Dialogue on the Global Trafficking of Women and Children Women in Development (SID/WID) Workgroup


The Society for International Development-Washington is pleased to announce the third event in our ongoing series on Human Trafficking. This month we invite you to attend a Dialogue on the Global Trafficking of Women and Children with Ann Jordan, Director of the Initiative Against Trafficking of Persons, Global Rights (formerly the International Human Rights Law Group) and Joy Zarembka, Director of the Break the Chain Campaign. This event will address the issues of modern day slavery and human trafficking in the United States, with a specific focus on the trafficking of domestic workers and the US response.

Ann Jordan, an attorney who has specialized in protecting the rights of trafficked persons for more than a decade, joined the International Human Rights Law Group in 1998. As director of the Global Rights anti-trafficking initiative, she trains and collaborates with Global Rights staff in using and training others in human rights-based legal advocacy to combat trafficking, works with an international network of anti-trafficking NGOs. She is also a founding coordinator of the Freedom Network (USA), the only nationwide anti-trafficking network. She will provide information about her work in West Africa and Central America.

Joy M. Zarembka is the Director of the Break the Chain Campaign, an advocacy/direct service organization working to help end modern-day slavery and human trafficking and to provide better protections for abused, enslaved and exploited workers in the Washington, DC area. Break The Chain Campaign is dedicated to working with individuals held against their will in the workplace through direct service, research, advocacy, and public awareness campaigns. The direct service work gives the Campaign practical experience, case data, and statistics which, in turn, inform the Campaign's advocacy work.

The Campaign's approach is holistic, combining comprehensive case management, outreach, media work, training, and technical assistance with ongoing negotiations with the US government, embassies, and international institutions on policy reform. Joy also currently works as a research consultant for a British production company, TrueVisions Production. Joy has been quoted extensively in The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, US News and World Report and The Washington Post for her trafficking expertise. In 1997, she was awarded the Fox International Fellowship to study at Cambridge University in England. Before coming to the Campaign, Joy traveled to war-torn Burundi to participate in a project to reconstruct a destroyed area and to conduct conflict resolution workshops. In February 2002, Joy was given the Women's Information Network's Young Women of Achievement Award. She has recently published a chapter in Barbara Ehrenreich's new book, Global Woman and her book, The Pigment of Your Imagination, is due to come out next year.

Location: Chemonics International, 2nd Floor Auditorium, 1133 20th St, NW, (between L and M Streets) Washington, DC.
Metro: Dupont Circle or Farragut North, Farragut West

Contact: Please RSVP to sid@aed.org or call 202-884-8590


 

February 16, 2004

Guatemala

The international Telemundo television network show 'Al Rojo Vivo' reported today that two recent murders of women have brought the total of women murdered in Guatemala to 360 in 1 year.  This compares to 375 in Juarez City Mexico during the past decade.

February 16, 2004

Mexico

Organized crime holds sway over Ciudad Juarez

EFE NEWS SERVICE: In Ciudad Juarez, across the border from the prosperous United States, organized crime holds sway and the streets dotted with brothels and assembly plants are plagued by violence.

The sign "Welcome to the city of business" greets visitors who arrive at the airport in Juarez, home to one of the country's most powerful drug cartels, surrounded by desert and linked to El Paso, Texas, by several bridges over the Rio Grande.

Dozens of bars, motels and other locales set up for prostitution are found on the road leading to the city of some 1.2 million people, many of them "passing through."

Other streets contain "maquiladoras," the assembly plants that began leaving Mexico a few years ago and setting up shop in cheaper markets. Near several of them, the bodies of several brutally murdered women have been discovered.

"This is a lawless city," sociologist Alfredo Limas told

<<EFE NEWS SERVICE -- 02/15/04>>


 

February 9-15 2004

Mexico

Ending the Violence: Spotlight on Ciudad Juárez

Mexico

From February 9-15 2004, a conference has be held in El-Paso, Texas for V-Week. The conference featured speakers, workshops, and films focusing on the disappeared and murdered women of Ciudad Juárez, in Chihuahua State, Mexico.

For more information, contact Monica Ortiz at monortiz@utep.edu or at 915.566.4017


 

February 15th, 2004

Nicaragua

American Accused of Abusing Poor Girls in Nicaragua

Arnold Peter Eisner, a 53-year-old US citizen, sits in a jail cell in Managua where he will be tried in court for the crime of "corruption of minors" for sexually abusing Nicaraguan girls between the ages of 8 and 14.

