Pubdate: Tue, 12 Oct 2010
Source: El Paso Times (TX)
Copyright: 2010 El Paso Times
Contact: http://www.elpasotimes.com/townhall/ci_14227323
Website: http://www.elpasotimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/829
Author: Adriana Gomez Licon
Bookmark: http://mapinc.org/topic/Juarez

JUAREZ VIOLENCE LEAVES THOUSANDS OF CHILDREN ORPHANED, TRAUMATIZED

JUAREZ -- Pedro turned 9 years old the day somebody killed his
father.

A gunman shot him in the head at a convenience store last
summer.

"Pedro was enraged," said his mother, Bertha, a social worker. She did
not want her family's last names to be published for safety reasons.
"I told him that sometimes things happen that we don't understand, but
that his father is with God."

Pedro heard the words, but the violence he experienced changed
him.

Once docile and quiet, he became an angry child, his mother said. He
also began to have breathing problems.

As an epidemic of violence spreads through this border city of 1.3
million, more and more children are left without one or both parents.
Therapists estimate that about 10,000 children have been orphaned
because of drug-cartel violence that exploded in 2008.

Since then more than 6,600 people have been killed in Juarez, giving
the city the unwelcome designation as the world's homicide capital.

Juan Gonzalez, director of a nonprofit organization that offers
psychotherapy for low-income families, said the majority of murder
victims were parents of at least two children. Most of those killed
were between the ages of 20 and 39.

Juarez, a place where murders routinely go unsolved, generally is not
equipped to provide psychological treatment for children who become
orphans. This means that more violence could be simmering just below
the surface, Gonzalez said.

"In 10 or 15 years, these children could become criminals seeking
revenge for losing their parents," he said.

Bertha's oldest son, Humberto, 21, was tempted.

"Some kids told him they were going to help him find who killed his
father if he sold drugs," Bertha said. "They wanted to lure him into
criminal activities."

In terms of psychological help, especially neglected areas are in
northwest and southeast Juarez -- the most dangerous sections of the
city.

Bertha said she cannot afford to drive her three children from the
western outskirts to a clinic that offers psychotherapy. Bertha lives
in a spacious but unfinished house in an area where most streets are
unpaved.

Because her daughter, Ivonne, is a U.S. citizen, Bertha sent her to
school in El Paso, away from the violence. One day in El Paso, Ivonne,
14, cut her arms.

"She told me, 'I did it because I wanted to feel pain like my father
felt when he was killed.' "

Bertha brought Ivonne back home to Juarez.

Therapists want to start a directory of 100 psychologists to reach out
to families such as Bertha's. Other cities in Chihuahua and in Mexico
want to use Juarez as a model to organize similar groups.

Some of the techniques therapists are learning in Juarez are methods
to treat post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Juarez is going through symptoms that are very similar to the ones in
countries in war," Gonzalez said.

The process is hard for children younger than 10 because they are
highly dependent on both parents, he said. But it can be just as hard
for teenagers, who are in the process of finding their identities.

Gonzalez said the treatments in place are for groups because of the
large number of children in need.

Alberto Rodriguez Cervantes, a professor with the Regional Institute
of Family Studies in the city of Chihuahua, has trained therapists in
Juarez on how to treat orphans. He said children suffer from anxiety
and eating and sleeping disorders. They also become students at risk
of failure or quitting school.

Rodriguez said the group of therapists wants to extend training to
police and paramedics because they often are the first to establish
contact with children in murder cases.

"We want to teach them emotional first-aid techniques," he
said.

For instance, sometimes the healing process starts when children get
to see their fallen parent one last time at the crime scene, he said.

Besides the therapists' plans, Chihuahua's new governor promised last
week at his inauguration to confront Juarez's problem of orphanhood.
Cesar Duarte instructed the state Treasury Department to create a fund
of about $8 million to treat children in Juarez who are left without
parents.

Rodriguez said government had not done enough.

"We are very disappointed in the government because there has not been
real support for children facing orphanhood," he said. "But it is a
collateral damage the whole community is suffering from."

In a recent church therapy session for kids coping with orphanhood, a
16-year-old girl looked timid. The teenager twirled her hair
repeatedly and smiled, but it was clear that grief invaded her
thoughts. She wrote on a heart-shaped sheet of paper that sadness
equaled guilt.

One year ago, her father was killed in Juarez.

"I was happy, optimistic. I cared about different things before," she
said. "Now it is the violence." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake