[16] Women officials, judges, lawyers,[17] paralegals,[18] reporters,[19] business owners, social media influencers, teachers, and non-governmental organizations directors have also been involved in the conflict in different capacities.
Women have also been murdered for being the grandmothers, mothers, wives, daughters, nieces, sisters, aunts, cousins, coworkers, or friends of persons targeted for assassination.
[1][45] Sexual assault of migrants from Latin America to the United States, many who are escaping the drug war violence, is pervasive.
[47][48][49] Female police and military officers, as well as federal agents[20] and their family members[50][51][52] have been murdered because of their occupation and or anti-cartel efforts.
[57][17] Female reporters and their family members have been murdered in the drug war for writing anti-cartel articles for newspapers or posting messages on the internet.
[62][63] Cartels and gangs fighting in the Mexican War on Drugs have sex trafficked women and girls in order to obtain additional profits.
[64][65][66][67] The cartels and gangs also abduct women to use as their personal sex slaves and force them into unfree labour.
[64] The sexual assault of migrants from Latin America to the United States by members of these criminal organizations is a problem.
The number of women killed in the conflict cannot be known because the absence of data from corruption, cover-ups, bad record keeping, and failures in interagency communication.
[16][68] A number of cases involving murders and disappearances have gone uninvestigated or unsolved because the authorities feared being harmed by cartel or gang members.
The criminals have been known to use acids and corrosive liquids, fire, and other methods to dispose of remains and make identification difficult to impossible.
Women are being incarcerated at a greater rate than men for drug offenses in Latin American countries.
After a raid conducted by a joint team of US and Mexican agents, they would discover fifteen pounds of cocaine, $25,000 in cash, small arms, and a rocket launcher.
[82] Maria Guadalupe Lopez Esquivel, better known as La Catrina, would not become another woman taken by violence during the Mexican Drug War.
Maria Guadalupe Lopez Esquivel would earn her alias for the death that she could inflict on the enemies of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).
La Catrina is the female skeleton that has become iconic to Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead).
La Catrina is no longer alive, but her memory lives on the CNJG and continues to celebrate Sicaria’s violent life.
The DEA would confirm through their undercover agents within the Sinaloa Cartel that Emma Coronel was giving orders after her husband had been arrested and held within Altiplano Prison.