‘They Took Our Children. Now We Will Take Our Country Back’: Mothers Lead the Fight Against Disappearances in Mexico

In Mexico, the search for the disappeared isn’t led by institutions — it’s led by mothers. As cartel violence and impunity surge region-wide, thousands of women have stepped up to become investigators, forensic experts and rescue teams in the fight to find their loved ones.

According to government data, more than 124,000 people are officially listed as disappeared in Mexico — a term rooted in Latin America's history of violence procured by the state or local cartels, referring to those who vanish without explanation, often amid conflict or repression. Human rights believe the real number of the disappeared is even higher. 

Yet behind each case is a family — often mothers, nieces, daughters and partners — left to grieve and search without formal structures supporting them. In the wake of limited resources, women across the country have formed colectivos, or grassroots collectives that organize excavations, put pressure on authorities and support one another through shared experiences. Organizers say the collectives have grown out of necessity, often born from the failure of law enforcement or government institutions to act.

“These mothers … are the ones searching for their own missing children, husbands, and loved ones,” said Mexico City-based psychologist and criminological profiler Mónica Ramírez Cano. “At least 323 leaders of these search collectives have been murdered. It’s a dangerous fight.”

Yet, still, they come.

In the mountain settlement of Ajusco, just south of Mexico City, the mothers of the El Camino de la Búsqueda collective gather in a tin-roof shelter after a day of searching. One mother, Jacqueline, carries a red tote bag stuffed with laminated photographs of her daughter Jael, who vanished in 2021. Despite evidence in Jael’s disappearance suggesting foul play, police dismissed it as a runaway case. Rather than accept silence, Jacqueline built a collective from scratch.

“Criminal organizations that traffic women always give them a choice: work for them, or they will kill their family. I believe my daughter refused, and they killed her,” Jacqueline said. “I will keep fighting. [In November] I found part of my daughter’s remains, and I need to find the rest.”

Her group now includes more than a dozen women, some widowed, some with toddlers they carry on their hips as they search, all clutching photos of those they are hoping to find. Together, they scour Ajusco’s forests and fields, guided by anonymous tips from the community. They’ve unearthed eight bodies since 2021. Most were burned. Some were only bones.

Daniela, another member of the group, lost her teenage son, Axel, in 2022. His abduction by a Union cartel operative from near the family home in the mountainous region of Ajusco in Mexico City was caught on a grainy security camera. However, she claims, authorities have not arrested the individual on the tape despite him being known to the community. 

Since then, she has joined the collective in hopes to learn for herself what happened to her son, often bringing her other two children with her on searches.

“It’s hard for them. I spend every day looking for Axel. My other children no longer have a mother,” she said quietly.

The work is grueling. Mothers dig for hours in rocky ground, relying on scent, instinct and minimal protective gear. Some rely on “cadaver dogs” trained by volunteers. Others take basic forensic training courses. All of it is done out of pocket.

Searchers face constant threats from those connected to criminal enterprises. 

“I’ve been warned — ‘Stop searching, or you’ll lose another child,’” Jacqueline said, referencing unknown text and social media messages she has received. “But we keep going. We don’t have a choice.”

This is not an isolated movement. Since around 2007, collectives have sprouted in Guerrero, Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Sonora, Chihuahua, and Coahuila. Each group is different. Some are religious, some secular, some led by grandmothers, others by young women. But they all share the same mission: bring their loved ones home.

The stakes are not limited to those already gone. Disappearances in Mexico have a particularly cruel impact on girls and women, who are often abducted into trafficking rings, domestic servitude, or coerced into cartel work. In a country where more than 10 women are murdered every day, being a woman can itself be a heightened risk factor. Many of the surviving women are left to raise children alone, at times navigating poverty and enduring systemic silence, such as the persistent wage inequality that often leaves them earning significantly less than men for comparable work, further entrenching cycles of hardship.

Dr. Evan Ellis, a research professor at the U.S. Army War College, explained that “the bodies of many of those killed are being destroyed by criminal organizations,” including the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and other major cartels such as the Sinaloa Cartel, often with varying degrees of participation, acquiescence, or omission by public officials. 

“These organizations employ methods such as burning bodies, dissolving them in acid, or burying them in clandestine graves, making identification and accounting for the disappeared nearly impossible,” he said. This leaves families with no remains to bury, and no closure, which can further terrorize survivors and keep families from speaking out.

“These cartels are terrorists,” said Ramírez Cano. “And they deserve to be labeled as such.”

Earlier this year, U.S. President Donald Trump signed a controversial Executive Order designating eight cartels, including the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation Cartels, as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists. 

In Coahuila, a state several hundred miles north of Mexico City, Guadalupe and Carlos continue to search for their son Antonio, who disappeared in 2009. Antonio, who was 32,  worked as an engineer in Coahuila. His employers had links to the Zetas cartel, and Guadalupe believes they sold him out when he refused to honor corrupt contracts that involved the prominent cartel. Though some arrests were eventually made of individuals believed to be involved in Antonio’s abduction, the family never recovered Antonio’s body.

“It is agonizing to live without knowing the truth,” Guadalupe said. “We were scammed by people who promised they could bring him back.”

So-called spiritual leaders reached out to Guadalupe, claiming they knew Antonio’s location, and that they would ensure his wellbeing and safe passage home if the parents paid hundreds of dollars for them to complete their “religious” work. Guadalupe’s family believed these leaders, but have yet to have any new information about Antonio.

“I still need to know what happened,” Guadalipe said.

In March, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced a reform package to tackle Mexico’s disappearance crisis. Among six “immediate actions,” she proposed the implementation of  instant search alerts, proposing a system designed to rapidly disseminate information about a newly reported disappearance to relevant authorities and potentially the public, removing the 72-hour wait periods and unifying missing persons and kidnapping investigations under stricter protocols, including mandatory immediate data collection, inter-agency information sharing, and the creation of a centralized identity platform to accelerate searches and identifications.

The reform pack also pledged to create a centralized forensic database and publish monthly disappearance statistics. However, over 150 search collectives criticized the plan for failing to consult victims’ families. Families of Mexico’s missing persons criticized Sheinbaum’s reform plan for its failure to genuinely consult them, emphasizing that their direct involvement is crucial given their unique expertise from years of searching. They advocated for the full implementation of existing laws, stronger accountability for state collusion in disappearances, and a comprehensive approach to search, identification, and justice, rather than just new policies.

The collectives go beyond offering search and recovery missions. They’re also spaces for families to heal and grieve. Women meet weekly to share updates, comfort, food, prayers, and laughter. Some have created support centers for children left traumatized by the disappearance of loved ones, offer free legal advice, or conduct public awareness campaigns in schools and churches.

They also use social media and technology like Facebook groups, WhatsApp chats, live-streamed excavations, drone surveys, and geolocation mapping to broadcast disappearances and pressure authorities. Their work has led to the discovery of hundreds of clandestine graves since the COVID-19 pandemic and brought international attention to a crisis often ignored.  Through all of this, women have often been the leaders making these efforts happen, and justice a closer reality, not because they were trained to, not because anyone asked them to, but because no one else would.

“They took our children,” one mother declared at a March protest. “Now we will take our country back.”