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Noticias de Febrero, 2009
February 2009 News
Mexico
César Camacho, presidente de la Comisión de Justicia de
México, indicó que "urge combatir el delito de trata de personas"
Tabasco - México - A pesar de reiterados exhortos del Poder
Legislativo, el presidente Felipe Calderón se ha negado a la fecha a
expedir el reglamento de la Ley General para Prevenir y Sancionar la
Trata de Personas, a fin de que se cuente con instrumento normativo
más eficaz en el combate de ese delito, sostuvo el presidente de la
Comisión de Justicia, César Camacho. Así lo denunció en el segundo
seminario internacional "Mejores prácticas para combatir la trata de
personas", donde explicó que con la norma reglamentaria ya debería
estar formada la Comisión Intersecretarial y que también amplía el
instrumental jurídico para que las dependencias del Ejecutivo,
puedan participar como la ley lo ordena.
Camacho puntualizó que el plazo para emitir el reglamento
que crea la Comisión Intersecretarial venció hace 11 meses. "Por lo
que una vez más, con enorme respeto republicano, pero con la firmeza
que el caso demanda, hago desde aquí un llamado a la congruencia y
al cumplimiento de una obligación jurídica para que pronto se expida
ese reglamento".
César Camacho, president of the Commission on Justice
Affairs in Mexico's Chamber of Deputies, declares an "urgent need to
combat the crime of trafficking in persons"
Tabasco state - According
to
congressman Cesar Camacho, [of the PRI- (Institutional Revolutionary
Party), and] the chairman of the Commission on Justice Affairs in
the Chamber of Deputies [lower house of Congress], President
Felipe Calderón has,
despite repeated calls from the nation's Congress,
to date refused
to issue the regulations that are needed to put in force the
Law to Prevent and Punish Trafficking.
Camacho
presented his views at the second international seminar on
"Best Practices in Combating Trafficking in Persons." Camacho added
that the publication of the federal regulations associated with the
law will allow for the formation of the required Inter-Ministerial
Commission [that will coordinate inter-agency efforts]. Publication
will also extend the legal tools available to the executive branch,
as the law mandates.
Camacho noted that the [President's] deadline for issuing
the regulation establishing the
Inter-Ministerial
expired 11 months ago. "So once again, with great respect
to the Republic, but with the firmness that this case demands,
I call, from this place, for [federal] compliance with the legal
obligation to issue such regulations soon."
Camacho added that this is an old
problem with new name. He said that we should be motivated not only
out of general concern,
but because this problem [human trafficking] is the third most profitable illegal
business [globally] after drug trafficking and arms sales.
He noted that this law must have teeth, stating that
the nation needs an additional [legal] instrument to allow
[anti-trafficking] efforts to become doubly effective.
The President initially showed a great
interest in the issue. Unfortunately, [now] "he seems not to
sympathize with the facts on the ground."
Although [the law] created a special prosecutor for
trafficking, "unfortunately the results have been much less that we
had all hoped for."
Roberto Barboza
Sosa
El Universal
Feb. 27, 2009
Mexico
Más de 20 mil niños vendidos a pedófilos, acusa senadora
Al señalar que en América Latina más de 20 mil niños de los
países pobres son vendidos a pedófilos en Estados Unidos, Canadá y Europa, y que
unos 10 mil entre los nueve y 16 años de edad son destinados a prostíbulos, la
senadora priísta María Elena Orantes exigió que se impulsen campañas contra el
maltrato y abuso sexual de los chavos en escuelas públicas y privadas del nivel
preescolar, primaria y secundaria, así como en guarderías y casas de asistencia.
La legisladora chiapaneca presentó ante el pleno del Senado
un punto de acuerdo en el que se exhorta al presidente Felipe Calderón para que
a través de la Secretaría de Educación Pública (SEP), en coordinación con el
Sistema DIF nacional y de las entidades federativas, así como con el Instituto
Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS), entre otras dependencias, realicen acciones
para detectar, frenar y prevenir abusos a los menores.
Senator: More than 20,000 children are sold to
pedophiles from the
United States, Canada and Europe
Noting that in Latin America more than 20,000 children from
poor countries are sold to pedophiles in the United States, Canada and Europe,
and about 10,000 children between 9 and 16 years of age are destined to be sold
to brothels, Senator Maria Elena Orantes of PRI [the Institutional Revolutionary
party] has demanded that the government engage in educational campaigns against
child sexual abuse in public and private preschools, elementary and secondary
schools and in kindergartens, and in foster homes.
Mexico City - Senator Maria Elena Orantes (PRI) of Chiapas
state has presented to the full Senate a resolution that demands that president
Felipe Calderón begin a campaign to detect, deter and prevent abuse of minors
through the efforts of the Public Education Secretariat (SEP) in coordination
with the national and state DIF social services agencies and the Mexican
Institute of Social Security, among other agencies.
Senator Orantes Lopez asked President Calderón to expedite
the delivery of the [now long-delayed] regulations [that will put into force]
the Law to Prevent and Punish Trafficking in Persons and the National Program to
Prevent and Punish Trafficking in Persons.
The senator emphasized that special
attention must be paid to addressing the problem of [Central and South American]
migrant women and children.
Senator Orantes Lopez explained that the sexual outrages
facing children
are becoming worse with every passing day. According to a number of studies, the
[average] victim is between 11 and 15 years of age…
Juan Garciaheredia
El Sol de Mexico
Feb. 29, 2009
Mexico
El combate a la trata de personas está rezagado
Aunque a finales de 2007
entró en vigor la Ley para Prevenir y Sancionar la Trata de Personas, expertos
advierten que faltan muchos puntos por cumplirse para combatir el problema. La
ONU ha señalado incluso negligencia oficial
Los “enganchadores” ubican a
las jovencitas más atractivas en centrales camioneras, estaciones del Metro o a
través de internet. Saben aprovecharse de las condiciones de pobreza y exclusión
en las que viven muchas de ellas, por lo que comienzan el engaño ofreciéndoles
trabajo, una relación sentimental o nuevas oportunidades de vida. Sólo es
cuestión de tiempo para que varias terminen siendo explotadas sexualmente.
Aunque a finales de 2007
entró en vigor la Ley para Prevenir y Sancionar la Trata de Personas, expertos
advierten que faltan muchos puntos por cumplirse para combatir el problema. La
ONU ha señalado incluso negligencia oficial.
La incapacidad institucional
para tipificar el delito ha impedido, a niveles federal y local, que miembros de
redes criminales sean procesados y condenados.
The fight
against trafficking in persons is lagging
Although by the end of 2007 the Law to Prevent and Punish Trafficking in Persons
came into force, experts warn that many steps that have not been taken to combat
the problem. The United Nations has even called attention to official
negligence.
The
"recruiters" locate the most attractive girls in buses, at metro stations and
through the internet. They know how to take advantage of the conditions of
poverty and exclusion that many of these girls live in. So the deception begins
by offering the girl work, a love affair or new opportunities in life. It's just
a matter of time before they end up being sexually exploited.
Although the
Law to Prevent and Punish Trafficking in
Persons had been passed in 2007 [it is still awaiting published regulations from an
unwilling President Calderon to actually bring it into force], experts warn that many
tools are lacking to effectively combat the problem. United Nations officials
have even taken note of the involvement of 'official negligence.'
An
institutional inability to define the offense of trafficking has prevented
federal and local governments from prosecuting and convicting members of these
criminal networks.
For example,
the Special Prosecutor for Crimes of Violence against Women and Trafficking in
Persons (of the Attorney General’s office) investigates only those cases where
organized crime is involved, where the victims were trafficked to another
country, or where public servants are involved in a case.
Mexico
lacks a comprehensive assessment of the extent, number of victims and social costs of
human trafficking…
Evangelina Hernandez
El Universal
Feb. 27 2009
Gautemala
Llaman a romper el silencio de crímenes sexuales cometidos
durante la guerra
Integrantes de diversas organiza-ciones, que velan
por la vigencia de los derechos de las guatemaltecas, hicieron un llamado a la
población para que rompa el silencio que impide que los crímenes sexuales
cometidos durante el conflicto armado interno sean llevados a la justicia.
De acuerdo con un comunicado, 10 años han pasado
desde que la Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico (CEH) presentó el
Informe “Memoria del Silencio”, que documenta las violaciones a los derechos
humanos, entre ellas crímenes sexuales ejecutados por el Ejército y las
patrullas de autodefensa civil, masivamente contra mujeres mayas.
La información señala que la violación sexual fue
sistemáticamente utilizada como arma de guerra en el marco de la política
contrainsurgente del Ejército y como constitutiva del genocidio y el feminicidio,
sin embargo, una cultura de silencio ha rodeado ese tipo de casos...
Civil
organizations call on the population to break the wall of silence about sex
crimes committed during the civil war
Guatemala City - Members of human rights organizations have called
upon the people of Guatemala to break the wall of silence that has
prevented discussion of bringing those responsible for sex crimes
committed during the internal armed conflict to justice.
