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Indigenous & Latina Women & Children's Human
Rights News from the Americas |
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Last Updated November 25,
2005 |
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Racist Impunity's Long History
in Canada
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Thousands of girls and boys
were raped and tortured, and
many
were murdered, in Canada's
aboriginal boarding schools,
most of which shut down in
the 1970's. |
The unchecked criminal violence
suffered by these girls and boys
has become a major cause of
rampant child prostitution and
other serious social ills among
several generations of Canada's
First Nations
(Native/indigenous) peoples.
This violence is called
genocide.
Over 90,000 survivors of the
Canadian church and government
run aboriginal boarding schools
exist. Their stories are
finally being heard by the
public, despite efforts by those
in power to silence any
discussion of the issues.
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Soul Wound:
The
legacy of Native American
Schools
A 2001 report by the Truth
Commission into Genocide in
Canada documents the
responsibility of the Roman
Catholic Church, the United
Church of Canada, the
Anglican Church of Canada,
and the federal government
in the deaths of more
than 50,000 Native
children in the Canadian
residential school system.
The report says church
officials killed children by
beating, poisoning, electric
shock, starvation, prolonged
exposure to sub-zero cold
while naked, and medical
experimentation, including
the removal of organs and
radiation exposure. In
1928 Alberta passed
legislation allowing school
officials to forcibly
sterilize Native girls;
British Columbia followed
suit in 1933. There is no
accurate toll of forced
sterilizations because
hospital staff destroyed
records in 1995 after police
launched an investigation.
But according to the
testimony of a nurse in
Alberta, doctors sterilized
entire groups of Native
children when they reached
puberty. The report also
says that Canadian
clergy, police, and business
and government officials
“rented out” children from
residential schools to
pedophile rings.
....Arnold Sylvester, who
like Dennis Charlie attended
Kuper Island school between
1939 and 1945, corroborates
this account.
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“The
priests dug up the
secret gravesite in a
real hurry around 1972,
when the school closed.
No-one was allowed to
watch them dig up those
remains. I think it’s
because that was a
specially secret
graveyard where the
bodies of the pregnant
girls were buried. Some
of the girls who got
pregnant from the
priests were actually
killed because they
threatened to talk. They
were sometimes shipped
out and sometimes just
disappeared. We weren’t
allowed to talk about
this.”
(Testimony of
Arnold Sylvester to
Kevin Annett, Duncan,
BC, August 13, 1998).
From:
Hidden from History: The
Canadian Holacaust
(Microsoft Word
Document). |
"These crimes are alleged to
have occurred for more than
a century in the
state-sponsored and
church-run Indian
Residential Schools which
legally interred every
Indian child across Canada
between the years 1890 and
1984. During this period,
more than 50,000 children
died in these schools,
according to the statistics
of [the Canadian] Department
of Indian Affairs. Most of
the bodies of these dead
children have never been
located or recovered.
May
20, 2004, a representative
of three major indigenous
groups in Guatemala presents
a formal protest letter to
the Canadian Embassy in
Guatemala City.
"Mass
murder was done to my people
and we demand to know where
the churches buried the
children who never came home
from the residential
schools. Innocent children
were tortured, sterilized,
and murdered. Their spirits
will never rest until their
remains are brought home to
their own territory."
-
pyouth_union
(pseudonym) |
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Within Canada, indigenous women and
children are sexually exploited with impunity.
The notorious residential school system is the most visible
marker of sexual and physical violation perpetrated by a society
against innocent girls and boys, for the 'crime' of being a
"First Nations" person. |
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Love and Death in
the Valley is a
contemporary David and Goliath tale that
will inspire and challenge the reader.
It is the personal story of Reverend
Kevin Annett, the minister who single-
handedly exposed the murder and genocide
of aboriginal people by the government
of Canada and his employer, the United
Church of Canada. This book is his own
gripping and passionate account of his
heroic efforts against insurmountable
odds to document hidden crimes among
west coast native people after he began
a ministry among them in Port Alberni,
British Columbia in 1992.
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Sacred Lives
Canadian Aboriginal Children and
Youth Speak Out About Sexual Exploitation
By Save the Children
Canada (See below)
Ninety percent of child
prostitutes in Canada are indigenous (first nations). |
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Flowers on my grave
: how an Ojibwa boy's death helped break
the silence on child abuse.
Includes
bibliography and references.
ISBN
0002554291 (A Phyllis Bruce Book,
HarperCollins Publishers re: Lester
Disarrays, 1974-1988.
Teichroeb, Ruth
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Victims of
benevolence: discipline & death at the
Williams Lake Indian residential school,
1891-1920
Williams Lake, British Columbia. Cariboo
Tribal Council. Includes bibliographical
notes.
ISBN
0969663900. Library of Congress call no.
E 96.6 .W54 F87 1992. |
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On the Rape of Indigenous Children with Impunity
Sexual abuse of First Nations [Canadian indigenous] children is at
crisis proportions. This form of violence is a legacy of colonialism. As
previously mentioned, residential schools held First Nations children
captives. These children were terrorized sexually with no avenues of
escape. When they were allowed to visit their families during holidays,
these children often felt increasing loneliness and despair due to a
widening sense of cultural estrangement, and abandonment.
From:
Lynne, Jackie 1998 "Colonialism and the Sexual Exploitation of Canada's
First Nations women," paper presented at the American Psychological
Association 106th Annual Convention, San Francisco, California, August
17, 1998. Jackie Lynne is a
social worker based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
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"...There are a huge number of court cases
coming through in this area. The
abuse of children was so widespread,
that it has formed part of Canada's
general history. With newspaper
reports of payments to
exceed one billion
dollars.
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News
Articles
Added
Nov. 25,
2005
Canada
Indigenous
summit
ends -
Canada to
pay US $1.7
billion to
thousands of
child sexual
assault and
torture
victims of
Canada's
forced
Native
boarding
school
system.
Kelowna,
British
Columbia
province -
Prime
Minister
Paul Martin
said Ottawa
will spend
more than $5
billion on a
massive
program
intended to
improve the
lives of
native
people.
$US 1.7
billion will
be used to
pay
thousands of
former
pupils at
130 forced
boarding
schools who
were
subjected to
physical and
sexual abuse
spanning 70
years.
Beverly
Jacobs, the
president of
the Native
Women's
Association,
said there's
nothing in
this
agreement to
curb the
alarming
rate of
violence
against
women.
Premier
Martin has
promised to
hold a
future
summit on
native
women's
issues.
- CBC News
Canada
Nov. 25,
2005
Added
Nov. 25,
2005
Indepth:
Aboriginal
Canadians
- CBC News
Canada
Nov. 25,
2005
Added
Nov. 25,
2005
Abuse payout
for Native
Canadians.
- BBC News
United
Kingdom
Nov. 25,
2005
- BBC
News
United
Kingdom
Added
Nov. 25,
2005
Abuse in
Canada
28 Dec.
28, 2000
- BBC News
United
Kingdom
Added
Nov. 25,
2005
Canada
Indigenous
summit
begins
Kelowna,
British
Columbia --
Indigenous
leaders are
negotiating
with
Canadian
officials
regarding a
multibillion-dollar
plan to
fight
poverty
and settle
damage
claims for
mistreatment.
Some 100,000
children
were
required to
attend such
residential
schools over
the past
century, and
the sad
history of
their abuse
has long
been cited
by Indian
leaders as
the root
cause of
epidemic
rates of
alcoholism
and drug
addiction on
reserves.
-
Associated
press
Nov. 25,
2005
May 31, 2005
Canada
Government
Funds $5
Million
Study of
Violence
Against
Native
Women.
October 6,
2004
Aboriginals
will Occupy
Churches and
Government
Offices
Across
Canada to
Recover
Remains of
their
People.
October 4,
2004
Amnesty
Slams Canada
for Ignoring
Murders of
500
Indigenous
Women Over
Last 30
Years.
October 4,
2004
"Discrimination
and Violence
Against
Indigenous
Women in
Canada" -
Amnesty's
Report
Summary.
December 4,
2003
Vancouver
British
Columbia -
38-year-old
Vancouver
sex
offender,
Martin
Tremblay,
was
sentenced in
BC Supreme
Court today.
Tremblay
received 3
and
1/2 years in
custody and
18 months
probation
for sexually
assaulting
and
videotaping
5 Aboriginal
girls aged
13-15 at the
time.
December 4,
2003 Press
Release
- Justice
for Girls |
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The
Untold Story of the Genocide of
Aboriginal Peoples by Church and
State in Canada
by
(Rev.) Kevin Annett
Microsoft Word version of the full
report:
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HIDDEN FROM
HISTORY
The Canadian
Holocaust
The Untold
Story of the Genocide of
Aboriginal Peoples by Church
and State in Canada
A Summary of an
Ongoing, Independent Inquiry
into Canadian Native
“Residential Schools” and
their Legacy |
Kevin
Arnett's Web Pages on the
Canadian Indigenous
Genocide:
http://canadiangenocide.nativeweb.org/index.html
http://hiddenfromhistory.org/
Late
2004 Additions to Kevin Arnett's
Web Pages:
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Genocide In Canada Lecture
Series Begins November 15
- October 28, 2004
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Vigil for
Justice outside a "church"
with blood on its hands -
September 12 - September
6, 2004
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The Truth Commission is rising
again! - Upcoming General
Meeting - Please Post and
Circulate - August 27,
2004
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A Call for Help
from many people, and from
the Truth Commission into
Genocide in Canada -
June 25, 2004
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Control of Water = Control of
People
This is the plan to control
the water.....and you - June
25, 2004
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Olympic Boycott - Demand
Justice for Indigenous
Peoples in Canada! (please
reprint and circulate) -
June 22, 2004
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Duplessis orphans call for
exhumations: Aim to show
children were experimented
upon - June 19, 2004
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Canada and its
Churches are Accused of
Genocide by Major Guatemalan
Indigenous Organizations
- May 31, 2004
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Let Justice Begin in your own
Back Yard, and Church Yard:
An Open Letter to the United
Church of Canada - March
23, 2004
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Links to Articles Discussing the Historical
Background of School-Based Anto-Indigenous Genocide in Canada
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(Added December 27, 2003)
Canada and the United
States:
Soul Wound:
The legacy of Native American Schools
[About the rape and
torture with impunity of Canadian and United States indigenous youth in
government and church-run residential schools.]
[In addition to the true history of the
sexual assault perpetrated against indigenous Canadian girls and boys
for decades, it must be noted that a similar system existed, on perhaps
a lesser scale, within the United States. This article addresses
both 'systems' of the systematic rape and torture of children.]
[In Canada:]
A more complete history of the abuses
endured by Native American children exists in the accounts of survivors
of Canadian “residential schools.” Canada imported the U.S. boarding
school model in the 1880s and maintained it well into the 1970s—four
decades after the United States ended its stated policy of forced
enrollment. Abuses in Canadian schools are much better documented
because survivors of Canadian schools are more numerous, younger, and
generally more willing to talk about their experiences.
A 2001 report by the Truth Commission into
Genocide in Canada documents the responsibility of the Roman Catholic
Church, the United Church of Canada, the Anglican Church of Canada, and
the federal government in the deaths of more than
50,000 Native children
in the Canadian residential school system.
The report says church officials killed
children by beating, poisoning, electric shock, starvation, prolonged
exposure to sub-zero cold while naked, and medical experimentation,
including the removal of organs and radiation exposure. In 1928 Alberta
passed legislation allowing school officials to forcibly sterilize
Native girls; British Columbia followed suit in 1933. There is no
accurate toll of forced sterilizations because hospital staff destroyed
records in 1995 after police launched an investigation. But according to
the testimony of a nurse in Alberta, doctors sterilized entire groups of
Native children when they reached puberty. The report also says that
Canadian
clergy, police, and business and government
officials “rented out” children from residential schools to pedophile
rings.
The consequences of sexual abuse can be
devastating. “Of the first 29 men who publicly disclosed sexual abuse in
Canadian residential schools, 22 committed suicide,” says Gerry Oleman,
a counselor to residential school survivors in British Columbia.
Randy Fred
(Tsehaht First Nation), a 47-year-old survivor, told the British
Columbia Aboriginal Network on Disability Society, “We were kids when we
were raped and victimized. All the plaintiffs I’ve talked with have
attempted suicide. I attempted suicide twice, when I was 19 and again
when I was 20. We all suffered from alcohol abuse, drug abuse. Looking
at the lists of students [abused in the school], at least half the guys
are dead.”
The Truth
Commission report says that the grounds of several schools contain
unmarked graveyards of murdered school children, including babies born
to Native girls raped by priests and other church officials in the
school. Thousands of survivors and relatives have filed lawsuits against
Canadian churches and governments since the 1990s, with the costs of
settlements estimated at more than $1 billion. Many cases are still
working their way through the court system.
[In the United
States:]
Rampant sexual
abuse at reservation schools continued until the end of the 1980s, in
part because of pre-1990 loopholes in state and federal law mandating
the reporting of allegations of child sexual abuse. In 1987 the FBI
found evidence that John Boone, a teacher at the BIA-run Hopi day school
in Arizona, had sexually abused as many as 142 boys from 1979 until his
arrest in 1987. The principal failed to investigate a single abuse
allegation. Boone, one of several BIA schoolteachers caught molesting
children on reservations in the late 1980s, was convicted of child
abuse, and he received a life sentence. Acting BIA chief William
Ragsdale admitted that the agency had not been sufficiently responsive
to allegations of sexual abuse, and he apologized to the Hopi tribe and
others whose children BIA employees had abused.
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(Added December 30, 2003)
British
Columbia, Canada
Native Men Tell of Rape
...A hushed
BC Supreme Court heard a 44 year-old native man tell Monday of being
raped by a dormitory supervisor at the Alberni Residential Shool when he
was 10 years old. Dennis Thomas was testifying at the first day of the
second phase of the lawsuit by two dozen former students. They're
seeking compensation for sexual and physical abuse. In the first phase,
the federal government and the United Church of Canada were found
"vicariously liable" as the employer/operator of the school for the
assaults. The second phase deals with direct liability and the issue of
knowledge...
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(Added December 27, 2003)
Canada:
The Indian Residential School Survivor's Society
[About the rape and torture with impunity of Canadian indigenous youth
in government and church-run residential schools.]
...Psychological
and emotional abuses were constant: shaming by public beatings of naked
children, vilification of native culture, constant racism, public strip
and genital searches, withholding presents and letters from family,
locking children in closets and cages, segregation of sexes, separation
of bothers and sisters, proscription of native languages and
spirituality. In addition, the schools were places of profound
physical and sexual violence: sexual assaults, forced abortions of
staff-impregnated girls, needles inserted into tongues for speaking
a native language, burning, scalding, beating until unconscious and/or
inflicting permanent injury.
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Psychological and
emotional abuses were constant: shaming by public beatings of naked
children, vilification of native culture, constant racism,
public strip and genital searches, withholding presents and letters
from family, locking children in closets and cages, segregation of
sexes, separation of bothers and sisters, proscription of native
languages and spirituality. In addition, the schools were places of
profound physical and sexual violence: sexual assaults, forced abortions
of staff-impregnated girls, needles inserted into tongues for
speaking a native language, burning, scalding, beating until unconscious
and/or inflicting permanent injury.
They also endured
electrical shock, force-feeding of their own vomit when sick, exposure
to freezing outside temperatures, withholding of medical attention,
shaved heads (a cultural and social violation), starvation (as
punishment), forced labor in unsafe work situations, intentional
contamination with diseased blankets, insufficient food for basic
nutrition and/or spoiled food. Estimates suggest that as many as 60% of
the students died (due to illness, beatings, attempts to escape, or
suicide) while in the schools.
**
...Today,
approximately 90,000 survivors in their thirties and older are trying to
understand, heal from, and move beyond this devastating experience.
About 14% are involved in some form of litigation while the other 86%
are living out their lives as best they can.
"What I remember of that time was passing Muncho Lake on the trip up
north, [to residential school] and imagining I was drowning. That is
where I left my life; I drowned in Muncho Lake. I haven't forgiven my
parents to this day because...they weren't there to protect me."
Survivor, Kamloops School
2000
It is generally accepted that the forced
removal of children from their families was devastating for Aboriginal
individuals, families, communities and cultures. This is regularly being
confirmed by researchers today.
First Nation
communities experience higher rates of violence: physical, domestic
abuse (3x higher than mainstream society); sexual abuse: rape, incest,
etc. (4-6x higher); lack of family and community cohesion; suicide (6x
higher); addictions: drugs, alcohol, food; health problems: diabetes (3x
higher), heart disease, obesity; poverty; unemployment; illiteracy; high
school dropout (63% do not graduate); despair; hopelessness; and more.
The Indian
Residential School Survivors Society was formed to provide help, hope,
healing and honor for those adult children who are still seeking
resolution in their lives. If you wish to email any of our staff please
go to our staff and email page.
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(Added December 27, 2003)
Canada:
Abuse in the aboriginal residential schools in
Canada & the Mushkegowuk Cree of Fort Albany, Ontario -
Abstract
[About the rape and torture with impunity of Canadian indigenous youth
in government and church-run residential schools.]
This is a 10 page paper discussing abuse in Aboriginal residential
schools in Canada and in particular that in Fort Albany, Ontario.
Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries in Canada, the federal government
in partnership with a number of religious organizations ran over 130
“residential schools” for Aboriginals.
Originally intended to promote the assimilation of the Aboriginal people
within white society, by the time the majority of the schools closed in
the 1960s and 1970s, it soon became obvious that in addition to religion
and education being promoted within the schools, so too was a
horrific amount of physical and sexual abuse being performed.
Generations of Aboriginals who passed through the schools have suffered
a great deal from the abuse and are trying within their own communities
to heal from their ordeals.
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(Added December 27, 2003)
Canada:
Aboriginal Peoples and
Residential Schools in Canada
[About the rape and torture with impunity of Canadian indigenous youth
in government and church-run residential schools.]
There are a huge number of court cases coming through in this area.
The abuse of children was so widespread, that it has formed part of
Canada's general history. With newspaper reports of payments to
exceed one billion
dollars. But the cost in human life, in human suffering - is beyond any
words that I can write.
Native Law does not provide legal
counsel. This page is for educational (bibliographic) purposes only.
[This document contains over 90 bibliographic references to to Canadian
residential school sexual assault issue.]
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Apri 27, 2003
Ex-residential school student files suit.
CANADA: A middle-aged Yukon man is suing the federal government and the
Catholic Church for abuses he says he suffered at the hands of priests
responsible for his care during his days at the Lower Post, B.C.
residential school. The lawsuit was filed with the Yukon Supreme Court
earlier this month. In it, the 57-year-old first nation man says he was
repeatedly sexually assaulted by two boys' dorm supervisors over an
eight-year period. The man would have been five or six when the abuse
started in September 1952. It didn't end until June 1960. While he's
suing the Attorney General of Canada, the Catholic Episcopal Corporation
of Whitehorse, four religious orders and the priest in charge of the
school, it's the two dorm supervisors who were responsible for the
abuse, the lawsuit alleges.
--
Whitehorse Star, "Ex-residential school student files suit,"
From:
www.whitehorsestar.com/
, by Sarah Elizabeth Brown, (Poynteronline, Posted by Kathy
Shaw, Apr 27 03)
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May 14, 2003
Denomination Thwarts Bankruptcy
From:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/005/14.25.html
Christianity
Today: CANADA: The Anglican Church of Canada has made a deal with the
Canadian government that leaders hope will keep the denomination from
bankruptcy. The agreement, signed on March 11, caps the church's
financial responsibility at $25 million for lawsuits alleging physical
and sexual abuse in Indian residential schools (CT, Jan. 7, 2002, p.
20). The Anglican Church will be responsible for 30 percent of
compensation awarded in validated cases of abuse; the federal government
will pay the other 70 percent. Although only 11 dioceses ran schools,
all 30 are taking responsibility for compensating victims. "I'm very
pleased and, in a way, amazed that dioceses so quickly could mobilize
themselves to make decisions," said Archdeacon Jim Boyles, the church's
general secretary and chief negotiator. The agreement puts pending court
cases into an alternative dispute resolution process. This will include
counselling, pastoral care, therapy and legal advice, says Anglican
Archdeacon Larry Beardy, a member of the negotiating team.
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Canada
- October 5, 2002 -
Poverty leads to prostitution
EDMONTON -- A large number of aboriginal women work in the sex trade out
of poverty -- and their children follow in their footsteps, say outreach
workers.
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1-Subject: Young Indian Children in
Saskatchewan, Canada Sexually Exploited
From: cmg_jr@ix.netcom.com
Date: 01/28/01 09:55:34
Subject: Young Indian Children in Saskatchewan,
Canada Sexually Exploited
8-year-old prostitutes stun Saskatchewan politicians
© 2001 Toronto Globe’s Mail, Canadian Press, Regina
January 6, 2001
Children as young as eight years old are selling sex on Saskatchewan's
streets, social Services officials told shocked politicians yesterday in
an all-party committee studying the problem.
Saskatoon police have witnessed johns trying to buy sex from four and
five-year-olds, said Randy Pritchard, Social Services’ senior program
consultant.
Mr. Pritchard said poverty and peer pressure play a big part in children
ending up on the street.
He said youngsters use the money they make as prostitutes to buy things
they are not getting at home, such as drugs, make-up and clothes.
They also feel as though they belong to a family of sorts on the street,
he said, and sometimes lure their friends or younger siblings into the
same work.
Street children typically miss a lot of school, have substance-abuse
problems and are coping with sexual and physical abuse at home, said Dan
Perrins, deputy minister of social Services.
“The reason they choose street life is because the alternative is worse,
and unfortunately the alternative is home,” he said.
Johns may be seeking out younger sex partner because they think children
are less likely to carry sexually transmitted diseases, suggested Laura
Bourassa, Crown counsel from the justice Department.
But she added, “You only need to have one sexual encounter to risk
getting a sexually transmitted disease.
The chances are you are not the child’s first sexual encounter.”
She
estimated that as many as 200 children-most of them aboriginal-are
working in each of Saskatchewan’s two major cities and as many as 85 are
in Prince Albert.
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2-Subject:
Aboriginals make up majority of young prostitutes (About the report
"Sacred Lives, Canadian Aboriginal Children & Youth Speak Out About
Sexual Exploitation" - see article #4 also.)
12/06/2000 - © 2000 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Date: 12/06/00
00:40:28
Subject: Indigenous
youth make up 90 percent of
Canada's child, teen prostitutes.
Dear friends of
human rights - FYI.
Chuck Goolsby
Date:
12/06/00 00:08:27
Subject: Re:
Aboriginals make up majority of
young prostitutes
Hi L.,
Thank you much for
this information. I guess
you know that I have, in the
past, made the same point.
Not a nice point to make, and
one that goes against cultural
currents that stress covering up
any reality that can cause an
individual embarrassment within
those cultures.
In the age of
HIV/AIDS, those codes of silence
have to end, or the sexual
oppression of indigenous youth,
which is common throughout all
regions in the Americas, will
cause a permanent end to the
indigenous peoples affected.
To stop that result, people must
begin to speak up and defend our
young people.
People of
conscience everywhere need to
understand that
reality as it relates to youth
of
all racial and
ethnic backgrounds.
- Chuck Goolsby
 Aboriginals
make up majority of young
prostitutes
© 2000 Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation
Dec 4, 2000
OTTAWA - A
government report has found that
up to 90 per cent
of child and teen prostitutes in
Canada are aboriginal. The 97-page report,
called "Sacred
Lives," says the aboriginal
community faces
unacceptable risks of being
dragged into the
commercial sex trade.
Risk on the street
The study, which
includes interviews with 150
aboriginal youth
who have been sexually
exploited, says
it's vital for them to
re-establish
cultural
connections. The report
was done by
Save the Children
Canada and the federal
government and
released on Monday.
The authors, Cherry
Kingsley and Melanie
Mark, found that
widespread racism,
declining culture,
and crushing poverty
are among the
reasons native youth end
up on the streets.
One native youth
interviewed in the report
said they're
targets for prostitution because
they're vulnerable
and used to the exploitation.
Kingsley and Mark,
who are both native,
travelled across
Canada for five months to do
the study.
"It was a really
haunting, gruelling
experience,"
Kingsley said on Monday.
"These young people
came forward with the
hope things would
be different and they
deserve a
response," she said.
The report
recommends a series of round-
table discussions
and building a national
youth network.
"There's no sex
trade in the world that can
survive unless we
let it collectively, and it's
thriving," Kingsley
said.
Last month, an
international report suggested
a lack of
government planning is turning
Canada into a hot spot for the sexual
exploitation of
children.
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Subject: Indian
Lawsuits on School Abuse
May Bankrupt Canada
Churches (Excerpt)
Date: 11/02/00
12:30:28
Subject: Canadian
indigenous boarding school rape
victim lawsuits to bankrupt
Canadian churches
Dear friends of
human rights,
The use of violent
sexual assault as a tool of the
oppression of indigenous
(Indian/Native) women, minor
girls and boys and even men, has
been a feature of life in the
Americas since 1492.
Within the U.S., numerous
government and church run
boarding schools have been the
location of mass rapes of Indian
children. Several years
ago, over 400 children in a
school in the
Southwest were the victims of
such assaults. A Lakota
psychologist found, in the
1970's, a school in the U.S.
Northwest where 80 of the 120
girl boarding school students
had been raped by non-Indians
from the local town. All
over Latin America, many
indigenous women and minor girls
continue to
suffer the fate
that their mothers and
grand-mothers have suffered
since 1492 at the hands of men
who rape them with impunity.
These policies,
together with the actions of the
U.S. Indian Health Service in
their forced sterilization
campaign against indigenous
women, in which 70,000 women
were victimized in the 1960's
and 1970's,
represents
genocidal violence that has been
perpetrated with impunity.
A couple of years
ago, a Canadian indigenous chief
spoke on CBC, the Canadian
Broadcast System, heard locally
in DC on WAMU FM, a public radio
station. This chief
related how he, after being
forced to go to a religious run
boarding school, was subjected
to routine beatings, electric
shock and RAPE, from the
age of 12,
perpetrated by clerics at the
school.
Please find here
below an excerpt of the
beginning of an article from the
November 2, 2000 edition of the
New York Times regarding this
issue in Canada.
As the descendant
of Catawba and Muskogee Creek
peoples who also faced this
racist madness, I encourage all
of you to act, in this day and
age, to assist the women and
minor girls in our local
communities who continue to
suffer sexual assault from men
who act with brazen impunity.
Why? In many cases, it is
because indigenous women and
girls are not viewed as having
even the right to their own
bodies, nor to the human dignity
and protection from crime that
we take for granted.
Sincerely,
- Chuck Goolsby
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Books
on residential schools:
-
Constance Deiter, "From Our
Mothers' Arms." Out
of print but may be available
through public libraries.
-
Suzanne Fournier and Ernie Grey,
"Stolen From Our Embrace:
The abduction of First Nations
children and the restoration of
aboriginal communities,"
Out of
print, but a used copy can often
be ordered
-
Agnes Grant, "No End of
Grief: Indian Residential
Schools in Canada,"
Pemmican Publications, (1996).
Read
reviews / order this book.
-
Jim
Miller, "Shingwauk's Vision,"
University of Toronto Press,
(1996).
Read
reviews / order this book safely
from Amazon.com online bookstore.
-
John
Molloy, "A National Crime:
Canadian Government and the
Residential School System,
1879-1986," Can be ordered
from
http://www.chapters.ca
-
Ruth
Teichroeb, "Flowers on my
grave : how an Ojibwa boy's
death helped break the silence
on child abuse," HarperCollins,
Read
reviews / order this book.
This book describes the brief
life of Lester Desjarlais,
(1974-1988).
-
Books by the Williams Lake, B.C.
Cariboo Tribal Council:
-
"A
conspiracy of silence: The
care of the Native students
at St. Joseph's residential
school," (1991).
-
"Victims
of benevolence: discipline &
death at the Williams Lake
Indian residential school,
1891-1920," ISBN
0969663900.
-
Grant, Peter R. "Settling
residential schools claims:
litigation or mediation" in
Aboriginal Writes,
Canadian Bar Association
National Aboriginal Law Section,
1998-JAN.
-
Martin O'Malley, "Canada's
Oldest Nations," Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation, at: "http://cbc.ca/news/indepth/aboriginals/
-
"Choosing Life: Special
Report On Suicide Among
Aboriginal People," Royal
Commission on Aboriginal
People., Ottawa: Canada
Communication Group Publishing,
1995.
-
"Quotes from our Native Past,"
at:
http://www.ilhawaii.net/~stony/quotes.html
-
Ward Churchill, "A Little
Matter of Genocide: Holocaust
and Denial in the Americas, 1492
to the Present," City
Lights Books, (1998).
Read
reviews and/or order this book
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Related Issues:
School
Exploitation Across Canada & the Americas
Forced Sterilization Across
Canada & the Americas
The
indigenous
of the
United
States
LibertadLatina.org's
Indigenous
Latin
America
Index
|
Indigenous Americas - "In
situations of armed conflict, abuse against indigenous or other
minority group girls and women tends to be particularly cruel.
In periods of armed conflict in Latin America, violence against
women - especially rape - has been rampant..."
"In Guatemala, political violence
left 150,000 [mostly Mayan] dead and 50,000 disappeared during
the 1980s, as well as 200,000 orphans, 40,000 widows, and
between 400,000 and one million displaced."
..."In many parts of the world,
rape is being used as a weapon of war to terrorize the civil
population. In Mexico, during the first years of conflict in
Chiapas, 50 rape cases against indigenous women were reported."
From:
UNICEF and the AIDS Information Exchange Newsletter
Note: Chiapas, Mexico
and Mayan Guatemala are one continuous region.
|
About this Crisis - The indigenous
of Latin America - Index - El
Salvador
The El Mozote Massacre (El Salvador): The women were disposed of next. "First they picked out the young girls and took them away to the hills," where they were raped before being killed, Amaya reported. "Then they picked out the old women and took them to Israel Marquez's house on the square. We heard the shots there."
The children died last. "An order arrived from a Lt. Caceres to Lt. Ortega to go ahead and kill the children too," Amaya observed. "A soldier said 'Lieutenant, somebody here says he won't kill children.' 'Who's the sonofabitch who said that?' the lieutenant answered. 'I am going to kill him.' I could hear them shouting from where I was crouching in the tree." |
About this Crisis - The indigenous
of Latin America - Index - Peru
About this Crisis - The indigenous
of Latin America - Index - Guatemala
|
El
Rio
Negro
(The
Mayan
Community
of Black
River,
Guatemala)
Massacre
"The
soldiers
and the
(paramilitary
civil
defense)
patrollers
started
grabbing
the
girls
and
raping
us,"
recalls
Ana, one
of a
handful
of
survivors
of the
massacre.
"Only
two
soldiers
raped me
because
my
grandmother
was
there to
defend
me. All
the
girls
were
raped."
In
total,
177
women
and
children
died
that
day. The
village,
one of
the most
far
flung of
Rabinal
municipality
in Baja
Verapaz
province
[Guatemala],
disappeared.
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Other
Related
Issues
in
the
Americas
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LibertadLatina
Commentary
We at
LibertadLatina
join with humanity in expressing our complete outrage at the leaders
of the coup d'etat in Honduras. The leaders of the coup were not
justified in kidnapping the democratically elected president of the
nation and sending him into exile. The United Nations General
Assembly, the Organization of American States and U.S. President
Barak Obama, among many leaders of nations in the Americas, have all
joined in demanding that President
José Manuel Zelaya Rosales be returned to power.
Although the coup was approved by Honduran Supreme
Court and Congress, this only shows that the nation's democratic
institutions are weak. In Colombia, for example, President Álvaro
Uribe, a conservative, is seeking, just as did President Zelaya in
Honduras, to change the constitution to eliminate the current limits
on the number of terms that a president may serve. Yet nobody is
trying to overthrow Uribe for have proposed such an idea. The fact
that President Zelaya had set-up a popular referendum, to allow the
voters to decide the issue, was apparently too much democracy for
the coup plotters, so they pounced on Zelaya and raped democracy in
the process.
The independent press, including Feminist Radio
International Endeavor (FIRE), CIMAC Noticias in Mexico City, and
Indymedia Chiapas, have provided excellent coverage of the true
story that is taking place inside Honduras. Some of the key stories
are reprinted here.
The coup leaders have declared a state of siege, have
targeted human rights activists, and have used rifle fire to attack
unarmed protesters who are simply outraged that these cowards have
resorted to taking power by force.
Coups were a common power-grabbing tactic in Latin
America in the late 1900s. The region has since made significant
progress in moving towards democracy. This coup is just one of many
indicators that democracy is not a 'done deal' in all nations of the
Americas.
The conservative coup plotters will, consistent with
the emergent anti women's rights movement represented elsewhere in
Latin America (with whom they are apparently allied), not bode well
for women's equality.
We applaud the activism that we are seeing from brave
women and men in the face of this military repression. Just as
happened during the popular uprisings against dictators across Latin
America in the 1980s and 1990s, the coup leaders in Honduras are
using the tactics of the 'dirty wars' that lead to the murders and
rapes of tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Guatemala, El
Salvador, Nicaragua, Chile, Argentina, Mexico and other nations of
Latin America.
Video from a number of sources shows the terrorism
with impunity that the coup's military supporters are using on
innocent protesters.
See especially this YouTube video posted on
Narco News web site that records the rifle fire of soldiers who were
shooting into crowds of protesters, as well as an interview with a
congressional representative as she visits wounded at a local
hospital and expresses her indignation at the coup.
It is an act of cowardice for the current Honduran
coup government to block CCN in Spanish, block the Internet, and
place Honduras in a stage of siege with a suspension of all
individual liberties. Given the repression that just occurred in the
aftermath of presidential elections in Iran, the world community has
very little tolerance for such illegal behavior in Honduras.
Coup leaders, return President Zelaya to his elected
position.
Nobody elected you.
Your corrupt government is not wanted and it will not
stand!
End impunity now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
July 3, 2009
Honduras
 |
|
Banner:
"Feminists in Resistance; Coup
leaders get out!
Photo: CIMAC
Noticias |
Urge mayor presión a golpistas: feministas hondureñas
Lideresa pro-vida,
designada canciller por golpistas
Ante el Estado de
Emergencia en Honduras, feministas y luchadoras sociales lanzaron un
llamado a la comunidad internacional para que pronuncien una condena
más enérgica contra lo que denominaron gobierno usurpador; “nos
están disparando, golpeando, violentando todos nuestros derechos”,
denunciaron…
Honduran Feminists Urge Greater International
Pressure Against Coup Leaders
A female pro-life
leader has been appointed foreign affairs chancellor by the usurpers
In the face of the state of siege that has been declared in
Honduras, feminists and social activists have launched an appeal to
the international community to deliver a strong condemnation against
what they termed a usurper government. They state that: “We are
being shot, beaten, and they are violating all of our rights.”
In a telephone
interview with CIMAC Noticias, Hilda Rivera, coordinator of the
Center for Women's Rights in Honduras, said that support from Latin
America and the global community is urgently needed. Yesterday, the
National Congress of Honduras approved a State of Emergency,
temporarily suspending individual liberties...
"...We are urging
more pressure from the world community, because the situation is
becoming more violent here” says Rivera.
"Policemen and
soldiers are shooting and beating us. It is urgent that the
government not be given additional time [to consider ultimatums to
step down]. We have put up with four days of bullets, beatings and
rain. There is a general tiredness in the population. Nonetheless,
the violence is increasing, so we are standing up to fight.”
Rivera stated that
the coup is a serious setback for the entire society, and
particularly for women, who’s rights were already restricted. With
this coup, the problem is magnified...
Until now, "within
the feminist movement we have not anticipated everything that may
happen, but we are clear in our understanding that, with this ‘law
of the strongest,’ we can be detained, they can raid our offices and
homes, and we cannot assemble. It is of grave concern to us that we
have important issues on our agenda that are threatened by the coup,
such as the legalization of emergency contraception." ...
A central concern
for Rivera is the safety of human rights defenders. “The government
has already begun to ‘hunt’ various organization leaders by raiding
their houses and arresting them." The coup plotters know that
women do not falter in our struggle. There is a danger that
repression against feminist leaders may follow.
As an example that
the coup government is not interested in defending the rights of
women, Rivera cites the naming of the founder of
Provida [Pro Life] in Honduras as Foreign Affairs Chancellor.
Eco-feminist Daysi
Flores told Feminist International Radio (RIF) that the people are
afraid and outraged. They cannot come out of their homes. But, says
Flores, feminist resistance has been declared. Women’s rights are
going to continue to progress, and we are going to continue the
struggle.
Full English Translation
Gladis Torres Ruiz
CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
Mexico City
July 2, 2009
Honduras
Comunicado de grupos y
organizaciones del Movimiento de Mujeres y
Feminista de Honduras
A Las Organizaciones Internacionales, Cooperación Internacional,
Organismos de Derechos Humanos y a lLos Estados del Mundo
El día domingo 28
de Junio, el Presidente de la República José Manuel Zelaya Rosales,
fue agredido, secuestrado y enviado a la República de Costa Rica en
el avión presidencial, custodiado por cuerpos militares argumentando
que había violado la Constitución de la República por implementar
una consulta popular mediante una encuesta de opinión, donde se
consultara al pueblo si estaba de acuerdo o no que el 29 de
noviembre se colocara una cuarta urna para proponer una Asamblea
Nacional Constituyente, que tuviese como objetivo elaborar una nueva
Constitución con la plena participación ciudadana de los diferentes
actores sociales del país…
Statement By Feminist And Women¹s
Organizations From Honduras Following the Coup D‘Etat
To International Organizations, International Development Agencies,
Human Rights Institutions And To The States Of The World:
On Sunday, June 28,
2009 the democratically elected President of the Republic of
Honduras, José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, was assaulted, abducted and
sent to the Republic of Costa Rica in the presidential plane guarded
by the military...
The people are
peacefully expressing their rejection of the coup d’etat, demanding
the immediate reinstatement of President Zelaya, and a return to the
Rule of Law...
Given these
egregious series of events, we request the support of international
development agencies and the international community to demand the
reinstatement of the Rule of Law, to demand an end to the
prosecution of the members of the cabinet of President Manuel Zelaya
Rosales and leaders of social movements and the media, and an end to
all types of brutal violence and to prevent the imposition of
fascism in our country.
Most Honduran
citizens advocate for peace, solidarity and the respect of human
rights. We emphatically denounce the complicity shown in these
events by the Human Rights Commissioner of Honduras, Dr. Ramón
Custodio, before the regional and international human rights
organizations and the international community.
June 29, 2009
Tegucigalpa,
Honduras
Signed:
Centro
De Estudios De La Mujer Honduras (Cem-H) - The Women's Studies
Center
Centro
De Derechos De Mujeres (Cdm) - The Center for Women's Rights
Centro
De Estudios Y Accion Para El Desarrollo De Honduras (Cesadeh) -
The Center for Development Studies and Action of Honduras
Red De
Mujeres Jovenes (Redmuj) - The Young Women's Network
Acciones
Para El Desarrollo Poblacional (Adp) - Action for Population
Development
Red De Mujeres Adultas (Redmucr) -
The Adult Women's Network
Colectivo De Mujeres Universitarias (Cofemun)
- The Collective of University Women
Marcha Mundial De Las Mujeres, Comité
Nacional - Honduras Global Women's March - Honduras
Articulaciones Feminista De Redes
Locales - Articulation of Local Feminist Networks
Comisión De Mujer Pobladora
Articulaciones Feminista De Redes Locales - - Rural Women's
Commission - Articulation of Local Feminist Networks
Movimiento De Mujeres Socialistas, Las
Lolas - The Socialist Women's Movement, The Lolas
Convergencia De Mujeres De Honduras
Iniciativa Centroamericana De Seguimiento A Cairo Y Beijing - The
Honduran Convergence of the Central American Initiative to Follow-up
on Cairo and Beijing
Feministas Independientes -
Independent Feminists
Published by Feminist International Radio Endeavor (FIRE)
June 29, 2009
Honduras
 |
|
"Feminists in
Resistance" Photo: CIMAC
Noticias |
Vive Honduras una insurrección popular
contra usurpadores
Berta Cazares, candidata independiente a
la presidencia
México DF - Vivimos en Honduras una
insurrección popular, un levantamiento
con la decidida participación de las
mujeres, en contra de las fuerzas
armadas y el grupo oligárquico que
derrocó al presidente democráticamente
electo Manuel Zelaya, pero el costo es
alto y la situación de la población
civil, incluida la niñez, es crítica, la
vida cotidiana está alterada y la brutal
represión tiene como blanco principal a
la juventud…
Honduras
is Experiencing a Popular Uprising Against the Usurpers
An interview with Berta Cazares, independent candidate for
president
Honduras is living through a popular uprising, one that is being carried
out with the wholehearted participation of women against the armed
forces and the oligarchic group which overthrew democratically
elected President Manuel Zelaya. The cost has been high, and the situation
for civilians, including children, is critical. Everyday life has
changed, and the brutal repression is targeting our youth.
Bertha
Cazares Flores, an independent candidate for president of Honduras and
the
national leader of the Popular and Indigenous Organizations of
Honduras, described
the
situation in Honduras in a phone interview with CIMAC Noticias, three days after the military high command,
most of Congress and the Supreme Court overthrew the President and
his Cabinet…
Hundreds have been injured in the country, especially young people,
said
Cazares.
In the 'Progress City' (Ciudad Progreso) area, the repression was especially brutal,
perhaps because that area has historically been a center for social
struggles...
In
rural and indigenous areas of Honduras the situation is quite critical,
including in
[the town of] San Francisco de Ocaña, where, during the 1980s, the
Army used machine guns against the civilian population. "That's
where the resources should go, to see what is really happening there," Cazares says.
Cazares
added that the people continue to defy the siege, the curfew and the
ban on travel. There are military checkpoints throughout the
country. Hundreds of people from rural areas, teachers and
indigenous people, are moving toward to the capital...
Thursday
CIMAC: What
should we expect on Thursday, the day announced by Manuel Zelaya for
his
return to Honduras?
[The planned return date for President Zelaya has been pushed back
to Saturday since this story was written.
-
LL]
Cazares:
We
call upon social movements and organizations that defend
international human rights to come to Honduras in delegations, to
support the civilian population...
We hope
that [Mayan Guatemalan Nobel Peace Prize laureate] Rigoberta Menchú,
along with other personalities such as Mirna Anaya, a judge on
the Supreme Court of El Salvador, and [Argentinean 1980 Nobel Peace
Prize leareate]
Adolfo Perez Esquivel will
arrive [to support President Zelaya].
Meanwhile, Berta is preparing - with an arrest warrant against her
and the knowledge that "assassination is a terrible thing in
Honduras" - for progress to be made today, Wednesday, when civic
organizations will protest against the coup at an army cordon, just three
blocks from the house that she one day hopes to govern from.
Full English Translation
Guadalupe Gomez Quintana
CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
Mexico City
July 1 2009
See
also:
Informan de batallones hondureños que se
niegan a reprimir al pueblo
Radio Progreso, pese a ser acallada por
los militares golpistas, confirmó en una de sus transmisiones
clandestinas que varios batallones de las Fuerzas Armadas de
Honduras, desde el lunes han roto con los golpistas y el gobierno de
facto, y han anunciado que permanecerán al margen de la represión al
pueblo de su país...
Honduran Army Battalions
Reject Repressing the Population
Honduran station Radio Progreso, despite
being shut-down by the coup leaders, has confirmed in one of its
clandestine transmissions that a number of battalions of the Armed
Forces of Honduras have, since Monday, June 29th, broken with the
organizers of the coup d'etat and the de facto government. They have
announced that they will remain on the sidelines of the
repression...
Radio La Primerísima
Managua, Nicaragua
June 30, 2009
Chile
 |
|
President
Michelle Bachelet of Chile, during a
June 23, 2009 visit
with U.S. President Barak Obama |
Bachelet Remueve a Jefe Policial
La presidenta de
Chile, Michelle Bachelet, removió al jefe de la policia de
investigaciones (civil), Arturo Herrera, tras una serie de denuncias
de corrupción, incluida una que involucró a policías con una red de
prostitución infantile…
Hace una semana, en
el aniversario 76 de la policía de investigaciones, Herrera lamentó
la relevancia dada por medios de difusión al caso de prostitución
infantil que involucró a un grupo de policías activos.
Bachelet Removes Police Chief
The
president of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, has removed the chief of the
Investigations Police, Arturo Herrera, after a series of allegations
of corruption, including a case in which police officers were
allegedly involved with a child prostitution network.
Herrera
resigned the post three months before his scheduled retirement. He
did so after a telephone conversation with the president, held while
she was visiting Mexico.
Upon
her return to Chile the president accepted the resignation and
appointed as his replacement Marco Antonio Vasquez, now police chief
in the region of Bío Bío, 500 kilometers south of Santiago…
A week
ago, during the 76th anniversary of the Investigations
Police agency, Herrera lamented the importance that the media had
given to a case of child prostitution involving a group of police
officers.
www.ansa.it/ansalatina
June 29, 2009
See also:
Director of Chile's Investigation Police Steps
Down
Americas Quarterly
Online
June 26, 2009
See also:
LibertadLatina
Our January, 2006 news page, which contains
articles about Chile's first woman president, pediatrician Dr.
Michelle Bachelet, who along with her mother was imprisoned and
tortured by former dictator Agosto Pinochet's forces. Bachelet's
father, an air force general, was tortured to death under the
Pinochet regime.
Texas, USA, Mexico
Man handed 5 years in sex trafficking
A former registered
nurse was sentenced Wednesday to five years in prison for engaging
in what was the first and so far only federal sex-trafficking case
in San Antonio.
Brent Andrew
Stephens, 41, who surrendered his nursing license amid the criminal
case, pleaded guilty in March to conspiracy to harbor aliens for
financial gain and conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking by force,
fraud and coercion…
Stephens admitted
that he and his business partner, Timothy Gereb, planned to use
young Mexican women as escorts and in a massage parlor in May 2007.
The two paid
Stephens' personal assistant, Maria de Jesus “Jessica” Ochoa; her
sister, Consuelo Pilar Ochoa; and their mother, Isabel, to recruit
and smuggle females from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, to San Antonio.
The Ochoas smuggled
three victims, including two minors, and took them to Stephens. The
victims were given alcohol, threatened at gunpoint by Gereb and
warned not to return to Mexico, court documents state…
The victims told
agents that once they arrived in San Antonio, they were told they
would have to work as prostitutes for five years to pay the $3,000
smuggling fees…
Gereb, 50, was
sentenced earlier to 10 years in prison. Isabel Ochoa, 60, received
time served. Consuelo Ochoa, 34, was sentenced to 18 months for the
sex-trafficking case and 39 months for a separate drug case. Maria
Ochoa, 32, got 12 months and one day and is now out of jail.
Guillermo
Contreras
Express-New
June 25, 2009
Florida, USA
Lee County at Forefront of Slavery Fight
"We're light years
ahead of other communities," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas
Molloy, who's prosecuted 20 slavery and human trafficking cases
throughout Southwest Florida over the past decade, freeing 50
victims. "Because of our united community efforts, we're in a place
most areas aspire to."
Those efforts
include a two-man team at the Lee County Sheriff's Office, a
multi-agency task force and a new command center at Florida Gulf
Coast University: The Esperanza Project.
"What's happening
at FGCU is electric - just electric," Molloy said.
One of a scant
handful of university-based human trafficking research centers in
the country, it opened eight months ago with $100,000 in seed money
from a federal anti-trafficking grant given to the Lee County
Sheriff's Office.
The center's name
means "hope" in Spanish. It's also the pseudonym of the 11-year-old
girl whose enslavement in Cape Coral became a galvanizing force as
Lee county's first high-profile victim.
In 2005, the girl
was discovered in Cape Coral, pregnant and bleeding. Born in
Guatemala, she was sold to a man who brought her here and forced her
into sexual and domestic slavery. She was repeatedly raped and
beaten during her two-year captivity. Molloy eventually sent her
captors to federal prison.
Her case sparked a
wave of questions and self-examination among law enforcement and
residents alike.
In short order, the
Sanibel chapter of Zonta International, a service group, made human
trafficking its signature cause.
The U.S. Department
of Justice awarded the Lee County Sheriff's Office a $450,000,
three-year grant to combat human trafficking.
By the end of 2005,
Molloy said authorities were working on more trafficking cases in
Southwest Florida than many entire state sees in a year…
"(The U.S.) spends
about about $23 million on this annually - that's not much at
all,"... "Estimates are there are about 17,000 [new] foreign-born
trafficking victims alone [each and every year] and 17,000 homicide
victims, and yet we solve 70 percent of the homicides and 1 percent
of trafficking cases." ...
The man in the No.
1 human trafficking job in Washington is Luis C. de Baca. The new
ambassador-at-large to monitor and combat trafficking in persons at
the State Department promises trafficking will be a priority of the
new administration as well - especially, of Secretary of State
Hilary Clinton...
Amy Bennett Williams
www.News-Press.com
June 28, 2009
Mexico
 |
|
Mexican Congressional Deputy
Maricela Contreras
speaks out about defects in trafficking law's
regulations |
Denuncian colusión de bandas y funcionarios para secuestrar
migrantes
México - La
presidenta de la Comisión de Equidad y Género de la Cámara de
Diputados, Maricela Contreras, denunció que bandas organizadas
coludidas con autoridades cometen la mayoría de los secuestros
contra migrantes en las zonas fronterizas.
Señaló que según el
Informe Especial sobre los casos de secuestro contra migrantes se
documentaron nueve mil 758 personas privadas de su libertad, y de
ese total en nueve mil 194 casos el delito fue cometido por ese tipo
de organizaciones criminales...
Congress Explores Allegations of Collusion
Between Criminal Gangs and Government Officials to Kidnap Migrants
According to the
Special Report, 9,758 persons were deprived of their liberty
In 9,194 cases,
the offense was committed by criminal organizations
The president of
the Commission on Equality and Gender of the Chamber of Deputies,
Maricela Contreras has reported that Mexican authorities have
colluded with organized gangs to commit the majority of kidnappings
targeting migrants in border regions.
Deputy Contreras
noted that a special report on cases of kidnappings against migrants
documented the fact that 9,758 people had been deprived of their
liberty, and that in 9,194 of these cases, organized crime was the
perpetrator...
The report states
that migrants who enter Mexico are subjected to extortion, robbery,
kidnapping, illegal searches, beatings, chases, being thrown off of
moving trains, rape, threats, psychological pressure and even
murder.
Contreras pointed
out that the assailants most often mentioned by victims are elements
of the Federal Preventive Police, military personnel and agents of
the National Institute for
Migration.
Data reported by
the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL)
indicates that along the southern border of Mexico, 70 per cent of
migrants are victims of violence. Some 60 percent of migrants suffer
some form of sexual abuse, including rape.
The CEPAL report
also emphasizes that the United States border with Mexico is also a
very dangerous region, where women migrants become victims of sexual
violence, forced prostitution, human trafficking and murder.
Deputy Contreras
denounced these human rights violations and called upon Mexican
society to not tolerate inefficiencies, incompetence and
complicity by govern-ment officials, behaviors that threaten the
lives and integrity of thousands of men and women who cross the
borders into Mexico...
Full English Translation
El Financiero
Online
With information
from Notimex / JOT
June 27, 2009
See also:
Mexico
20000 Migrants a Year Kidnapped in Mexico En Route to US
Some 20,000 of the
140,000 illegal migrants en route to the United States who travel
through
Mexico to find work and a better life are kidnapped each year
and subjected to rape, torture and murder, crimes that usually go
unpunished due to the corruption of the authorities, fear of
reprisals and distrust of authorities, according to Mexico’s
independent National Human Rights Commission.
Mexico City – More than 1,600
migrants, above all Central Americans en route to the United
States to find work, are kidnapped monthly and subjected to
humiliations that usually go unpunished due to the corruption of
the authorities, Mexico’s independent National Human Rights
Commission reported.
“The kidnapping of migrants has
become a continuous practice of worrying dimensions, generally
unpunished and with characteristics of extreme cruelty,”
commission chairman Jose Luis Soberanes said Monday at the
presentation of the report.
Between September
2008 and February 2009, the commission registered a total of 198
separate cases of mass kidnappings of migrants involving 9,758
victims...
EFE
June 17, 2009
Sitio Oficial de Maricela Contreras
Julián
-
Maricela
Contreras' official web site (In Spanish)
Maricela Contreras Julián en la
página oficial de la Cámara de Diputados
-
Maricela
Contreras' Congressional web site - In Spanish
Mexico
 |
|
Mexican Congressional Deputy
Maricela Contreras,
chairwoman of the national commission to combat
trafficking, speaks out about defects in the federal
regulations published by President Calderón that weaken
the nation's first federal anti-trafficking law |
Atorada, ley contra tráfico de personas
Señala diputada que Segob no incluyó fiscalía en el reglamento
La Comisión de
Equidad y Género de la Cámara de Diputados lamentó que a pesar de
que se han detectado redes de delincuencia organizada dedicadas a la
trata de personas en el país, el programa nacional de combate contra
este delito no podrá operar sino hasta 2011 debido a que no se ha
instalado la comisión encargada de su elaboración y no cuenta con
una partida presupuestal específica...
Mexico’s Law to Prevent and Punish Trafficking
in Persons is Stuck in the Mud
The Interior Department failed to include a role for the
special prosecutor for trafficking's office in the law’s published
regulations
The regulations as written will tie the hands of the
anti-trafficking law’s enforcement provisions until 2011
The
Commission on Equality and Gender of the Chamber of Deputies (the
lower house of Congress) regrets the fact that despite having
identified organized crime networks involved in human trafficking in
the country, the national program to combat this crime cannot begin
operating until 2011. The [unexpected] delay is due to the fact that
the commission responsible for standing-up these efforts does not
yet have a line item in the federal budget, and therefore it has not
been created.
Deputy
Maricela Contreras of the Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD)
and chairwoman of the anti-trafficking commission, noted that
another failure of the Department of the Interior (SEGOB)
in drafting the required federal regulations that will activate the
2008 anti-trafficking law is the fact that
SEGOB did not create a role
for the office of the Special Prosecutor for Crimes of Violence
Against Women and Trafficking (FEVIMTRA) [an office of the Attorney
General of the Republic] as one of the institutions responsible
for combating trafficking...
Contreras, as part of her analysis of the official anti-trafficking
regulations published on February 27, 2009 in the Official Gazette,
added that
the targeting of organized crime is also absent from the regulations.
"This situation is serious, because the regulations do not recognize
that the problem [of trafficking] originates with various forms of
criminal organizations, from disorganized bands that are just
starting up to the more highly structured trafficking networks and
mafias," says Contreras...
The
Joint Committee of Congress has made an appeal to President Calderón’s legal counsel requesting that the Executive
open the
official regulations for revision [to repair the many defects
within]. Presidential deputy legal counsel Javier Sanchez Arriaga
responded to Congress by stating that changing the regulations was a
responsibility of the Interior Department (Segob).
[And thus, nothing
was ever done to improve the regulations -
LL]
Full English
Translation
Liliana Alcántara
El
Universal
June
20 2009
See also:
The current regulations have no minimum
standards, nor do they integrate the work of
key federal agencies
Mexico City – Mexico City congressional
deputy Maricela Contreras, president of the
Commission on Equality and Gender of the
Chamber of Deputies, has declared that a
re-writing of the published Federal
Regulations that enable the 2008 Law to
Prevent and Punish Trafficking in Persons
is urgently needed,
given that there is an indifference
and unwillingness on the part of the federal
government
to stop this crime wave, [of human
trafficking - in defiance of the will of
Congress].
...Contreras, who had called for the
declaration, stated that "the published
rules were delivered late [after a 9 month
delay following the law’s passage, and after
four warning to President Calderón from
Congress -LL],
they are 'plain,' and they contain
omissions. The rules don’t provide any tools
to combat or prevent trafficking, much less
any provisions for the care of the victims,
who are mostly girls and women. For these
reasons, President Calderón should have the
rules revised, because in their current
state, they aren’t worth anything."
Full English
Translation
CIMAC Noticias
May 22, 2009
See
also:
|
¡Héroes!
Lea nuestra sección
sobre la lucha de varios congresistas y defensoras
de los derechos humanos para lograr obligar que el
Presidente Felipe Calderón
publica un reglamiento fuerte respladar a la nueva
ley: Prevenir y Sancionar la Trata de
Personas, de 2008, que hasta ahora es sigue
siendo una ley sin fuerzas.
Read our special section
about the brave work of advocates and congressional
leaders in Mexico to break-through the barriers of
impunity and achieve truly effective federal
regulations that will enforce the original
congress-ional intent of Mexico's 2008
Law to
Prevent and Punish Trafficking in Persons.
LibertadLatina
|
|
|
|
Mexico, Canada
Pedophile ring suspect caught in Mexico
A Canadian suspected of heading a North
American pedophilia ring has been arrested in Mexico in
possession of four million photographs and videos of children
shown naked or striking suggestive poses.
