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Jan. / Enero 2006

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Added Jan. 15, 2006

Chile's President-Elect Michele Bachelet Photo: BBC News

Centre-left candidate Michelle Bachelet has become Chile's first woman president, taking 53.5% of the poll with almost all the votes counted.

Chilean president-elect Michele Bachelet...

"Who would have said, 10, 15 years ago, that a woman would be elected president?"

- BBC News

Jan. 15, 2005

Winning Chilean presidential candidate Michelle Bachelet

Bachelet: ex torturada y exiliada a la presidencia chilena.

Michelle Bachelet, the president elect of Chile, is a pedia-trician, and is also a separated, socialist, agnostic and woman who is also one of many victims of the former dictatorship of general Augusto Pinochet.

When she was 22 years old and a young medical student, her father, Air Force General Alberto Bachelet was arrested and tortured by his own comrades, and then condemned to prison for being a member of the government of [socialist] president Salvador Allende. 

Alberto Bachelet died, "as a result of the torture suffered in prison," said Michelle Bachelet.

In January of 1975 Michelle Bachelet and her mother, Angela Jeria, were detained and tortured during two weeks in the prisoner of war camp of Villa Grimaldi, according to the president-elect’s biography.

Both went into exile in Australia and East Germany, returning to Chile in 1979.

Michelle Bachelet does not get tired of repeating that she does not hold resentment towards the military.  Upon returning from exile she attended one of the nation's top military academies, and graduated near the top of her class.  She was named Chile’s Minister of Defense from 2002 to 2004.

Ricardo Lagos, outgoing president of Chile, stated that  the hardships that Michele Bachelet went through taught him to govern without giving thought to revenge [for past human rights abuses under the conservative dictatorship of general Agosto Pinochet].

- Translated abstract

- Associated Press

Jan. 15, 2005

Líderes extranjeros saludan Bachelet por su triunfo. (Foreign leaders congratulate President-elect Michele Bachelet on her victory).

- Associated Press

Jan. 15, 2005

Michelle Bachelet, a socialist promising to maintain the country's free-market policies was battling a multimillionaire businessman vowing to fight poverty as Chile picked a president.  Bachelet is favored as Chile votes for president

- CNN

Jan. 15, 2005

About the dictatorship of Chilean general Agosto Pinochet.

Excerpt: "Thousands of leftists, unionists, and various other troublemakers were rounded up and held in concentration camps for up to three years. Many were interrogated, tortured, and killed. Whereas the [democratically elected] Allende government had for all practical purposes given up applying electrical voltage to genitalia, Pinochet brought the country back to its core ideals."

LibertadLatina Commentary:

I am not a socialist, but the truth needs to be told, especially to younger generation, about how the power of the United States was abused during the early 1970's to support a dictator who not only suppressed free democratic electoral expression, but who openly orchestrated the mass torture, rape and murder of his opponents by the thousands.

Augusto Pinochet was a Chilean general who in 1973 staged a coup d'etat against a democrat-ically elected socialist president, Salvador Allende, with the help of the U.S. CIA (which help the CIA admits).

During the late 1970's I met a number of women exiles from Chile in Washington, DC, who had been detained in the concentration camps for political prisoners that Pinochet set up to retaliate against several thousand leftist supporters of President Allende. 

Gang rape by guards and interrogators was commonplace in these torture camps. People were also murdered. 

The main-stream U.S. press, such as the CBS 60 Minutes program, discussed these facts, and even openly showed pictures of the naked 'bruised-purple' behinds of the rape victims, which I clearly recall viewing one Sunday evening.

During the 1970's, 1980's and 1990's, the U.S government supported right-wing government forces involved in counter-insurgency wars in Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and the anti-Mayan genocide / femicide in Guatemala.  The Cold War attitudes of the times found the U.S. actively funding and training these corrupt governments in the use of mass torture and mass murder to control popular political change.   Mass rape was a byproduct of those evil activities.

Today, as the very important role of U.S. conservatives grows in the anti-trafficking movement, they will have to "Come to Jesus" about their continuing defense and justification of the mass atrocities that, in the name of the Cold War, caused the rapes and murders of hundreds of thousands of women and girls  across Latin America during the past 35 years, including the rape of almost every Mayan girl over age 7 in Guatemala by soldiers and civil guards during the 1980's and 1990's.

At the time these atrocities were occurring, many U.S. conservatives defended the use of these 'techniques' (or denied they existed), and also derided human rights activists who raised the issue in the U.S. Congress and in other forums.

