The Often-ignored Link between Child Migration and Reproductive Health in Central America
Most unaccompanied, undocumented migrant children coming to the U.S. -- and causing a humanitarian border crisis -- are from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
Here're a few important questions one must ask: Why is there so much poverty, so much youth hopelessness, high unemployment and gang involvement in these three countries? Also, why is the fertility rate so high in countries that are so poor?
What do these three mostly Catholic Central American countries have in common?
The three countries have some of the strictest bans on abortion, contraception is often discouraged or is unavailable, and my guess is that there is virtually no sex education for youth. For the most part, talking about sex in these countries’ communities is taboo.
While addressing the U.S. border crisis, pundits talk about widespread violence and crime in these countries that make parents desperate. They talk about misinformation. Some parents in these countries are hearing about a law – approved by President George W. Bush – requiring the government to take care of unaccompanied, migrant children.
However, no one seems to be talking about a root cause for our humanitarian border crisis, as well as for the high levels of youth gang violence, youth unemployment and youth hopelessness in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras: the neglected state of women’s reproductive health.
One interesting statistic provided by the U.S.-based Center for Reproductive Rights in 2012: Up to half of young women in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador have experienced challenges obtaining modern contraceptives — a statistic that is much higher for single women than married women.
Border Humanitarian Crisis: Why are all these unaccompanied, undocumented children coming to the U.S. from EL SALVADOR?
According to a BBC News Magazine article from Oct. 17, 2013, “El Salvador has one of the toughest anti-abortion laws in the world.” The article continued: “A side-effect is that women who suffer miscarriages or stillbirths are sometimes suspected of inducing an abortion - and can even be jailed for murder.” In other words, El Salvador is a country where women may be jailed for miscarrying, which is what happened to Glenda Xiomara Cruz after her Oct. 30, 2012 miscarriage. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
According to the article, the tough (allegedly-pro-life) abortion law “has other serious human rights implications.” The article says, “suicide was the most common cause of death in 2011 among 10-to-19-year-old girls, half of whom were pregnant, according to (El Salvador’s) Health Ministry figures.” The allegedly pro-life law “was also the third most common cause of maternal mortality.”
The article quoted a country expert from Amnesty International as saying that given how the law criminalizes women and girls, “It makes seeking hospital treatment for complications during pregnancy, including a miscarriage, a dangerous lottery.”
Border Humanitarian Crisis: Why are all these unaccompanied, undocumented children coming to the U.S. from GUATEMALA?
The Guatemalan Constitution: Article 3 of Chapter I in Title II of the Constitution of Guatemala grants personhood to a fertilized egg and a fetus. This article states that the government guarantees and protects human life since conception.
It’s no wonder that in Guatemala, the nation with the highest fertility rate and one of the poorest in Latin America, many women become desperate. The high incidence of unintended pregnancy in Guatemala results in thousands of illegal, often unsafe abortions each year, many of which lead to medical complications, disability or death. Studies indicate that unsafe abortion is the key factor contributing to maternal morbidity and mortality in Guatemala.
Furthermore, according to one estimate, almost 30 percent of women in Guatemala want to use contraception but cannot because of limited access. As a result, the average woman in Guatemala will have more than four children in her lifetime — the highest fertility rate in Latin America.
Guatemala is the most populous country in Central America and also one of the poorest, with more than half of its people living in poverty. Also, income disparity is among the worst in the world. Vast disparities exist in access to quality education and health, with women and children as well as indigenous and rural populations suffering disproportionately from illiteracy and a lack of access to health services.
Children in Guatemala are only required to finish elementary school and many fathers just send their sons to school and keep their daughters at home to help. Gender inequality is also significant in Guatemala. Women have fewer opportunities and rights than men.
Despite the personhood clause in the constitution, Guatemalan law allows a "physician" -- if you have access to one -- to end a pregnancy ONLY when the life of a woman is at risk and when the often-desperate, low-income woman gets a 2nd professional opinion.
Border Humanitarian Crisis: Why are all these unaccompanied, undocumented children coming to the U.S. from HONDURAS?
In February 2012, the Center for Reproductive Rights informed that Honduras’ Supreme Court had upheld the country’s absolute ban on emergency contraception, which would criminalize the sale, distribution, and use of the morning-after pill, which prevents fertilization and unintended pregnancies, imposing punishment for offenders equal to that of obtaining or performing an abortion, which in Honduras is completely prohibited.
At the time, Honduras’ ban on the morning-after pill, which is effective and particularly useful to women in cases of rape, unprotected sex, or contraceptive failure, was the most sweeping and extreme in the world. Luisa Cabal, then director of international legal programs at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said that by banning and criminalizing emergency contraception, Honduras told the world that “it would rather imprison the women of its country than provide them with safe and effective birth control.”
