Sexual exploitation that the UN says amounts to slavery is forcing girls and their families from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to seek refuge in Mexico. Wed 23 Nov Increasing numbers of women and girls are fleeing El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras amid mounting evidence that criminal gangs are systematically targeting adolescent girls as sexual slaves. Of the 32, female migrants detained by Mexican immigration agents in the first nine months of this year, almost one in three were under But it is a phenomenon that regional authorities still deny, according to Erika Guevara, the Americas director at Amnesty International.
Then, he sent guys to watch me. In and , at least 66, girls in El Salvador changed or abandoned school, according to ministry of education figures, in a country of 6. But they could not afford the passage for the whole family, so her mother and five siblings are staying with relatives in another part of San Salvador β part of a growing wave of internally displaced people in the country. I miss my mum. Cutting myself feels like a release. She recently turned 18, and wants to finish high school.
Her father Ricardo, 40, a shoe seller and evangelical pastor, recounts the ordeal in barely audible whispers and complains of a constant headache. Increasingly, entire families from the Northern Triangle are fleeing together , seeking to escape warring street gangs and corrupt security forces. She was abducted on her way to a sports field for a morning run, and held captive for a week by gang members who wanted to recruit her, according to her mother Isabel, According to Isabel, her daughter cries at night, when she thinks the rest of the family is asleep.
My daughter was a model student in Honduras, she wanted to be an architect. Two-thirds of the women interviewed by the UN refugee agency in described direct threats and attacks by members of criminal groups as a key reason for their flight.
Soon after arriving in Tapachula in July, Andrea enrolled in a beauty course at another shelter. A month into the course, after a minor disagreement, two young Salvadorans told her she had five days to drop out or be killed. The family was forced to flee again. It recently extended its opening hours to tackle growing demand, but new applicants must still queue early in the morning to be seen.
