In Mexicolos migrantslos Indigenous villages and the afro communities are particularly vulnerable to crimes like human trafficking. The situation worsens with the social exclusionlas economic difficulties and the absence of specific prevention programs.
Therefore, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) began the second phase of orientation and training project for women of indigenous communities for combat trafficking.
According to Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System (SESNSP), so far this year, in Our country has 140 investigation files for this crimebeing the Mexico City tops the listwith 34, followed by the State of Mexico, with 22.
WE RECOMMEND YOU: Immigration agents are separated from their duties in BC for trafficking
If no one talks about it, you won’t even know it exists. And if there is any information, it is certainly not in our native language,” commented Margarita Cruz, activist and representative of the Houses of Indigenous and Afromexacan Women (CAMIAs) of Baja California.
She is part of the Agents of Change program: What is it about? That UNODC works with indigenous communities in Mexico.
Margarita and dozens of indigenous women of Lower California, Chiapas, Guerrero, Mexico City, Oaxaca, Puebla and Veracruz know the comprehensive plan UNODC with which it teaches them to spread prevention messages in their communities, guaranteeing that information reaches people in their native language, through workshops, comics and programs on radio stations. They learn to detect signs of forced labor and alerts about sexual exploitation.
With the CAMIA, it has been possible to weave a communication and dissemination network to truly understand the needs of the communities in terms of human trafficking and understand the most common modalities, the means of engagement used, and thus generate training and communication material. to influence the prevention, detection and care of victims of this crime,” he commented to Excelsior Natalia Espinosa, head of the Organized Crime Program at UNODC Mexico.
To these tasks of inclusion and prevention in indigenous communities, the CAMIA They are added with another challenge, the budget reduction. In 2020, with the pandemic, 75% of the resources planned for their performance were withdrawn. Between 2019 and 2022, the allocated budget was reduced by 30 percent. In it PEF 2024 It was specified that funds will be granted according to the needs of each House, with the maximum amount being one million pesos for those that are already consolidated.
As results of module 1 of this program, taught between October 2023 and last February and in which 262 people participate, of which 72% were women and 28% men, “the participants expanded their knowledge of the crime of human trafficking; They managed to distinguish the concept of human trafficking from historically used terms that were already outdated, such as ‘white slavery’; “They acquired tools to identify the three components of the crime: acts, means and ends and they learned that Mexican legislation recognizes 11 types of exploitation,” said Espinosa.
He commented that another of the results achieved is the search for solutions to the impact that perception of insecurity has brought over the years in their communities (isolation, individualism, loss of social cohesion) and how these changes have generated consequences such as addictions and different types of violence, points that lead to vulnerability to crime.
*Margarita Cruz, activist and representative of the CAMIA of Baja California.
This dynamic has faced some obstacles, as “the language barrier, since many communities do not speak the Spanish language, prevention material in their language of origin is scarce, and assistance from interpreters is required to be able to access the different services, guarantee access to justice and reparation integral to the victims,” said the head of the Organized Crime Program at UNODC Mexico.
He also referred to the geographical conditions of long distanceswhich imply poor accessibility and lack of means of transportation to access indigenous communities and share crime prevention messages.
The project Agents of Change will be valid until March 2026 and in that period, courses will be given to the media in order to provide them with tools to cover these cases with a focus on human rights and a gender perspective without re-victimization, Natalia Espinosa told this newspaper.
UNODC’s multicultural approach must persist, so that information resonates in our own languages. This will cause a profound change within our communities,” added Margarita.
CHECK THE BREAKING NEWS HERE
*sort of
#train #indigenous #people #fight #trafficking
2024-05-04 18:29:08
