Hilda L. Solis: “I wish to extend my great thanks and honor to Congressman Lantos and Congressman Engel and also to Congresswoman Ileana…”

“I wish to extend my great thanks and honor to Congressman Lantos and Congressman Engel and also to Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen for her support. Mr. Speaker, we are strongly in support of this resolution to support the families of women who have been murdered in Ciudad Juarez and in the city of Chihuahua in Mexico. I have always believed that attacks on women are attacks on women everywhere. This came to my attention some 4 years ago, and I was very proud to help lead a delegation for the first time, a House delegation to Ciudad Juarez, which is 5 minutes from our border, our frontier there. And what I found was a horrific, horrific problem, brutal murders of women, as was already stated by our colleagues. And to hear that over the past 13 years this had been allowed to continue without any involvement on the part of our government and Mexico, I felt compelled as a woman, as a Latina, as someone who felt very strongly that, if we are going to stand up for women's rights in other continents of the world and the Middle East to defend the Afghani women who are being tortured by the Taliban, why not then also come forward and support the women of Ciudad, Juarez? We know that there are well over 400 victims that have been brutally murdered; and recently just this past year we found that a young girl, 7 years old, was kidnapped, raped, and brutally murdered. Another girl just 10 years was raped, killed, and set on fire in her home.…”