

Sometimes Lucha Castro finds herself overwhelmed by the horror stories she hears almost every day. The human rights campaigner in the notoriously violent state of Chihuahua, northern Mexico, was struck by that feeling recently, as she listened to an indigenous woman tell of being displaced from her village by organised criminal violence fuelled by corruption and negligence.

“I had to leave the meeting and go outside so I could have a cry without anybody seeing me,” said Castro, in a telephone interview from her home in the state capital, also called Chihuahua. “The truth is that sometimes I do get tired. There is so much suffering, and then you get indignant when you listen to the officials who are so incompetent, intolerant and frivolous.”

But, Castro added, those same stories also spur her on, despite the numerous death threats she has received over the years. “The victims are my teachers, women who have decided to say enough is enough and transform their personal pain into a struggle for their rights,” she said. “I think of the victims who aren’t here anymore, and I know that I have to be their voice.”

A new non-fiction graphic novel, La Lucha: The Story of Lucha Castro and Human Rights in Mexico, seeks to capture some of that daily reality. The book, the first in a series of non-fiction graphic novels conceived by the Irish group Front Line Defenders and published in collaboration with Verso, depicts Castro’s life, interwoven with those of six other human rights defenders.

Both the text and the sharp black and white illustrations highlight their determination and the pressures they face in a state that has suffered particularly badly from Mexico’s drug wars, involving various cartels. An ill-conceived military-led crackdown was intended to contain the violence but instead fuelled it; about 100,000 people are estimated to have been killed across the country since the crackdown was launched in 2006.

Lucha Castro, coordinator of the Center for Human Rights of Woman, in Chihuahua, which supports women affected by violence. Photograph: Courtesy of Front Line Defenders

Castro is convinced that a fall off in the headline-grabbing shootouts and massacres in Chihuahua over recent years is primarily due to inter-cartel deals. Violence remains acute, particularly against women, while the judicial system, police and military are corroded by corruption and prone to human rights abuse, she said. “Things are actually getting worse in many ways, not better.”

Lucha is an abbreviation of Castro’s full name, Luz Estela, and the word also means “struggle” in Spanish. Trained as a lawyer, her activism began 20 years ago, sparked by an economic crisis that led to many in Mexico losing their homes and land as the banking system collapsed, though many banks were saved by a huge government bailout. She began by seeking ways to help her own father, but progressed to organising women to draw attention to the impact of the crisis on families.

By the turn of the century, Castro had focused her attention on the murders of hundreds of young women in Chihuahua – most famously in the border city of Ciudad Juárez, but also around the state. With mothers of the victims approaching her for help in the face of official disdain for their plight, Castro formed the organisation Justicia por Nuestras Hijas (Justice for Our Daughters) in 2001.

Recognising that the murders reflected a broader context of systematic misogynist violence in the state, in 2005 she set up another organisation, the Center for the Human Rights of Women (Cedehm). The centre began by providing support for women facing all kinds of violence, but soon identified a need to defend the defenders themselves, who are at risk of reprisals for speaking out.

Castro became particularly close to Marisela Escobedo’s campaign for justice for her murdered daughter, Ruby Frayre, after her daughter’s boyfriend was acquitted of the killing despite confessing to the crime. The story is contained in the novel. Escobedo was assassinated in December 2010, while she was camped outside a government office to demand justice in the case.

By then Castro’s persistence and bravery were beginning to get noticed internationally. The idea of the novel emerged after Front Line Defenders nominated her for an award in 2011.

Castro was initially suspicious of the idea. “I thought, what, a comic? What’s that got to do with human rights in Mexico? But I didn’t say anything then.”

The graphic novel depicts the daily reality and pressures for human rights defenders in a state where violence is endemic. Illustration: Jon Sack.

The 63-year-old was confused, she added, when the group’s head of campaigns, Adam Shapiro, travelled to Chihuahua two years ago with Jon Sack, an author and illustrator. Neither spoke Spanish, and Castro doesn’t speak English, but they followed her around for two weeks with a notebook, camera and sketchpad.

Castro underlines that, as dramatic as the stories in the novel are, her centre is now under even greater pressure because it has acquired dozens more cases of forced disappearances involving government officials, police or soldiers.

“If they followed me now, it would be very different,” she said, indicating the police bodyguards who have been assigned to her by order of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. “The level of risk has risen a lot because the types of case have changed.”

All this, Castro stressed, means the book could not have come at a better time. “It raises the cost to the state of anything happening to me,” she said. “It also raises the cost of the kind of smear campaigns against human rights defenders that the government likes to do.”

Castro said the book has also had an important personal impact. Her four children now live far away, for fear they could be targeted as a means of silencing their mother. And while the family tries to get together once a year, and Castro spends much of her free time writing stories for her grandchildren, she admits that the work can be not only draining but also lonely.

“I was so struck by the fact that they came all that way to pay attention to me and my country,” she said. “International attention really helps your self esteem. It helps us avoid those feelings of being isolated and forgotten.”