Sonia Nazario went on a 16,000 mile journey to tell a story.

Nazario spoke at Elon University Thursday night about what she saw during that journey, which led to her writing "Enrique's Journey," originally published as a journalistic series before expansion into a book.

She was inspired to write her story by her housekeeper, Carmen, who left four children behind in her native country of Guatemala. The book tells the story of Enrique, a boy who leaves Honduras himself 11 years after his mother left him to work in America.

"When I started this story a decade ago with my house cleaner, I was judgmental," Nazario said. "What I was feeling and thinking but not spitting out was, 'What kind of lousy mother leaves her children?'"

Nazario found that many of the women she encountered did not want to leave their children, but felt they had no other choice. They came to the United States in order to provide food and shelter for their children, she said.

She also discovered that the children of these women were leaving their Latin American countries, some in an effort to find work, but more often in an attempt to be reunited with their mothers. Nazario estimated that 100,000 children head north every year. She said conductors have described seeing 400 to 600 people on top of a single train.

The children's search, she said, was brutal. Nazario discussed her experiences on freight trains when children would run to catch the train and cling to the sides, riding along to Mexico.

"There is a whole world that unfolds on top of these trains," Nazario said.

Along those train tracks live some of Mexico's poorest families. Even so, Nazario said she experienced the kindness and selflessness that these families possessed. She came across several who would make packages of food and water to throw to those on top of the trains. Some of them opened shelters for the riders and those who had been injured by the wheels of the train – a common danger the children face.

"Things have gotten worse since I wrote 'Enrique's Journey,'" Nazario said.

She described the Zetas, a violent group who control the train tops. Filling the trains and platforms with informants, the Zetas find who has money and whose parents make a stable living in the United States. They proceed to kidnap these children, holding them for a ransom. Regardless of if the family pays, Nazario said the Zetas most likely kill the children – 20,000 of which have been kidnaped in the past few years.

"There is a human rights disaster to the South of us, and no one is discussing it," Nazario said.

Nazario said she found that the root of the problem is economic instability in the countries from which the immigrants come. If the mothers had funds to provide for their children, she said they would not need to leave their home countries.

She told students they could help these abandoned children by raising funds on campus that can go towards microloans for the mothers and by promoting free trade products such as coffee and clothing.

Nazario encouraged students who are interested in the topic to go to her website to learn more about what they can do.