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LibertadLatina

Analysis of the political actions and policies of Mexico's National Action Party (PAN) in regard to their detrimental impact on women's basic human rights

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Added: Sep. 2, 2010

Mexico

Congressional Deputy Rosi Orozco talks with children and youth rescued from sex slavery at a government- run victim's shelter in Mexico

Trata de personas, secuestro de los más pobres en México

Al inaugurarse el Foro Nacional contra la Trata de Personas, la diputada Federal Rosi Orozco, se pronunció que así “como se alzan las voces porque se castigue a los secuestradores, también debería exigirse castigo para los tratantes de blancas, porque también aquí se les tortura”.

Este Foro se inauguró este viernes y la representante de la Comisión Especial de la Lucha contra la Trata de Personas del Congreso Federal, ante autoridades del gobierno estatal y federal, exigió que “se escuchen las voces de esos niños y niñas pobres, porque es la misma demanda que tienen los niños ricos que sufren secuestro. La trata de blancas es el secuestro de lo más pobres, de los más vulnerables, que no tienen para pagar un rescate”.

Human Trafficking and the Kidnapping of Mexico's Poorest

During the commencement of a recent forum on human trafficking held by the Chamber of Deputies (the lower house of Congress), National Action Party (PAN) deputy Rosi Orozco, president of the Special Committee to Fight Human Trafficking in the Chamber, declared that "just as we must raise our voices to demand punishment for kidnappers, we should also insist on the same treatment for human traffickers, because torture is involved in both [crimes].

Deputy Orozco went on to demand that "we listen to the voices of these poor boys and girls, because it is the same demand [for freedom] that wealthy child victims of kidnapping cry out for. Human trafficking is the act of kidnapping those who are the poorest and most vulnerable. They are the one who don't have the money to pay for rescue."

Estela Frajinal, director of the Institute for Women in Oaxaca state, added that the objective of the national forum was to design a strategy to "attack this phenomenon which touches many families. We need to promote a culture of prevention and demand the all persons who engage in human trafficking be punished.

Deputy Orozco went on to warn that those of us who are involved in this initiative will not going to let the officials of this nation rest, until [public] enemy number 1 - impunity, is confronted.

Deputy Orozco noted that human trafficking must be punished "with life sentences, just as such punishments are demanded for kidnapping cases. We insist that criminal penalties must increase. The consumer and every person in the chain of human trafficking activity must be punished.

In previous congressional conferences on human trafficking, victims have testified and demanded punishment for those who had raped and exploited them, as well as for the owners of the newspapers where these services are advertised.

Among the federal, state and local officials who attended the forum were Pablo Navarrete of the National Women's Institute, Oaxaca state Attorney General Evencio Nicolás Martínez Ramírez, Oaxaca Women's Institute director María de la Luz Candelaria Chiñas, and federal special prosecutor Zara Irene Guerra…

Currently, human trafficking is not a punishable crime in the state of Oaxaca. This sends a message to criminal groups, who know that selling a young girl 30 times a day is more profitable than selling a kilo of marijuana…

Olga Rosario Avendaño

Olor a Mi Tierra - Oaxaca

Aug. 19, 2010

Added: Sep. 2, 2010

The World

UN General Assembly Launches Global Plan of Action against Trafficking in Persons

Assembly President Says ‘Heinous Crime’ Cannot Be Accepted in Today’s World

With thousands of people forced into labor, servitude or the sex trade each year, the General Assembly formally launched the Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons today, one month after its adoption as a consensus resolution outlining the terms of the Plan.

“With this Global Action Plan, we have announced our steadfast commitment to stop human trafficking,” said United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in opening remarks to the one-day high-level meeting. Indeed, the Plan was a clarion call. Human trafficking was among the worst human rights violations and constituted “slavery in the modern age”. No country was immune — almost all played a part, either as a source of trafficked people, transit point or destination.

Since the Assembly’s adoption ten years ago of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Governments, international organizations and civil society had taken steps to stop the crime, he said. But to end human trafficking in all its forms, a common approach was needed — coordinated and consistent across the globe. “The Global Plan of Action will help us to achieve exactly that,” he said.

Moreover, it would engage Governments and criminal justice systems, civil society and the private sector, he observed. Under the Plan, the fight against human trafficking would become part of all the United Nations broader development and security policies and programs.

He added that one of its most important elements was a United Nations Voluntary Trust Fund for trafficking victims, especially women and children, which aimed to protect vulnerable people and support physical and psychological recovery. He urged Member States, the private sector and philanthropists to contribute generously to the Fund and increase technical assistance to countries that supported the fight against trafficking, but lacked financial resources.

The Plan also stressed the paramount importance of increased research, data collection and analysis of trafficking. “We must improve our knowledge and understanding of this crime if we are to make good policy decisions and targeted interventions,” he added.

However, the only way to end human trafficking was by working together, in partnerships between States and within regions, within the United Nations and under the Inter-Agency Coordination Group against Trafficking in Persons, he said. The biggest challenge was to reduce the numbers of people vulnerable to trafficking. Progress being made to empower women, fight discrimination, reduce poverty and keep children healthy was also helping to do just that. The thousands of people living as slaves needed help, now.

...Saisuree Chutikul, Chair of the National Subcommittee on Combating Trafficking in Children and Women in Thailand... said that all those who had been fighting the crime of trafficking at all levels and had witnessed the suffering of its victims welcomed the Plan of Action. Now the task was ensuring comprehensive and effective implementation, in connection with the various conventions, protocols and other instruments already in existence. She called for adequate support to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) for its part of the efforts, for cooperation between all other actors and for linkages at all levels. She maintained, in addition, that national policy must be clear and deal with problems of stateless persons and others in a position of extreme vulnerability. Behind all those efforts must lie compassion, she said...

Participating in the interactive discussion that followed were the representatives of Ghana (on behalf of the African Group), Belgium (on behalf of the European Union), Portugal, Cape Verde, Belarus, Japan, Thailand, Russian Federation, United States, Cuba, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Nicaragua, Colombia, Brazil and the Philippines.

Sixty-fourth General Assembly of the United Nations

Aug. 31, 2010

See also:

Added: Oct. 4, 2009

The World, Ecuador

Ecuadorian Minister of Justice and Human Rights (Attorney General) Néstor Arbito Chica

Few Governments Serious About Human Trafficking, U.N. Finds

United Nations - The U.N. General Assembly discussed ways of taking stronger collective action to end human trafficking on Wednesday, with delegates debating the need for… a "global plan of action" to end this form of modern slavery.

"National and regional efforts are not enough to cope with this global problem," said Ecuadorian Minister of Justice and Human Rights Néstor Arbito Chica. "That’s why we call on the U.N. to take action."

The starting point for the debate was whether the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, passed in Palermo, Italy, in 2000, is enough to stop this global problem.

"The protocol is not a sufficient tool for stopping human trafficking, and more than one-third of U.N. member states are not a party to it," said Valentin Rybakov, assistant to the president of Belarus. "The Palermo Protocol is, if you will, an aspirin which helps us to bring the fever down, but aspirin cannot cure us."

The need for a new global plan of action was echoed by the majority of speakers and delegates. The United States, however, felt otherwise: "We believe that the U.N. is already effectively leading the fight against global trafficking."

The U.S. representative’s concerns were that launching a global plan of action would strain the limited resources of the U.N. and, likewise, that the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime’s (UNODC) "financial and personnel resources would be severely stretched if it were to undertake such a plan of action."

"Efforts undertaken at regional and national levels are clearly not enough," Rybakov countered. "Adopting a global plan of action is not an end in itself to us, but this plan is a logical step."

The U.N. has passed comprehensive plans of action before - for instance on terrorism, as pointed out by Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of UNODC…

Sexual exploitation accounts for 79 percent of human trafficking, it says, while forced labor makes up 18 percent…

"In 2006, the last year for which we have statistics, 22,000 victims were rescued, and we know the problem goes into the millions," Costa said…

Matthew Berger

Inter-Press Service (IPS)

May 14, 2009

See also:

The World, Belarus

Belarus Foreign Minister Sergei Martynov

Belarus to Promote Global Action Plan to Fight Human Trafficking at United Nations General Assembly Session

Minsk - At the session of the UN General Assembly Belarus will push forward the adoption of the global action plan to fight trafficking in human beings, the press service of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry told BelTA.

As head of the delegation Belarus Foreign Minister Sergei Martynov is participating in the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly that opened in the UN headquarters in New York.

The head of the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs will take part in general political discussions to present Belarus’ views on the most topical problems of the international agenda. The Belarusian delegation will focus efforts on promoting Belarus’ initiatives, namely the adoption of the global action plan to fight slave trade, creation of an effective international mechanism to facilitate access of all countries to technologies of new and renewable energy sources, enhancement of international development aid to countries with average incomes.

The Minister is also supposed to take part in events timed to the start of the General Assembly session. Those are the Conference on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, ministerial meetings on fighting violence against girls, dialogue between religions.

Sergei Martynov is also expected to hold meetings with top executives of the UN Secretariat, several international organizations, and foreign ministers of several countries of Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

BelTA

Sep. 23, 2009

See also:

¡Esta barbarie no será perdonado por Dios!

This barbarity will not be pardoned by God!

If Mexico does not have control over this part of its own territory, or if, as appears to actually be the case, the National Action Party's socially conservative agenda won't allow it to defend innocent and vulnerable women and children in crisis, consistent with their apathetic reaction to the femicide murders in Ciudad Juarez, then perhaps an international force organized by the Organization of American States, or by the United Nations needs to step-up to the plate, offer to help Mexico, and take control of the situation.

This crisis in Mexico is the best example in the Americas of why a new Global Plan of Action, as proposed by Ecuadorian Minister of Justice and Human Rights (Attorney General) Néstor Arbito Chica and diplomats gathered at the United Nations on May 13, 2009, is needed to get around this impasse.

Somehow, the fact that the government of Mexico is a signatory to the Palermo Protocol, and the fact that Mexico passed its 2009 U.S. Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report evaluation with a relatively positive Level 2 Rating (as we also acknowledge State's strong critique of corruption in Mexico), misses the point.

New and out-of-the box strategies are needed to oblige Mexico to fulfill its international obligations to end this mass gender atrocity once and for all.

It is not an impossible task.

The status quo today is... unacceptable!

End impunity now!

Chuck Goolsby

LibertadLatina

June 28, 2009

...A Global Plan of Action... must be implemented to get around the seemingly insurmountable obstacle of state impunity.

