About this Crisis - Within Latin America - Mexico

Latin American Women, Children at Risk

Within Latin America - Mexico

This Section Last Updated July 26, 2005

Latin America - Introduction	The Crisis in Brazil
Latin America - Key Facts	The Crisis in Central America
The HIV-AIDS Epidemic	The Crisis in Colombia
About Machismo / Sexism	The Crisis in Ecuador
Links to more resources	The Crisis in Honduras
Indigenous Latin America	The Crisis in Nicaragua
Workplace Rape in Lat. America	The Juarez, Mexico Femicide
The Concept of Impunity	The Crisis in Mexico
	The Crisis in Argentina

Latin American women and children of all races survive in a hostile social climate of severe sexual harassment and sexual violence. These conditions expose women and especially girl children to danger in the home, in their communities, in their schools and in their workplaces.

The below articles & reports define the scope of this ongoing crisis.

Mexico

Map of Mexico

The Crisis in Mexico

About the Crisis Facing Indigenous Women in Mexico

About the Femicide (Mass-Murder of Women) in Ciudad Juarez (Juarez City), Mexico

Nevada-Mexico

July 25 2005

Child Kidnapper Fernando Aguerro Called his Sister and Stated that He is in Mexico with 8 Year Old Victim.

July 22 2005

En Michoacán Opera una Red Profesional de Traficantes de Menores para Explotarlos Sexualmente.

A 'Professional' Child Trafficking Ring in the State of Michoacán Targets Indigenous Children for Kidnapping into Forced Sexual Slavery. At Least Eleven Victims have been Sent to Asia. Foreign & Domestic Sex Tourist/Traffickers Take Photos of Young Girls and Allow Men to Bid for Them on the Internet. Social Service Agencies have not Acted to Protect these Children at Risk.

Added July 24 2005

Para Cerca de 100 Mil Niños, la Inocencia es Abandonada y Perdida en la Calle.

Close to 100,000 Children Live Abandoned in the Streets. Most have Escaped the Violence of their Alcohol and Drug Addicted Parents.

	Saturday, Feb 26 2005 MEXICO - Lydia Cacho Ribeiro, president of the Women's Assistance Center (CIAM), and staff at three CIAM shelters around Mexico, have received multiple death threats as a result of their work to protect the rights of women and girls.



	Saturday, Feb 26 2005 Special Report CBS News 48 Hours Explores Sex Trafficking in Europe & Mexico. Hidden Cameras Reported on: The Kidnapping of Young Girls into Slavery in Mexico. Brothels Where Mexican Victims are "Broken-In." Russia to Mexico to U.S. Trafficking.


	Sinaloa Reporter Irene Medrano Recieves Death Threats for Exposing Schools Child Prostitution Ring_03-02-2004





	U.S. Feds Plan To Tighten Mexican Border and Send Migrants Home - 02-20-2004





	Excerpt from the U.S. State Department 2000 Report on Human Rights Conditions in Mexico ...In April the Mexico City attorney general's office and the Mexico City Human Rights Commission reported that nearly 12,000 children in Mexico City are victims of sexual commercialism, including prostitution.




	Mexico -- The United Nations now lists Mexico as the number one center for the supply of young children to North America. [They] are sold to rich, childless couples unwilling to wait for bona fide adoption agencies to provide them with a child. The majority are sent to international pedophile organizations. Many times the children are snatched while on errands for their parents. Often they are drugged and raped. Most of the children over 12 end up as prostitutes. Hector Ramirez, a former deputy, or Mexican Member of Parliament, stated that "many of the state and city authorities [are] doing absolutely nothing to stop what is going on." (Allan Hall, The Scotsman, 25 August 1998) From the Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation - CATW



	Central America and Mexico -- 2001 -- "Maria’s story is hardly an isolated event. For the past three years, Casa Alianza has been tracing the trafficking of thousands of Central American children – mostly girls between the age of 12 and 16 or 17 – to be exploited in the growing international trade of child sex..." "...We can go home after this meeting and be safe. Our children are safe. But how would we feel if it was our daughter or grandchild in the brothel today in Tapachula [Mexico] instead of Maria? We would go to the end of the earth to protect our child. We must do nothing less for Maria…" From: "SHOW ME THE WAY TO GO HOME... - THE TRAFFICKING OF CHILDREN IN CENTRAL AMERICA" - A Report to the International Bar Association 2001 Annual Conference in Cancun, Mexico, by Covenant House-Latin America (Casa Alianza) Regional Director Sir Bruce Harris.