According to a press release, 10 years have passed since the
Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH) presented its report
entitled "Memory of Silence," which documented the human rights
violations perpetrated during the war, including
mass sexual
crimes carried out by Army units and civilian self-defense patrols
directed against Mayan women.
The
information indicates that rape was systematically used as a weapon
of war under the Army's counterinsurgency policy and as an element of
genocide and femicide. However today, a culture of silence surrounds
these cases.
Despite the gravity of such crimes, the justice system has failed to
address the demands of thousands of victims, and to date not one
trial has been held related to acts of sexual violence carried out against women during
armed conflict…
The
Center for Legal Action on Human Rights (CALDH), the Women's Earth
Viva (AMTV), the National Union of Guatemalan Women (UNAMG), the
Human Rights Office of the Archbishop (ODHAG), the Maya Waqib ' Kej
National Convergence and the Association of Families of the
Detained and Disappeared of Guatemala (FAMDEGUA), among others, signed
the declaration.
Cerigua
Feb 25, 2009
LibertadLatina
About the crisis facing indigenous
women and girls in Guatemala
Mexico
Preocupa a ombudsman tabasqueño incidentes
relacionados con la trata de blancas en las fronteras del país.
80% de migrantes sufren
explotación sexual: CEDH
Villahermosa, Tabasco - La impunidad en
México hace cada vez más grave el problema de la trata de blancas,
aseguró el presidente de la CEDH, Jesús Manuel Argáez de los Santos,
luego de advertir que el 80 por ciento de los migrantes que llegan
al país son capturados para su explotación sexual.
Al respecto, el titular de la Comisión
Estatal de Derechos Humanos (CEDH), se dijo alarmado por la
creciente cifra de incidentes relacionados con la trata de blancas
en las fronteras del país, relacionadas también con violaciones a
los derechos humanos sexuales y económicos.
“Tenemos datos generales sobre el número
aproximado de migrantes que sufren violaciones a sus derechos, tal
parece que el 80 por ciento de los migrantes que vienen de tránsito
por el territorio nacional sufren violaciones de sus derechos
sexuales, agresiones y otras cuestiones, sigue habiendo una frontera
sin control”, expuso el ombudsman tabasqueño.
Tabasco state’s
human rights ombudsman raises alarm about rapid increase in human
trafficking along Mexico’s southern border
According to the state’s human rights commission, 80% of [Central
and South American] migrants suffer sexual exploitation
Villahermosa
city, Tabasco state - Impunity in Mexico is adding each day that
goes by to the crisis in human trafficking, according to Jesús
Manuel Argáez, president of the Tabasco Human Rights Commission. Argáez de los Santos notes that 80% of [female] migrants crossing
into Mexico are captured for purposes of sexual exploitation…
Argáez de los
Santos: "We have data on the approximate number of migrants who
suffer violations of their rights, it seems that 80 percent of
migrants who transit through our territory suffer violations of
their sexual rights, assault and [robbery].
Argáez de los
Santos: "This is not so much about increasing penalties. It is that
there is impunity, which does not penalize those who violate the
rule of law. In this context, we are talking about the victimization
of undocumented migrants - women and children. There are also
thefts, assaults and [exploitation] through offering very low-paying
salaries.”
"We must
remember that we always demand that Mexicans who emigrate to the
United States be treated with dignity. We also have an obligation to
offer the same dignity to people who come here from other countries
in the world," Argáez de los Santos said.
Argáez de los
Santos added that the National Migration Institute has carried out
arrests and has reported to the state in regard to some criminal
organizations involved, but unfortunately, the problem is still
occurring along the southern border and is quite serious.
Por: Víctor Esquivel
www.tabascohoy.com.mx
Feb. 27, 2009
Massachusetts
MHS student charged with raping three... girls
Marblehead - An 18-year-old Marblehead High School junior is being
held on $75,000 bail at the Essex House of Correction in Middleton
after being charged Thursday with three counts of rape of a child
with force and two counts of attempting to intimidate a witness.
Joshua Rodriguez, 29 Bennett Road, was
arrested in Marblehead Wednesday afternoon. He pleaded not guilty to
all charges during his bail hearing at Lynn District Court.
According to police reports, Rodriguez
is being charged with raping three Marblehead middle-school-aged
girls who separately reported the assaults to police within the last
few weeks.
The latest incident was reported by one
of the girls during school hours. After telling several friends
about what had happened, she was encouraged to tell her school nurse
that Rodriguez had raped her a week earlier, on Feb. 4...
By Nikki Gamer
Marblehead Register
Feb 22, 2009
Added: Feb. 26, 2009
Florida, USA
 |
|
Rape suspects Richard Morales-Marin,24, and
Juan Hernandez-Monzavlo,25, have
confessed to raping
an 11-year-old girl. |
[Sex worker] raped in house where child was
attacked will not seek charges
A
prostitute who reported she was raped in the same vacant house where
an 11-year-old Orlando girl was raped last week is declining to
press charges.
The
woman, who works along South Orange Blossom Trail, told
investigators "that no one would ever believe a prostitute was
raped," according to an incident report released late Thursday...
Two
men, Richard Morales-Marin, 23, of Guerrero, Mexico, and Juan
Hernandez-Monzalvo, 24, of Hidalgo, Mexico, are being held without
bail on charges of raping the 11-year-old early Feb. 5 in a vacant
pink house at 2506 Rose Blvd. Hernandez-Monzalvo previously lived in
the house, records show…
The
11-year-old told investigators she was kidnapped on her way to
school by two men in a car as she walked along Lancaster Road near
South Orange Blossom Trail. She said they returned her to the area
after raping her at the Rose Boulevard house…
Morales-Martin has been linked by DNA to the January 2008 rape of a
pregnant teenager near the Florida Mall. Orange County detectives
are looking at other rapes to see whether Morales-Martin and
Hernandez-Monzalvo could be involved, according to sex-crimes Sgt.
Richard Mankewich...
Henry Pierson Curtis, Bianca Prieto and Amy L.
Edwards
Orlando Sentinel
Feb. 13, 2009
Added: Feb. 25, 2009
United States
Rescata FBI a 48 menores sometidos a explotación sexual
La
Oficina Federal de Investigaciones (FBI) informó hoy que rescató a 48 menores de
edad que eran explotados sexualmente en diversas ciudades de Estados Unidos,
donde detuvo a 571 acusados de tráfico y prostitución de menores.
sdpnoticias.com
Feb. 23, 2009
Forty-Eight Children Recovered in Operation
Cross Country III
During the past week, the FBI joined its law
enforcement partners in a three-day national enforcement action as
part of the Innocence Lost National Initiative.
This operation, known as Operation Cross Country
III, included enforcement operations in 29 cities across the country
and led to the recovery of 48 children being prostituted
domestically. Additionally, 571 criminals were arrested on a
combination of state and federal charges for the domestic
trafficking of children for prostitution and solicitation.
"We
continue to pursue those who exploit our nation's children,” said
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III. “We may not be able to return
their innocence but we can remove them from this cycle of abuse and
violence.”
...To date, the 32 Innocence Lost Task Forces and
Working Groups have recovered 670 children. The investigations and
subsequent convictions have resulted in lengthy sentences, including
multiple 25-years-to-life sentences and the seizure of more than $3
million in assets.
U.S. FBI
Feb. 23, 2009
Added: Feb. 22, 2009
Mexico
 |
|
Nuevo Laredo, Mexico and
Laredo, Texas
Map-of-Mexico.uk |
|
Aflora la explotación sexual infantil en la frontera
Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas.- La delincuencia organizada que
opera en esta frontera, utiliza a menores de edad para el comercio sexual,
principalmente a niñas de entre 12 y 16 años de edad, a las que engañan para
introducirlas en este ilícito negocio del que difícilmente pueden escapar,
reveló Norma Ortiz, coordinadora del programa Menores en Condiciones
Extremadamente Difíciles (Meced), del sistema DIF.
Las víctimas son por lo general, niños y niñas que llegan
solos desde el interior del país para intentar cruzar la frontera y reunirse con
sus familiares que ya viven en Estados Unidos.
Son reclutados cerca de los puentes internacionales al
aceptar regalos y dinero.
Child prostitution
flourishes along the Mexico / U.S. border
Nuevo Laredo
city, in Tamaulipas state – According to Norma Ortiz, coordinator of the program
Minors in Extremely Difficult Conditions of the government’s DIF social
services agency, organized crime groups operating in this Mexico/U.S. border
city exploit minors, especially girls between 12 and 16 years of age, for the
sex trade. The girls are tricked, and once trapped, they find it difficult to escape
from their captors.
The typical victim
is a youth who arrived alone from the interior of the country, and who is trying
to cross the border to join her relatives already living in the United States.
Traffickers
intercept these youth near the international border crossings, and entice them
with gifts and offers of money...
Last year, the U.S.
organization
Shared Hope International (SHI) revealed that
child prostitution is a market that is driven by men who will pay large sums of
money to have sex with children.
SHI estimates that
up to 50,000 children and youth are victims of sexual exploitation along
Mexico’s border with the U.S.
