By:Staff Writer
January 1, 2021
Death threats, gang recruitment, extortion and other forms of targeted violence are driving more families in northern Central America to flee their homes and seek safety in other countries, a new UNHCR and UNICEF survey reveals today.
Nearly 20 per cent of over 3,100 interviewees migrating in family units identified violence – including death threats, extortion, gang recruitment and domestic violence – as the main reason behind their decision to leave their communities. More than 30 per cent of unaccompanied migrant children surveyed identified some type of violence as the main driver of their movement, which in turn affected their ability to access essential services, including going to school.
These survey findings help explain the dynamic behind the alarming 456 per cent spike in family units apprehended at the southern border of the United States of America last year. This number has soared from nearly 77,800 families in 2018 to more than 432,000 in 2019.
“The shift in the demographics of flight from the north of Central America reflects a grim reality on the ground in the countries of origin where entire families are under threat and flee together to find safety,” said Giovanni Bassu, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency Regional Representative for Central America and Cuba.
In communities characterized by extreme violence, gang attacks and criminal activities, young men, women and teenagers in northern Central America are particularly vulnerable. Violence, especially death threats associated with recruitment, directly affect children and adolescents. Children described facing several push factors, including different types of violence and the lack of opportunities and services in their countries. Adults described receiving threats by gangs aimed at their entire family, which led many to leave their community with all their children in order not to leave them at risk.
“Many people from northern Central America are literally running for their lives as gangs target entire families, including children, forcing them to flee”, says Jean Gough, UNICEF Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean. “They don’t leave any family member behind because they fear retaliation from the gangs in the communities. Now, after COVID-19 and two devastating hurricanes have hit Central America, the increase in poverty and violence is likely to drive more of these families from their homes in the coming weeks and months.”
By the end of 2019, over 800,000 people from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras had sought protection either within their countries or had crossed international borders seeking asylum to escape interrelated threats, including escalating levels of gang violence and persecution, among other push factors. While some young women and girls are victims of sexual and gender-based violence perpetuated by gang members, young men are exploited for criminal ends, including drug-running, or are fully recruited into criminal groups.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, strict restrictions on movement and border closures have limited the options for people to flee danger, particularly in the countries of northern Central America: El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. At the same time, the many forms of violence and persecution that have driven forced displacement in this region for years on end have continued and, in some instances, worsened during confinement.
UNHCR and UNICEF call on States to comply with the international obligations they have acquired related to guaranteeing the full enjoyment of human rights to people forced to flee their country or community of origin during all stages of displacement, emphasizing the rights of people with specific protection needs; and to ensure that displaced children and adolescents are treated as children first and foremost, and that their best interests are central in all responses and decisions that impact them, whether they are traveling alone or with their families.
Those that had to flee
Forty-one percent of families interviewed outside of their countries of origin were from Honduras, 32 percent from Guatemala and 28 percent from El Salvador. Of these, 66 percent of surveyed persons were mothers or fathers, among whom mothers predominated (63 percent) and averaged 30 years of age.
Most people fled with their immediate nuclear family. Of the persons interviewed transiting through or requesting international protection in Mexico, 31 percent fled with their mother or father. Twenty-six percent fled with their children and a similar percentage fled with a sibling or spouse/partner (18 and 15 percent respectively). A small number (less than five percent) fled with nephews, cousins, aunts or uncles, grandparents or grandchildren. Also, 9 percent confirmed no family member was left behind in the country of origin.
In this sense, many families seem to be opting to flee together from the north of Central America. This is seen, on some occasions, as the only option to avoid personal harm of any of the members of the family in the country of origin.
During qualitative discussions, persons in the context of human mobility highlighted that the process of displacement was complex and resulted from simultaneous factors, but violence was a common theme. For example, in some cases, prior to the cross-border displacement, families fled several times within their country to escape extortions and threats by gangs, and this led to serious economic hardship. Persecution and threats often followed them to new communities. This is a key factor of forced displacement from northern Central America: the causes often combine issues of persecution, security, corruption and the impossibility to make ends meet as a family unit. For this reason, families often reported a lack of employment and a lack of social protection as reasons to leave the country, in addition to other push factors, including violence.
When looking at the survey results taken Mexico, amongst those seeking asylum, nearly half of the families interviewed there (49 percent) identified violence as their main motivation to flee from northern Central America, including death threats (30 percent), extortion (10 percent), recruitment by gangs (6 percent), abuse, domestic violence and sexual violence -including sexual harassment- (3.4 percent), and attempted murder and abduction or kidnapping (0.4 percent). Many of these families who had fled the north of Central America reported undertaking actions to counteract the situations of violence prior to fleeing to Mexico, including to move away from the people threatening or hurting them (30 percent) or filing a criminal report (25 percent).
Multiple causes for displacement, all too often underpinned by violence and persecution, has led to over 800,000 Central Americans fleeing their homes, beginning in 2013. Year after year, there has been an increase in individuals fleeing. This was marked initially by especially large numbers of unaccompanied children, then joined in around 2018 with dramatic increases in families units fleeing Central America. Families are forced to flee together as violent threats and persecution by criminal groups in communities extend beyond individuals to entire family units. When the COVID-19 pandemic began, borders closed and numbers dropped Between March and September this year, the number of asylum claims in Mexico dramatically decreased, although the number of claims, especially from adult men has begun to increase again and has now reached the same levels as January. The pandemic has not only resulted in a short term slowing down of the movement, it also led to an exacerbation of the root causes, including an increase in domestic violence, new and continued forms of extortion, and an overall hopelessness in improving the conditions for families to stay. During 2021, we can expect to see the continued flight of not only individuals, but of more families from Central America, seeking safety and opportunity in Mexico, and further north.