What are the main challenges of climate migration in Mesoamerica today?
This is the focus of a recent research carried out by Ayuda en Acción, Helvetas and People in Need, members of Alliance2015. Discover its key findings!
Research on climate migrations in Mesoamerica
During 2023 and 2024 Ayuda en Acción, Helvetas and People in Need, members of Alliance2015, have developed a comparative research in rural areas of the Mesoamerican migration corridors to analyse the influence of climate and socio-environmental events on human mobility.
The study was based on interviews in 12 communities in Mexico (Unión Juárez and Cacahoatán), Guatemala (Jocotán, Camotán and Esquipulas), El Salvador (La Unión and Pasaquina), Honduras (Ocotepeque and Choluteca) and Nicaragua (Dipilto, Somoto and Estelí). The results will be available soon, but we can already advance some of the main conclusions.
Climate migration has a woman’s face
With regard to the reasons for migrating by gender, the research has detected that, although they are similar for men and women, there are significant differences when natural disasters are the main reason for leaving. Thus, twice as many women as men attribute their main reason for migrating to natural disasters. In other words, migration due to natural disasters in the region has a woman’s face.
In addition, the majority of women believe that migration is a result of climate change. Of the women surveyed, 54.5% believe that migration is caused by the dangers of climate events, compared to 43.5% of men. Therefore, women are more aware of climate risks and associate their daily lives with the effects of climate events.
Climate migration and youth
The report shows that younger people are more sensitive and sympathetic to the effect that climate events are having on migration flows. On the contrary, as age increases, people are less likely to associate climate events as a driver of migration. According to the people consulted, 66.5% of those between 20 and 29 years old consider that migration is the result of the problems generated by the dangers of climate events. On the other hand, 26.5% of those aged 50-59 years old feel the same way.
Human mobility challenges in the Dry Corridor
In recent decades, Mesoamerica has been affected by heavy rains and storms, as well as droughts and extreme weather events of a magnitude and recurrence never seen before.
Another relevant factor in the Mesoamerican Corridor is that it is an irregular transit territory for migrants from South America, the Caribbean and, in recent years, also for people from outside the continent, such as Afghans or African countries. It is also a point of departure for irregular migration due to the lack of transit and mobility routes.
Between 2013 and 2022, migration to the north of the continent has shown an increasing flow, with thousands of people heading to the United States and even Mexico due to the lack of safety and decent living conditions in their places of origin. It is worth stressing that the majority of people who migrate do so irregularly due to the lack of safe routes and migration containment policies. The increase in mobility has also generated a greater number of returned migrants, most of whom were in an irregular situation in the United States and Mexico and were intercepted along the way.
