“Maria” is a 25-year-old girl, a victim of violence from the state of Guerrero. “I have left everything behind, my family, my mother, my sisters. In my city I liked to go to the fields, help my mother, we planted things. I enjoyed being with them. There were many things that made me migrate. It was insecurity, they extorted me and other bad things happened to me. I feel that women are not safe. We are alone because although things happen to us there we cannot file a complaint. We can not do anything. Even if they kill you, nothing happens. There is no justice. There they kill and don’t get punished. They killed a cousin and a friend, also a family on behalf of the father of my children. Things happened to me that even make me sad to tell them. My girl is seven and my boy is six. I'm worried that something bad might happen to them. There it does not matter if they are children or if they are adults. When they enter (the mafias) they kill evenly. That's what scares me the most, that they grow up there. Here I feel good because I had no place to go and they let me stay here, here I have a place to sleep. Here I am not afraid that my children will be taken away from me. I no longer walk on the street exposing myself. I feel happy.
I have not been told anything about my asylum in the United States. My dream is that my children have a different life there. To not live in violence. It is all I want. Where we lived there is "community patrol". And first everything was fine. But then it was the same as if they were criminals. We were selling chicken and tortillas and all prices went up. They stopped businesses and had to pay a fee to enter my town. So all the prices went up and people didn't buy chicken anymore. We are no longer selling. I earned 20 pesos (less than a dollar) per chicken. Sometimes we only sold two or three chickens a day. At that time I separated from the father of my children, and I went to live with my mother for a while and that's when... no, I don't want to tell this. (Pauses and cries). I do not want my daughter to grow up in the place that I have suffered. The place where I felt safe became where I don’t want to go back. I wish she has a different life. May she grow up and never suffer what one has suffered. To not know about abuse, violence. And I would like a place where my son doesn't have to become part of a mafia, because in my town they have to do it when they turn 18," she says through tears.

In the photo “María” appears with an empty chair that symbolizes her mother that she has left behind, and that she affirms that she will not undertake the journey to the other side without her. CRS supports COALIPRO (Coalición Pro Defensa del Migrante) by providing psychosocial support to migrants, as well as attention to their basic safety and hygiene needs, in order to offer them a more dignified life during their stay in shelters in this border city.

Photo by Oscar Leiva/Silverlight for Catholic Relief Services