The suspect, Arthur Lelland Sayer, "was
caught red-handed at his home in Tijuana, Baja California (close to
the US border) with a large number of photos and videos that were
stored on over a dozen hard drives", Mexico City's public prosecutor
said in a statement on Thursday.
A Mexican police investigation is
ongoing to dismantle a major child pornography network and to "find
evidence that it is active in the three North American countries:
Mexico, the United States and Canada."
The crime ring was discovered by the
"cyber police" of Mexico's Public Safety Ministry, which arrested
the Canadian on Sunday along with agents from FEVIMTRA, a special
unit that combats human trafficking.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) June
27, 2009
Added:
June 28, 2009
 |
|
Cecilia Romero, head of Mexico's national
immigration service, says that sex tourism and pedophile
networks are "inevitable."
"El
turismo sexual es inevitable" -
Cecilia Romero del Instituto Nacional de Migración de
México
Photo: El
Universal |
LibertadLatina
Commentary
President Calderón, the Human Rights
Crisis at Mexico's Southern Border is Unacceptable
Our current series of articles covering the human rights emergency
facing women and girl migrants at Mexico's southern border responds
directly to the recent comments of Cecilia Romero, head of Mexico's
national immigration service (the
National Institute for Migration - INM). Director Romero stated in a
press interview with El Universal, a major Mexico City daily paper, that human
trafficking is "inevitable", and that, "the
existence of the smuggling of migrants, human trafficking, pedophile
networks, and the kidnappings and violence that affect thousands of
migrants are only
"evils of mankind"
that Mexico cannot eradicate.
We strongly disagree with Director Romero and others in the
leadership of Mexico's National Action Party, who habitually dismiss critical women's
rights issues, including the femicide murders in Ciudad Juarez, as being the
inevitable, and 'normal' results of male human behavior.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The citizens of Mexico, Mexico's Congress and the international
community need to hold the government of President Felipe Calderón accountable
for his allowing unending mass gender atrocities to occur on Mexico's southern
border with Guatemala and Belize.
In this hell-on-earth, an estimated 450 to 600 migrant women are
sexually assaulted each day, according to the International Organization for
Migration. Police response is almost non-existent. At times,
police are complicit in this criminal violence.
Mexico's southern border is also the largest zone on earth for
the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC), according to Save the
Children.
As Father
Luis Nieto states in the below article about Salvadoran mothers who must come to
Mexico's border to grieve for their raped and murdered daughters,
"We cannot keep quiet, we cannot be complicit in this."
We strongly agree with that sentiment. Silence is also violence.
The federal government of Mexico is not ignorant of this ongoing
catastrophe. The United Nations, the International Organization for Migration,
Save the Children, elements of the Catholic Church, the National Human Rights
Commission (CNDH) and many members of Congress have, for the last several years,
demanded action to end these atrocities.
Although INM director Cecilia Romero promised in February of 2007 that she
would "entirely
eliminate this terrible situation," no visible action
has been taken to do so as of June of 2009, 16 months after Romero made that
promise.
With the current economic slowdown and the expansion of
global
criminal sex trafficking operations, the rapes,
kidnappings and sexual enslavement of innocent migrants on that border is increasing with no end in sight.
As the United States Congress prepares to send over $400 million
dollars in largely military aid to Mexico as part of the Merida Initiative to
combat the drug cartels, we insist that human rights conditions be placed on
those and other U.S. foreign aid funds that are headed to Mexico.
Mexico must close down the mass rape, kidnapping, murder and
child sex trafficking gauntlet that exists with total impunity on its southern border.
We also want to see the estimated 4,000 mostly Mayan indigenous
children kidnapped from this region and sold to brothels in Tokyo, and also the
uncounted thousands of other indigenous child victims who have been sold to brothels in New York and
Madrid rescued, repatriated and then truly cared for.
Do you need money, President Calderón, to get these things done?
Or is a misogynist, 'socially conservative' ideology that is resurgent in Mexico, and that has
as its strongest voice the PAN political party, the real problem here?
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 PAN'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
Mexico
 |
|
Salvadoran mothers gather to pray and
leave offerings and crosses for their family members who were
abused, kidnapped and murdered in the 'mugging and rape guantlet' at Mexico's southern border
region known as
'La Arrocera' - the Rice Cooker. |
Madres salvadoreñas depositan ofrendas en "La Arrocera"
El 80 porciento de los abusos cometidos contra los inmigrantes se
cometen en esta zona de Huixtla, Chiapas
Huixtla, Chiapas -
Los parientes de indocumentados fallecidos y desaparecidos visitaron
"La Arrocera" , un pequeño tramo de escasos cuatro kilómetros que
los indocumentados utilizan para evadir la caseta migratoria El
hueyate, en Huixtla...
Salvadoran mothers
leave offerings for their murdered children at
"The Rice Cooker"
80 percent of abuses against migrants occur in this area near the
city of Huixtla, Chiapas
Huixtla, Chiapas - relatives of deceased and missing undocumented
migrants visited "La Arrocera," a four kilometer long rural trail that
north-bound Central and South American migrants use to bypass the
Hueyate immigration
station in the city of Huixtla, Chiapas.
Under strict
security arrangements and with the support of Mexico's National
Commission on Human Rights (CNDH), members of the Committee of
Families of Deceased and Missing Migrants toured the area of "the
Rice Cooker" near Huixtla, a municipality in the state of Chiapas,
where dozens of men and women have been assaulted, raped and
murdered.
"The Rice
Cooker" is a
[rural] migrant trail where 80 percent of the assaults and homicides
in the region are committed, according to testimony gathered by the
Catholic Church and human rights organizations.
Even police will not
enter this zone unless they have several officers armed with
high-powered weapons.
Father
Luis Angel Nieto prayed for eternal rest for all of those
migrants who lost their lives here in their attempt to reach "the
American Dream."
For the second time
during the trip,
Father
Luis Nieto demanded that the Mexican authorities combat these
crimes, that for several years have sewn pain and fear.
"We cannot keep
quiet, we cannot be complicit in this," he said.
After prayer, the
Salvadorans planted dozens of crosses in memory of those who lost
their lives here and who were never identified.
During the
emotional ceremony, the mothers and fathers could not contain their
tears. The sadness and pain invaded their faces. Most knew the
true meaning of "the Rice Cooker".
Juan de Dios
Garcia Davish
Feb. 11, 2009
See also:
“Wall of Violence” on Mexico’s Southern
Border
Calderon’s
“two-faced” policy combines police, the military, gangs, and Los
Zetas [ex-military, who are now 'hit men' for the drug cartels] to fulfill US
mandate to deter Central American migration
... Wall
of Violence
“Migrants don’t have
rights in Mexico,” says Father Heyman Vazquez Medina, founder of El
Hogar de la Misericordia. “It’s ok to beat them, extort money from
them, rob them, sexually abuse them, murder them, and nothing
happens.
Central American
migrants’
legal security guarantees appear to
be repeatedly and permanently violated by individuals and groups of
people who rely on the protection, consent, tolerance, or
acquiescence of the State and who have the power of weapons,
money, police protection, corruption, and impunity. They have put a
price on the head of each migrant.”
Migrant shelter
staffers say those who abuse migrants operate with absolute
impunity... [Father Alejandro Solalinde
Guerra, the southern coordinator of the Catholic Church’s Human
Mobility Mission Migrants program]
recalls one case where a woman was kidnapped from one of the
shelters he oversees. Solalinde remained in contact with her family
throughout the ordeal. When she finally turned up in the United
States, she said that the group that kidnapped her forced her to
make several [pornographic movies]. When they finally brought her to
the US-Mexico border, they made her family pay thousands of dollars
in ransom. Solalinde offered to fly her back south and pay all of
her expenses if she filed a complaint with the government. The woman
refused, saying she never wanted to set foot in Mexico ever again.
Even when migrants
or human rights organizations do file complaints, they almost never
result in arrests or convictions. Solalinde says that almost every
time he calls the police because migrants have identified and
located their attackers, he can’t find a police force that will
arrest the suspects. They all say they don’t have jurisdiction in
immigration affairs...
...[Mercedes
Osuna of La Semilla del Sur, a Chiapas-based organization that works
primarily on indigenous issues]
explains that [after crossing into Mexico, to avoid a migration
station on the highway north], undocumented migrants must walk a
roundabout route through an area called la Arrocera. La Arrocera is
teeming with violent criminals who mug [and rape and kidnap]
migrants as they pass through. Osuna spoke with some migrants who
recently passed through la Arrocera. They told her that in la
Arrocera they saw uniformed Chiapas state police in marked vehicles
pick up and drop off people who mugged migrants. In la Arrocera, the
muggers are painfully thorough: migrants complained to Osuna of
being stripped searched. The assailants even checked their victims’
anuses and vaginas for hidden valuables.
Police don’t just
offer rides to assailants; they often are the assailants...
**
The “Wall of Violence” is fierce: El Hogar de la Misericordia [a
migrant shelter] estimates that 80% of all migrants who pass through
Chiapas state have been assaulted during their travels.
Approximately 30% of the women who come to El Hogar de la
Misericordia report being sexually assaulted in la Arrocera,
Chiapas, which is only one of many stops along the migrants’ route.
Fermina Rodriguez of the Fray [Friar] Matias de Cordova Human Rights
Center, which monitors human rights on Mexico’s southern border,
says, “When you talk to women, they consider rape to be part of the
price they pay to migrate.” ...
Kristen Bricker
My Word is My Weapon
Dec. 24, 2008
Panama
|
 |
|
A 'Genteleman's
Club' in Panama
Photo: Panama
Star |
The Sexual
Reality of the Country
Panama is not
only seen as a tax haven, but also a sexual paradise for tourists
where everything is available for the right price
Every country has a seedy side and Panama is no
exception. Like many other places in the world the sex industry is
thriving and attracting visitors.
For many
tourists that is one of Panama’s attractions. The so called
“gentlemen’s clubs” offer not only beautiful women willing to do
anything for the right price, but also the promise of forbidden
pleasures.
Technically
speaking sexual tourism is a crime, however there are Internet sites
where the would be traveler will not only have all the their
traveling arrangement taken care of, but also they throw into the
package a lovely companion of whatever sex and age depending on the
client’s preference...
Prostitution is
a big business and organized crime gangs regularly bring women from
Colombia, the Dominican Republic and other countries to work in the
sex industry.
They bring the
girls under false pretences promising them work. In reality the
human traffickers take away their passports and use them as
prostitutes in nightclubs and bars.
They are scared
and lonely, in a foreign country, with nowhere to run to. They are
terrified of the human traders and too afraid to go to the police
because they know they are going to be deported...
Perhaps the
worst part of the sex industry is the commercial sexual exploitation
of children through on-line pornography and actual prostitution.
The Public
Ministry is currently investigating 40 cases involving commercial
sexual exploitation of children and pornography...
Marijulia
Pujol Lloyd
Panama
Star
06-04-2009
Mexico
 |
|
Senators José Luis Máximo
García Zalvidea (left) and Rubén Velázquez, |
 |
|
Senators Lázaro Mazón (left) and
Francisco Javier Castellón Fonseca |
PRD pide a INM explicación por red de
lenocinio
Legisladores del
PRD pidieron la comparecencia de Cecilia Romero Castillo,
comisionada del Instituto Nacional de Migración (INM), por el caso
de mujeres sin papeles de Centroamérica prostituidas...
Legislators call
upon the Joint Committee of Congress to call immigration (INM)
director Cecilia Romero in to appear and explain apparent
involvement of INM agents
in
Yucatán
sex trafficking
network
Congressional
lawmakers from the Party of the Democratic Revolution [one of
Mexico’s three main political parties] have called for Cecilia
Romero Castillo, commissioner of the National Institute for
Migration (INM) to appear before Congress to explain the situation
of a case in which undocumented Central American women where
prostituted in [the state of Yucatán, with the alleged involvement
of immigration agents in criminal activity].
Senators
José Luis Máximo García Zalvidea,
Rubén Velázquez,
Lázaro Mazón and
Francisco Javier Castellón Fonseca presented an accord before
the Standing [joint] Committee of Congress to "invite" to the
commissioner of the INM to a meeting with legislative members of the
First Committee.
PRD legislators
want Romero to report on the performance of INM immigration officers
in the areas of human rights, and especially in the state of Yucatán,
“where a network dedicated to trafficking in persons and sexual
exploitation of women" [involving INM officers] has been discovered.
The PRD
congressional members have also asked the Standing Committee of
Congress to request that the Attorney General’s Special Prosecutor
for Crimes of Violence Against Women and Trafficking in Persons
(FEVIMTRA) investigate and take action against agents in the INM’s
Yucatán office for their involvement in human trafficking and sexual
exploitation.
The Standing
Committee was also asked to request from the National Commission on
Human Rights that it open an investigation into the case, and assist
the foreign national victims who have filed criminal complaints in
the case.
Jorge Ramos and
Ricardo Gomez
El Universal
Mexico City
June 17 2009
Colombia
 |
|
The 11 month police
operation was code named for this well known
Colombian novel |
Así operaba la red de trata de personas más poderosa del país,
desmantelada por la Policía
Un grupo de 20
investigadores de la Policía de Infancia y Adolescencia de Medellín
adelantó toda la investigación, que se inició en julio del año
pasado. Una joven de 18 años denunció su caso.
"Una amiga me dijo
que le estaban ofreciendo un trabajo en Bogotá y que nos iban a
pagar 300 o 400 mil pesos. Cuando nos presentamos nos subieron a un
bus, pero para el Urabá. Luego nos recogieron en un taxi, nos
quitaron los papeles y nos llevaron a una casa de citas. Allá un
señor nos dijo que ya sabíamos a qué íbamos, hasta que la ley nos
encontró como a los cinco días"...
Police dismantle the largest sex trafficking
network discovered to date in Colombia
A group of 20 police investigators from the Children and Adolescents
unit in the city of Medellin developed the entire investigation,
which began in July of 2008. An 18-year-old youth originally
reported to network to authorities.
"A
friend told me that she had been offered a job in [the capital city
of] Bogotá
that would pay 300 to 400 pesos [between $140 and $185 US dollars].
When we reported for work we were told to board a bus, but it was
bound for the city of Urabá. Then our employers picked us up in a
taxi, they took our identification and took us to a brothel. There,
a man told us that we knew what we were going to have to do. We were
rescued by the police 5 days later.” ...
The authorities arrested 69 people, including 17 women. Police
remain on the trail of another 28 suspects.
