Today's Leonard Lopate show has a segment on "The Daughters of Juarez," by Teresa Rodriguez about the murders of more than 400 women in Juarez since 1993.

Post NAFTA lots of Mexican families from other parts of the country moved to Juarez, just south of the US border, and about that time the murders began. The murdered women were all young, all poor, and all fit a similar physical description. Most were sexually assaulted. They were killed by someone (or some group of people) with money and the ability to evade responsibility.

According to Rodriquez, some people have been scapegoated, but the murders really remain unsolved. What kind of attitude toward young women -- toward women in general -- to allow this many murders in one city?

Authorities in Juarez tended to accuse the murdered women of leading double lives, leading men on, perhaps even doing sex work, and perhaps "deserving" their fate.

How different is this from the attitude toward women in, say, the Netherlands, where sex workers recently held an "Open Day" to invite the public into the red light zone during the day to see how it operates.

Attitudes toward sex workers are intrinsically linked to attitudes toward women in general in a culture. Where does the US fall?

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Elizabeth