Migrant women grapple with restrictive U.S. abortion laws after sexual violence
Mexican cartels are using sexual violence as a weapon against migrants. Women are finding themselves pregnant after crossing the U.S. border, and facing abortion bans.
Six weeks after a young asylum-seeker from El Salvador crossed into the U.S. from Mexico, she realized she was carrying a rape-related pregnancy.
The woman — who like the other women interviewed for this article aren’t being identified for security reasons — said she was sexually assaulted by the Mexican cartel that was holding her hostage in the dangerous border town of Reynosa, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, just a few miles from the U.S. border.
Once in Texas and unable to get an abortion, she found herself stuck between America’s immigration system and the state's abortion ban.
She’s not alone. She’s one of an alarming number of migrants who are entering the U.S. with unwanted pregnancies. She’s also a victim of a disturbing pattern of violence that’s emerging on the Mexican side of the border, where cartels are systematically kidnapping and collecting ransom from migrants on their way north. Those who can’t pay with money are made to pay with their bodies.
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