So far, despite the promises of the authorities during the past six years, the national registry of disappeared persons and the genetic data banks of the federal government and the states does not work. They are anarchic and have failed to identify a single person being sought by relatives, sometimes even for over ten years.
Ana Lorena Delgadillo, of the Foundation for Justice and the Rule of Law, explains that each system operates in complete disarray, with no unifying criteria or capture of information or handling of DNA samples.
These shortcomings were pointed out in the 2009 ruling by the Interamerican Court of Human Rights (IACHR) regarding the so-called Cotton Field femicides that occurred in Ciudad Juárez. The Court ordered the Mexican government to correct this gap by adopting uniform, internationally accepted protocols throughout the country.
“In that court order is everything that we need to upgrade and operate the genetic databases. It’s as simple as applying the ruling to the entire country,” the specialist said
Through the Foundation, Delgadillo works with organizations for the disappeared in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala to locate migrants. She was also an adviser to the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF) for the Frontier Project in Ciudad Juárez.
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