The Center for Reproductive Rights stated that these bans on emergency contraception had been widely recognized by international and regional human rights organizations, like the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, as violating the human rights of women.
So, in sum, is it any wonder that unaccompanied, undocumented children are coming to the U.S. from countries with high fertility rates where they, as youth, may face almost certain poverty, unemployment, hopelessness, violence, and gang membership? There are many reasons for these, but women’s reproductive health and rights is one key reason that’s often ignored because of the taboo nature of it, or because of its political implications, or because of the amount of misinformation used by some addressing it.
Here's my question: How RESPONSIBLE is it for these countries with high fertility rates, high unemployment and poverty, high levels of youth hopelessness and gang involvement, to have in place such strict allegedly-pro-life policies? These policies are not only hurting women and society as a whole in these countries, but are also affecting us in the United States. How FAIR is it for the U.S. to pay millions to help, feed, shelter, and eventually send these children back to their parents?
I wonder if the U.S. should start talking with representatives from these three countries about their irresponsible, unfair and extreme allegedly-pro-life policies. (Also, the U.S. should consider recommending that these three countries look at how Nicaragua has avoided serious gang problems by implementing policies more focused on helping people stay out of gangs while emphasizing grassroots-oriented community policing, as opposed to the highly authoritarian, top-down, repressive military and police operations that El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras use against gangs. These seemed to have backfired.)
Advocates for criminalizing abortion and/or contraceptives, and for discouraging effective sex education, often suggest that if a woman cannot raise a baby, she should just donate it to someone who could. That’s easier said than done!
The fact that discussing reproduction, sex and reproductive health is taboo is perhaps the most immediate obstacle to finding effective solutions to high fertility rates and widespread poverty in these countries. Catholic priests and bishops, who often are revered in Central American countries, tend to say that a baby is a gift from God. However, I would say to an unmarried, celibate priest: you try giving birth to a 3rd or 4th baby when you are poor, single and in one of these countries.
There are many topics that people tend to avoid in different cultures that have consequences, but in Central America this particular taboo topic -- sex and reproductive health -- hurts one group the most: Central American women.
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(Pido disculpas por la falta de acentos, de ennies y de signos de interrogacion iniciales.)
El Presidente Obama ha sido atacado fuerte e injustamente por la crisis humanitaria de los ninnios inmigrantes que, lamentablemente, nos esta dividiendo a los estadounidenses y nos esta costando mucho. Las causas de este fenomeno que se mencionan mas a menudo son los rumores en estos paises de una ley firmada por el Presidente Bush en 1993 sobre inmigrantes menores y el asilo. Tambien se habla sobre los altos niveles de pobreza y de violencia en estos tres paises que son Guatemala, El Salvador y Honduras.
Sin embargo, hay un tema del que no se habla tanto pero que tambien contribuye a la pobreza y la violencia en estos paises, y ahora, a la ola de menores migrantes llegando a EE.UU, Se trata de la salud y los derechos reproductivos de la mujer en Guatemala, El Salvador y Honduras. Los gobiernos de estos tres paises criminalizan el aborto, prohiben anticonceptivos de emergencia (morning-after pill) que evita la fecundacion, y hacen que los anticonceptivos mas comunes y de uso mas frecuente en EE.UU. no esten disponibles abierta y libremente para las mujeres que a veces los necesitan desesperadamante. Tambien me imagino que estos paises no se permite mucho una educacion sexual efectiva, lo que complica aun mas las cosas. (La experiencia en algunos estados de EE.UU. sobre la educacion sexual es clara: cuanto mas saben los jovenes, menos exploran y menos se meten en problemas.)
Mi pregunta es: Como pueden los gobiernos de Guatemala, El Salvador, y Honduras mantener estas politicas reproductivas extremas sabiendo que a pesar de ser mayormente Catolicos, estos paises tambien son pobres, tienen una alta fertilidad (muchos ninnos por familia), tienen un alto nivel de analfabetismo y mal nivel educacional, y tienen altos niveles de violencia, de maras (gangs) y de violencia juvenil? Estos paises se caracterizan por sus altos niveles de desempleo y jovenes sin esperanza de un futuro mejor. Y esa es la clave: la falta de esperanza. Ahora ya algunos ninnios deciden partir, o algunos padres los envian, hacia EE.UU. solos, concientes de los riesgos y la posibilidad que mueran en el intento.
