Members of the many groups in neighboring Sonora, Mexico, dedicated to searching for missing loved ones recently met with United Nations representatives.

The UN’s Committee on Enforced Disappearances has been touring Mexico and was most recently in Sinaloa, which has also been heavily impacted by the country’s crisis of missing people.

Representatives from 13 Sonoran searching groups attended, including the Buscadoras por la Paz Sonora, or the Sonoran Peace Seekers.

“They’re not going to change it from one day to the next,” said leader Cecilia Delgado of the prospects of improving a situation as grave as mass disappearance. But she did describe the meeting as “positive,” and she is hopeful that the U.N. will be able to help with longstanding demands to the state and federal government to improve the identification of bodies, and provide protection for searching groups, among many others.