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 Editorials | Issues | April 2007 
Mexico Among Countries with Most Violence Towards Children
 Deutsche Presse-Agentur
| | Mexico's report said a large part of the violence against children and teenagers 'remains hidden and at times is socially approved.' |
Mexico is among the countries with the highest rate of children abuse and murder, and ranks highest in Latin America in mistreatment of children, according to two reports released Thursday in Mexico City.
'In Mexico, for almost 25 years now, two children under 15 are murdered regularly each day,' said the National Report on Violence and Health, presented along with a United Nations report.
Figures show that in 2000, 474 children under 15 were murdered in Mexico and a further 118 committed suicide. The North American country has a population of around 108 million.
By comparison, over the same period there were 133 murders and 35 suicides in Venezuela (with 26 million people), and 35 murders and six suicides in Peru (with 28 million people).
Philippe Lamy, the World Health Organization (WHO) and Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) representative in Mexico, said 'violence has been recognized as a public health problem' that affects other areas of life.
He said all violence against children and young people is 'an important risk factor which leads to other forms of violence and health problems throughout life.'
The first UN secretary general's study on violence against children appeared in October 2006, and showed more than 6 million children suffer severe abuse each year in Latin America, and over 80,000 die as a result of domestic violence.
Brazilian independent expert Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, who wrote the UN report, praised the decision by the Mexican government to follow that study with a national investigation to influence public policy.
The Mexican authorities signed a document committing themselves to the development of strategies to combat this problem.
Mexico's report said a large part of the violence against children and teenagers 'remains hidden and at times is socially approved.' It said the macho culture and the extreme social and economic inequalities are among the causes of the phenomenon.
The study concluded that the mother is responsible in 47 per cent of the cases of child abuse, and that strangling and asphyxia are the main cause of death in the murders of babies younger than one.
A 2003 study by UNICEF showed that among countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) 'Mexico, along with the United States and Portugal, had the highest number of children dead due to abuse.' |
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