DRUG CARTELS RECRUITING MEXICO'S TEENAGERS

Six Young Women Among Suspected Members of Brutal Zetas Arrested In
Police Shootout

Dwarfed by surrounding reporters and with her head bowed to avoid the
television cameras, the slender 16-yearold hesitated slightly before
she answered the question. "I'm a hit woman," she said.

Maria Celeste Mendoza was among six suspected teenage gang members
arrested this week by police after a shootout 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 ($987) for
two weeks' work, more than three times the national average. Although
she said she was trained as a hit woman, 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 largest 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 eight in 2007.

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.

Although authorities have arrested a number of teenage hit men 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 hit man
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 U.S. have helped turn Mexicans on
to drugs earlier than before.

Coupled with the fact that youth unemployment is now double what it
was 10 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 labour.