translated from Spanish: NGOs help migrant girls who suffered violence and abuse

Maya Casillas is the founder of the Kaltsilaltik civil association in Comitán, Chiapas, dedicated to supporting the respect of the human rights of minors arriving in Mexico fleeing violence in Central American countries. You’ve heard the cruellest stories of what a migrant girl can live in. For example, that 6 out of 10 who cross the country, are raped along the way.
For this reason, the organization Fondo Semillas, with more than 30 years supporting women, launched the Girls Migrating: Protect Your Way, to make people more and about their suffering and to fund support for them.
To Casillas there was a case that particularly marked her. She was a 12-year-old Salvadoran girl who came with her family in such a serious crisis that she and her mother were even at risk of suicide.
Read: What happened to the migrants who arrived in Mexico a year ago in the caravan?
A gang intended to forcibly recruit his brother. The boy was hiding to avoid it, and then the gang members, not finding him, took the girl. They beat her, raped her and went to throw her at her front door, with the message that the whole family had only that night to leave the country, or they were going to kill them all.
They didn’t even think about it, and in the pain of what had just happened, they made their way at that moment. Upon entering Guatemala they got lost, so they were recommended to hire someone to guide them to Mexico. They did, and the man they paid to take them, tried to rape the girl.
The father and brother managed to avoid it this time, but again they had to flee with the little girl carrying a second sexual assault.
When they finally reached Mexican territory, they went with the Migration authorities to ask for help. The first response, however, was to put them in Comitán’s immigration station.
The case quickly came to the ears of the activist, who despite being almost 10 p.m., got permission to go in and talk to the family. The girl was extremely affected and her health was at risk; the mother also had a crisis, so severe, that Casillas warned that she might kill herself if she did not receive psychological and emotional support.
Find out: Report increased abductions of migrants in Tabasco, although authorities deny it
Five days passed without the authorities doing anything, until the civil association threatened to make a complaint. So the solution was to ask Kaltsilaltik to spin trades and arrange for the family to leave the station and the girl to be cared for in a hospital.
One of the hardest moments came for Casillas: she explained to her mother that her daughter should be tested for ELISA, a blood test for the HIV virus, in case it had been infected by the rapists. Terrified, the woman did not want to be present and asked her to accompany the girl.
When the girl had finally received medical attention, she was warned that to prevent the virus from developing AIDS, she would have had to have retrovirals in the first 72 hours, but as that time had passed, there was only one left to have hopes that the ELISA test would come back negative.
Fortunately, it was. Although up to three years is not considered a definitive result. In addition to their physical health, the Kaltsilaltik organization was responsible for giving them psychosocial care, a legal strategy to seek refuge and stay in Mexico, and psychological support.
“The mother is the one who was devastated. The father feeling guilty, who because he didn’t protect his daughter. The son also feeling guilty, thinking that because he hid, that happened to his sister. So in this case we did have psychological support for all the family members, individually and also in a group way, because it was important that they know the feeling of each one, and also that they could hear from their daughter what I was telling them, this was very strong because the daughter told them it wasn’t their fault. Then that healing process, from the soul. That’s why we were very marked by this case,” he recalls in an interview with Political Animal.
Migration, increasingly feminine and younger
Like that story, it’s their turn to hear hundreds with different variations, Casillas says. This year alone, from January to August, more than 800 migrants, mostly women and girls, who are focused on, who arrived in Mexico fleeing their countries.
For a few years now, the profile of those who migrate has changed, says the activist.
Find out: Defamation, harassment and assaults: threats against migrant advocates are growing after US deal
“What is happening for a few years here is the feminization of migration. Previously it was seen that it was men who migrated and due to an economic situation, but from 2014, already strong, there began to be a considerable increase of families starting to migrate, and of children who are traveling alone,” she explains.
“We have seen migration through the American dream, but it is not currently the American dream that is causing people to migrate, it is a situation of widespread violence in the country of origin, in the hands of criminal groups, in Honduras, El Salvador, and south of Guatemala, which is presenting the gangs, and at all levels and at all levels are the gangs ruling and making people flee the country.”
In 2019, immigration authorities report that the number of children arriving at their facilities was 33,000 as of September, a figure 130% more than last year, says Laura García, director of Fondo Semillas.
Children and adolescents, in general, are forcibly recruited by gangs to serve to hide weapons, to transport them, or to be watching who is in, who goes out or who passes somewhere, so they call them “reporters”.
And girls in particular, they’re forced to be their “girlfriends” and have sex. They even look for them when they don’t have menstruation yet and can’t get pregnant.
“If a gangster likes a girl, no matter how old she is, she’s made by his girlfriend. But in doing so, it’s not just being a gangster’s girlfriend, it means being the girlfriend of the whole gang. We know that the role of women in a gang is a sexual function and we also know that it is a situation of moving weapons to detention centres, also entering to give this obligatory sexual service. And when the girls refuse, they are killed; when they get pregnant, if the gang member no longer serves him this girl, this teenage girl, are murdered,” says Casillas.
Read: Kidnappings, Extortion: Asylum Seekers Who Returned US Are Violent in Mexico
That is why many see no choice but to flee their country, some accompanied by their family, who decide to leave completely, but others alone, even though they know that on the way they risk being raped anyway by a criminal, by a chicken who moves them or even corrupt policemen who in exchange for letting migrants go their way are extorted or charged raping women.
3,000 pesos for helping hundreds of families
Kaltsilaltik provides legal support to migrant children, so that they can regularize their legal status in Mexico, apply for refugee status, and even go to school, because in many campuses they refuse to accept foreigners, ignoring that they also have the right to education.
In addition, psychological, emotional and social support is given to girls who arrive affected, do workshops and activities. They visit hostels and migrant stays where they are, often waiting to be deported because Mexico does not offer them protection.
And another of its key tasks is to train the immigration authorities and work with the DIF’s Office for the Protection of Children and Adolescents, on how to guarantee the human rights of migrants, to prioritize the best interests of the develop models of comprehensive care for this population and comply with the international protection commitments signed.
For all this, the association invests between 150 and 200 thousand pesos per month. It doesn’t receive a burden of government, in part, out of congruence, says Casillas. All done with donations and financing, such as the one that received this 2019 from Fondo Semillas, which allowed for the first time those who work there to collect a salary, just a minimum, of 3 thousand pesos, even for her as general coordinator.
For this reason, the Fundación Semillas foundation decided to make a collection by 2020 to fund 10 organizations that already have a career with migrant girls and women.
“I would like to emphasize that they do an amazing job, which is the work that we should aspire to see from the Mexican government and state. These organizations provide legal support to migrant girls, also provide psychosocial support, also provide humanitarian support, and help girls be sheltered from criminal gangs that sometimes extort, abduct or abduct them violates,” stresses Laura Garcia, director of the Fund.
The problem and collection campaign will be in effect from November 7 to December 18, and can be donated on its website by clicking here.
García stresses that the false dilemma of whether to support Mexican girls first and then Central Americans must be removed, because they all have the right to a better life.
“It’s not about some of them losing to improve the country. Migrant children have the same rights as children in this country. At the end of the day they are children and deserve to be protected. Migrating is not a crime, and if on top of that we take into account that they are minors, we have to change the question, and rather say how can we continue to protect the rights of Mexican girlsbut also of the girls who migrate and who are passing through our country?”
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Original source in Spanish