Added: Nov. 15, 2011

Greater Washington, DC USA

Gangs Enter New Territory With Sex Trafficking

Though most are known to deal with drugs and weapons, a new FBI threat assessment says street gangs have been moving into some different territory lately: human trafficking. The FBI says gang members increasingly are pushing women and children into prostitution.

The MS-13 gang got its start among immigrants from El Salvador in the 1980s. Since then, the gang has built operations in 42 states, mostly out West and in the Northeastern United States, where members typically deal in drugs and weapons.

But in Fairfax County, Virginia, one of the wealthiest places in the country, authorities have brought five cases in the past year that focus on gang members who have pushed women, sometimes very young women, into prostitution.

"We all know that human trafficking is an issue around the world," says Neil MacBride, the top federal prosecutor in the area. "We hear about child brothels in Thailand and brick kilns in India, but it's something that's in our own backyard, and in the last year we've seen street gangs starting to move into sex trafficking."

In Virginia, at least, the consequences can be severe. Over the past few weeks, one member of MS-13 nicknamed "Sniper" got sent to prison for the rest of his life. Another will spend 24 years behind bars for compelling two teenage girls to sell themselves for money.

Usually, investigators say, gang members charge between $30 and $50 a visit, and the girls are forced into prostitution 10 to 15 times a day.

It's easy money for MS-13 — thousands of dollars in a weekend, with virtually no costs. Except for alcohol and drugs to try to keep the girls off-kilter.

Often, the activity takes place at construction sites, in the parking lots of convenience stores and gas stations.

"Yeah, this last case we worked, the victim was 12 years old," says John Torres, who leads the Homeland Security Investigations unit at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Washington.

He says the girl, a runaway, approached MS-13 gang members at a Halloween party. She was looking for a place to stay. Within hours, she was forced to work as a prostitute.

"You have a gang that's taking advantage of people that are in a desperate situation, usually runaways or someone that's looking for help from the gang," Torres says.

Joshua Skule, who oversees the violent crime branch of the criminal division at the FBI's field office in Washington, lists some reasons for street gangs' move into sex trafficking.

"It is not like moving, or as risky as moving narcotics. It is not as risky as extorting business owners," he says. "And these victims really have no way out."

Skule says they're like modern indentured servants. The 12-year-old girl involved in one of the recent sex trafficking cases is safe now, authorities say. But she'll be dealing with the physical and emotional scars for many years.

"When someone leaves, there's a lot of shame and guilt associated with the time they were there," says Victoria Hougham, a social worker who helps victims and survivors of sex trafficking.

"They may have physical injuries which can impact, especially for young women, their sexual and reproductive health."

Hougham works with Polaris Project, a nonprofit that runs a 24-hour hot line that helps connect victims of human trafficking with police or social services. She says survivors of that kind of abuse do best when they reconnect with their families and get support from law enforcement.

Prosecutors in Virginia say they expect to bring more sex trafficking cases against gang members over the next several months.

Carrie Johnson

All Things Considered

National Public Radio

Nov. 14, 2011

Added: Nov. 03, 2011

Historic caravan of mothers of missing migrants crosses Mexico

Mexico / Central America

Madres de inmigrantes desaparecidos en México crean equipo de “investigadoras”

Madres de inmigrantes desaparecidos en tránsito por nuestro país crearon un equipo especial dedicado a labores ministeriales, encaminado a obtener información sobre el paradero de las víctimas.

La idea es desarrollar labores que hasta ahora han sido olvidadas en la Procuraduría General de la República o en las Procuradurías estatales.

Las “investigadoras” forman parte de las mamás que integran el Movimiento Migrante Mesoamericano (MMM), el cual realiza desde el 30 de octubre y hasta el 13 de noviembre una caravana de búsqueda de los hijos por la ruta del Golfo de México, con paso por los estados de Tabasco, Tamaulipas, Coahuila, San Luis Potosí, Querétaro, Ciudad de México, Veracruz, Oaxaca y Chiapas.

La mayoría de ellas provienen de países como Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador y Estados Unidos.

De acuerdo con el plan de trabajo divulgado por el Movimiento, las actividades de investigación consistirán, además del intercambio de información con los migrantes que se encuentran en ruta, “en pesquisas y seguimiento de pistas para encontrar a los familiares…,  saber si viven o murieron o están privados de su libertad o en situación de trata de personas”.

