CNDH Warning: Violent Deaths of Mexican Minors

Violence against children and adolescents in Mexico turns on the red light worldwide. A recent UNICEF report states that the death rate of children between 14 and 17 years old is so high that more than half of the homicides that affect this age group in the world occur in only ten countries and Mexico occupies the fifth place on this list.

The report "Hidden in Plain Sight: A Statistical Analysis of Violence Against Children," cited in a report on the vulnerability of children and adolescents that was recently prepared by the National Commission for Human Rights, shows that the homicide rate of girls, boys and adolescents in Mexico is comparable to those in Myanmar, Botswana, Mozambique and Togo. 

It also reveals that out of 195 countries, only 23 exceed the homicide rate of children under 20 years of age in Mexico.

The data of the international organization of the United Nations for the defense and protection of minors, coincides with the statistics of mortality of the INEGI, pointing out that between 2004 and 2013 in Mexico 10, 876 children and adolescents were murdered, of which half were men between 15 and 17 years old and another ten percent were women at that same age.

The same report indicates that, during the 2013-2015 period, adolescent victims of homicide were 84 percent men and 16 percent women. In addition, seven out of every 10 homicides of adolescents between 15 and 17 years of age occurred by firearm, which makes clear the worrying presence of a large number of small arms and light weapons in the country, highlights the content of the investigation.

The study details: "the evidence indicates that this pattern of lethal violence is partly attributable to the illicit activities of organized criminal groups, the presence of street gangs and the accessibility to firearms,"​​according to data from UNICEF.

In the case of the deaths of adolescent women, they are not related only to the activity of drug trafficking groups, but also to other crimes such as gender violence and human trafficking.

While there has been significant progress in Mexico during the last 15 years in the areas of health and extreme poverty reduction in the framework of the Millennium Development, adolescents are a group that have not benefitted from the progress. The existing governmental policies on adolescents tend to focus more on security issues rather than providing an integral perspective on their development.

Mexican adolescents face various challenges ranging from poverty, inequality, exclusion, discrimination and a lack of opportunities. Today, 50% of Mexican adolescents aged 12 to 19 live in poverty. Of those, 11% live in extreme poverty.

The annual average of deaths by homicide in adolescents during the period 2001-2015, is increasing and is alarming because between 2001 and 2006, there were 871 cases. In the presidency of Calderon, the figure rose to 1,743 and in the first three years of Peña Nieto's government, the annual average of murders of adolescents was one thousand 407 cases.

With respect to the most recent period, during the first two years of the current government (2013-2014) there was talk of a downward trend in the number of homicides compared with the last two years of the previous government (2011-2012), which were the more violent. However, in 2015 violence increased again and even more during the period from January to July 2016, in which there was a 16 percent increase in the number of homicides, with respect to the same period of the previous year.

That is why, according to the Statistics of Mortality of the INEGI -in 2010-, it is observed that during the period of government from 2000 to 2006, there was a daily average of 27.62 deaths due to homicide; in the period from 2007 to 2012, the average was 54.90 and, during the first three years of the current government, from 2013 to 2015, the average was 59.61.

On the other hand, it is estimated that approximately half of the homicides that occurred in the 2008-2015 period took place in the context of the so-called "war" against drug trafficking, either because of the authorities' action against alleged criminal groups or by confrontations between alleged members of the same.

However, since force was often used before it was investigated, it is difficult to say how many of those who died were actually involved in criminal activities and how many were innocent.

Furthermore, stresses the Report on the vulnerability of adolescents in Mexico, most of the homicides committed have not been investigated and remain unpunished. For example, of the 24, 572 homicides counted by the INEGI in 2010, more than 21,000 were not sanctioned, which means that 84 percent went unpunished, while, for the Mexico Peace Index, 90 percent of the homicides committed in the country in recent years have gone unpunished.

The latter is particularly worrisome, since impunity is another factor that contributes to the escalation of violence, without neglecting, of course, the situation of hundreds of thousands of indirect victims who have been denied their rights to the truth, the justice and repair of the damages.