[Note: much of this
prostitution caters to men from the U.S.]
Last year, Ortiz
found 4 cases of children who were sexually exploited, and managed to rescue and
deliver them to their parents. Due to threats from these crime groups, the
families decided to leave the city without filing criminal complaints.
"We worked
hard with families and schools to raise awareness of this problem and to provide
greater protection for these children, but much remains to be done," said Ortiz.
Gastón Monge
EnLíneaDIRECTA
Feb. 23, 2009
See also:
En Tamaulipas, sigue en aumento niños que viven en la calle
Tamaulipas sees an increasing number
of children living on the street
www.HoyTamaulipas.net
Feb. 02, 2009
Added: Feb. 22, 2009
Peru
 |
|
Protesters, including
Congresswoman Hilaria Supa,
gather outside of a govern-ment building in Cusco in October
2008 to raise awareness about the victims of former president
Alberto Fujimori’s 1990's forced indigenous sterilization
program. |
|
[Case
of 300,000 forcibly
sterilized
indigenous women
is re-opened
in Peru]
The investigation into the
forced sterilization of 300,000 indigenous Peruvian women is being
re-opened, according to the Public Ministry of Peru. This follow-up
effort was announced Jan. 7, 2009 and will seek out the program’s adminis-trators. It had been part of the larger case against former
Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, who is facing other criminal
counts.
Fujimori is awaiting the
final disposition of his case in which he is being charged with
kidnapping as well as ordering two massacres that resulted in the deaths
of 25 people. If convicted he faces up to 30 years in prison. The
original charges against him involved other human rights violations
including his knowing supervision of the forced sterilization of
indigenous women. The so-called “Voluntary Surgical Contraception”
Program was enacted between 1997 and 2000...
“…The forced sterilizations
focused on poor, indigenous, Quechua-speaking and Aymara women,” said
women’s rights advocate Maria Esther Mogollon. She is a member of MAM
Fundacional, the women’s rights organization that helped a group of
victims present their case to federal authorities.
“The total number came to
be 300,000 women and 22,000 men (who received vasectomies). … the
majority of whom did not sign informed consent statements and were also
subjected to threats, coercion and other violations.
[A victim:]
“They came for me many times, trying to convince me to
have the operation. They tried to make my husband sign a paper and they
told him it would make me well. But as he was illiterate, he didn’t know
what the document said. Then they threatened my husband that if he
didn’t take me to the clinic the police would take him to prison.
Out of fear my husband asked me to go.”
|
Rick Kearns
Indian Country Today
Feb. 20, 2009
See also:
[Peruvian indigenous
congresswoman] Hilaria Supa Huamán Visits
Allentown, Pennsylvania
 |
|
English translation of Hilaria Supa Huamán's
book: Threads of My Life
|
...The [Peruvian]government,
with the financial assistance of the United States, Japan, the European Union
and the World Bank, started a sterilization campaign, on the theory that if
there were fewer poor, there would be less poverty. 300,000 [indigenous] women
and 20,000 men were sterilized, often without consent, during eye or dental
surgery. Many are still in pain and disabled from these
forced surgeries.[Congress-woman Hilaria Supa] was wheelchair bound for
seven years after the birth of her daughter.
Congresswoman Supa went to the city as
a young woman, learned Spanish, worked hard, went to school, and converted her
understanding of life as a poor woman to a life of organizing and struggle for
women and all people. She has been a force for land reform, for women’s rights
and indigenous rights in Peru. She wrote a book,
"Threads of My Life - The Story of Hilaria Supa Huaman, A
Rural Quechua Woman"
Joe DeRaymond
Lehigh Valley Independent Press
April 29, 2008
LibertadLatina
The crisis
facing indigenous women in Peru
LibertadLatina
The crisis of forced
sterilization facing indigenous,
Afro-descendent and Latina women in the
Americas
|
|
Added: Feb. 18, 2009
Mexico
En México, “especie de esquizofrenia” frente a
los derechos de las mujeres
Persistencia del femicidio en todo el país; impunidad en Atenco,
donde mujeres fueron torturadas y violadas por policías; asesinato y
hostigamiento judicial contra comunicadoras; impedimento para que
las menores de edad o con deficiencia mental, violadas y por ello
embarazadas, interrumpan la gestación; muerte de mujeres al dar a
luz por falta de servicios médicos; imparable incremento de la trata
de personas, así como la constante amenaza de que el Ejército cometa
más abusos contra mujeres y que no haya castigo, son sólo ejemplos
denunciados por la sociedad civil del incumplimiento del gobierno
federal para proteger los derechos humanos de las mujeres.
The following are observations from the journalists at CIMAC
Noticias, a women’s human rights press agency in Mexico City
[Today we find in Mexico:] the continuation of
femicide across the country; impunity in the [recent negative Supreme
Court ruling in the] case of Atenco, where women were tortured and
raped by policemen; killings and judicial harassment targeting women
journalists; the denial of abortion to underage girls and mentally
handicapped women who have been raped [as in a recent case involving
8 indigenous women victims]; the deaths of women during childbirth
due to a lack of medical services; an unstoppable increase in human
trafficking; as well as the constant threat that Army personnel will
continue to
abuse
[physically and sexually] more women
without punishment…
These
are but a few examples of cases where Mexico’s
federal government has failed to protect the human rights of women.
CIMAC Noticias
Introduction to a special news
section
Feb. 17, 2009
Added: Feb. 15, 2009
Updated Feb. 19, 2009
The Americas
|
 |
|
Ambassador Albert R. Ramdin of
Suriname, Assistant Secretary General of the Organization of the
American States |
OAS heralds a "new moment of change" in the West
From a recent lecture at
the University of the West Indies
...Clearly the world is, as ever, in a state of flux. With regard to the Western
Hemisphere, there are three fundamental changes taking place that I wish to
address.
Firstly, some 30 years ago in Latin America, there were still dictatorships.
Since then Latin America has gone through a democratization process that has
brought to the fore different ideological, political, economic and social
interests within and among countries and sub-regions. Democracy has also created
political space for previously marginalized groups in society, such as women,
youth and indigenous people.
Secondly, more recently, since 2006, we have witnessed a significant turnover,
through democratic means, in the political leadership of the hemisphere, with
more than 20 countries undergoing general elections... During this period,
roughly two-thirds of the peoples of the Americas have been involved in some
sort of electoral process.
Thirdly, although some progress has been made, the Latin American and Caribbean
region, despite reasonable economic growth, continues to have unacceptable high
levels of poverty. Latin America itself has the highest
levels of income inequality in the world and some 220 million people live on
less than US$2 a day. The resulting sense of hopelessness,
marginalization and exclusion is a key contributing factor to insecurity in the
region.
...What
is worrying is that the relative political and economic gains over the last two
decades might now be in danger of being dramatically eroded by the global
financial crisis and political differences, as well as by more specific
challenges arising from threats to food and energy security, the environmental
crisis, and the violence associated with organized crime, youth gangs, and the
illegal trade in drugs and firearms...
Indeed,
many believe that today Latin America and the Caribbean are marked by the
highest level of tension and insecurity within and between nations since the end
of the Cold War.
More
than ever, the origins of these problems are intra-state or domestic. That is,
they are related to social, environmental and economic difficulties, such as in
Haiti; ethnic divisions, such as those arising from the new-found political
power of the indigenous people of Bolivia and conflict with traditional elites;
and the search for a new model of “participatory democracy” as opposed to more
conventional “representative democracy...”
The
expectations of the region with regard to US relations with... Latin America and
the Caribbean in general may not be wholly met at the forthcoming [April, 2009]
5th Summit of the Americas. But it is anticipated that the United States will
seize the opportunity to make a major statement on improving relations with the
rest of the hemisphere..., especially on issues such as development and the
fight against poverty, the pending approval of the free trade agreements with
Colombia and Panama, global warming and the effects of climate change, organized
crime, narco-trafficking, the illegal trafficking in arms, deportees and
security in general...
Albert R. Ramdin
OAS Assistant Secretary General
Jan. 29, 2009
Note: The 5th Summit of the Americas
will take place in Trinidad and Tobago on April 17-19, 2009.
LibertadLatina
Commentary:
We
at
Libertad Latina
enthusias-tically agree with Organization of American States' Assistant Secretary
General, Albert R. Ramdin's comments in regard to the fact that the election of U.S.
President Barak Obama has opened up new opportunities for progress in the
relationship between the United States and the other nations of the Americas.
We encourage the Obama
Administ-ration to move beyond the political viewpoints that previously dominated federal
agency thinking about responses to human slavery. These viewpoints had caused
the near-disappearance of Latin America from the radar screen as a recognized
and targeted focal point of
crisis
in regard to criminal
sex and labor trafficking.
During the past eight years, the acute severity of
the crisis facing at-risk and trafficked women and children in the region had not been
matched by a commensurate level of urgent response from the U.S. federal government. Non-governmental anti-trafficking groups and academics had also been
slow to respond to this most glaring and well-documented example of impunity and mass gender
violence on the world stage... the tortured case of Latin America.