Y en “visitas a hospitales, prostíbulos, reclusorios, albergues de indigentes y/o minusválidos y a cualquier lugar público en donde pudiera hallarse algún dato”.

Esta labor es respaldada por organizaciones como Hermanos en el Camino, Casa Belem del Migrante, Instituto Tamaulipeco para los Migrantes, Pastoral Social Caritas, Casa de los Amigos, Cencos y Red Migrante, y por instituciones como la CNDH y Amnistía Internacional.

Además de las indagatorias alternas, las madres tienen programados plantones y exposiciones en las plazas públicas de lugares emblemáticos del flujo migratorio, la implementación de un correo comunitario para informar a otras familias sobre sus migrantes, así como ceremonias en las vías del tren y en tumbas sin nombre en cementerios.

Uno de los eventos más importantes será el de hoy en San Fernando, Tamaulipas, lugar de la masacre de 73 indocumentados el 23 de agosto de 2010.

“La idea es hacer un ritual en memoria de los asesinados, para evidenciar el trato ilegal, inhumano y criminal que México dispensa a los migrantes en tránsito, y denunciar y exigir cambios al gobierno mexicano, que se ha conducido con complicidad, impunidad y se ha negado a la reparación del daño de los afectados”, señala el MMM.

Caravan of mothers of migrants missing in Mexico creates team of investigators

A group of mothers of Central American migrants who have disappeared in Mexico have created a specialized team that is dedicated to investigating the fates of their victimized loved ones.

The group’s goal is to take on the responsibility of investigating cases that the office of the Attorney General of the Republic has simply forgotten about.

The "investigators" are mothers from the Mesoamerican Migrants Movement (MMM), which started a caravan across Mexico on October 30th that will continue through November 13th of 2011. The caravan is following the Gulf coast migration route in search of their children. The caravan will cross the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca, Veracruz, Tabasco, Coahuila, San Luis Potosi, Queretaro and Tamaulipas, and will also enter Mexico City.

The majority of the marchers are from Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and the United States.

According to a work plan released by the group, research activities will include exchanges of information with migrants who are in transit, as well as the development and pursuit of leads with the aim of recovering family members who may be either dead, or alive and enslaved in a human trafficking situation.

The group added that they will be carrying out search activities in hospitals, brothels, jails and prisons, migrant shelters and at any other public environment where they can discover the facts.

This work is supported by organizations such as the Brothers on the Road migrant shelter, the Bethlehem Migrant House shelter, the Tamaulipas Institute for Migrants, Pastoral Social Charities, Casa de los Amigos, the Migrant Census and Network, Friendship House, and by institutions like Mexico’s [national] Human Rights Commission and Amnesty International.

In addition to their investigative work, the mothers are planning to present workshops and information expositions in public squares and at prominent landmarks along common migration routes. The caravan will also institute a community mail system to allow migrants to keep family members informed about their wellbeing, and will hold ceremonies along rail lines [where migrants are often victimized] and at unnamed graves located in cemeteries along the route.

One of the caravan’s most important events will take place today in the city of San Fernando, in Tamaulipas state, where the massacre of 73 undocumented migrants took place on August 23, 2010.

The Mesoamerican Migrant Movement declared that, "The idea is to perform a ritual in memory of those who were murdered, and to bear witness to the inhuman and criminal treatment that Mexico dispenses to migrants who transit through its territory. We will also denounce and demands changes from the Mexican Government, which has to date has behaved with impunity as an accomplice [to this crisis], and that denies reparations to those who were victimized as well.

Daniel Blancas Madrigal

La Crónica de Hoy

Nov. 02, 2011

Added: Nov. 03, 2011

Mexico / California, USA

Riverside Girl Trapped in Tijuana Child Sex Trade

The sex trade in Tijuana is closely linked to the region’s violent drug cartels – sex trafficking of children is thought to be the third-highest revenue generator for the cartels after the drug trade and gun smuggling

The illegal sex trade is a growing export from the U.S. to Mexico, according to the State Human Rights Commission of Baja, California. The commercial sexual exploitation of children rakes in an estimated $32 million a year, much of that from Americans seeking illegal sex across the border, according to the commission.

Child prostitution in Tijuana is not a new problem. What may be less known is that among the boys and girls being sexually exploited across the border are youngsters from the United States.

