More and more women from Guatemala are going north through Mexico to enter the US illegally, says a report by a Guatemalan human rights group. Traffickers charge as much as $7,500 to take them to LAX airport.
By Martin Barillas
In order to improve their living conditions, more and more women are leaving their native Guatemala to cross through Mexico and go on to the United States as illegal workers.
While there are no exact figures for the number of women going north from the Central American republic, the independent Center for Legal Action on Human Rights (CALDH) has undertaken a study in 78 localities that appears to confirm the phenomenon. According to CALDH, dozens of women are traveling illegally to the United States without regard to risks such as rape and murder. These female immigrants face rape and assaults by police authorities and criminal gangs along the way north, as well as the vagaries of terrain and weather in the US/Mexico border region. Scores have died in the last decade while crossing the deserts along the Tortilla Curtain between the US and Mexico.The CALDH study shows that the majority of Guatemalan women running the gauntlet to the north come from rural areas who are risking all to aid their children and to be reunited with husbands and partners working in the US, said Paredes. The coyotes or traffickers who bring immigrants over the border charge betwen 15,000 to 25,000 Quetzales ($2,000 to $3,500). The legal minimum daily wage in Guatemala is approximately $7, even while many people (if they can find work) earn less. If travelling by air directly to airports in the US, immigrants are charged between $5,500 to $7,500 to reach Los Angeles, California. For most of these women, the amounts charged by coyotes are insuperable and so they hope for rides offered by truckdrivers travelling to Mexico from Guatemala, or hope on railway cars. It is in places like Tapachula, in Mexico’s southern-most state, where they work (often forced into prostitution) to earn enough money to reach “El Norte”.
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