President of Mexico Claudia Sheinbaum on Friday, he officially launched a campaign to reduce the number of guns on the violence-torn country’s streets.

The plan, called “Yes to disarmament, yes to peace,” will offer cash to those who anonymously drop off weapons at designated surrender sites, including churches.

Gun owners will receive 8,700 pesos ($430) for a revolver, 25,000 pesos ($1,200) for an AK-47 rifle and 26,450 pesos ($1,300) for a machine gun. Firearms should then be destroyed.

The disarmament plan is part of the government’s “integral strategy” to fight crime.

“Why do we have to teach our children anything about violence?” Sheinbaum said at the unveiling event, which featured a symbolic destruction of weapons by soldiers.

Children who attended the event with their parents could exchange toy guns for other toys.

The scheme, which was first announced last month, was published in the official state gazette earlier this week.

It has been in place in Mexico City since 2019, but will now be implemented nationwide, implemented by the ministries of defense, interior and public security, with the support of Mexico’s religious authorities.

Mexico is plagued by violent crime linked to the multi-billion dollar illegal drug trade.

In 2023, the country recorded 31,062 murders, of which 70 percent were caused by firearms, according to preliminary data from the National Bureau of Statistics.

Mexico tightly controls gun sales, making them virtually impossible to obtain legally, and has repeatedly called on Washington to crack down on arms smuggling across the border from the United States.

An estimated 200,000 to half a million American firearms are smuggled into Mexico each year, “60 Minutes” reported. last month. Mexico has asked U.S. Attorney Jonathan Lowy to help it cut off the arms pipeline, known as the “iron river.”

“If you think fentanyl overdose is a problem, if you think cross-border migration is a problem, if you think the spread of organized crime is a problem in the United States, then you should be concerned about stopping the pipeline of criminal weapons into Mexico,” Lowy told “60 Minutes ” in December. “And you have to stop it at its source. Because all these problems are triggered by the supply of American weapons to the cartels.”