The modern anti-trafficking
move-ment grew out of efforts in the 1990's in advanced western nations to
address the plight of sex trafficking victims in Eastern Europe and Russia in the aftermath of the
fall of the Soviet Union. Asia became an additional area of focus. Both
populations, as well as U.S. born trafficking victims (a more recent priority
for the movement) have received
well-deserved attention from U.S. agencies and the many non-governmental organizations
that are
working to combat slavery.
But where has the response been
to the crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean?
We have not seen that response,
a point that is not lost on the traffickers.
Five years ago an
anti-trafficking activist working in Washington, DC insisted during a
conversation with me that no human
slavery problem existed in Latin America, because that is what his women's
studies professors had taught him.
That lack of factual
information from academia (and elsewhere), together with the effects of traditional racial divides in U.S.
culture appear to have guided official and NGO strategic thinking in regard to
their failure to
create the needed official and NGO response to the mass victimi-zation of Afro-descendent,
indigenous and other poor women and children across Latin America by the
region's well-organized sex trafficking cartels.
A number of factors have caused
the Japanese Yakuzas (who have sex trafficked in women and girls from Colombia since the
1980s), the Russian mob, and the multi-billion dollar Colombian and
Mexican drug cartels (who double as extremely well-funded sex trafficking networks) to expand their
criminal operations exponentially across Latin America.
The key factors that
have facilitated this explosive growth in slavery involve: the continued unequal
status of women and ethnic minorities; the continued acceptance of impunity;
official corruption; low pay, poor training and a resulting indiffer-ence on the part of law enforcement
personnel; extreme poverty that causes young men to join gangs and mafias that
prey on women; the ease with which traffickers can kidnap, rape and enslave tens of
thousands of poor women and girls of all ages with impunity with absolutely no government response; and the fact that the United States government has not made combating
mass human slavery in the region a priority.
The global anti-trafficking movement and
government agencies under the last U.S. administ-ration did not demonstrate the required
political open-mindedness and agility that was needed to
shift gears and place an urgent emphasis
on saving lives in Latin America in response to this emergency.
For example, during August of
2008
I attended a major trafficking
conference in Washington, DC, where most of the conservative
anti-trafficking thought leaders were present, as well as the U.S. State Department's head of
the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) office, Dr. Mark P. Lagon. During the entire 5
hour session, the only mention made of Latin America was by me during the
question and answer periods.
In response to a panel discussion at the
conference on anti-trafficking initiatives in the U.S., I mentioned that: 1) an
FBI agent had mentioned to me that a $60,000 a week Latino brothel operation
existed in Langley Park, Maryland, 10 miles directly north of the U.S. Capitol building,
and yet I had never seen any evidence that prosecutions came out of that
surveillance; and 2) that anti-trafficking activists have handed cases to the
FBI on "a silver platter" only to be ignored by agents and prosecutors (This was
told to me by a Ph.D. anti-trafficking special-ist in California, and it has also
been the
exper-ience of other activists whom I know in California, who advocate for Latina victims of
trafficking).
I concluded my comments by noting that in a number of cases, federal
prosecutors actually have not taken trafficking cases to court. A number of
people in the audience of 200 applauded what I had said.
During the question and answer
period following Dr. Lagon's remarks at this conference which spoke eloquently
about the problem of trafficking in Eastern Europe, Asia and the U.S. (but
without mention of Latin American issues), I stated in my question
to Dr. Lagon that a U.S.
immigration lawyer had been interviewed by a Spanish language newspaper
(in Mexico), and that he had stated that thousands of Mexican children and underage
youth were fleeing from
the hundreds of brothels on the U.S. border, many of them run by the Russian
mob. I stated that when they escape into the U.S. and are caught, they were not
being
afforded the 72 hour waiting period required by law and access to a lawyer, as
other arrested migrants, those not from Mexico, are given. I stated that in violation of the law, these minors were
being deported back into Mexico after only 24 hours.
As the moderator of the event
asked me to get to the question, I simply stated emphatically
What are you going to do about it?
Dr. Lagon responded by stating
that "all immigrants are God's children," but he did not clearly answer the
question, nor did he openly commit the TIP office to doing anything about the issue. After the
event, he did not appear to be too happy that I had raised these questions during
his filmed conference appearance (which is my subjective interpretation).
I also attended an
anti-trafficking conference of around 400 participants at the U.S. Congress
earlier in the George W, Bush Administration, where then Trafficking in Persons
office director
Ambass-ador John R. Miller was the keynote
speaker. Latin America was not discussed by the panelists, nor did those who
asked questions bring up the subject. However, I did pass out a
flyer regarding the work of
LibertadLatina
to the attendees.
Whatever the internal politics
were surrounding anti-trafficking policy in the last administration, Latin
America was not a priority for federal authorities.
The most recent U.S.
anti-trafficking legislation passed by Congress, the
William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection
Reauthorization Act of 2008, does, finally, have
'some' minimal provisions
that better protect minor victims of human trafficking.
Today, Latin America and Asia
both rank in the number one position globally in regard to the severity of their
human trafficking crises. Yet the U.S. response, to a threat that impacts the
U.S. internally, has been minimal.
The lack of action taken during the
past
8 years to address Latin America's emer-gency of sex and labor trafficking
could be compared to the George W. Bush administra-tion's lack of a timely response to
Hurricane Katrina.
We know that in the case of the
femicide in Mayan indigenous dominated
Guatemala, for example, the federal
response was one of silence, perhaps because the 1980's civil war, in which
200,000 people including 50,000 women were murdered by government forces, and in
which almost all Mayan women and girls were raped with impunity by soldiers, was
a war that conservatives in the U.S. supported then, and, in a historical
context, they continue to support.
The femicide today in Guatemala, with its rate of ten times the numbers of female murders
being committed than in the better-known femicide capitol of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, is
an outgrowth of the 1980's anti-Mayan genocide. Almost nobody is arrested and
prosecuted for kidnapping, raping, torturing and then murdering women in a
pattern that exists across that nation.
The silence on the part of the
last administration in this area gives the appearance that officials simply
preferred not to talk about the topic.
During the early 2000's, when I
participated actively in the listserv of the deservedly well-respected
conservative anti-trafficking pioneer Dr. Donna Hughes, I was literally banned
by her from the listserv when some of the 400 other members, who were mostly conservative
U.S. women
activists, started to protest the fact that I was raising the issue of the
femicide and 1980's genocide of Mayan peoples in Guatemala. It was a taboo
subject for them, femicide or not.
Feminists who also participated
in the listserv wrote to me to explain that such censorship of ideas began when
the moderator began writing for the conservative publication National Review
Online.
Is a continued denial of the
current femicide and the parallel crisis of the mass sex trafficking of Mayan women and young
girls from Guatemala today really a price that humanity (and Guatemalan women
and children) should pay because ideological
differences make the issue 'politically incorrect' for U.S. conservatives to
even mention?
We think
not!
Another act of the
administration of George W. Bush that appears to reinforce our concerns about a
deliberate effort to deny indigenous victims their equal rights centers on the
now infamous firings of 8 honest, hard-working U.S. attorneys by then U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez. Five
of the eight were members of a committee that worked to increase the dismal
federal prosecution rates in regard to cases involving indigenous victims of violent crime,
especially sexual assault.
Western U.S. states have a long
history of patterns of sexual assaults with impunity targeting indige-nous women
and girls. The firings gave the appear-ance that the U.S. Department of Justice
actually acted to protect the 80% of sexual assailants in these cases who are
white men. (This dynamic of impu-nity in western states also aids and abets the
sexual exploitation of Latina victims).
We also recognize that
progressives have a truly apathetic and disheartening record on
anti-trafficking issues. We commend the conservatives who made trafficking a
priority in the U.S., despite having to hold our nose at the fact that they left 'little
brown Maria in the brothel' out of the picture, and still in the
hands of her brutal enslaver.
Some aspects of the deliberate
omission from discussion of exploited Latin American and expatriate immigrant communities of
women and children may thus be
attributed to the dynamics of certain political ideologies.
That is to say,
alliances with like-minded political forces in Latin America likely lead some
conservative U.S. leaders to sweep glaring examples of corruption and impunity under the
carpet. Certainly there are no visible signs that offending governments were
ever confronted seriously, or threatened with the withholding of U.S. financial
support during this period.
A lack of serious response to
the institutionalized sexism of the conservative administration of President
Felipe Calderon of the Christian Democrat National Action Party (PAN) in
Mexico is one such clear example of the coddling of those who allow impunity to reign.
President Calderon is so bold that he dares (even after 4 warnings from Congress
during the last 9 months) to refuse to publish the regulations
needed to put Mexico's first national anti-trafficking law into effect.
For shame!!
It is also certainly possible that
outright racism and classism was being displayed by U.S. officials and NGOs,
targeted at the most vulnerable
black, indigenous and other poor populations of Latina victim communities...
during the time when this unofficial 'code of silence' about the horrors taking
place in Latin America was being enforced as
behind-the-scenes U.S. policy.
