About Us

LibertadLatina.org is a non-profit project that works to end the sexual exploitation of all women and children in the Americas.  We focus on building effective defenses against the many forms of criminal impunity that threaten the lives of Indigenous & Latina women & children wherever they may be.  

Our work aims to challenge today’s ‘gender hostile living environment’ that especially impacts the lives of women and children of color.  We challenge sexist male supremacy, racism, anti-immigrant hostility, public apathy and the ‘compassion fatigue’ that paralyzes our society from taking effective action to save women and children in Latin America, the Caribbean, Canada and the U.S. from a fast-growing -yet largely ‘invisible’ crisis of severe sexual harassment, sexual coercion and rape with impunity. 

That ‘gender hostile living environment’ has set the stage for a new plague, modern sexual slavery.  Human slavery (also called trafficking) is now the third most profitable criminal activity in the world.  Over 100,000 Latin American women and underage girls are trafficked against their will each year.

During March of 2005 LibertadLatina.org is celebrating its fourth year of existence. March 2005 is also the 11th anniversary of the publication of LibertadLatina founder and coordinator Chuck Goolsby's first report on these issues in 1994.  We would like to take this opportunity to re-emphasize our message of hope and urgency in regard to the women and children's human rights crises that we advocate for.  Exploitation in the Americas is getting worse.

We believe our efforts are having a positive impact in the world.  We know that our readers learn-from and use the large base of factual information that we present.  We also know that many of you take that information into your own circles of advocates, co-workers, journalists and friends, thus raising the World's awareness of the need for the human race to rise up and act to end impunity now! 

Thanks to all of you for your support.  It is greatly appreciated!

LibertadLatina.org is the largest source of human rights advocacy information available (with over 500 factual documents) on the Internet in regard to Latina and indigenous women and children’s exploitation issues.  We continue to expand that important mission day-by-day and year-by-year.

The basic mission of LibertadLatina.org is simple: to educate the public and society’s institutions in regard to these issues; to save lives; and to act to rescue people trapped in exploitation today! 

LibertadLatina.org

Our 4^th Anniversary and International Women’s Day 2005 Report - Defending ‘Maria from Impunity’

Our Mission - Defending 'Maria' from Impunity.

Modern Sex Slavery & Latina Women & Girls.

Why Do We Focus on Latina & Indigenous Issues?.

500 Years of Targeting Indigenous Women.

African Descended Women in the Americas.

Machismo and Hidden Forms of Exploitation.

Defending 'Little Brown Maria' in the Brothel.

San Diego, California: A Critical Hot-Spot.

Empowering Law Enforcement to Act Against Traffickers Now!

Community Exploitation in the Americas.

The Cold Facts About Community Exploitation in Washington, DC.

HIV/AIDS and Machismo.

What Can We Do to End this Tragedy?

LibertadLatina Salutes the Work of Dr. Laura Bozzo.

LibertadLatina.org Issues Index.

Our Mission - Defending 'Maria' from Impunity

First and foremost, LibertadLatina.org is pro-children, pro-Latina (pro-women), pro-Latino (pro-men), pro-Indigenous, pro-Afro-Latina, pro-Latina of every ethnicity, pro-human race and pro-equality. We stand up to light a path out of the abyss of criminal sex trafficking, rape with impunity and severe sexual harassment that plagues the lives of many millions of women and minor children around the world.

by the aggressive oppression of women and children's rights to dignity and to the sanctity of their own bodies.  We at LibertadLatina stand up to respond to this growing crisis of ‘mass gender violence.’

Modern Sex Slavery & Latina Women & Girls

Latin America is today the second largest global source of enslaved women, after Asia.  Millions of women and underage girls are trapped in prostitution. Many of these women have been kidnapped and sold. ‘Gender hostile living environments’ that view women as being very literally inferior to men, the resulting under-education of girls, poverty, unstable national economies and the immense money power of criminal organizations make Latina women an easy target for enslavement.  This is not just a  theory, it is a current fact.

