• Every year, tens of thousands of women, men and children travel through Mexico without legal permission as irregular migrants.
• The vast majority are headed for the US border in the hope of a new life far from the poverty they have left behind.
• More than 9 out of 10 are Central Americans, mostly from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.
• One in five is a woman or girl.
• One in 12 is under 18 years old and, although most are teenagers, some are under 10.
• In 2009, 64,061 foreign nationals were detained by The National Migration Service (INM):
  • 60,383 of the detainees were from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.
  • 60,143 were voluntarily repatriated or deported
  • 2,846 were allowed to regularize their migration status
  • 87 asylum-seekers were granted refugee status
• Every year, thousands of migrants are ill-treated, abducted or raped. Arbitrary detention and extortion by public officials are common.
• Six out of 10 women and girl migrants experience sexual violence during the journey, according to estimates by human rights organizations and academics.
• Between September 2008 and March 2009, The National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) interviewed 238 victims and witnesses of 198 kidnapping incidents involving migrants:
  • 9,758 migrants were kidnapped during the six-month period including at least 57 children.
  • Almost half of the migrants said that public officials were directly responsible for kidnapping
  • Half of the victims observed police colluding with kidnappers during their captivity
• Women and children face serious risks of trafficking and sexual assault by criminals, other migrants and corrupt public officials.
• The vast majority of these abuses are never seriously investigated and perpetrators rarely held to account, fostering a climate of impunity.
• 3,924 different incidents of abuses were revealed through 828 interviews conducted with migrants arriving at the Posada del Migrante shelter in Saltillo, Coahuila state, between May 2007 and February 2008.
  • These included 1,266 acts of intimidation (threats, insults, shooting into the air);
  • 475 physical attacks (beatings and stoning);
  • 42 cases of sexual assault or violence.

Read more here.