Indeed, the lack of action by
the U.S. could
be attributed to all of these above-listed factors.
These acts of omission resulted in
creating the near-invisibility of 'people of color from the
Americas' within U.S. anti-trafficking policy
discourse.
At the same time, it is also
under-stood that federal and NGO human trafficking policy and action were then, as they are
today, in an experimental stage of development, and therefore they had to be
expected to go through
'growing pains.'
Nonetheless, it has been our
repeated experience that the formal institutions that fight trafficking have
limited their consideration of the plight of black and brown women in Latin
America and the Caribbean, while emphasizing European, Asian and U.S. issues.
The current gap
in policy content focused on the Latin American and Caribbean crisis
also
extends globally. We recognize that virtually the entire
anti-trafficking movement has compiled wish-lists of well-considered recommendations
for the
Obama administration, ideas that are designed to address past dificiencies in U.S. anti-trafficking strategy,
tactics and infrastructure development both domestically and in the global
context.
Latina, Caribbean and black and
brown ethnic
minority women and children's interests must be represented as the
anti-trafficking movement and its U.S. federal agency allies work to re-align
national
policies in collaboration with the newly-inaugurated administration of
Barak Obama.
Simply appointing members of the
traditional Latino political leadership to address these issues is no guarantee
of providing resolution to the problem.
U.S. Latino organizations have
remained silent for the most part about the issue of human trafficking, except
in a few notable cases such as the private efforts of millionaire pop star
Ricky Martin.
In almost all cases, there are
no indige-nous, nor are there Afro-descendent activists represent-ed, a fact
that leaves the process open to the ugly dynamics of 'intra-Latino racism,
sexism and classism' (also known as negative machismo).
The continued exclusion
from anti-trafficking leader-ship roles of ethnic minorities from Latin America will only delay
the true resolution of this crisis, one which affects their communities
severely.
OAS Assistant Secretary
General
Ramdin's acknow-ledgement that Latin America today has the highest levels of
income inequality in the world, with some 220 million people living on less than
US$2 a day, should make it fairly self-explanatory to all parties that such
acute poverty has combined with criminal impunity, official
corruption and an $11 billion dollar global market for sex and labor slaves to put virtually all Latin American and Caribbean women and children at risk of becoming
victims of forced prostitution and peonage.
We encourage the Obama Administ-ration and U.S.
Secretary of State Hilary Clinton to develop a strong and creative strategy to
address human trafficking, as a key human rights component of their overall approach to
improving relations with the nations and peoples of the Americas.
Within that strategy, the communities who are the most
intensively targeted for enslavement, including all poor Latinas in general, as well as
Afro-descendent and indigenous peoples in particular, must have an equal seat at the table in
the areas of organized policy discussion, strategic planning and program
development. These important activities must take place to make future prevention and victim rescue and rehabilitation
efforts truly effective.
Today, consistent with the powerful history of
'negative-machismo' based gender, race and class prejudice in the region,
socially marginalized (and thus easily
victim-ized) populations remain not only without a seat at the table of
deliberation, but they are almost never even invited into the room - except,
literally, to serve the food.
That is not a flippant comment, and it is
not an exaggeration. It is just a
fact of life that we have lived through personally, and that we, in this generation, will
indeed
change. That change will only come about with popular support from
everyone... from
We the people!
Will you join us in that effort?
End impunity now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
Feb. 16/17,
2009
Updated Feb. 19, 2009
See also:
LibertadLatina
speaks out and advocates for Latina
women & girl's human rights at a Washington, DC International Organization
for Migration (IOM) conference on sex trafficking in Latin America
and the
Caribbean region attended by non-profits and U.S. State,
Justice and Homeland Security officials.
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
Dec. 18, 2003
Transition Report for the Next
Presidential Administration
[This document provides an
excellent analysis of policy and organizational change
require-ments for federal anti-trafficking effort improvement, but
at the same time it ignores the issues of racial, ethnic and class exclusion
that haunt current thinking by thought leaders in the
movement.]
The Action Group to End Human Trafficking and
Modern-Day Slavery
November, 2008
United States: Migration and
Trafficking in Women
Until recently, trafficking of women in the
United States was rarely acknowled-ged. It was not until
Russian and Ukrainian women began to be trafficked to the
United States in the early 1990s that governmental agencies
and many NGOs began to recognize the problem.
As many critics, including us, have pointed
out, Latin American and Asian women were trafficked into the
United States for many years prior to the influx of Russian
traffickers and trafficked women. The fact that it took
blond and blue-eyed victims to draw governmental and public
attention to trafficking in the United States gives, at
least, the appearance of racism...
Patricia Hyne
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women and
Children (CATW)
2002
ONU teme que la crisis financiera agrave la servidumbre por deudas
UN fears that the global financial crisis is worsening debt bondage
...The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that at least 1.3 million people are subjected to forced labor in Latin America and the Caribbean, of which 250,000 are also victims of trafficking.
Latin America suffers the second highest rate of forced labor in the world after
Asia...
www.bolpress.com
Dec. 10, 2008
Americas: Indigenous
People at High Risk
As the world marks the International Day of the
World's
Indigenous People, native peoples continue to be
the victims of human rights violations --
including killings and "disappear-ances" -- in
many parts of the Americas, Amnesty
International said today.
"Intimidation, harassment and violent attacks
against
indigenous communities are frequent occurrences
in countries including Honduras, Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico
and Venezuela," the organization added, calling on governments
throughout the region to ensure the rights of indigenous people are
fully respected.
International Secretariat
of Amnesty International
August 9, 2001
Twelve-year-old virgin Mexican girls,
for example, are sold to brothels in Spain for $25,000, but if a
beautiful young Indigenous girl is being sold, that raises the price
even more because she is 'exotic.'
-
Teresa Ulloa Latin
American and Caribbean director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in
Women (CATW)
- La Crónica de Hoy
México
Oct. 20, 2005
Abuse In Latin America Growing
Child sex abuse
and prostitution are rising in Latin America and children are
most threatened in Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic,
Venezuela and Cuba, United nations officials said Wednesday...
"Poverty and race ... are decisive. It is mainly poor, black
women who suffer the worst abuse."
Reuters, 1997
[U.S. Attorney
firings targeted effective prose-cutors of rape on
the reservation]
Crime-victim advocates from
Indian country have focused attention on the
pandemic of rape on Indian lands by whites and other
perpetrators. One in three Indian women will be
raped, and more than 70 percent of the rapists are
not Indian.
At the National Congress of American Indians'
mid-year conference in June [2007], Native women who
have worked for decades to end sexual violence on
Indian lands [discussed] the need for tribal
follow-up on the Adam Walsh Act and other subjects.
The meeting was attended by Margaret Chiara, who was
one of the eight U.S. Attorneys fired by the Bush
administration. Of those eight, she was one of the
five who served on the U.S. Attorneys' subcommittee
for Native issues.
Chiara said her office had increased prosecutions of... violent crimes and others on the
reservations in her western Michigan district by 85
percent by dedicating an attorney and one staff to
prosecutions of these cases.
Paul Charlton, the fired U.S. Attorney from Arizona,
said one of two reasons Justice told him he was
being fired was because he'd called on the FBI to
tape confessions. Charlton later said an FBI
policy against taping confessions harms the
prosecution rates of Indian child molestations
because molesters' confessions are often critical to
these cases.
Majel-Dixon and other Native women leaders say that
sexual predators target Indian lands because they
know that their chances of getting investigated and
prosecuted are slim. If these cases are prosecuted,
it is most likely by a tribal court which, under
federal law, can only impose a one-year sentence
even for the most violent rape by a repeat offender.
Native leaders say white rapists travel from
reservation to reservation offending...
- Indian Country Today
July 06, 2007
...Arlan Melendez, vice president of
the Inter-Tribal Council of Nevada: ''When you see
the Justice Department isn't really interested in
Indian country, and then you see them fire U.S.
attorneys who are taking an interest in Indian
country, you formulate your opinions from that.''
- Indian Country Today
July 20, 2007
The Sex Trafficking of
Children in San Diego, California
Tráfico y explotación sexual
de menores en San Diego
"...The girls that I saw that time
[in the fields] were very young, they were not over
14 years old. they had been sold a lot to 'los
gringos' (American men)." "This area is full of red
necks, they are far right-wing white American men to
whom they sell the virginity of little girls" notes
Patricia [a Latina medical
doctor paid with U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services funds to provide condoms to underage sex
slaves in these child rape camps, but who was
threatened by U.S. HHS if she dared to report the
camps to the press or the public].
I was present many times when these
gringos called Julio [Salazar] asking to be sent a
"cherry girl" (a virgin)...
-
El Universal
Mexico City
Jan. 09, 2003
Clinton says U.S. did
wrong in Central American wars
President Clinton admitted... to Guatemalans
that U.S. support for "widespread
repression" in their bloody 36-year civil
war was a mistake.
"For the United States, it is important that
I state clearly that the support for
military forces or intelligence units which
engaged in violent and widespread repression
... was wrong," Clinton said as he began a
round-table discussion on Guatemala's search
for peace...
