Our daughters did not return home. Ways of reconstruction of women looking for missing women

Abstract

Mexico is going through a serious Human Rights crisis, where the proliferation of the phenomenon of disappearance in less than 12 years has grown to officially reach 77,171 missing persons. Disappearances tend to psychically dismantle those who are looking for their disappeared, but it affects men and women in a different way, since it is women who mainly search for those who have been disappeared under various vulnerability circumstances. This article is the product of a qualitative research carried out with women who are part of different groups who look for their missing female relatives. An analysis is carried out on the different situations of increased vulnerability due to gender issues and the resilience processes that the participants have experienced beyond resistance or submission. The contexts under which the disappearances occurred and the different types of violence that affected their vulnerability are described. Among the main findings is how introspective actions (cognitive, emotional and attitudinal) favor resilience and how it is increased through the links that are generated between them.