A U.S. Cold War view that 'the end justifies the means' gave rapists, torturers and murderers impunity and legal cover from the U.S. across Latin America at the time.

The victims have never had the aid of the World Court or other international forums that could allow justice to be served, because the U.S. supported these measures at the time and vetoed any such efforts.

These acts fall under the same category of evil as the genocide against Native Americans in the U.S. during the 1800's, which were widely viewed as 'justifiable under the circumstances' - a very arrogant and colonial view of criminal impunity.

In 1999, former U.S. President Bill Clinton apologized for U.S.  involvement in aiding Guatemala's acts of  repression.  

President George W. Bush should do the same, and he should include Chile in that apology.

The current wave of mass gender violence and the shift to the left in many Latin American countries both have their roots in this bloody history.

Thirty three years after General Agosto Pinochet brought mass torture, rape and murder to Chile, the Chilean people have responded with the election of one of his victims to the nation's presidency. 

Good for them!

- Chuck Goolsby

January 16-18, 2006

See also:

Informe de la Comision Nacional de Verdad y Reconciliacion.

A short translation from the report by the Chilean Committee on Truth and Reconciliation...

Written and Translated by Dr. Róbinson Rojas...

Both men and women were given electric shocks in the genitals. This happened on a metal bed to which the naked victim was bound with his/her arms and legs spread apart. This torture was called "roasting."  Women detainees were raped. Women detainees were forced to have sexual inter-course with dogs. Hot iron objects were inserted into the vaginas of women. Iron objects were inserted into the victim's anus. "The military torture teams, graduates of the [U.S. Army's] School of the  Americas [then located] in the [U.S. Panama] Canal Zone, have revealed a degree of human bestiality with Chilean women that puts them way ahead of their American trainers."

The School of the Americas: Military Training and Political Violence in the Americas. "The precise pain, in the precise place, in the precise amount, for the desired effect" This is a quote from Dan Mitrione, a U.S. agent who trained Latin police forces in torture in the early 1970's.  Mitrione was a family friend of my best friend in high school.  In 1973, I took my friend to see the movie "State of Siege" - which showed in detail Mitrione's torture activities - activities that were unknown to Mitrione's circle of family and friends prior to his own kidnapping and murder in Uruguay). - Chuck Goolsby. Wikipedia's article on Dan Mitrione. Native El Salvador Native Guatemala - Femicide & Genocide

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Added Jan. 15, 2006

Mexico - Texas, USA

Eagle Pass - A pilot program that jails all illegal immigrants crossing into this Texas border town from Mexico has led to a dramatic fall in numbers attempting the journey, the U.S. Office of Border Patrol said on Friday.

A program known as Operation Streamline II, instituted on December 12, is aimed mostly at non-Mexican illegal immigrants who were arrested and released because Border Patrol agents did not have sufficient space to jail them.  The blanket crackdown is also being applied to undocumented Mexicans who were previously subject to criminal background checks and released back over the Rio Grande without charges.

"The message is one of zero tolerance to [undocumented] immigrants, whether they are Mexican or (non-Mexican) nationals," said Hilario Leal, the U.S. Border Patrol's spokesman for the sector that includes Eagle Pass.

Since the pilot program began around Eagle Pass, 140 miles west of San Antonio, the number of undocumented immigrants picked up by Border Patrol agents has dwindled to 10 a day, down from highs of around 150 a day in mid-2005, officials said.

- Reuters

Jan. 13, 2005

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Added Jan. 14, 2006

Guatemala

Mayan woman grieves during the exhumation of victims of the 1970's - 1980's genocide and femicide in Quiche province, Guatemala - Amnesty International

Viudas de Guatemala piden dignificar a víctimas de guerra.

The National Coordination of Guatemalan Widows (Conavigua), who's members survived the Guatemalan Civil War, will initiate its 2006 activities with the exhumation of a clandestine cemetery in the Mayan town of Joyabaj, where they expect to find the remains of 15 people.  Conavigua is asking the residents of Joyabaj to attend the exhumations in solidarity with the families of those who murdered at this site.

Conavigua asks that the national and international communities join with them to pressure the Guatemalan govern-ment to address the need for justice of the victims of the mass murders that took place during the 36 year civil war.

Conavigua and demands that law enforcement act to protect the lives of its members and the families of all victims of war related mass-murder, especially women, many of who have received death threats and mistreatment from forces that oppose their work.

- CIMAC Noticias

News for Women

Mexico City

Jan. 12, 2005

LibertadLatina Note:

These burial sites were created by Guatemalan Army soldiers and death squads to hide the victims of mass torture, rape and murder in the 1960's to 1980's 'civil' war.  Government soldiers, police and 'death squads' murdered 200,000 mostly Mayan victims, including 50,000 women, during the civil war.

