... and they take migrants as currency of exchange ... … But migrants are not numbers, they are not statistics, they are stories and people…. ... and many times, these stories are full of a lot of pain ...
Sister Magda

... for Balderrama ... ... thinking that migrants are the global excluded, the banished, but also the active subjects who seek and claim the right to a future and a dignified life.
Urban Arvide

The migration of Central Americans in transit through Mexico is forced, irregular and highly precarious. It is not a new mobility, it has decades of history and for five years, and according to data from UNHCR, it has a dimension of hundreds of thousands of migrants per year. The condition of these people with irregular transit (without immigration documents) through Mexico makes them more vulnerable to various acts of violence and crimes. In this context, the REDODEM 2018 Report was recently published (see https://redodem.org/informes/ ). This document provides relevant information on the relations between migration (forced and precarious), migration policies (criminalization) and human rights violations. This report describes what happened in 2018 and shows both continuities and changes in the characteristics of migration.

Mobilities in Mexico have diversified, the country is no longer just a transit territory, but increasingly a destination site with multiple migrant groups. However, most migrants are Central Americans from the Northern Triangle (Honduras is the main country, then Guatemala and later El Salvador). The reasons why these people leave the home are mainly economic (lack of employment, very low wages, poverty, material needs), but more and more violence (from organized crime, gangs and institutions) has a more relevant and visible role. The spatial conformation of migratory flows through Mexico, and as well the committed crimes against migrants, is characterized by concentrating in the south of the national territory, then in the center and, finally, in the northern borders of the country. The type of crimes suffered by migrants is varied, and although the most frequent are theft, injuries, kidnapping and abuse of authority, there are also acts of open violence and flagrant violation of human rights such as sexual assaults, rapes, and attempted murder. This report is a valuable source of information and a mandatory reference to understand the process of migration in transit through Mexico.

For the report (in Spanish) see: https://redodem.org/informes/