Miguel Meza, 47, an officer of the CRS Mexico Migration project, and Teresa Alcaraz, 28, a COALIPRO psychologist speak with “María” (not her real name), 25, a young victim of violence from the state of Guerrero which is housed in the Casa Madre Asunta, in the border city of Tijuana, Mexico. A care center for women, migrant children, which also receives victims of internal displacement.

“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 cannot do anything. Even if they kill you, nothing happens. There is no justice. They killed a cousin and a friend, also a family on behalf of the father of my children. Things happened to me that make me sad to tell them. I worry that something bad might happen to my children. 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, 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 haven’t been told anything about my asylum in the United States. My dream is that my children have a different life there. That they don’t live in violence. It is all I want. 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 ever again. I wish she has a different life. May she grow up and never suffer what i suffered. That she doesn't know about abuse and 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.

Photo by Oscar Leiva/Silverlight for Catholic Relief Services