Jenni is a 19-year-old from Guatemala travelling to the US with her brother, Christian. She has another brother and sister who stayed behind in Guatemala. Her mother works as a housewife and her father is a bricklayer. But her parents are also pastors at an evangelical Christian church.
Jenni believes her father is a well-respected figure in the community because of his generous work as a pastor.
“All the people love him.”
When Jenni graduated from high school, she began working as a cleaner in a house in Guatemala City, 4 hours from her family home in Morales. She didn’t like working in the house, cooking and cleaning, She preferred to get up at 6 in the morning and go with her dad to work as a mason. She liked the fact that people were surprised to see a working girl with sweat on her brow. She helped her father build their local church.
Jenni tells me Guatemala is dangerous. Where she lived in Morales there are many gangs. There is a plaza called “La Línea” where men spend their time drinking. A lot these men are armed with guns, she tells me. They intimidate women and she says girls have been taken in cars and raped and killed.
According to Amnesty International, thousands of people continue to flee Guatemala to escape high levels of inequality, violence, impunity and corruption. Human Rights Watch reports that violence and extortion by powerful criminal organisations remain serious problems in Guatemala.
”Gang-related violence is an important factor prompting people, including unaccompanied youth, to leave the country.”
Christian called Jenni the evening before he was leaving for the caravan to ask her if she wanted to come. She had less than 24 hours to decide if she would join him. Jenni’s father didn’t want her to travel in the caravan because he believed it would be too dangerous, but she left anyway.
Jenni wants to live in the United States so she can work and help her parents. She doesn’t speak English, and she is unsure how she will learn if she has no money. She has an aunt who lives in the US who will help her settle.
