By: Francisco Sarabia
Extra Material from: Proceso
Gloria Leticia Diaz Nov 30, 2017
Every day, seven children and adolescents are victims of homicide or disappearance, as one of the effects of the ten years of war against drug trafficking and the militarization of public safety, warned Juan Martín Pérez García, executive director of the Network for the Rights of Children (Redim).
Violence against children and adolescents in Mexico turns on the red light worldwide. A recent UNICEF report states that the death rate of children between 14 and 17 years old is so high that more than half of the homicides that affect this age group in the world occur in only ten countries and Mexico occupies the fifth place on this list.
The report "Hidden in Plain Sight: A Statistical Analysis of Violence Against Children," cited in a report on the vulnerability of children and adolescents that was recently prepared by the National Commission for Human Rights, shows that the homicide rate of girls, boys and adolescents in Mexico is comparable to those in Myanmar, Botswana, Mozambique and Togo.
It also reveals that out of 195 countries, only 23 exceed the homicide rate of children under 20 years of age in Mexico.
The data of the international organization of the United Nations for the defense and protection of minors, coincides with the statistics of mortality of the INEGI, pointing out that between 2004 and 2013 in Mexico 10, 876 children and adolescents were murdered, of which half were men between 15 and 17 years old and another ten percent were women at that same age.
Indeed, while the rate of homicides of women-girls and adolescents-in this age range went from 1.9 to 3.1 per 100 thousand inhabitants in that period, that of men aged 15 to 17 went from 9.9 to 26.5 per every 100 thousand inhabitants, which is why the World Health Organization (WHO) calls this increase an "epidemic".
The same report indicates that, during the 2013-2015 period, adolescent victims of homicide were 84 percent men and 16 percent women. In addition, seven out of every 10 homicides of adolescents between 15 and 17 years of age occurred by firearm, which makes clear the worrying presence of a large number of small arms and light weapons in the country, highlights the content of the investigation.
The study details: "the evidence indicates that this pattern of lethal violence is partly attributable to the illicit activities of organized criminal groups, the presence of street gangs and the accessibility to firearms," according to data from UNICEF.
In the case of the deaths of adolescent women, they are not related only to the activity of drug trafficking groups, but also to other crimes such as gender violence and human trafficking.
Save the Children is campaigning at an international and national level to achieve the greatest impact for children with the Every Last Child Campaign.
While there has been significant progress in Mexico during the last 15 years in the areas of health and extreme poverty reduction in the framework of the Millennium Development, adolescents are a group that have not benefitted from the progress. The existing governmental policies on adolescents tend to focus more on security issues rather than providing an integral perspective on their development.
Mexican adolescents face various challenges ranging from poverty, inequality, exclusion, discrimination and a lack of opportunities. Today, 50% of Mexican adolescents aged 12 to 19 live in poverty. Of those, 11% live in extreme poverty.
Adolescents often lack access to sexual and reproductive health services which is highly relevant in a country that has the highest rate of adolescent pregnancy amongst OECD countries: one out of five births in Mexico are from adolescents.
The annual average of deaths by homicide in adolescents during the period 2001-2015, is increasing and is alarming because between 2001 and 2006, there were 871 cases. In the presidency of Calderon, the figure rose to 1,743 and in the first three years of Peña Nieto's government, the annual average of murders of adolescents was one thousand 407 cases.
With respect to the most recent period, during the first two years of the current government (2013-2014) there was talk of a downward trend in the number of homicides compared with the last two years of the previous government (2011-2012), which were the more violent. However, in 2015 violence increased again and even more during the period from January to July 2016, in which there was a 16 percent increase in the number of homicides, with respect to the same period of the previous year.
That is why, according to the Statistics of Mortality of the INEGI -in 2010-, it is observed that during the period of government from 2000 to 2006, there was a daily average of 27.62 deaths due to homicide; in the period from 2007 to 2012, the average was 54.90 and, during the first three years of the current government, from 2013 to 2015, the average was 59.61.
On the other hand, it is estimated that approximately half of the homicides that occurred in the 2008-2015 period took place in the context of the so-called "war" against drug trafficking, either because of the authorities' action against alleged criminal groups or by confrontations between alleged members of the same.
However, since force was often used before it was investigated, it is difficult to say how many of those who died were actually involved in criminal activities and how many were innocent.
