Central American women pay with their bodies to try to reach the US

A new documentary provides raw insight into the humanitarian crisis affecting Central American women who make the dangerous crossing through Mexico heading to the United States. María en tierra de nadie (or, María in no man's land) tells the story of women who face rape and kidnapping by criminal gangs such as the Zetas drug cartel.

Salvadoran filmmaker Marcela Zamora was part of a team of six journalists, photographers, and filmmakers who spent a year living with undocumented migrants as they made their way through Mexico. The film tells the parallel stories of three Salvadoran women who make the journey through Mexico. Doña Inés, a 60-year-old woman, is searching for her daughter who went missing shortly after she decided to emigrate to the United States five years earlier. Marta and Sandra, tired of the domestic violence they endure at home, and hoping to overcome their impoverished lives, have decided to make the trip through Mexico with just $30.

The women making the crossing have no illusions about the risks they face, and many inject themselves with Depo-Provera, a cheap, widely available contraceptive that lasts three months and has been proven to be 97-percent effective. Zamora says that the use of the drug by women migrants has only recently become known.

Women make up more than 50 percent of migrants leaving Central America for a better life in the United States. During her first trips with the migrants, the filmmaker noticed that the women carried condoms, their only protection against criminals, police and the so-called coyotes - the men who take migrants on the final stage of their trip, usually through the desert.

"One woman I talked to at a refuge in Guatemala had nothing else in her bag except 12 condoms," says Argan Aragón, a specialist in migration who has also traveled with migrants, as part of his sociology doctorate at Paris-Sorbonne. "'I know where I am headed'," he recalls women telling him of their carrying contraceptives. "In reality they know what they are getting into. It is estimated that up to eight out of 10 Central American women are raped on their way through Mexico."

Aragón says that some women try to protect themselves during their trip through Mexico by finding temporary husbands. "The women will approach a group of men, and reach a simple deal: sexual favors in return for protection. Sex is a key part of their strategy. Some women say that they have been able to get through police and migration checks, get out of robberies, hitch rides, or get food and shelter in return for sex," Aragón says.

"Some women try to make themselves as attractive as possible, wearing short skirts and low-cut dresses, so that they can seduce their way past problems. I met a very attractive young woman who was traveling with her family, along with a coyote, and she had to pretend to be the girlfriend of every truck driver whose lorry they were in, so that the police wouldn't ask for her papers. She also had to keep the coyote happy. I don't know if she made it to Los Angeles, but what happened to her must have been a life-changing experience and must have changed the way her parents thought about her," he says.

Women also face abuse from the Mexican police, says Sara Lovera, a journalist who has written extensively about Central American migrants. "These women are on their own. Nobody is looking out for them. They have no rights. If they want to make it through Mexico, they will have to pay with their bodies."

Filmmaker Zamora says that many women are also kidnapped by Mexican drug cartels such as the Zetas, who then hold them for ransom. If payment isn't made, the women are murdered.

The documentary includes an interview with one woman who was kidnapped by the Zetas. She was allowed to live only after agreeing to work as a cook and assistant to the man responsible for cutting up the bodies of those who have been murdered and then burning their corpses in an oil drum. "Faced with the terrible uncertainties of the trip they are about to make, the women try to exercise some control over their lives. They know that they will have to have sex with any number of men, and that those men will not wear a condom, so taking Depo-Provera is one way of feeling that they have some control over what is happening to them," says Zamora.

Depo-Provera has been available in Central America since the 1970s, and is recognized by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It is used mainly in rural areas where women buy four doses - sufficient to last a year - for around 12 euros. NGOs in Latin America have warned that repeated use over several years can produce hormone imbalances, as well as bone damage to women in later life.