clear is that Mexico’s mothers of the missing will continue their quest regardless of official support. Their determination transcends political calculations. They search because they must, because the alternative is unthinkable. Their message to disappeared loved ones, and to a state that has failed them, remains unwavering: ‘Until we find you, until we find the truth’.

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