| | |  Editorials | Issues | June 2009 
Thousands of Migrants Suffer in Mexico: CNDH
 EFE
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June 17, 2009
| | (AP/Alexandre Meneghini) | |
More than 1,600 migrants, above all Central Americans en route to the United States to find work, are kidnapped monthly and subjected to humiliations that usually go unpunished due to the corruption of the authorities, Mexico's independent National Human Rights Commission, or CNDH, reported.
"The kidnapping of migrants has become a continuous practice of worrying dimensions, generally unpunished and with characteristics of extreme cruelty," commission chairman JosAc Luis Soberanes said Monday at the presentation of the report.
Between September 2008 and February 2009, the commission registered a total of 198 cases of mass kidnappings of migrants involving 9,758 people.
Motivated by the yearning to begin a new life in the United States, each year some 140,000 people cross Mexico's southern border intending to traverse the country and then cross the U.S. border, according to official figures.
To achieve their dream, the migrants have to travel thousands of kilometers with hardly any money and trusting unknown people who promise to help them, but there exists a risk that they will be betrayed and wind up in the hands of people-trafficking networks.
Upon presenting its report on the kidnappings of migrants, the rights commission called attention to their "high vulnerability" and denounced the fact that the practice "is on the increase."
The document prepared by the panel includes many shocking testimonials, like that of a Salvadoran woman who was locked up and raped numerous times during the 48 hours she was held.
Finally, the young woman was freed because her family, who lives in the United States, gave in to the threats of her abductors and paid part of the $4,500 they demanded as ransom.
"But my companion didn't have anyone to help her and so they shot her and let her bleed to death in front of me to intimidate me," the woman said.
The kidnappers demand the payment of between $1,500 and $5,000 for each person they abduct and the criminal organizations that kidnap the migrants annually make some $50 million from the practice.
The kidnappings are committed mainly by organized bands whose members remain unpunished for the crimes because their victims do not report them since they don't know their rights, they are afraid of reprisals and don't trust the Mexican authorities, which, according to the commission report, are complicit with the criminals in at least 1 percent of the cases. |
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