SOCIAL EXCLUSION: GUATEMALAN YOUTH WITHIN COFFEE PLANTATIONS AT SOCONUSCO CHIAPAS

Abstract

Mexico's southern border is the entry point for different migratory flows, mainly from Central America, these flows have taken place under socioeconomic contexts and conditions which demand the constant livelihood strategies pursuit from people. This paper is focused on the agricultural laborers from Guatemalan origin, within coffee plantation farms at the Soconusco, Chiapas. The main objective is arguing how the lack of access -or restricted access- to education and the precarious inclusion to work and migration, have positioned youth population of migrant laborers, from Guatemalan origin, into social processes of social exclusion and vulnerability. It is concluded that conditions generated from these processes, preclude the generation of different work expectations, the access to a higher quality of life and the social mobility in a men and woman development crucial stage. The exposed information comes from quantitative and qualitative research methods. A nonrandom survey was applied to 129 families; 20 semi-structured interviews for children and adolescents within farms and 25 to actors involved in the recognition and performance of the human rights of migrant children in the southern Mexican border area.

Keywords

• migration
• education
• precarious work
• vulnerability
• Chiapas
• Guatemala