Social development and economic growth in Central America have been stymied by a dramatic rise in crime and violence — particularly in the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. While the homicide rate has declined in Honduras, it is still unacceptably high. In El Salvador, the statistics from 2015 are truly alarming — over 100 murders per 100,000 people. This surpasses the murder rate at the peak of El Salvador’s civil war in the 1980s.
The recent wave of insecurity is rooted in increased gang violence and international crime, as well as deep-seated issues of social and economic inequity, and lack of economic opportunity for vast segments of society. Economic productivity in Central America has grown slowly over the last decade, and underemployment hovers between 30 and 40 percent in the Northern Triangle.
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