More women are joining the ranks of criminal groups in Mexico than ever before. Women are participating in more spaces in organized crime in Mexico, according to a new report that highlights the consequences of this trend for their families and communities.
The report from the International Crisis Group is based on interviews with over 70 women in prisons and drug rehabilitation centers. Most of the women interviewed are single mothers from low-income communities who have a history of drug use and were, at some point in their lives, victims of violence inside and outside their homes. These shared characteristics reveal the factors that make organized crime an attractive option for an increasing number of women in Mexico.
Women are often recruited by criminal groups through their drug use or through their personal and romantic relationships with members of criminal groups, the report found, confirming previous InSight Crime findings.
Once part of the group, women carry out the same activities as their male counterparts, including intelligence gathering, small-scale drug peddling, hired killings, and leading criminal cells. Other investigations have found that some women even lead their own criminal groups, although there are fewer women criminal leaders than men.
Women are not afraid to use violence to advance in the criminal world, especially in matters related to the drug trade, the report found. Previous investigations have echoed this claim, highlighting women’s complex roles as victims and perpetrators of violence within organized crime.
Below, InSight Crime outlines three new findings from the report.
Criminal Groups Offer Women Power
Amid rising gender-based violence in Mexico, joining criminal groups has become a way for women to protect themselves and gain power in a deeply patriarchal society where they are left unprotected by state institutions.
Between 2019 and 2022, more than 15,000 women in Mexico were murdered because of their gender, according to data from the National Statistics and Geography Institute (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía – INEGI). Never before has Mexico seen such high levels of femicides and sexual violence.
In this context, criminal groups offer women the chance to find justice and protection, as well as garner their own power. Although there is no data on the number of women active in Mexican criminal groups, the number of women in prison for crimes related to organized crime has increased from 5.4% of the total prison population in 2017 to 7.5% in 2021, the report found.
The researchers attributed the increase to the lack of justice and protection for women in Mexico, among other factors. However, the increase was not linked to changes in government policies.
“They are sick of being victimized and turn to the criminal world to avoid that at any cost,” explained Angélica Ospina, author of the report.
“Imagine how much violence and insecurity they must face in their lives to make being in a criminal group feel like a safe space.”
Collateral Damage
Women’s participation in organized crime impacts not only them, but also their families, expanding the hold organized crime has over communities where it is present.
Most of the women interviewed in the study are the main providers for their families, and many of them are also single mothers. Criminal activities provided them with the means to support themselves and their families, an opportunity they would otherwise not have, as many are from low-income areas.
“Criminal groups also extort women, saying they will do things to their children in the future, like recruit or kill them. So their kids are targets,” said Ospina.
And these are not just empty threats. Many children of women who participate in organized crime also end up joining criminal groups. This rising intergenerational dependence on crime is contributing to the worsening of armed conflict in parts of Mexico, where more and more children are being recruited by criminal groups.
When women involved in organized crime are imprisoned, their family ties are also harmed. Left without their primary caregivers, children whose mothers are in prison often suffer long-term effects like lower socioeconomic wellbeing, increased marginalization, and greater vulnerability to organized crime.
The longer women are in prison, the greater the impact on their children. And women in Mexico face longer prison sentences than men accused of the same crimes, according to several studies.
“There you also see the issue of gender: that a woman criminal, even if she isn’t really, is an aberration that makes people uncomfortable, so we should let her rot in jail,” explained Ospina.
Policy Recommendations
The report identifies three spaces where public policy intervention could prevent women from joining criminal groups and mitigate the impacts on themselves and their families.
First, Mexico needs more programs aimed at increasing economic wellbeing and creating social programs in communities where organized crime is filling the gaps left by the state. Furthermore, addiction treatment centers should increase the range of services available to women with drug addictions to prevent recidivism, the authors argue.
“Addiction treatment centers are a key [intervention] space,” said Ospina, adding that the country’s prisons are too. Reinsertion and reintegration programs focused on both women in jail and their communities could pave a way forward.
“You also have to prepare the community to receive the women again,” Ospina said.
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