Costa Rica - IOM is this week joining the First Ladies of Guatemala, Honduras and Panama, government officials, civil society and international organizations to discuss migration flows of minors who travel with an adult or unaccompanied, and to design a regional strategy to assist, protect, return and reintegrate this vulnerable population.

High level representatives of Guatemala, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama, migration and consular officers, as well as staff from ministries of foreign affairs, education, family and welfare agencies and NGOs are gathered in the UNESCO World Heritage City of Antigua, Guatemala to take an in-depth look at the growing migration trend involving children and adolescents in the region and to draft a regional strategy to collaboratively protect children on the move.

Participants will analyze the needs of each group of unaccompanied minors – boys and girls and adolescents – those who migrate for work, minors from indigenous communities, and those who have fallen victim to human trafficking, amongst others. They will also focus their discussions on national and regional actions in place to assist and protect minors.

“Every year, an untold number of Central American unaccompanied minors travel to neighboring countries or further north, to the United States, to join relatives or to escape poverty and domestic violence.  These minors are the most vulnerable of those crossing borders and are exposed to threats including exploitation, sexual assault, beating, robbery, kidnapping and even death,” said Robert Paiva, IOM Regional Director for North and Central America and the Caribbean.

According to studies carried out in Central American countries, minors are also increasingly citing harassment from criminal gangs as a reason for migrating.  Some of the minors interviewed said they had received violent threats from gang members for refusing to join their ranks.

According to Mexico’s National Migration Institute, in 2012 some 13,000 unaccompanied minors from Central America crossed Mexico’s border on their way to the United States.

The US Department of Homeland Security reports that approximately 14,000 minors were stopped at the US southern border in 2011, the majority of them from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. A 2012 study conducted by the Women’s Refugee Commission found that, by June of 2012, US authorities had detained double the number of unaccompanied minors than it had averaged annually in previous years.

“Once minors are returned to their countries of origin they are at risk of being recruited by gangs or beaten and even killed if they refuse to join,” added Paiva.

“IOM is hopeful that this gathering will bring concrete results to help the thousands of minors who leave home and those who are returned to their communities each year. Government delegations have expressed genuine interest and are aiming for a plan of action to strengthen mechanisms for the identification, protection, psychosocial support and the return and long-term reintegration of these children in a regional and coordinated matter,” explained Agueda Marin, IOM Regional Migration Officer.

For more information please contact

Agueda Marin
IOM Costa Rica
Tel: +506 22.12.53.02 ext.302
Email: amarin@iom.int