The victims, according to Nicaraguan authorities, are poor girls who were living in the streets of the country's capital. The trial is set for February 23rd before a jury.

The police detained Eisner on December 17, 2003 after they received a tip from a woman. It seems that he tried to pay her to help him in contacting children for him to abuse in exchange for money.

Based on the photographs and videos found in the suspect's house
during the police raid, the authorities are investigating the possibility
that some of the young victims were Honduran.

Eisner was working as a regional sales representative for the Global Tell company from Coral Gables, Florida, which required him to constantly travel to Central America, leaving open the possibility there are more victims in other countries of the region.

The police have also released legal documents in which two mothers
"waived" the rights of their little girls, aged 14 and 9, to the foreigner and gave him permission to take the children to school to hospital. One of the women maintained that she gave into pressure, but the detainee is currently paying school tuition for her three sons and was giving them money to buy food.

The District Attorney has already located one of the victims. Eisner
reportedly contacted one of the girls while she was selling cold water at a stoplight. In her testimony, the girl claimed the American was
responsible for sexually abusing her.

The authorities suspect that at least three more individuals were
involved; one, a woman, who various girls call "teacher". They suspect
that she was in charge of contacting the potential victims and delivering them to the individual. She received $100 as pay for her "work".

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For more information, please contact <media@casa-alianza.org>


 

February 14, 2004

Mexico

Celebrities Join March Over Murders

(c) 2004 Reuters

Jane Fonda, Eve Ensler, Christine Lahti and Sally Fields added their
celebrity voices to those of mothers and activists clamoring for
justice in the murders of hundreds of young women in this Mexico
border town during the past decade. "I am rich, I am famous, I am
white, I have a daughter, I have a granddaughter, and I know if they
were murdered or disappeared, the authorities would work very work
very hard to find out who killed them or who kidnapped them," Jane
Fonda told a news conference in Ciudad Juarez. "I have tried to feel
in my body what it is to be one of these mothers of disappeared
women, what it is to be ignored and made to feel like they don't
matter," she said.

Groups of marchers from Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, Texas, across the border, met on the downtown international bridge and walked the
streets of Ciudad Juarez. They marched as part of an effort to
increase awareness of violence against women worldwide through
Ensler's organization, which for three years has called Feb. 14
"V-day" and used it to remember all women who are victims of
violence. Fonda, Lahti, Fields and three Mexican actresses were
later scheduled to perform Ensler's play "The Vagina Monologues."

Activists have been keeping track of violence in Ciudad Juarez, where
officials have now documented more than 300 murders in the past 10
years. Few of the cases have been solved and the murders are
continuing. Some of the murders are the result of domestic violence.
Others are believed to be the work of serial killers, drug gangs and
even a small group of well-connected prominent local men who may have killed for sport. Many victims were workers at border manufacturing plants known as maquiladoras, girls who traveled alone to work in Juarez and later disappeared only to turn up dead in the desert.  Often, their remains showed signs of beating and rape.

As years passed and the cases remained unsolved, victims' families
accused local authorities of indifference. Activist groups formed,
and human rights organizations weighed in with their own
investigations and reports. Last November, Amnesty International
recommended that the Mexican government appoint a special prosecutor for the murders. In January, Maria Lopez was appointed to investigate the killings. State judicial police arrested several suspects in recent years, only to find more remains. In November 2001, two
truckers were arrested after eight women's bodies were discovered in
an empty field. Many victims' mothers now believe the truckers are
scapegoats for beleaguered authorities. The families of the truckers
have joined them in demanding justice. The case has become so
politicized that victims' groups and state officials accuse each
other of using the murders for political ends.

One victims' group, Our Daughters Back Home, opted out of Saturday's event. Norma Andrade, whose daughter Alejandra Andrade disappeared on Feb. 14, 2001 and was found dead seven days later, said Saturday's event should have focused on mourning the victims rather than becoming a day of performances, dinners and celebrity-ogling. "I can't be part of some festivity," Andrade said. "I'm in mourning." Even so, she said the march should put pressure on investigators to solve the cases and may result in some good. "They are clamoring for the same thing we are," she said. "Their demand is justice."


 

February 13, 2004

Mexico-U.S.

Arrest in Sex Slave Case
Woman allegedly forced Mexican immigrants into prostitution and kept them against their will at Anaheim motel.