Every day, seven children are victims of failed militarization and drug war: Redim

By arguing that, in the last ten years, the security policy has impacted the most is to children and adolescents, a sector that represents 32% of the national population, Pérez García warned that "progress with the Law of Internal Security the Congress is not listening to international recommendations and institutionalizing violations of human rights by the Armed Forces. "

The defender was interviewed after presenting the report "Childhood Counts in Mexico 2017", which in its 13th edition addresses the effects of the policy of public safety and law enforcement among minors.

"Clearly this report is evidence of the failure of the organized crime struggle, a lost decade with a failed strategy that is representing not only a human rights crisis, pointed out and documented by international organizations and by human rights defenders, but that there is all the evidence to show that the most affected are still girls, boys and adolescents," said Pérez Martínez.

Faced with the imminent approval of the Internal Security Law, he warned that "it is deeply worrying that the progress in the Legislative Power, because the most affected will continue to be girls, boys and particularly adolescents, and we will now have less possibilities to stop the number of murders to this population, and of course, the impact that this is having on other violations of human rights, arbitrary detentions and involvement of girls, boys and adolescents in criminal acts".

The report, which is the systematization of public information related to children under 18 years, highlights that the National Registry of Missing or Disappeared Persons (RNPED) reveals that, of the 33,482 people reported as victims until last July, 6079 are girls, boys and adolescents, which represents 18.2% of the total.

Of the more than 6,000 victims or about 72.3%, this represents 4,394, which are disappearances that correspond to the period of government of Enrique Peña Nieto, and only in 2016, 1,431 cases were reported, "figure that represents almost a fourth part (23.5%) of the total number of disappearances registered in said year, " said the document.

When pointing out the disappearance of minors, it is highlighted that, in 6 of every 10 cases, the victims are girls and adolescent women, the document also emphasizes that, so far in 2017, "the disappearances of populations from 0 to 17 years add up to 812 cases";  in addition to the fact that  in  first place of disappearances of minors is the State of Mexico, an entity that was governed by President Peña Nieto.

Regarding the homicide figures, the Redim recalled in its report that, according to data presented by the civil society at a hearing of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH), in the first eight years of the public security strategy , about 2,000 girls, boys and adolescents were murdered, "of which half happened in the course of confrontations that involved the participation of security forces".

Tlatlaya 2014:

In an interview, Perez Garcia recalled that in 2014, during the extrajudicial execution of 22 people in Tlatlaya, State of Mexico, "four were teenagers, and the total number of people executed, six had been reported by relatives as hostages by organized crime and nothing was done. "

Noting that in the massacres of Tanhuato and Apatzingan in Michoacan, there were also counted minors among the victims, he said on access to justice Redim documented that for every 100 criminal complaints in children , girls and adolescents which are victims, the Judicial Branch only emits on average three convictions, with which "impunity is guaranteed" for those who assault minors.

In the scenario of war against drug trafficking, "36% of adolescents detained are for crimes against health, 30% for carrying a weapon exclusively for use by the Army, which says something about the availability of weapons, for adolescents which are often  recruited in a forced manner,  they are being exploited by criminal groups and that the Army and the Federal Police have more and more interaction with them, but they are not prepared to deal with that".

Pérez García stressed that the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child "recommended to the Mexican government to review the strategy of combating organized crime because of the severe impact it was having on children and adolescents."

Also, in 2011, Redim and Unicef ​​prepared a protocol for the Armed Forces to take care of minors, "police and military personnel were trained, but with the current government, ie, the administration of EPN, the initiative was overturned."

The defender pointed out that "every day we have three homicides of children and adolescents; every day we have four disappearances, then seven children a day are being victims of this failed war against drug trafficking, this wrong strategy, so you can not afford to be institutionalized beyond what has been illegal until now.

In the presentation of the report, Jan Jarab, representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights participated; the representative of UNICEF, Christian Sakoog; Ricardo Bucio, executive secretary of the National System for the Integral Protection of Children and Adolescents (SIPINNA), and the general director of the Office of Human Rights and Democracy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Erasmo Lara Cabrera, among other officials.