At 14-years-old, Valentina Fernandez* didn't expect to be a mother, let alone as the result of a rape. Soon after celebrating her son's first birthday at their home in Guatemala, the young mother and her son joined the nearly 70,000 unaccompanied minors who made the long journey to the United States in 2014, seeking asylum from the rampant violence and extreme poverty of Central America's Northern Triangle, which has been likened to a war zone.
Fernandez said she didn't come to the U.S. willingly, but the circumstances she faced in her country forced her to leave. Fernandez and her son, Jordan, arrived at a detention center in 2014, where they received physical and mental health care, but she didn't expect the challenges she would face when accessing health care for herself and Jordan once they were released to family members in Los Angeles. And the challenges grew even greater when she became pregnant with her second child.
Border Security Remains Key Issue In Presidential Campaigns. | Photo: John Moore/Getty Images
Nearly 40,000 unaccompanied minors have continued to flood the southwestern border each year since the surge of 2014, the majority coming from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Most of the unaccompanied minors that come to the U.S. are teenage boys, but in 2015, nearly one-third of the 33,000 unaccompanied minors referred to the Department of Health and Human Services were girls. In some cases, the girls are fleeing their country because they were victims of sexual assault. Some girls are raped on their journey to the U.S. and don't learn of their pregnancies until undergoing medical screenings while in U.S. custody.
We are seeing a very high percentage of unaccompanied minors that have been victims of rape or sexual abuse, especially rape by gangs, said Judy London, directing attorney of Public Counsel's Immigrants' Rights Project. The United Nations Office of Human Rights has recognized rape as a weapon of war, and is often used by gangs during turf wars to express their dominance.
More than 1,123 cases of rape were registered with El Salvador's National Civil Police in the first 8 months of 2015. 597 of the cases reported were cases where a minor or handicapped person was raped. Women's rights advocates say that a large number of sexual assault cases go unreported, especially in countries where rape and violence against women occur with impunity.
In 2014, there was a total of 726 pregnant unaccompanied minors in the care of the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), the number decreased to 456 in 2015 and 367 year-to-date. Customs and Border Protection agents picked up about 21,000 family units in the months of May, June and July, although it is unclear how many of those mothers are under the age of 18.
While the ORR locates family members of unaccompanied minors to take them in, the majority of the children are cared for through a network of about 100 state licensed ORR-funded facilities, some of which are shelters with specialized expertise in caring for pregnant or parenting unaccompanied minors, said Victoria Palmer, public affairs specialist for the Department of Health and Human Services, in an email.
There are huge challenges for a young mother to find herself terrified of deportation in a new country with absolutely no support provided by our government while their asylum claims are pending. The children may have access to therapy and medical care while in the care of ORR, but once they're released the government obligation tends to end, said London.
The government is not recognizing a right to counsel for unaccompanied minors, so it's extremely difficult for a child to find a lawyer. Then you add the challenge of a child who is herself a young mother and the baby is also put in removal proceedings, there's challenges everywhere you look. All unaccompanied minors are vulnerable, but the pregnant girls are so much more vulnerable, said London.
Immigrant Respite Center Aids Families Seeking Asylum In U.S. | Photo: John Moore/Getty Images
Before being released to the care of family members in Los Angeles, Fernandez received an address to a clinic from officers at the detention center where she could take her son to get health care. She wasn't able to make an appointment for a check-up because while their asylum cases were pending, they remained undocumented and prior to the passing of Senate Bill 75 in May, undocumented children were only eligible for emergency medical services.
When we were in [the detention center in] Texas we got to see the doctor and when we got to Los Angeles I thought it would be the same, but it wasn't. It made me feel bad to take my son to the doctor and see him get denied care. He couldnt see the dentist either and like all kids, he should be able to see the dentist and get a check up, said Fernandez in Spanish.
The first year was the hardest for the two, said Fernandez's attorney, Lucero Chavez, a staff attorney with Public Counsel's Immigrants' Rights Project. She would help Fernandez make appointments with different social services agencies to get her assistance with services like therapy and housing, but Fernandez was often denied because she was undocumented.
She also didnt have time to go to many appointments because she was working and she wouldve needed to get a babysitter to go and she didnt have money for a babysitter, so it made it harder, said Chavez.
After settling in at her family's home in Los Angeles, Fernandez started attending high school as a sophomore. She would leave her son with a babysitter while she went to school and her part-time job after school at a hair salon.
Because she was told Jordan couldnt receive health care services because he was undocumented, Fernandez feared
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At 14-years-old, Valentina Fernandez* didn't expect to be a mother, let alone as the result of a rape. Soon after celebrating her son's first birthday at their home in Guatemala, the young mother and her son joined the nearly 70,000 unaccompanied minors who made the long journey to the United States in 2014, seeking asylum from the rampant violence and extreme poverty of Central America's Northern Triangle, which has been likened to a war zone.