There were so many similar complaints from victims that
investigators had concluded that they were not dealing with two or
three people who induced women into prostitution, but a powerful
network. One that trafficked women from Medellin not only to other
cities in Antioquia department [state], but also to the capital,
Bogota , and to Cucuta, Cartagena, Santa Marta and towns in the
Magdalena Medio [the eastern-most region of Antioquia]. There are
also indications that the network had contacts abroad to traffic
women to Aruba and Venezuela...
"Send me another one like her and we will call the account even"
Police
intercepted communications between members of the network. They were
able to establish that eight people, which they called ‘The
Commission,’ sold women for amounts ranging from 30,000 to a million
Colombian pesos [between $14 and $467 US dollars].
One
intercepted communicated from a customer of the network [a brothel
owner] to a member of the ‘Commission stated: "You sent me a woman
for 30,000 pesos, but she was very ugly. Send me another one like
her and we’ll call the account even.” ...
After
the operation, code named 'Candida
Eréndida' [Innocent
Eréndira, a novel by famed Colombian Nobel
Literature Prize winner Gabriel
García Márquez],
police
distributed leaflets in the city of Medellin to
warn the public not to be taken in by these networks.
Police
continue to investigate the network’s
links abroad.
Full English Translation
www.eltiempo.com
June 26, 2009
Mexico, Guatemala
 |
|
Photo: CIMAC Noticias |
Niñez y prostitución en la frontera sur, el
costo de llegar a EU
Leticia, una vida entre ebrios, maras y policías
Segunda y última parte
Suchiate, Chiapas.
- Leticia, como miles de púberes y jóvenes en el submundo de la
explotación sexual infantil en México, sobrevive entre ebrios, en
esta zona de 700 kilómetros de frontera con Guatemala y Belice.
Tenía 12 años
cuando llegó sola a Chiapas por primera vez, con la ilusión de
continuar viaje y cruzar la frontera estadounidense en busca de un
mejor futuro. Ahora, en su sexto intento, trabaja en una cantina de
la zona. Apenas ha cumplido 14 años de edad...
The
Cost of Reaching
the U.S.; Children and
Prostitution at Mexico’s Southern
Border
Leticia at age 14: a life drinking, gangs and police
Second and last part
Suchiate, Chiapas state - Leticia, like many pre-teen and teenage
youth living in the underworld of child sexual exploitation in
Mexico, survives between bouts of
heavy
drinking here along Mexico’s 700 kilometer border with
Guatemala and Belize.
Leticia was
12-years-old when she came alone to Chiapas for the first time, with
the illusion of being able to reach and then cross the U.S. border
in search of a better future. Now, after her sixth attempt, she
works in a cantina (bar) in the area. She has just turned 14...
Unlike many of her
fellow teen prostitutes, Leticia did not have to sell her virginity,
a ‘service’ that customers are charged between $2,000 and $3,500
for. "I wanted to marry my boyfriend, but he abandoned me when he
learned that I was pregnant. I had an abortion at two months out of
disappointment," said Leticia, expressing with her child’s eyes a
false maturity that shows even more her clearly her helpless...
Leticia says that
many customers not only want to have sex, but they also want to
photograph her or record her on videotape or on cell phones in
exchange for an additional amount of money...
...The
Chiapas State’s Attorney has, during 2009, dismantled three gangs
dedicated to the sexual exploitation of minors in the cities of
Tapachula, Tuxtla Gutierrez and Rayón. At least 14 detainees facing
charges for procuring, criminal association and assault, among other
charges.
The children and
underage youth freed from these gangs had been forced to work in
sexual slavery for more than 12 hours each day. They had to bring
their enslavers $2,000 during that period. In exchange, they were
given one plate of rice and beans to eat. These facts are just the
tip of an ominous iceberg...
Full English Translation
Manuel de la Cruz
CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
Mexico City
June 25, 2009
LibertadLatina
Commentary
We at
LibertadLatina
once again applaud the
detailed, consistent and high quality reporting that CIMAC Noticias
in Mexico has provided on the critical issues affecting women and
girls in Mexico and across Latin America.
The global humanitarian organization Save the Children has
identified Mexico's southern border with Guatemala and Belize as
being the largest zone for the commercial sexual exploitation of
children (CSEC) in the entire world. We have long recognized this
fact, and accurate reporting in the Spanish language press, from
CIMAC and also mainstream Mexican newspapers has provided a window
into this nightmare.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) office in
Tapachula, Chiapas has estimated that between 450 to 600 women and girl
migrants who cross the border into southern Mexico are raped each
and every day, with little or no law enforcement reaction in response.
In Tapachula, a prostitution 'mega-center' in Chiapas state, over 50% of the 20,000
females working in prostitution are underage girls and youth who
have been forced by others or by economic necessity to accept a life
of sexual exploitation. Some 50% of them are from the Mayan majority
nation of Guatemala.
Chiapas, being a state located on this lawless border, is the only government entity
in the world that is not actually a nation to have established a direct relationship with
the United Nations to address human trafficking. This region's
crisis is indeed an emergency that requires the focused attention from the
world community.
President Felipe Calderón of Mexico has been less than enthusiastic
about fighting human trafficking, given his year-long effort to foot drag
on efforts to publish effective regulations to enable the nation's
first anti-trafficking law.
Now, Cecilia Romero, head of Mexico's immigration service (the
National Institute for Migration - INM), has stated that human
trafficking is "inevitable", and added that, "the
existence of the smuggling of migrants, human trafficking, pedophile
networks, and the kidnappings and violence that affect thousands of
migrants are only
"evils of mankind"
that Mexico cannot eradicate.
Women and children's rights and immigrant rights groups in Mexico
have been under-standably outraged by these comments. We join with
them in denouncing such a hands-off and dismissive approach to confronting the mass
gender atrocity of sexual exploitation and violence with impunity
that is now taking place across Mexico.
We remain especially concerned that Cecilia Romero, a former
congressional deputy, senator and
a long-time
activist and official in the National Action Party (PAN)
since 1982, is, through
her statements about the 'inevitability' of sex trafficking,
effectively justifying such criminal sexual exploitation and the lack of
a Mexican federal response to that illegal enterprise. This policy
position is consistent with many other
statements and actions from
the socially conservative PAN, that actively seek to diminish the
independence and basic individual human rights of women.
It thus remains the responsibility of the international community to
address these issues in collaboration, and in solidarity with the
many elements of Mexican society who desire to be liberated from
this Taliban-like mass movement to repress the basic humanity of women and girls.
Members of Congress, and activists in organizations such as the
Teresa Ulloa's Mexico City based Latin America and Caribbean branch
of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, as well as brave
reporters like Lydia Cacho (who has been unjustly jailed and still faces
death threats for her activism), and news agencies such as CIMAC
Noticias (who's offices have been ransacked in the past for their
reporting on sexual exploitation), all deserve the support of the
international community, and they deserve our help.
We especially laud Teresa Ulloa and CIMAC Noticias for standing up
to denounce the exploitation of indigenous women and girls, who are
the primary target of many traffickers and rapists.
Let's give the advocates for women and girl's human rights in Mexico
the help that they need now, while there is still time to avert
an even more well organized war against women and girls than the one
that is happening today!
End impunity
now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
June 26/27, 2009
See also:
Mexico vows to improve
migrant's treatment
Mexico City - Mexico's head
of migration [Cecilia Romero Castillo] on
Tuesday pledged to improve the agency's
detention centers in response to criticism
that Mexico fails to give Central American
immigrants the same respect it demands for
its own citizens in the United States....
The Mexican government has
acknowledged that many officials are bribed
by human smugglers. Migrants face abuse from
corrupt police as well as
violent gangs who wait on the southern
border to rob and assault them.
The government-funded
National Human Rights Commission, U.N. human
rights officials and other non-governmental
organiza-tions say they have documented
abuses.
The migration depart-ment's plan aims "to
entirely eliminate this terrible situation,"
Romero told a news conference.
[Yet as of June, 2009 they have failed to
act on this promise -
LL.]
Answering U.S. concerns,
President Felipe Calderon also has promised
to strengthen security on Mexico's southern
border to stop the tide of illegal migrants
- the majority of whom use Mexico as a way
station to the United States...
In January [2007], Mexico
detained more than 10,000 illegal migrants,
and
expects that number to increase to 205,000
by the end of [2007],
according to a report by the migration
department....
Lisa J. Adams
The
Associated Press
Feb. 28, 2007
Mexico, Guatemala
 |
|
Photo: CIMAC Noticias |
Leticia, de 14 años, sobrevive en la
explotación sexual
24 mil niñas y niños prostituidos u obligados a la pornografía
Primera de dos partes
Suchiate, Chiapas - Leticia es una niña centroamericana de 14 años,
sin documentos, a quien prostituyen en una cantina de este municipio
fronterizo con Guatemala.
Han pasado casi dos
años desde que dejó su país natal para migrar rumbo a Estados
Unidos. A pesar de las duras condiciones en que vive para lograr su
objetivo, no deja de intentarlo. Sabe que la deportación es casi
segura, según sus propias palabras, pero ni eso la detiene en su
idea de cruzar la frontera, alternativa que encontró ante la miseria
y el incierto futuro en su lugar de origen...
Leticia, Age 14, Survives in Sexual Exploitation
24,000 boys and girls forced into prostitution or pornography across
Mexico
First of two parts
Suchiate, Chiapas state – Leticia is a 14-year-old undocumented
Central American girl who is being prostituted in a Cantina (bar) in
this town on the Guatemalan border.
It has
been almost two years since Leticia left her native country to
migrate to the United States. Despite the harsh conditions she has
had to live through in order to achieve that goal, she will not give
up. She knows that her deportation from Mexico is almost certain, as
she herself says. But she will not be detained in her effort to
reach the U.S. border, seeking to find an alternative to the misery
and uncertain future that she faced in her homeland.
Leticia’s situation is no different than that of hundreds of
children who have been trapped by this border region’s commercial
sex networks, who have offered their victims “a way to make fast
money.”
They
are victims of exploitation of the international networks of
traffickers who grab them either before or after they cross the
border at the Suchiate River or along clandestine smuggling paths
that exist all along the border with Guatemala. Advocacy
organizations who fight on their behalf refer to them as “sex
slaves...”
The
director of the Movimiento Ciudadano de la Frontera Sur (Southern
Frontier Citizen’s Movement), Juan José González, notes that the
phenomenon of prostitution in the region has increased alarmingly.
These are not isolated cases, he says.
On the
streets, and in bars, clubs, schools and outside of shopping centers
in cities such as Suchiate, Tapachula, Cacahoatán, Tuxtla Chico and
Huixtla, it is common to find women [and girls] of different ages
engaged in prostitution...
For
now, while Leticia continues to be a victim of sexual exploitation,
the director of Mexico’s National Institute for Migration (INM),
Cecilia Romero, has recently told the newspaper El Universal that
the existence of smuggling of migrants, human trafficking, pedophile
networks, and the kidnappings and violence that affect thousands of
migrants are only
"evils of mankind"
that Mexico cannot eradicate.
Full English Translation
Manuel de la Cruz
CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
Mexico City
June 24, 2009
The United States, Mexico
 |
|
Joaquín Aguilar Méndez,
right, a former altar boy, has sued the Rev. Nicolás
Aguilar, shown in photo at left. (From a web site that
takes an opposing position in the case of
Nicolás Aguilar - in Spanish). |
Arquidiócesis de Puebla y Los Ángeles toleran
pederastia
México DF.-
Integrantes de la Red de Sobrevivientes de Abusos por Sacerdotes
(SNAP, por sus siglas en inglés) interpusieron una demanda contra
las arquidiócesis de Los Ángeles, California, y de Tehuacán, Puebla,
querella que involucra a los cardenales Roger Mahony y Norberto
Rivera, respectivamente, informa la Agencia NotieSe.
El ciudadano,
identificado como Juan Doe (“Juan Nadie”), abusado sexualmente en
1988 por el sacerdote mexicano Nicolás Aguilar, acusa a esas
instancias eclesiales y al Departamento de Educación de California
de negligencia en la protección a su persona, puesto que Aguilar
trabajó como profesor después de ser transferido de Tehuacán a Los
Ángeles por el entonces obispo local, Norberto Rivera...
CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
Mexico City
June 23, 2009
Charges of cross-border church abuses continue
Mexico City
- A victims’ group said Thursday that it was filing a new lawsuit in
Los Angeles, California, against Mexican and U.S. church officials
accused of sheltering a suspected pedophile priest.
The lawsuit accuses
Mexico City Cardinal Norberto Rivera of conspiring with Roman
Catholic officials in the United States to shelter Nicolas Aguilar,
a Mexican priest wanted in California for 19 felony counts of
committing lewd acts on a child.
This is the third
lawsuit filed by the group,
Survivor’s Network of Those Abused by Priests,
or SNAP, against the Catholic Church for allegedly protecting
Aguilar. Two previous lawsuits filed in Los Angeles against the
Mexican cardinal by Mexican citizens were dismissed in 2007.
This time, however,
the unnamed plaintiff is a U.S. citizen.
“In this case it
was a North American boy molested in North American territory,” said
Jose Bonilla, a lawyer for SNAP.
Bonilla said he was
“practically 100 percent sure” that the plaintiff, identified only
as John Doe, would have his day in court. “But it’s going to be a
long process,” he said.
In addition to
Cardinal Rivera, the lawsuit charges the archdiocese of Tehuacan in
the Mexican state of Puebla, where Rivera worked at the time, the
archdiocese of Los Angeles and the California Department of
Education with failing to protect the plaintiff from Rev. Aguilar.
Foreign Correspondency
June 18, 2009
Colombia
 |
|
Stella Cardenas, director of Fundacion
Renacer (the Rebirth Foundation) |
Insuficientes, Nuevas Sanciones Sobre Turismo Sexual Y Pornografía
Infantil En Colombia
Bogotá.- La muerte
de Yesid Torres, de apenas 15 años, conmovió a los habitantes de
Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, donde la explotación sexual va en
aumento. El menor de edad falleció a consecuencia de una sobredosis
de cocaína que consumió en el apartamento del italiano Paolo
Pravisani, pederasta de 72 años, quien lo había contratado para
proveerle servicios sexuales, informó la agencia Semlac…
New Sanctions on Child Pornography and Sexual Tourism in Colombia
are Insufficient
Bogota
.- The death of Yesid Torres, a boy who had just turned 15, shocked
the people of the city of Cartagena de Indias, where sexual
exploitation is increasing. The youth died from an overdose of
cocaine consumed in the apartment of Italian Paolo Pravisani, a 72
year old pedophile who had contracted Torres to provide sexual
services.
