Organizations ask that they are not criminalized, and that security and peace strategies in the state consider the differentiated violence they experience.
In police operations that the government of Chiapas has carried out since December 8, 2024 to date, people between 13 and 17 years of age have been detained, who allegedly participated in illegal acts related to groups dedicated to drug sales, arms trafficking and robbery. The operations are part of the “peace strategy” of the current administration.
In light of these facts, the organization Melel Xojobal recalled that in Chiapas the increase in criminal violence that has been taking place for more than three years has had a strong impact on children and adolescents and, as they have documented, this is reflected in the increase of homicides and disappearances of this sector of the population.
For example, in 2024 there were 482 reports of disappearances of children and adolescents; and in the first 45 days of this year, there were another 37. To this are added 9 femicides and 36 homicides.
“We have documented cases of arbitrary detentions and murders of children and adolescents. The children who are being used and recruited into illegal economies are victims of a system that has perpetuated their rights violations. They are not criminals, narco-children or juvenile offenders. They are children that corruption and organized crime have used for their own interests,” the organization explained at a press conference.
In January, the elite police, part of the Chiapas Security Secretariat, detained an adolescent allegedly carrying drugs on the highway that connects San Cristóbal de Las Casas with the municipality of Teopisca.
That same month, in the vicinity of a market in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, these police officers called Pakal Immediate Reaction Forces detained youths who, according to their report, “with a violent attitude began to attack the authorities with stones. Among them were two minors who, the police said, were found with drugs.
Two other teenagers were detained in Teopisca, they were accused of carrying long arms, bullets, and armored vests. One of the detainees was 13 years old.
The organization Melel Xojobal pointed out that in addition to the criminalization of young people, for example, of those who use motorcycles as a means of transportation, there is a lack of job opportunities.
“Opportunities for children and adolescents are being reduced, violating their rights and criminalizing their ability to generate decent sources of income. The population continues to be forced into a massive displacement to other regions and countries”.
The current administration of Chiapas also promotes the prohibition of child labor, activities that dozens of children in San Cristobal de Las Casas, who help their parents to sell artisanry, and thus contribute to the family income.
Melel Xojobal demanded that working children and adolescents be recognized and that the issue be addressed with non-criminalizing public policies. He also called on public servants, municipal and state, as well as civil society, to combat prejudices that lead to racial discrimination in the areas of education, culture, work and information. And to promote human rights training for public servants.
They pointed out that it is the duty of the Mexican state “to guarantee the human rights of working children and adolescents, whose conditions of inequality, discrimination and poverty lead them to perform labor activities alongside their families and in the worst cases to be victims of crimes such as exploitation and recruitment by criminal groups.”
And that security and peace strategies in the state consider the differentiated violence experienced by children and adolescents in the state of Chiapas, in order to guarantee conditions that allow them a healthy development and a good life in their territories.
Original article by Ángeles Mariscal published in Chiapas Paralelo on February 20th, 2025.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.