Central America
The migrant route analyzed for this project starts in one of the three countries of the Northern Triangle of Central America – Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. All countries share push factors forcing their populations to migrate. Along with weak economies growth, low labor opportunities, government corruption and poor social tissue, one of the strongest reasons forcing Central Americans to leave their countries of origin is the presence of the gangs. These push factors have had a longstanding manifestation for decades in these countries.
The Border Control Agreement of 2006 allows for a fairly simple moving process throughout Central America. People from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, are free to move from one of these four countries to the other without any additional visa requirements as a result from this agreement, also known as the CA-4. However, after the crisis of an unprecedented arrival of unaccompanied Central American minors to the United States in 2014, there has been a strengthening of checkpoints along the Central American borders to ensure no child is traveling alone or without a parent.
In the Northern Triangle countries, cases of human trafficking were found in all three countries. Victims were mostly trafficked within their country of origin. The culture of gangs in Central America has prevailed for decades and their influence in societies is noteworthy. Human trafficking in the form of forced labor for criminal activities is highly present in the Northern Triangle countries. The existing gangs, with higher presence in the capital cities, have led to the recruitment of citizens for the gangs. Children are highly vulnerable to gang recruitment for several activities, such as: fee collectors, lookouts, drug distributors, and hit men. Human trafficking for sexual exploitation was found only in Guatemala. It is worth mentioning that Guatemala, being country closer to Mexico and with a higher concentration of migrants waiting to cross the border, was identified as the only Central American country with foreign victims of human trafficking in the form of sexual exploitation.
Guatemala
Guatemala is the last country where Central American migrants can freely transit without needing an immigration permit. After crossing the Guatemala-Mexico border, migrants start avoiding authorities. Guatemala is a country of origin, transit and destination of migrants as well as of labor and sex trafficking victims. In recent years, severe economic problems, violence, weak state institutions, and successive natural disasters have led to unprecedented emigration.
Guatemala also has a high influx of migrants. Aside from Guatemalan nationals deported back to the country, migrants from other Central America countries are often deported back to Guatemala. The migrant community in the country is comprised of foreigners trying to reach the United States for the first time as well as repatriated migrants attempting the journey again. Alongside repatriated Guatemalans, Guatemala also receives many deported Salvadoran and Honduran migrants.
Migration experts deem the Guatemala-Mexico border to be highly porous. Migrants look for isolated blind spots, often jungles, along the border to enter Mexico undetected. Experts identified two spots as the most highly transited points of entrance. The first crossing point is the area of El Ceibo, neighboring the Mexican state of Tabasco. The second crossing point is the Suchiate River by the city of Tecun Uman, neighboring the state of Oaxaca.
According to migration experts, the majority of migrants utilize migrant smugglers known as coyotes. Recently, the migrant smuggling networks have expanded, turning coyotes from the main actors in charge of smuggling migrants to members of a larger criminal chain. This chain has several actors, including coyotes, human traffickers, and drug traffickers.
Coyote services in Guatemala are extremely popular. Experts said some coyotes are reliable. Others, however, are involved in human trafficking. Some coyotes are allegedly involved with transporting Guatemalan children to Mexican border towns in Chiapas. There, criminals push the children into begging rings, street vending, and forced labor in the municipal dump.
Interviews revealed that there is no relationship between Guatemalan coyotes and Mexican origin TCOs. Nevertheless, Mexican coyotes are believed to be working with TCOs. Their interactions range from coyotes paying TCOs a fee to pass through their territories to supplying migrants to criminal entities. Most experts conferred that, along the migration routes in Mexico, TCOs use migrants as scapegoats, forcing them to carry backpacks with drugs in order to turn authorities’ attention away from more serious criminal activities such as the transportation of heavy drug loads. Minors are allegedly the main victims of this form of compelled labor.
Experts said there is no relationship between Guatemalan gangs and Mexican TCOs. No evidence was found of Maras’s involvement in the migration business. Gang activities include extortion and drug dealing, but not migrant smuggling. Experts noted that gangs force adolescents to join their ranks. Experts reported forced recruitment as one of the main factors leading young Guatemalans to migrate.
Honduras
In 2014, Honduras was the world’s most violent country that was not at war. The daily dangers that Honduran citizens experience, along with high rates of poverty, lack of education and opportunities, compel them to migrate. Unreliable data and high rates of impunity hinder the extent to which violence is related to organize crime groups and gang activity. As a result of the influence of organized crime on government, corruption is rampant in Honduras’ political and security institutions.
Researchers in Honduras explained that the 2009 coup d’état further destabilized the country, allowing local gangs to diversify their activities and increase their strength. Organized crime in Honduras includes transnational criminal organizations, many of which are associated with Mexican drug trafficking organizations, domestic organized crime groups, and transnational gangs.
Honduras has one of the world’s largest incidence of gang members per capita. The main Honduran gangs, namely the Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13 and the Mara 18 or Barrio 18, are mostly concentrated in San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa. These gangs are involved in collecting extortion fees from businesses, transportation services, and public and private enterprises. Gangs also work with drug trafficking organizations to secure and distribute narcotics. Violence between gangs is a result of conflicts over drug markets and territories. Another characteristic of the present gang system is that not everybody working for gangs is considered a member. These “collaborators” working for the local gangs can be lookouts, drivers, family members, and other young people who contribute to gangs’ criminal activities.
