A group of investigators for those who have been missing due to violence in Mexico is creating a moving badge song as the upcoming start of the Soccer World Cup approaches.

Many of the members of the Luz de Esperanza shared in Jalisco are fathers and mothers of people who have been missing there. They have produced a number of World Cup-style prints featuring photos of their lost loved ones.

The faces on the cards have the same style as those on the favorite Panini record of the 2026 World Cup being held in the US, Mexico, and Canada, and they feature images of the individuals that appear smiling.

Guadalajara, a city in the state of Jalisco, which is hosting the final and is home to the first place in kidnappings in all of Mexico, is one of the locations.

The bulk of those who are not located are young people under the age of 30.

According to Héctor Flores, the collective's spokesperson, the idea behind this album is that the global attention it may garner will help make the city of Guadalajara, which hosts four matches of the 2026 World Cup, understand how hard they work to find their loved ones every day.

We hope that people will participate in the memory-building activities that we will be organizing during the World Cup. There will be cascaritas ( short soccer games ) and rallies, and we hope that people will join in, show empathy, and cross-border reactions so that the grave human rights violations that are occurring in the nation are end, according to Flores, according to Flores.

a group sputter in the middle

With at least 16, 000 official problems and tons of unreported cases, Jalisco is the state in Mexico with the most absent person cases.

A high rate of violence is also prevalent in the western state of Mexico as a result of organizations like the Jalisco New Generation Cartel's ( JNCG) drug smuggling and extortion.

The criminal organization is also to blame for the required recruitment of young people, many of whom are tricked into accepting offers for typical jobs and forced to work for the CJNG and are imprisoned incommunicado.

Many friends of the missing organized and conducted their own searches for their loved ones, such as the Luz de Esperanza Jalisco collective that formed in 2021, as a result of the government ' slow response to reports of disappearance.

After my son ( Daniel ) vanished, we started working on it in 2021, says Héctor Flores.

Numerous parents and activists have since joined the group to carry out searches, including the construction of locations where there are evidence that those who died from criminal murder were buried.

The team wanted to raise awareness of the disappearance issue through the stickers in light of the World Cup environment that has been present in recent weeks in Guadalajara.

When we learned that our children were discussing the World Cup and how there is a ignorance toward disappearances, we launched this campaign on social media with the aid of synthetic intelligence," Flores explains.

They also created images of Hispanic National Team supporters asking about their ill-adjusted daughters and sons in addition to the" World Cup photos. "

What about our missing persons, if the ball is back on the court? is the text that appears with their social media publications.

The idea is that this plan will demonstrate that those who are missing are also Latino, they are significant, and they deserve to be called. However, with the indignation of the World Cup, it seems like they will finish in either second or third area, Flores says.

“It is an effort to continue naming them and draw attention, raise awareness and make people who like football empathize.”

Although the majority of missing youth in Jalisco and other parts of Mexico are men, there are also a high number of women who are victims of kidnapping or forced recruitment, and in the worst cases, feminicide.

That is why they have also been included among the World Cup cards for the men's soccer championship that begins in June.

“We will continue to demonstrate”

Like other World Cup venues, the city of Guadalajara has been preparing its public spaces and road infrastructure with an investment of close to US$200 million by the state and federal governments.

For critics, such an amount of resources in favor of the championship and for the benefit of the FIFA organization is not justified and masks problems that will continue to be neglected in the state, such as public insecurity.

The Akron stadium, where four games will be played, is in fact located a few hundred meters from undeveloped land where searchers have found at least 10 clandestine graves of human remains.

Collectives such as Luz de Esperanza Jalisco insist that they will not stop their activities and demonstrations for the missing during match days and the various festive activities for the World Cup.

"So far the authorities have not commented or hinted at anything to us. But even if they did, they are actions that families will continue to do regardless of the authority's position," says Flores.

“Searches must be carried out and are above all things.”

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