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Indigenous & Latina Women & Children's Human
Rights News from the Americas |
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Latina Women & Children at Risk |
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The United States
Community Exploitation
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Across the United States,
Latin American immigrant women and children are the focus of severe
sexual exploitation within their own communities and schools.
This largely unrecognized crisis grows as young girls, teens and women
face daily aggressive sexual harassment, rape with impunity, and our
society's silence.
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See our
Maryland Page for coverage of community exploitation
issues specific to Greater Washington, DC, Maryland & Virginia.
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LibertadLatina
Statement on the U.S. Crisis in
Communities
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Latinas: The Unheard Survivors
Facts about U.S. Latinas by Laura Zárate, Executive Director of Arte
Sana (Art Heals), an intervention and advocacy non-profit in greater
Austin, Texas.
One in three Latina women, 18 to 50 years of age reported incidents of
sexual abuse, more than one third experienced revictimization and more
than 80 percent of initial incidents occurred from the age of seven...
...Latina girls reported most likely to stop attending school activities
and sports in order to avoid sexual harassment...
...The National Violence Against Women Survey found that Latina women were
less likely to report rape victimization than non-Latina women...
...Some of the Latino immigrants who come into the United States have
experienced great amounts of exposure to violence in the form of civil
war, torture, and/or extreme abuse of authority...
...Because of fear of deportation and lack of knowledge of their
rights, many immigrant women suffer sexual assault, sexual exploitation
and ongoing sexual harassment by perpetrators who view them as easy
prey. |
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ECPAT-USA Report on Child Prostitution
in New York City
"these estimates are probably
conservative considering how little is
known about sexually exploited youth in
immigrant communities"
and...
...Lloyd and
Breault of the Paul and Lisa Program
agree that the average entering age of
prostitutes has decreased from fourteen
to thirteen or even twelve years of age
in recent years. Also, many girls
physically mature between the ages of
twelve to thirteen and are prime
candidates for the sex trade. According
to Laura Italiano, reporting on the
scene in East New York, Brooklyn, "the
youngest girls are so popular, their
customers cause traffic jams." A
twenty-year-old veteran prostitute in
the area estimated that half of the
girls in the renowned child prostitute
tracks in East New York and Long Island
City, Queens are between the ages of
thirteen to fifteen. NYPD Detectives Jim
Held and Kevin Mannion also believe that
the average age of street prostitutes in
New York is only fourteen or fifteen.
Since the average
age for starting out is between twelve
and thirteen, there are youth that start
even younger. Lloyd reported that she
has worked with girls who are now
fourteen to fifteen-years-old but
started selling sex when they were only
eleven or twelve.
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Rising Numbers of Latina Teens Trying Suicide
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"According to a July report published in the Journal of the American
Medical Association, Latina teen-agers are significantly more likely
than white or black adolescent girls to have attempted suicide" WEnews -
08/27/2002 |
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July 4,
2002 -"Compared
with whites and blacks, Hispanic children are much more likely to..."
"attempt suicide if they're a girl..." - From a recent report on Latino
children's health issues.
(More
evidence, perhaps, that Latina girl
children's human rights issues as they
relate to sexual exploitation in the
United States have real, measurable
impact in daily life.)
-
LibertadLatina |
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"There is an epidemic of sexual assaults... committed upon undocumented
Latinas. Their immigration status, however, does not mean that
they should receive less protection under America's criminal laws or less
right to victim
services..."
U.S. Dept. of Justice - 1997
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"One in five Latino women in the United States has reported a history of
sexual abuse or rape. ...Researchers at the University of
California at
San Francisco suggest that "sexual silence" and sexual coercion may
promote the spread of HIV infection in the Latino community."
U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
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[In Los Angeles] "the proportion of AIDS cases diagnosed in the county among
whites has dropped from 55% in 1991 to 30% in 1998, while the share of
cases among Latinos jumped from 26% to 43%."