	Central America and Mexico -- 2002 -- Casa Alianza - the Latin American branch of the New York-based child-advocacy organization Covenant House - reported an escalation of violations of the rights of children and adolescents in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Mexico, as documented by experts who infiltrated regional crime rings. ''Children in Mexico and Central America are being exploited, and neither society nor local authorities are doing enough to combat the problem,'' Casa Alianza director Bruce Harris, a British activist, told IPS. Harris said it took a multi-disciplinary team of 56 experts 10 months to prepare the organization's first ''region-wide investigation of child trafficking, prostitution, pornography and sex tourism in Mexico and Central America.'' The probe was carried out in high-risk conditions in which the experts infiltrated rings of traffickers in minors, pedophiles and producers of child pornography, he underlined. Psychologist Viviana Retana, [a] member of the team of investigators, told IPS that the trafficking of children as sexual merchandise was a constant phenomenon in Central America and Mexico, as well as other countries in Latin America. ''The rings of pedophiles and procurers are very well organized, operate with advanced technology and handle large amounts of money,'' she explained. The authors reported that procurers in Mexico buy 12 to 15-year- old girls from Central America - mainly Salvadorans and Hondurans - for 100 to 200 dollars. From: CENTRAL AMERICA: Activists Infiltrate Child Sex Rings - April 5, 2002, Inter Press Service



	Mexico -- 2002 -- Child Kidnappings - "While the recent kidnappings of children in California have horrified Americans, an extraordinarily high rate of child disappearances in Mexico has alarmed authorities and citizens there. Child advocacy groups say as many as 135,000 children have been kidnapped in the past three years. It is feared that many of the children are being sold into the sex and pornography industries. NPR's Gerry Hadden reports from Mexico City. (4:00)" From All Things Considered, National Public Radio News. (Get Real Player)
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	Mexico -- "There exists the trafficking of girls as young as eight years old [from Veracruz, Mexico] to be used as prostitutes in the basements of New York." - Latina activist from Veracruz, Mexico



	Mexico -- Mexico is struggling to modernize its justice system, but when it comes to punishing sexual violence against women, surprisingly little has changed in a century. In many parts of Mexico, the penalty for stealing a cow is harsher than the punishment for rape. ...Women's groups estimate that perhaps 1 percent of rapes are ever punished... ...But in the country that made the term "machismo" famous, where women were given the right to vote only in 1953, women's rights advocates said rape and other violence against women are still not treated as serious crimes. And they said police, prosecutors and judges often show indifference or hostility toward women who claim rape...

	From: In Mexico, an Unpunished CrimeRape Victims Face Widespread Cultural Bias in Pursuit of Justice, The Washington Post, June 30, 2002



	Mexico - "...Furthermore, violence against women and children is pervasive at all social and educational levels. Violence is perpetrated through physical, psychological, and sexual abuse (including rape by a stranger). After women, children constitute the second group of victims of domestic violence, in which case the parents are the most common aggressors. Mexican women are also repeatedly victims of sexual harassment in the workplace." From: The Canadian Agency for International Development: "INC - Gender Profile in Mexico (March, 2002)."



	Mexico -- August 14, 2002 - Demand Justice for the Women and Families of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, where over 300 young girls and women have been murdered with impunity in recent years.



	Mexico -- Nightmare in Juarez, Mexico



	AIDS Now a Migrant to Mexico "The situation for HIV-positive people [in rural areas] is critical. Not only can't they get the medicines they need, but they face the prejudices from the society and from the doctors," said Hugo Palma, director of the group Michoacan Residents for Health. As recently as three years ago, only three of the 32 states in Mexico had AIDS education and prevention programs, said Patricia Uribe, Mexico's top AIDS official. Even today, she said, many resources for AIDS prevention remain in the capitals of the states and are not shared with rural areas. This disparity worries health workers on the front lines, who say a lack of knowledge about the disease jeopardizes both men who migrate to the United States without basic safe-sex education and village women who don't protect themselves. A 1997 survey of 501 Mexican migrants from Jalisco state found that only 21% of respondents used condoms during intercourse and that 30% thought they could tell from a person's appearance whether he or she was infected.

