Mexican human rights body demands better for child migrants

MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission says that it continues to find unaccompanied child migrants from Central America in the country’s immigration detention centres.

The commission urged various government entities in a report presented Monday to better co-ordinate to ensure the best interests of the children are met. Its survey of 650 unaccompanied child migrants found that they continue to flee their home countries primarily due to violence.

The report blames Mexico’s national immigration authority for not having specific protocols for handling unaccompanied child migrants as they move through the system. It says they should be housed only in government-run shelters specifically for children.

The report says more than 20,000 unaccompanied child migrants were detained in Mexico in 2015. More than 9,300 were detained from January to July 2016.