"AIDS Emergency Declared Among County's
Minorities" -
Los Angeles Times - 1999 |
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"We need more police officers. On the street, there are young people who are
smoking drugs, and sometimes I can't go outside because there are young
people who like to bother a young girl. Protection; we need that." - A
Latina teen quoted in the newspaper Barrio de Langley Park
[Maryland] |
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Two-thirds of a sample of 535
young women who had become pregnant as adolescents in Washington
DC had been sexually abused; 55% had been molested; 42% had been
victims of attempted rape and 44% had been raped. (Boyer, Debra
and David Fine. "Sexual Abuse as a Factor in Adolescent
Pregnancy and Child Maltreatment," Family Planning Perspectives
24, Jan/Feb 1992, pp. 4-12).
From:
http://www.whrnet.org/issues/18.htm
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AIDS Emergency Declared Among County's Minorities
Tacitly acknowledging that Los Angeles County has failed to stem the
rapid spread of HIV and AIDS in minority communities, the Board of
Supervisors unanimously declared an emergency Tuesday and called on the
state and federal governments to pay for expanded medical care and
social services.
The largely symbolic action followed a series published in The Times
that cited the swift spread of HIV and AIDS in the county's African
American and Latino communities and the lack of housing services there.
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Latin Women Encouraged to Question Traditional Roles
Researchers at the University of California at San Francisco suggest
that "sexual silence" and
sexual coercion may promote the spread of HIV infection in the Latino
community. |
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LibertadLatina
News
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Noticias |
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¡Feliz Día
de la Madre!
Happy Mother's Day!
LibertadLatina
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Mandanos
un... |
Email |
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Send us
an... |
Últimas Noticias
Latest
News
May 2008 News
Guatemala
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(Who is not part
of this story)
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Guatemalan
Mayan Leader
and Nobel
Peace Prize
Laureate
Rigoberta
Mench u
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Madres que reclaman
devolución de sus hijas siguen en huelga de
hambre
Mothers Hold Hunger Strike to Demand the Return of their Kidnapped
Children
Four Guatemalan
mothers whose babies were kidnapped to be sold
in foreign adoption are continuing a hunger
strike in front of the National Palace of
Culture. The women started the protest on April
28th.
Norma Cruz, director
of the Survivors Foundation, which assist women
victims of violence, stated that representatives
of the National Council on Adoptions, and the
federal Attorney General's office have expressed
interest in assisting the families.
Nonetheless, Cruz
lamented, we don't see real, concrete action,
and the investigation has not brought-about any
positive results.
The mothers have
vowed to continue their protest until there are
clear signs that authorities are taking these
cases seriously.
Raquel Par, an
indigenous woman of the Kakchiquel Mayan ethnic
group, told of how on April 4, 2006, her
daughter, Heidi Saraí Batz, was drugged and then
kidnapped by a woman in the Villa Hermosa
neighbor-hood on the south side of Gauatemala
City.
Ana Escobar, another
victim, related how on March 26, 2006 an armed
man entered the shoe repair shop where she
worked, attempted to rape her, locked her in a
bathroom, and then kidnapped her 6-month-old
daughter Esther Zulamitha.
Olga López, whose
daughter Arlene Escarleth disappeared on
November 27, 2006, and Loyda Rodríguez, mother
of Angielyn Lisset Hernández, kidnapped on
November 3, 2006, also discussed their
tragedies.
According to Cruz,
these are just four of the hundreds of cases in
which young, poor and unprotected [and mostly
indigenous] women become
victims of organized criminal gangs whose
business it is to rob children to sell to
foreigners [mostly from the United States] in adoption.
Cruz: "We have
denounced dozens of adoption lawyers. The
authorities take this information, but they
don't do much to stop these crimes."
In December of 2007,
the Guatemalan Parliament adopted the Law of
Adoptions, authored by the National Council on
Adoptions, an organization representing diverse
sectors of society.
Guatemala's
government was pressured into enacting the law
after the
Hague Conference on
Private International Law declared in
July, 2007 that Guatemala was the number one
source country in the world for children given
in adoption, where the legality of these
adoptions are not guaranteed.
