Child Migrants from Central America

The White House released a factsheet in June about the rapidly growing numbers of children from Central America unaccompanied by a parent and that are crossing the Mexico-U.S. border. The Administration remains greatly concerned by this rise and mentions that these children are vulnerable, and many become victims of violent crime or sexual abuse along the dangerous journey.

There has been a more than 120 per cent surge in the numbers of Honduran children picked up on the US border compared with 2013. Child migrants from El Salvador have increased more than 100 per cent and from Guatemala by nearly 60 per cent.

The Violence in Honduras

Why is there so much violence in Honduras? Honduras has got a high homicide rate and a high crime rate compared to most Central- and South-American countries, while the average of these indicators in Latin American countries is already much higher than in the US or Western European countries. What are the causes and why is it still increasing as you can see in the charts below? There is no single answer to this question. As you can read below there are many causes and most of these causes are clearly related. That's why this violence is very difficult to combat. Measures that were taken in the past to decrease the violence often turned out to be symptomatic, non-consistent, small focus or small scale because of lack of vision or monies.