Why do more men die from coronavirus than women?

Shutterstock/RoMiEg

Jenny Graves, La Trobe University

All over the world – in China, Italy, the United States and Australia – many more men than women are dying from COVID-19.

Why? Is it genes, hormones, the immune system – or behaviour – that makes men more susceptible to the disease?

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I see it as an interaction of all of these factors and it isn’t unique to the SARS-Cov-2 virus – the different response of men and women is typical of many diseases in many mammals.

The grim figures

In Italy and China deaths of men are more than double those of women. In New York city men constitute about 61% of patients who die. Australia is shaping up to have similar results, though here it’s mostly in the 70-79 and 80-89 age groups.

COVID-19 deaths in Australia (last updated April 19, 2020).
Australian Government, Department of Health

One major variable in severity of COVID-19 is age. But this can’t explain the sex bias seen globally because the increased male fatality rate is the same in each age group from 30 to 90+. Women also live on average six years longer than men, so there are more elderly women than men in the vulnerable population.

The other major factor is the presence of chronic diseases, particularly heart disease, diabetes and cancer. These are all more common in men than women, which might account for some of the bias.

But then we must ask why men are more vulnerable to the diseases that put them at greater risk of COVID-19.

Men and women are biologically different

Men and women differ in their sex chromosomes and the genes that lie on them. Women have two copies of a mid-sized chromosome (called the X). Men have only a single X chromosome and a small Y chromosome that contains few genes.

One of these Y genes (SRY) directs the embryo to become male by kick-starting the development of testes in an XY embryo. The testes make male hormones and the hormones make the baby develop as a boy.

In the absence of SRY an ovary forms and makes female hormones.

It’s the hormones that control most of the obvious visible differences between men and women – genitals and breasts, hair and body type – and have a large influence on behaviour.

The Y chromosome and hormones

The Y chromosome contains hardly any genes other than SRY but it is full of repetitive sequences (“junk DNA”).

Perhaps a “toxic Y” could lose its regulation during ageing. This might hasten ageing in men and render them more susceptible to the virus.

But a bigger problem for men is the male hormones unleashed by SRY action. Testosterone levels are implicated in many diseases, particularly heart disease, and may affect lifespan.

Men are also disadvantaged by their low levels of estrogen, which protects women from many diseases, including heart disease.

Male hormones also influence behaviour. Testosterone levels have been credited with major differences between men and women in risky behaviours such as smoking and drinking too much alcohol, as well as reluctance to heed health advice and to seek medical help.

The extreme differences in smoking rate between men and women in China (almost half the men smoke and only 2% of women) may help to account for their very high ratio of male deaths (more than double female). Not only is smoking a severe risk factor for any respiratory disease, but it also causes lung cancer, a further risk factor.

Smoking rates are lower and not as sex-biased in many other countries, so risky behaviour can’t by itself explain the sex difference in COVID-19 deaths. Maybe sex chromosomes have other effects.

Two X chromosomes are better than one

The X chromosome bears more than 1,000 genes with functions in all sorts of things including routine metabolism, blood clotting and brain development.

The presence of two X chromosomes in XX females provides a buffer if a gene on one X is mutated.

XY males lack this X chromosome backup. That’s why boys suffer from many sex-linked diseases such as haemophilia (poor blood clotting).

The number of X chromosomes also has big effects on many metabolic characters that are separable from sex hormone effects, as studies of mice reveal.

Females not only have a double dose of many X genes, but they may also have the benefit of two different versions of each gene.

This X effect goes far to explain why males die at a higher rate than females at every age from birth.

And another man problem is the immune system.

We’ve known for a long time that women have a stronger immune system than men. This is not all good, because it makes women more susceptible to autoimmune diseases such as lupus and multiple sclerosis.

But it gives women an advantage when it comes to susceptibility to viruses, as many studies in mice and humans show. This helps to explain why men are more susceptible to many viruses, including SARS and MERS.

There are at least 60 immune response genes on the X chromosome, and it seems that a higher dose and having two different versions of these gives women a broader spectrum of defences.

Sex differences in diseases – the big picture

Sex differences in the frequency, severity and treatment efficacy for many diseases were pointed out long ago. COVID-19 is part of a larger pattern in which males lose out – at every age.

This isn’t just humans – it is true of most mammals.

Are sex differences in disease susceptibility simply the by-catch of genetic and hormone differences? Or were they, like many other traits, selected differently in males and females because of differences in life strategy?

