Feb. 2008 News
Added March 2, 2008
Bolivia
La triste historia de Luz, una
nena de 12 años esclavizada y violada
This is the true story
of Luz, a 12-year-old Bolivian indigenous girl who
was sent to Argentina to work as a nanny by her
parents, only to face rape and torture from the
family she worked for.
...Luz recounted how, in February of
2006, a neighbor talked to her parents and offered
work for her in Argentina, as a nanny, for the
neighbor's daughter, Margarita Aguirre Almendras,
age 33, for $50 dollars per month...
Immediately, Luz was forced to work from 6 am,
cleaning the kitchen. After that, Luz was forced to
work until 2 am each day cleaning the textile shop
and folding cloth. There was nothing about being a
'nanny' in this job.
Luz continued working this way until June, when
[Margarita's husband] Juan, finding Luz asleep on the floor of the workshop
at 4 am, violently raped her after Luz refused his
offer to pay her a lot of money for sex. Juan also
threatened to not send Luz home to Bolivia if she
refused.
Immediately after the rape, Luz was bleeding profusely. Even
after cleaning herself off, she continued to bleed
heavily. She couldn't even walk.
Margarita then entered the room. Juan told his wife
that Luz was sitting around doing nothing. Margarita
reacted by grabbing Luz by the hair and throwing her
to the floor...
- Rolando Barbano
El Clarin
Buenos Aires,
Argentina
Feb. 18, 2008
LibertadLatina
note:
The story of 12-year-old Luz highlights the outrageous
violations of a child's basic human right to
dignity and the ownership of their own bodies
faced by literally millions of indigenous and
Latina girl and boy children in the Americas
today.
Indigenous children are especially targeted for
human trafficking, rape with impunity and
enslavement in labor and sexual servitude,
because there is no remorse in Latin American
societies where race-based slavery is concerned.
In fact, all poor children are regarded as
available for exploitation and expendable by
elites in their societies.
In Mexico,
for example,
99% of domestic workers are adolescents, with
40,000 being age 14 or younger. Most of
these children face sexual abuse and 16 hour
work days for little or no pay, because feudal
traditions legitimize this outrageous behavior.
In the United States I have personally assisted
adult Latina women escape from abusive, wealthy
Latina women who behave much as Margarita from
the above story did.
These
Roman Empire-era
abuses and class division continue today in
Latin America with impunity. These abuses
have also migrated wholesale into the United
States and other destination nations favored by
migrants from Latin America.
People of conscience must never be silent in the
face of such human slavery.
Speak up for these women and children when you
see this! This behavior is madness, and
must not be allowed to continue uncontested!
Our silence is also
violence!
- Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
March 2, 2008
See our special section on workplace rape for
additional information about the exploitation of
indigenous and other Latina girls in the
domestic workforce.
LibertadLatina
Added March 2, 2008
Nicaragua
Niña de 9 años violada por 2
hombres está embarazada
Managua - A 9-year-old girl has
become pregnant as the result of being raped in the
community of Laguna de Apoyo in southeastern
Nicaragua, according to the Women's Commission of
Masaya Province.
The alleged perpetrators are
neighbors of the girl. Pilar Lopez, [75], and his
son Rolando Lopez, age 30.
A trial against the accused began on
February 27, 2008.
The victim, whom the local press have
named Carmencita (Little Carmen), was left alone to
care for her brothers, ages 5 and 3, when her
parents traveled to the capitol, Managua, for work.
Since the case became public,
Carmencita has been harassed and shunned by her
neighbors, especially by the family of the accused.
She has been sent to live with an aunt in a far-away
city.
The suspects have escaped to nearby Costa Rica.
- ACAN - EFE
Feb. 18, 2008
Added March 2, 2008
Nicaragua
Grave denuncia de comisionada
jefe de Comisaría de la Mujer
Serious
accusations from Nicaragua's Commission for Women
Mercedes Ampié, chief commissioner of
the national Commission for Women, has publicly
denounced the fact that the nation's children face a
growing threat from sexual aggression by adults, and
that the judicial system is insensitive and lenient
toward perpetrators of child sexual abuse.
