“Sorry, where is that again?” I was born in a small country in Central America called Panamá.
You might have heard of it. Maybe it was because of the Canal or because you are educated in geography. Growing up in Panamá is hard to explain to people; I did not grow up with just one culture surrounding or defining me. Panamá was built by multiple people from diverse countries, cultures and ideologies. It is a “melting pot” of identities and peoples. Panamá was founded by the Spanish, then became a part of “Gran Colombia,” and the French decided to build a canal. However, the French ultimately failed at building the canal, Americans took over the project, and many more people migrated to help finish building it.
As you can understand through this brief history, I grew up in a space where no culture was disregarded, where everyone was everything. We have coined the term “mestizo.” This is a word to describe a person who is mixed, with Indigenous, Spanish, Black and Asian DNA. In a study done on Panamá’s racial mixture, according to Human Rights Watch, 38.72 percent of genes from the genetic pool have an African origin, 35.87 percent have an Amerindian origin and 25.40 percent have a Caucasian origin. This only covers information for one province out of 10.
We have always been a diverse country full of different cultures and identities. Nowadays, with the discovery of the migration path in the Darién jungle, now named the “Darién Gap,” more and more people have entered Panamá’s pool of cultures and identities. This migration path was “discovered” by the Global North in the late ’90s. It started out as an unrecognized path, with only a few thousand people passing through each year (usually to reach the United States).
Last year, it was calculated that half a million people passed through the jungle, a record number. The problem with this passage is that it is not completely walkable. The path is actually multiple paths within a series of mountains and rivers that are rocky and dense. The terrain is basically impenetrable, which results in a lack of policing and understanding of the area and continuing neglect by the Panamanian and Colombian authorities. This has caused criminal organizations to take control of the area.
As reported by the UNHCR and Human Rights Watch, “Crimes against migrants and asylum seekers in the Darién Gap, including pervasive cases of sexual violence, go largely uninvestigated and unpunished on both sides of the border. Accountability for these abuses is rare, due to a combination of limited resources and personnel, a lack of a criminal investigation strategy for these cases, and poor coordination between Colombian and Panamanian authorities.”
Though this article reports on the faultiness of the actions of the Panamanian and Colombian governments, I think there is a third party at fault: the governments and citizens of the Global North.
Since starting this article, you have probably asked yourself the question: Why did I not know about the Darién Gap before reading this? In recent years, I have had the privilege to live in multiple countries in the Global North. As someone from the Global South, I have often found it difficult to understand why issues of the Global South do not receive big media attention and are never reported on. It has been a persistent question I have asked myself, one that I started to think about recently as I worked to spread the word about this issue. I noticed the lack of knowledge and awareness of one of the biggest human migrations in our world today.
The Global North refuses to recognize the Global South’s issues as immediate or “important.” This mindset is what causes our world to be in a constant state of instability and chaos. We know that without the help of the wealthier countries, things will not change, yet there is no acknowledgement by those countries. There is no acknowledgement in the media or people.
The Darién Gap is one of many issues that falls below the belt of recognition, as I will call it, for the Global North. If it is not affecting them and will not cost them money, why would they get involved? Why would they help? These are the questions that establish what falls above the belt of recognition and what falls below.
Dividing human rights issues in this way is inherently flawed and, in my opinion, evil. The Global North has the power to change things for the better but do not exert their influence. I understand the economic and political factors, but what about the humanitarian factors and human sympathy? Is there really no part of their hearts that feels for those in the Darién Gap, in Venezuela’s unstable government and economy, the alarming numbers of femicide in Mexico, the displacement of, per Global Focus, 7.2 million people from Democratic Republic of Congo?
Global Northerners have the power to change the lives of millions but refuse to acknowledge these issues. If the media or government will not educate you, you must educate yourself. You owe it to yourself to look past what is presented to you, dig deeper and understand that our world is built on hierarchical systems of power that you live at the top of in the United States.