Jorge Ortega: 'Nobody's Children' from Honduras at the Mexico-US Border Jorge Ortega - La Prensa
go to original July 8, 2014

Charity group, Medecins Sans Frontieres, is reporting an increase in women and minors amongst Central American migrants through Mexico. (Belfast Telegraph)

The tears of those now in government, who listen to the stories of children who have made it to the United States in search of a better life, are tears of hypocrisy. Such stories have been known for over two decades, starting when an easy solution could have been found to a problem that now seems to constrain some people's souls. The distressing phenomenon of migrant children was reported by Casa Alianza over 20 years ago, but there has never been the political will on the part of any government.

What compels migrant children to undertake the perilous journey is the certainty that they would die of hunger or violence if they remained in homes stricken by a poverty that killed their parents and forced them emigrate. It is despair over a promised future that was never fulfilled. Making the trip puts their lives at risk, but there is hope of getting through, whereas to stay means being resigned to die.

Along the way, over 70 percent of migrant children will die or be enslaved. They never reach their destination because they are prey to vultures lying in wait in Guatemala or Mexico to sexually abuse them, force them to join criminal gangs that operate with impunity, or kill them to intimidate others. They are children unwanted by anyone - the children of no one.

Two decades ago, the conditions that have forced them to migrate could have been corrected, but no one did. So began their recruitment by local gangs, where criminals were just beginning to use "chimbas [homemade weapons]." Now they use AK47s, have bigger budgets, and are better organized than the police.

The current government wants to rebuild the Air Force, ignoring the fact that the enemy is not in the air, but on the ground and found in every city, town, and village in Honduras. Our enemy is the corruption of public employees, the abandonment of the population, despair and the lack of education, and the deceit to which we are all subject to every four years.

There is no need to spend billions of dollars buying aircraft if we can stop those narcotics-laden aircraft when they land. After all, an airplane that goes up, must come down, and if it lands in Honduras, one might hope they would be greeted by a land force far more effective and economical. Again we insist: the enemy is not in the air, but among us and easy to identify. If the entire population knows them and where they are, how come the police don't know?

We must renew our commitment to support farmers in every community and support our young college and university graduates. Let us offer our children a future. That is our responsibility, because the children of Honduras are the children of us all. Let us look with indifference toward the heavens, stop thinking about planes, and start thinking, really thinking, about our children.

neurortega@hotmail.com

Translated by Miguel Gutierrez

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