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It’s suggested that male mammals spread their genes by winning competitions for mates, hence hormone control of risky behaviour is a plus for men.

It’s also suggested female mammals are selected for traits that enhance their ability to care for young, hence their stronger immune system. This made sense for most mammals through the ages.

So the sex bias in COVID-19 deaths is part of a much larger picture – and a very much older picture – of sex differences in genes, chromosomes and hormones that lead to very different responses to all sorts of disease, including COVID-19.

Jenny Graves, Distinguished Professor of Genetics, La Trobe University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Health Check: why do women live longer than men?

Biology and behaviour can explain why men tend to die younger than women.
From shutterstock.com

Melinda Martin-Khan, The University of Queensland

In Australia, an average baby boy born in 2016 could expect to live to 80, while a baby girl born at the same time could expect to live until closer to 85. A similar gap in life expectancy between men and women is seen around the world.

As we better understand why people die, we’re learning how biological and behavioural factors may partly explain why women live longer than men.

Scientific advancements also impact the health of women and men differently.

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Australian women outlive men then struggle with disadvantage

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Biology and behaviour

While women may live longer than men, they report more illnesses, more doctor visits and more hospital stays than men. This is known as the morbidity-mortality paradox (that is, women are sicker but live longer).

One explanation is that women suffer from illnesses less likely to kill them. Examples of chronic non-fatal illnesses more common in women include migraines, arthritis and asthma. These conditions may lead to poorer health, but don’t increase a woman’s risk of premature or early death.

But men are more susceptible to health conditions that can kill them. For example, men tend to have more fat surrounding their organs (called visceral fat) and women tend to have more fat under their skin (called subcutaneous fat). Visceral fat is a risk factor for coronary heart disease, the leading underlying cause of death for Australian men.

Coronary heart disease, which results from a combination of biological factors and lifestyle habits, is a major reason for the difference in mortality between men and women.

Other biological factors may contribute to men ageing faster than women, but these remain to be fully understood. For example, testosterone in men contributes to their generally larger bodies and deeper voices. In turn, this may accelerate the age-related changes in their bodies compared to women.

On the flip side, women may have a slight advantage from protective factors connected with oestrogen. Coronary heart disease has been observed as three times lower in women than in men before menopause, but not after, indicating that endogenous oestrogens could have a protective effect in women.

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Not just about sex: throughout our bodies, thousands of genes act differently in men and women

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Some behaviours that can lead to an earlier death are more common in men. Accidental deaths, including those caused by assault, poisoning, transport accidents, falls and drownings, are particularly high among young males aged 15-24.

Men also have a greater tendency to smoke, eat poorly and avoid exercise. These habits lead to often fatal chronic illnesses, including stroke and type 2 diabetes, and are also risk factors for dementia.

Developments in science and public health

Many scientific discoveries have led to improved clinical practice or changes in government health policies that have benefited the lives of women.

For example, innovations in birth control have enabled greater choice and control over family size and timing. This has resulted in fewer pregnancies that may have led to dangerous births, and improved general physical and mental health for women. Improved clinical care has resulted in fewer women dying during childbirth.

As people reach an older age, the gap in life expectancy narrows.
From shutterstock.com

Public health programs such as screening for breast cancer have had impacts on life expectancy over time. Similarly, vaccines to prevent cervical cancer have now been distributed in 130 countries.

Of course, there have been similar public health policies and clinical innovations that have benefited men too, like screening for bowel caner.

So although we may have some insights, we can’t conclusively answer why women continue to live longer than men.

Mind the gap

The gap between men and women decreases the longer they live. In 2016, at birth in Australia, the gap was 4.2 years, with a male expected to die at 80 on average. But as that male gets older, the gap decreases to 2.7 years at age 65, to one year at age 85 and to just 0.3 years at age 95.

This suggests men who live to an older age have been able to avoid certain health risks, giving them a greater prospect of a longer life.

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Indigenous health leaders helped give us a plan to close the gap, and we must back it

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Ultimately, none of us have control of when or how we’re going to die. But paying attention to factors that we can change (such as maintaining a healthy diet, doing exercise and avoiding smoking) can reduce the risk of dying earlier from a preventable chronic disease.

While women may always live longer than men, by a year or two, men can try to make some lifestyle changes to reduce this gap. That being said, women should work towards these goals for a long and healthy life, too.

Melinda Martin-Khan, Senior research fellow, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Groping, grinding, grabbing: new research on nightclubs finds men do it often but know it’s wrong

Young Australians use nightclubs as a place to relax and perhaps meet a new sexual partner. Many regard some phyiscal contact during the mating ritual as off limits – but still put up with it.