I met one of these children – a teenage girl from Riverside-- on an undercover reporting trip to “La Zona Norte” in the red light district along Tijuana’s Coahuila Street, known as a hub of sex tourism.

Under the neon lights along Coahuila Street I quickly discovered Americans among both the exploited and the exploiters.

One man I met, who described himself as a pimp, told me he grew up in Merced [California].

He wasn’t shy and was quick to tell me that “everything is available here,” even children.

The price for sex with a young girl -- $40.

“It’s cheap bud,” he said. “Sex is really cheap here.”

The illegal sex trade is a growing export from the U.S. to Mexico, according to the State Human Rights Commission of Baja, California. The commercial sexual exploitation of children rakes in an estimated $32 million a year, much of that from Americans seeking illegal sex across the border, according to the commission.

“We know that this problem is not a local one,” said Francisco Cota, a spokesman with the commission. “It’s a regional problem. It’s a bi-national problem. If there is a demand here in Mexico. There’s going to be demand in LA.”

I paid the fee and the pimp introduced me to a girl who went by the name Najeri. She told me she was 16 and from Riverside.

I explained to her that I was a reporter working on a story about the child sex trade, and she immediately told me, “It wasn’t something I decided to do.”

She showed me the room where she’s forced to have sex, a tiny stall barely big enough for a shoddy bed.

“It can be very…very scary,” she said. “A lot of the times those guys are Americans.”

Najeri told me that as a child left largely on her own she started “hanging out with the wrong crowd” and was flattered the attention and companionship of men in the group. By the time she learned their true intentions it was too late.

The sex trade in Tijuana is closely linked to the region’s violent drug cartels – sex trafficking of children is thought to be the third-highest revenue generator for the cartels after the drug trade and gun smuggling, according to the commission.

Both boys and girls are among the children being sexually exploited, according to the commission, an assertion Najeri said is true. The main client base for the boys is American, she told me.

They are “coming here and paying with the American dollars, so it’s just like gold to them,” she said. “There are a lot of guys coming from the states that live in Vegas, live in Hollywood, live in Los Angeles,” she said.

Najeri is afraid to run away. Her pimp, she said, has told her what happens to the bodies of runaways.

“The morgue comes by the hospital and incinerates it before anybody can be alerted that an American died,” she said. “That struck fear in my heart.”

She continued: “I don’t have the power or the ability to do that,” she said.

Then she told me: “There’s been times when I have been wishing that somebody like you or some people come down, inquiring about it

At that moment I had the impulse to walk out and take Najeri with me. But I knew from talking with human rights advocates and with Najeri herself that doing so would put her life—and possibly mine-- at risk.

Going to the police could make matters worse, as many police offers are in cahoots with the drug cartels, Cota said.

“Corruption is a huge problem in Mexico,” Cota said. “It's one of the main reasons why this problem is growing."

Willful ignorance among the general population is fueling the growth of the sex trade, Cota said.

“Not a lot of people know about it,” Cota said. “They either ignore it or they just really don't want to know about it. They just think this happens in Bangkok."

A state office was recently established to combat child sex slavery. The first step is overcoming the culture of fear that makes it difficult to even openly acknowledge the problem, said Araceli Legosa-Parra a spokeswoman with the office.

“We want to put out the information,” she said. “Most of the information is not put out there because of fear.”

Antonio Castelan

NBC-LA

 Nov. 02, 2011

See also:

Mexico

Added: May. 25, 2011

Pide diputada Orozco cerrar callejón Coahuila como sucedió con Manzanares en D.F.

Tijuana sigue siendo un paraíso para la trata de personas, y aunque afortunadamente ya empiezan a realizarse operativos, se pide lo mismo que en el Distrito Federal, cerrar el Callejón Coahuila, como ocurrió con el Manzanares, manifestó la diputada federal, Rosi Orozco, presidenta de la Comisión Especial Contra la Trata de Personas…

Deputy Orozco calls for the shutting down of Tijuana's La Coahuila red light district

The city of Tijuana continues to be a paradise for human trafficking, and although it is fortunate that anti-trafficking raids have begun, Congressional Deputy Rosi Orozco (National Action Party - PAN / Mexico City) has called for shutting down the Coahuila red light prostitution tolerance zone here…

Uni Radio Informa

May 24, 2011

See also:

LibertadLatina Note

More about La Coahuila

Tijuana's La Coahuila red light district is an extremely large prostitution zone, with at least 3,000 registered adult prostitutes and several thousand additional unregistered adults and children working in prostitution. During an April, 2007 visit to the area with another anti-trafficking activist, I counted an estimated 1,000 women and girls in prostitution standing on the street in an area that was approximately 10 blocks by 3 blocks in size.