- Actualidad -
Terra
Spain
May 5, 2008
See also:
LibertadLatina
note:
Indigenous women and girls in
Latin American countries face extreme violations
of their human rights and dignity due to the
continuation of 500 years of feudalism based on
their sexual and labor exploitation.
Few human rights efforts address
the dynamics of racism and sexism facing
indigenous and African Descendent women in Latin
America. At
LibertadLatina,
active advocacy against such modern impunity
is a large part of the focus of our work.
We remember them and all women
and children facing oppression!
Happy Mothers Day!
- Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
May 11, 2008
LibertadLatina
The
Crisis of Sexual Exploitation and Femicide
Facing Guatemalan Indigenous Women and Girls
Paraguay
Niños indígenas fueron
abandonados en Luque
Indigenous children live abandoned on the street
Approximately 30
indigenous children from the community of
Caaguazú live on the streets of the capitol city
of Asunción because, they say, there is no food
to eat in their community. The children told of
hold the community has no more land, and nobody
is buying what their parents make for sale.
The children pass
the day sniffing glue and begging on the
streets. They flee when the National Indigenous
Institute (INDI) picks them up, because they
feel that they are not treated right by INDI
staff.
Attorney Myriam
Antonia Mora de Cáceres, of the local Center for
Child and Adolescent Counseling states that when
she brings the children clothing and checks up
on them, they express fear of being taken back
to INDI.
- abc.com.py
May 2, 2008
LibertadLatina
note:
Indigenous peoples in Paraguay faced an active
genocide until the 1970's, where entire villages
were hunted down, the adults were murdered and
the 12 to 14-year-old girls were raped and sold
into sexual slavery.
The above article appears to indicate that, as
has happened across the Americas, the last land
base has been stolen from this tribal group,
leaving adults with no means to support
themselves, and children with no food to eat.
Similar battles for land are taking place today
with the Mapuche tribe in Chile, and with tribal
groups in Colombia, who's land is stolen with
impunity because they are made vulnerable by
socially accepted racism against them, that
justifies all manner of acts of impunity.
We will do our best to investigate this case
further and report back to our readers.
- Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
May 11, 2008
Nicaragua
Niña obligada a
prostituirse
An Underage Girl is Kidnapped into Forced
Prostitution
Police are
investig-ating the case of a 16-year-old girl
from Somoto, who was offered work in Guatemala
and ended-up enslaved in a brothel.
Rosa Díaz Martínez
filed a criminal complaint stating that 18 days
ago, a local human trafficker and taxi driver,
Luis Alfonso Benavides, from San Lucas, had
taken her daughter to the Guatemalan border,
where he paid a bribe to border agents to allow
the minor to pass into Guatemala.
The girl, who had
been offered a good job, was picked-up on the
other side of the border by her supposed new
Guatemalan employer, who took her to San Luis.
Díaz Martínez: "This
man promised my daughter a job. But she was able
to call me from Guatemala, and told me that she
was being held against her will in a brothel
together with other girls, some of whom were
also from Somoto, Nicaragua."
During the phone
call, the girl told her mother that the taxi
driver told her during the trip that he would
return her to Nicaragua, but only after her
family had paid him $1,800.
Díaz Martínez: "I am
afraid that something bad will happen to my
daughter, because I have come to find out that
this trafficker is a very dangerous man, who
tricks many young girls by offering them good
jobs, and then sells them into prostitution."
Díaz Martínez has also learned that this
trafficker is protected by police in Guatemala.
During an interview
with La Prensa, the taxi driver Benavides denied
having taken the girl to Guatemala. He states
that Antonio Díaz, a businessman from
Tecohumante, Guatemala was visiting him, and the
girl asked him for work. Benavides states that
she made an agreement to go to Guatemala
directly with Díaz.
- William Aragón
Rodríguez
La Prensa
Nicaragua
May 2, 2008
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