Approximately 27 million persons are enslaved in the world today.  At least 2 million women and girls are trafficked in forced prostitution (that is likely a low estimate). 

Annual numbers of Latina women and children trapped in slavery include:

• 100,000 women and children are trafficked across Latin America.

• Up to 2 million child victims are forced in to prostitution in Brazil.

• 500,000 girls age 16 and under prostituted in northeast Argentina.

• 500,000 minor girls prostituted in Peru.  Many were kidnapped.

• 35,000 Colombian women are sold (mostly to Holland, Spain and Japan) for annual criminal profits of $500 million (av. $14,000 each).

• 18,000 to 20,000 enslaved persons trafficked into the United States.

• 4,600 foreign women are sex slaves in the U.S. (CBS News, 2005).  Most women and girl sex slaves in the U.S. are from Mexico.  

Latina women and girls are openly kidnapped or tricked into slavery.  They are then sold by slave traders to brothels in big cities and farm labor camps across the Americas and beyond.  Destinations include: San Diego; Los Angeles; New York; Washington, DC; Miami; Amsterdam; Madrid and Tokyo.

 Why Do We Focus on Latina & Indigenous Issues?

LibertadLatina recognizes that in Latin America, women and girls of all races and social classes face sexual exploitation at a level that most people in the 'developed world' can barely comprehend. Within Latin American societies, poor women and girls, especially those who are of Indigenous and African ethnicity, often face conditions of sexual exploitation that are much worse than the abuses faced by their Latina sisters who may be 'mestiza' (mixed race) or of only European ancestry. Such racial differences also exist in the U.S. and in Canada where violence against women of color is rampant.

Leading World governments as well as global anti-trafficking and women’s rights movements have traditionally focused on gender equality issues within the developed world (especially the sex slavery crisis in Eastern Europe).  LibertadLatina works to educate the public, World governments and advocacy organizations about the fact that impunity is destroying women of color across the Americas.

500 Years of Targeting Indigenous Women

Indigenous women and girls in the Americas face an ongoing wave of sexual harassment, assault and entrapment in criminal sex trafficking that began at least 500 years ago and has never let-up.  Reports of the availability for sale of ‘virgin’ 13 year old Mayan girls from Chiapas (state) in Mexico to brothel owners in Europe for $25,000 each is the tip of the iceberg.  Traffickers and other sexual exploiters know that nobody will search for an Indigenous victim!

Approximately 80 million 'First-Nations' ethnic groups live in Latin America, especially in Bolivia (which is 80% Indigenous), Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala (60% Indigenous), El Salvador and Mexico.  Women and girls in these nations face sexual exploitation with impunity as a ‘normal’ part of daily life.  Victims are routinely ignored by the political and judicial systems that should protect them.

The soldiers… started grabbing the girls and raping us," recalls Ana, one of a handful of survivors of the massacre. "…All the girls were raped."  In total, 177 women and children died that day.  The village [of Rio Negro (Black River)] disappeared. – About the 1982 government massacre of 107 children and 70 women in Guatemala.

In Canada, thousands of 'First-Nations' children were raped (and some were killed) in the mandatory-attendance boarding school system that ended around 1980.  In the aftermath of that horror, rape prostitution, and gender murders still plague Native women.  90% of child prostitutes are Indigenous. 

In the United States a similar pattern of abuses existed in boarding schools.  Indigenous women today face a rate of rape that is 3.5 times higher than that for other U.S. women.  The U.S. Justice Dept. reports that white men are the assailants in 80% of such cases, which occur largely in western states.

Anti-Indigenous racism across the Americas conspires to hide and condone the rampant sexual abuse of girls and women even while some national societies begin serious work to end sexual exploitation affecting non-Indigenous women.  This indifference to indigenous women and girl victims empowers criminals who know that across the Americas, they can ‘safely’ target this ethnic group for violence. 