Alfred Allan, Edith Cowan University; Aimee-Rose Wrightson-Hester, Edith Cowan University, and Maria Allan, Edith Cowan University

We have conducted what we believe to be Australia’s first quantitative research on young people’s behaviour in nightclubs and the findings present a disturbing picture.

The research suggests that behaviour is taking place at these clubs that would be criminal if non-consensual, and totally unacceptable at the very least.

However, the behaviour is somehow tolerated – in some cases almost encouraged. Many young people think they are too conservative, and that the behaviours they witness must be normal and acceptable in a nightclub setting – so they just put up with it.

Men engage in this conduct – such as groping, grabbing, and pinching a person on the buttocks – far more than women. Our research was confined to behaviour between heterosexual men and women. The respondents came from across Australia.

On the relatively rare occasions when women initiate such conduct, respondents of both genders regard this as somewhat more acceptable than when it’s men engaging in the conduct.

A values and accountability-free zone?

On any given weekend, young Australians flock to nightclubs and bars to have a good time and, in many cases, find a sexual partner. For years, nightclubs have been hot spots for sexual behaviour that would be deemed out of order in any other setting.

We hear of women who avoid nightlife settings because they dislike their “grab, grope and grind” culture. We also know these behaviours can potentially cause some people to feel degraded, threatened or distressed .

In our study, we explored the norms of sexual behaviour in nightclubs and bars as experienced by 381 young Australians.

They comprised 342 women and 39 men, all of whom identified as heterosexual. They were aged 18 to 30 and had been to nightclubs in the past six months. We recruited them using social media, given the high level of adoption of these platforms by nightclub-goers. We were able to find only 39 male respondents because it’s very hard to get men to open up on this subject. Statistically, this is less than ideal.

We posed the various scenarios listed below, then reversed the role of male and female for each scenario. The third scenario – grinding – is clearly non-consensual, and so would amount to criminal assault. The other scenarios might well amount to criminal assault if non-consensual.

https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/iYczl/1/

Both genders are more accepting of these behaviours if the perpetrator is a woman.

This finding is difficult to explain. The explanation is likely to be complex, but several factors probably play a role.

It could be that the rise of feminism and the associated sexual liberation of women might have influenced participants from both genders to be more accepting of these behaviours by women.

Men’s behaviour more likely to cause harm

Or could it be that participants believed this type of behaviour by men could cause more harm to recipients than women would cause. This belief is also echoed in the media and society, where the voices of male survivors of sexual assault by women are dismissed or belittled as the harm caused to them is often perceived to be less than that of a female victim. Women are sexually assaulted by men in far greater numbers than the number of men sexually assaulted by women.

In follow-up questions we posed after the study, several men indicated that the more attractive the woman engaging in the unacceptable behaviour was – attractive as perceived by the respondent making the judgement – the more acceptable the behaviour would be. No woman said anything similar of such behaviour by men.

Other research has previously found that men are welcoming of most sexual behaviour in nightlife settings. In relation to the rare instances of women groping men at nightclubs, men have said women cannot help themselves around a young attractive man and that they, the men, do not see the behaviour as a threat – more as a [self-esteem boost].

People think they must be more prudish than their peers

Participants in our study reported they often observe these four behaviours in nightlife settings. Why do they suppress their personal values in this setting and not in others?

Many young people wrongly think that most other people find the behaviours acceptable. Research shows it’s a common phenomenon for people to wrongly think they are more conservative than their peers. They therefore subjugate their personal values in nightlife settings because they think most other people find the behaviour acceptable.

Another reason is patrons find it difficult to identify whether the behaviour is consensual or not. The continuum of consensual sexual behaviour in nightlife settings extends much further than in most other public settings, such as workplaces or the street – that is, an act that would clearly be assault on the street might conceivably be mutually consented to by two people in a nightclub.

Some people go to nightlife settings to find sexual partners, and flirting and hook-up behaviours often occur. There can also be significant pressure on people, especially men, to find a sexual partner, which can lead to riskier and more aggressive sexual advances.

So what’s the solution?

Nightlife settings serve an important social function as a place where young people relax, socialise, develop their social identities and find sexual partners. Society should allow them that opportunity, but at the same time the nightclub should not necessarily be a place where personal values and integrity are left at the door.