In
response to increasing levels of sexual exploitation, Colombian
lawmakers passed a law on June 10, 2009 that applies new penalties,
including a 20 year prison term for those who engage in producing
child pornography. The law also makes child sex tourism a crime.
The
legislation provides for prison sentences of 4 to 8 years for
persons who promote child sex tourism, without the possibility of
parole. The length of the sentence may be increased by half when the
victim is under 12 years of age.
Stella
Cardenas, director of Fundacion Renacer (the Rebirth Foundation),
notes that although the penalty for promoting child sex tourism
under the new law is higher than the 3 year sentence available under
the old law, the length of sentence is still too low. She adds that
the law fails to address cases of aggressors who sexually exploit
youth between the ages of 14 and 18 who have consented to engage in
[commercial] sex, often due to economic hardship.
CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
Mexico city
June 23, 2009
Véase también:
Luz Stella Cardenas
Luz Stella es la directora y fundadora de la
Fundación Renacer, una organización que trabaja con niños y niñas
víctimas de explotación sexual y ha atendido a lo largo de su
historia a más de quince mil niños de Bogotá, Cartagena y
Barranquilla. Desde 1988, su propósito fundamental ha sido combatir
la explotación sexual infantil y acompañar a las personas explotadas
sexualmente en su recuperación y realización personal...
Somos Más
Feb. 08, 2006
See also:
About Stella Cárdenas
Stella Cárdenas is
building new institutional protections against child prostitution
and pornography in Colombia by persuading the government to extend
the mandate of its ministry charged with protection of children, the
Ministry of Family Welfare... Stella and her Fundación Renacer
("Rebirth Foundation") contributed substantially to the passage of
Law 360. This law, passed in 1997, for the first time assigned
penalties–fines or jail sentences–for anyone who draws children into
prostitution...
Ashoka
International
2001
Mexico
 |
|
Mexico's immigration commissioner Cecilia
Romero |
El turismo sexual es inevitable: INM
Para la comisionada del Instituto Nacional de Migración, Cecilia
Romero, el turismo sexual, tráfico de personas, comercio de mujeres,
redes de pederastia, plagio y violencia contra miles de migrantes
son “males de la humanidad” que México no puede erradicar...
Mexico’s Immigration Chief: Sex Tourism is
Inevitable
According to Cecilia Romero, the commissioner of Mexico’s National
Migration Institute (immigration service), sex tourism, human
trafficking, female commercial sex work, pedophile networks, and the
kidnappings and violence that victimize thousands of migrants
[crossing Mexico to get to the U.S.] are
"evils of mankind" that
Mexico cannot eradicate.
Even if
such practices have triggered: 1) harsh reports [about Mexico] from the
U.S. Department of State and Mexico’s National Human Rights
Commission (CNDH);
2) complaints by foreign victims about their forced prostitution
and sex trafficking; and 3) complaints from [undocumented] Cuban
migrants who have been extorted for thousands of dollars in their quest to get
to Florida, Romero concludes that all of these problems have existed
since the origins of migration...
[Commenting on strong criticism of the INM and repeated calls for her
resignation,] Romero
argues that the National Migration Institute has implemented a
'purification' effort which has caused a number of problems to emerge
into the public spotlight.
The
immigration director noted that since her team arrived as part
of President Felipe Calderón’s government, she has accomplished
much, but she is also aware that those achievements will never be enough
[to solve the problems that exist].
Romero
said that the vast majority of complaints that have been submitted
[about official corruption] originate from within the INM itself. So far about 300 immigration officers have been reprimanded or removed.
"This shows that we are making progress, although I will never be
satisfied in our war against organized crime."
Romero
adds that when there is discussion about immigrants, the finger is
always pointed at the INM. But, she says, the criminal networks have state police, corrections officers and also immigration agents
on their payrolls. We are investigating and pursuing them. Romero
insists that her agency is taking action to get to the bottom of the
problem of corruption.
Jose Gerardo Mejia
El Universal
June 20 2009
LibertadLatina
Commentary
We appreciate the fact that
Cecilia Romero, the commissioner of Mexico’s National Migration
Institute, is a rare federal agency
director who is willing to be honest in expressing the Felipe Calderón Administration's
lack of interest in treating the mass gender atrocity of adult and
child sexual exploitation in that nation as a serious crisis requiring an
urgent response.
According to the traditional beliefs of Roman feudalism
that still prevail in Mexico, such behavior is, as
Director Romero says, simply "inevitable."
The hidden follow-on to that statement is: "If it is
inevitable, why do anything to fight it?"
So a nation like Mexico
ends up doing only the minimum necessary to placate the U.S. State
Department's Trafficking in Persons Office with the objective of
receiving a
reasonably good rating in the annual TIP report.
In other words, Romero is saying: Victims, don't
hold your breath as you wait for help. That help is not forthcoming from
President Calderón's federal government.
That is not a good enough answer!
Commissioner Romero's statement is consistent with
the lack of action that the Mexican public sees from its federal
government in regard to addressing modern human slavery and other
forms of violence against women.
We are especially concerned that this policy
position, stating that mass sexual violence and slavery is
inevitable, is consistent with other positions taken on women's
human rights issues
by President Calderón's National Action Party (PAN),
such as stating that the women who have been kidnapped, tortured,
raped and murdered by the hundreds in Ciudad Juarez caused their own
deaths because they wore immodest clothing and walked in bad parts
of town.
End impunity
now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
June 23/24, 2009
See also:
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
Colombia
El turismo sexual aumenta cada día más en el país
Bogotá - Las
cifras sobre turismo sexual en Colombia son alarmantes. Vender el
cuerpo a clientes que llegan de todas partes del mundo, se ha
convertido en uno de los mejores negocios en el país, siendo Cali
una de las primeras ciudades en la lista...
Sex tourism is increasing on a daily basis
Bogota - The figures on sexual tourism in
Colombia are alarming. To sell your body to customers who arrive
from all over the world has become one of the best businesses in the
nation, with Cali being the city at the top of the list.
According to a report of the Rebirth
Foundation (Foundation Renacer), in the past two years the
phenomenon has grown 53% in Cali, the capital of Valle del Cauca
department [state]. Minors form the majority of those involved in
the business.
The most appealing magnets for foreign
tourists who come to our nation are the bodies of girls between 12
and 14 years [who are sold to them in prostitution]. This business
generates huge profits for the mafia. Although 202 cases have been
documented during the past 24 months, these incidents have been reported
neither to the police for minors nor to the SIJIN (the Judicial
Investigations and Intelligence Service).
elpaisvallenato.com
June 21, 2009
LibertadLatina
Commentary
Colombia may indeed be a leader in efforts to combat modern human
trafficking. In the U.S. State Department's 2009 Trafficking in
Persons (TIP) report, Colombia received a 'Tier 1' rating, the
highest possible, to reward their efforts against human trafficking.
Yet Colombia's government and certain social elements contribute to
a large number of human rights abuses, especially those that
victimize Afro-Colombians in Indigenous peoples, who face
wanton murder, rape and displacement by the military
and
right wing paramilitary forces hell bent on stealing their land and
conducting their own perverted version of 'social cleansing.' Leftist guerillas are not innocent
either.
These abuses, including the forced conscription of underage
girls and accompanying sexual abuse perpetrated by illegal armed groups on both sides of the conflict
contribute to an environment where mass human trafficking is made
possible.
With an estimated 70,000 victims of human trafficking being created
annually, Colombia is right up there with Brazil, the Dominican
Republic and Argentina as one of the major nations involved in the illegal
trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation.
We recommend that an index of trafficking behavior in these nations
that is separate from the annual TIP report be developed to assess
the true story 'on the ground' in the nations of the Americas.
Currently, the TIP rating system does not reflect the true intensity of the
problem.
End impunity
now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
June 23, 2009
Colombia - The United States
 |
|
María is
keeping her identity hidden, for fear of reprisals.
Photo:
Helda Martínez/IPS |
Trafficking Victims’ Ordeal Never Over
Bogota - A
mixture of rage, impotence and terror is evident behind the sadness
in María’s eyes. It’s been five months since she escaped from her
captors in the United States, where she was taken under a false job
contract, and she still can’t shake off her fear…
According to the
available data, some 70,000 people fall victim to human trafficking
every year in Colombia, which ranks third in the number of victims
in Latin America, behind the Dominican Republic and Brazil.
…Statistics only
partially reflect the magnitude of the crime, because many of the
victims refuse to go to the police for fear traffickers will carry
out their threats, or that they will be shunned by their community,
or simply because they don’t realize just how severely their rights
have been violated…
…People do fall
for the bogus offers because they are in dire need of an opportunity
for a better life. That was what happened to María, a 40-year old
woman originally from the central province of Tolima, who was living
on the outskirts of Bogotá when she was captured by members of a
trafficking mafia.
She admitted to
IPS that she’s still scared her captors will find her or come after
her kids…
She’s also
filled with rage. In November 2008 she and her family carefully
examined the work contract before she decided to accept a job as a
domestic in the home of a wealthy Colombian family in the United
States…
But everything
changed when she arrived at her destination somewhere in the U.S. …
They took away her passport and other documents, then forced her to
work all day long, from 5 a.m. through midnight, with only half a
day’s rest on Sundays, and drastically reduced her meals, feeding
her a meager vegetable diet…
[A]
woman from El Salvador told María that what her "employers" were
doing was illegal, explained how to unblock the telephone, and gave
her an emergency number to phone the police for help.
But the police
merely forced her captors to give back her passport and admonished
them for how they were treating her.
That night,
María’s kidnappers scared her with all sorts of threats against her
and her family back in Colombia. They warned her that if she didn’t
sign a paper exonerating them from all responsibility, they would
report her to the police and accuse her of several offences, and she
would be thrown in jail for years.
She was finally
able to sneak out of the house while her kidnappers thought she was
sleeping, and was driven to a shelter for human trafficking victims
by the Salvadoran woman and her husband.
"There I started
to get better. I spoke several times with my children and the rest
of my family, and I came to realize that there are many people in
the same difficult situation as me. Two other Colombian women were
there with me, and another four had left the day I arrived," she
said…
Inter press Service (IPS)
June 10, 2009
LibertadLatina
Commentary
Ten years ago a Colombian woman caught in an
almost identical situation of domestic labor
slavery approached a hair dresser, asking
for help to escape her employer - a wealthy
Colombian diplomatic family living in the
Washington, DC region. I made good her
escape, and that of a friend who worked for
another diplomatic family from Colombia.
The victim's employer yelled and screamed at
her, made her work under constant verbal threats from 6 am
until midnight, forced her to cook, clean, mow the lawn and shovel the snow for a family of five
living in a big house on a large piece of
land, and forbade her to
leave the house alone. Only during one of
her 'supervised' visits to a local hair
salon was she able to contact a sympathetic
person willing to help. That person
contacted me.
This woman still lives in fear of her
employer, but has gotten married and has
brought her daughter to the U.S.
Many middle and upper class women across
Latin America employ domestic workers. A
very large number of these employers act in
a fashion that reflects extreme cruelty, and
is consistent with the manner in which
wealthy women in the Roman Empire treated
enslaved women in their homes.
We see the results of this attitude in the
Roman Empire through the example of the
poorly fed and frail servant girls, barely
given enough food to survive, whose
well-preserved bodies have been found in the
ruins of the houses of wealthy Romans who
lived in the city of Pompeii.
Many wealthy
and middle class women continue to treat
their 'hired help' in the same slave-like
fashion in one offshoot of the Roman Empire
known as modern Latin America. You just have to
watch a Mexican soap opera on a Spanish language TV
network anywhere in the world to confirm that
ugly fact.
As a
millionaire Greek business owner once explained to me, the fact that
Mediterranean cultures enslaved each other 'back and forth' for
millennia lead directly to the fact that there is no remorse for
slavery in Latin America. He told me that when he arrived in the
U.S. years ago, his biggest surprise was that white Americans felt
remorse for the past enslavement of African Americans.
That
remorse does not exist in the Mediter-ranean region. By extension
(and Spain is one of these Mediter-ranean cultures),
remorse for slavery does no exist among the
elites in Latin America.
So how can
the world depend upon the judgment, and trust the actions of such
elites to pass anti-trafficking laws and enforce them, when
tolerance for labor and sexual exploitation was and is built into
the very foundation of Latin American societies?
This is
why a new Global Plan of Action
against slavery, proposed by a number of
United Nations member countries, is needed, because... given the
existence of the U.S. State Department's Trafficking in Persons
report or not, international legal instruments, and the threat of
U.S. economic sanctions will not break through the Roman wall of
impunity that enslaves Latin America's oppressed populations, and
especially the poor, the indigenous and the African descendent,
without engaging in out of the box thinking and action to end this
crisis.
In other
words, the modern anti-trafficking movement, and the actions of many
international and U.S. bodies assume that all nations want to
collaborate to end sex and labor trafficking. That sentiment
is true among some sectors of society in Latin America. But powerful
economic and political forces thrive through the exploitation of the
victims of modern human slavery, while ancient cultural and
religious traditions justify such inhumanity.
Mexico's
National Human Rights Commission recently announced that some
1,600
mostly Central American migrants traveling through Mexico to reach
the U.S., mostly women and girls, are kidnapped each month into
slavery. It is known that sexual slavery predominates in
Mexico much more so than labor slavery. In the case of domestic
servitude, involving tens of thousands of underage Indigenous girls
in Mexico, sex and labor slavery, co-exist).
This is
happening to the benefit of the elites and paid-off corrupt
officials in Mexico, while at the same time the publication of
serious federal regulations that are urgently required to enact the nation's first
anti-trafficking law was intentionally delayed by President Felipe
Calderón for 11 months. When the rules were finally published, after
four stern warnings from Congress, they were
watered down to make the law ineffective.
Many members of Mexico's
Congress of the Republic have admonished President
Calderón for not caring
about the plight of trafficking victims. Together with
non-governmental organizations, these legislators have organized an effort to insist
that President Calderón withdraw his current anti-trafficking regulations
and allow them to be re-written to put the teeth back in them to
reflect the original intent of Congress in passing the law. It is
obvious that President Calderón finally published the regulations so
that Mexico would receive a positive rating (Tier 2) in the 2009
U.S. State Department Trafficking in Persons Report.