Furthermore, stresses the Report on the vulnerability of adolescents in Mexico, most of the homicides committed have not been investigated and remain unpunished. For example, of the 24, 572 homicides counted by the INEGI in 2010, more than 21,000 were not sanctioned, which means that 84 percent went unpunished, while, for the Mexico Peace Index, 90 percent of the homicides committed in the country in recent years have gone unpunished.
The latter is particularly worrisome, since impunity is another factor that contributes to the escalation of violence, without neglecting, of course, the situation of hundreds of thousands of indirect victims who have been denied their rights to the truth, the justice and repair of the damages.
Every day, seven children are victims of failed militarization and drug war: Redim
By arguing that, in the last ten years, the security policy has impacted the most is to children and adolescents, a sector that represents 32% of the national population, Pérez García warned that "progress with the Law of Internal Security the Congress is not listening to international recommendations and institutionalizing violations of human rights by the Armed Forces. "
The defender was interviewed after presenting the report "Childhood Counts in Mexico 2017", which in its 13th edition addresses the effects of the policy of public safety and law enforcement among minors.
"Clearly this report is evidence of the failure of the organized crime struggle, a lost decade with a failed strategy that is representing not only a human rights crisis, pointed out and documented by international organizations and by human rights defenders, but that there is all the evidence to show that the most affected are still girls, boys and adolescents," said Pérez Martínez.
Faced with the imminent approval of the Internal Security Law, he warned that "it is deeply worrying that the progress in the Legislative Power, because the most affected will continue to be girls, boys and particularly adolescents, and we will now have less possibilities to stop the number of murders to this population, and of course, the impact that this is having on other violations of human rights, arbitrary detentions and involvement of girls, boys and adolescents in criminal acts".
The report, which is the systematization of public information related to children under 18 years, highlights that the National Registry of Missing or Disappeared Persons (RNPED) reveals that, of the 33,482 people reported as victims until last July, 6079 are girls, boys and adolescents, which represents 18.2% of the total.
Of the more than 6,000 victims or about 72.3%, this represents 4,394, which are disappearances that correspond to the period of government of Enrique Peña Nieto, and only in 2016, 1,431 cases were reported, "figure that represents almost a fourth part (23.5%) of the total number of disappearances registered in said year, " said the document.
When pointing out the disappearance of minors, it is highlighted that, in 6 of every 10 cases, the victims are girls and adolescent women, the document also emphasizes that, so far in 2017, "the disappearances of populations from 0 to 17 years add up to 812 cases"; in addition to the fact that in first place of disappearances of minors is the State of Mexico, an entity that was governed by President Peña Nieto.
Regarding the homicide figures, the Redim recalled in its report that, according to data presented by the civil society at a hearing of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH), in the first eight years of the public security strategy , about 2,000 girls, boys and adolescents were murdered, "of which half happened in the course of confrontations that involved the participation of security forces".
Tlatlaya 2014:
In an interview, Perez Garcia recalled that in 2014, during the extrajudicial execution of 22 people in Tlatlaya, State of Mexico, "four were teenagers, and the total number of people executed, six had been reported by relatives as hostages by organized crime and nothing was done. "
Noting that in the massacres of Tanhuato and Apatzingan in Michoacan, there were also counted minors among the victims, he said on access to justice Redim documented that for every 100 criminal complaints in children , girls and adolescents which are victims, the Judicial Branch only emits on average three convictions, with which "impunity is guaranteed" for those who assault minors.
In the scenario of war against drug trafficking, "36% of adolescents detained are for crimes against health, 30% for carrying a weapon exclusively for use by the Army, which says something about the availability of weapons, for adolescents which are often recruited in a forced manner, they are being exploited by criminal groups and that the Army and the Federal Police have more and more interaction with them, but they are not prepared to deal with that".
Pérez García stressed that the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child "recommended to the Mexican government to review the strategy of combating organized crime because of the severe impact it was having on children and adolescents."
Also, in 2011, Redim and Unicef prepared a protocol for the Armed Forces to take care of minors, "police and military personnel were trained, but with the current government, ie, the administration of EPN, the initiative was overturned."
The defender pointed out that "every day we have three homicides of children and adolescents; every day we have four disappearances, then seven children a day are being victims of this failed war against drug trafficking, this wrong strategy, so you can not afford to be institutionalized beyond what has been illegal until now.
