Countries Guatemala Research Articles

Exploring mechanisms of food insecurity in indigenous agricultural communities in Guatemala: a mixed methods study

The country of Guatemala has one of the highest rates of chronic child malnutrition in the world, which primarily affects the rural, indigenous Maya population. In this study we explore the apparent paradox of endemic food insecurity and child malnutrition coexisting in Maya communities alongside a predominance of agricultural land holdings and food production. A mixed methods design explored food availability and access in a rural indigenous agricultural community, as compared to a nearby urban indigenous community. Structured surveys in both open-air markets and corner stores examined price, quality, and availability of foods. Structured household surveys examined land ownership, crop production, perceptions of food security, and the diversity of children’s diets. Key informant interviews with local farmers clarified findings related to land holdings and farming patterns. Children’s diets demonstrated a lack of diversity, and were especially deficient in dairy, flesh foods, eggs, and vitamin A-rich foods. Food insecurity was highly prevalent, with limited availability of, and access to, nutritionally diverse foods. In particular, the expansion of nontraditional agricultural exports (NTAEs) reduced food availability by displacing subsistence crops. Poor returns on investment for NTAEs limited the available cash for food purchasing, further exacerbating poor diets. Food availability was further reduced by infrequent access to open-air markets in the rural setting as compared to the urban setting, with high risk of food spoilage. As a result much food purchasing was of low-cost, low-quality processed food which, unlike higher-quality fresh foods, were equally affordable and available in both the rural and the urban environment. The proliferation of NTAEs and commoditized foods reduce dietary diversity and displace the production and consumption of fresh, nutritious foods, even in rural communities devoted primarily to food production. Rural agricultural communities in Guatemala therefore bear many resemblances to the urban “food deserts” of higher-income countries.

Arrived: the crisis of unaccompanied children at our southern border.

For me as a pediatrician, the rapid influx of unaccompanied minors at our southern border simultaneously raises eyebrows and clinical concerns. While our elected leaders continue to battle about immigration issues and refugee status, I have had many conversations with fellow pediatricians around the country who are asking the same 2 questions: “What is this situation at the border about?” and “How can I help?” Over the past few years, US Customs and Border Protection agents have seen increasing numbers of unaccompanied children and young families crossing into the United States. Most of these young immigrants come from the Central American countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. Contrary to media portrayal, this is not a new issue. These 3 countries are plagued by poverty, complicated by a growing culture of violence bolstered by an illegal drug trade.1 Although these children have diverse backgrounds, >90% of the children arriving at the border as unaccompanied minors have contact information for a family member living in the United States. Social workers work to contact this person or relative, and if he or she agrees to serve as a “Sponsor,” will conduct a background check of the person. If there are no issues with the background check (which does not include verification of citizenship), the child can be placed with the Sponsor while awaiting a deportation hearing. At this hearing, a child will often be represented by pro bono legal advocates. Some children will qualify for asylum as refugees; others will not, and will be deported. More information about this process is available from the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Some media sources have argued that the unaccompanied children pose an imminent public health threat, and even some elected officials have asserted that these children threaten our communities. These claims range from the … Address correspondence to Loren Robinson, MD, University of Pennsylvania, Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program, 423 Guardian Dr, 13th Floor, Blockley Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19104. E-mail: lorenr{at}upenn.edu

Human Rights and Central American Migrants in Mexico: A Judicial Perspective

Central American immigrants in Mexico are particularly vulnerable and often invisible in the Mexican agenda of human rights. Each year, tens of thousands of men, women and children enter Mexico without legal permission as irregular migrants. More than nine out of ten are from Central America, especially from the countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. This paper presents an analysis of the current situation of Central American migration in Mexico and the historical evolution of migration policy, as well as a study on the violation of human rights of Central American migrants in Mexico as past and current policy, and actions that have been generated and should be taken to ensure their protection.

Community policing in Honduras: local impacts of a national programme

Among the regions of Latin America, the northern triangle of Central America – comprising the countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras – is at once the most promising and inhospitable places for community policing. The complete overhauls of these three countries’ security system with the peace accords in the 1990s opened up an unprecedented opportunity to re-structure and re-think the idea of citizen security. Each country had a revamped and civilianised police force supported by international training and a set of accountability agencies. Guatemala, for example, formed a National Human Rights Office, a police Human Rights Office, a Professional Responsibility Office to investigate charges of abuse, and a Disciplinary Regime Section. These countries also underwent thorough judicial reforms, such as by expanding courts and preventive measures geared toward youth at risk. Combined with strong local identities, particularly among indigenous communities in Guatemala, such conditions appeared to give community policing a strong basis for success.

