How Exposure to Acts of Violence Affects the Mental Health of Children in Mexico Alyssa Navarro - Tech Times
go to original December 22, 2015

A Mexican teacher was honored in 2011 after video footage showed her calming pupils with song as a gun battle raged outside her school. (sharky734)

A little kid runs frantically into an empty room, cowers down into a corner and puts each of his hands on the sides of his head. Outside, the sounds of gunshots linger in the air. A mass murder has just occurred.

Situations similar to the one above happen in different times and different places. Mass murders in particular had occurred in Juarez, Mexico - a place once known as the murder capital of the world. Unfortunately, little kids are helpless witnesses to the acts of violence and terror that happen in places like Juarez.

A new study in the United States explained that the trauma from such events negatively affects the mental health of children, making them more likely to have greater levels of emotional and behavioral problems. The findings of the study are featured in the journal Salud Mental.

Researchers from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) in El Paso found that children living in Juarez are harmfully affected by their exposure to mass murders, bombings, kidnappings, and decapitations. All these are linked to the city's drug violence.

...Issues like attention deficit disorder, depression, anxiety, aggression and withdrawal were three times higher in children in Juarez than in children in El Paso. Children in Juarez were also found to have high scores compared to children with hearing impairments, brain injuries, and those who whose parents had substance abuse.

Read the rest at Tech Times

Related: Orphanage Suffers from Mexican Violence (KRGV)

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!