Mama Lulu is the nickname given to María de Lourdes Ruiz Bravo, an activist, human rights defender and researcher for missing persons in Mexico. This woman was born in the state of Jalisco, and began her investigations when her two children were kidnapped, the first in 2015 and the second in 2020. Today, she is not only searching for them, but also for relatives of other women. Hence the nickname. The Mexican community began calling her that name because, in a way, she “adopted all the disappeared,” as she herself says.
In April 2024, the book was published Until we find them. Chronicles of Hope in Jalisco: Lulu, Searching Mother, In it, she recounts the disappearance of her children through an intimate text that embodies the pain and hope of hundreds of thousands of families in Mexico. During October, he presented his book at various venues in Barcelona and Madrid.
More than 130,000 people have disappeared in Mexico in the past 20 years, according to the National Missing Persons Report issued by the Mexican Institute for Human Rights and Democracy (IMDHD). The state of Jalisco, where Lolo lives, tops the list (more than 15,000 people were lost in 2025 alone).
Mama Lulu is one of thousands of relatives searching for their loved ones, and as with most people, she still does not know why they disappeared. He is looking for answers, and for this reason, he has reached out to members of the La Paredura Cartel, which is backed by the Sinaloa Cartel and operates in the region. But they confirmed that her daughter was not on the lists of people persecuted by these groups. Regarding her son, Lulu does not know whether he has any connection to the cartel or not. However, even if that were the case, he asserts, “they have no right to hide it, there is a reason the law exists.”
Searching for the smell of decomposition
Mama Lulu explains that Mama is part of the research collective “Between Heaven and Earth,” the majority of whose members are women, as is common due to “the traditional roles of the house.” They spend a lot of their time searching for missing persons, which prevents many of them from working. Those who bring money into the home are the parents; They are searching day after day. Always waiting for some evidence. These, sometimes, come from the same cartels. Sometimes, researchers receive anonymous calls from former or current criminals, confessing to them areas where there may be bodies buried.
This is because, more often than not, the members of these commandos are young men who have been recruited and do not want to be there. Or they regret what they did and seek some kind of redemption. That’s why many want to help these families and, yes, hide their identity.
When women receive information about a possible mass grave, they immediately go to the site. Once there, they use rods 1.5 to 1.8 meters long and stick them in areas where they suspect human remains may be present. When they are removed, they examine them, smell them and look for traces of decomposition.
If they think there may be bodies underground, they begin the exhumation process with great care and use a small shovel to carefully dig around the bag that surrounds the body, thus avoiding damaging or contaminating the remains. Once the body is exhumed, it is sent to the Institute of Forensic Sciences for analysis.
One of the situations they frequently encounter is finding buried animals, such as dogs and cats, instead of humans. According to Mama Lulu, “This is a technique used by criminals to divert human body odor and prevent searchers from finding their loved ones.” When they still did not know this technique, they stopped searching. Now, if they find an animal, they keep searching, because they know they could also find a human body nearby.
Guilty of being a victim
After the disappearance of her daughter, María Lourdes, Mama Lulu was expelled from the school where she worked the same week of the kidnapping. They made her sign a waiver without understanding what she was signing. He’s been working there for nine years. “Because of this situation, I was left without work, without anything.” She believes that perhaps “the administrators were afraid that the criminals would look for her in the educational center and get involved.”
This is the daily bread of researchers, who have to suffer their communities assuming that if their loved ones disappear, it is because they have something suspicious. “Maybe he’s connected to the cartel” or “If they make him disappear, it’s for a reason,” are some of the phrases Lulu had to hear regarding her children.
One time she was out in the street putting up posters with pictures of her children, and a woman came up and judged her, supposedly, for not providing adequate protection for her children. A month later, the same woman went to the association because her son had also been kidnapped.
Lulu explains that sometimes, tensions arise between families within the same groups, and that “instead of supporting each other, some end up criminalizing others.” There are women who experience disappearance “as if it were a contagious disease,” to the point of holding others who have also suffered the kidnapping of their children responsible for the tragedy they are experiencing. In his opinion, the situation is so desperate that sometimes families “don’t even know who is to blame.”
