Personal Safety When Moving Abroad

Personal safety when moving abroad should be one of your top considerations when deciding which country to call your new home. The risk of being physically assaulted or falling victim to other types of crime should be considered carefully in your decision-making process. While deciding, however, you should keep your evaluation in perspective. For example, personal safety is certainly a concern in Mexico, primarily due to the ongoing drug cartel violence. In fact, Mexico was ranked one hundred sixteenth out of 142 countries surveyed in the Legatum Institute’s Safety and Security Sub-Index (2012). Upon closer examination, though, most of the violence in Mexico is found along its 2,000-mile border with the United States and in some urban areas where drug gangs are more prevalent. Most other areas in Mexico, especially the major tourist centers, are generally trouble-free, as shown in this interactive map of Mexico’s crime rate by geographic location. Our point is you should dig a little deeper into the statistics that apply to personal safety when moving abroad to understand what the actual situation is in your country of choice.

In the United States, for instance, the homicide rate in Washington D.C. is five times higher than the U.S. average of 4.2 homicides per 100,000 population. Every country has regions and cities that are more violence prone than the country as a whole. Consider just those areas that attract the most expats, they generally are the safest. Mexico has long been an expat magnet, holding the largest number of American expatriates in the world. It is still ranked the seventh most desirable country for American expats, according to a recent study we conducted.

To get you started on your personal safety evaluation, we provide you with a few global studies conducted in the past several years and additional resources that may help you in your decision-making process.

Euromonitor International

London-based Euromonitor International is a leading global market intelligence firm that provides market research, business intelligence reports and data to industry. Euromonitor International took a close look at global levels of crime in a special report the company produced in 2012.

Key findings were:

• Between 2006 and 2011, indicators of crime level have steadily increased at a rate between 5.0 and 14.1 percent during the period
• Drug-related crimes rose the fastest at 14.8 percent
• Countries in Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa have the highest homicide rates in the world, primarily due to income inequality, drug trafficking and organized crime
• The level of crime is directly associated with the level of economic development
• Honduras has the most homicides per 100,000 population in the world, followed by El Salvador, Venezuela, Jamaica, Belize, Guatemala, Trinidad & Tobago, South Africa, Colombia and Brazil.