The fear had a hold on her, too. She was selling crack at her usual post. The authorities came looking for her boyfriend.

Women on the 'lowest rungs of the drug trade'


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Illustation by Tyler Boss. This article was published in collaboration with the Marshall Project. I always knew high school Spanish would come in handy one day. I just didn't think that day would come in a federal prison. Fact: I am a white woman in my 20s.
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Over the past three years there has been a percent increase in the number of women imprisoned for federal crimes in Mexico. Ciudad Juarez is the most dangerous city in Mexico, plagued by drug war violence, not to mention poverty and unemployment, which has only escalated after the financial collapse. The majority of female inmates are women of a very low economic status. Many of these women are young, uneducated, and vulnerable, easily tricked and used by men to become involved in smuggling and kidnapping because of their economic circumstances.
She stands around while the women dance. In the afternoon, after her nap, she watches Spongebob on a small television in the cell her mother shares with two other women. Her former husband is serving a year sentence. A recent study from the Mexican feminist organization Equis found a While some women are willing collaborators with their partners, others are forced to take part in the crimes. Children are allowed to stay with their mothers until they are three or four years old, depending on when the mother was arrested.