How Mexico’s Cartels Recruit Children and Groom Them to Become Killers

Sol recalls her first murder for a Mexican cartel: a kidnapping she committed with a group of young recruits that led to torture and eventually murder. She was 12 years old.

Sol had joined the cartel a few months earlier, recruited by someone she met while selling roses on the sidewalk outside a local bar. She started as a lookout but quickly rose through the ranks.

The cartel liked her childlike enthusiasm for learning new skills, her unconditional loyalty, and, perhaps most importantly, her status as a minor, which protected her from harsh punishment if police caught her.

“I obeyed the boss blindly,” said Sol, now 20, from the rehabilitation center in central Mexico where she is trying to rebuild her life. “I thought they loved me.”

Sol declined to reveal how many people she killed during her time with the cartel. She said she had been addicted to methamphetamine since she was nine. At 16, she was arrested for kidnapping—her only criminal conviction—and spent three years in juvenile detention, according to her lawyer.

Although 15 security experts and cartel members say child recruitment is increasingly common, a lack of concrete data makes it difficult to track the problem.

The U.S. government’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs estimates that about 30,000 children have joined criminal groups in Mexico. Advocacy groups say the number of vulnerable children at risk of recruitment is as high as 200,000. It is unclear how these numbers have changed over time, although experts say that children being recruited are getting younger.