In the presentation of the report, Jan Jarab, representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights participated; the representative of UNICEF, Christian Sakoog; Ricardo Bucio, executive secretary of the National System for the Integral Protection of Children and Adolescents (SIPINNA), and the general director of the Office of Human Rights and Democracy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Erasmo Lara Cabrera, among other officials.
Links to Full Reports:
Every day, seven children are victims of failed militarization and drug war: Redim
By arguing that, in the last ten years, the security policy has impacted the most is to children and adolescents, a sector that represents 32% of the national population, Pérez García warned that "progress with the Law of Internal Security the Congress is not listening to international recommendations and institutionalizing violations of human rights by the Armed Forces. "
The defender was interviewed after presenting the report "Childhood Counts in Mexico 2017", which in its 13th edition addresses the effects of the policy of public safety and law enforcement among minors.
"Clearly this report is evidence of the failure of the organized crime struggle, a lost decade with a failed strategy that is representing not only a human rights crisis, pointed out and documented by international organizations and by human rights defenders, but that there is all the evidence to show that the most affected are still girls, boys and adolescents," said Pérez Martínez.
Faced with the imminent approval of the Internal Security Law, he warned that "it is deeply worrying that the progress in the Legislative Power, because the most affected will continue to be girls, boys and particularly adolescents, and we will now have less possibilities to stop the number of murders to this population, and of course, the impact that this is having on other violations of human rights, arbitrary detentions and involvement of girls, boys and adolescents in criminal acts".
The report, which is the systematization of public information related to children under 18 years, highlights that the National Registry of Missing or Disappeared Persons (RNPED) reveals that, of the 33,482 people reported as victims until last July, 6079 are girls, boys and adolescents, which represents 18.2% of the total.
Of the more than 6,000 victims or about 72.3%, this represents 4,394, which are disappearances that correspond to the period of government of Enrique Peña Nieto, and only in 2016, 1,431 cases were reported, "figure that represents almost a fourth part (23.5%) of the total number of disappearances registered in said year, " said the document.
When pointing out the disappearance of minors, it is highlighted that, in 6 of every 10 cases, the victims are girls and adolescent women, the document also emphasizes that, so far in 2017, "the disappearances of populations from 0 to 17 years add up to 812 cases"; in addition to the fact that in first place of disappearances of minors is the State of Mexico, an entity that was governed by President Peña Nieto.
Regarding the homicide figures, the Redim recalled in its report that, according to data presented by the civil society at a hearing of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH), in the first eight years of the public security strategy , about 2,000 girls, boys and adolescents were murdered, "of which half happened in the course of confrontations that involved the participation of security forces".
Tlatlaya 2014:
In an interview, Perez Garcia recalled that in 2014, during the extrajudicial execution of 22 people in Tlatlaya, State of Mexico, "four were teenagers, and the total number of people executed, six had been reported by relatives as hostages by organized crime and nothing was done. "
Noting that in the massacres of Tanhuato and Apatzingan in Michoacan, there were also counted minors among the victims, he said on access to justice Redim documented that for every 100 criminal complaints in children , girls and adolescents which are victims, the Judicial Branch only emits on average three convictions, with which "impunity is guaranteed" for those who assault minors.
In the scenario of war against drug trafficking, "36% of adolescents detained are for crimes against health, 30% for carrying a weapon exclusively for use by the Army, which says something about the availability of weapons, for adolescents which are often recruited in a forced manner, they are being exploited by criminal groups and that the Army and the Federal Police have more and more interaction with them, but they are not prepared to deal with that".
Pérez García stressed that the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child "recommended to the Mexican government to review the strategy of combating organized crime because of the severe impact it was having on children and adolescents."
Also, in 2011, Redim and Unicef prepared a protocol for the Armed Forces to take care of minors, "police and military personnel were trained, but with the current government, ie, the administration of EPN, the initiative was overturned."
The defender pointed out that "every day we have three homicides of children and adolescents; every day we have four disappearances, then seven children a day are being victims of this failed war against drug trafficking, this wrong strategy, so you can not afford to be institutionalized beyond what has been illegal until now.