I observed that U.S. men seeking women and youth in prostitution simply take a trolley ride from San Diego, California, or park in a lot on the U.S. side of the border, and then cross into Mexico without having to show identification to the Mexican border agents. They proceed to either walk the 10 blocks to La Coahuila or take one of the dozens of cabs that wait to route them to their business partners (the brothel owners).

I met the two women pictured above during my 2007 visit to the area.

On the left is an indigenous young woman from Chiapas state in southern Mexico. She was apparently addicted to drugs.

The young lady on the right, who is an Afro-Mexican woman from Acapulco, told me that she had been jilted by her boyfriend, and was left with two young children to care for. She told me that she could not cross the U.S. border carrying her children, so she decided to ‘work’ in La Coahuila.

Although I explained in detail the dangers of HIV/AIDS and other risks to this young lady, she told me that she was doing the work that she wanted to do, and that she would be back to work each and every day. She insisted that she didn’t have a pimp, which I doubt is the case.

End impunity now!

Chuck Goolsby

LibertadLatina

May 25, 2011

See also:

Mexico

En desventaja, niños mexicanos indocumentados

Many of the 80,000 Mexican children who cross from Mexico into the U.S. alone, as undocumented immigrants, are fleeing abuse at home, or are escaping from child prostitution rings...

[According to attorney Christopher Nugent, of the law firm Holland and Knight,] ...Thousands of Mexican and Central American children flee northward into the U.S. each year to escape child prostitution...

...Nugent... emphasized that Tijuana [on the U.S. border with San Diego County] has also become a zone controlled by powerful child prostitution networks.

Many children [in prostitution] from Tijuana are trying to flee to San Diego.

Georgina Olson
Excélsior

July 3, 2008

See also:

Teresa Ulloa: Tijuana is one huge brothel

Added: Nov. 21, 2010

Mexico

Trata de niñas: servicio para los ricos del norte

Tijuana, un inmenso burdel: Teresa Ulloa

De norte a sur, persiste la explotación sexual de menores en México, donde turistas ricos del norte pueden buscar a niñas hasta de nueve años provenientes de una zona rural.

Ese es el panorama que ofreció esta mañana Teresa Ulloa, quien en el marco de los 16 Días de Activismo contra la Violencia hacia las Mujeres presentó el Informe Final de Resultados, Rendición de Cuentas y Transparencia sobre el Proyecto para Prevenir la Explotación Comercial de la Niñez en México...

Underage girls are sex trafficked for 'men with money' from the U.S.

Tijuana is one huge brothel: Teresa Ulloa

The sexual exploitation of children is a constant reality across Mexico, from its north to its south. It is a place where well-heeled tourists from the U.S. can find rural girls as young as nine-years-of-age [available to be sexually exploited].

That is the scenario that was offered by Teresa Ulloa, the executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women for Latin America and and the Caribbean. Ulloa presented a report - The Results, Accountability and Transparency of the Project to Prevent the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in Mexico, as part of the events supporting the [global] 16 Days of Activism Against Violence Against Women campaign.

"Tijuana is a giant brothel, of sorts, where you can find sex, alcohol and drugs 365 days a year," said Ulloa, who has previously been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Moreover, she said, the international bridge [at the border] leads directly from [San Diego County, USA] to Tijuana's brothel district. "We were able to witness a girl of eight or nine years-of-age, in the red light district, negotiating with a client who was about 50 years old."

Due to the existence of extreme poverty and impunity, human trafficking and sexual exploitation in Mexico is a grave problem, added Ulloa. "In Mexico, we see internal trafficking." Girls are sent north by their families from rural regions across the country.

The map

The trafficking of girl children in northern Mexico is targeted at U.S. customers. In the South Mexican men are the consumers. Along the Pacific Coast, both European and U.S. men are the customers. Along the Gulf Coast, Mexican men are the exploiters…

Miriam Ruiz

Cimac Women's News Agency