In extreme circumstances, the United Nations overcomes the problem of criminal impunity by mounting an international force to combat state actors who engage in crimes against humanity.

A Global Plan of Action does not have to target state actors through the use of military action, but some new, creative process must be employed to show nations like Mexico that they cannot just sell the poor and minority women and girls in their nations 'down the river' into a tortured, shortened life of sexual slavery in the brothels of Mexico City, Tijuana, Tokyo, Los Angeles, New York, Amsterdam and Madrid, just because they are willing to look the other way in exchange for a 'piece' of this multi-million dollar criminal action.

We strongly encourage the people of the world to wake up and actively combat the mass crime against humanity that the oppression of women and girl children in Mexico represents.

Enough is enough!

...We also applaud Ecuadorian Minister of Justice and Human Rights (Attorney General) Néstor Arbito Chica and diplomats from a number of nations including Belarus, who have recently spoken out to demand that the United Nations develop a Global Plan of Action to really step-up-the-game to effectively combat modern slavery.

The policy of the United States should, we believe, embrace the efforts of Ecuador, Belarus and other nations to develop a Global Plan of Action to get past the ineffectiveness of the Palermo Protocol...

Chuck Goolsby

LibertadLatina

May 30, 2009

Added: Aug. 30, 2010

Mexico

Mayor assassinated as Mexico violence flares

A wave of bomb attacks has hit northern Mexico, where police are investigating the mass killing of 72 asylum seekers.

Last week a group of migrants trying to cross the border into the United States were murdered by suspected drug cartel members.

In the past 24 hours four homemade bombs have exploded in the border city of Reynosa, injuring at least 17 people.

The bomb attacks appeared to target places connected with the investigation into the massacre.

Suspected drug hit men also shot dead the mayor of a small town in northern Mexico on Sunday.

Marco Antonio Leal was killed by gunmen in SUVs as he drove through his rural municipality of Hidalgo near the Gulf of Mexico in Tamaulipas state, the local attorney-general's office said.

Gunmen also murdered a popular candidate for Tamaulipas governor in June, Mexico's worst political killing in 16 years.

Mexico's former foreign minister, Jorge Castaneda, says the government is losing control to the drug cartels.

"It seems to be no longer able to guarantee the safety of anybody in Mexico," he said.

"Public opinion is no longer as supportive of the president's efforts and of the military's involvement as it was before."

More than 28,000 people have died in drug violence since president Felipe Calderon launched his war on drugs in late 2006, prompting fears bloodshed could undermine tourism and investment as Mexico slowly recovers from its worst recession since 1932.

ABC News

Aug. 301, 2010

Added: Aug. 30, 2010

Central America, Mexico

Presidente Colom: Masacre en México pudo haber ocurrido en Centroamérica

Los Angeles - La masacre de Tamaulipas pone en claro que la inmigración ilegal es ahora más peligrosa no sólo en México sino también en Centroamérica, por lo que la región seguirá combatiendo en bloque el narcotráfico, apuntó el sábado el presidente de Guatemala Alvaro Colom.

Una matanza como la ocurrida esta semana en Tamaulipas, estado nororiental mexicano, también pudo haber ocurrido en Guatemala u otro país centroamericano pues el narcotráfico es un problema significativo en la región, explicó el mandatario durante una entrevista con The Associated Press en un hotel de Los Angeles.

La matanza ha sido atribuida a los narcotraficantes conocidos como Los Zetas, que también operan en Guatemala.

"Definitivamente la lucha contra el crimen organizado es regional", indicó Colom, resaltando el peligro de la inmigración ilegal tras la matanza de cinco guatemaltecos y 67 latinoamericanos en México.

"El proceso de inmigración ya era peligroso, de alto riesgo. Ahora se le suma la participación de los narcos y del crimen organizado que es peligrosísimo", añadió.

Las declaraciones de Colom ocurren durante su primera visita a Los Angeles para reunirse exclusivamente con líderes de organizaciones comunitarias e inmigrantes guatemaltecos. La visita de dos días también es la primera en 12 años que realiza un mandatario guatemalteco a Los Angeles...

Guatemala's President Colom: The massacre in Mexico could have occurred in Central America

Los Angeles - The massacre in Tamaulipas, Mexico makes clear the fact that undocumented migration is more dangerous now, not just in Mexico but also throughout Central America. For that reason, the nations of the region are continuing to fight the narco-traffickers as a block, declared President Alvaro Colom of Guatemala.

The massacre of 72 Latin American migrants, including 5 Guatemalans, was carried out the the Zetas cartel, which also operates in Guatemala.

President Colom: Definitively, the fight against organized crime is a regional effort." "The process of migration is a high-risk activity. Today organized crime, including narco-traffickers participate in human smuggling, which makes migration extremely risky."

President Colom was in Los Angeles, California for a meeting with Guatemalan migrants and community organizations...

E. J. Tamara

The Associated Press

Aug. 28, 2010

Added: Aug. 30, 2010

Mexico

Drug gang massacre puts Mexico in crisis

Mexico's most feared drugs cartel launched an offensive against the powers of law and order

Mexico was disintegrating into a war zone last night as its most feared drugs cartel launched an offensive against the powers of law and order.

The dreaded Los Zetas, fresh from massacring 72 migrant workers, launched their campaign against the authorities by detonating car bombs and kidnapping a senior prosecutor investigating their activities.

Roberto Jaime Suarez disappeared hours after launching an investigation into the Zetas, a formidable private army made up of former Mexican special forces, for carrying out an outrage that has shocked the world.

His wife Norma expressed her fears for Mr Suarez and a policeman snatched at the same time.

“I am almost certain my husband and the other man were kidnapped,” she said.

“I can only assume that those who abducted him are connected to organized crime.” ...

No one was hurt but the terrorist tactics are a new departure for the drugs cartels, showing they are prepared to use terrorist tactics.

The Zetas, who recruit former special forces soldiers from Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, operate deep into the USA from California to Florida, New York, Washington and up to Canada.

Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon has vowed not to back down to the drugs gangs but warned last night: “Violence will persist and even intensify.”

Stuart Winter

Express (UK)

Aug. 29,2010

Added: Aug. 28, 2010

Mexico

Zeta Slaves: A Story from the Inside

[Mexican officials and police have been implicated as collaborators with the Zeta, who are rouge, AWOL military special forces personnel and their recruits, who today form one of the most brutal and feared drug and human trafficking cartels in Mexico.]

The horrifying massacre of 72 Central and South American immigrants by the hands of Zetas shocked the world. Preliminary investigations, based on testimony by the sole survivor of this attack, report the immigrants were first given the option of paying their ransoms in cash or as cartel slaves. Having no cash and refusing to join Zeta forces, the 58 men and 14 women, were blindfolded and bound before being executed on the spot.

We know what happened to them, but what about the others? What happens to those who are unable to pay, but still desperately wish to survive? ...

Marisolina didn't have relatives in the United States, much less in El Salvador, who would or even could pay the Zetas, who kidnapped her, the $3,000 dollars they demanded to release her. "You're going have to come up with another way to pay us, Guerita", they repeatedly threatened her in the first few days of her captivity.

There was nobody to answer for her, no one to defend her. Within a week of kidnapping her near the railways of Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, the Zetas had decided how she would pay her debt; Marisolina would become the safe house cook, in charge of preparing all meals for fellow immigrants who had been kidnapped, and those who held them captive. "At first I just cooked for them, but when they began to trust in me, they gave me their clothes to wash."

One evening, after serving dinner, a man everyone called "El Perro" [the dog], who was in charge of the safe house, after getting very drunk and high on cocaine, asked me to sit down and talk for a while. It was at this moment he asked me: "Guerita, do you know why my clothes are always so dirty?"

Marisolina spoke of the fear she had of this man who always had a weapon in hand and took great pleasure in constantly abusing the immigrants he held captive. "I told him I imagined (because of the dirty clothes) he worked on the trucks which were used to transport the Central Americans."

"El Perro" let out a hardy laugh and replied: "I'm the butcher. I don't do any type of mechanics. My job is to I get rid of the trash that doesn't pay."

Still visibly scared, Marisolina recalls that exact moment: "Mockingly, and without any remorse, he told me he was in charge of killing the immigrants who couldn't afford to pay their ransom. He said: First I cut them into pieces so they fit into the drums, then I light them on fire, I let them burn until there's nothing left of the little assholes."

That night she couldn't sleep. She was alert and spooked by every sound. She heard people coming and going from the house, but was too scared to try to catch a peak of what was happening. The next morning "El Perro" brought more clothes to be washed.

No longer able to contain her tears she finally, after several long minutes, continued her story: "I washed, so many times, the blood of those people. As I scrubbed at the blood, pieces of meat fell out. Everything smelled of soot, which to me, was the smell of death."

Marisolina was held captive for three months by a group that called themselves Los Zetas. In their 'get togethers' and business meetings, she was in charge of serving meals to the leaders. "When they were together, I would hear them say Los Zetas was a very respectable organization. Sometimes they took me to a hotel they rented in Coatzacoalcos, it was there I learned to recognize La Compania's, as they called it, chain of command."

The soldiers, she revealed, where those in charge of guarding the immigrants day and night. "Then there were the Alfa. I heard them, many times, speaking to police, immigration officials, and train conductors. They would advise them when large numbers of immigrants were coming on the train, or when they were detained."

Trying to minimize her Salvadoran accent, she recalls the location of at least six butchers, one for each safe house. "Above the butchers were the big bosses, they were the ones who gave the orders of which immigrants to kill." ...

One night, after a military strike on one of the Zeta safe houses led to the rescue of other immigrants, "El Perro", who by that time considered Marisolina his friend, asked her to accompany him to the store to by cigarettes and sodas. It was outside of the store she was released, but not before being warned she would die if she ever revealed what had occurred.

Long walks and days and nights without eating or sleeping, preceded her denunciation of the Zetas who had held her captive. She didn't want to talk to the police, she trusted no one. She agreed to the assistance offered by the National Commission of Human Rights only after being reminded her testimony could help prevent others from suffering the same.

Unfortunately, Marisolina's nightmare did not end there. The greatest deception came when the Attorney General's office informed them her situation had changed. After reviewing her testimony, they had reasonable suspicion she was part of the Zeta's criminal organization, thus her legal status had changed from that of the victim to the indicted.

