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In the country, 67 children and adolescents—26 women and 41 men—were kidnapping victims from January to September 2023, according to official figures processed by the Network for Children’s Rights in Mexico (Redim).

According to ONG, The number of kidnappings of people between zero and 17 years old increased between the months of January to September 2022 and January to September 2023, since the figure went from 41 to 67.

The figures place Mexico City as the entity with the highest number of this crime, with 19 cases, followed by Chihuahua, with eight, and the State of Mexico, with six.

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Redim reveals that the abducted children and adolescents that have taken place between January 2015 and September 2023 in the country have been mostly extortionist, with 83%; hostage kidnappings were 7.3%; express, 3.6%, and to cause damage, 3.3%.

In its report Kidnapping of girls, boys and adolescents in Mexico, it highlights that from December 2018 to last September, 460 kidnappings of people from zero to 17 years old were recorded, 170 women and 290 men, so the monthly average of minors who are victims of this crime is 7.9.

Asked about this, Juan Martín Pérez García, regional coordinator of Tejiendo Redes Infancia in Latin America and the Caribbean, comments that several decades ago kidnapping stopped being “an issue for rich families, so this crime has become widespread, such that it does not matter if the victims are from a high, middle or precarious social stratum.”

He comments that although the victims are from the upper class, “the children of small business owners are also victims of kidnapping, precisely because of the insecurity conditions in most of the national territory.”

For the activist there is a deterioration of the institutionality of the Mexican State at all levels, federal, state and municipal. This loss, he adds, implies an increase in networks of corruption, non-compliance with the law and the political use of institutions for other purposes, except to provide security.

“All this means that every day Mexicans face greater difficulty, first, in trusting the institutions to report and, second, in being able to receive prompt attention. Unfortunately, in most crimes we have impunity rates above 90%,” he maintains.

From their perspective, more laws are not required to stop this crime, but only that officials at all levels comply with them.

In his report, I refuse highlights that one in every 10 kidnappings recorded in Mexico from January 2015 to September 2023 has had children and adolescents as victims, representing 10.1%.

It also highlights that the General Law on the Rights of Girls, Boys and Adolescents states that one of the responsibilities of both federal and local authorities is to “help in locating girls, boys and adolescents who have been kidnapped, transferred or unlawfully retained.”

And he adds that the Mexican State committed, through the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to take all necessary measures to prevent “the kidnapping, sale or trafficking of children for any purpose or in any form.”

Member of the Board of Directors of Redim and founder and president of Utopia, an organization dedicated to the care of children and adolescents with limited resources, Jesus Villalobos He explains that in past decades people who committed crimes “did not kidnap children and adolescents so frequently. Nowadays the methods have become more drastic, more dramatic and more violent.

“In other times there were codes about who violence was committed against. Childhood and adolescence were respected. And in these times no one is respected anymore and what we have is that more violent and savage methods are used,” he says.

He maintains that the increase in kidnappings of people from zero to 17 years of age is a reflection of the spiral of violence facing the country.

“What we see is also a product of the policy that the State unfortunately has. We see this structural violence that has not changed over time, but has taken root thanks to the erroneous policies of the federal government. And we have normalized this violence to the core,” he says.

Villalobos highlights that violence against Mexican children and adolescents is not only perceived in the increase in kidnappings, but also in intentional homicides.

“We cannot conceive that three children in this country die every day from violence and at the hands of someone who actually wanted to kill them,” he says.

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