By Adrienne Wiebe, MCC Latin America
On the southern border of Mexico, undocumented migrants from Central America pay with their bodies for their attempts to overcome poverty and flee violence. Some pay with their legs or arms, and others pay by “renting” out use of their bodies.
I recently joined the MCC Migration Learning Tour to Guatemala and Mexico (Oct 1-10), to accompany the group during their visit to the border region.
Undocumented migrants from Central America heading for the United States most often cross Mexico riding on the top of freight trains, known as La Bestia – the Beast. Every year hundreds of migrants fall under the wheels of the trains when attempting to jump on as it is moving or falling asleep while riding. Gangs also assault and rob travelers on the train, causing them to fall off. We visited the Albergue del Buen Pastor – the Hostel of the Good Shepherd – where Director Olga Sánchez provides shelter and food for migrants trying to heal from the devastating loss of limbs and of hope.
The “body card” – like a “credit card” – is a relatively new term used by migrant women to describe how they pay their way across Mexico, according to Father Flor de Maria who operates the migrant shelter in Tapachula. Women without resources are able to cross Mexico by exchanging sexual services for food, shelter, protection, and transportation along the way.
Some migrant women get stuck in the border region and end up working in cheap bars, as I described in an earlier blog (see here). In these cases, the bodily cost is not only paid for in sexual services, but also in addictions to alcohol and drugs, according to Maria (not her real name), who helps women find alternatives to working in the bars. Women earn money by drinking with male clients, often consuming as many as 20 bottles of beer in an evening. The health costs of this work are high, not only physically but emotionally and spiritually. As one migrant woman put it: “I feel dead from the waist down.”
Bordertown Bar – Photo by Miriam Harder
On the border, the damaged bodies of the migrants are physical evidence of an unjust world that systematically marginalizes and excludes millions of people from meeting their basic needs with dignity and health.
Hearing these stories of “broken bodies” on the border, reminded me of Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples: “Jesus took bread, gave thanks, and broke it, and gave it to his disciples saying, ‘Take it, this is my body’” (Mt 26:26, Mk 14:22).
When we commemorate the Last Supper in our communities of faith, maybe we can also reflect on the bodies of our brothers and sisters that continue to be “broken” by poverty, injustice, and violence in the world today.
For more information:
Short video of the train in Mexico http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgHR1-5HptA
http://www.alberguebuenpastor.org.mx/
http://www.migrante.com.mx/Tapachula.htm
http://enablemagazine.co.uk/index.php/2012/07/risking-their-lives-to-work/ source of photo.
Thanks Adrienne for highlighting this aspect of the “other” border. The issue of migration is certainly complex, and I think in the north we tend to think of it only as a journey to a new land in search of work…and we never consider (or listen) to the many stories of tragedy and loss. To highlight one other aspect, at INESIN we have been working through a diploma program to help families recuperate from situations of domestic violence, another issue that is exsacberated by migration, the resulting instability that occurs whether its someone returning home with different expectations/realities, or the absence of family member.
Thanks Rick – your work in the communities near the border enables you to see “at close range” the impacts of migration on the people left behind. I appreciate that you shared the work that INESIN is doing to prevent and heal domestic violence.