Marisolina for her part, after everything that has happened and learning how the Zetas operate, can't believe she survived, let alone, that they released her just like that.

Borderland Beat

Aug. 27, 2010

Added: Aug. 28, 2010

Mexico

Mexican massacre investigator found dead

Body of official dumped beside road near scene of killing of 72 Central and South American migrants in Tamaulipas

The body of an official investigating the massacre of 72 Central and South American migrants killed in a ranch in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas was found today dumped beside a nearby road alongside another unidentified victim, according to local media.

Earlier, two cars exploded outside the studios of the national TV network Televisa in the state capital, Ciudad Victoria. There were no casualties, but the blasts added to a growing sense of fear in the aftermath of the worst single act of violence in the country's raging drug wars.

Meanwhile, investigators under armed guard continued the process of identifying the victims...

Jo Tuckman

The Guardian

Aug. 27, 2010

Added: Aug. 28, 2010

Mexico

Families of migrants killed in Mexican massacre say they couldn't pay ransom

Reynosa - Their families pleaded with them not to leave, fearful of the growing danger that faces migrants trekking through Mexican territory where brutal drug gangs hold sway.

But the young migrants from across Latin America insisted on going. They met their ends together, among 72 migrants massacred just 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the U.S. border.

Pieces of the migrants' lives - and the story of their terrible fate - are slowly emerging as investigators painstakingly work to identify the bodies, which were discovered bound, blindfolded and lying in a row after what appears to be Mexico's worst drug-cartel massacre.

The survivor, 18-year-old Luis Freddy Lala Pomavilla of Ecuador, said the killers identified themselves as Zetas, a group begun by former Mexican army special forces soldiers and now a lethal drug gang that has taken to extorting migrants.

The Zetas control much of the northern state of Tamaulipas, cattle-ranching country that is the last leg for migrants running the gantlet up Mexico's east coast to reach Texas.

Mexico's drug gangs have long kidnapped migrants and demanded payment to cross their territory. But the Mexican government says the cartels are increasingly trying to force vulnerable migrants into drug trafficking, a concern also expressed by U.S. politicians demanding more security at the border.

Lala, who is recovering from a gunshot wound to the neck and is under heavy guard, told investigators the migrants were intercepted on a highway by five cars, according to his statement that The Associated Press had access to Friday.

More than 10 gunmen jumped out and identified themselves as Zetas, Lala said. They tied up the migrants and took them to the ranch, where they demanded the migrants work for the gang. When most refused, they were blindfolded, ordered to lie down and shot.

...Lala left his remote town in the Andes mountains two months ago, hoping to find work in the U.S. to support his pregnant 17-year-old wife. One of his eight siblings, Luis Alfredo Lala, told Ecuavisa television he begged his brother not to go.

Lala's wife, Maria Angelica Lala, told Teleamazonas that her husband paid $15,000 to the smuggler who was supposed to guide him to the U.S. That smuggler apparently tried to hide Lala's fate from his wife, calling her Wednesday to say her husband had safely reached the U.S.

Investigators have identified 31 of the migrants: 14 Hondurans, 12 Salvadorans, four Guatemalans and one Brazilian.

Mexico's rising violence has contributed to a sharp drop in the number of migrants in Mexico over the past few years, Romero said.

Mexican immigration agents have rescued 2,750 migrants this year, some stranded in deserts and others who were being held captive by organized crime gangs, she said.

In Tamaulipas alone, agents rescued 812 migrants kidnapped by drug gangs, she said. Many of those migrants told authorities the cartels tried force them into drug trafficking.

"We perhaps saved them from being massacred like the 72 that we lost this time," Romero said...

The Associated Press

Aug. 27, 2010

Added: Aug. 28, 2010

Mexico, The United States

LibertadLatina Commentary

Chuck Goolsby

Phoenix, Arizona Mayor Phil Gordon's February, 2010 presentation at Harvard University (see below), before the controversy over Arizona law SB 1070 effectively forced him into silence on the issue, is perhaps the most honest statement to date about the impact that the mass kidnapping and human slavery of Latin American immigrants is having in the Southwestern U.S.

With the recent, tragic massacre of 72 migrants in Tamaulipas, Mexico, 100 miles south of the U.S./Mexico border near Brownsville, Texas, the U.S. anti-trafficking community has an even more urgent moral responsibility than we have previously called for to acknowledge the critical nature of the human trafficking emergency on the U.S./Mexico border and throughout Mexico. It is a crisis that is growing exponentially. Mexican human trafficking may generate a full $20 billion per year in revenue, as CNN reported on August 26, 2010.

We pray that those who died in Tamaulipas and all of the other migrants who are murdered in the violent gauntlet that is Mexico... rest in peace.

We also pray for the tens of thousands of women and girls who are kidnapped into sexual slavery without a finger being lifted (due to a lack of moral will) by government authorities in Mexico to find and assist them.

The time for politically expedient silence about this issue is over!

The victims, and those at risk, await our effective efforts to protect and rescue them today.

End impunity now!

Chuck Goolsby

LibertadLatina

Aug. 28, 2010

See also:

Arizona, USA

Mayor Phil Gordon of Phoenix, Arizona speaks at Harvard University - Feb, 05, 2010

Photo: Matthew W. Hutchins

Phoenix mayor paints disturbing picture of immigrant experience

[Latino] Mayor Phil Gordon of Phoenix, speaking at Harvard Law School on February 5th, said that the steady flow of illegal immigrants into his city has created a crisis situation that is extremely dangerous for local law enforcement and a devastating drain on the city's budget. Although by statistical measures Phoenix is one of the safest cities in the United States, it has experienced a wave of kidnapping and violent crimes that have challenged its law enforcement capacity.

The problem, said Mayor Gordon, is the violent behavior of the "coyotes" involved in human trafficking operations across the nearby Mexican border and who regularly kidnap, torture, rape and kill those who do not comply with their extortion, sometimes forcing captives to dig their own graves while awaiting either freedom or death.

According to Gordon, over 20,000 people, including women and children, have been rescued by Phoenix police over the last three years from "drop houses" where dozens or even hundreds are held captive or even tortured, sometimes in the midst of ordinary suburban neighborhoods…

Gordon said that the fight against the coyotes' organized crime has forced the city to hire over 600 additional police officers, many to replace the 100 full-time officers assigned to federal task forces investigating violent criminals and 50 officers embedded undercover in federal operations. The cost to Phoenix of employing these 150 officers, over $15 million dollars a year, is not reimbursed by the federal government and threatens to force reductions in city services like libraries and after school programs…

Matthew W. Hutchins

The Harvard Law Record

Feb. 12, 2010

Added: Aug. 26, 2010

Mexico

Luis Freddy Lala Pomavilla - massacre survivor

Ecuatoriano sobrevive a masacre que dejó 72 muertos en México

El ecuatoriano Luis Freddy Lala Pomavilla sobrevivió a la masacre en un rancho del estado mexicano de Tamaulipas, en donde se encontraron 72 cadáveres, después de que fueron secuestrados por un grupo armado mientras intentaban alcanzar la frontera con Estados Unidos, narró Lala en declaraciones tomadas por la Procuraduría General de la República (PGR), informó el portal de La Reforma.

El compatriota quien dio aviso a la Infantería de Marina permanece en un hospital de la localidad tras presentar una herida de bala en la garganta.

El testigo narró que las víctimas "provenían de Centro y Sudamérica, ingresaron por Chiapas a territorio mexicano con la intención de llegar a Estados Unidos", según la página web de Reforma.

Según medios locales de Tamaulipas, el sobreviviente declaró que el grupo de inmigrantes fue interceptado por hombres armados que les ofrecieron trabajo como sicarios, a lo cual se negaron. De inmediato, los desconocidos abrieron fuego contra ellos.

"Presumimos que las víctimas son centroamericanos" luego de que "un sobreviviente así lo "denunció" ante las autoridades, dijo una fuente de la fiscalía que pidió el anonimato y rechazó brindar más detalles.

El ministerio de Marina informó del hecho la noche de ayer en un comunicado que señala que las 72 víctimas, de las cuales 14 son mujeres, fueron encontradas en el rancho tras registrarse un tiroteo con pistoleros que custodiaban el lugar y en el que falleció un soldado y tres presuntos sicarios. Según las investigaciones preliminares, los fallecidos serían de El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador y Brasil...

AFP/ EFE

Agosto 25, 2010

Mexico City - A wounded migrant stumbled into a military checkpoint and led marines to a gruesome scene, what may be the biggest massacre so far in Mexico's bloody drug war: a room strewn with the bodies of 72 fellow travelers, some piled on top of each other, just 100 miles from their goal, the U.S. border.

The 58 men and 14 women were killed, the migrant told investigators Wednesday, by the Zetas cartel, a group of former Mexican army special forces known to extort migrants who pass through its territory.

If authorities corroborate his story, it would be the most horrifying example yet of the plight of migrants trying to cross a country where drug cartels are increasingly scouting shelters and highways, hoping to extort or even recruit vulnerable immigrants.

"It's absolutely terrible and it demands the condemnation of all of our society," said government security spokesman Alejandro Poire.

The Ecuadorean migrant stumbled to the checkpoint on Tuesday, telling the marines he had just escaped from gunmen at a ranch in San Fernando, a town in the northern state of Tamaulipas about 100 miles from Brownsville, Texas.

The Zetas so brutally control some parts of Tamaulipas that even many Mexicans do not dare to travel on the highways in the states.

Many residents in the state tell of loved ones or friends who have disappeared traveling from one town to the next. Many of these kidnappings are never reported for fear that police are in league with the criminals.

The marines scrambled helicopters to raid the ranch, drawing gunfire from cartel gunmen. One marine and three gunmen died in a gunbattle. Then the marines discovered the bodies, some slumped in the chairs where they had been shot, one federal official said.

The migrant told authorities his captors identified themselves as Zetas, and that the migrants were from Brazil, Ecuador, El Salvador and Honduras...

The Reverend Alejandro Solalinde, who runs a shelter in the southern state of Oaxaca, where many migrants pass on their way to Tamaulipas, said the Zetas have put informants inside shelters to find out which migrants have relatives in the U.S. — the most lucrative targets for kidnap-extortion schemes.

He said he constantly hears horror stories, including people who "say their companions have been killed with baseball bats in front of the others."

Solalinde said he has been threatened by Zetas demanding access to his shelters.

He said the gangsters told him: "If we kill you, they'll close the shelter and we'll have to look all over for the migrants."

