VARIOUS: Central American migrant children escape domestic issues on top of poverty and gangs

Record ID: 348771

  • Title: VARIOUS: Central American migrant children escape domestic issues on top of poverty and gangs
  • Date: 13th August 2014
  • Summary: FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA, UNITED STATES (AUGUST 8, 2014) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) CRISTINA, 13-YEAR-OLD MIGRANT, SAYING: "I walked a bit and crossed the river in a boat. Then there were immigration officials. They took me over to some place, like an office. They asked me questions and they took me to a room that was very cold. They didn't give us blankets or anything
  • Embargoed: 28th August 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Mexico, Usa
  • City:
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVABEXH8BLGA4FO0HXCP344JIMNI
  • Story Text: Thousands of Central American migrants have been streaming into the United States to escape a wave of violence gripping their home countries resulting from the battles of Mexican drug cartels for drug routes and extortion rackets. But while gang violence is a serious concern in urban areas in the region, domestic issues are also pushing people out of rural Central America and towards the United States.
    According to the Center for International Studies, drug-related violence has made Central America one of the most dangerous places on earth for women. Central America encompasses some of the countries with the world's highest rates of femicide, defined as the murder of a woman for reasons connected with her gender, although men are not immune to the violence.
    On the sidelines of a regional U.N. forum on human rights held in Mexico City on Wednesday (August 13), Said Pinilla of Aldeas Infantiles, an NGO working with child migrants, called for international co-operation to consider more private family matters when extending protection to migrant children.
    "There must be a call for countries to make an extra effort and be more flexible in the identification of the causes for which a child may need international protection, including domestic violence, gang violence, and reunification with family," Pinilla told Reuters.
    Undocumented Guatemalan migrant Eugenia of northern Virginia said entrusting her 13-year-old daughter to a "coyote", or migrant smuggler, was the only way to ensure the young girl would avoid being pushed into a marriage.
    Though she said it was too late for her other daughter.
    "I had decided that it was time to bring my two daughters (to the U.S.). But their father found out and he pulled the 14-year-old girl out of school and he married her off. Then I decided to (immediately) bring my other daughter. That was my motive for bringing her, because I was afraid that he (the father) would marry her off as he did with the other," Eugenia explained.
    Legal marriage age in Guatemala is 18, though with parental consent, boys can marry at 16 and girls at 14.
    Eugenia paid a smuggler $3,000 to bring Cristina safely through Mexico and to the U.S. border, where she would be turned in to immigration authorities who would not be able to deport her immediately. A 2008 victims trafficking law grants extra protection to children from countries not bordering the United States.
    Cristina was among the 37,621 unaccompanied children crossing through the Rio Grande valley, a favoured crossing point, who were stopped between October 2013 and mid-June of this year, up 178 percent from a year before.
    The young migrant said her trip through Mexico went smoothly, until she crossed the border, arriving to an immigrant detention centre in the United States.
    "I walked a bit and crossed the river in a boat. Then there were immigration officials. They took me over to some place, like an office. They asked me questions and they took me to a room that was very cold. They didn't give us blankets or anything. It was very cold there and sometimes they didn't give us food," she said.
    The journey from Guatemala to the U.S. border took just ten days, but Cristina spent over three weeks in a holding cell with other migrant children, where she said she passed out at one point from not having enough food or water, but was quickly taken to see a doctor.
    Cristina was reunited with her mother three weeks later, carrying only her birth certificate. She said her other belongings were confiscated by immigration authorities.
    Dr. Larry Birns, Director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, says the flight response to the dangers in Guatemala and other Central American countries are to be expected.
    "We're talking about a very perilous region, and any sane person would do a lot to get out of, and in fact, it usually wipes out your savings to stage a dash to the United States from Guatemala. That's a lot of money for a poor farmer to come up with, you know, 1000 or 2000 dollars. They do so only out of desperation," Birns said.
    In a meeting at the White House on July 25 with the leaders of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, U.S. President Barack Obama said there may be some instances in which migrants from those countries could apply for refugee status, but those instances would be few.
    Today, a D.C. Metropolitan area non-profit, Ayuda, is helping Cristina apply for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS). The court date is set for late this year, and if the special status is granted, Cristina will be given permanent residency for abused or abandoned children.
    The number of unaccompanied children caught along the southwest U.S. border almost halved in July from a month earlier to 5,508, or around 177 a day, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The numbers still remain high versus previous years.
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