On Thursday, 28 August, woman defender Aida Karina Juárez was found dead with clear signs of violence, in the Mexican state of San Luís Potosí. Aida Karina had been deprived of her liberty two days earlier, on the night of 26 August, in the municipality of Guadalupe, in the state of Zacatecas, when two unknown armed men forced their way into her home while she was with her under-age granddaughter and her mother.

Aida Karina was part of the searching collective “Following your traces with love” in Zacatecas. She searched for her 26 year-old daughter Goretty Guadalupe Juárez Jacobo, who is disappeared since June 2025.

The femicide of Aida Karina is not an isolated case. With her death, there are now 16 women defenders of the right to truth and justice who have been killed in Mexico since 2020; that means that one of every three women defenders killed in the country is a woman searcher. In this same period, we have documented nearly 1,500 attacks against sister defenders who search for their loved ones who have been disappeared or have been victims of murder or femicide, and who demand truth, justice and reparation.

The National Network of Women Human Rights Defenders in Mexico and IM-Defensoras condemn this crime and express our solidarity with the woman defender’s family and the members of the searching collective “Following your traces with love”.

We demand that government authorities at all levels guarantee holistic protection and care measures for Aida Karina’s family and the searching collective. We also demand that they comply with their obligation to investigate and find her disappeared daughter, in the course of whose search the woman defender was murdered.

We demand the implementation of effective policies across the country to guarantee that the searching mothers and all persons and collectives who seek truth and justice can conduct their work in conditions of safety and protection, without this work costing them their lives.

We demand that the Attorney General’s Offices of the states of Zacatecas and San Luis Potosí continue to closely monitor the case, ensuring that Aida Karina’s killing does not remain in impunity.

Lastly, we call on the international community to remain vigilant regarding the grave situation in Mexico concerning disappeared persons and the violence faced by those – especially women – who, given the failure of State institutions, tirelessly search for the disappeared, and to embody support for the women searchers and their collectives.