The Associated Press

Aug. 25, 2010

See also:

Added: Aug. 26, 2010

Mexico

Human trafficking second only to drugs in Mexico

CNN: Human smuggling may be a $20 billion business in Mexico

Mario Santos likely never made it to the United States.

The 18-year-old set out 10 years ago from his native El Salvador in search of opportunity and a better way of life. But he had to travel north through Mexico first.

A short while after leaving, he called his parents to tell them he had been beaten and robbed in Mexico, left penniless and without shoes or clothes. It was the last they heard from him.

It's a fate that likely befell 72 people believed to be migrants from Central and South America whose bodies were found this week in a ranch in northern Mexico, just 90 miles from the U.S. border. It's a fate that officials say also befalls thousands of Central and South Americans every year.

"It's brutal," says Peter Hakim, president emeritus of the Inter-American Dialogue, a non-partisan Washington policy institute. "This is very big business. It's very brutal."

It is indeed big business. Human trafficking is one of the most lucrative forms of crime worldwide after drug and arms trafficking, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said in April.

In Mexico, it is a $15 billion- to $20 billion-a-year endeavor, second only to drug trafficking, said Samuel Logan, founding director of Southern Pulse, an online information network focused on Latin America.

"And that may be a conservative estimate," Logan said.

That money, which used to go mostly to smugglers, now also flows into the hands of drug cartel members.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan, nonprofit policy institute based in Washington, noted in an August report that human smuggling and other illegal activities are playing an increasingly important role as narcotraffickers diversify their activities.

"The drug cartels have not confined themselves to selling narcotics," the report said. "They engage in kidnapping for ransom, extortion, human smuggling and other crimes to augment their incomes."

Some cartels have come to rely more in recent years on human smuggling.

"For the Zetas, it's been one of their main revenue streams for years," Logan said about the vicious cartel, which operates mostly in northeastern Mexico.

Cartel involvement has increased the risk for migrants crossing through Mexico to get to the United States, said Mexico's National Commission for Human Rights. An investigation by the commission showed that 9,758 migrants were abducted from September 2008 to February 2009, or about 1,600 per month.

No one knows exactly how many people try to make the passage every year.

The human rights organization Amnesty International estimates it as tens of thousands. More than 90 percent of them are Central Americans, mostly from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, Amnesty International said in a report this year. And the vast majority of these migrants, the rights group said, are headed for the United States.

"Their journey is one of the most dangerous in the world," Amnesty International said.

"Every year, thousands of migrants are kidnapped, threatened or assaulted by members of criminal gangs," the rights group said. "Extortion and sexual violence are widespread and many migrants go missing or are killed. Few of these abuses are reported and in most cases those responsible are never held to account." ...

On Thursday, Amnesty International called on the Mexican government to take swift action about the slayings of the 72 people in Tamaulipas.

"Amnesty International issued a report in April highlighting the failure of Mexican federal and state authorities to implement effective measures to prevent and punish thousands of kidnappings, killings and rape of irregular migrants at the hands of criminal gangs, who often operate with the complicity or acquiescence of public officials," the rights group said in a release.

"This case once again demonstrates the extreme dangers faced by migrants and the apparent inability of both federal and state authorities to reduce the attacks that migrants face. The response of the authorities to this case will be a test."

Arthur Brice

CNN

Aug. 26, 2010

Additional press coverage of the Tamaulipas massacre.

Added: Aug. 26, 2010

Washington, DC USA

Coalition organizes the largest walk and rally against human trafficking, to be held in Washington, DC on October 23, 2010

On October 23, 2010, thousands of people will gather on the National Mall for the DC Stop Modern Slavery Walk, a united effort to celebrate human rights, raise awareness about human trafficking, and raise funds for organizations working to end human trafficking.

It’s One day, One place, and One Voice for the Voiceless!

This event will include:

* A 3.1 mile walk

* Information fair

* Luminary speakers

* Live music

* A shorter family walk

* A family-friendly area

It will be the largest anti-human trafficking event in DC history! Join us to help build a better world.

DC Stop Modern Slavery Walk

Aug. 22, 2010

Added: Aug. 26, 2010

Florida, USA

Ariel Hurtado

Arrestado en Miami uno de los cinco depredadores sexuales más buscados en el sur de la Florida

Según las autoridades, el sujeto, Ariel Hurtado, de 35 años, fue arrestado afuera del apartamento de su madre y acusado de seis violaciones de libertad provisional, así como de no inscribirse como agresor sexual.

En 1997, Hurtado fue arrestado y acusado de múltiples cargos de agresión lasciva y de asalto indecente contra un menor de 16 años.

En el 2001 fue declarado agresor sexual, hallado culpable y sentenciado a un año y un día de cárcel, además de cinco años de libertad provisional.

Agentes de la policía de Miami lo arrestaron de nuevo en el 2004 después que le enseñó los genitales a varias niñas y adolescentes en paradas de autobús.

Hurtado admitió haberlo hecho en seis ocasiones en paradas de autobús de West Flagler Street en Miami.

Las autoridades declararon a Hurtado depredador sexual en el 2008. Ha estado eludiendo a la policía desde el 9 de septiembre del 2008.

Los detectives que tenían vigilada la casa de la madre de Hurtado, lo vieron cuando llegó a visitar su apartamento, localizado en el 3150 Mundy St. en Miami.

Investigadores de la policía de Miami-Dade y alguaciles federales lo arrestaron en el estacionamiento. Las autoridades dijeron que Hurtado conducía el automóvil de su novia y utilizaba en el vehículo unas placas robadas para así evitar ser detectado.

One of Top 5 most wanted sex offenders arrested in Miami

A serial predator considered one of the Top 5 most wanted sex offenders in South Florida was arrested Thursday.

Authorities said Ariel Hurtado, 35, was arrested outside his mother's apartment and charged with six probation violations and failure to register as a sex offender.

In 1997, Hurtado was arrested and charged with multiple counts of lewd and lascivious assault and indecent assault on a child under the age of 16.

He was designated a sex offender in 2001, and was convicted and sentenced to a year and a day in prison, followed by five years of probation.

Miami police officers arrested Hurtado again in 2004 after he repeatedly exposed himself to numerous girls and teenagers at bus stops on several occasions.

Hurtado admitted to exposing himself six times to girls and teenagers at bus stops along West Flagler Street in Miami.

Authorities designated Hurtado a sexual predator in 2008. He had been eluding police since Sept. 9, 2008.

Detectives, who were keeping Hurtado's mother's home under surveillance, spotted him as he arrived to visit her apartment at 3150 Mundy St. in Miami.

Miami-Dade detectives and U.S. marshals arrested him in the parking lot. Police said Hurtado was driving his girlfriend's car and using a stolen tag on the vehicle to avoid detection.

Andrea Torres

The Miami Herald

Aug. 20, 2010

Added: Aug. 26, 2010

New Jersey, USA

Suspect sketch

Man Sought In Ocean City Sexual Assault

Police are searching for a suspect who is accused of sexually assaulting a juvenile in Ocean City.

Police say Felix Gonzalez, 36, sexually assaulted a juvenile female near the Seapray Road beach on July 27.

Gonzalez, who also uses the alias Santiago, is described as a Hispanic male, between 5'4"-5'7", 180-200 lbs, with black hair and brown eyes. His last known address was in Atlantic City.

Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Gonzalez is urged to contact the Ocean City Police at 609-399-9111.

CBS 3 Philadelphia

Aug. 20, 2010

Added: Aug. 23, 2010

Texas, USA

Texas Governor Rick Perry

Governor Perry wants more penalties for human traffickers

Houston - Gov. Rick Perry on Thursday proposed new laws to stiffen penalties for human trafficking in the state and renewed his criticism of the federal government for failing to keep the Texas-Mexico border secure.

The governor wants state lawmakers when they reconvene in January to make "the worst of these traffickers" subject to first-degree felony charges that could carry up to 99 years in prison. Advocacy groups say Texas is a hotbed for such crimes because of its geographic location, demographics and large migrant work force.

"Those who would commit these heinous acts need to know if you're caught in Texas, you're not going to see the light of day for a long, long time," Perry said.

Texas enacted a human trafficking law in 2003, and last year Perry signed a measure creating a statewide human trafficking task force attached to the Texas Attorney General's Office. The law took effect in January.

Perry said he was making $500,000 in grants available to counties and cities to help victims of human trafficking. His office's criminal justice division also will provide the attorney general with nearly $300,000 to expand the trafficking task force to aid in prosecution of cases.

Perry said human trafficking preys on the hopes and dreams of victims who were promised better lives for themselves and their families.

"Unfortunately, what awaits victims is a life of confinement, hard labor, prostitution, physical and mental abuse, and in far too many cases an early death," he said. "Human trafficking is simply modern-day slave trade and its scope is very chilling."

The governor cited federal statistics that estimate 20,000 people fall victim to human trafficking in the U.S. each year, "but we have no reliable way of knowing if the problem may be worse than that." He said about 20 percent of the victims may be in Texas.

The Houston Rescue and Restore Coalition, a consortium of Houston nonprofit groups, faith-based organizations and government agencies, said Texas and Houston remain hotbeds of human trafficking not only because of their locations, but because of demographics and large numbers of migrant workers. Houston's port and airport, along with its proximity to Mexico, add to the problem...

Michael Graczyk

The Associated Press

Aug. 19, 2010

Added: Aug. 23, 2010

California, USA

35 Immigrants Held Hostage in Baldwin Park

Investigators say one child was among the illegal immigrants found inside the residence.

Baldwin Park - Police have arrested two men accused of human trafficking after 36 suspected illegal immigrants were found inside a Baldwin Park house believed to have been used as a holding cell.

At around 7:00 p.m., officers form the Baldwin Park Police Department say they received a call from an alarmed man claiming to be an illegal immigrant being held against his will.

Arriving officers saw several suspects fleeing the home in the 5000 block of La Rica Road in Baldwin Park.

After an investigation, officers discovered several men, women and one child being held inside the home.

Police believe they had been in the residence for up to one month.

They were smuggled into the country illegally from Mexico and Central America and were being held until family members paid a certain sum of money, Lt. David Reynoso said.

The 36 immigrants appeared to be in good health, Reynoso said.

Two alleged captors, ages 18 and 30 years old, were arrested.

No weapons were found.

Police initially said it appeared the immigrants were being held against their will.

