©jaysonbrinklerXALAPA, Mexico — One of the more disturbing stories to come out of Mexico in recent days is a report that the number of children attempting to travel by themselves to the United States has risen in the last three years.

The International Migration Organization [OIM] reports that children as young as 12, hoping to join family already in the States or feeling unwanted or abused in their current family situation, is at 500 a year from the southern Mexico state of Veracruz alone.

These children, aged 12 to 18, hail from cities large and small, including the port of Veracruz, the capital city of Xalapa, and Cordoba, Orizaba, Santiago Tuxtla, Acayucan and Rio Blanco, reports the daily newspaper A-Z Xalapa.

The importance of the problem was highlighted at a conference with the head of OIM, who said there is a "drastic increase" in the number of children heading north alone, many of whom end up in dangerous situations. An investigator with the organization revealed that in the last two years, more than 35,000 children traveled to the United States from Mexico, of whom 17,000 were traveling alone.

In some cases, these children become victims of a series of abuses, incuding sexual exploitation, organ transplant victimization and drug trafficking, where children are used as "mules."

The same conference revealed that between 1994 and 2007, more than 4 million Mexicans died trying to cross the border, of whom 3 or 5 percent were children.