The fact that the nations of the Americas were founded by a process of colonization that once ‘gave’ Europeans ‘sexual privileges of conquest’ does not justify continued exploitation in the modern era.  LibertadLatina insists that governments act to protect Indigenous women and girls from impunity. 

African Descended Women in the Americas

Afro-Latina and Afro-Caribbean women and girls are also subjected to conditions of gender and race based impunity in the Americas.  Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, Panama, Venezuela, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, the English speaking West Indies (Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago and other islands), as well as French speaking Haiti and Dominique all have large populations of African-descended women facing severe sexual exploitation.  Sex traffickers actively target these women and girls.

LibertadLatina also stands up to address these racial injustices.  Our collection of Afro-Latina and Afro-Caribbean issues will grow as we find new materials and network with community activists.

Machismo and Hidden Forms of Exploitation

Few organizations in the anti-trafficking and anti-gender violence movements in the developed world understand these hidden cultural issues, what Cuban-American theologian and ethicist Dr. Miguel de la Torre calls the "multidimensional aspects of... a paradigm called machismo, which [explains] intra-Hispanic oppression."  “[Machismo involves] sexism, heterosexism, racism… and classism.”  Spain’s machismo, imported to Latin America, has justified 5 centuries of the exploitation of women of color.

LibertadLatina focuses special attention on the ways in which 'negative machismo’ creates a social environment where traffickers and other sexual exploiters can engage in ‘mass gender violence’ while entire societies do nothing at all to stop their impunity.  Machismo 'normalizes' gender oppression.  It justifies, in the modern era, the mass-kidnapping, rape and enslavement of Latina women and girls.   

Defending 'Little Brown Maria' in the Brothel

'Little brown girls' from Mexico and other countries in the Americas are literally kidnapped, raped and trafficked by the thousands.  They are then taken to cities such as San Diego, New York, Washington, DC, Madrid and Tokyo, where they are sold into sexual slavery exactly because they are 'little brown girls' with no representation in the legal and social institutions of the nations that are responsible for their safety.  That is unacceptable!

Stated clearly, Latina, African-descended and Indigenous women and girls across the Americas are not defended from exploitation by criminal gangs.  Impunity dominates, often motivated by sexism, classism and racism.

One example of this reality becomes painfully clear when we examine the fact that in Mexico an estimated 120,000 children were kidnapped during a recent 3 year period, never to be seen again.  Thirteen 13 year old ‘virgin’ Mayan girls are kidnapped or bought in fake marriages, and are then sold to brothels in Spain.  Tens of thousands of other Mexican children are sold to sexual slavery and illegal adoption rings who often take their victims to the U.S.  Nobody is looking for those children except for their parents.  'Little brown Maria' becomes just another faceless victim.  Her future includes forcible rape every day of her life, and then death from HIV/AIDS and torture.  These realities exist in Latin America and also in the U.S.

San Diego, California: A Critical Hot-Spot

If the well known and unfortunate White American child kidnap and murder victims such as Polly Klass, Megan Kanca and Carlie Brucia (may they rest in peace) had been known to have been trapped in a child rape camp in San Diego, California, or in a residential brothel in Queens, New York run by sex traffickers, helicopters and hundreds of police and volunteers would have quickly rescued them.  Yet in San Diego County, California, 12 year old kidnapped 'little brown Maria' is trapped in a brothel.  It is known to activists and others that she will not be rescued by law enforcement.  Why?

The San Diego rape camps have been known to federal and local law enforcement for over ten years.  Ten years after learning about the camps, federal, state and local law enforcement conducted a raid of the worst open-air child rape camps.  The raid resulted in no convictions of the 40 men apprehended.  The 47 enslaved underage girl victims remained silent because they had been threatened with harm to themselves, to their families and to their children, who are sometimes held hostage by traffickers. U.S. federal, state and local law enforcement today know exactly where the traffickers are pimping underage girls who have been kidnapped from Mexico.  Yet we see no visible efforts to rescue victims. 