Jennifer Gould

KTLA News

Aug. 20, 2010

Added: Aug. 23, 2010

Chile

Ramona Nélida Serrano

Ramona Nélida Serrano alias Nélida Urbina o La Chilena vendía bebés santiagueños en Buenos Aires

Enfermera santiagueña, fue acusada de vender un bebé en Buenos Aires

Gisela di Vicenzo, que presentó la denuncia asegura haberla confrontado y sostuvo que la mujer reconoció que participó de una prolífica red de trata de personas.

Una enfermera santiagueña, afincada en Buenos Aires, fue acusada pública y judicialmente de integrar una red de trata de personas, que durante varios años, en las décadas del 70 y el 80, habrían vendido varias decenas de niños en la capital del país.

Según relató la joven que presentó la denuncia, la mujer, conocida como Nelly Urbina, trabajaba en el Hospital Italiano y se la conocía bajo el apodo de “La Chilena”.

Nurse Ramona Nélida Serrano, alias Nélida Urbina or La Chilena, clandestinely sold babies from Santiago, Chile in Buenos AIres, Aregentina for decades

Ramona Nélida Serrano, a nurse, has been criminally charged with participating in a human trafficking ring that, especially during the 1970s and 1980s, sold babies Chilean babies in Argentina's capital, Buenos Aires...

Julio César Ruiz

El Liberal de Santiago del Estero

Aug. 22, 2010

Added: Aug. 23, 2010

Washington State, USA

Seattle dubbed 'hub city' for child and teen sex trafficking in the U.S.

In a recent Dan Rather television special he said the U.S. Department of Justice dubbed Seattle, Wash., and Portland, as two of the twelve “hub cities” in the U.S. for prostitution and human trafficking, including sex trafficking of children and teens.

While the problem exists across the nation, Portland and Seattle provide easy north and south access on the I-5 corridor that spans from Canada to Mexico.

Portland, Ore., a metropolitan area just hours south of Seattle, has acquired a deplorable nationwide reputation for being the leading major hub for prostitution and child sex trafficking. Rather featured a recent television special called “Pornland, Oregon: Child Prostitution in Portland.”

Recognizing the depth of the problem, Portland is now leading the way to a solution for children and teens who are victims of human trafficking for the purpose of selling them for sex.

Many teens, Rather said during his TV special, are recruited for sex and then moved across the country. Only 60 to 100 shelter beds for this purpose currently exist in the U.S., with 20 of them located in Seattle, Wash. One avenue for abusers to locate their victims is through the popular online classified advertising site, Craiglist...

Isabelle Zehnder

The Examiner

Aug. 17, 2010

Added: Aug. 23, 2010

Arizona

Sentencing delayed

The sentencing hearing for a woman accused of training a 14-year-old girl how to be a prostitute was postponed Wednesday after a problem arose.

Maricela Ann Muñoz was indicted in June on a charge of child prostitution of a minor under 15, a charge that carries a prison sentence of between 13 and 27 years.

She pleaded guilty to attempted child prostitution of a minor under 15 as part of a plea agreement that stated she could get probation or somewhere between five and 15 years in prison.

The plea agreement also states it would be up to Judge Charles Sabalos to decide if Muñoz should have to register as a sex offender.

On Wednesday, Judge Sabalos said he believes he must order Muñoz to register as a sex offender.

Muñoz's sentencing was postponed until Sept. 9 so her attorney can see if the plea agreement can be amended in some way.

Muñoz's co-defendant, Whitley Minter, entered an identical plea agreement and is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 9.

According to police, a patrol officer spotted the 14-year-old walking south on South Sixth Avenue near the Rodeo Grounds at about 11:30 p.m. April 24.

The girl appeared to be soliciting, and the officer approached and questioned her, Pacheco said.

The girl eventually admitted she was a runaway from Phoenix and she was being trained to sell herself by a man named "David" and some women.

The teenager said they were staying at two local hotels until they earned enough money to move to California. When the cops went to the motels, David was gone, but Minter and Muñoz were there.

Police said the girl has been reunited with her parents, who had hired a private investigator to look for her.

Kim Smith

Arizona Daily Star

Aug. 19, 2010

Added: Aug. 23, 2010

California, USA

Floran Calixto Sulit

Victorville Teacher Accused of Child Molestation

Victorville - A 33-year-old Silverado High School teacher has been arrested for allegedly having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old student.

School officials reported the inappropriate relationship between math teacher Floran Calixto Sulit and the female juvenile on Aug. 11, according to San Bernardino County sheriff's officials.

Detectives learned that during the "on-going relationship," Sulit was "sending harmful material to the victim via her cell phone," a sheriff's press release stated.

Sulit, of Victorville, has been working at the school for six years.

He was arrested on suspicion of oral copulation and sending harmful matter. He's being held on $25,000 bail.

Detectives are urging anyone with information, or who may have been a victim, to contact Detective Julie Brumm at (909)387-3615. Tipsters can remain anonymous by calling WeTip at (800)78-CRIME (800-782-7463).

KTLA News

Aug. 18, 2010

Added: Aug. 23, 2010

California, USA

Man Charged with Having Sex with 12-year-old Girl

31 year-old Neftali Procopio was caught having sex with the girl in his parked car.

Santa Ana - A 31-year-old man has been charged with having sex and smoking pot with a 12-year-old girl he met on a playground in Santa Ana.

Police say Neftali Pena Procopio started talking to the young girl while playing basketball at Santa Ana High School on Monday night. The two became friends and the young girl said she thought he was a good listener. She reportedly told him about problems she was having at home.

Propcopio and the young girl met again at 10 p.m. when he persuaded her to sneak out of her house.

Officers arrested Propcopio while the two were having sex in his parked car on Ross Street. They both lied about their ages, according to police.

The young girl said she was 19 years old. Officers, however, doubted the girl's age and determined later she was only 12. That's when Propcopio was taken into custody, according to officials.

Procopio was charged Wednesday with felony lewd acts on a child under 14 and felony furnishing marijuana to a minor. His Bail has been set at $100,000.

KTLA News

Aug. 18, 2010

Added: Aug. 17, 2010

Mexico

Federal Police Riot in Ciudad Juarez Over Corruption

On August 8, Federal Police stationed in Ciudad Juarez (dubbed the "Murder Capital of the World") staged a thirteen-hour work stoppage to demand the dismissal of their superiors. They claimed their superiors were corrupt: they plant drugs and weapons on suspects, they are members of organized crime, they use their government-issue armored vehicles (such as the ones donated by the US government under the Merida Initiative) to transport drugs, and they throw whistle-blowing officers in jail. Discontent within the force reached a boiling point when commanding officers brought federal charges against an officer who filed a complaint against his superiors for abuse of authority, mistreatment, and death threats.

In response to the arrest of the whistle-blower, approximately 400 agents blocked streets in Ciudad Juarez to demand his release. Their action led to the dismissal of four commanding officers. However, Federal Police Internal Affairs removed the rioting agents from duty and is investigating them for having "instigated attacks and protests." The commanding officers, on the other hand, are not "under investigation," according to the Attorney General's Office. They're simply being asked to give testimony about the protest in Juárez, not about the corruption charges.

[A more detailed article about this crisis appears at the linked web site.]

Kristin Bricker

My Word is my Weapon

Aug. 12, 2010

[Can anyone believe that Mexico is going to be able to organize an effort to seriously combat human trafficking when police commanders are owned by the cartels that profit from and promote such trafficking? - LL]

Added: Aug. 17, 2010

Florida, USA

6 arrested in rare human trafficking case in Jacksonville

Over the past several weeks, local and federal authorities have arrested six men in what they’re calling a rare sex-trafficking operation in Jacksonville.

It started when a 15-year-old runaway wandered into the city’s drug-ridden underbelly last spring. She met men who gave her crack cocaine in exchange for sex. Then, they held her captive for nearly a month and sold her as a prostitute until she managed to break free and call her mother, who then called police.

Sheriff John Rutherford compared the case to slavery on Monday as he and James Casey, FBI special agent in charge of the Jacksonville office, announced the arrests.

However, the details were kept to a minimum as both said they wanted to protect the 15-year-old girl, who had been placed in a therapy program.

Police would not specify where in the city the girl was being held or where she was forced to perform sex acts for drugs. The method the men used to strong arm her into prostitution also was not revealed.

Ian Sean Gordon, 29, and Melvin Eugene Friedman, 45, were identified as principle suspects in the case...

If he’s convicted on the federal sex-trafficking charges, Gordon could face a life sentence.

Police also rounded up three men accused of purchasing the girl as a prostitute. Phillip Anthony Aiken, 28, Oris Alexander English, 45, and Alfredo Martinez Riquene, 42, each face a mandatory 10-year prison sentence if convicted.

Another man, 28-year-old Antonio D. Ford, was arrested on charges that he knew about what was happening to the girl but did not come forward.

Nearly 300,000 children in the United States, most of them runaways, are considered at risk to be forced into prostitution, according to a November 2009 report compiled by International Crisis Aid, a St. Louis-based human rights organization.

Still, Rutherford said the case announced Monday is a first in Jacksonville. Investigators said there could be more arrests coming.

David Hunt

August 16, 2010

Added: Aug. 16, 2010

Mexico

Young women from the Triqui indigenous community in Mexico

Confirman parálisis de niña triqui de 14 años por ataque en Oaxaca

Discriminadas por médicos del hospital Juárez, denuncian

La niña triqui Adela Ramírez López, quien fue herida el 30 de julio por elementos de la policía estatal y de grupos paramilitares que ingresaron de manera violenta al municipio autónomo San Juan Copala, Oaxaca, quedará imposibilitada para caminar.

Fuentes cercanas a Cimacnoticias informaron que la niña fue trasladada al Hospital Juárez de la ciudad de México, donde ayer las y los médicos les informaron el diagnóstico y les dijeron que ya no pueden hacer nada más por ella en ese nosocomio.

“Estamos hablando de una niña de 14 años que tenía todo un futuro por delante y nos dicen que ya no pueden hacer nada, estas son las tragedias que las mujeres y niñas triquis vivimos todo los días”, relató la fuente consultada por esta agencia.

Precisó que durante la estancia en el hospital de la niña, las mujeres triquis permanecieron a las afueras del nosocomio, para estar en todo momento atentas a lo que se necesite y denunciaron que fueron discriminadas por el personal del hospital...