See also:

Native Guatemala -

   Femicide & Genocide

"During the last forty years, the [Guatemalan] military has been levying a campaign of terrorism and genocide against... Mayas, in order to distribute native peoples' land among plantation owners."

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Added Jan. 14, 2006

Chile

Leading Chilean presidential candidate Michelle Bachelet

Chile: Bachelet aventaja con cinco puntos a Piñera.

Michelle Bachalet, a former defense minister who is now a socialist candidate for president, is leading her ultra- conservative rival Sebastián Piñera, by five percentage points in the polls.

Current surveys show that Bachelet would receive 45% of the vote to 40% for Piñera.  Voters will go to the polls on January 15, 2006.

- CIMAC Noticias

News for Women

Mexico City

Jan. 12, 2005

Socialist Michelle Bachelet is likely to be elected Chile's first woman president, beating out her rightist rival by at least 5 percentage points, a new poll said on Thursday.

If she wins, Bachelet will... be the fourth consecutive president from a center-left coalition formed by opponents of the [conservative] Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, which ended in 1990.

- CNN

Jan. 12, 2005

 

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Added Jan. 13, 2006

Scotland

John Ragwar, with wife Karen and sons David, 2, and Matthew, 3, faces leaving his family behind. Picture: Sean Bell - Scotsman

John Ragwar, a Kenyan immigrant to Scotland, is to be deported by the British government eight years after marrying Scottish citizen Karen Ragwar.

Unlike immigration rules in the United States that permit an undocumented immigrant to become a legal immigrant after marriage to a citizen, Britain requires migrants to apply for entry into Britain for the specific purpose of marriage, before being allowed to marry.

Human rights activists and members of parliament are pressuring the British government in regard to this basic human rights issue, which threatens to divide the couple and their two young children.

- The Scotsman

Jan. 13, 2005

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Added Jan. 13, 2006

United States

U.S. President George W. Bush

Renueva Bush ley contra trafico de personas

- NotiMex

Jan. 10, 2005

President George W. Bush signs H.R. 972, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act.

President Bush...

"In today's world, too often human traffickers abuse the trust of children and expose them to the worst of life at a young age. It takes a perverse form of evil to exploit and hurt those vulnerable members of society." "Human traffickers operate with greed and without conscience, treating their victims as nothing more than goods and commodities for sale to the highest bidder. In recent years, hundreds of thousands of people around the world have been trafficked against their will, across international boundaries, and many have been forced into sexual servitude." "Thousands of teenagers and young girls are trafficked into the United States every year. They're held hostage. They're forced to submit to unspeakable evil. America has a particular duty to fight this horror because human trafficking is an affront to the defining promise of our country."

-

U.S. President

George W. Bush

Jan. 10, 2005

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Added Jan. 13, 2006

Argentina

Madre a los 13 años tras violación.

Esperanza - A 12 year old girl was raped by a man who threatened her with death if she told anyone about the crime.  At the age of 13 the girl, who did not know that she was pregnant, was taken to a doctor with stomach pains.  Hours later the girl gave birth to a premature baby. 

This girl was raped by the owner of a store where her family frequently shopped, during a  family trip to that store.  After the family reported the rape to police, the assailant was saved from being lynched by the family.   The rapist has now been arrested and is will go on trial during January, 2006.

- EFE

Jan. 13, 2005

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Added Jan. 13, 2006

Mexico

Contra la pornografía infantil. Detenidos 25 estadounidenses pederastas en los últimos 5 años.

Esperanza García, director of the Cyber Crimes and Crimes Against Children unit of the Federal Preventive Police, has announced that during the past 5 years, Mexican authorities have arrested 67 pedo-philes and have rescued 105 children from sexual exploitation. 

Those arrested include 25 U.S. citizens and 3 Canadians, who distributed child pornography via the Internet to promote sex tourism.  The U.S. and Canadian suspects were arrested in the cities of Acapulco, Guerrero and Jalisco.

- EFE

Jan. 13, 2005

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Added Jan. 13, 2006

New York, USA

Revelan detalles sobre muerte de niña Latina.

- El Diario - New York

Jan. 13, 2005

Matan a niña Latina en Brooklyn.

- El Diario - New York

Jan. 12, 2005

Seven-year-old Nixzmary Brown was beaten to death in a Brooklyn apartment this week where she had been tethered to a chair with twine. It was the fourth homicide in recent months involving a family monitored by the city's Admin-istration for Children's Services, renewing concerns about the agency's ability to protect abused children.

