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Katie Orlinsky

Visual Storyteller & Contributing Photographer
    
Innocence Assassinated: Living in Mexico's Drug War
Location: North America
Nationality: American
Biography: Katie Orlinsky’s photography tells stories about the everyday lives of people in extreme situations, capturing the intimate moments of daily life behind larger global issues. For the past six years a large portion of her work has focused on... MORE
Public Story
Innocence Assassinated: Living in Mexico's Drug War
Copyright Katie Orlinsky 2024
Updated Dec 2014
Location Mexico
Topics Black and White, Borders, Corruption, Documentary, Incarceration, Latin America, Photojournalism, Poverty, Prison, Violence, War, Youth

Innocence Assassinated: Living in Mexico's Drug War

In 2006, newly elected Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared war on the drug cartels. His intention was to stop the violence, corruption and narcotics trafficking that had been increasing since 2000. Seven decades of one-party rule in Mexico had ended and shifted the balance of power amongst drug cartels and corrupt officials. But Calderon's war on drugs only made the situation worse. The total death toll of Mexico's drug war has now reached over 70,000 people since 2006. Every murder leaves behind a family struggling with loss and financial survival. Mexico's pernicious violence is more than an armed conflict. It is a humanitarian crisis that has changed the lives of tens of thousands of innocent people.

The feminization of the drug war is an important facet of this emergency. Women are left widowed at alarming rates, left to fend for themselves in a shattered economy. They are easily lured into criminal activity such as drug trafficking and kidnapping, often the only financial options available to support their children and aged parents. In addition to women, there are countless children forever scarred by a childhood engulfed with violence, death and insecurity. In Mexico's most dangerous city Ciudad Juarez, plagued by violence, poverty and unemployment, over 10,000 children have been orphaned since 2008. Soon these children will be teenagers, lacking the education, family structure, and economic security necessary to protect them from recruitment by gangs and cartels.

Behind the well-known narrative of fighting between cartels and the authorities lies a less covered story: the innocents trapped in violence, misery and crime.

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Innocence Assassinated: Living in Mexico's Drug War by Katie Orlinsky
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