One option is to educate young people about criminal behaviour – if they are willing to listen.
Shutterstock

The lock-out laws in some states are an overreaction by authorities to engineer change in these environments. But how can young people bring the right balance to what happens in nightlife settings?

One possible way forward is to use what we academics call “normative interventions”. Such interventions involve first letting young people know what the majority of them actually think, and that is that “grabbing, groping and grinding” in nightlife settings is wrong. Just because it seems like everyone is doing it, doesn’t make it OK.

The next step is to encourage patrons to speak up when such behaviours occur, whether they are the victim or a bystander. Research in other settings shows it’s possible to develop programs that encourage people who observe such behaviour to intervene, such as confronting the perpetrator or reporting the incident to authorities. In further research currently underway, we are looking more closely at the role of consent in nightclub conduct.

Alfred Allan, Professor, Edith Cowan University; Aimee-Rose Wrightson-Hester, PhD Candidate, Edith Cowan University, and Maria Allan, Lecturer in Psychology, Edith Cowan University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Don Burke story reveals the pernicious culture of men protecting each other in the media

Gael Jennings, University of Melbourne

It was such a cliché. At the office Christmas party of the national TV show where I worked, I emerged from the loo out the back to find one of my bosses straddling the doorway, blocking my way and waiting to pounce.

I was shocked, not so much by his sexual harassment (that was de rigueur in the newsroom cultures of the day, the 1990s), as by the extent of his male entitlement and misogyny. At the time I was still breastfeeding my baby daughter, who was next door at the party with her dad and my colleagues.

This week’s revelations that TV’s darling of nearly 20 years, Don Burke of Burke’s Backyard fame, was allegedly a “psychotic bully”, a “misogynist” and a “sexual predator” who indecently assaulted, sexually harassed and bullied a string of female employees comes as no surprise to women in Australian media. According to last year’s Women in Media Report, nearly half of us have been abused, intimidated or harassed in our working lives.

Once sexual assault allegations against Hollywood boss Harvey Weinstein exploded in the media, the open secret of male abuse of power over women was out. Social media was awash with #Metoo; in France, #BalanceTonPorc (“expose your pig”) flooded Twitter with stories of sexual harassment and assault.

New allegations appeared almost every day against other powerful men in various industries, including head of Amazon Studios Roy Price, political journalist Mark Halperin, editor at NPR Michael Oreske, Hollywood screenwriter and director James Toback, actors Ben Affleck and Kevin Spacey, comedian Louis CK, reinforcing the seeming incongruity of a self-described grabber of pussies, Donald Trump, being elected US president.

Donald Trump’s ‘Grab her by the pussy’ comments caught in this leaked recording.

A rising swell

It feels like a rising swell, a great wave of truth-telling gathering force and breadth, the crest white and flickering, teetering at the top, ready to curl and roar down upon us all, washing away thousands of years of male power and privilege. But is it?

Or will it peak, then withdraw and ebb away, diluted back into the ocean of sexist norms dominating the world and responsible for the perpetuation of sexual violence against women?

Some journalists are hopeful, because at last, in the Burke case, even some blokes have broken ranks and ratted on him.

Journalist Juanita Phillips is optimistic that “two industry veterans – David Leckie and Sam Chisholm – went on the record to condemn Burke in no uncertain terms. He was a disgrace, they said. A horrible, horrible man”. She found it significant that industry executives – the very keepers of the gates of male privilege – spoke out against one of their own.

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It’s true the endemic abuse of women in media and entertainment has been enabled over all these years by the collusion of the men in charge. Until now, executive men have largely closed ranks and protected the perpetrators of abuse, harassment and assault against women colleagues.

This is not only because, like Burke, some harassers were cash cows for the companies and networks involved. It was also, and I believe mainly, because these perpetrators were part of the club; part of the same culture that saw the executives themselves rise to the top and stay there.

They not only had a vested interest in maintaining the cultural norm, it was their norm.

Peer-reviewed global literature clearly proves that men perpetrate violence against women when there is masculine dominance in society, when they identify with traditional masculinity and male privilege, believe in rigid gender roles, have weak support for gender equality, and hold negative attitudes towards women.

Our research at the Centre for Advancing Journalism at the University of Melbourne and that of Women in Media indicates these norms are rampant in the media industry. Men almost exclusively own, run, and give voice to the industry. Murdoch’s News Corp, Fairfax, and APN own 92% of print media in Australia, with women owners being only 15%.