14-year-old Triqui indigenous girl is paralyzed in shooting attack by state police and paramilitary [thugs] in Oaxaca

Adela Ramírez López, a 14-year-old girl from the Triqui indigenous community in Oaxaca state, was wounded on July 30, 2010 by elements of the Oaxaca State Police and members of paramilitary groups who engaged in a violent assault on the autonomous community of San Juan Copala, Oaxaca. As a result of the attack, Adela is paralyzed and cannot walk.

Sources close to the CIMAC women's news service have told us that Adela has been transported to Juárez Hospital in Mexico City. Doctors stated that they cannot do anything more for Adela at their facility.

A source told us: "We are talking about a 14-year-old girl who has her whole future ahead of her, and they tell us that they can do nothing more to help her. These are the types of tragedies that Triqui women face on a daily basis."

The source added that during Adela's hospital stay, a group of Triqui woman has been by her side at every moment, to attend to her needs. These women report that hospital staff have behaved in a discriminatory way toward them.

The Tirqui tribal area is located in Oaxaca state's La Mixteca region. The zone has been a center of acts of violence between rival groups who seek political control [within the tribe]. Women and girls have been the constant targets of abuse even as they have been important actors in the search for peace in their communities.

On July 30th, the group Women in Resistance of the town of San Juan Copala denounced the fact that 200 state police agents, under the command of Commissioner Jorge Quezada, violently attached their community.

Sources: "Their pretext was that they wanted to recover the body of one of the bloodiest, most notorious paramilitary gang chiefs, [who was located in] the town. The state police decided to mount their attack with the assistance of 20 gunmen from a paramilitary group called UBIRISORT (The Union for Social Wellbeing for the Triqui Region [affiliated with and tribal proxies for the Oaxaca state government])."

In response, the women of the town formed a human shield to protect themselves and their daughters and sons from this act of aggression. The state police and paramilitaries responded by opening fire on the group of unarmed women.

Bullets hit Adela and her 15-year-old sister. Adela was hit in the intestines and that bullet lodged in her spinal column, leaving her paralyzed. Her sister was shot in the lung, and is in critical condition.

Gladis Torres Ruiz

CIMAC Women's News Agency

Aug. 13, 2010

See also:

A collection of articles (in Spanish) about the ongoing wave of violence facing Triqui women.

CIMAC Women's News Agency

Added: Aug. 16, 2010

Mexico

Negociazo trata de personas

En el foro “Hacia una legislación Integral en Materia de Trata de Personas y Delitos Afines”, que se llevó a cabo en San Lázaro para tratar este delito, los diputados mencionaron que la trata se ha convertido en un tema de seguridad nacional, pues en los últimos años ha ido en aumento en toda la República Mexicana.

En el país existe una población infantil de 31 millones de niños, de los cuales el 0.6 por ciento es víctima de trata, es decir, 20 mil infantes son sujetos a la explotación sexual, o usados para actos de pornografía, según la Comisión Especial de Lucha Contra la Trata de Personas en la Cámara de Diputados.

A decir de la diputada panista María Antonieta Pérez Reyes, la trata de personas genera ganancias para el crimen organizado por 9 mil 500 millones de dólares anuales.

Legisladores mencionaron que mientras siga la pobreza y la ignorancia, las personas se hacen más vulnerables a ser víctimas de trata de personas. En tanto, el Procurador de Justicia del Distrito Federal, Miguel Ángel Mancera, dio a conocer que con los distintos operativos que se han realizado, se ha logrado asegurar nueve hoteles dónde se realizaban delitos de este tipo.

Además de ser rescatadas 95 personas víctimas de delitos sexuales, y han arraigado a 83 delincuentes.

The Business of Human Trafficking

During a just-ended congressional forum: Working Towards Integral Legislation Addressing Human Trafficking and Related Crimes, members of the Chamber of Deputies (lower house) pf Congress declared that human trafficking was a national security issue that has increased in intensity across Mexico during recent years.

According to the Special Commission to Fight Human Trafficking in the Chamber of Deputies, headed by National Action Party (PAN) deputy Rosi Orozco, some 20,000 children - 0.06% of Mexico's 31 million children, are subjected to sexual exploitation, which may include child pornography...

[Note: We reject the figure of 20,000 child victims as being an indefensable undercounting (and thus a whitewash) of the problem. - LL]

Deputies mentioned that, as long as poverty and ignorance continue to exist, people will remain vulnerable to human trafficking.

During the session, Mexico City District Attorney Miguel Ángel Mancera announced that police raids in the capital city have resulted in shutting down 9 hotels and the rescue of 95 victims. Eighty three suspects have been held for prosecution.

Omar Sánchez

El Arsenal

Aug. 12, 2010

[Note: Mexico City's city government has worked hard to address human trafficking issues, although as the capital, the problem remains serious. The nation's 30 states have, for the most part, expressed much less enthusiasm for aggressively pursuing human traffickers and rescuing victims. - LL]

Added: Aug. 16, 2010

Cuba

Contra la prostitución infantil

Cientos de agentes de la policía fueron desplegados durante el sábado 10 y el y domingo 11 de julio en las calles Galiano, Reina, Monte, y en los parques Central y El curita, para frenar la prostitución infantil que, según fuentes confiables, ha alcanzado índices elevados entre los jóvenes de 12 a 18 años. Esta reportera presenció el arresto de adolescentes que fueron trasladados en carros jaulas hacia diferentes unidades de policía. También los agentes arrestaron a varios homosexuales que se paseaban por los alrededores del Capitolio Nacional y el cine Payret. Los operativos se extendieron al malecón, la cascada del hotel Nacional y la calle G.

Targeting Child Prostitution in Cuba

According to sources, hundreds of police agents conducted raids on July 10th and 11th, 2010 in Havana targeting child prostitution. The raids were conducted on Galiano, Reina and Monte streets, as well as in Central Park and El Curita park in the capital city of Havana. Youth from 12 to 18-years-of-age who engage in prostitution in these areas. This reporter witnessed the arrest of a number of adolescents, who were taken in police vehicles to local police stations. Homosexual [prostitutes] who congregate in the area of the National Capitol building and the Payret cinema were also arrested. The operation also involved the the city's beach front - El Malecón, the steps of the National Hotel and also G Street.

Magaly Norvis Otero

Hablemos Press

July 19, 2010

Added: Aug. 16, 2010

Texas, USA

Shatavia Anderson

Melvin Alvarado, and Jonathan Ariel Lopez-Torres

Illegal immigrant who confessed to killing 14-year-old girl had been deported twice

Houston - The family of a 14-year-old girl who was murdered last weekend showed up in court Friday.

Although the two suspects charged in the crime didn’t physically appear in court, both were assigned attorneys.

The family of 14-year-old Shatavia Anderson came out to speak about the young girl’s murder and were seen embracing inside the courthouse. Though they were not able to see the men police say are responsible for Anderson’s death, the family said they wanted to be there nonetheless.

Anderson was robbed and killed Saturday less than 100 yards from her family’s apartment in the 1100 block of Langwick Drive, police said. Police said the crime happened at about 12:30 a.m. as Anderson walked to the intersection of Greens Road and Wayforest.

Melvin Alvarado, 22, and Jonathan Ariel Lopez-Torres, 18, confessed that they were involved in the robbery and shooting, police said.

Police said Alvarado shot Anderson in the back and Torres drove the getaway vehicle. Both of the suspects lived in the area where Anderson was robbed and killed, police said.

Detectives said the suspects saw the girl walking home alone and decided to rob her. Anderson fought back as Alvarado attempted the robbery, Houston Police Sgt. Billy Bush said.

"Something happened between them. She pushed off, and at that point she ran and he says he shot her in the back," he said.

Police said they started getting tips Tuesday after they put out a composite sketch of one of the suspects.

"Both of them show to have a criminal history, not a significant criminal history, but they both have been arrested," Bush said.

Anderson’s family members were angered when they learned Alvarado was an illegal immigrant from El Salvador and had previously been deported from the U.S. twice.

"What I’m trying to figure out is how they started coming over here and they can do whatever they want," said Anderson’s uncle Joe Lambert. "What you doing is giving them the green light, tellin’ them, ‘Hey, you can come over here and do what you want.’ It’s a prime example, that guy.."

Torres, a legal immigrant from Honduras, had no prior criminal convictions.

The two men appeared in a probable cause court on Thursday.

A judge refused to set bail.

Alvarado and Lopez-Torres are expected to be appear before a judge at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center on Friday.

Anderson’s funeral is planned for Saturday at 10 a.m. at Canaan Missionary Baptist Church located in the 5000 block of Lockwood.

Her family set up a memorial fund at Capital One Bank.

KHOU

Aug. 11, 2010

Added: Aug. 16, 2010

California, USA

Mercury Air Centers To Pay $600,000 For National Origin, Race And Sex Harassment In EEOC Suit

Salvadoran Airport Employee Was Promoted Despite Harassment of Filipino, Guatemalan and Mexican Male Workers, Federal Agency Charged

Los Angeles - Aircraft services provider Mercury Air Centers, Inc., will pay $600,000 and furnish other relief to settle a national origin, race and sex harassment lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced today.

The EEOC originally filed suit against Mercury Air Centers in September 2008 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California (EEOC v. Mercury Air Centers, Inc., CV-08-06332-AHM(Ex)), alleging that the harassment violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Since the filing of the lawsuit, Mercury Air Centers was sold and became a part of Atlantic Services, Inc. Atlantic Services then worked with the EEOC in an effort to resolve the lawsuit.

According to the EEOC, the seven victims – including one Filipino male and six Hispanic males – endured a barrage of harassing comments on the part of a Salvadoran male co-worker at the Bob Hope Airport facility in Burbank, Calif., since at least 2004. The EEOC claims that a Filipino line technician was regularly referred to as a “chink,” “chino,” and “stupid Chinese,” and subjected to offensive statements about Filipinos. The alleged harasser derided the Guatemalan victims with derogatory remarks regarding their national origin, including references to them as “stupid Guatemaltecos” and stating that Guatemalans are useless and inferior to Salvadorans. Prior to learning the actual national origin of one of the Guatemalan victims, the alleged harasser also called him a “stupid Mexican.”

The EEOC contends that the alleged harasser also repeatedly hurled offensive racial and sexual remarks toward the claimants and at least two African-American employees, which included usage of the N-word and requests for sexual favors. The alleged harasser grabbed his genitals in their presence and engaged in unwanted sexual touching. Despite complaints regarding his inappropriate behavior, Mercury Air Centers’ management officials failed to fully investigate or address the alleged harassment, says the EEOC. In fact, the alleged harasser was instead promoted to a supervisory position....

