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Edition: U.S. Article Comments (1) Follow Reuters Facebook Twitter RSS YouTube Read IMF cuts U.S. growth forecast, warns of crisis 12:20pm EDT Rebecca Black's "Friday" video in legal battle 2:17pm EDT New York same sex marriage vote delayed 3:50pm EDT UPDATE 3-RIM swoons on grim results, shareholders fret 4:19pm EDT Quick Guide to the Greek crisis 9:21am EDT Discussed 113 Obama weighs new steps to boost jobs 72 Republicans to debate, with Romney the frontrunner 60 Delaware police interview teen about Congressman Weiner Watched Airbus' view of flying in the future Mon, Jun 13 2011 Hefner, fiancee split; Schwarzenegger mistress talks Wed, Jun 15 2011 Gloom deepens for Research in Motion 3:26am EDT Mexican teenage girls train as drug cartel killers Tweet Share this Email Print Related News Indonesia cleric linked to terror attacks gets 15 years Thu, Jun 16 2011 Syrians flee military move on restive northern town Tue, Jun 14 2011 Financial transparency skin-deep at medical journals Wed, Jun 8 2011 Special Report: Inside Germany's E.coli hunt Tue, Jun 7 2011 "Dr. Death," Jack Kevorkian, dies at 83 Fri, Jun 3 2011 Analysis & Opinion â€œEvery original idea seems crazy at firstâ€ 5% or bust: more on America’s growth potential Related Topics World » By Dave Graham MEXICO CITY | Fri Jun 17, 2011 3:51pm EDT MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Dwarfed by surrounding reporters and with her head bowed to avoid the television cameras, the slender 16-year-old hesitated slightly before she answered the question. "I'm a hitwoman," she said. Maria Celeste Mendoza was among six teenage suspected gang members arrested this week by police after a shoot-out with authorities in central Mexico, one of the growing ranks of young people working for the country's drug cartels. Dressed in combat fatigues and with her face hidden, the girl from the northern border state of Tamaulipas described how she had been trained to use Kalashnikov assault rifles and other weapons by the Zetas, one of Mexico's most brutal gangs. In a listless drawl, Mendoza said she was paid 12,000 pesos ($1,000) for two weeks' work, more than three times the national average. Although she said she was trained as a hitwoman, it was unclear if she had killed anyone yet. As is customary in Mexico, she and the other suspects, six of whom were women aged 21 or below, were paraded in front of the media by police after their capture in San Cristobal de la Barranca, near the country's second city, Guadalajara. Rising youth unemployment, easy access to drugs and the quick cash cartels offer recruits are all blamed for felling the delinquency that has cast a shadow over Mexico's future. "Organized crime has become a job provider for a section of the population who don't have a lot of other options," said Victor Clark-Alfaro, director of the Binational Center for Human Rights in Tijuana on the Mexican border with California. "Since 2000, the age at which people start getting mixed up in organized crime has fallen," he added. "And in the last few years, the age has dropped to about 17 or 18." Detailed figures on the role of minors in the cartels are scarce, but newspaper Reforma said the number charged with involvement in organized crime jumped to 214 last year from 8 in 2007, citing data from the attorney general's office. The arrest of Mendoza and another 16-year-old girl with her, Isela Sandoval, is part of the trend. Sandoval also said she had been trained as a hitwoman but that she had not killed anyone yet, according to Mexican media reports. Around 40,000 people have died in escalating drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderon sent in the army to try to crush the cartels at the end of 2006. LIVE FAST, DIE YOUNG Although authorities have arrested a number of teenage hitmen in the past few years, it is highly unusual for women to work as killers for drug gangs, said Clark-Alfaro. "This may just be an isolated case. But it may mean a new pattern is emerging in the world of organized crime," he said. Last December, Mexican soldiers captured suspected drug gang hitman Edgar Jimenez, known as "El Ponchis," a 14-year-old U.S. citizen who the army said had admitted killing several people while under the influence of drugs. The vast quantities of narcotics moving across the country toward the lucrative markets of Europe and the United States have helped to turn Mexicans onto drugs earlier than before. "Kids are starting to take drugs younger and younger," said Alberto Islas, a security expert at consultancy Risk Evaluation. "A decade ago, the average