124
4.2.4.
Comparison of genetic information from the bodies of
unidentified women or girls deprived of life in Chihuahua with
missing persons on a national level
509. The representatives asked that a national database be set up to facilitate the
identification of persons reported as missing. They also stated that a national database
should be created to allow comparison of the information on missing persons with
information on persons who have been found dead and recorded as unidentified.
510. The State did not refer to this issue specifically. However, it mentioned the socalled “Human Identity Program” when it proposed to the victims’ next of kin that they
should collaborate with the EAAF in order to confirm the identity of the bodies found in
the cotton field.
511. Although the Court observes that the State created a register with data on
women who are missing in the Municipality of Juárez and a forensic DNA databank,490
the Tribunal has no probative elements to allow it to conclude that the State created a
national database of disappeared persons. Furthermore, even though the Court
observes that there is a forensic DNA database with genetic information on some of the
next of kin of victims of gender-based murder and of some bodies that were found,491
it has no evidence that the State has compared the information on disappeared women
at the national level, or the genetic information of the next of kin of those disappeared
women with the genetic information extracted from the bodies of any women or girl
deprived of life and unidentified in Chihuahua. Moreover, there is no information in the
case file to allow the Tribunal to determine whether the information contained in said
databases is sufficient, or their level of effectiveness and results in relation to the
investigations of the disappearances and murders of women in Ciudad Juárez.
512. The Court finds that the rationale for creating a database of disappeared women
and girls at the national level, and updating and comparing the genetic information
from the relatives of missing persons with that of unidentified bodies is the possibility
that the bodies of some of the women or girls found in Chihuahua belong to individuals
who disappeared in other states of the Federation, and even in other countries.
Consequently, as it has in other cases,492 the Court orders: (i) the creation or updating
of a database with the personal information available on disappeared women and girls
at the national level; (ii) the creation or updating of a database with the necessary
personal information, principally DNA and tissue samples, of the next of kin of the
disappeared who consent to this – or that is ordered by a judge – so that the State can
store this personal information with the sole purpose of locating a disappeared person,
and (iii) the creation or updating of a database with the genetic information and tissue
samples from the body of any unidentified woman or girl deprived of life in the State of
Chihuahua. The State must protect the personal information in these databases at all
times.
490
Cf. Office of the Special Prosecutor for the Investigation of Crimes related to the Murders of Women
in Ciudad Juárez, Informe Final, supra note 87, folios 14582 and 14587 to 14594.
491
Cf. Office of the Special Prosecutor for the Investigation of Crimes related to the Murders of Women
in Ciudad Juárez, Informe Final, supra note 87, folios 14582 and 14587 to 14594.
492
Cf. Case of Molina Theissen v. Guatemala. Reparations and Costs. Judgment of July 3, 2004. Series
C No. 108, para. 91; Case of the Serrano Cruz Sisters v. El Salvador, supra note 454, para. 193, and Case of
Servellón García et al. v. Honduras, supra note 308, para. 203.
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