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REFUGEES FLEEING EL SALVADOR, GUATEMALA, HONDURAS, AND MEXICO
"Today the world is witness to a global refugee crisis of proportions not seen since World War II. But while most of the international media attention is on the refugees arriving in Europe – from countries such as Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan – there is another protection crisis unfolding in Central America. Tens of thousands of women – travelling alone or together with their children or other family members – are fleeing a surging tide of violence in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and parts of Mexico." António Guterres, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
The violence that women are fleeing from in the NTCA stems from increasing territorial control by organized criminal armed groups. Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and 18th Street (M-18), the two most powerful gangs in Central America, alongside other groups, engage in brutal killings, assaults, robberies, and widespread extortion. Murder rates in the region are among the highest in the world: according to data from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Honduras ranks first, El Salvador fifth, and Guatemala sixth. Impunity for murder and violent crime is widespread, reflecting inadequate government capacity to provide safety, especially for women. In fact, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras rank first, third, and seventh, respectively, for rates of female homicides globally.
The increasing power of gangs and other criminal groups pose particular dangers for women. Nelly, a young Honduran woman, said: “The gangs treat women much worse than men. They want us to join as members, but then women are also threatened to be gang members’ ‘girlfriends,’ and it’s never just sex with the one; it’s forced sex with all of them. Women are raped by them, tortured by them, abused by them."
Many women living in areas with widespread presence of criminal armed groups fled in part because they were constantly subject to extortion, with escalating physical threats if they were unable to pay. Some women reported they were asked to pay a cuota for working, living, or transiting an area. Others reported being asked to pay ransom for the return of a kidnapped loved.
In NTCA countries, many women were targeted for extortion if they or their family were viewed or perceived as (even moderately) successful. Gloria, a Honduran woman, made and sold small amounts of food from her house. “I had to stop selling tortillas and other foods from my home, because when B18 [a Honduran gang] arrived, they wanted me to pay a certain amount to them, and I could not.”
In other cases, criminal armed groups in the NTCA learned that women had family or friends in the United States who were sending them money, and demanded that they pay high fees. If women missed payments, they received death threats or direct attacks by the criminal armed groups. Angelica, from Mexico, owed money to a cartel in her area. When she was late on a payment, members of the group “came and took photos of me and my kids, and said they were going to kill me. They even called my mother in New York and told her that I had to pay. So I decided to leave.”
In the NTCA countries, the presence of criminal armed groups is pervasive and difficult for the government to control. Recent estimates suggest that there are 20,000 gang members in El Salvador, 12,000 in Honduras, and 22,000 in Guatemala. Central American “mano dura” (“iron fist”) policies involved large-scale government efforts to crack down on gang violence, but recent data shows their effectiveness has been limited. El Salvador, in particular, is facing the highest rates of murder since the end of the civil war in 1992. Police and their family members are now specifically targeted. Sometimes after the payment of a hefty fee, the loved one was released to the care of the family, but more often than not, the kidnapped family member never returned home.
A full report of the Study Conducted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is available at http://www.unhcr.org/5630f24c6.html
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