By Abbe Sudvarg
This summer I will return to Guanacaste, Honduras for my fifth annual medical mission trip. Guanacaste is a profoundly poor, mountain community of approximately 400 people. They have lived for generations without clean water, electricity or health care. Under the auspices of the small non-governmental organization (NGO), Washington Overseas Mission, our group of 10 U.S. citizens has seen the health of Guanacaste’s citizens improve significantly. We have provided materials and hens for the building of a community chicken coop. The children are better nourished. Clean water now flows to Guanacaste and the children have fewer parasites. Contraception has allowed more time between pregnancies. Vitamins have improved the quality of the pregnancies and early childhood health. Chronic illnesses are being managed.
Because of the location of Guanacaste, in the southwest near the El Salvadorean border, the one health danger that the people of this community do not fear is the terrible violence that is rampant in other parts of the country. San Pedro Sula, in northwest Honduras, is the most dangerous city in the world outside of the Middle East. Murder, including drug trafficking related homicides, is a daily part of the lives and communities of the people living in much of Honduras. A sad consequence of the violence is the separation of children from their parents. Last summer, the influx of unaccompanied minors from Mexico and Central America into the United States was front page news. The children were sent north by parents who were trying to protect them. And what has the U.S. response been? Some children are living with family members who were already residing legally in the U.S. Some are still being held in detention centers. And in 2014, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse of Syracuse University, 4,000 of these Honduran juveniles were deported.
According to the Department of State website, the U.S. priorities in Honduras are listed as “being aimed at promoting a healthy and more open economy capable of sustainable growth, improving the climate for business and investment, protecting U.S. citizen and corporate rights, and promoting the well-being and security of the Honduran people”.
Deporting minors back to the country from which they have fled certainly does not promote the well-being or security of children who come to our country for safety.
Drug trafficking in Central America, including Honduras, is a colossal threat to the safety and security of its citizens. But solutions advanced by the U.S. are abysmal failures. We have spent more than $20 billion dollars in the last decade to thwart the drug traffic from Central America. But, according to Congressman Eliot Engel, the Ranking Member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, “Billions upon billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars have been spent over the years to combat the drug trade in Latin America and the Caribbean. In spite of our efforts, the positive results are few and far between.”
Our priorities in Honduras, and in all of Central America, should involve health and education—yet U.S. corporate rights receive higher billing on the State Department list. Dollars spent on the War on Drugs could bring true development to impoverished communities in the Americas. Surely, in the interest of a more sane and humane policy toward refugees who come from countries close to our border, a fraction of these dollars could be spent integrating these children into the safe haven our nation can provide.
This article was originally published in our 2015 annual newsletter.