Therefore, We the People must stand and act in their defense.  Only We the People can pressure our governments to shut down the child rape camps of San Diego County and across the Americas and the World.  LibertadLatina would like to see the public join together to hold governments accountable for these child rape camps.  We look forward to seeing real results from the $2 million in federal grants sent in 2004 to San Diego based advocacy agencies and law enforcement.  The victims are waiting!

San Diego is part of a growing ‘zone of impunity’ that is emerging in the U.S.-Mexican border region. Centuries of anti-Indigenous and anti-Latina sexual exploitation is now enabling ruthless traffickers.

Empowering Law Enforcement to Act Against Traffickers Now!

Police and other judicial forces must be 'authorized' to act by civil government authorities to effectively stop these criminal exploiters. Governments at the national, state/province and local levels in Canada, the United States, the Caribbean and across Latin America must not only be authorized and funded to act, they must be given explicit 'permission' to do so.  We have yet to see that 'permission' be given.

Within the United States, anti-immigrant hostility, Spanish/English language barriers, machismo, official indifference and a lack of political will appear to be 'binding the hands' of those concerned law enforcement officials who would like to shut down the rape camps and sex slavery brothels that now exist across the United States.  Even in instances where officials know where sex slavery exists, the 'rules of engagement' and the politics of police work sometimes cause police not to act to rescue victims.  Activist organizations such as Polaris Project are starting to educate local police departments about best practices in how to respond effectively to human slavery cases.  The U.S. Department of Justice is now funding regional anti-trafficking task forces across the United States.  Non-profit agencies are being well funded to assist victims.  The United States, the United Nations and the Organization of American States are now funding initiatives to fight trafficking in Latin America.

Yet San Diego's child rape camps continue to exist.  Under-staffed local law enforcement is fighting a loosing battle with Tijuana, Mexico based traffickers.  Gangs continue to kidnap and enslave young girls with impunity because they know that U.S. law enforcement won't or can’t act to shut down the child rape camps and save lives!  Across Latin America institutional sexism (and classism and racism), official corruption and the huge profits available from sex trafficking allow these criminals to operate in safety.  Leadership from the grassroots will be critical to change these realities.  Governments will not act unless they are pushed to do so.  We the People must unite and demand effective action now!

Being Trafficked is a Death Sentence

Little is said in most public discussions by anti-trafficking groups and others about the fact that sexual exploitation with impunity in our societies is exposing innocent victims to the risk of an early death.  LibertadLatina seeks to make these connections not just in regard to trafficking victims but also in the context of the risk to life (from HIV/AIDS) faced by Latina and Indigenous women from coercion and rape in their communities, schools and low-wage workplaces, where exploitation happens every day.

Community Exploitation in the Americas

Indigenous and Latina women in Canada and Latin America face sexual exploitation with impunity in their own communities.  LibertadLatina discusses in detail how that oppression occurs in daily life.

The severe, high levels of sexual harassment and assault faced by adult women and minor girls within the immigrant communities of the United States deserve special attention.  The convergence of the impunity of sexist ‘negative machismo’ (that hides behind a language barrier) with the widespread apathy (lack of knowledge, indifference, and/or anti-immigrant hostility) among many in official positions allow violence with impunity against immigrant women and children to continue virtually uncontested by the framework of U.S. laws that have been designed (in theory) to fight sexual abuse.

The work of LibertadLatina grew out of advocacy to defend Latina immigrant workers from workplace sexual exploitation in Montgomery County, Maryland starting in 1986.  Responding to disinterest and even hostility from corporate, government and press representatives, our first report was written in February/March of 1994: The Exploitation of Immigrant Women in Montgomery County, Maryland.  That report's pioneering analysis of the dynamics of the workplace exploitation of immigrant women remains accurate today.  March 2005 marks the 11th anniversary of the release of our 1994 report.

The Cold Facts About Community Exploitation in Washington, DC