U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission

Aug. 09, 2010

Added: Aug. 16, 2010

North Carolina, USA

Ricardo Velasquez

Man held in rapes of 2 children in south Charlotte

A man accused of raping two children in south Charlotte Sunday night has been flagged as an illegal immigrant in Mecklenburg jail.

Ricardo Velasquez was in jail late Wednesday. He was given a $170,000 bond, but was also being held by immigration authorities after Sheriff’s deputies identified him as an illegal immigrant under the 287(g) program.

Velasquez, 40, was charged with two counts of rape on a child under 13, two counts of taking indecent liberties with a child, and two counts of first-degree sex offense on a child. The children were seven- and eight years old, according to a police report.

According to the report, the crimes happened just before 9 p.m. on Sunday night at an apartment on Sharon Road West. The condition of the children was unknown, but the police report says they had to be treated by emergency room doctors.

Velasquez has three previous convictions for driving while impaired, dating back to 1997, according to a search of N.C. court records. He’s also been found guilty of interfering with an emergency communication three times.

The 287(g) program that flagged Velasquez identifies and begins deportation proceedings against people in the country illegally who are arrested in Mecklenburg and other cooperating jurisdictions.

Cleve R. Wootson Jr.

The Charlotte Observer

Aug. 11, 2010

Added: Aug. 16, 2010

Georgia, USA

Houston County judge sentences man to 35 years for molesting 6-year-old relative

William Mamfredo Castro, 29, who had been living in Warner Robins, was sentenced by Superior Court Judge Katherine K. Lumsden after pleading guilty to one count of child molestation and two counts of first degree cruelty to children, said Senior Assistant District Attorney David Cooke. The girl was related to Castro, Cooke said.

Houston County public defender Nick White, who represented Castro, noted that Castro entered a “best-interest” plea. Castro was facing a potential life sentence had he gone to trial and been convicted of all the charges against him, White said. As part of the plea agreement, other charges, including rape and aggravated sexual battery, were dismissed. But Cooke said he thought a similar sentence would have been rendered had Castro gone to trial and been convicted of all the charges.

U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has a hold on Castro, an illegal immigrant, White said. How much time Castro will serve in prison before being deported will be up to the state parole board and federal authorities, White said.

However, Cooke said he expects that Castro’s status as an illegal will not impact his prison term and that Castro likely will serve 90 percent of the 35 years.

Becky Purser

Macon.com

Aug. 07, 2010

Added: Aug. 16, 2010

Oregon, USA

Tigard Police Seek Sexual Assault Suspect

Tigard Police investigators are seeking a suspect who reportedly unlawfully entered a woman’s home and sexually assaulted the victim. The incident occurred on August 6th, 2010 at approximately 3:50 pm. at the Windmill Apartments located along SW Tigard St. near 105th Ave.

The 40 year-old victim reported she was confronted in her unit by a Hispanic male that entered through an open rear slider. The victim was sexually assaulted by the suspect, who then fled on foot. The suspect is further described as 30-40 years of age, 5'6? tall, chubby with short dark hair. At the time of the incident, the suspect was seen wearing blue jeans, a polo shirt with a horizontal stripe pattern and white athletic shoes. A distinguishing feature of the suspect is a scar through the left eyebrow.

Tigard Police Detectives are asking the public’s help to identify the suspect. A composite sketch of the suspect is available to further assist the search. If anyone has information they are asked to contact the Tigard Police Tip line at 503-718-COPS (2677).

The Portlander

Aug. 13, 2010

Added: Aug. 10, 2010

Mexico

Pimps force Mexican women into prostitution in U.S.

Tenancingo - In this impoverished town in central Mexico, a sinister trade has taken root: Entire extended families exploit desperation and lure hundreds of unsuspecting young Mexican women to the United States to force them into prostitution.

Those who know the pimps of Tlaxcala state - victims, prosecutors, social workers and researchers - say the men from [the city of] Tenancingo have honed their methods over at least three generations.

They play on all that is good in their victims - love of family, love of husband, love of children - to force young women into near-bondage in the United States.

The town provided the perfect petri dish for forced prostitution. A heavily Indian area, it combines long-standing traditions of forced marriage or "bride kidnapping," with machismo, [and] grinding poverty...

Added to that, says anthropologist Oscar Montiel - who has interviewed the pimps about their work - is a tradition of informal, sworn-to-silence male groups. He believes that, in the town of just over 10,000, there may be as many as 3,000 people directly involved the trade. Prosecutors say the network includes female relatives of the pimps, who often serve as go-betweens or supervisors, or who care for the children of women working as prostitutes.

A pimp Montiel identified only by his unprintable nickname said his uncle got him started in the business and that he has since passed the techniques on to his brother and two sons.

Federico Pohls, who runs a center that tries to help victims, says established pimps will sometimes bankroll young men who aspire to the profession but lack the clothes, money and cars to impress young women.

Dilcya Garcia, a Mexico City prosecutor who did anti-trafficking work in Tenancingo, confirms that many boys in the town aspire to be pimps.

"If you ask some boys, and we have done this, 'Hey what do you want to be when you grow up?' They reply: 'I want to have a lot of sisters and a lot of daughters to make lots of money."' ...

A typical scenario, prosecutors say, involves an elaborate sham of a marriage - sometimes with false papers and names - before the pimp feigns a sudden financial crisis that would put the couple out in the street. The pimp then casually mentions a friend whose wife "worked" them out of the problem, noting, "If you love me, you'd do that for me."

Sometimes the tactics are more violent.

Garcia tells of an 18-year-old woman who was picked up by a Tenancingo pimp; her 11/2-year-old baby girl was placed in the care of one of his female relatives, and the woman was then taken to a down-at-the-heels Mexico City hotel and made to serve dozens of clients per day, for around 165 pesos ($12) apiece. When she resisted, the pimp told her, "If you don't do what I'm asking you to, you'll never see your daughter. You'll see what we'll do to your daughter."

Mostly, the pimps concentrate on isolating women, lying to them, and breaking down their self-esteem.

The victim who spoke to the AP described it this way: Her pimp, Rugerio, humiliated her, pulled her hair, withheld food and told her that she had to practice sex acts on him so she would perform well with the clients.

"I didn't like it," she said. "I felt ugly and it was very painful."

Rugerio told her he would send her to the U.S. and that he'd join her a bit later. After walking through the desert, she was sent to a nondescript apartment complex in suburban Atlanta, where she was met by two women and a man who, she was told, were related to Rugerio.

One of the women took her shopping for clothes. Even though it was September and starting to get chilly, the woman selected mostly short, tight skirts and tops and told her she'd have to start working the next day.

"I asked them what kind of work I would be doing," the young victim said. "She took out a bag of condoms and then I knew."

Her minders kept her in a small, sparsely furnished apartment, isolated from any other girls and mostly ignored her during the day. Around 4 p.m., a driver would come pick her up to take her to work. In the beginning, she had sex with between five and 10 men a night, but as time went on the number got as high as 40 or 50, mostly Latino men...

The 28-year-old Rugerio was sentenced in February to five years in federal prison in the U.S. for helping smuggle young women from Mexico to Atlanta and forcing them into prostitution.

But many others aren't caught.

"We've always suspected the problem is larger than we know about," said Brock Nicholson, deputy special agent in charge of the Atlanta division of the federal Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "Oftentimes, victims are very reluctant to come forward."

Those arrested on suspicion of forced prostitution almost never admit it...

Kate Brumback and Mark Stevenson

The Associated Press

August 09, 2010

Added: Aug. 10, 2010

Canada

Children dying while predators roam free

Vancouver, British Columbia – Convicted sexual predator Martin Tremblay is still roaming free after two teenage girls died in March – one at his home – after being given a lethal mix of alcohol and drugs within hours of their deaths.

Friends of Martha Hernandez, 17, and Kayla LaLonde, 16, said the two First Nations [indigenous] teens had been hanging out with a man named “Martin” who supplied them with free drugs and alcohol at parties he held for teens at his Richmond home.

Angela LaLonde, whose daughter was found collapsed on a road with bruises on her body, said police told her they were close to an arrest in her daughter’s death, but then they stopped returning calls.

“That was the last time I saw them, the last time they even said anything, and I’ve tried calling and calling and they will not call me back,” she told CTV News in June.

Yet no arrests have been made, and the families are worried there will be no justice for their daughters, particularly after hearing that Tremblay recently had a garage sale and plans to move to a new location where no one knows his history.

What is particularly alarming is that Tremblay was convicted in 2003 for raping five Native girls between the ages of 13 and 15, most of whom were in foster care.

Tremblay, 44, not only drugged and raped young girls, he made pornographic videos of them while they were unconscious. Witnesses told police he had given the girls a mixture of morphine, ecstasy, codeine and alcohol.

It was his habit of videotaping his rapes that led to his arrest after an anonymous source delivered the tapes to the Vancouver police who initiated an investigation and eventually brought charges.

Tremblay pleaded guilty to five counts of sexual assault, but was only sentenced to three-and-a-half years in custody and 18 months of probation – and released after serving little more than a year in prison.

Before his release, women’s advocacy groups petitioned the judge to prohibit Tremblay from contact with girls under the age of 18, but that didn’t happen. Nor was he ever listed on a sex offender registry.

Frustrated by the lack of concern by law enforcement, women’s advocacy groups plastered the neighborhood with posters bearing his picture, warning girls that Tremblay has a history of drugging and sexually assaulting teenagers. And they repeatedly questioned why police didn’t issue a public warning about him.

So when two more teenagers linked to Tremblay died, activists and families were angry and frustrated that police had not done more to protect them.

“The community wants to know what happened to these girls and why was it allowed to happen,” said Carrie Humchitt, a lawyer with the Aboriginal Women’s Action Network. “These warnings weren’t taken seriously and here we are again.”

At the time, Richmond Royal Canadian Mounted Police Cpl. Jennifer Pound told the media that they had received many questions regarding “a specific individual and whether or not police will be putting out a public warning.” She said while the investigation was active, police were not in a position to name suspects or issue any warnings “based on speculation.”

According to a 2010 report by the Native Women’s Association of Canada, 582 cases of murdered and missing Native women have been documented so far, mostly over the past 10 years. Experts agree, however, that the actual numbers are much higher – in the thousands – and that more cases need to be documented though funding is limited...

