Latin America has the highest homicide rate for young adults in the world, with the Caribbean a close second, a global study by a Brazilian research group shows. Based on figures from 83 countries, a person age 15 to 24 is almost 15 times more likely to be murdered in Latin America than in Canada, says the group. The spread is even greater when Latin American rates are compared with those in several of the safer European and Asian countries. El Salvador, Venezuela, Guatemala, and Brazil have some of the highest murder rates according to a new study looking at violence in the region from a Brazilian think tank. The Young People of Latin America is produced by Brasilia-based Latin American Technological Information Network. Its researchers drew on recorded murder totals from 2002 to 2005, and also give historical trends as well as overall murder rates.
The most dangerous country surveyed is El Salvador, where the annual murder rate for young people is 92 per 100,000, and rising. Murder rates for the young also are increasing in Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Paraguay, the study shows.
Al Jazeera’s Lucia Newman reports from Buenos Aires, where she takes a look at some of the reasons behind the alarming statistics.