Current Event #12 - Hidden Sexual Violence on the Southern Border

In the summer of 2014 Melvin, a 36-year-old mom with three kids had completed the journey of crossing the Rio Grande on a raft. She arrived in McAllen, Texas and was led to a house on the border. Melvin was locked into a room with the men she paid to keep her safe across the border. They drugged her with pills and cocaine, they withheld her and wouldn’t even let her bathe. “I think that since they put me in that room, they killed me,” she said. “They raped us so many times they didn’t see us as human beings anymore.” On the southern border women crossing the are being mistreated. Migrant women and girls become victims of sexual assault. Most of them go unreported. There are many stories like this, women being beaten, impregnated by strangers, bound with duct tape, rope or handcuffs, and some even forced into prostitution. The New York Times found many documented cases through police records, interviews, prosecutors, and federal judges and immigrant advocates around the country. What people don’t seem to notice is that it is less than the women are becoming victims on the trek through Mexico but in the supposedly safe America.
One in five women is likely to experience some sort of sexual assault in their life. One in three women has experienced sexual violence in their life. The chances are high, way too high. America has been seen as a “safe place” for many people but once you really look at all of the things going on you figure out it really isn’t. So many people want to come to America to live a better life. Imagine crossing the border and being greeted with some sort of sexual assault when all you wanted was a better life. To know how high the national risk is of becoming a victim is scary especially because people come here with kids and hope to have a new and fresh new start and are welcomed with some crime. I’m hoping more attention can be brought upon this. With the #MeToo movement I think these women should come out and shed light on something that should be brought up.

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