INTRAINDUSTRY SPECIALIZATION AND THE UNITED STATES–CENTRAL AMERICA–DOMINICAN REPUBLIC FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

This paper examines changes in intraindustry specialization indicators over the 1992–2004 period to assess the potential for structural adjustment problems that may arise in the United States with growth in trade resulting from the United States–Central America–Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA‐DR) between the United States and six Central American countries—Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic. CAFTA‐DR will expand market access for US exporters. Few US industries are likely to encounter structural adjustment problems. Given the relatively large size of the US economy, and the small number of industries that face potential adjustment pressures, the United States should have liberalized all trade immediately. When potential adjustment pressures are indicated, long tariff phaseouts, complex rules of origin, and import safeguards are used to delay factor adjustments in import‐sensitive industries.

Availability of HIV Care in Central America

Central America is an area with a growing human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic, but with marked limitations in its health care infrastructure. Estimated adult HIV infection rates range from 0.20% in Nicaragua to 2.01% in Belize. Hospitals and clinicians with experience in HIV care exist mainly, if not only, in capital cities and principal economic centers. Nationally sponsored social security systems in each country consistently offer a wider range of services than do ministry of health systems. Estimated access to the social security system ranges from 0% in Belize and 10% of the population in Honduras to 95% in Costa Rica. Combination antiretroviral therapy is not available through the ministries of health and zidovudine is only sporadically available for prevention of perinatal transmission. Combination therapy is available through the social security system in the countries of Guatemala, Panama, and Costa Rica only. A wide variety of antiretroviral agents are available through private pharmacies in all countries except Belize. With the exception of Costa Ricans, most people with HIV infection in Central America have limited access to HIV-specific health services and limited or no access to antiretroviral agents.

Earthquakes and Seismic Hazards in Central America

INTRODUCTION The high levels of seismicity and thus seismic hazard in Central America are evident from the regular occurrence of large earthquakes. The steadily increasing levels of seismic risk in the same region are demonstrated by increasing damage and losses from these earthquakes, connected in general to increasing urbanization and infrastructure complexity. As such Central America constitutes one of the most important regions to focus on under the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR), and there is now a substantial number of projects and programs in the region under IDNDR auspices. In this note we will describe some of the activities within and results from one of these projects, namely “Reduction of Natural Disaster in Central America, Earthquake Preparedness and Hazard Mitigation.” Building on a parallel Swedish effort, this project was set up in 1991 between Norway and the Central American countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa...

The Central American Model of Growth: Crisis for Whom?

INTRODUCTION Limited by their short-sighted vision, annual conjunctures, and sectorial analyses of economic life, many studies of Central American reality yield little understanding either of the model of development that is being applied in the region or to the significance of the ups and downs that the Central American economies experience as a result of its application. Many such analyses and their predictions are based on variations in foreign commerce, resulting in optimistic visions of development that depend on the level of coffee prices that are determined ten thousand kilometers away in the developed countries. Thus, frosts in Brazil are celebrated as brief victories for the local export economy. This apologetic position, an easy one to adopt if one is working with traditional statistical indicators, is unconsciously based on an ideological vision that results in the utilization of a theoretical apparatus that carelessly disregards specific characteristics of dependent societies. Central America as a region has a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of more than U.S. $12,000 million (1976), seventh highest' in Latin America, and a population of 17.8 million. Central America ranks third in the export of coffee and sugar, second in export of meat, and first in export of bananas to the North American market. The basic common characteristics of Central American economies are defined by the importance of the agrarian sector (25 percent of GDP and about 70 percent of exports) as a source of social wealth and dividends, by a chronic crisis in agricultural production for the internal market, and by the weakness and newness of the industrial structure. At the same time that there are similarities among the countries, there are even more important internal differences in social structures the locus of results of any development pattern as well as in the well-known macroeconomic variables such as population, size, GDP, and GDP per capita, etc. Paradoxically, Costa Rica and Nicaragua are more similar to each other than to the other Central American countries Guatemala and Honduras being the most dissimilar. The well-known success of birth-control policies in Costa Rica (a decline in births from 45 per thousand to 30 per thousand dur* The author, Professor of Sociology, Confederaci6n Universitaria Centroamericana (San Jos6, Costa Rica), specializes in the history of economic development and social structure. The translator received her Masters Degree in Latin American Studies from California State University, Los Angeles. This article was first published in Guatemala by the University of San Carlos in their journal Alero, IV, 1 (May-June 1979), 37-57.