MEXICO CITY – The Mexican government responded to criticism from six female Nobel peace laureates by acknowledging that the country faces “multiple challenges in the matter of discrimination and violence against women.”

In an open letter published Monday, the founders of the Nobel Women’s Initiative – Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, Wangari Maathai, Rigoberta Menchu, Betty Williams and Mairead Maguire – demanded that Mexican authorities conduct a thorough investigation of the Dec. 16 murder of activist Marisela Escobedo Ortiz.

Escobedo was slain while picketing Chihuahua state government offices to demand justice for daughter Rubi Marisol Frayre, murdered in August 2008 in Ciudad Juarez, the state’s largest city.

The Nobel Women’s Initiative also urged Mexican authorities to heed a November 2009 finding by the Inter-American Human Rights Court that they are failing to prevent and duly investigate violence against women in Juarez, a gritty metropolis just across the border from El Paso, Texas.

Only a handful of the more than 7,000 homicides reported in Ciudad Juarez over the past three years have led to arrests or prosecutions.

The Mexican government “expresses its most energetic condemnation of the murder of Mrs. Marisela Escobedo,” Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa said in reply to the letter from the Nobel laureates.

Mexico also has a “firm commitment” to act on the conclusion of the Inter-American Court and last month submitted a progress report on its efforts in that regard, the secretary said.

At the same time, Espinosa called on the Nobel laureates to acknowledge that Mexican politicians and civic organizations “have been pushing fundamental changes to guarantee the effective exercise of the human rights of the country’s women and girls.” EFE