Meanwhile,
20,000 migrants, mostly women and children, are kidnapped into
slavery in Mexico each year while corrupt and apathetic law enforce-ment
and government officials not only don't lift a finger to help these
victims, but, as the 2009 TIP report acknowledges, they are
sometimes direct participants in these kidnappings.
In
addition, 4,000 Indigenous Mexican children remain enslaved in
prostitution in Japan, while neither Mexico nor Japan do anything to
find and rescue them.
Eight year
old Mexican girls have been reported as being trafficking "into the
brothels of the basements of New York" both currently and since at
least the mid 1990s, if not earlier.
Yet these
realities are not reflected in the 2009 U.S. State Department
Trafficking in Persons Report, which was also true under the
administration of former President George W. Bush.
The
overall TIP report assessment of Mexico is accurate, but the nuances,
detailing the intentional resistance by the Calderón administration
against actually caring
about and acting to defend trafficking victims and those at risk, is
not reflected in the report.
The misogynist policies of the far
right members of Calderón's National Action Party (PAN) are also not
reflected in the 2009 TIP report. It is not in their best interest to clamp-down on modern human
slavery, a position reflected in their efforts to foot-drag on
building effective anti-trafficking efforts at the federal level.
Truth be
told, Mexico's economy would be seriously 'harmed' if all forms of
labor and sexual slavery ended. That does not justify extending the
life of such
exploitation for
even one second.
We applaud
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Trafficking in Persons Office
Director Louis C. De Baca, the first Latino head of the
office, for the release of an expanded and well thought out Trafficking
in Persons report, the first delivered by a Democratic
administration.
But the case of Mexico, as well as
the case of the major
criminal enterprise that is the trafficking of mostly Afro-Latina
women from the Dominican Republic to Argentina (while
anti-trafficking analysis largely ignores this issue) are two areas
that greatly concern us.
We look
forward to seeing serious emphasis placed on addressing sex and
labor trafficking in Latina America, especially where indigenous and
African descendent populations are targeted, because in both types
of slavery, these peoples comprise a very large segment of those who
are at
risk.
If this
basic task of putting greater focus on the Latin American issue is accepted by the U.S. State Department, we should
expect to see new initiatives in the Trafficking in Persons Office
that go beyond the limited work that is being done today to address
this emergency.
Latin
America's exploding human trafficking crisis was virtually ignored
during the past decade by the U.S. Government, except where foes of
the U.S., including Cuba and Venezuela were concerned.
The real
bad guys make their money in Mexico, Brazil, the Dominican Republic,
Colombia and Argentina. The Mexican trafficking mafias enslave
500,000 sex trafficking victims, according to Teresa Ulloa, director
of the Latina American and Caribbean office of the Coalition Against
Trafficking in Women and Children. Yet the U.S. State Department
declares, following the estimates developed by the United Nations
funded International Labor Organization (ILO), that only 1.5 million
sex slaves exist in the entire world.
So if both
Teresa Ulloa and the ILO are to be believed, then Mexico has 1/3 of
the world's sex slaves? Something is wrong with these numbers.
In
addition, Save the Children has recognized that the southern Mexican
border region is the largest area for the commercial sexual
exploitation of children in the entire world. That fact is also
missing from the 2009 TIP report.
We do not
need another 8 years of obfuscation about the true and horrific
magnitude of modern human slavery in Latin America.
We also do
not need a diminished focus on this emergency because the forces
that favor the legalization of prostitution are strongly represented
in liberal Democratic circles. Their work is largely academic, and
it does not account for the mass victimization of children and
underage youth, especially in Latin America, who cannot possibly be
seen as consenting, willing participants in the sex trade.
As well,
we do not need to limit action against human trafficking to only a
focus on further adoption of the Palermo Protocol, an approach which
was defined during a gathering of diplomats at the United Nations on
May 13, 2009 as being ineffective.
As we have stated before... We are encouraged by the brave
efforts of United Nations diplomats and
Ecuadorian Minister
of Justice and Human Rights (Attorney
General)
Néstor Arbito
Chica to
promote a Global Plan of Action
to get around the very clear fact that
the Palermo Protocol, and regional efforts
by the Organization of American States (OAS)
are insufficient to successfully fight this
aggressive criminal war against a whole generation of
Latin American and especially Indigenous
women and girls.
We look forward to seeing the United States
take a leading role to step-up
efforts to bring this crisis under control.
We also look forward to seeing the U.S.
State Department demonstrate leadership in
addressing the hard issues in Latin America
without seeing the rules changed behind
closed doors in favor of
quieting criticism of U.S. allies in the
region, something that was quite blatant
during the last
U.S.
Administration.
Those at
risk, and those who are today enslaved in the region deserve our
undivided attention and an honest approach to ending the condoned
and officially sanctioned mass gender atrocity that is modern human
slavery in Latin America.
The
time of the Roman Empire is over!
Free
my people now!
End impunity
now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
June 21/22, 2009
See also:
En Japón, de 3 a 4 mil niñas mexicanas víctimas de ESCI
Afirma la experta Teresa Ulloa
Three to four thousand underage indigenous girls from the poor states of Oaxaca, Chiapas, Guerrero and Mexico [state] have become victims of commercial sexual exploitation of children
(CSEC) in Japan.
Puebla city, in Puebla state - Teresa Ulloa, Latin America and Caribbean Director of the Coalition Against Trafficking of Women (CATW)
announced her estimates of the numbers of indigenous children sex trafficked to
Japan, and explained that traffickers trick the victims using offers of
thousands of dollars for their parents in exchange for [obtaining
permission] to take their daughters. The parents are told that their girls are going to the United States to work in fast food restaurant jobs.
Taking advantage of the condition of submission that Mexico's indigenous communities are forced to live in, the traffickers take their victims to Japan where they are prostituted and work as geishas, a role that Asian women no-longer want to play because today they have more decision-making power than in the past.
Ulloa said that before these victims from Japan are repatriated, the home
conditions of these girls must be investigated to assure that they can be
reintegrated without facing the risk of being sold or sexually exploited again.
Ulloa noted that in the year 2002 the CATW helped to repatriate two sisters,
ages 8 and 10, who had been prostituted in a brothel in New York. They were
subjected to exploitation again, 15 days later, because their family "had sold
their daughters in exchange for two goats and two cases of beer."
During her interview with CIMAC Noticias, Ulloa declared:
"the subject [of child protection] is not on the national agenda. Much attention is paid to drug trafficking, but the government hasn't even realized that the same drug trafficking networks are used for the [sex] trafficking of children, and that organized crime regards this activity to be one of their most important businesses."
...
Nadia Altamirano Díaz
CIMAC Noticias
Dec. 12, 2008
See also:
Mexico: Más de un millón de menores se
prostituyen en el centro del país: especialista
Expert: More than one million minors are sexually
exploited in Central Mexico
Tlaxcala city, in Tlaxcala state - Around 1.5 million
people in the central region of Mexico are engaged in prostitution, and
some 75% of them are between 12 and 13 years of age, reported Teresa
Ulloa, director of the Regional Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
and Girls in Latin America and the Caribbean...
During an international seminar in the city of Tlaxcala, Ulloa noted
that, due to the conditions of marginalization in which they live, at
least 50 million women and children in Latin America are at risk of
being recruited for sexual exploitation.
La Jornada de Oriente
Sep. 26, 2007
The United States - Latin America
The US Human Trafficking Report 2009: Whatever
makes you think it's political?
The USA sometimes
tries to make out the "equal partners" thing with the rest of the
Americas and sometimes it doesn't. You get The Hawaiian making some
lip service to the greater cause at the moment, but when push comes
to shove and the bureaucrats are let loose, those old habits of
arrogance, selective memory based on friendships and high-handedness
towards "the brown people down there" shine on through.
Today the US State
Department's ninth annual "Trafficking in Persons Report" was
published, and here's how the region stacks up in the eyes of
TheWorldPoliceman.™
Level One (complies with all, we luvs ya): Colombia
Level Two (not up to scratch but we see you're making an effort, try
a bit harder, boyz): Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El
Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Uruguay.
Level Three (hmmm..not so good, kiddies. We're watching you so don't
do anything stupid): Argentina, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Rep Dom,
Venezuela
Level Four (bad bad bad naughty naughty sanctions sanctions): Cuba
But the biggest
guilty party on human trafficking is left off the list completely.
The country where many labor and sex slaves are sent by their
paymasters and blind eyes are turned. Go on....take a wild guess as
to which one.
The Democratic Underground
June 16, 2009
The Americas
| 2009 TIP
Ratings |
 |
Tier 1 |
 |
Tier 2 |
 |
Tier 2 Watch List |
 |
Tier 3 |
2009 U.S. Department of State Trafficking in
Persons Report - Nations of the Americas
A-C:
Antigua and Barbuda (Tier 2), Argentina (Tier
2 Watch List), Bahamas (Tier 2), Barbados (Tier 2), Belize (Tier 2
Watch List), Bolivia (Tier 2), Brazil (Tier 2), Canada (Tier 1),
Chile (Tier 2), Colombia (Tier 1), Costa Rica (Tier 2), Cuba (Tier
3)
D-K:
Dominican Republic (Tier 2 Watch List),
Ecuador (Tier 2), El Salvador (Tier 2), Guatemala (Tier 2 Watch
List), Guyana (Tier 2 Watch List), Haiti (missing), Honduras (Tier
2), Jamaica (Tier 2)
L-P:
Mexico (Tier 2), Nicaragua (Tier 2 Watch
List), Panama (Tier 2), Paraguay (Tier 2), Peru (Tier 2)
Q-Z:
ST. Vincent and the Grenadines (Tier 2 Watch
List), Trinidad and Tobago (Tier 2), Uruguay (Tier 2), Venezuela
(Tier 2 Watch List)
See also:
Letter from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Letter from Ambassador Luis C. de Baca
Introduction
Major Forms of Trafficking in Persons
The Three P's: Punishment, Protection,
Prevention
Financial Crisis and Human Trafficking
Topics of Special Interest
Victims' Stories
Global Law Enforcement Data
Commendable Intiatives Around the World
2009 TIP Report Heroes
Tier Placements
Maps
U.S. Government Domestic Anti-Trafficking
Efforts
U.S. Department of State Office of Trafficking in Persons
June 16, 2009
Guatemala
Justicia parece no llegar en casos de niñas
víctimas de violencia
El sistema de
justicia parece no ser efectivo en los casos de tres niñas
asesinadas recientemente en San Lucas Sacatepéquez y de una menor
violada en Sololá, ya que se han registrado señales de negligencia
en las investigaciones y parcialidad en el estudio de las pruebas,
denunció la Fundación Sobrevivientes...
Justice Appears Distant
in Cases of Girl Victims of Violence
The
non-governmental organization La
Fundación Sobrevivientes (the Survivor’s Foundation) has
denounced the fact that Guatemala’s
justice system does not appear to be working effectively in two
criminal cases: 1) that of three girls killed recently in San Lucas
Sacatepequez; and 2) the case of a minor girl raped in the city of
Sololá. The Foundation states that
there have been indications of negligence and bias in the evaluation
of the evidence in these cases.
In the first case, a 13-year-old
girl was raped on July 8, 2008 in Sololá. Judge Frank Armando
Martínez allowed the accused assailant, Martín Tambríz, to be
freed despite conclusive evidence of his guilt.
Forensic evidence had showed a positive
DNA match tying Tambríz to the
rape. The Foundation plans to appeal the acquittal.
Lawyers for the Survivor’s Foundation also expressed concern about
the case of three girls, ages 7, 8 and 12, who were “butchered” on
May 29, 2009 in the hamlet Chicamán in San Lucas Sacatepequez. It
was ascertained that one of the victim’s was raped. Three men
suspected in the crime have been detained. The Foundation emphasizes
that there are signs of negligence in the investigation conducted by
the District Attorney of Sacatepéquez, a fact that will not
contribute to solving these crimes.
The Survivor’s Foundation has asked that the case be moved to the
capital, Guatemala City to insure that the investigation and preparations for
prosecution are able to be observed, ensuring that due process is
respected in the case.
CERIGUA
June 19, 2009
Guatemala
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|
Juana Méndez, right, and her
translator explain in Court how one
of the two police-men who raped her
told her after the attack: "Why are
you complaining? I will put two
bullets into you and throw you over
an embankment."
From the
documentary
film on the
Juana Méndez
case (in Spanish on
YouTube) |
Guatemala.- Una indígena
guatemalteca es la primera mujer maya que logra
que encarcelen a un policía por haberla violado
Nebaj - La indígena guatemalteca Juana Méndez ha
sido la primera mujer maya que abre un proceso
judicial contra un policial por haberla violado
y logra que sea condenado, según contó ella
misma en una entrevista con Europa Press.
El gran índice de impunidad en delitos contra
las mujeres, según han denunciado reiteradamente
asociaciones feministas, se rompe así con este
caso. A Méndez "le hicieron daño" y ella "no lo
quiso dejarlo así, quiso decir la verdad".
Pese a las amenazas de muerte y a los consejos
que personas de su entorno le reiteraban para
que retirase del proceso contra el policía, ella
decidió seguir adelante. "Qué pienso, que tiene
que haber ley; si un hombre me hizo eso, tiene
que pagarlo"...
An
Indigenous Mayan Woman has Become the First
Female in Guatemala's History to Achieve the
Conviction and Imprisonment of a Police Officer
for Having Raped Her in Custody
Nebaj - Juana Méndez has become the first Mayan
woman [in this Mayan majority nation] to pursue
legal proceedings against a policeman for the
crime of rape resulting in a conviction and a
prison sentence.
This case succeeded despite the high rate of
impunity for crimes against women, an issue that
has repeatedly been raised by feminists. Méndez
stated: "they did me harm" and she "did not want
to leave it at that, I wanted to tell the
truth."
Despite death threats and the repeated advice
from people around her to withdraw the case
against the policemen, she decided to go ahead.
"What do I believe? I believe that the rule of
law has to exist. If a man does that to you, he
has to pay.” Juana Mendez said that with the
full support of her husband, who had told his
wife that he would not respond to this problem
with domestic violence [a common reaction of the
husbands of rape victims]…
Méndez’ struggle for justice caused her insomnia
from fear, and she couldn’t eat. But she never
retreated, saying, “I had to tell the truth.” "I
told the judge that these policemen had raped
me.” Her female friends told her that she should
not pursue the case, because her husband would
beat her. She replied to them: “I don’t care if
my husband beats me. I am going to tell the
truth.”
The one policeman who was tried has been
sentenced to 20 years in prison. Asked whether
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