Human trafficking for compelled labor for criminal activities occurs in Honduras. Gang membership and forced recruitment have been on the rise for the past twenty years in Honduras. Experts in organized crime said that the gangs forcefully recruit members in order to control territories and drug markets. Gangs are not involved with organized trafficking rings or coyotes. Tactics for recruitment include sending death threats to the families of prospective members. There is still no clear distinction on whether young men join gangs because they feel safer as gang members or because they are coerced to join.
Gangs often recruit minors since they face less severe penalties if they are caught. Interviewees in Honduras said that children of gang members are raised to become criminals. Gangs target schools to recruit minors. Gangs’ operations in schools have approximated gangsters with children. The role that minors play in gangs ranges from collecting fees, petty drug trafficking, to acting as lookouts, and even hitmen. Gangs coerce girls as young as 10 years old into sexual servitude and threaten their families to not alert authorities. Some girls involved in prostitution make up to 500 USD per month, and are vulnerable to sexual violence and trafficking.
Deported migrants are highly vulnerable to being recruited, exploited, and trafficked by gangs. Locals’ prejudice against returning migrants and a lack of assisting institutions are some of the contributing factors giving gangs access to returning migrants.
El Salvador
The smallest and most densely populated country in Central America, El Salvador has the highest concentration of gang members in the Northern Triangle countries. Gangs in El Salvador have fought over territory between them and against the government. The rise to power and transformation of gangs in El Salvador is a result of various factors, including: economic marginalization, US deportation policies in the 1990s, a series of failed government policies, and a culture of extrajudicial violence from state institutions and civil society. Experts reported that gang-related violence has led to a displacement of 269,000 people in a population of six million. The lack of opportunities for young generations, the weak social tissue, and a government more concerned with adopting severe anti-gang laws than with formalizing and institutionalizing effective agencies are just a few of the push factors. The interviews we conducted provided a panorama for the current issue of human trafficking.
Human trafficking in El Salvador has been poorly documented. Official reports from 2004 to 2010 reported the investigation of 370 human trafficking cases, with more than half of the victims being from El Salvador. El Salvador only passed its first anti-trafficking legislation in 2014. However, the definition of human trafficking it adopted is inconsistent with the U.N. Protocol, as it treats force, fraud, and coercion as aggravating factors, rather than as essential elements of the crime. The experts we interviewed reported that the government is currently identifying other modalities of human trafficking besides sexual exploitation.
The dynamics of human trafficking in El Salvador are not extensively known. Experts we interviewed agreed that human trafficking rings and transnational criminal organizations are not connected. The interviewees stated that human traffickers in El Salvador belonged to local trafficking rings. Nevertheless, we were told of a case where Mara Salvatrucha members were supposedly involved with human trafficking. According to our source, gang members lured young women with job offers, and then forced their victims into sexual servitude. Still, experts said there is no permanent relation between human trafficking rings and gang members in regards to human trafficking cases.
Gangs engage in human trafficking through forced recruitment methods for compelled labor for criminal activities. The average age of new recruits range from 9 to 15 years of age. Children are often recruited at schools and within their communities. Their activities often involve firearms, drugs, and homicide. Gils are victims of sexual violence or are forced to act as “girlfriends” of gang leaders. Young people are physically harassed, assaulted, threatened, and left with little option other than joining gangs. Interviewees also reported that health professionals are coerced to attend injured gang members.
A highly discussed topic among experts was the violence among gangs in El Salvador and its connection to current unprecedented emigration rates. Raul Mijango, former congressman and former Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) guerilla leader, told us that today there are approximately five gangs in El Salvador, the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), Barrio 18 (which is divided into two factions, Ala Sureña and Ala Revolucionario), Mao Mao, Mirada Locos 13, and Mara Máquina. Gangs in El Salvador are complex multilevel organizations with several cells, known as clickas, that operate with relative autonomy. Mijango mentioned that MS-13 is comprised by 54 programs. Each program is formed by various clickas, each with their own structure and direction.
The evolution of El Salvadoran gangs was influenced by various reasons: economic marginalization, US deportations in the 1990s, several failed government policies, and a culture of extrajudicial violence from state institutions and civil society. After the massive deportation of convicted criminals in the 1990s from the United States, the issue of violence has become more complex. The government reacted by adopting tougher policies – known as Mano Dura, – including repressive law enforcement, military tactics and mass incarceration of gang members. The strategies failed as mass incarceration led to a prison crisis. Gangs were segregated by gang affiliation allowing for the transformation of gangs into sophisticated organizational structures. Also, hard policies allowed the surge of armed civilian groups to engage in vigilantism. Experts expressed their concerns over the surge in extrajudicial killings and human rights violation in the country. As a response to government actions, gangs began to diversify their operations, specifically in relation to extortion and kidnappings. Gang leaders order and coordinate their men from inside the prisons.
In March 2012, a truce was accorded between the MS-13 and both factions of the Barrio 18. The truce led to reduced homicide rates in El Salvador. The exact terms of the truce remain unclear, but they included transferring 30 gang leaders from El Salvador’s only maximum-security prison to minimum-security prisons. In return, gangs ceased hostilities against law enforcement and military personnel. Decrease in violence led to lower civilian casualties. Even though violence was reduced to an unprecedented 41.2 per 100,000, support for the truce was not unanimous. Some sectors of the society did not believe that the government should negotiate with criminals. Thus, the truce ended in June 2013 and violence and crime rates rose again.