Migrant women report horrifying accounts of sexual abuse and rape

Migrant women report horrifying accounts of sexual abuse and rape at the hands of those they travel with or find on their way to the US.

As the US is experiencing the worst migrant crisis in history, we tend to label it as a humanitarian crisis based just on the lack of food and shelter but that’s not all of it as this (or this type of) migrant crisis is hiding something sinister within it which is often overlooked and never reported.

Women and young girls are sharing their horrifying accounts of sexual abuse and rape through their journey from Latin America to the Southern border of the United States.

GOP Senators during a Press Conference on Wednesday highlighted the failed policies of President Biden on the migrant crisis and during that press conference Douglas J. Nicholls the Mayor of the city of Yuma revealed how women and young girls report being victims of sexual violence.

I really wanna provide some local context to the current situation along the border from the city[‘s] perspective. Since February 15th of this year, almost 300 migrants have been released by the US Border Patrol into our community, most of which have serviced by some of our local non-profits. This represents about 400 people a day being interdicted by our Border Patrol sector and they release of those 25 people a day to our non-profits, with peaks of over 100 people. This does not even address or begin to address the numbers of people that are not interdicted by the Border Patrol. While these numbers are significant they don’t tell the whole story. The hundreds of non-interdicted migrants walk through our agricultural fields that feed the nation causing millions of dollars of damage and to losses to our farmers as they have to destroy these crops to protect the food safety of the nation. We have large groups of up to a 100 people showing up at our homeless shelter. Our homeless shelter is constructed and funded to service our community, not to service hundreds of people coming through our community, and of the migrants that are interdicted many of the females including young girls are brought to our victim crisis center and tell a horrific story of sexual abuse and rape and our law enforcement and victim advocates are helpless to do anything because these violations happen in other countries.

Douglas J. Nicholls the Mayor of the city of Yuma provides context to the Migrant Crisis from his city’s perspective.

To understand the full scope of the migrant crisis see: Anatomy of the Migrants behind the Crisis

This begs the simple yet tricky question: How do we stop this from happening?

The short and unfortunate answer to that is, we cant. We cannot stop it because we cannot police everyone coming from South and Central America.

The human smuggling is out of control and is one of the most profitable and biggest industries of Central and South America.

Controlled by cartels, smuggled by cartels, given things to smuggle for the cartels, the migrant crisis has it all.

It gets even darker for the women and minors. The only thing we can do to reduce and eventually stop this is to make the migrants understand that they are not going to be allowed into the US if they enter illegally.

To stop sexual violence in the migrant trail we must send a clear message that no illegal entry will be allowed in.

If the message is strong and clear then the influx will reduce and criminals or soon-to-be criminals and sex offenders would be demoralized from making the trek and only those who really are innocent would take the risk that would guarantee them nothing if they cross illegally.

Instead of making unrealistic promises we should bolster our legal system, make camps for the people wanting to seek asylum and process their applications with real scrutiny and make sure only the deserving and people at risk are allowed in.

Catch and release needs to be dismantled as it is the cornerstone of the hope that the cartels generate for sending in criminals, drugs, etc.

With catch and release the odds are always stacked for the cartels and they make full use of exploiting it as they would keep on sending criminals and it will be only a matter of time till some or a majority are released inside the US.

When unrealistic promises are made at campaign trails and on twitter without realizing the consequences, we would always have the crisis that is at our doorstep today.

Declaring that all those who cross illegally would be allowed in, ensconced, would be given stimulus checks and free healthcare, as well as the right to vote then all sorts of criminals and even cartel members would want to come in and exploit the subdued system.

When we imagine the World as a utopia where everything is perfect and everyone is innocent then we are asking for the criminals to exploit our giving nature and take everything we have and then even killing us in the end.

Just like we cannot let anyone enter our house, we cannot let them enter our country.

To reach the US, the migrant women and girls travel with random groups either led by the coyotes or other migrants.

Their journey is long and has a lot of checkpoints or resting places in-between and so the groups are never the same and the people they know and start with either abandon them or are abandoned by them at any point during their travel.

The problem for the women and girls arises the minute the groups are randomized, the male migrants who are uneducated or grow up in areas governed by the cartels overpower them and violate them either alone or in groups.

We cannot expect decency or understanding of the other person’s rights by people who are not educated and grow up in environments controlled by criminals and where the only jobs they get are related to crime.

The women and girls are unaware who they are travelling with and the minute the areas turn autonomous and the men get the chance, they start violating their travel companions.

In many cases even those male migrants who the women start with are also not so innocent, as there have been cases where men, the women and girls know have taken advantage of them and have sexually abused them.

Many girls who are travelling in groups that do or do not have a coyote are abducted and put into sex slavery. Many are abducted, sexually assaulted and killed, many are sexually assaulted and then reach the border, and many are just kept by the groups as sex slaves who cook the meals and do all the work until the men have had enough of them or reach their destination.

Their accounts are spine-chilling and all the more reason why we must do our part to ensure we don’t let the worst types of criminals in and we stop the influx which would result in minimizing or stopping the sexual violence against the migrant women.

The majority of rape and sexual abuse cases go unreported because the perpetrators can never be caught as the crimes are either committed outside the jurisdiction of the US or the women fear for their lives and their “honor.”

Before wanting to protect migrant women we have an obligation to protect our people, and that is why we must stop the migrants from getting in without proper background checks, proper procedures and the legal system.

By doing this we would also be securing the safety of the migrant women as the criminals would then have no incentive of making the journey and exploiting the innocents that are on their way.

We cannot read the other person’s mind and we can never know which migrant is a criminal on the run, innocent on the run, former criminal on the run, etc.

The only way to guarantee whether they are innocent or a criminal is if we let them in only through the system and not just by blindly following our hearts and emotions.