Otro tema del que estos tres gobiernos ya deben ser concientes: No es ningun secreto que el aborto ilegal hiere o mata a muchas mujeres desesperadas para frenar un embarazo no planeado. Tambien la falta, el costo, o la dificultad para obtener anticonceptivos, asi como una educacion sexual efectiva, como para evitar embarazos no planeados o en un mal momento de la vida, tambien pueden hacdr mucho bannio a las mujeres de Guatemala, El Salvador y Honduras. Ahora estas politicas de control de utero extremas en estos tres paises contribuyen a la crisis humanitaria actual de menores migrantes en EE.UU.
Dada la miseria y las numerosas consecuencias secundarias causadas por estas politicas de control de utero, o politicas pro cigote/pro feto/pro espermatozoide, COMO PUEDEN LOS GOBIERNOS DE GUATEMALA, EL SALVADOR Y HONDURAS JUSTIFICAR MORALMENTE politicas que quizas satisfacen a algunos obispos locales que, solteros y con sotana negra, nunca podran sentir lo que siente una mujer al tomar la decicion de parar un embarazo no planeado.
Que tiene que pasar para que los gobiernos de Guatemala, El Salvador y Honduras por lo menos consideren cambiar estas leyes injustas e hasta inhumanas que lastiman a las mujeres de sus paises y a tanta otra gente?
Para entender otra causa de raiz de esta crisis humanitaria, recomiendo leer este articulo:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Para entender porque los menores de Nicaragua no emigran a EE.UU., habria que leer este articulo de FUSION:
http://fusion.net/...
Fri Jul 18, 2014 at 5:25 AM PT: I wrote the diary/article and I agree with many of the comments. Thank you for tipping and recommending! Someone needs to study these policies in Central American countries to see whether they violate the human rights of Central American women and girls.
Also, I agree that this is where Hobby Lobby, the all-male and extreme Catholic bishops and other religious extremists in the U.S. want to take us. It's basically back to the 1950s when women with unintended pregnancies (often not their fault) in this country sought illegal, back-alley abortions and regularly got hurt or died from medical complications such as excessive bleeding or infections. (Of course, Hobby Lobby and Catholic schools in the U.S. have no moral issue with offering insurance coverage for Viagra for single men, but that's for another discussion.)
HERE'S WHY I WROTE THIS ARTICLE. If I were the government of Guatemala and I saw that my policies were contributing to a humanitarian border crisis in a nearby country namely the U.S., I'd do something about it. If I saw that my policies were causing misery among the people of Guatemala, I'd do something about it. If I knew my policies could be violating the human rights of women and girls in my country, I'd do something about it.
Yes. I know how a U.S. corporation a while back caused much and lasting harm in places like Guatemala. I know the harm that President Reagan caused in Central America. The human rights abuses associated with the Cold War in Central American were horrible especially in places like Guatemala. But that's exactly why the U.S. government should at least consider raising this important issue, and bring it out of the closet and into the light now that we have a humanitarian border crisis.
WHY CAN'T THE GOVERNMENTS OF THESE THREE CENTRAL AMERICAN COUNTRIES GIVE THEIR WOMEN A CHOICE? A Guatemalan or Salvadoran woman doesn't have to use contraception, emergency contraception or end an unintended pregnancy if she doesn't want to, BUT SHE DESERVES TO HAVE A CHOICE!! We, the people of the United States, who are experiencing this highly divisive humanitarian border crisis and spending money we don't have to house and feed these migrant children coming to our borders also deserve for Central American women to have a choice of when to start a family and how many children to have. These issues are to be resolved by a responsible Central American woman, or a woman and her partner, AND NOT BY ANY MORALLY INTRUSIVE GOVERNMENT.
BTW, I am a Latino and I strongly support and fight for comprehensive immigration reform in the U.S. On a more personal basis, my wife and I have two children. We're getting a little old, but we would have loved to have a 3rd one, but we knew we couldn't afford it and we did something about it. IMAGINE that you are a low-income woman in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, or Nicaragua. You may be single or married, you may have been violently raped or not, but you already have two wonderful children and you know that it would be totally irresponsible to have more because you can't afford them. However, you look everywhere and can't find affordable, effective contraception, or emergency contraception (higher dose of the same contraception. . .also known as the morning-after pill) because of your government's policies. HOW FAIR, HOW RESPONSIBLE, HOW M-O-R-A-L IS IT FOR THESE THREE GOVERNMENTS TO KEEP IN PLACE EXTREME POLICIES THAT HURT PEOPLE SO MUCH, WITH SOME NEARLY INHUMANE CONSEQUENCES? These three Central American governments should at the very least be aware that they are contributing to misery in their country and abroad.