Families torn apart by emigration

Figures published by the INEG (Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography) set at 350,000 the number of emigrants who leave their country for the USA each year in the hope of improving their families’ economic conditions. Of these, 53% are men between the ages of 24 and 39, mostly from the countryside.

Emigration causes a population drain from communities, which lose their main source of labour. It also divides families, leaving those who stay in their countries of origin with no-one to help them. Women are therefore obliged to take responsibility and assume care of the family, while children and members of the group known as the “Third Age” suffer from loneliness and lack of protection.