The girl's stepfather, Cesar Rodriguez, accused of binding, beating and molesting her, was arraigned Thursday on charges of second-degree murder, sex abuse and child endanger-ment. Her mother, Nixzaliz Santiago, was arraigned on second-degree manslaughter and child endangerment charges.

- Associated Press

Via New York Newsday

Jan. 13, 2005

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Added Jan. 13, 2006

United States

Washington, DC - With the January 10, 2005 signing of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauth-orization Act (TVPRA - H.R. 972) by President Bush, ICE reaffirmed its law enforcement commitment to identify victims of human trafficking and bring the perpetrators of this horrific crime to justice.

Since the creation of ICE in March 2003, investigations into human trafficking and the related crime of human smuggling, have resulted in more than 5,400 arrests, 2,800 criminal indictments, and 2,300 criminal convictions.

- U.S. ICE

Jan. 11, 2005

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Added Jan. 12, 2006

Mexico

Villahermosa, Guadalajara y Cuernavaca: peligro para mujeres.

A study titled "Insecurity in Urban Mexico, a Comparat-ive Analysis of 13 Metropolitan Areas" - has been released by the Citizens Instit-ute for Insecurity Studies. 

The study finds that three major Mexican cities: Villahermosa, Guadalajara and Cuernavaca have the most severe rates of violent crime against women.  In these three cities, 60% of assaults on the street, in the workplace and on public transport target women.  In the city of Guadalajara, sexual assaults are 8.3 % of all crime, a figure that is 2.3 times higher that the national average.

Ciudad Juarez, site of a femicide that has taken over 300 female lives in the past 13 years (actually 400 lives, according to Amnesty Inter-national), also has the highest rate of attacks against women in the workplace.  Juarez is the location of many foreign-owned low-wage factories (maquiladoras).  Some 57% of women have faced workplace violence, according to the March, 2005 National Survey on Insecurity.  This figure that more is 40 times higher than the national average.

- CIMAC Noticias

News for Women

Mexico City

Jan. 12, 2005

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Added Jan. 10, 2006

Mexico

Comandanta Ramona Mayan Zapatista activists wear masks to prevent being targeted for assassination.

Muere la Comandanta Ramona.

Comandanta Ramona, a Tzotzil Mayan woman leader who constructed new concepts of gender equality for Indigenous women in Chiapas state, has died of cancer. Ramona was one of two women, along with comandanta Esther, who repres-ented women's interests in the Clandestine Indigenous Revol-utionary Committee (CCRI) of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN).

Comandanta Ramona fought in defense of the rights of Native women and for all craftswomen by advocating for the right of women to education & special schools for women, by promoting the value of the work of women artisans, and by advocating for increased respect for the equal rights of  women.

In the early 1990's Ramona developed the principles of the 1994 Revolutionary Law of Women in consultation with Mayan communities across Chiapas. 

Comandanta Ramona was born in Chiapas in 1959. Ten years ago she began her struggle with the pain of cancer in both kidneys.  She had been treated in the Congressional Unit of the National Medical Center in Mexico City.

- CIMAC Noticias

News for Women

Mexico City

Jan. 06, 2005

See also:

De bordadora a Comandanta.

(From embroiderer to commander.)

Altera muerte de Ramona tiempos de la otra campaña.

The Law of Women.

Ley revolucionaria de mujeres.

About Zapatista women / feminism.

The legendary Zapatista leader Comandanta Ramona has died.

Do not leave us alone! A 1994 Interview with Comandante Ramona.

About the 1997 Acteal Massacre.

LibertadLatina Commentary:

The work of Comandanta Ramona defined a new path of gender equality for all women and girls facing misogynist and racist anti-Indigenous attitudes in Mexican society.

Before the Zapatista Uprising in 1994, the Mayan peoples of Chiapas, Mexico were expected to work hard from birth through death as peons (actual semi- slaves), for cruel landowners, on plantation land stolen from their own ancestors..., in exchange for nothing more than a shack to sleep in and enough corn to survive.

The 1994 Zapatista Uprising changed those arrogant 'traditions' forever.

The Law of Women addresses equality both within Mayan societies and in the larger Mexican society.  It especially focused on ending the Mayan dowry system, where girls of 13 or 14 are effectively sold to adult men, and are denied the right to choose a partner.

Although the Zapatista movement began as an armed uprising in 1994, it has evolved into a national movement for social and political reform that addresses sexism, economic injustice and corruption throughout Mexico.

