The Plight of Women Migrants

*Recent news has been about unaccompanied children traveling north to the U.S., but a story just as compelling is that of the dangers that women face as they cross Mexico to get to the U.S. border. VL

By Maria Ines Zamudio, Latino USA

About six in ten Central American women migrants experience rape and other forms of sexual assault while migrating north through Mexico, according to Amnesty International.

Each year, about 400,000 Central Americans migrate to the U.S. through Mexico. They face theft, extortion, kidnapping and even death. About one fifth of them are women. For them, the trip is even riskier.

Maria Ines Zamudio reports on the dangers Central American women face through the story of one young woman, Elizabeth Tobias. She is a single mother from El Salvador traveling to the U.S.border on top of a freight train called La Bestia, The Beast.

This article was originally published in Latino USA.

Maria Ines Zamudio is an award-winning investigative reporter. She joined The Chicago Reporter Magazine to cover immigration, labor and health in 2011. Prior to joining the investigative magazine, she spent three years in California working for several daily newspapers. She’s a bilingual reporter and blogger with experience producing radio and video stories. She been awarded many prestigious fellowships including the New York Times fellowship in 2003. She graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2007.

[Photo by Maria Ines Zamudio]

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