Posted on 03/23/2009 6:53:24 PM PDT by AtlasStalled
The use of teenagers as killers by the drug cartels is common in Mexico, and the kids are known as "narco juniors." Earlier this month CNN reported that Los Zetas, a paramilitary organization that provides enforcement muscle for the Gulf Cartel, has recruited U.S. teenagers as young as 13 years old to carry out its enforcement hits on the north side of the border. NPR now reports that "the cartels have begun seeking younger and younger recruits" as sicaritos or child assassins:
Mexican drug cartels recruit children under 18 for the same reasons that armed forces conscript boy soldiers in Sierra Leone and Somalia — their immaturity produces fearlessness. And for a young boy at the margin of society, cartel membership brings instant respect.
The Mexican drug cartels also use young teenagers as so-called mules to smuggle drugs over the border, and earlier this month police arrested several kids -- from both the United States and Mexico -- crossing into El Paso, TX from Juarez, Mexico with drugs strapped to their bodies.
(Excerpt) Read more at bitterqueen.typepad.com ...
It’s 11:00 p.m. Do you parents of U.S. kids know where your children are?
That’s too bad. Kids can also be shot for trying to kill, just like the grown-ups
so they better wise up real fast.
“Kids can also be shot for trying to kill”
you’re absolutely on point with that. In Juarez, Mexico (just 2 miles from El Paso, TX) about 2,000 people have been killed in the last year, and most of it’s trafficker-on-trafficker violence. According to the NPR report “some 80 percent of the victims are younger than 25, and many are still boys.” It’s just like gang violence in America — the gangsters kill the gangsters, and for all those Crips and Bloods it’s amazing how young many of them are (most of the U.S. street gangs recruit kids as young as middle school, and law enforcement increasingly is holding the gangs liable under child endangerment laws).
You question would probable be consider infringement on the child’s rights.The reason I say this is last Saturday I was listing to NPR and a mother of two girls in Oregon who were 13 & 15 when they quite school and ran way. The mother asked why she was not informed about the girls not going to school and the state basically told her it was none of her business.
If they’re caught on this side they go to juvenile court and are out by the time they’re 18.
Actually, one of the scandals involved in all of this is that the United States has an agreement with the Mexican government to deport all Mexican juveniles caught in the drug trafficking business north of the border without prosecuting them at all — this is one of the reasons why the drug cartels increasingly are using Mexican kids as mules (I doubt, however, that the U.S. would deport without prosecuting a Mexican juvenile who murdered on behalf of the cartels).
None of the mother’s business, huh? Just like it would have been none of her business if they gave the girls the morning after pill or took them for abortions. Geesh!
Geesh? ? ?
This is IIRC, the Sheeples Republic of Eugene.
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