Thank you Coman-danta Ramona for stepping up to the plate to help your people find freedom!

We are proud of you, and the example that you set for all of our daughters and sons!

- Chuck Goolsby

January 10, 2006

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Added Jan. 10, 2006

Utah, USA

A woman who stopped at a Cottonwood Heights gas station around 10:30 p.m. Tuesday was raped on a restroom floor as she held her 1-year-old son in her arms and her 3-year-old daughter looked on.

The 21-year-old woman stopped  after her daughter said she needed a restroom, said Salt Lake County sheriff's spokesman Paul Jaroscak.

The woman checked to make sure the restroom door was open, then returned to her car, got her two children and went back in, Jaroscak said. There, a man was waiting for her.

- Salt Lake Tribune

January 07, 2006

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Added Jan. 10, 2006

United States

Son víctimas de tráfico de seres humanos entre 14,500 y 17,500 personas al año en Estados Unidos. Se dividen, por lo general, entre dos categorías - las personas abusadas sexualmente y las personas explotadas económicamente. La mayoría son mujeres y niños.

Los inmigrantes indocumentados víctimas de formas “severas” de tráfico de seres humanos podrán calificar para estadía legal temporal.

Between 14,500 and 17,500 persons are brought into the U.S. each year as either economic or sexual slaves.  The majority are women and children.  Victims may qualify for the "T" visa, designed specifically to assist victims of severe forms of slavery.

- Hispanic Link

January 07, 2006

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Added Jan. 10, 2006

Mexico

Ya suman cuatro las mujeres asesinadas en Tamaulipas.

During the first week of of 2006, four women were murdered in the eastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas.  The latest victim was 37-year-old Delfina Araiza López, who was gunned down by unknown assailants in her apartment as her husband, who was walking home, heard the shots.  The assailants fled and have not been found. 

Araiza López joins  Juana Aracely García, from the city of Matamoros, another as-yet unidentified woman, and two year old Edith Alejandra Ochoa Requena as the first female victims of femicide violence in Tamaul-ipas in 2006.

- CIMAC Noticias

News for Women

Mexico City

Jan. 09, 2005

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Added Jan. 7, 2006

The World

Niños: pequeños invisibles por el abandono.

Terra.com

Colombia

Dec. 13, 2005

Hundreds of millions of children are suffering from severe exploitation and discrimination and have become virtually invisible to the world, UNICEF declared in a major report that explores the causes of exclusion and the abuses children experience.

The agency said that millions of children disappear from view when trafficked or forced to work in domestic servitude. Other children, such as street children, live in plain sight but are excluded from fundamental services and protections.

Not only do these children endure abuse, most are shut out from school, healthcare and other vital services they need to grow and thrive.

The State of the World's Children 2006: Excluded and Invisible is a sweeping assessment of the world's most vulnerable children, whose rights to a safe and healthy childhood are exceptionally difficult to protect. These children are growing up beyond the reach of development campaigns and are often invisible in everything from public debate and legislation, to statistics and news stories.

- UNICEF

Dec. 14, 2005

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Added Jan. 7, 2006

United States

Neoconservative Anti-trafficking activist and Hudson Institute analyst Michael Horowitz provides an interesting account of the building of a unique coalition between religious conservatives and progressives to achieve passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) of 2005 (HR 972), sponsored by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ).

This bill applies, for the first time, strong anti-trafficking laws to combat sexual exploitation within the United States.

- An Article by Michael Horowitz

Jan. 06, 2005

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Added Jan. 6, 2006

Mexico

Photo: CIMAC

Permanente violación a derechos de migrantes en México.

Violations of the human rights of foreign migrants entering Mexico is a constant condition at Mexico’s migrant detention centers, according to the non-governmental organization Sin Fronteras (Without Borders).  The release of their report coincides with that of a special report by Mexico’s National Commis-sion for Human Rights (CNDH) on the same topic.

Karina Arias of Without Borders:

“Giving CNDH access to  migrant detention facilities is critical, they should be reporting on what is happening at these locations.”

Data received by Without Borders during visits to 119 migrant detention facilities located in 19 states indicates the existence of conditions in which basic rights are not guaranteed, contravening national and international norms: dignified treatment, and the assurance of the legal and health rights of detained migrants.

Although the government of Mexico refers to these facilities as 'protection centers' (no penal process is involved), they are in fact detention centers.  Migrants held at these facilities are deprived of liberty, they have no access to communication with the outside world, the facilities are overpopulated, and there is a lack of both a notification of the migrant’s consular office and a lack of medical services.

