by TChris

The San Diego Union-Tribune writes about the forgotten women who languish in Mexican prisons because of the war against drugs. Often single mothers with low incomes, they are enticed to cross the border carrying drugs for couriers. The temptation is easy to understand.

"They started telling me that I would get ahead, that I could fix my house," said Rosa María Morales Rivera, 43, who had been supporting five children on her hotel-maid wages. "I wouldn't have to be killing myself in the hotel, washing and making up rooms and ironing when my back pain was unbearable."

Women who are caught as they attempt to cross the border face decades in Mexican prisons.

Amid the spectacular headlines of the drug war, these women are overlooked. Their capture merits only passing mention in news accounts. No one celebrates their exploits in narcocorridos. They're cut off by the people who sent them, and the women rarely speak out, fearful of repercussions for those back home. They spend years behind bars and are lucky to have families still waiting when they get out.