As Clinton spoke, several hundred
demonstrators outside Guatemala City's
National Palace could be heard accusing the
United States of complicity in the war, in
which 200,000 people died, mainly Mayan
civilian peasants.
A
Guatemalan truth
commission last month told of
state-sponsored genocide and massacres in
one of the harshest rebukes of the horrors
of the conflict between the army and leftist
insurgents, which ended in 1996.
The commission also said U.S. military aid
and Central Intelligence Agency advisers
played a pivotal role in the bloodshed...
CNN
March 10,
1999
Al Menos Dos Millones de Latinoamericanos
son Víctimas del Tráfico de Personas, Dijo
la Organización Internacional para las
Migraciones (OIM).
International Organization for Migration
(IOM): At least 2 million Latin Americans
are victims of trafficking each year.
1.3 Million mostly
indigenous persons are enslaved
as agricultural and mining laborers,
primarily in Brazil, Peru y Bolivia.
Posted on Alianza Por Tus
Derechos
July, 2005
En desventaja, niños mexicanos indocumentados
Mexico's undocumented migrant children are at a disadvant-age
for refugee benefits
Thousands of children cross alone
into the U.S. each year to escape child sex trafficking networks .
Many of the 80,000 Mexican children who cross from Mexico into the U.S. alone,
as undocumented immigrants, are fleeing abuse at home, or are escaping from
child prostitution rings. As such, they
would possibly qualify for permission to stay in the United States.
These children would be able to avail themselves of this opportunity if U.S.
Border Patrol officers would provide them with the appropriate interview form,
as federal law requires. Instead, these minors are typically deported in less
than 24 hours after their arrests.
[Full
English
Translation]
Georgina Olson
Excélsior
July 3, 2008
Beyond Machismo - A Cuban Case Study
...All too often, we who are Hispanic
ethicists tend to identify oppressive structures of the dominant
Eurocentric culture while overlooking repression conducted within
our own community. I suggest that within the marginalized space of
the Latino/a community there exists intra-structures of oppression
along gender, race and class lines, creating the need for an ethical
initiative to move beyond, what Edward Said terms, "the rhetoric of
blame."
- Cuban-American
theologian and ethicist
Dr. Miguel de la Torre
Seis millones de niños muestran el rostro
de la violencia latinoamericana
Sumergida en la violencia la juventud latinoamericana·
Aproximadamente 80.000 pierden la vida por causa de ésta cada año
San José, Puerto Rico - El director regional para América
Latina y el Caribe de la Unicef, Nils Kastberg, manifestó en la
conferencia sobre Cultura de Paz y Prevención de la Violencia Juvenil
realizada en Costa Rica que, según estudios realizados en 17 países
latinoamericanos, "el 65 por ciento de los adolescentes se encuentran en
situación de violencia".
Six million children and youth live with
violence in Latin America
The
region’s youth are submerged in violence
Approximately 80,000 young people loose their lives to violence each year
UNICEF’s regional director for Latin America and
the Caribbean, Nils Kastberg, said at a Costa Rican conference on
developing a culture of peace and preventing youth violence… that
studies conducted in 17 Latin American countries show that "65 percent
of adolescents live in situations of violence."
…Statistics show that about two million children
are sexually exploited in the region, and in half the cases, the abusers
are living with them, while 75 per cent of all abusers are relatives of
the victims…
More than 5.7 million children between five and
14 years are economically active and approximately two million are
engaged in domestic service [a job where child sexual abuse is a
'traditional' and expected outcome.]
Latin America and the Caribbean… rank first [in the world]
in their rates of homicide impacting young people between the ages of 15 and 17. The rate is 37.7
per 100,000 for young men, and 6.5 young women per 100,000 inhabitants.
Irene González
PrimeraHora.com / ADNmundo.com
Nov. 19, 2007
More than 500,000 cases of human trafficking exist
in Mexico - Teresa Ulloa
Mexico City - According to a report by the [Latin
American and Caribbean branch of the] Coalition Against Trafficking in
Women and Girls (CATW-LAC), more than five million women and girls are
victims of human trafficking in Latin America and the Caribbean, said
Teresa Ulloa Ziaurriz, director of the CATW-LAC. She added that… more
than 500,000 of these cases take place in Mexico…
[Note: These numbers take into account the seldom
discussed reality that annual figures of victims trafficked add to a
cumulative total... a population that never goes away, until they die an
early death from the diseases and torture that go with sexual
enslave-ment.]
Colombia, according to official sources, is considered to
be the Latin American country most commonly used as a transit point for
women who were abducted for purposes of sexual exploitation in the
neighboring countries Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia…
According to
specialists at End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking
of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT) over 21,000 victims from
Central America, for the most part children, are forced into
prostitution in 1,552 brothels and bars in the border city of Tapachula,
in Mexico's [southern] Chiapas state...
These girls
are sold for a few dollars by traffickers, as outlined in [an article
in] Mexico's Contralínea magazine, which also documented the fact that these
mafia networks operate under the protection of corrupt local and federal
authorities...
Something
similar happens in Argentina, where... the northwest of the country is
full of brothels that exploit young women held against their will. The
victims are subjected not only to sexual humiliation to extreme
violence, but also to being forced to take toxic substances to make them
more “agreeable” with the clients...
CIMAC Noticias
Jan. 11, 2008
An estimated 500,000 girls younger than 16 are in
prostitution in the northeast states of Argentina.
Trafficking
Report - The Protection Project, Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced
International Studies,
Washington, DC
2001
Edition
Trafficking in Colombian women to the Asian
continent has become “a true
threat for thousands of Colombian women who end up as slaves in Japan
and other countries
Trafficking in Colombian women to Japan began in the
1980s, when the Japanese
Mafia began to make incursions in Colombian territory and decided to set
up their center of operations in certain regions of the country...
Fanny Polania
Jan. 11, 2008
Expert: More than one million minors are sexually
exploited in Central Mexico
Tlaxcala city, in Tlaxcala state - Around 1.5 million
people in the central region of Mexico are engaged in prostitution, and
some 75% of them are between 12 and 13 years of age, reported Teresa
Ulloa, director of the Regional Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
and Girls in Latin America and the Caribbean.
During an international seminar in the city of Tlaxcala,
Ulloa noted that, due to the conditions of marginalization in which they
live, at least 50 million women and children in Latin America are at
risk of being recruited for sexual exploitation.
La Jornada de Oriente
Sep. 26, 2007
Impunity Fuels Violence Against Women
"Unfortunately, in Guatemala,
killing a woman is like killing a fly; no importance is assigned to it,"
complained local activist Hilda Morales, who argued that "the
perpetrators are encouraged to continue beating, abusing and killing
because they know that nothing will happen, that they won't be
punished."
Inés Benítez
Inter-Press Service (IPS)
Nov. 24, 2007
LibertadLatina
Commentary:
Surely, in the midst's of this chaos, in an
environment that is fomenting a continuous and growing wave of mass
sexual atrocities against women and children, the modern
anti-trafficking movement, with its hundreds of millions of dollars in
U.S. federal funding, can stand up and address Latin America as a
Level One Emergency among its vast
list of priorities.
¿Que no?
End impunity now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
Feb. 16,
2009
|
Added: Feb. 13, 2009
Mexico
 |
|
Magdalena García Durán
is a defender of indigenous rights. Like many members of the Other
Campaign, she went to Atenco May 4th, 2006 to show her support for
the People’s Front for the Defense of the Land (FPDT), the organization
under attack for courageously (and successfully) defending their lands
against a major airport expropriation and for defending the right of
flower vendors to work in [the city of] Texcoco.
Magdalena is one of the 214 people who were cruelly
tortured, raped, and arrested without a warrant by... police... that
day.
|
Resolución de SCJN legitima Estado policíaco: FPDT
Otorga impunidad a agresores
Las y los ministros de la Suprema Corte de Justicia
de la Nación (SCJN) tuvieron en sus manos la oportunidad histórica de hacer
justicia a un pueblo donde se violaron de manera grave los derechos humanos y
las garantías individuales, durante el operativo policíaco del 3 y 4 de mayo de
2006, pero su resolución sobre el Caso Atenco no responsabiliza al gobernador
del Estado de México, Enrique Peña Nieto; a Eduardo Medina Mora, Miguel Ángel
Yunes, responsables de dichas acciones.
Así resume el Frente de Pueblos en
Defensa de la Tierra la resolución tomada hoy por la Corte, después
de 4 días de sesión, donde se discutió un dictamen elaborado por el
ministro.
Quien pierde, dice el Frente en un
comunicado, es el pueblo de México, porque su resolución sólo otorga
impunidad a los represores y viene a legitimar la instauración de un
Estado policíaco, “tal como lo vemos en el uso recurrente del
Ejército Mexicano y de las fuerza pública en la llamada lucha contra
el crimen, así como en la confrontación con el movimiento social,
utilizando estrategias de contrainsurgencia para controlar a la
población y querer exterminar a las organizaciones como el Frente de
Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra en Atenco”.