The female population of these facilities has risen dramatically.  In Iztapalapa in Mexico City, one of the nation’s largest centers, and one of the few federal migrant detention facilities with separate areas for men, women and adolescents, Without Borders has interceded in a growing number of cases of pregnant women.  These women are not provided with any access to pre-natal medical care.  When they give birth, they are taken to a local hospital, stay a few days, and are then brought back to the detention facility without having been given the right to legally register the birth certificate of their child, who has been born a Mexican citizen.

Without Borders has also detected cases of human trafficking, including the case of two migrants from China who were forced to work free hours at a factory and had their freedom of move-ment restricted.  They escaped from bondage, and although they had legal immigration papers, they have been detained.  Their enslavers remain free and the factory remains open.

- CIMAC Noticias

News for Women

Mexico City

Jan. 04, 2005

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Added Jan. 6, 2006

Native Brazil

Mato Grosso do Sul (Southern Jungle) state - in the Amazon - On Dec. 16, 2005, a Guarani-Kaiowá community was violently evicted from their ancestral land in a large-scale operation carried out by the Federal Police with unofficial support from local landowners. The eviction came after a number of legal interventions including a Supreme Court (STF) ruling that effectively suspended the Guarani-Kaiowá’s constitutional right to their land.

The Guarani-Kaiowá are now encamped along the MS-384 highway, with insufficient food, sanitation and shelter.

“The ruling had catastrophic consequences on the Guarani-Kaiowá indigenous community,” said Patrick Wilcken, Amnesty International’s campaigner on Brazil.

“A woman who was seven months pregnant miscarried after suffering a fall during the eviction; and a one-year-old baby succumbed to dehydration.”

On 24 December 2005, nine days after the eviction, thirty-nine-year-old Dorvalino Rocha was shot in the chest at the entrance to the Fronteira Farm in the municipality of Antônio João in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. According to reports, he was killed by a private security guard hired by local landowners.

Dorvalino Rocha is the 38th indigenous activist killed in 2005 – the worst year for over a decade, according to the Brazilian NGO the Indigenous Missionary Council. Twenty-eight of these killings took place in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul alone.

- Amnesty International

Jan. 06, 2005

See also:

Native Guatemala -

   Femicide & Genocide

"During the last forty years, the [Guatemalan] military has been levying a campaign of terrorism and genocide against... Mayas, in order to distribute native peoples' land among plantation owners."

LibertadLatina Commentary

"Trail of Tears" - Native eviction by President Andrew Jackson, from the southern United States - 1830's.  This act of land-stealing lead to the deaths of half of those evicted from Georgia and Alabama and then exiled to Oklahoma.

Illegal evictions of indigenous people, accompanied by mass rape, murder and other abuses, are human rights violations that have been perpetrated by European settler societies across the Americas since the year 1492. 

It is both shocking and unsurprising that nation states in Latin America continue this practice.  Brazil and other countries steal from their poorest, the Native peoples, to enrich themselves, simply because Native people's basic human rights are non-existent.

As a person who's Creek ancestors were forcibly evicted on the Trail of Tears, and who's Catawba ancestors were given Smallpox infected blankets to speed their 'eviction by genocide,' I am not at all impressed that the 'civilized world' continues to allow Brazil's  government, working in the interest of greedy landowners, to forcibly steal land, and the ability to survive, from Native Brazilians in 2006.

Disenfranchising Native people leads directly to severe poverty, and to a high risk of falling into prostitution and sexual slavery as the only means of survival for many formerly self-sufficient peoples.

The sex trafficking of Native women and girls across the nations of the  Americas has been driven by this insane and racist process for over 500 years.

Shame on the perpetrators!

End impunity

now!

- ChuckGoolsby

Jan. 06, 2005

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Added Jan. 6, 2006

Ohio, USA

Antonio Gonzalez, Jr., 48, who is HIV positive, was sentenced to 48 years in prison today for repeatedly raping a 5-year-old girl in his home.  The victim was assaulted at the defendant’s home  where he and his wife were hosting a graduation party.

Gonzalez, who had been drinking and smoking crack-cocaine, took the victim into a bedroom, barricaded the door, and sexually assaulted her.

The defendant’s wife found her husband in the room with the victim. He fled through a window and was later attacked by some of the party-goers who had been alerted by the wife.

- Toledo Blade

Jan. 03, 2005

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Added Jan. 5, 2006

El Salvador

Trafficking increases

Salvadoran migrants hop a freight train.

Aumenta tráfico de personas en El Salvador  - Las víctimas son maltratadas.