By Claire Luna and Mai Tran
Times Staff Writers

A Los Angeles County woman faces charges of running a brothel in a budget motel across the street from Disneyland after three immigrants told police they were smuggled into the country and forced into prostitution.

The women, police said Thursday, were lured from Mexico with promises of house cleaning jobs in fancy neighborhoods and then threatened with retaliation if they didn't become prostitutes.

Maria De La Luz Menjivar, 43, of Wilmington was arrested Feb. 4 after the women, all in their 20s, reported the alleged sex slave ring to Anaheim police and officers conducted a sting operation at the Econo Lodge. Police said they were uncertain how many women might have worked at the makeshift brothel.

Menjivar, who may also face federal smuggling charges, remains in Orange County Jail on $100,000 bail and is set to be arraigned Thursday at North Justice Center in Fullerton.

The owner of the motel, Nareshkumar Patel, 44, of Anaheim was arrested with Menjivar on suspicion of running a brothel and released two hours later on $500 bail.

On Thursday, Patel stood behind the motel's front desk and fought tears as he denied any wrongdoing. He said he would cooperate with police.

"I have nothing to do with this unfortunate situation," said Patel, who said he bought the motel seven years ago. "Those women stayed here for three days, and I never knew they were doing anything illegal.

"This is a family place," he added.

From the motel entrance, guests can see the Disneyland Hotel and a giant set of Mickey Mouse ears silhouetted on a roller coaster at California Adventure, Disneyland's sister attraction. Room 127, the two-bedroom suite rented to Menjivar, is at ground level next to a swimming pool and street.

The owner said he had seen Menjivar only three times during her stay, once when he brought a phone card to her suite.

"The curtain was open, so everybody could see inside," he said. "Nothing was going on."

Anaheim police said they thought they had dismantled the same prostitution ring a year ago after a vice bust at the Anaheim Maingate Inn, another Disneyland-area motel. Authorities at the time arrested three women as prostitution suspects, along with a customer and a man who allegedly ran the operation, said Sgt. Rick Martinez, a department spokesman.

"We thought it was the end of that," he said. "But Maria started it up again. She'd move from motel to motel."

Menjivar is accused of finding young women who wanted to come to the United States from Mexico and offering to front smuggling fees of $1,200 to $1,500 to get them across the border, baiting them with assurances of legitimate jobs so they could repay her.

But after they crossed the border, Menjivar forced them into prostitution at Anaheim tourist-area motels, Martinez said. Most of the customers who visited the motel operation were Latino day laborers, he said.

The women, who are being treated as witnesses rather than suspects, reported Menjivar to police, Martinez said. He said they were "fed up with threats from her that if they stopped, she would expose to their families that they came to the United States to do prostitution."

Despite the glaring exception of the women coming forward to police, human rights advocates say, the scenario is all too typical. There are tens of thousands of women from other countries working as sex slaves in the United States, said Marisa B. Ugarte, executive director of the San Diego-based Bilateral Safety Corridor Coalition, which coordinates rescue efforts for victims of sex trafficking on both sides of the border.

Poverty drives them to leave their homelands, she said, but once they realize the lure of good jobs has been a lie they remain quiet for fear of retribution toward their families.

"They're told that if they try to leave, first they'll be deported, then their family will be hurt," Ugarte said. "Family relationships are so important in Mexico that those women will do anything to protect their families."

Sex slave rings target areas with many migrant workers and day laborers and generally sell sessions with the women for $20 to $30, she added.

The women who went to Anaheim police should be applauded for their courage, Ugarte said.

"It's very rare that a Latina will go and denounce a crime [despite] fear of being deported and fear of retaliation," she said.

U.S. policy toward victims of international prostitution rings has changed in the past few years, with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 being the first U.S. law to recognize that people trafficked against their will are victims of a crime, not illegal immigrants. The U.S. now offers 5,000 visas a year to trafficking victims to allow them to apply for residency.

Police have given information on the case to immigration officials to pursue possible federal prosecution against Menjivar, who also faces a felony charge of pandering and a misdemeanor charge of running a prostitution ring. Officials from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services could not be reached for comment Thursday.


Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times

 

February 13, 2004

Mexico-U.S.

