Tlaquepaque, Mexico

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Children living on the edge, 2019

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Tlaquepaque is first and foremost a project about vulnerability, and the restorative power of family. Violence has long formed a significant undercurrent of life in Jalisco, which stretches from the Mexican interior to the Pacific coast and is home to about 8 million people, mostly concentrated in the Guadalajara metropolitan zone.

 

Tlaquepaque, a sprawling and also one of the poorest suburbs of Guadalajara, is home to some 700,000. The area is known to be a dominant base for organised crime as a result of which many inhabitants live in highly marginalized and violent conditions. 

 

Children between the age of 8 and 12 are particularly at risk, as drug cartels find new recruits among kids on the street. Money, clothes, food and medicine - are a few of the perks that they offer to lure street kids to their ranks. Drug use by 10 year olds is not uncommon.