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Secretary General Insulza Inaugurates Child Migration Forum with First Ladies of Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala

The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza, today inaugurated the Child Migration Forum "On Their Own,” organized by the National Center for Refugee & Immigrant Children with the support of the hemispheric organization, along with the First Ladies of Mexico, Margarita Zavala, of Honduras, Rosa Elena Bonilla, and Guatemala, Rosa Maria Perez.

The chief representative of the OAS said that "countries have an unavoidable obligation to protect the rights and welfare of children and adolescents. They are particularly vulnerable to fall prey to criminal gangs and human trafficking networks, and are exposed to many forms of abuse, from labor abuse to physical, sexual and psychological, abuse that leave deep marks on them."

The three-day forum, which opened in the Hall of the Americas of the OAS in Washington DC, brings together advocates for the rights of unaccompanied children who migrate to the United States, mainly from Mexico and Central America. Among the 200 participants are U.S. immigration officials, academics specialized in the issue, non-governmental organizations like the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Ayuda, Raices, Community Legal Services & Counseling Center, and immigration lawyers, among others.

Secretary General Insulza said that an estimated 950,000 people a year migrate in the Americas, mostly to the United States, and recalled that the "phenomenon of migration of children began to gain visibility in the region thanks to the commitment made by countries at the World Summit for Children in 1990." In that context, he noted, "Mexico created the National Action Program for Children (PNAFI, for its initials in Spanish), which first identified migrant and repatriated girls and boys as one of the most vulnerable groups. Other countries like El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and United States subsequently joined the new area of work. "

"What does it mean to secretly get on a train?” said Secretary General Insulza, citing the Mexican writer Elena Poniatowska, "Why do you have to leave your land and go to the other side? Some children who don’t even know how to read go by themselves, with just an address, a telephone number they don’t know how to dial, or a landmark that they can’t find. They travel filled with illusions to a country where everything marginalizes them. At the moment that the young migrants jump on to the train car, they leave their childhood on the platform."

Insulza added that the obligation of all states "strongly consecrated in the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989 and its additional protocols -in addition to extensive internal regulations of the states- is to implement social policies, education, employment and allocate more resources to go to children by providing social protection to which they are entitled, regardless of the country where they are, in country of origin, transit country, and in the receiving country."

For her part, the Mexican First Lady Margarita Zavala, President of the National System for Integral Family Development (DIF), said that in 2011 more than 16,500 undocumented children were repatriated to Mexico, of whom "11,520 were traveling on their own." She noted that Mexico is a country of "origin, transit, and destination for migrants" and presented a video with testimonies of migrant children and social workers that work in public children’s shelters in Mexico. In just one of these centers for children, there were children from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Brazil, Argentina, Nicaragua and India.

First Lady Zavala said that based on studies in her country, between 2007 and 2012 more than 94,000 migrant children were received in shelters in Mexico, of whom 90 percent were between 13 and 17 years old and the remaining 10 percent were less than 12 years old; 85 percent were boys and 15 percent were girls.

The First Lady of Honduras, Rosa Elena Bonilla, reiterated her government's commitment to "child and adolescent migrants" and urged the promotion of "cooperation and coordination of migratory policies between bordering countries." She also expressed the need to address the immigration issue "in the regional and international trade agreements," and establish "clear and transparent ways to allow monitoring of migration flows and prevention of human trafficking.”

Rosa Maria Leal, the First Lady of Guatemala, acknowledged that her country has "the highest rate of child and adolescent migrants to Mexico and the United States" and said that together with UNICEF they are working with all Guatemalan municipalities to form the "Municipal Office for the Protection of Children and Adolescents," as a first step "to stop the migration of unaccompanied children" During her presentation, the First Lady invited the other First Ladies of the region to "work together" because the problems of migrant children "does not belong to any one country, we are a region and we have to accompany and support each other."

A gallery of photos of the event is available here.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-136/12