February 26, 2023

THIS WEEK IN HUMAN RIGHTS NEWS

Las Patronas observes 28 years of aid for migrants en route in Guadalupe

Sources:  BBC, The Guardian

This month, the volunteer group Las Patronas observed 28 years of providing aid for migrants and asylum seekers as they are passing en route through Guadalupe, Mexico.

The volunteer group, whose name means “The Bosses” in English, is composed entirely of women. This work began when the two sisters - the Romero Vasquez sisters - witnessed a group of migrants on a passing freight train. The sisters were holding grocery bags, and many of the people on the train called out saying they were hungry, Norma Romero recounted to the BBC. The sisters threw bread and cartons of milk to them.

Their mother, Dona Leonidas, then began a plan to prepare meals to hand out to passing trains of migrants en route. The operation took off and they began packing dozens of meals of rice, beans, and corn tortillas to hand out daily.

Many of the people passing through their town are coming from Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua and are heading to the US. Migration from these countries is not new and has spanned many decades as people flee violence, persecution and extreme poverty. 

In 2018, an article from The Guardian investigated the role of US foreign policy in creating the conditions many people are fleeing from in these countries. 

“The destabilisation in the 1980s - which was very much part of the US cold war effort - was incredibly important in creating the kind of political and economic conditions that exist in those countries today,” Christy Thornton, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University, told The Guardian. 

Today, Las Patronas continue their crucial work and are spreading the word of their mission on social media.

“28 years of work at the foot of the road,” the group wrote on Twitter, originally in Spanish, “38 years of work to achieve a better community, a better country, and, why not, a better world.”