What is the connection between NAFTA and the murders?

All of these people are leaving their homes and coming to border towns to work in factories made possible by NAFTA. NAFTA opponents say that these people are being exploited; treated poorly, work long hours for little pay, suffer in bad living conditions, that sort of thing. NAFTA supporters, like the wealthy families getting wealthier and the politicians working for them say that these workers are coming to the promised land of high pay, great living and working conditions. A new and shiny life.
So if it gets out that they're being raped and murdered and the police don't even protect them it's a powerful argument for the NAFTA opponents.

The link they tried to create, I assume, was that NAFTA caused the proliferation of the twin plant industry (maquiladoras). In reality, there is no connection. Twin plants (maquiladoras) were created in 1966 after the Johnson administration ended the Bracero program in 1964. Most multinational corporations with twin plants were established a decade or more before the North American Free Trade Agreement was ratified in 1993 and took effect on January 1, 1994. I spent 12 years working for a maquiladora in Cd. Juarez (1984 - 1996).

The murders depicted in this movie were first reported in 1993.

Supporters of Nafta don't want the "bad press" to spread. They'd rather keep it under the rug and they try to suppress news reporting and activism for the sake of making all the big dogs more money.

I think the film tried to cover a lot of issues in one plot. Blaming NAFTA for the rapes and deaths of thousands of women is a little off. The women didn't get kill inside the factories and although there were cases of employers raping their employees, it was never the NAFTA's intention or goal.

It's true that NAFTA takes advantage of these workers by working them to death with little pay and no benefits, but that's a whole other issue.

The film was suppose to mainly cover the fact that the authorities and government are doing nothing to solve the mysteries of these deaths. Also they are doing little to nothing to help the families of the victims. The Mexican government is corrupted and only cares about the wealthy and rich.

This film tried to in a way cover other facts like rich people been treated like humans or royalty while poor people are treated worse than cheap tools. Poor people don't have a voice or opinion and they're just there to make others rich. The rich run the country and the rich are also corrupted so overall it's power in the wrong hands.

We're SO LUCKY to be living in a country right now that at least treats us like human beans and wont turn us away, at least for now.

I had the same question as the OP or more simply why are these women being killed? SecretS_ChaoS' post seemed to come closest to the best explanation. The other posts were good to in that they explained that maquiladoras existed well before NAFTA. I guess Lopez sort of alluded to this when she said her parents had been killed which certainly would have had to have been before NAFTA.

You know it is still quite a stretch though. It seems the same sadistic killers would be out there murdering whether the people were working in the factories or not. I understand that companies should feel some obligation to make an effort to protect the people they're working to death. However, it sounds more like a failure with the police/law enforcement to me.

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NAFTA and the US corporations have contributed to the increased population in border cities, decreased wages, poverty, and all around horrible conditions. The corporations and governments have created super-highways, railroad tracks and terminals, and airports to aid in their importing and exporting of goods, yet they let their workers live in shacks made of mud and in a city where most streets are unpaved, dusty, without running water, sewers, or electricity. After paying their female workers $4 a day for their tedious and hard work, corporations do not provide any secure transportation home, forcing women to choose between spending their low wages on a bus fare or walking home through the dangerous streets. Thousands of men also find work in the maquiladoras at the $4 a day wage. But many men can't find jobs in the factories of Juarez because women are easier to manipulate, therefore make better slaves. The US and Mexican governments have not taken the murders or employment conditions seriously.

So yeah, NAFTA, U.S. multinational corporations, their Mexican partners and the Mexican and U.S. governments bear complete responsibility for the conditions in the community that led to these murders. General Motors, Ford, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, and a few dozen other U.S. corporations have created the maquiladora system of production and the pathetically inadequate social structures which support it.

Moreover, public safety has all but disintegrated in parts of the northern border states and cities. The drug dealers, police and even the Mexican Army cooperate in the movement of drugs across the border. But sometimes peace breaks down, and gun fights erupt between rival drug factions. The police routinely shake down workers and rob them of their wages. The body guards of the wealthy and the security guards of the factories add to the many bodies of armed men who threaten the safety of ordinary citizens.

Meanwhile, the U.S. corporations' factory managers earning six-figure salaries whizz back and forth across the border each morning and evening, in their air conditioned luxury automobiles, coming down from their luxurious homes in the hills above El Paso, down through the old border town, then out to the industrial park and the maquiladora.

If instead of NAFTA they implement USMCA with mexican towns all over Mexico instead of just bordertowns receiving factories with mexican workers in them with improved standard of living inside Mexico while it progresses to become a first world country in the next 100 to 200 years without mexicans forced to move to bordertowns or entering America illegally we'll see progress towards a better world.