Eighteenth International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Abstract

Central America’s Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras have been sites of colonization, civil war, and genocide. Contemporary flows of forced migration from the Northern Triangle are a result of push factors including gang violence, domestic violence, and other forms of gender-based violence. Particularly, cases of gender-based violence are often under-reported and unrecognized, and governments of these nations have both perpetrated this violence and failed to protect mujerxs from it. Notably, the United States’s interventionist policies and actions have also contributed to the manifestation of violence. Accumulatively, this context has resulted in mental health impacts including the intergenerational transmission of trauma and layered traumas faced by mujerxs who are forced to migrate for their survival. In their transit through Mexico, forced migrants further face violence and are exploited by criminal networks (i.e. coyotes, carteles, trafficking, and extortion). In response, forced migrants continue to find alternative routes and create social networks of support. Rather than providing comprehensive trauma-informed aid, Mexico and the U.S. have responded to forced migration with the punitive measures of detention and deportation. This paper will discuss the mental health impacts of gender-based violence as well as the resilience and survival strategies of mujerxs from this Central American region as they travel through Mexico. Identifying coping and survival mechanisms could help inform community and mental health professionals about how best to support forced migrants with related home and migratory experiences; identifying the gaps in knowledge about trauma and stressors and ameliorating gaps in service provision in the U.S. if applicable.