Since 2015, the murder rate of children and adolescents in Mexico has steadily increased. This is due to the systematic recruitment of minors in the foundations of criminal gangs. In September 2021, the Network for Children‘s Rights in Mexico, or REDIM, published a new study showing that 250,000 children and adolescents are at risk of being recruited by the cartels. In 2019, approximately 30,000 minors were already appointed to work for the cartels as scouts, street dealers or sicarios.
In the capital of the Mexican state of Michoacan, a group of former soldiers and police officers have banded together to teach children strict military activities and procedures to be waned off the streets and better aligned with the law. They meet every Sunday to prepare the chil- dren for various tasks.
„It‘s better that they learn with us and are prepared for the fight than to learn in the streets,“ says the commandant of the alliance, The Aztec Warriors. Even if their weapons are not real, it is the conflict in which thousands fall victim every year.
Since 2015, the murder rate of children and adolescents in Mexico has steadily increased. This is due to the systematic recruitment of minors in the foundations of criminal gangs. In September 2021, the Network for Children‘s Rights in Mexico, or REDIM, published a new study showing that 250,000 children and adolescents are at risk of being recruited by the cartels. In 2019, approximately 30,000 minors were already appointed to work for the cartels as scouts, street dealers or sicarios.
In the capital of the Mexican state of Michoacan, a group of former soldiers and police officers have banded together to teach children strict military activities and procedures to be waned off the streets and better aligned with the law. They meet every Sunday to prepare the chil- dren for various tasks.
„It‘s better that they learn with us and are prepared for the fight than to learn in the streets,“ says the commandant of the alliance, The Aztec Warriors. Even if their weapons are not real, it is the conflict in which thousands fall victim every year.