©UNHCR/Daniele Volpe


A young member of the Pérez family, who was forced to flee El Salvador, sits in his new home in the southern state of Chiapas, Mexico.


HOW CAN A GIRL’S LIFE BE


DEFINED BY DEATH? A personal look at the world of Children on the Run By Jean-Nicolas Beuze, UNHCR Canada Representative Last


fall, I travelled to Honduras, meeting children


sheltered in a project supported by UNHCR. To break the ice, I asked what you might ask any teen: “What’s your dream when you grow up?” To my surprise, quite a few kids responded, “I want to be a forensic pathologist.” I immediately thought of the influence of television series like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation or Bones, but I rapidly realized my mistake when Charleston*, a 17-year-old girl, spoke up.


*Name has been changed to protect her identity. 24 / UNHCR CANADA


Charleston revealed that her life has been marked by the violent deaths of loved ones. At age two, her dad was killed by criminal gangs operating in her poor neighbourhood; murdered.


10 years later, her older brother was


She does not quite know the reason for these killings. What she does know, is that at age 14, she was “used by the gang”—her own words to describe being raped.


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