Cartels forcibly recruit minors in five states while the government remains silent

Mexican cartels have intensified the forced recruitment of minors in several regions of the country. A report from the Ministry of the Interior reveals that the most affected states are Baja California, Guerrero, Michoacán, Guanajuato, and Zacatecas.Meanwhile, the federal government remains silent and looks the other way.

The Network for Children's Rights estimates that more than 145,000 minors are at risk of being captured by organized crime. Criminal groups use them as lookouts, distributors, drug planters, and even hitmen. The State has simply lost control of the territory and childhood.

Narco-minors: the new reality of Mexico

In Tijuana and Mexicali, the Sinaloa Cartel and the CJNG recruit teenagers for drug trafficking. In Acapulco and Iguala, they are used for extortion and kidnapping. In Michoacán, the Viagras and the Michoacán Family employ them to plant and monitor.

In Guanajuato and Zacatecas, the cartels push them into robbery, extortion, and fentanyl trafficking. They are no longer collateral victims; now they are a direct target of organized crime. All this happens without a clear national strategy for child protection.

Recruitment through networks and violence

Crime no longer only uses threats.
Now it recruits minors through social networks, video games, and fake job offers. They promise money, belonging, or "protection" and end up turning them into instruments of death.

In places like Teuchitlán, Jalisco,training and extermination centers were found where the CJNG tortures and trains recruited youths.
That ranch is already compared to a concentration camp.

The government allows Mexican childhood to be used as cannon fodder

The strategy of hugs not only failed, it also abandoned a generation.
There are no effective programs, no state presence, no response.
Only statements and statistics that mask a daily tragedy.

Each recruited minor is a cry that the State ignores. While criminals advance with impunity, the government continues to manage the tragedy.
Childhood in Mexico is not at risk: it is already in the hands of the narco.

Today, it's not enough to be outraged. We must point out, document, and demand. Because in a country where children are cannon fodder, the real crime is indifference.
And the real accomplice is the power that looks the other way.