My face, their stories: Kirén Miret
Kirén Miret is lending her face to Ricardo so that she can tell us his story.
You can also lend your face and be part of #MyFaceTheirStories, by using the Instagram filter.
Kiren Miret is a Mexican television producer and businesswoman. She has worked for MTV, Associated Press, Biography Channel, National Geographic, CNN, A&E, Channel of the Supreme Court, Channel 22, Gobierno del Distrito Federal, Glitz among others. Also, she is the author of four children's books that have become a benchmark among the children's audience and the primary and secondary teachers.
My name is Ricardo, I am 24 years old and I am from Honduras.
In my country, discrimination and homophobia can be a matter of life and death, which always kept us living in fear, since my brother and I are homosexuals. We both worked in a shopping mall and we were fortunate that both our colleagues and our boss were good to us.
This job gave us some stability, since from a very young age we had had to fend for ourselves. However, our life changed when the manager of the shopping mall complained to our boss, saying "It seems like you only hire gay people around here." so they fired all of us a couple of days later.
In spite of everything, I tried to start a wedding decoration business but it didn’t went as planned, since some gang members tried to collect the "war tax" from us. In Honduras, if you choose not to pay for this type of threat, they kill you and your family in front of everyone.
We were terrified, since our deadline to pay was barely two days, so we took the decision to flee our country. You never imagine having to leave everything, but we had no choice. We had no security to continue living there and if we had stayed, we would probably be dead by now.
No one deserves to have to escape like that. We had to left without telling anyone, not even our best friends. We pretended just going to work, but we just didn't come back. It is painful to leave your country, to abandon your dreams, your goals and the little you have achieved. By the time we started travelling, all we had was the clothes we had on, nothing more.
When we entered Mexican territory we were very afraid as we did not know what we would face in a country we did not know. I remember one day that we were able to walk until 9 pm without any rest, but then migration stopped us.
I am diabetic and I had a container filled with ice to keep my insulin fresh. Nonetheless it was confiscated because it was forbidden for arrested people to have syringes. We constantly had to beg to be allowed to inject myself and therefore my health was deteriorating day by day. We spent 25 days in an immigration station and only managed to get out when we applied for a refugee status.
Today we have managed to start a new life in Mexico. Watching my brother in an environment where he does not live in constant fear makes me feel reassured that we made the right choice, but we still have to face the disadvantages that xenophobia creates for Honduran people.
The names shown in this story were changed to protect the identity of the displaced persons who are part of it.
Now that you know Ricardo’s story, it's your turn to share it.
By using the “MyFaceTheirStories” filter, you are accepting the use of your image as part of our campaign. Click here to learn more about it.