MEXICO (30 to 50 thousand) Kids involved in Organized Crime

El Ponchis-The notorious American born teen assassin

By Eng. Raul Ponce de Leon

In Mexico, 30 to 50 thousand children are involved with organized crime, according to organizations that protect children. (Borderland Beat)

The creation of a justice system for adolescents is paralyzed, it operates at federal level until 2014 and progress in this matter is inexistent in the states of Mexico.

Roberto Salgado Garcia, a professor at National School of Social Work at the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), presented a document on Children and Armed Conflict in Mexico, according to it, 10,000 children were orphaned as a result of the violence experienced in the country, the UN Agency for Refugees (UNHCR) has estimated 23,000 youth have been recruited by organized crime. The report conducted in 2010 entitled “Alternative Report on the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and their Involvement in Armed Conflict”, stated that about 30 thousand children of both genders, between ages 9 and 17, are exploited by criminal groups in various ways, ranging from drug trafficking to kidnapping and human trafficking, extortion, smuggling and piracy, as well as 22 different types of crime.

“For 9 to 17 year old, boys and girls who are involved in crime, are mainly involved in human trafficking, while the younger ones are used to monitor or act as informants. They are also used to board the trains and monitor the amount of migrants arriving every day from South America,” explains the report.

Moreover, according to documents filed to the Committee on the Children Rights of the UN, youth starting from the age of 12 years are used as watchman for small houses where kidnapped victims are kept, so they cannot escape, the older ones, age 16, work in violent exercises, such as kidnappings, murders, and all of them carry guns.

The figures are alarming; about 24,000 children are incorporated in the Sinaloa cartel, over 17,000 with Los Zetas and about 7,500 with “La Familia Michoacana”, for a total of nearly 50,000 children and adolescents.