FPDT: Most Recent
Supreme Court resolution legitimizes 'police state' tactics
The Court's decision
grants impunity to the perpetrators
During its recent judicial review of the
of the case of Atenco, where on May 3rd and 4th of 2006, serious
violations of human rights and individual guarantees occurred
[perpetrated by police forces who beat and raped dozens of peaceful
female protesters during a demonstration and march], the Supreme
Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) had a historic opportunity to
bring justice [to the victims]. Instead, the Court decided to
exonerate the governor of the state of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto,
as well as federal Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora and Miguel Angel
Yunes, head of Mexico's internal security apparatus. These officials
[in control of the local, state and federal police forces involved]
were responsible for the actions of their police agents during the
Atenco march.
This is the view that was recently
communicated in a press release from the People's Front for the
Defense of the Land [FPDT], in response to the Court's decision in
the Atenco case after four days of deliberation. [An FPDT protest march was attacked
during the events at Atenco].
The FPDT believes that in this Court
decision, the people of Mexico have lost, because the result
legitimizes the use of impunity in the establishment of a police
state... "as we have seen in the recurrent use of the Mexican Army
in the so-called fight against crime, as well as in its efforts to
confront social movements by using counter-insurgency strategies to
control the population. They want to wipe out organiza-tions like
the FPDT in Atenco."
The FPDT believes that the gross
violations of human rights that occurred at Atenco were not just
individual actions [by rogue policemen], but were part of official
policies.
...The FPDT: "This Supreme Court has
mocked the victims and Mexican history..."
CIMAC Noticias
Feb. 12, 2009
See also:
LibertadLatina
Atenco: Mexican police rape and assault women at street
protest
CIMAC Noticias
Cobertura especial - Las Mujeres de Atenco -
una collecion de 48 articulos
CIMAC's collection of 48 articles from 2006 on
the violations of women's integrity and human rights at Atenco (in
Spanish).
Washington, DC, USA
 |
|
U.S.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton |
Hillary Clinton Vows to Strengthen State
Dept. Anti-Slavery Efforts
Secretary of State nominee Hillary
Clinton pledged in her confirmation hearing that U.S.
anti-slavery efforts would be strengthened in the incoming Obama
Administration.
This is welcome news for modern-day
abolitionists who believe America’s leadership in the
anti-slavery arena could lead other governments - eager to court
favor with the new Administration - to more aggressively step up
their efforts to go after human traffickers.
Clinton pledged in her testimony to
bring onboard a senior State Department official to head up
anti-slavery efforts. This official, she said, would be situated
nearby her own office - a seemingly minor point but to
anti-trafficking leaders, a decision of great significance.
Under President Bush, the State Dept. Office to Monitor and
Combat Trafficking in Persons (created in 2000) operated out of
a nondescript office building blocks away from the State
Department’s Foggy Bottom headquarters. Although Bush appointees
to the post of anti-trafficking “czar” received generally high
marks for raising the profile of anti-trafficking programs, most
observers felt that U.S. efforts to combat modern forms of
slavery were under-funded and well down the list of
Administration priorities...
Paul Bernish
FreedomCenter.org
Jan. 14th, 2009
The World /
El Mundo
Antonio Maria Costa
United Nations
ONU: Muchas naciones carecen de medios
para combatir el tráfico de personas
A pesar de que más
países adoptaron leyes contra el este delito, 61 de las 155
naciones monitoreadas no registraron ni una condena sobre el
tema
Un gran número de países en todo el
mundo carace aún de las herramientas necesarias para
identificar, reportar y perseguir el tráfico de personas,
denuncia un informe de las Naciones Unidas que será publicado
oficialmente este jueves.
A pesar de que más países adoptaron
leyes contra el tráfico de personas entre 2003 y 2008, 61 de las
155 naciones monitoreadas no han registrado ni una sola condena
en relación, señaló la Oficina contra la Droga y el Delito
(ONUDD) de las Naciones Unidas en su "Informe global de la trata
de personas".
"O bien están ciegos ante el
problema, o están mal equipados para enfrentarlo", dice el
director ejecutivo de ONUDD Antonio Maria Costa en el informe...
www.infobae.com
Feb. 02, 2009
UN Says Human Trafficking Appears To Be Worsening
Three-quarters of those
exploited as modern-day slaves work in the sex industry.
In a new report, the United Nations says
human trafficking for the sex trade or forced labor market appears
to be getting worse, not better, because many countries aren't
paying attention to it.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and
Crime (UNODC) surveyed 155 countries for its report on modern-day
slavery, but didn't say how many people it believes are victims of
human trafficking. Estimates range from 800,000 new victims each
year, according to the U.S. State Department, to 2.5 million,
according to the International Labor Organization.
UNODC chief Antonio Maria Costa told a
news conference at UN headquarters in New York that
40 percent of the countries where the problem
exists have not convicted one person of trafficking charges.
A large
percentage of the perpetrators of human trafficking are women, UNODC
chief Antonio Maria Costa says...
"According to the statistics, about 80
percent of these crimes are concentrated on sexual exploitation,"
Costa said...
Seventy-nine percent of slavery is for
sex, according to the UNODC, while about 18 percent is for forced
labor, forced marriages, or forced organ donation. And although the
victims of sex trafficking are usually women and girls, those in
charge of the trafficking are women, too.
RFE/RL
February 13, 2009
California, USA
Cuatro guatemaltecos y un mexicano culpables
de trata de personas
Cuatro [personas] fueron encontrados
culpables en Estados Unidos de tráfico de mujeres centroamericanas
para forzarlas a ser prostitutas en Los Angeles, y podrían recibir
sentencias de hasta cadena perpetua, informó el jueves el
Departamento de Justicia.
Las cinco personas, miembros de la misma
familia o vinculadas a ella, fueron encontradas culpables el
miércoles de conspiración, tráfico sexual por la fuerza, fraude o
coerción e importación de extranjeros con fines de prostitución,
indicó el comunicado del departamento.
Los acusados ofrecían a mujeres y niñas
pobres e indocumentadas en Centroamérica empleos en Estados Unidos,
y una vez en este país usaban amenazas, violencia física y hasta
violaciones para obligarlas a ejercer la prostitución. Controlaban a
las mujeres bajo amenaza de golpizas y de matar a familiares en sus
países de origen, y a algunas las encerraban bajo llave por las
noches...
Diario Las Americas
February 02, 2009
5 defendants convicted of sex trafficking for
forcing Guatemalan girls and women into prostitution
Los Angeles - Five defendants, all
members or associates of an extended family, face potential life
prison sentences after being found guilty this afternoon of
international sex trafficking for participating in a scheme that
lured young Central American women and girls into the Los Angeles
area and forced them into prostitution.
The case, which was prosecuted by the
Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division and the U.S.
Attorney's Office for the Central District of California, resulted
from a joint investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the
U.S. Department of Labor, Office of the Inspector General.
The defendants, four Guatemalan
nationals and one Mexican national, were convicted of conspiracy;
sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion; and importation of
aliens for purposes of prostitution. The jury in the case was unable
to reach unanimous verdicts on additional charges...
U.S. ICE
February 11, 2009
|
Mexico
Tlaxcala: OSC exigen
publicación de estudio que revela trata
Las
organizaciones impulsoras de la Iniciativa Popular en Tlaxcala contra la trata
de personas manifestaron su indignación por las recientes declaraciones del
rector de la Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, autoridades de Tenancingo y la
Presidenta de la Comisión Estatal de Derechos Humanos en torno al delito de
Trata de Mujeres para la Prostitución en Tlaxcala, pues niegan que ocurra en la
entidad.
Exigen por ello que sea
publicado el Estudio sobre Trata de Mujeres en Tlaxcala, entregado en diciembre
pasado al Instituto Nacional de las Mujeres (Inmujeres) y llevado a cabo bajo la
coordinación de la doctora Patricia Olamendi, en el cual se documenta la
existencia del problema de trata en la entidad.
Tlaxcala:
Anti-trafficking groups demand the public release of study and state and local
governments deny the existence of major sex trafficking networks
The
group of non profit organizations who created the
Popular Initiative
against trafficking in
Tlaxcala
state has expressed their outrage at recent statements by the rector of the
Autonomous University of Tlaxcala, government authorities in the city of
Tenancingo, and by the president of the Tlaxcala State Human Rights Commission.
These officials have all publicly denied that human trafficking exists in the
state Tlaxcala [state is a major center for child and adult sex trafficking in
Mexico].
The community
activists demanded that officials release a study coordinated by Dr. Patricia
Olamendi, completed in December of 2008, in which the existence of trafficking
in the state was documented.
At the end of
2008 the president of the Federal District [Mexico City] Human Rights Commission
(CDHDF), Emilio Álvarez, attended a conference at the Center for Continuing and
Distance Education of Tlaxcala, part of the National Polytechnic Institute.
During a speech at the event, Álvarez stated that a study by the CDHDF in regard
to the commercial sexual exploitation of children in Mexico City found that sex
trafficking networks from the city of Tenancingo in Tlaxcala were actively
trafficking children into the capitol city.