A recent report released by José Ayala, director of the anti-trafficking unit of  the National Civil Police (PNC) of El Salvador indicates that the rate of sex trafficking of women and girls continues to increase in the Central American nation.  A large number of victims are taken to other countries.  Large numbers of foreign women are also brought into El Salvador as forced prostitutes.

Benjamin Smith, representative of the International Labor Organization (ILO) indicated at the PNC press conference that the United States is the top destination for women trafficked from El Salvador. 

Participants from the International Organ-ization for Migration (IOM), and Casa Alianza (the largest street children’s advocacy group in Central America and Mexico) noted that the victims are typically physically mistreated and are forced to take illegal drugs by their captors.

Extreme poverty and a lack of jobs in El Salvador makes women and children vulnerable to sex trafficking.  Fifty eight percent of the population lives in poverty, which provokes an annual exodus of 720,000 persons.  Seventy percent of families remaining in the country rely on money sent from family members abroad.

Traffickers exploit would-be economic migrants, and offer to transport them to fictitious jobs in foreign countries. During the journey, the cheated victims are enslaved and are then forced into prostitution.

- CIMAC Noticias

News for Women

Mexico City

Jan. 04, 2005

See also:

Native El Salvador

LibertadLatina note:

El Salvador has long been recognized as the second poorest country in the Americas, after Haiti.

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Added Jan. 4, 2006

Peru

Pro-Indigenous Retired Colonel Sees Meteoric Rise in the Polls

Lima - Retired army colonel Ollanta Humala has experienced an unexpected surge in the polls for Peru's April 2006 presidential elections. He now has a 22 percent rating, putting him just three points behind the current front-runner, right-wing candidate Lourdes Flores Nano, with 25 percent.

Ollanta - which means "the all-observing warrior" in Quechua - was born into a well-off middle-class family in Lima.  He puts a strong emphasis on his Andean indige-nous roots, and is especially popular among the rural poor.

- Inter-Press Service

Dec. 13, 2005

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Added Jan. 2, 2006

Native United States

Photo: Sacred Circle National Resource Center to End Violence Against Native Women

Washington, DC - Congress has passed stronger legislation protecting Native women in the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).

The House of Representatives and the Senate voted with overwhelming support Dec. 17, 2005 to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act while adding for the first time a tribal title that increases the resources available to tribal governments to combat the abuse of Native women.

For tribes, the tribal title is a historic piece of legislation. In the bill, Congress acknowledged that the federal government's trust responsibility creates an obligation to assist tribal governments in protecting Indian women. It further reaffirms tribal sovereignty in allowing tribes to strengthen their own legal remedies against offenders. The bill now goes to President Bush for a signature.

- IndianCountry.com

Dec. 30, 2005

See also:

VAWA Tribal Provisions

American Indian and Alaska Native women are battered, raped and stalked at far greater rates than any other group of women in the United States.

The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that 1 of 3 Native women will be raped; that 6 of 10 will be physically assaulted; that approximately 9 in 10 rapes or assaults against American Indians are committed by non-Indian assailants and that Native women are stalked at a rate at least twice that of any other population...

The U.S. Department of Justice has general jurisdiction over felony crimes by or against Indians, including homicide, rape and aggravated assault, but perpetrators of such crimes against Indian women are rarely, if at all, prosecuted given the broad caseload faced by U.S. Attorneys.

- Sacred Circle

National Resource Center to End Violence Against Native Women

The National Sexual Violence Resource Center 

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Added Jan. 2, 2006

Mexico

Photo: CIMAC

Tamaulipas - La primera mujer víctima del 2006: una niña de 2 años.

Tamaulipas - In what is an obviously bad start for Mexico in regard to gender violence, police have arrested Uvaldo Requena Soto, age 32 on child rape and murder charges. 

Police state that  Requena Soto attacked and then asphyxiated his niece of 2 years and nine months of age, Edith Alejandra Ochoa Requena, while he was apparently high on alcohol and drugs.

- CIMAC Noticias

Jan. / Enero 2, 2005

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Added Jan. 2, 2006

Mexico

Despite a concerted effort to crack down on pedophiles in both Mexico and the United States, child prostitution continues unabated in Mexican tourist resorts such as Acapulco and Cancun as well as border cities such as Ciudad Juarez. Many of those who pay for sex with the boys and girls are American, Canadian and European tourists.

A weak justice system, police corruption and a lack of facilities to help homeless children have hindered attempts in Mexico to curb the problem.

Investigators say some of the worst abuses occur in the famous seaside resort of Acapulco. In strip clubs, cantinas, hotels and private houses around the beautiful bay, about 1,000 children are victims of the illicit trade, according to UNICEF.

