This week’s episode of the New Security Broadcast explores Invisible Threads: Addressing the Root Causes of Migration from Guatemala by Investing in Women and Girls–a new report from the Population Institute. “We feel like it’s really important to highlight how the lives of women and girls and other marginalized groups are really central to a lot of the issues that are at the root causes of migration from the region,” says Kathleen Mogelgaard, President and CEO of the Population Institute. In this episode, Mogelgaard lays out the report’s findings and recommendations with two fellow contributors: Aracely Martínez Rodas, Director of the Master in Development at the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, and Dr. J. Joseph Speidel, Professor Emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine.

In recent years, a growing proportion of migrants who arrive at the U.S. border come from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. Mogelgaard notes that this surge of migrants has captured political attention in the United States, and one of the most important responses has been the release of the Root Causes Strategy by the Biden-Harris Administration. The Root Causes Strategy illustrates dynamic, complex, and interrelated drivers of migration, including economic insecurity, governance, climate change and environmental degradation, and crime and violence. To gain greater perspective on the regional challenges, the Population Institute report examines how the root causes in the White House strategy play out in one nation: Guatemala.

For Guatemala, one of the main causes of internal migration is the search for employment or higher income, says Aracely Martínez Rodas. Guatemala has the largest economy in Central America, and is considered an upper middle income country. However, half the population lives in poverty. Why is this so? Rodas identifies four structural factors in Guatemala that influence migration trends: 1) The impact of neoliberal policies implemented in the 1980s and 1990s that weakened the state; 2) Violence and structural racism have influenced the state’s ability to provide basic services, security, and living conditions that ensure quality of life; 3) The creation of gaps between middle income populations and low income populations, which often do not receive the same services or experience the same infrastructure, and; 4) A historical migration flux that has strengthened and expanded migration networks, as well as links between family, friends, and communities in Guatemala and in desired destinations. 

Rodas highlights that these historical migratory fluxes and networks are notable because they create a “migrant imaginary.” With the influences of both remittances and digital technology, information about the benefits of migration are easily shared. Thus, the migrant imaginary plays an important part in how people decide to move, she continues, observing that “it’s impossible to prevent.” For men, in particular, migration can be considered a rite of passage. The possibilities of making progress in one’s life offered by leaving outweigh the risks this journey may bring. “Nothing compares to the attraction of migration,” she says. Connecting Guatemala’s migration trends to its demographic profile reveals that the country is on a trajectory to what demographers consider a “stable population.” Dr. Speidel observed that in 1970, there were 5 million people living in Guatemala. Today it’s 17.8 million. “The future might bring as many as 25 million in 2050 or maybe even 40 million in 2100,” Speidel says. Guatemala’s considerable progress in its family planning programming has also been effective, with the country’s total fertility rate (the average number of children each woman will have) reduced from about 5 in 1995 to 2.4 today. “If we get down to that magic number 2.1, then essentially, we’re going to have a stable population,” says Speidel.

Given this demographic profile, the report notes that education is one critical investment towards addressing the root causes of migration. Half of Guatemala’s population is under the age of 22, and Speidel says that education is “sort of the ticket out to a modern world.”

Mogelgaard says that an integrated approach to education that includes family planning and reproductive health services can represent opportunities to better understand how the status of women and girls connects to the root causes of migration. But what about the role of boys in this process? Rodas pointed out that conservative lobbies and religious organizations in Guatemala play a strong role in preventing sexual and reproductive health services from being available, and that they continue to bring about a “machista perspective,” where the view is to control women’s bodies. With this continuing influence on the education of boys, says Rodas, they will grow up in the same context of violence and attempts to control women. If women are more empowered, there inevitably will be conflict. This challenge is why NGOs, for example, need to work alongside religious sectors. If we forget about them, observes Rodas, we will be basically doing nothing.

Mogelgaard hopes that the Invisible Threads report and the conversations it will instigate will not only contribute to the discussion around the U.S. response to the root causes of migration, but also shape the investments that could be made right now. She says that such investments “will help to build a more robust human rights-based, gender-responsive approach to this comprehensive framework on addressing the root causes of migration from the region.”