In the presentation of the report, Jan Jarab, representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights participated; the representative of UNICEF, Christian Sakoog; Ricardo Bucio, executive secretary of the National System for the Integral Protection of Children and Adolescents (SIPINNA), and the general director of the Office of Human Rights and Democracy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Erasmo Lara Cabrera, among other officials.
https://data.unicef.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/VR-full-report_Final-LR-3_2_15_189.pdf
HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT: A Statistical Analysis of Violence Against Children
https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/library/las-y-los-adolescentes-que-mexico-ha-olvidado-mexicos-forgotten-adolescents
https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/library/every-last-child-children-world-chooses-forget
SAVE THE CHILDREN
This is sad. i do not care if it is right or wrong but the USA military needs to step up. Thet need to come help us I don’t care what others say. I watch I see and can take no more, i would rather the USA military come conquer and we deal with it later. killing children has got to be the stop go i cant take it any more.
ReplyDeleteI think Mexican army and navy doing pretty good job.
DeleteThe problem in Mexico is, however, the corruption of police and politician. This is the root of evil.
@11:47. Obviously You contribute to that very cause of abuse by Your writing appearing as foraging for provisions. In other words, You appear excited by the news You wrote about from Your thought processes of what You read and understood in relation to the article.
DeleteIf You never learned the true definition of excite, excited, excitement, etc., it means counterfeit happiness by which to be excited is only temporary. It is not happiness in relation to infinite. What does that have to do with Your writing You may ask?
These are children...who deserve a chance in developing their brains for the better rather than the worse at least until the age of 25 when the prefrontal region of the brain is evidenced to be fully developed.
Advocate rather than adding fuel to the fire. Advocating may not bring You happiness, however it just might make You a better person
Thats commendable 7:4, but we've got kids on the street here in the USA too, and often they are targeted by sickos, not as blatant and in your face as in latin america but its happening.
DeleteThe same thing happens in the U.S.A. its called gang banging. Teenagers killing teenagers every single day.
Delete1:20 hey Socrates, I did not kill those children, nor am I excited by the porn and human trafficking and corruption of minors, I just have some memory left of a lot of shit.
Delete--pick your fights with the US tovernment, the United Nations, mexico's corrupt government, or Los Demonios del Eden...
7:41 please stop your drama. I have plenty of relatives and friends in Mexico with children around that age and they are doing very well. As bad as it a all those children are involved in crime and eventually they will find themselves killed. United States can’t stop the drug problem in more than 30 years what makes you think they will stop it in Mexico ?
DeleteWow, 551. Smug much? "All those children are involved in crime"?
Delete(((Their))) protection is withdrawn.
DeleteDEUS VULT
Así es, es bastante a quebrar corazones.
ReplyDeleteSentio su dolor , hermano / hermana.
Dios los bendigos........
Paz
Maybe poor people shouldn't be having 5 kids they can't maintain and expecting their problems to be solved by just praying to random saints or expecting god or some other mythical being to take care of everything.
ReplyDeleteThis is what happens when the church demonize sex education and brainwashes the ignorant masses into having as many kids as they can because god says so.
Add to the current situation in which the low skill/non college proletariat is unneeded anymore in todays economy (automation will replace the working class deal with it) and you have a large part of the population becoming a nuisance.
Overpopulation is the source of all these evil. We need a population control enforced in third world countries.
Over population is a huge worldwide problem. What ever happened to ZPG?
DeleteHowever, I don’t think we can only blame the poor and third world countries.
Education is also key. I know many couples in Mexico who are only having two children, not even holding out for a third just to get the boy child. These are people with common sense, they know they can’t feed them in today’s world ; plus they are pretty damn upset about raising their familias in the current climate. As we should all be.
And Another thing: Did you miss the memo that ALOT of women all over the world do not have a choice in the matter ? Don’t get me started.
DeleteI’ve come 2 realize that the truth is 2 painful 4 many of you. So I’ll sugar coat it 4 all you softies: PLEASE SAY NO 2 DRUGS. - Sol Prendido
ReplyDeleteHey Sol, do me a favor, keep your comments on topic and not personal. I delete 6-10 comments personally attacking you, but I am concluding you bring it on yourself. If it continues i will have to delete all of yours. I do not want to waste my time playing kindergarten teacher.
DeleteSol I lost respect for you and ur posts when you openly post your hate and bigoted remarks several times over on this blog. You are a pure racist.
