The Backyard (El Traspatio)

“El Traspatio” is a Mexican film directed by Carlos Carrera. It is based on a true story: the murder and rape of hundreds of young woman, most of them workers of the “maquinadora” assembly plants in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Blanca Bravo a big city detective is transferred to Ciudad Juarez in order to investigate the murders. So many women have disappeared that the deaths are not news anymore, they are just simply part of the small towns life. Blanca takes the investigations to a personal level and is committed to find the responsible for the deaths of all of those women. Throughout the movie there is radio show host, who criticized the local police and governor and tries to focus public attention to these crimes. At the same time there is Margara, a small town girl that arrives to Juarez in search for work and has a unfortunate ending because of her desire to be free, and have rights over her own body.

 This movie has been very controversial because it touches on very sensitive topics. One of them is the consequence of corporate globalization. As stated by Emile Sherps in his piece “The Fruits of corporate globalization: El traspatio”

 “The most stomach churning scene of all consists of a polite meeting between the governor and representatives of major transnational corporations invested in the Juarez maquiladoras. The governor has called the meeting to try to get the businessmen to contribute more to the local economy so that the city can hire more police and fund new social programs to deal with the murders and the bad publicity they bring. But the foreign business execs smilingly run down the international statistics of exploitation and make the point that Juarez and its people are only useful to them as sources of cheap labor obtainable in part through rock-bottom local tax rates. And if the labor in Juarez is no longer the cheapest and the taxes no longer the lowest, they will take their business to Bangladesh or any number of even poorer countries.”

This is a clear example on how transnational companies take advantage of poor populations in order minimize their production cost and have the cheapest taxes. Also, it shows the magnitude of the consequences that these actions can bring.

The topic of feminicide is the most important in the movie. It tries to show the statistics of sex- related murders from Mexico to South America and even New York where between 1996-2006 there have been 1400 sex related murders. Also, in the US only in 2004 there have been 3541 sex related murders.

This is one of the most touching movies I have ever seen. It changed my view of the world in so many ways.  I believe that violence against women should not be ignored. We as women shall make our voices heard until the violence stops.