By Arturo Cervantes
As in the rest of Central America, criminal violence and insecurity in Mexico are rapidly worsening.
Illegal firearms and ammunition, mostly made in the rich world, are pouring in to our country, helping to create a humanitarian emergency: mass murder.
Alarmingly most of these homicides will go unpunished. This is because Mexicans do not trust the government, the police or justice institutions.
The most recent Global Impunity Index reveals that 99 per cent of crimes committed in Mexico go unpunished. People report only 7 out of 100 crimes to police, and of these, less than 5 per cent result in convictions.
Executions, armed robbery, rape, kidnappings and extortions have become the norm for many cities. Around 76 per cent of adults are afraid of going out because they consider their cities insecure and 65 per cent report to have seen or heard delinquent or anti-social activities around their homes in the past year.
Arturo Cervantes
This is not normal; neither is impunity, but they have become our way of life.
Yet this is not just a story of Mexico or a Central America. It is about a global illicit arms trade, and about how low- and middle-income countries are suffering the failed social and economic policies of high-income countries.
The consequences of this global chaos will certainly take several generations to repair, even if addressed immediately.
We all know that Mexican and Central American citizens have incapable governments and weak institutions that have not been able, for many decades, of controlling the traffic of guns and laundered money into their territories.
Firearms and drug trafficking organisations are wreaking havoc in their communities. Their impact is now so big we can measure it on a population wide level. Violence is now the biggest killer of men in Mexico aged between 15 and 44. Surveys suggest 29 per cent of Mexicans were a victim of crime during last year.
This is now a global health and development crisis.
If criminal violence, homicide and impunity are not reduced, there is a credible threat of the world’s 13th largest economy spiralling in to failed state.
The public health scientific community is keenly aware of the problem. But if the international community is serious about global development goals, including the drive to reduce homicides, it would should show some more determination in helping Mexico and Central America.
Prof Cervantes is chair of public health at Mexico’s Anáhuac University
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