| Mexico - Following last week's signing of a cooperation agreement between IOM and Mexico's National Human Rights Commission (CNDH by its Spanish acronym), a mass information campaign was launched in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua. The agreement between IOM and CNDH and the new information campaign – "No más Trata de Personas", No More Human Trafficking – are focusing on combating human trafficking, the kidnapping of migrants, and other human rights violations against migrants, by raising awareness, defending and promoting the human rights of all migrants, and providing assistance to the most vulnerable. "This cooperation agreement is vital for the two organizations to join forces to uphold the human rights of migrants, especially those most vulnerable – women, children, and unaccompanied minors," said Thomas Lothar Weiss, IOM Chief of Mission in Mexico. Also, as part of the agreement, research on human trafficking and the kidnapping of migrants will be carried out, with the aim of compiling the necessary data and information needed to combat these crimes. According to a 2009 investigation by CNDH, some 10,000 migrants were victims of kidnapping over a period of six months that year, but estimates put that number much higher. Most of the kidnapping victims are migrants from Central America, mainly Honduras and Guatemala. Criminal groups along the route north have adopted kidnapping of migrants as a new way to finance their operations with ransoms going between 500 and 3,000 US dollars. If migrants' families are unable to pay and the victims are unwilling to work with their kidnappers, they are murdered, often in large groups, such as in the recent mass murder of 72 migrants in San Fernando, Tamaulipas, along the Mexican Northern Border. The information campaign is part of IOM's regional counter trafficking project funded by the US State Department Bureau of Population Refugees and Migration (PRM). Mexico is the fifth country in the region to launch the regional campaign; other countries include Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. Television and radio spots, as well as a radio soap opera, will carry the message to audiences in the northern and southern border cities of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua and Tapachula, Chiapas; cities where IOM has sub-offices and carries out anti-trafficking activities. The states of Chihuahua and Chiapas are places of origin, transit and destination for migrants, many of whom are vulnerable to human trafficking. According to estimates provided by CNDH, each year more than 20,000 persons fall victim to trafficking in Mexico, mainly in border areas and in tourist destinations. Since 2005, IOM has provided assistance to 176 victims of trafficking, 80 per cent of whom were found and assisted along Mexico's southern border. The vast majority are from Central America. For more information, please contact: Hélène Le Goff
IOM México
Tel: +52 55 55 36 39 22
E-mail: hlegoff@iom.int |
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