The Commissioner made specific
reference to the recent case of a 9-year-old girl
who was made pregnant by two male neighbors. Ampié
stated: "Sending a predator home [from prison,
pending trial] is not a practice allowed for in the
penal code. That was the judge's decision. What the
judge should take into account is that, just as the
perpetrator was well-enough to commit the crime, his
is well-enough to do the time."
- Rafael Lara
El Nuevo Diario
Feb. 19, 2008
Added March 2, 2008
Connecticut, USA
Rocky Hill - The Wethersfield
assault on a 62-year-old woman occurred Aug. 3,
2004, and was considered a cold case until a
national database struck a hit of matching DNA from
an Oct. 30, 2007 attack in Winter Park, Fla. That
victim was 86.
The Wethersfield attack occurred...
around 6 p.m., police said. The victim was walking
on the path when an assailant grabbed the
62-year-old woman from behind and told her to stop
screaming or he'd kill her, police said.
He pulled her sweatshirt over her
face and again said he'd kill her if she looked at
him, police said. The attack occurred in the brush
and the man, described as a Hispanic male in his 30s
who had "golden" skin and spoke fluent English with
a Spanish accent...
During the Winter Park attack, a man
described as a Hispanic male, about 5 feet eight
inches tall, entered the 86-year-old victim's
apartment through an unlocked door and restrained
her on her bed as he assaulted her, police said. He
took her purse and fled...
- Lisa Backus
Journal Register News Service
Feb. 28, 2008
Added March 1, 2008
Texas, USA
To Catch a Killer is the true
story of killer Andy James Ortiz, his young victims,
and the Fort Worth police and Tarrant County
prosecutors who brought him to justice. The 24
chapters [in the Star Telegram] will continue through March 9, with a
chapter published most days.
...Stella Ortiz had stood up for her son all his life,
loudly insisting to anyone who would listen that
Andy Ortiz was a good boy. No matter how many times
Fort Worth police came by the family home on Lee
Avenue looking for Andy, no matter how many times
Andy was accused of crimes against young girls --
rape and even murder -- Stella would proclaim his
innocence. She would say that Andy, the middle of
her three sons, was harassed by police because he
was Hispanic...
**
...The Fort Worth detectives could
barely speak as they stared at the bedroom.
The photographs of young girls. The
women's underwear. The girls' names and phone
numbers -- more than 100 in all.
Five days earlier, the body of a
13-year-old girl had been found dumped at Marine
Creek Lake. Officers believed she had been killed by
the man who lived in the room. They were certain she
was not his only victim.
But nothing -- nothing -- had
prepared them for this.
Thus begins "To Catch a Killer," the
true story of a homegrown serial killer and the
dogged detectives who finally put an end to his
madness.
-
Deanna Boyd, Melody McDonald
Star-Telegram
Feb 29, 2008
Added March 1, 2008
Mexico
Adolescents in Mexico's
Oaxaca, Chiapas and Tabasco states face
childhood violence
Adolescentes de Oaxaca,
Chiapas y Tabasco abusadas en su infancia
Adolescents between the
ages of 15 and 19, from the southern Mexican
states of Oaxaca, Chiapas and Tabasco were
surveyed about abuses suffered in childhood. In
many cases, these abuses have continued into
adolescence...
Some 62% of respondents from the
three states had faced emotional violence, 28%
had endured physical violence, 13% had
experienced sexual violence, and 4% encountered
economic violence. Sixty five percent of
respondents had been beaten during childhood....
Sofía Robles Hernández, of the
Network for Sexual and Reproductive Rights in
Mexico (Ddeser), indicated that the survey
project aims to elevate in children and youth an
awareness of gender equality in relation to
violence against women and girls. These goals
can be realized through the development of
educational and violence prevention programs in
indigenous and rural communities, in
collaboration with local authorities and
institutions.
-
CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
Mexico City
Feb. 29, 2008
Added March 1, 2008
North Carolina, USA
Ashville - Police have added
patrols in the area where a 63-year-old woman was
raped by an intruder and said Friday they were
trying to put together a sketch of the attacker.