age was 14, now it's 10. This has the effect of lowering their perception of risks." Coupled with the fact that youth unemployment is now double what it was ten years ago -- in a country whose growing population is one of the youngest in the Americas -- the trends present the cartels with a rich source of cheap labor. "Young folk are recruited because they're potentially more aggressive and less likely to care about the consequences than adults. They'll take more risks," said Clark-Alfaro. He said it is often a short career with the attorney general's office calculating that young men who get mixed up in organized crime will, on average, be dead within three or four years. The Network for the Rights of Children in Mexico (REDIM), an advocacy group, says some 30,000 children are believed to work for criminal gangs in Latin America's No.2 economy, where delinquency is often blamed on high drop-out rates at school. But even those who remain in the classroom are far from safe from the allure of drugs, guns and crime. A 2009 government survey of some 55,000 secondary schoolchildren in five Mexican cities showed more than one in five had seen classmates carry a weapon and that one in eight would sell marijuana for cash if a friend egged them on. Those who graduate toward the cartels can expect a brutal schooling from their new teachers, according to the testimony of Miguel Ortiz Miranda, a member of La Familia cartel captured last year, whose interrogation later surfaced on Youtube. In graphic detail, he calmly described how new assassins were quickly put to the test with selected victims. "We made (the new ones) kill them, and slit their throats and quarter them and all that. So that the new people would lose their fear of cutting an arm ... or a leg," he said. Others end up as drug dealers, fixers or watchmen but those safer jobs do not always pay as well, according to Beatriz Hernandez, 21, one of the other women arrested with Mendoza, who said she earned 4,000 pesos every two weeks as a look-out. With Mexico struggling to clean up its justice system or create more decent jobs, some young people see gangland murders as a real career option. "This is about the impunity here," Islas said. "Because of it, the perception of risk attached to committing this kind of crime is very low. Murders are not solved in Mexico." (Additional reporting by Mica Rosenberg; Editing by Kieran Murray) World Tweet this Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/ Comments (1) jway wrote: On June 17, 1971, President Nixon told Congress that “if we cannot destroy the drug menace in America, then it will surely destroy us.” Well, after forty years of trying we *haven’t* been able to destroy the “drug menace” in America and it *hasn’t* destroyed us, so he was flat out wrong! Actions taken as a result of this invalid assumption (eg the federal marijuana prohibition) should be ended immediately! It makes no sense for taxpayers to fund the federal marijuana prohibition when it *doesn’t* prevent people from using marijuana and it *does* make criminals incredibly wealthy and incite the Mexican drug cartels to murder thousands of people every year. We need legal adult marijuana sales in supermarkets, gas stations and pharmacies for exactly the same reason that we need legal alcohol and tobacco sales – to keep unscrupulous black-market criminals out of our neighborhoods and away from our children. Marijuana must be made legal to sell to adults everywhere that alcohol and tobacco are sold. Jun 17, 2011 4:42pm EDT -- Report as abuse See All Comments » Add Your Comment Social Stream (What's this?) © Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters Editorial Editions: Africa Arabic Argentina Brazil Canada China France Germany India Italy Japan Latin America Mexico Russia Spain United Kingdom United States Reuters Contact Us Advertise With Us Help Journalism Handbook Archive Site Index Video Index Reader Feedback Mobile Newsletters RSS Podcasts Widgets Your View Analyst Research Thomson Reuters Copyright Disclaimer Privacy Professional Products Professional Products Support Financial Products About Thomson Reuters Careers Online Products Acquisitions Monthly Buyouts Venture Capital Journal International Financing Review Project Finance International PEhub.com PE Week FindLaw Super Lawyers Attorney Rating Service Reuters on Facebook Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests. NYSE and AMEX quotes delayed by at least 20 minutes. Nasdaq delayed by at least 15 minutes. For a complete list of exchanges and delays, please click here.

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