- Houston Chronicle

Dec. 31, 2005

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Added Jan. 2, 2006

Mexico, Texas, USA

Zero tolerance for illegal entry in Del Rio sector leads to a hearing and a trip home

Del Rio, Texas -Since Dec. 12, 2005, alternating areas of the Del Rio Border Patrol Sector, which covers nearly 60,000 square miles, including a 60-mile stretch of the Rio Grande, have been subject to the "zero tolerance" approach, supervisory patrol agent Hilario Leal said.

"It's little segments at a time, and it will expand," he said.

Billed as a homeland security initiative, U.S. Customs and Border Protection calls the effort "Operation Streamline II." When Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar announced the initiative in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 16, he said it was "intended to dramatically reduce illegal activity and deter future activity."

The biggest impact will be felt among non-Mexicans who will have squandered significant resources to reach the border, only to be sent home with a criminal record of the federal crime of illegal entry, Sutton said.

- Houston Chronicle

Jan. 02, 2005

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Added Jan. 1, 2006

Mexico

JUAREZ Femicide Remember Them!

Ciudad Juarez (Juarez City) - Mario Loya Aguirre and Jorge Armando Sifuentes Martinez – both detained on Dec. 25th, 2005 – and Eleazar Pena Navarro  have been arrested for the Christmas Eve, 2005 rape and homicide of a 17-year-old girl.

According to statements from 2 of the suspects, the three men were drinking with Claudia Flores Javier in her home in the early hours of Dec. 24 when one of them proposed having sex with her. She refused and the three then raped her, said Claudia Elena Banuelos, spokes-woman for the state Attorney General's office.  One of the men responded to Flores' resistance by hitting her several times on the head with a blunt object.

- SignOnSanDiego.com

Dec. 29, 2005

See also:

Femicide in Juarez

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Added Jan. 1, 2006

Bolivia

The president-elect of Bolivia, Evo Morales, has said he will cut his salary by half when he takes office next month.

Mr. Morales said his cabinet would follow suit and that members of Bolivia's parliament would be expected to cut their allowances.

He also reaffirmed his commitment to change Bolivia's economic system.

At the moment, Mr Morales, an Aymara Indian born into poverty, rents a single room in a shared house.

Announcing the salary cut, he said that in a country as poor as Bolivia, the president and his cabinet should share the burden.

The money saved will go on social programs, particularly in the field of education.

- BBC News - UK

Dec. 28, 2005

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Added Jan. 1, 2006

Mexico

Chihuahua - El 80 por ciento de los cultivos, de cuya siembra depende la economía de 120 mil familias en las zonas más pobres, quedó colapsado por falta de humedad, informó Reyes Ramón Cadena, secretario de Desarrollo Rural del gobierno estatal.  A consecuencia de esa situación, en la zona serrana donde viven los grupos indígenas del estado, podría enfrentarse una crisis alimentaria en los primeros meses de 2006.

Chihuahua - Some 80 percent of the grain crop for 120,000 mostly indigenous families in the mountainous regions of Chihuahua state has collapsed due to drought, according to Reyes Ramón Cadena, state secretary for rural development.  Secretary Cadena predicted that a hunger crisis will develop in the region during the first months of 2006.

César Duarte, the congressional deputy for the area has asked for a federal declaration of emergency, stating that current aid efforts related to a cold wave in the region will not be enough to prevent hunger caused by massive crop failures.

- La Jornada

Mexico City

Dec. 30, 2005

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Texas, USA

San Antonio - Angel Ruiz Bernal, 35,  convicted sex offender, was arrested in San Antonio after he illegally sneaked back into the United States from Mexico.

Ruiz Bernal was arrested eight years ago and served a five-year sentence for rape.  After being released from prison, Bernal was deported to Mexico.

Ruiz Bernal will be turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforce-ment when his sentence on the state charges is completed.

Nina Pruneda, of Immigration and Customs Enforce-ment (ICE):

"We also understand that he [Ruiz Bernal] has an extensive criminal history ranging from sexual offense on a child to aggravated assault, so this is not a person we want out in the community."

- KSAT

Dec. 30, 2005

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Added Jan. 1, 2006

Illinois, USA

Chicago - Luis Mendez, 35 has been charged with the rape of a 17-year-old student who was abducted from a street near her house in March 2004 while walking to school.

Mendez allegedly attacked the victim from behind, knocking her to the ground and threatening her with a gun, although none was recovered, police said.

- Chicago Sun Times

Dec. 31, 2005