Investigators
also are looking for any links between the rape and
reports of a peeping Tom in January and a break-in
last week at Oakview Villas.
Some Oakview Villas residents also
Friday said they had not been told of any problems
at the apartments.
"If we had been notified about the
other incidents I believe measures would have been
taken to prevent it (the rape)," resident Zac Rhew
said...
Police described the attacker as
Hispanic...
- Mike McWilliams, Josh Boatwright
Asheville Citizen-Times
Feb 29, 2008
Added Feb. 26, 2008
California, USA
Dad chases girl's kidnapper
Pedro Ramirez from California
engaged in a car chase to successfully rescue his
four-year-old daughter after she was abducted by
43-year-old Robert Rodriguez. Rodriguez has been
arrested by police.
(Video)
- KGET
Feb. 26, 2008
Added Feb. 26, 2008
Pennsylvania, USA
Woman Jumps Three Floors To
Escape Alleged Attacker
Philadelphia - After-hours on
South Street at the home of a young woman turned
brutal Sunday morning, after a late night party
ended violently.
According to police, around 10:30 a.m., police
responded to a 911 call at 200 South Street, the
home of a 30-year-old woman. The woman had
apparently flung herself from the third-story window
to escape the grapple of her alleged knife-wielding
rapist, a man identified late afternoon yesterday...
The
attacker has been identified as David "Julio"
Rosario, 34...
The
30-year-old victim is confirmed to be in severely
critical condition at Thomas Jefferson Hospital as
of last night, having sustained multiple injuries
during the fall.
"She
is not conscious, nor has she been," Mr. Darby said.
-
Jenny DeHuff
The Bulletin
Added Feb. 26, 2008
Florida, USA
Winter Park police are one
step closer to finding a man who sexually assaulted
an elderly woman in her apartment last October after
the investigators found a hit on his DNA taken from
the scene.
The
match came from an unsolved August 2004 case in
Wethersfield, Connecticut in a similar case,
according to Winter Park police...
On
Oct. 30, the 86-year-old victim was in her home at
the Village Lane Apartments near Balfour Drive and
Aloma Avenue when a Hispanic man walked in through
an open door around 1 p.m. He assaulted her and then
left on foot, police said.
- Bianca Prieto
Orlando Sentinel
Feb. 25, 2008
Added Feb. 22, 2008
North Carolina, USA
Durham - A man charged in
connection with three reports of attempted
kidnappings was ordered held on a $1.25 million
bond Thursday.
Fredy Humberto Pacheco, 36, of 901 Chalk Level
Road, surrendered to Durham police Wednesday and
was charged with two charges of attempted
kidnapping and resisting, delaying and
obstructing an officer...
An 11-year-old girl reported she was the victim
of two attempts – occurring last week and
Tuesday morning... while she was going to
school, police said.
In both attempts, a man driving a bright red car
pulled up to the girl and told her to get in the
vehicle with him, police said. The girl refused
and ran away...”
Investigators said another girl came forward
describing a similar experience...
Durham officials said they have been getting
calls from other jurisdictions about Pacheco...
- WRAL - Durham, NC
Feb. 21, 2008
Added Feb. 22, 2008
Florida, USA
[Palm Beach] -
Rosters, rules and other previously secret
information about the [private] Everglades Club
soon could become public in the wake of a
lawsuit filed against the club Wednesday by a
former employee who was raped there two years
ago.
Melissa Legare, 22, a former pantry cook, awoke
in the predawn hours of April 2, 2006, to a
co-worker raping her in her dormitory room at
the club.
Legare, then 20, fought off Esdras Cardona, an
[undocumented] resident from Guatemala,
until he left the room and the police were
called. Cardona, a dishwasher, was convicted of
the rape last summer and is serving a 20-year
sentence...
"What kind of a place is this?" [Legare's
attorney Ted] Babbitt asked. "This is a place
[where], I believe, a person like Barak
Obama would not feel comfortable having lunch
there. Tiger Woods would not feel comfortable
playing golf there. Venus Williams could not
play tennis. Henry Kissinger or a victim of the
Holocaust would not be welcome as a member..."
