Mexican Human Rights groups are asking the United Nations to appoint a special watchdog for the country, after the disappearances and assumed murders of 43 student teachers, allegedly at the hands of corrupt police and drug gang members.

The UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances met in Geneva to consider the situation in Mexico, hearing from relatives of disappeared persons, and also from the government.  According to the latest official figures, there are 23,271 people missing in the Central American nation after years of unrestrained drug gang violence.  The problem dates back decades, but rights activists say it’s gotten worse under current President Enrique Pena Nieto and his predecessor, Felipe Calderon.

“This is not about an isolated case.  On the contrary, in Mexico there is a humanitarian crisis over forced disappearances that the Mexican state refuses to recognize," said human rights activists Denise Gonzalez of the Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center.  “Forced disappearance is committed in a generalized manner and all the while the Mexican state tries to diminish its responsibility.”

The 43 were detained by police last September at the orders of the mayor of Iguala, who wanted to stop their planned anti-corruption protest.  Mexico’s attorney general says they were then handed over to drug gang members and killed, with the bodies incinerated and tossed into a river.  But the prosecutions are now in trouble, after an investigative report unearthed documents showing torture was used to extract confessions out of the Iguala police and gang members.

If the UN names a special rapporteur for Mexico to monitor disappearances, prepare reports and make recommendations, rights groups say the government must formally and fully recognize the process. 

Juan Manuel Gomez Robledo of Mexico’s Foreign Relations Department says the Nieto government is open to the Committee’s recommendations.

“We can anticipate that there will be recommendations on pending matters and challenges that Mexico still has, from both a legislative and a public-policy point of view,” Gomez Robledo said.  “And, of course, afterward these recommendations will have to be followed up on and fulfilled.”