Situations can become “desperate” and go beyond simply disappearing. Not only must search companies take responsibility for the search – a responsibility that administrations confirm does not – but they must often take responsibility for the people they leave behind.
They took their daughter, Maria De Lourdes, in front of her daughter, Allison, who was 8 years old at the time. So Lulu is now also looking after the girl, now 14, and her siblings: Christopher, 20, and Valeria, 17.
The eldest and youngest are currently living with their grandmother, but the middle one is admitted to a psychiatric center. The kidnapping of his mother caused him to suffer from depressive disorder and he attempted suicide on various occasions. He is afraid that his grandmother will find his mother one day, because she will most likely find her dead, and he refuses to do so. He confessed to his grandmother, “I would rather die than find my mother torn apart in a secret grave.”
Search companies move against “negligence”
The Mexican State has specific mechanisms for dealing with enforced disappearances, such as the National Research Commission, the General Law on Enforced Disappearances and Disappearances by Individuals (adopted in 2017) or the Specialized Public Prosecutor’s Office for Human Rights.
However, Mama Lulu believes that institutions “are operating negligently. Research groups are there for a reason.” He claims that his son Marcos disappeared three times “because of the administration.” He explains: “The first was when they took him, the second was when his file was lost, and the third was when his DNA was lost in the forensic center for five years.”
Two weeks ago, the Mexican government denied that disappearances in the country were systematic, in response to recent statements by the United Nations Committee against Enforced Disappearances, claiming that they were “unfounded and unacceptable.” In addition, they highlighted that the government has implemented a national peace and security building strategy.
This plan refers to a package of measures to reform the “General Law on Enforced Disappearance of Persons” approved by the Mexican Senate at the end of June. The reforms mainly seek to strengthen the National Research Committee and implement new technological tools to improve institutional coordination.
However, Lulu believes that all the measures the government has tried to implement to combat the kidnapping problem are “pure failed attempts.” He confirms that “disappearances have become a normal thing in Mexico” at the present time, and in his opinion, “it is not interesting to work on that.”
Lulu gives concrete examples and emphasizes that the work of search companies can hinder government projects. From the Entre Cielo y Tierra group, where they work, they confirmed that there are secret graves around the tracks of the next fourth line of the light train, which will go from Teljomulco to Tlaquepaque and which was supposed to connect the airport to the soccer stadium, an infrastructure designed Customized For the World Cup.
In total, search groups have found more than 400 bags of human remains in different areas of the municipalities through which this train will pass, such as Lomas del Sur, Zapopan, Tlaquepaque or Tlajomulco, but Lolo stresses that government leaders “don’t care.” They even go so far as to blame the administration itself for the disappearances.
An Amnesty International report warns that “at times, the perpetrators of (acts of violence) are public officials from all three levels of government (municipal, state and federal)” and highlights “the Mexican authorities’ denial of the situation.” Furthermore, the report notes that disappearances “occur in an environment of almost absolute impunity, generating the idea of permissibility, while revictimizing the victims.”
This scenario has led the families themselves to conduct searches and investigations on their own, “facing various risks and violations of their human rights,” according to the same study. In 2025 alone, at least 16 female students were killed. “We know search engines are vulnerable from the get-go,” he admits.
The research also shows that 97% of women researchers were exposed to some type of violence while carrying out their work, such as threats, assaults, kidnapping, torture, and even sexual violence, and that only 17% of women researchers went to the authorities to report acts of violence in 2025.
In the face of all these dangers and threats, finding a body represents a small relief in light of the state of impunity that grips the country. The results give some meaning to the researchers’ efforts. Mama Lulu doesn’t know if she will ever find Marcos and María de Lourdes, but she stresses that she will keep searching as long as she has the strength: “I just want to find them, and I don’t want anyone to blame anymore,” she stresses.
About The Author