In the days following the attack, club managers
Scott Lesee and James Masterson made matters
worse by telling Legare to get back to work,
return to the same room where she had been
attacked and keep quiet about the rape, she
said.
"They told me, 'Are you aware that this is in
two newspapers?' making me feel as though it was
my fault their name was out there," said Legare,
who has returned to live in her home state of
Maine. "They made me feel horrible, that I
brought this upon myself. It was very intense
for me. I felt very intimidated by them."
- Michele Dargan
Palm Beach Daily News
Feb. 21, 2008
LibertadLatina
note:
Although the victim
of rape in the above-described case was not a
Latina, she was subjected to the same hostile
work environment that Latina women routinely
face from managers and supervisors in the low
wage workplace (restaurants, hotels, office
cleaning, etc.).
The following case
describes the horror that many Latina women face
in the U.S. workplace when faced with working
for men who believe in the code of machismo.
As in the Florida
case, this case from Chuck Goolsby's past
advocacy work involved active participation by
corrupt business managers from the U.S., engaged
in hiding sex crimes against women in the
workplace, including the use of intimidation and
illegal retaliatory firings against the victims.
The rape with impunity of
women and girl cleaning workers at Computer Data
Systems (then a major contractor to the U.S.
Government) in Rockville, Maryland - 1993-1994.
- Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
Feb. 21, 2008
Added Feb. 20, 2008
Bolivia
FELCC encuentra 29.528
fotografías y 573 videos de pornografía infantil
During a February 14th press conference
presented by the Human Trafficking and Slavery
Division of Bolivia's Special Force to Combat
Crime (FELCC), director Major Adolfo Cárdenas
announced that an October, 2007 raid by his
agency in the capitol city of La Paz had
recovered 29,528 photos and 573 videos of child
pornography, stored on CDs, DVDs and VHS video
tape.
The raid followed-up on Interpol leads provided
by police in the German city of Baden, who had
tracked a child pornography web site to web
servers located in Bolivia.
Major Cárdenas stated that children from the age
of 8 months through adolescence were seen in the
videos.
Voices heard in the background on the tapes were
in English, Russian, Portuguese and Spanish,
leading authorities to speculate that the tapes
were made elsewhere, and that Bolivia was being
used to distribute the illegal porn.
The FELCC is working on three similar cases
developed through leads from Austria, Spain and
its own local investigations.
- www.LosTiempos.com
Cochabamba
- Bolivia
Feb. 15,
2008
Added Feb. 20, 2008
Florida, USA
Deland - A Central Florida
woman whose 17-year-old daughter was killed in a
murder-suicide apparently committed by her
ex-boyfriend said the teen was told by police to
stop calling for help or she'd be arrested.
- www.Local6.com
Orlando, Florida
Feb. 19,
2008
Added Feb. 20, 2008
Arizona, USA
Phoenix - A Mexican man has been sentenced to
life in prison plus seven years after being
found guilty by a federal jury of multiple
charges for his role in a violent
smuggling-related hostage incident investigated
by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE)...
Bernardo Mancinas-Flores, 29 of Escuinapa,
Sinaloa, Mexico,
along with at least two others, was part of a
violent group of alien smugglers. In October
2005, they were found holding 15 illegal aliens,
including a 3-year-old girl, in a house in
Phoenix. While at the house, the illegal aliens
were held at gunpoint and threatened with death.
In addition, two adult female victims were
sexually assaulted at gunpoint by Mancinas-Flores.
Three victims of the hostage-taking ordeal gave
emotional testimony at trial...
- U.S. ICE
Feb. 12,
2008
Added Feb. 20, 2008
Texas, USA
Houston — The U.S. Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
announced today that a federal district court
jury returned a verdict yesterday for the EEOC
in the amount of $110,000 against a Houston dry
cleaner for sexual harassment. The EEOC had
charged that the owner of Bellair Cleaners,
Inc., doing business as Park Avenue Cleaners,
Bellair Cleaners, and Your Valet (Park Avenue
Cleaners), harassed a female employee, then aged
19, and other women.
