Facing Risk of Rape, Migrant Women Prepare for Border Crossing with Birth Control Jude Joffe-Block - Fronteras Desk
go to original March 13, 2014

A poster hanging in a migrant shelter in Nogales, Mexico. The text reads "I have the right to be respected physically, sexually and psychologically," in Spanish. (Jude Joffe-Block)

ALTAR, Sonora, Mexico - The Santa Maria pharmacy in the northern Mexico smuggling town of Altar is often a last stop for migrants before they embark on the dangerous trek across the Sonoran desert into Arizona.

Here they buy caffeine pills, electrolyte packets and other supplies they will need for the trip.

Pharmacist Maria Jaime Peña said women often come in asking her the same, exact question.

“What can I do in case I’m raped, and I don’t want to get pregnant?,” Peña repeated in Spanish from behind the counter. “What can I use?”

Peña recommends an injection for 48 pesos, or less than $4, that protects women from pregnancy for a month. In Mexico, women can buy these products without a prescription.

Peña said sometimes it is the guides - also called coyotes - who advise their female clients to go on birth control.

Read the rest at Fronteras Desk

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