Men run nearly all of it, with only 17% of executives female, and new research shows women to be similarly underrepresented as editors (30.8%), specialist reporters (9.6%-30.2%), as experts (24.6%) and as authoritative sources (26.0%). Only 27% of AM and FM radio breakfast and drive programming hosts are female.

The rate of sexual harassment of women in media (48%) is more than twice that of other workplaces (22%), and far exceeds that of the rightly criticised rates in the Australian Defence Force, at 25% (according to the Human Rights Commission), and Victoria Police at 40%, yet has not been reported widely.

Up until now, the male-centric culture of media made it a non-story.

Will we see long overdue change?

Are we seeing a change now “The Blokes” have broken ranks with Don Burke? Is public discourse about to change? Has social media enabled a coalescence of power from LGBT people and people of colour, to join with outpouring from women who’ve been bullied, excluded, harassed and assaulted, to reach a tipping point for the wave of change?

I think not yet.

I think The Blokes who sacked predatory men in the US did it because women, LGBT and people of colour now have economic power and will use it. I think The Blokes who turned on Burke did it to protect themselves.

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They were there; they oversaw the reign of terror and did nothing; now that the women and their coworkers are testifying, the (Old) Blokes are running for their lives and distancing themselves from every aspect of this (now) “horrible, horrible man”. Their successors are perpetuating the same workplace cultural norms that we know lead to violence against women.

When a Trump becomes a Macron, we could be more confident. The French president this week swore “it is essential that shame changes camp”, and he is putting his money where his mouth is, with a 2018 draft law to criminalise street harassment, and a massive public education program about sexism and changes to police and courts to help victims.

In the meantime, as Lindy West of the New York Times writes:

… not only are women expected to weather sexual violence, intimate partner violence, workplace discrimination, institutional subordination, the expectation of free domestic labour, the blame for our own victimisation, and all the subtler, invisible cuts that undermine us daily, we are not even allowed to be angry about it.

We women are angry. Our anger has led to finding ways, around the rule of men in the newsroom, through social media and each other, to document the scope of the crimes against us.

The question is whether our anger, and collaboration with powerful men, will be enough to turn that teetering crest into a massive, roaring wave of change.

Gael Jennings, Honorary Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Pakistan: Persecution News Update

The link below is to an article reporting on persecution news from Pakistan, where two men have been beaten by two Muslims.

For more visit:
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Pakistani-Christian-violently-attacked-for-protecting-his-daughters-28506.html

Brazil: Benny Hinn’s Son Involved in Beating a Man at Crusade

The link below is to an article that reports on an alleged beating of a man at a crusade event in Brazil by three men, including the son of Benny Hinn – Joshua Hinn.

For more visit:
http://global.christianpost.com/news/pastor-benny-hinns-son-detained-for-allegedly-beating-man-at-brazilian-crusade-90252/

Video: Plastic Army Men

Article: Latest Persecution News in Pakistan

The following link is to an article conerning the abduction and rape by three men of a young Christian girl in Pakistan.

For more visit:
http://www.christiantelegraph.com/issue16267.html

Hindu Extremists in India Beat Pastor Unconscious

Evangelist was traveling with sons from one village to another.

NEW DELHI, April 22 (CDN) — Hindu extremists beat a pastor and evangelist unconscious in front of his sons earlier this month in Madhya Pradesh state.

Ramesh Devda, 30, from Dhadhniya, Meghnagar district, said he was attacked on April 4 at about 11 a.m. after leading a prayer meeting in Chikklia village. He said he was on his way to Bhajidongra, at the border of Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat states, by motorcycle with his two sons, 10-year-old Elias, and 8-year-old Shimon, to lead another prayer meeting.

When he reached Raseda village, he said, suddenly three people on two motorcycles blocked his way and forced him to stop.

“Suddenly out of nowhere these three men appeared in two motorcycles – they blocked me and tilted my motorcycle,” Pastor Devda told Compass. “We fell down. They were carrying big bamboo sticks and clubs. They started beating me, and then they called and three more men came and started to attack me.”

He said he was thankful that his sons were spared from beating, though his older son sustained a leg injury in the course of the attack.

“They were angry at me and were threatening to kill me and were warning me not to come to their area again,” he said. “My sons were screaming at the top of their voices, and they were afraid. One of the men hit me on my forehead with a big bamboo stick, cracking my skull. The others were also beating me on my body, especially my back with bamboo sticks.”

A blow to the forehead temporarily blinded him, he said.

“My eyes were darkened, and I fell down, and they proceeded to beat me even more,” he said. “The men were also abusive in the foulest language that I had heard, and they were drunk.”

