Mexico: Children Take Up Arms to Fend Off Drug Cartels

Facts

• A rural Mexican village has reportedly resorted to recruiting minors to reinforce a volunteer police force battling organized crime, including kidnappings by drug cartels.¹
• The community police of Ayahualtempa in the state of Guerrero has reportedly inducted schoolchildren — girls and boys as young as 12 — and armed them with rifles.²
• Some of the minors reportedly took to a local playing field earlier this week with their faces covered and claimed they 'can't study because of lawlessness.'¹
• The recruitment of the children into the armed group follows the recent kidnapping of four members of a family on Jan. 19. The family hasn't been found yet despite the involvement of state and federal forces.²
• Violence has recently escalated in Guerrero. A Jan. 4 drone attack killed at least 30 people in Helidoro Castillo, a village in the crossfire of the La Familia Michoacana and the Jalisco New Generation cartels.³

Sources: ¹Reuters, ²El País México and ³Associated Press.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by Los Angeles Times. It's dangerous to recruit vulnerable children, who can barely carry a rifle, to fight extraordinarily dangerous cartels. Exposure to guns, violence, and criminality at an early age could make joining criminal gangs their next logical step during adulthood. Having schoolchildren join paramilitary groups is a horrific human rights violation.
• Narrative B, as provided by TheWashingtonPost. It is disheartening to witness children standing up against organized criminal organizations to defend their parents, homes, and livestock from drone attacks and bombs. However, rising violence in a state plagued by drug cartels leaves the community with no choice, especially in the absence of government intervention. This shows the horrific consequences of the systemic violence plaguing much of Mexico.

Predictions