Arrests in Sex Slave Case
Los Angeles Times
Claire Luna and Mai Tran

Maria De L Luz Menjiva was arrested on February 4, 2004 and faces
charges of running a brothel and possibly alien smuggling. Menjiva is
accused of smuggling women from Mexico with promises of jobs as maids
in posh areas of California and then forced them into prostitution and
kept them there by telling the women that she will tell their families
about their work if they stopped working as prostitutes. The sex slave
ring targeted areas where there were a large number of day laborers and migrant workers and services would range from $20 to $30 per session.


On the positive side, the women in this case are being treated as
witness and not suspects because they reported Menjiva to police and were fed up with the constant threats made by her.

The Anaheim police have given federal authorities information on this
case to pursue possible federal charges and prosecution of this case.


 

February 13, 2004

Honduras

Casa Alianza Report Catapaults Actions Against Sexual Exploitation in Honduras

Honduras. In the last two weeks, 30 girls, victims of Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC), have been rescued from taverns and brothels in Honduras.

Three operatives have already been carried out by the Honduran authorities after Casa Alianza Honduras submitted a report to the Attorney General this past December of the results of a nation-wide investigation that identified 1,019 children who are being commercially sexually exploited, 979 of whom were female.

The report by the Legal Aid Program of Casa Alianza revealed the existence of ubiquitous centers for sexual exploitation of children that were disguised as restaurants and bars in El Progreso and in cities in each Department (State) of the country.

"One of the priorities for the Legal Aid Program is the defense of the
children exploited by commercial sexual exploitation and the rehabilitation of the boys and girls who have fallen victim. We have conducted investigations throughout the country to determine which routes the traffickers use to exploit the children", explained José Manuel Capellin, National Director of Casa Alianza Honduras.

The Legal Aid Program of Honduras has just completed ten years of
successful work this month. The anniversary coincides with a series of operations that the Honduran authorities have carried out, using the
information that Casa Alianza collected during six months of investigative work.

In late 2003, the Honduran authorities, with Casa Alianza's support,
completed another operative in Guasaule, on the border between Honduras and Nicaragua. Members of the Criminal Investigations Department and the Public Prosecutor, amongst other institutions, were given the task of inspecting the cabs of trucks parked near the border where they found several girls.

Then they went to a party that was being held in the town where they found four Honduran girls between 13 and 15 being sexually exploited, along with two other girls from Nicaragua. Close by in the town of "El Triunfo", they found three more girls at another party, and the police captured the two women suspected of pimping young girls.

"We are beginning to see a positive reaction from the Honduran authorities in favor of the victims of commercial sexual exploitation of the children of this country", expressed satisfactorily Bruce Harris, Regional Director for Casa Alianza's Latin American operations. "But there is still a long way to go to pursue and detain those who are benefiting economically from the harm committed against these boys and girls. But this is a good start."

The very next day, after the public presentation of the sexual exploitation investigation on December 16th, 2003, the authorities, accompanied by the personnel of Casa Alianza, busted into four commercial establishments in Tegucigalpa where children were being exploited.

In December, Casa Alianza opened a residential sanctuary for young girl victims of commercial sexual exploitation in Tegucigalpa. Within one week it was just about full. The home was inaugurated in the presence of Ricardo Maduro, the President of Honduras, and the First Lady.

According to the only investigation that has quantified the numbers of
children victimized by CSEC, it is feared that there are close to 8,335
commercially sexually exploited children in Honduras, a country of barely 6 million people.

Casa Alianza is also currently carrying out investigations into nearly one thousand brothels in Central America where children are being sexually exploited. The agency is also implementing a project for the repatriation and social reinsertion of victims of trafficking, thanks to funding from the governments of Canada and the United States.

-----------
For more information, please contact Casa Alianza via email
media@casa-alianza.org  or at +504-221-5884.

February 12, 2004

Brazil

Rio to Fight Sex Tourism as Carnival Nears
By Andrei Khalip

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - Bare-breasted, hip-thrusting Carnival beauties may stoke lust in some tourists but Rio de Janeiro authorities hope to temper their ardor with reminders that not all sex in the city is legal.

Concerned about Rio's image as a major sex tourism destination and the crime that surrounds prostitution, city prosecutors are launching a campaign against sexual exploitation and the use of minors in the sex trade.

The drive, which involves a police crack-down on pimps and brothels as well as a public awareness campaign, coincides with Rio's world-famous Carnival jamboree that kicks off on Feb 20.

One of its focal points is tourism.

"Sex tourism is no good for the city," Ana Lucia Melo, prosecutor in a special unit combating the sex trade and child prostitution, told Reuters.