	Often Unaided by Authorities, Mexican Parents of Abducted Children Spend Their Days Searching Susana Hayward San Antonio Express-News 04/09/2000

MEXICAN LABOR NEWS AND ANALYSIS

April, 2001

Vol. 6, no. 4 Special Issue - International Women's Day

Excerpts regarding working conditions for Mexican Women

About Mexican Labor News and Analysis: Mexican Labor News and Analysis (MLNA) is produced in collaboration with the Authentic Labor Front (Frente Autentico del Trabajo FAT) of Mexico and the United Electrical Workers (UE) of the United States, and with the support of the Resource Center of the Americas in Minneapolis, Minnesota. MLNA can be viewed at the UE's international web site: www.igc.apc.org/unitedelect/.

Mexican Labor News and Analysis publishes a special issue every year on working women, usually to coincide with International Women's Day. Women's role in Mexican society is ubiquitous. Women today work in agriculture, in industry, and in offices in clerical, technical and professional positions, and as always they continue to work in the home. Women play an increasingly important role in the Mexican economy and society, and their role in the political and labor movements is ever more visible on all sides of the political spectrum.

Yet women still face many forms of oppression and exploitation: they have fewer opportunities, receive lower wages, and face many forms of discrimination both in society at large and in the workplace in particular.

Women working as domestics, as agricultural laborers and as factory workers not only work long hours for low wages, but often have to endure sexual harassment and other indignities such as having to prove menstruation or undergo regular pregnancy examinations as a condition of employment.

Women Workers Continue to Face Discrimination at Work:

Mexican women workers continue to face many problems of discrimination on the job. Whether they work in the maquiladoras, as domestic workers, or as clerical workers, women face low wages, frequently encounter sexual harassment, and may have to prove that that they are not pregnant. Neither the Federal government nor the traditional labor unions have taken an interest in protecting women workers. The Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) government in Mexico City has been most sympathetic to the plight of women workers. But the independent women's movement and the independent labor unions such as the Authentic Labor Front (FAT) have been the champions of working women's rights.

Maquiladora Workers:

In many of the maquiladora plants mostly located on the U.S.-Mexico border, women workers must undergo an examination before they are hired to prove they are not pregnant. Once hired, they must prove that they have not become pregnant, sometimes by showing their menstrual pads to their supervisors, or by taking pregnancy examinations.

Sexual Harassment:

Mexican women workers continue to face the problem of sexual harassment on the job. For example, the Mexico City government's Office for Women and Adolescents at Work found that it had to deal with 89 cases of sexual harassment in the year 2000, some twenty more than in 1999. Still these figures may tell very little since many Mexican women workers may be reluctant to file charges, may not know that sexual harassment is illegal in the workplace in Mexico City, or may not feel they have the economic and social resources to pursue a case even with a sympathetic city government.

While the Mexico City government has made attention to these issues a priority, this is not true in all states in Mexico. Many Mexican government agencies at the federal, state, and local level remain indifferent to the issue. At the same time, the traditional labor unions such as the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), have shown little interest in taking up sexual harassment or any other women's issue for that matter. Consequently it has been Mexican women's organizations that have taken up the fight to end sexual harassment in Mexico.

Domestic Workers

In Mexico, most domestic workers (maids, nannies, housekeepers, etc.) come from rural areas, though many also come from the cities. Some domestic workers begin work as young as 12 years old, though others work in such jobs into their sixties. They work long hours, sometimes from before dawn until long after dark, usually for less than the minimum wage. Most live-in maids work six days a week, at least 12 hours a day, with only Sunday off. At work, maids may be subject to sexual harassment by the men of the household for whom they work. While some states and cities regulate domestic work, there is virtually no effective enforcement. Organizations such as Atabal and La Esperanza help women domestic workers in attempts to improve their situation, but no domestic workers' labor union exists in Mexico at this time.