A Mexican human rights defender said this week that the deportation of child migrants from his country has more than doubled.
In remarks made at a conference in Oaxaca, Diego Lorente Perez de Eulante, director of the Fray Matias de Cordova Human Rights Center, charged that child migrants were being locked up and subjected to “deplorable living conditions” before deportation-all in violation of international agreements.
According to the activist, the number of child migrants aged 12-17 deported by the Mexican government jumped from 4,100 in 2011 to 9,893 in 2013. Perez de Eulate added that the southern border city of Tapacula, Chiapas, now serves an exit door as well as a port of entry for mainly Central American migrants entering Mexico in their attempted passage to the United States.
Nonetheless, some migrants including children, stay in Tapachula without access to school and exposed to labor and sexual abuses.
“The issue of child migrants is worrisome, and it’s not true that all of them are in transit,” Perez de Eulante said. “Many live in this zone in conditions of labor exploitation as domestic workers, gum sellers and shoeshine boys.” Violence in Central America, he said, compels migrants to abandon their homeland.
Perez de Eulante attributed the increase in child deportations to U.S. pressure on the Mexican government. He said a full report on the situation would be forthcoming next September…
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