Young people wearing T-shirts saying "Sexual exploitation is a crime" will distribute pamphlets to tourists across the city explaining that having sex with a person under 14 could land them in jail for up to 10 years.

"We will make contact with all the tourists coming to Rio, in the airports, in the seaport, in hotels and even during Carnival processions in the street," she said.

The city is already swarming with tourists and loud rehearsals for colorful samba parades have begun.

It is not illegal in Brazil to offer sexual services or to use them but exploiting other people or running a brothel is an offense with jail terms of one to five years.

Melo said police will regularly raid areas in the city center, along Copacabana beach and in the Barra de Tijuca neighborhood that are notorious for prostitution. Seven under-age prostitutes, including three transvestites, were detained in one such raid earlier this week on Copacabana.

"This operation does not end with Carnival. It will go on with the aim of reducing prostitution and punishing those who cash in on the miserable situations that make many women sell their bodies," she said.

A special U.N. envoy said in November the problem of child prostitution and sexual exploitation in Brazil was worse than in most other countries because of poverty, crime and tourism.

Non-governmental organizations estimate the number of child prostitutes in Brazil at between 100,000 and 500,000, out of a total population of 175 million.


 

February 12, 2004

Mexico-U.S.

Women smuggled across border forced into prostitution, police say

BY JOHN MCDONALD
The Orange County Register

ANAHEIM, Calif. - (KRT) - Young women who were promised jobs as housemaids for well-to-do U.S. families instead were smuggled across the border from Mexico and forced to work as sex slaves in local motels, police said Thursday.

Three of the women, all in their 20s, went to police and asked for help in getting out of prostitution.

"They were being forced to work off loans for the cost of bringing them across the border and were told that if they refused to work as prostitutes, their families in Mexico would be told what they had been doing," Anaheim police Sgt. Rick Martinez said.

The case is the latest in what authorities describe as a continual problem: people smuggled to the United States with the belief that jobs await them, only to be forced into servitude.

An estimated 50,000 women and children are brought into the United States this way every year, winding up in the sex trade, sweatshop factories or migrant agricultural work, according to the Justice Department.

There was no evidence of physical threats against the women brought to Anaheim, but they felt trapped by the fear of being shamed and that they had no alternative but to continue working as prostitutes, Martinez said.

The loans for the border crossing ranged from $1,200 to $1,400, but no matter how much the women worked, the amounts never got smaller, authorities said.

The women helped police build a case that led to the arrest last week of Maria De La Luz Menjivar, 43, of Wilmington, and Nareshkumar Patel, 44, owner of the Econo Lodge, 1126 W. Katella Ave.

Menjivar is accused of pimping, pandering and running a house of ill fame at the Econo Lodge and elsewhere, Martinez said.

Patel is accused of running a house of ill fame at the Econo Lodge. He denied having any knowledge of prostitution at his motel.

Several other women were arrested on suspicion of prostitution, Martinez said.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent Philip Bonner said sex-slave rings are a problem in Southern California.

"The sad part is these women become resigned to their humiliation," Bonner said. "They feel such a loss of self-esteem that they give up on trying to escape the life. They are afraid to have news of what they are doing get back to their families.

"The main hook is, `We'll tell your parents that you are a prostitute in the U.S.'" said Bonner, who trains police departments to recognize sex-slavery cases.

No matter how much the women work, their loans are never repaid because the pimps overcharge them for everything ranging from condoms to medical attention, Bonner said. He added that it is not uncommon to have sex slaves serve from 10 to 20 men a day each.

Angelo Paparelli, an Irvine immigration attorney, said tight border controls leave some people "drawn to desperate means of coming to this country."

"(The prostitution) is an illustration of what can happen, of how things can get so bad, when people come into this country in this way rather than legal means," he said.

Congress has expanded slavery laws from Civil War days to include victims forced to work as prostitutes through emotional coercion or trickery, Bonner said.

The federal law, enacted in 2000, provides government assistance for sex-slave victims and allows them to stay in the country. The victims can sue their exploiters.

Patel, the motel manager, insisted that he had no knowledge of any illegal acts. He said there was never any unusual foot traffic coming and going from any of the rooms.

"I always help the police. This is a family place," said Patel, who has owned the motel for 6 1/2 years. "We came here and there were junkies, and we cleaned it up when they opened (Disney's) California Adventure. We have 99 percent tourists."

He said he saw Menjivar