The EEOC’s lawsuit
(Civil Action No. H-06-3004 in U.S. District
Court for the Southern District of Texas,
Houston Division) charged the owner with
egregious misconduct and presented evidence at
trial that the young female victim had been
inappropriately touched by Nazir Ali, the
company’s male owner, who besieged her with his
offensive remarks, and kept her against her will
during a long car ride while he graphically
described his sexual appetites and intent to
have sex with her against her will...
- U.S. EEOC
Feb. 19,
2008
Added Feb. 17, 2008
Mexico
TLCAN agravó marginación y
pobreza de mujeres campesinas
Mexico City - A feminist
coalition representing the interests of all sectors
of women women, with a special focus on the rights
of indigenous and other rural and farm women, has
denounced the fact that the North American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA), signed in 1994, has
seriously damaged the quality of life of rural
Mexican women, who have been forced to sustain
communities as heads of households, without access
to jobs or land.
In a recent press
release, the group noted that because of severe
poverty caused by NAFTA, almost 7,000 indigenous
women from the Nahua, Tlapaneca and Mixtec tribes,
including pregnant women and young girls, have had
to migrate to far-away farm labor jobs in the states
of Sinaloa, Sonora, Jalisco and Baja California.
From
the press release:
"We as women say no to
abandoning our rural communities, a situation that
forces women to support their families by themselves
[due to migration] and that leaves women without
access to land [NAFTA exposed indigenous communal
lands to provatization]. We also say NO to social
programs that oblige us to work for free and that
coerce us into supporting the political party in
power."
"We disagree completely
with the privatization of health services, which
puts critical issues such as maternal mortality,
which claimed 1,242 women's lives in one recent
year, at risk. Many of the victims were indigenous
women from the states of Guerrero, Chiapas and
Oaxaca."
In the face of this
crisis, "the women Mexico say no to NAFTA and yes to
constructing a nation with social justice and
equality for women."
The organizations
participating in the coalition include The National
Coordination of Indigenous Women (CNMI), the
Commission on Gender Equality of the National Union
of Workers (UNT), the New Democratic Labor Movement
(SNTE), the Aliance for Democracy National Network
and the Network for Sexual and Reproductive Rights
in Mexico (DDSER).
- CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
Mexico City
Feb. 15, 2008
Added Feb. 17, 2008
Ohio, USA
Hamilton - Teenage siblings
took the stand Monday morning and tearfully
recounted the sexual abuse they allegedly suffered
while visiting a family friend's St. Clair Township
home.
Teodoro Martinez, also
known as Cezar Flores, 37, was charged with two
counts of rape earlier this month for allegedly
performing sex acts on the two sisters, ages 13 and
14, at his residence in the 1800 block of
Wayne-Madison Road. Butler County Sheriff's
detectives believe Martinez is an [undocumented]
immigrant.
...[The 14 year-old
victim] "I was trying to get him off of me, but he
was too strong," she said, added she eventually
passed out. During the assault, the victim said
Martinez's wife was on the opposite end of the
couch...
- Lauren Pack
Oxford Press
Feb.11, 2008
Added Feb. 17, 2008
Austria
Vienna - Human trafficking is
a modern form of slavery that must not be tolerated,
a senior U.N. official and celebrities said
Wednesday.
Pop star Ricky Martin, Oscar-winning actress Emma
Thompson and Egyptian first lady Suzanne Mubarak
were among dignitaries who urged action at a
three-day U.N. conference on trafficking.
"Two hundred years after the end of the
trans-Atlantic slave trade, we have the obligation
to fight a crime that has no place in the 21st
century," said Antonio Maria Costa, head of the U.N.
Office on Drugs and Crime.
"Let's call it what it is: modern slavery," he said.
...Martin said he first witnessed the horror of
human trafficking during a trip to India several
years ago.
"My hope is to secure every child the right to be a
child," said Martin, a five-time Grammy winner who
has set up a foundation for children. "Human
trafficking has no place in our world today and my
slogan is: `React. It's time."
- Veronka Oleksyn
Associated Press
Feb. 14, 2008
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