“Aboriginal girls are hunted down and prostituted, and the perpetrators go uncharged with child sexual assault and child rape,” said Laura Holland, a spokeswoman for the Aboriginal Women’s Action Network. “These predators, pervasive in our society, roam with impunity in our streets and take advantage of those aboriginal children with the least protection.” ...

Valerie Taliman

Indian Country Today

August 06, 2010

Added: Aug. 6, 2010

Brazil

BBC reporter Chris Rogers talks with a young girl in prostitution

Brasil: el auge del turismo sexual que busca niños

La reputación erótica del país atrae a un tipo de turista indeseable.

Gran parte de la demanda de los turistas que viajan a Brasil en busca de relaciones sexuales la están satisfaciendo niños, reveló una investigación de la BBC.

Su pequeño bikini deja al aire su exigua contextura. No parece mayor de 13 años y es una de las decenas de niñas que se pasean en la calle en busca de clientes, bajo el sol abrasador de la mediatarde.

La mayoría proviene de las poblaciones marginales de los alrededores, las favelas...

Chris Rogers

BBC Mundo

July 30, 2010

See also:

Brazil's sex tourism boom

Young children are supplying an increasing demand from foreign tourists who travel to Brazil for sex holidays, according to a BBC investigation. Chris Rogers reports on how the country is overtaking Thailand as a destination for sex tourism and on attempts to curb the problem.

Her small bikini exposes her tiny frame. She looks no older than 13 - one of dozens of girls parading the street looking for clients in the blazing mid-afternoon sun. Most come from the surrounding favelas - or slums.

As I park my car, the young girl dances provocatively to catch my attention.

"Hello my name is Clemie - you want a programme?" she asks, programme being the code word they use for an hour of sex. Clemie asks for less than $5 (£3) for her services. An older woman standing nearby steps in and introduces herself as Clemie's mother.

I usually have more than 10 clients per night - they pay 10 reais each - enough for a rock of crack.”

"You have the choice of another two girls, they are the same age as my daughter, the same price," she explains. "I can take you to a local motel where a room can be rented by the hour."

I make my excuses and head towards the bars and brothels of the nearby red-light district.

Despite assurances of a police crackdown, there appears to be little evidence of child prostitution disappearing from the streets of Recife. In four years' time, the country will be hosting the World Cup, which will fuel its booming economy.

Brazil has defied the global economic downturn thanks, in part, to its exotic, endless beaches attracting record numbers of tourists.

The country's erotic reputation has long been attracting an unwanted type of tourist. Every week specialist holiday [vacation tour] operators bring in thousands of European singles on charted flights looking for cheap sex. Now Brazil is overtaking Thailand as the world's most popular sex-tourist destination.

Underage

...Taxi drivers work with the girls who are too young to get into the bars. One offers me two for the price of one and a lift to a local motel.

"They are underage, so much cheaper than the older ones," he explains as he introduces me to Sara and Maria.

Neither has made any attempt to disguise their age. One clings to a bright pink Barbie bag, and they hold each other's hands looking terrified at the possibility of a potential customer.

Recife's red-light area is now crammed with cars slowly crawling past groups of girls parading their bodies...

For safety, Pia works with a group of older girls who act as pimps, taking care of the money and watching over the younger ones.

"There's lots of girls working around here. I'm not the youngest, my sister is 12, and there's an 11-year-old." But Pia is worried about her sister: "Bianca hasn't been seen for two days since she left with a foreign guy," she says.

Pia first started working as a prostitute at the age of seven, and UNICEF estimates there are 250,000 child prostitutes like her in Brazil.

"I've been doing it for so long now, I don't even think about the dangers," Pia tells me. "Foreign guys just show up here. I've been with lots of them. They just show up like you." ...

Pia told me that one day she hopes to break out of prostitution. She said she had heard of charities that provide a home for girls like her.

"Every day I ask God to take me out of this life. Sometimes I do stop, but then I go back to the streets looking for men. The drug is bad, the drug is my weakness and the clients are always there willing to pay." ...

BBC News

July 30, 2010

Added: Aug. 2, 2010

Mexico

Award-winning journalist and anti trafficking activist Lydia Cacho

Esclavas en México

Domestic worker slavery in Mexico

México, DF, - Cristina y Dora tenían 11 años cuando Domingo fue por ellas a la Mixteca en Oaxaca. Don José Ernesto, un militar de la Capital, le encargó un par de muchachitas para el trabajo del hogar. La madre pensó que si sus niñas trabajaban con “gente decente” tendrían la posibilidad de una vida libre, de estudiar y alimentarse, tres opciones que ella jamás podría darles por su pobreza extrema.

Cristina y Dora vivieron en el sótano, oscuro y húmedo, con un baño improvisado en una mansión construida durante el Porfiriato, cuyos jardines y ventanales hablan de lujos y riqueza. Las niñas aprendieron a cocinar como al patrón le gustaba. A lo largo de 40 años no tuvieron acceso a la escuela ni al seguro social, una de las hermanas prohijó un bebé producto de la violación del hijo del patrón. Les permitían salir unas horas algunos sábados, porque el domingo había comidas familiares. Sólo tres veces en cuatro décadas les dieron vacaciones, siendo adultas, para visitar a su madre enferma...

Slaves in Mexico

[Domestic worker slavery in Mexico]

Mexico City - Cristina and Dora were 11-years-old when Domingo picked them up in the Mixteca indigenous region of the state of Oaxaca. José Ernesto, a military man living in Mexico City, had sent Domingo to find a pair of girls to do domestic work for him. The girls’ mother thought that if they had an opportunity to work with “decent people,” they would have a chance to live a free life, to study and to eat well. Those were three things that she could never give them in her condition of extreme poverty.

Cristina and Dora lived in the dark and humid basement of a mansion built during the presidency of Porfirio Díaz (1876 to 1910). Their space had an improvised bathroom. Outside of the home, the mansion’s elaborate gardens and elegant windows presented an image of wealth and luxury. The girls learned to cook for the tastes of their employer.

It is now forty years later. Cristina and Dora never had access to an education, nor do they have the right to social security payments when they retire. One of the sisters had a child, who was the result of her being raped by one of her employer’s sons.

They are allowed out of the house for a few hours on Saturdays. On Sundays they have to prepare family meals for their patron (boss).

They were allowed only three vacations in 40 years, when, as adults, they were allowed to visit their sick mother.

Today, some 800,000 domestic workers are registered in Mexico. Ninety three percent of them don’t have access to health services. Seventy Nine percent of them have not and will not receive benefits. Their average salary is 1,112 pesos ($87.94) per month. More than 8% of these workers receive no pay at all, because their employers think that giving them a place to sleep and eat is payment enough.

Sixty percent of domestic workers in Mexico are indigenous women and girls. They began this line of work, on average, at the age of 13. These statistics do not include the cases of women and children who live locked-up in conditions of extreme domestic slavery.

Mexico’s domestic workers are vulnerable to sexual violence, unwanted pregnancies, exploitation, racism and being otherwise poorly treated…

Recently, the European Parliament concluded that undocumented migrant women face an increased risk of domestic labor slavery. In Mexico, the majority of domestic slaves are Mexicans. Another 15% of these victims are [undocumented] migrants from Guatemala and El Salvador. Their undocumented status allows employers to prohibit their leaving the home, prohibit their access to education and deny their right to have a life of their own. The same dynamics happen to Latina women in the United States and Canada.

For centuries we [read: middle and upper class white Mexican women] became accustomed to looking at domestic labor slavery as something that ‘helps’ indigenous women and girls. We used the hypocritical excuse that we were lifting them out of poverty by exploiting them. [The reality is that] millions of these women and girls are subjected to work conditions that deny them access to education, healthcare, and the enjoyment of a normal social life.

We [Mexico’s privileged] men and women share the responsibility for perpetuating this form of slavery. We use contemptuous language to refer to domestic workers. Like other forms of human trafficking, domestic labor slavery is a product of our culture.

Domestic work is an indispensable form of labor that allows millions of women to work. We should improve work conditions, formally recognize domestic work in our laws, and assure that in our homes, we are not engaging in exploitation cloaked in the idea that we are rescuing our domestic workers from poverty.

To wash, iron, cook and care for children is as dignified as any other form of work. The best way for us to change the world is to start in our own homes.

“Plan B” is a column written by Lydia Cacho that appears Mondays and Thursdays in CIMAC, El Universal and other newspapers in Mexico. Plan B refers to the need to dialog on the issues in an out of the box manner that normal discourse tends not to cover.

Lydia Cacho

CIMAC Women's News Agency

July 27, 2010

LibertadLatina Note

The emotionally violent way in which domestic workers are treated by upper middle class and elite women is a dynamic that is openly displayed in any number of Mexican TV soap operas (telenovelas).

This form of human slavery exists in every Latin American nation. Several years ago near Washington, DC, I rescued two domestic workers from Colombia. Brought to work in the homes of Colombian officials at the World Bank (international organizations in Washington have access to special visas to bring in domestic workers), 'Maria' had asked for help to escape during a visit to a local hair salon. It was one of the few places that she was allowed to go on weekends, and even there she was followed by the lady of the house. Maria was paid $200 per week to work from 6 AM until Midnight taking care of an upper middle class home - cleaning, cooking and caring for several children. The lady of the house continuously yelled and screamed at Maria. In the wintertime, she had to manually shovel heavy snow from a long driveway and two car garage. In the summer, she had to mow a huge lawn.

After been freed, Maria married, and was able to bring her then 12-year-old daughter to the U.S. Many foreign-born women face these types of abuses, and worse, in the greater Washington, DC region.

End impunity now!

Chuck Goolsby

LibertadLatina

Aug. 05/06, 2010

See also:

LibertadLatina Commentary

From our response to the 2010 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report

Canada

Hidden from History:
The Canadian Holocaust

The Untold Story of the Genocide of Aboriginal Peoples by Church and State in Canada

Late 2004 Additions to Kevin Arnett's Web Pages:

Other Resources from www.ReligiousTolerance.org

Books on residential schools:

Canada

Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust

The Untold Story of the Genocide of Aboriginal Peoples by Church and State in Canada

Late 2004 Additions to Kevin Arnett's Web Pages:

Other Resources from www.ReligiousTolerance.org

Books on residential schools:

Hidden from History:
The Canadian Holocaust