People passing by heard the two boys crying out and came to help, and the attackers fled, he said, leaving the unconscious pastor and his sons.

“I do not know who helped me, as I was unconscious,” Pastor Devda said. “But I came to know later that local Christians also came in and called the emergency helpline. As a result, an ambulance came, which then took me to the hospital.”

He was taken to Anita Surgical Hospital on Station Road in Dahod, Gujarat. There a physician identified only as Dr. Bharpoda told him that he had fractured his skull.

“I am being treated for my wounds now, but there is still a lot of pain,” Pastor Devda said.

A Christian for 15 years, Pastor Devda has been in Christian leadership for 11 years and now serves with the Christian Reformed Fellowship of India. He has two other children, Ashish and 4-year-old Sakina, and his wife Lalita, 28, is active with him in Christian service.

Pastor Devda leads congregations in Chikklia, Bhajidongra and Dhadhniya villages.

“I have heard that I was attacked because the people of Chikklia did not like me conducting the Sunday service there,” he said. “The people who beat me up do belong to a Hindu fundamentalist outfit, and some believers in Chikklia know them. I can recognize them if I see them again.”

He said, however, that he does not want to file a First Information Report (FIR) with police.

“There is no one supporting me or standing with me in my village or my mission, and I am myself fearful, as I have to continue to minister to these very people,” Pastor Devda said. “I know my attack was pre-planned, but I do not want to report it to the police.”

A Christian co-worker from Rajasthan was also attacked about a month ago in equally brutal fashion, he said, but also refrained from filing an FIR because of fear of repercussions.

Vijayesh Lal, secretary of the Evangelical Fellowship of India’s Religious Liberty Commission, said the tribal belt that extends to the border areas of Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan, has been a hot spot for anti-Christian activity since the late 1990s.

“Only recently a 65-year-old evangelist was beaten and stripped by Hindu extremists,” he said. “It is a worrisome trend, and one that should be dealt with not only by the government but by the secular media and civil society in general.”

Report from Compass Direct News
http://www.compassdirect.org

Suspected Drug Traffickers Kidnap Pastor

Michoacan state church leader abducted during Sunday service.

MEXICO CITY, April 15 (CDN) — Some 500 worshippers were gathered for last Sunday’s (April 10) worship service at the Christian Center El Shaddai in the Mexican city of Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacan at about 8:15 a.m. when four masked men burst in firing machine guns into the air.

Before the frightened believers realized what was happening, their pastor, Josué Ramírez Santiago, had been whisked away. Divergent press reports indicated the kidnappers, suspected drug traffickers active in the state, were about 10 in number.

The following day, the pastor’s family received news that the criminals wanted a ransom of 20 million pesos (US$1.7 million). Even if the family could raise such an immense sum – considered doubtful – payment would not guarantee that the victim would be returned alive.

Arturo Farela, director of the National Fraternity of Evangelical Churches, has asserted that organized crime syndicates and drug cartels have targeted Christians because they view churches as revenue centers and because churches support programs for the rehabilitation of drug addicts and alcoholics.

“The majority of rehabilitation centers that have been attacked by organized crime in Ciudad Juarez, Tijuana, Tepic and other places belong to the evangelical community,” Farela said in a declaration regarding the kidnapping of Ramirez. “Furthermore, some 100 Mexican or foreign pastors who lived in Ciudad Juarez have had to abandon the city because of the threats and demands for money. And of course many pastors and their families have been victims of extortion, threats, kidnapping and homicide.”

Farela has stated that 100 Mexican clergymen have been kidnapped in recent years, with 15 of them losing their lives to organized crime. Asked if Compass could review his records of these crimes, Farela said he was not authorized to permit it.

In numerous other cases, children of pastors have been kidnapped, including one from Matehuala, San Luis Potosi, who has not been heard from for some six months. The college-age daughter of a prominent pastor in Mexico City was held by kidnappers for a week but was released when the criminals grew tired of the father’s prayers every time they telephoned him; the family has not revealed whether money was given for her return.

Michoacan, the state where the most recent abduction took place, has been a center of much criminal activity and also of severe reprisals by elements of the Mexican army. The state where President Felipe Calderon was born, Michoacan was the first to implement an anti-drug military operation that expanded to northern and eastern states.

In spite of the operation, more than 34,600 people nationwide have reportedly been assassinated since it was implemented in December 2006, with most of those crimes tied to drug traffickers “settling accounts.”

Report from Compass Direct News
http://www.compassdirect.org