DeleteYeah, I'm not sure that drugs are exclusively responsible for extreme poverty and violence to children. It sounds like you're trying to make light of this situation with your little quips, SP, but there's nothing amusing about this story to me.
DeleteChivis you admit that you delete comments on here? You are pathetic and you are why this site isn’t shit compared to what it used to be.
ReplyDeleteThink before writing. You are doing exactly what is against rules, no personal attacks.
DeleteOf course we delete comments coming in. that is what is called moderation. rarely does a comment get deleted if posted however. If you do not like the rules you are welcome to go elsewhere to post your valuable messages.
11:32, most of my comments are printed on BB. Why, because I don't rag on people, i have a sense of humor, and i ask questions that get people thinking. Now I will probably get hate comments just for writing this!
Delete11:32 oh! YOUR A BUNCH OF BS!!! BB IS THE BEST AND SO IS CHIVIS 11:32 YOU ARE PROBABLY THE SAME LOOSER THAT KEEPS POSTING ANNOYING CRAP THAT WE REALLY DON'T WANT TO HEAR SO VETE !
Delete@11:32 just keep your posts within the site rules, they are on the main page top right
DeleteI love and respect all you at BB because you go out on a limb day in and day out to keep people like me informed. These individuals who take the timer to slam your hard work need to find another hobby. I know you have to post the said comment in order to respond but it truly sends my blood pressure up sky high to read them.
DeleteNice price to pay for the "US Declaration of War on Drugs" in mexico.
ReplyDeleteThese criminal narcos del capo, pickpockets, ratas de la ciudad, NINIS and the worst, "students" are paying the price of being criminalized so diligently for so many years, finally they are killing each other to save the militry and poolice the trouble.
There have been a few commenters recommending more guns in mexico, but this is a sample of things to come as that shit keeps rolling downhill from the ruling owners of the world and their depopulation programs.
There are reports on DEPOPULATION PROGRAMS, if you subscribe to wiki or google, which I am not going to do, they are not the bible, but may help, I can't get BB there, which shows shit is messing with the internet inch by inch, like the gusanos they are, and don't tell me "oh, it's the russians" bullshit...
Black quads used for social cleansing have long been killing "mugrosos" as they refer to them. Street kids are big targets. This happens in Mexico to South Am and every place in between. Rio "cleaned" the city before the olympics. when will anything ever be done? It has not improved.
ReplyDeleteI just can't even comprehend this. They kill children just to not have them around looking for food, etc? I remember at one time being against UNICEF's policy on international adoption. Now I realize I was sickly naive at the time. I now would do anything to support an organization that keeps kids safe in their countries.
DeleteI wish they would keep innocent children out of their animalistic problems and mental illness they have
ReplyDelete5:36 sorry, the kids are in the mix, the problem now is to find the culprits, and don't give me any philosophical reasons why we need to forgive and forget through understanding and campaigns for reconciliation...
DeleteYou are most welcome...and you know who you are :)
ReplyDeleteI've been checking this website for at least ten years. Houston is home and my family is and has been directly effected by anything that happens down south. Seeing kids this age shot in the head and left leaning against a wall is always going to be inexcusable. Replies to this post talk about overpopulation and I think everything that contributes to this is important but please don't lose focus that these were kids. Call them bad kids, viscious mindless maybe.. just imagine the worst. Something made them this way. I'm not saying they were, don't get me wrong, but even in the most justified reason anyone can come up with, they are still kids. I can't wait for Mexicans to take everything back. It's only a matter of time before something happens to push them over the farthest edge. So much of what happens there effects us up here and we are all sick of it. Americans are closer than you think, don't believe the news reports or keyboard warriors/experts here. OBF, Chivis, etc you're doing a public service and thanks for that.
ReplyDeleteand thank you for the kid appreciation, we know most readers feel as you do.
DeleteSMH at anyone questioning the impartial integrity of any of the BB staff. Most certainly Chivis. These people risk their safety and that of their friends and family to keep all of us freakshow onlookers informed. Start your own blog. Ill be happy to comment there.
ReplyDeleteYou nailed something, I do think of the freaks coming for gore, but that is few, I am sure and can't prevent us from putting everything out there as Buggs intended, the whole truth. Thanks for the support,
Delete