Cartels Recruit Children as People Smugglers
Mexico cartels recruit children to smuggle people to US
by Lucina Melesio & John Holman
Ciudad Juarez, Mexico - At first sight, he looks like an average 14-year-old boy.
Sturdily built, initially taciturn and with a fashionable top knot haircut, Jose* listens head bowed as his dad says that he brings him nothing but trouble.
Tongue lashing over, he eventually comes to life, wanting to show off his pigs and hens, all happily rooting around outside the ramshackle house that he shares with his family on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez,Mexico.
But outside of this picture of relative domestic tranquility, Jose is involved in another dangerous world.
He works for a local cartel, guiding undocumented immigrants from Ciudad Juarez across the desert, and into Texas and New Mexico.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/10/mexico-cartels-recruit-children-smuggle-people-171030103553245.html