In response,
the Governor of Tlaxcala
[Héctor Israel Ortiz Ortiz,
a law professor at the Autonomous University of Tlaxcala]
dismissed the statements by chairman Álvarez of the CDHDF as being partisan in
nature. Recently the rector of the Autonomous University of Tlaxcala has
requested that the state human rights commission prove that high levels of sex
trafficking exist in the entity.
Local
organizations working against sex trafficking point to the fact that the
president of the state human rights commission has publicly acknowledged the
problem, but she has blamed the victims for the justice system’s failure
to act in the matter.
In addition,
the mayor of Tenancingo and coordinator of DIF [local branch of the national
social services agency] have both told the press that there is no trafficking in
their municipality, and that criminal prosecutions of the
Carreto Family
are the result of slander and injustice.
[LibertadLatina note: The Tlaxcala-based Carreto Family was previously one of
the largest sex trafficking networks in Mexico]…
In response to
these conflicting accounts of conditions in the state, non governmental
organization have demanded that the local authorities publicly release the study
by Dr. Olamendi.
They also demand that officials from state and local government cease their
attempts to minimize or even deny the existence and severity of the problem of
the trafficking in women for sexual exploitation in Tlaxcala, and that these
officials stop blaming trafficking victims for the lack of action by the
criminal justice system.
CIMAC
Noticias
10/02/2009
See Also:
El Blog de Frida
La situación de
trata de personas es cada vez mas evidente, uno foco rojo como ya lo habíamos
comentado con anterioridad es Tlaxcala, donde la trata de personas y la
prostitución infantil esta a la orden del día, la situación es que si realmente
alguno de los gobernantes o quienes pretenden llegar a tomar ese poder
estuvieran en la disposición de ayudar realmente a su pueblo pondrían ojos en
esos temas, pero es demasiado, es ir contra muchos intereses que sabemos les
perjudicarían a muchos, ¿incluidos a ellos?....
El Blog de
Frida Guerrero
10/15/2007
About the Carreto family
The Flores-Carreto family sex-trafficking ring
operated between Tenancingo, Tlaxcala, Mexico, and Queens, New York, from 1991
to 2004 and involved brothels in the New York metropolitan area. ICE began its
investigation in December 2003 after the mother of a trafficking victim reported
to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City that her daughter had been kidnapped and was
being held against her will in New York.
ICE discovered that male members of the Flores-Carreto
family romantically lured young Mexican women to the United States, where they
were forced into prostitution through beatings and threats against their
children, who were residing with the traffickers' mother in México. Victims who
became pregnant were forced to have abortions. In April 2005, Josue Flores-Carreto,
Gerardo Flores-Carreto and Daniel Perez Alfonso, a brothel manager, were
sentenced to 50, 50, and 25 years imprisonment respectively, for multiple
offenses related to forced prostitution.
In January 2007, Mexico extradited Consuelo Carreto
Valencia, the mother of the Carreto brothers, to the United States, where she
was charged with conspiring on sex trafficking and related offenses. On July 22,
2008, she pled guilty to sex trafficking and is pending sentencing for that
crime...
U.S. ICE
11/09/2008
Mexican woman [Consuelo Carreto Valencia] pleads guilty to
sex trafficking
- U.S. ICE
July 22, 2008
Sex Slavery Investigation in New York City Nets Human
Traffickers
-
Jim Kouri, CPP
April 24, 2005
Three
Carreto Family Suspects Plead Guilty
to All 27 Counts in New York City Trafficking Trial.
- U.S.
Department of Homeland Security
April 5, 2005
Dirty Little Secret in Corona
-
John Marzulli
New York Daily News
April 4, 2005
Mexican Women Set to Testify Against Alleged [Carreto] Sex
Traffickers
-
The Associated Press
April 3, 2005
Rescued From The Shadows
-
Peter Van Sant
CBS News
Feb. 23, 2005
Mexican officials arrest suspects in New York-linked sex
slavery ring
-
John Rice
EFE
Feb. 23, 2004
The Girls Next Door
[An extensive article covering
the brutal methods used by family-run Mexican Sex Trafficking mafias, including
the Carreto Family].
...Once the Mexican
traffickers abduct or seduce the women and young girls, it's not other men who
first indoctrinate them into sexual slavery but other women….
"Women are the ones who exert
violent force and psychological torture..."
-
New York Times
Jan. 25, 2004
LibertadLatina
Note:
The actions of state and city officials in Tlaxcala state, of
denying the existence of human trafficking (and most importantly the
trafficking of children into forced prostitution) is reprehensible.
We look forward to the creative diplomatic efforts of U.S. President
Barak Obama, and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in bringing about
real, practical protections for women and children facing rape,
kidnapping and sexual slavery with impunity.
The world's one surviving super-power cannot sit-by and let this
continue to happen in silence.
Those who deny this crisis in such an epicenter of child trafficking
as is Tlaxcala are behaving with the same rationale that Holocaust
deniers use. Only in the case of Mexico it is called femicide, and
it deserves to be called genocide against indigenous peoples with
impunity.
Those at risk await our effective efforts to protect them from
impunity today!
End impunity now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
Feb. 12, 2009
|
Dominican Republic
 |
|
Global destinations for Dominican women
Listin Diario |
Nuevos destinos, según la Organización para las
Migraciones
Según la
Organización Internacional de las Migraciones (OIM), se estima que
aproximadamente 192 millones de personas viven fuera de su país de origen, lo
que indica que una de cada 35 personas en el mundo es migrante.
De acuerdo con la OIM, República Dominicana se ha convertido en un lugar de
origen, tránsito y destino para migrantes. Aproximadamente un millón y medio de
dominicanos viven en el exterior. Estados Unidos, Puerto Rico, España, Francia,
Italia, Alemania y Holanda siguen siendo los destinos favoritos y los mayores
receptores de legales criollos que emigran, en su mayoría, en procura de mejores
condiciones económicas.
En los últimos años, sin embargo, se ha registrado un aumento considerable de
dominicanos que viajan legalmente a otros destinos considerados “no
tradicionales” en cuanto al número de residentes, entre ellos las islas del
Caribe (Curazao, San Martin, Antigua, Saint Thomas, Martinica, Guadalupe), Costa
Rica, Haití, Suiza, Argentina, Austria, Grecia, Israel y Brasil. Lamentablemente,
estos destinos “no tradicionales” llegan cargados de una característica que no
siempre le garantiza al migrante su sueño laboral. Y las mujeres son las más
afectadas.
Los datos de la OIM indican que República Dominicana ocupa el cuarto lugar entre
los diez países con mayor número de mujeres en el exterior, sólo superado por
Tailandia, Filipinas y Brasil, y según las últimas investigaciones del Centro de
Orientación e investigación Integral (COIN, 2008), “por lo menos una tercera
parte de las migrantes dominicanas en Europa, el Caribe y algunos países de
Latinoamérica ha sido víctimas de trata para fines de trabajo doméstico,
matrimonios serviles o explotación sexual”.
Dominican women seek to migrate and succeed
According to the International Organization
for Migration (IOM), an estimated 192 million people live outside
their country of origin, indicating that one in every 35 people in
the world is a migrant.
Santo Domingo - According to IOM, the Dominican Republic has become
a point of origin, transit and destination for migrants.
Approximately 1.5 million Dominicans live abroad. United States,
Puerto Rico, Spain, France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands
remain the favorite destinations and the largest recipients of legal
Dominican migrants, who are for the most part migrating in search of
better economic conditions...
IOM data indicates that the Dominican Republic ranks fourth among
the ten countries with the highest numbers of women living abroad,
surpassed only by Thailand, the Philippines and Brazil. According to
recent research from the Center for Integral Orientation and
Investigation (COIN, 2008), "at least a third of Dominican migrants
in Europe, the Caribbean and some Latin American countries have been
trafficked for purposes of domestic labor, servile marriage or
sexual exploitation."
This is not prostitution[but sexual exploitation]
Gina Gallardo, an educator and researcher at the IOM, finds it
appropriate to qualify the issue of prostitution when talking about
women who leave to work abroad.
Gallardo: "These women do not leave expecting to work as
prostitutes. Often they leave with a job offer from a supermarket or
a salon, for example. Ninety nine percent of these women do not
leave the country as a victim of trafficking. Trafficking is the end
result of this deception, and we should speak of sexual
exploitation instead of [intentional] prostitution...
...Although it may seen hard to believe, many young people from remote
[rural] provinces are easily deceived.
Gallardo: "The country is full of people wanting to improve their
economic situation. They cannot verify [whether a potential employer is
really planning to exploit them, or not]. Some women know that they will be
migrating for purposes of prostitution, but they don’t know that they
will be exploited [forced to work for free].”
Full English Translation
www.ListinDiario.com.do
Feb. 06, 2009
See also:
30,000 Dominican women were tricked and forced into prostitution abroad
30 mil Dominicanas viajaron engañadas
Marcos Gambibia, a Swiss Investigator for the International
Organization for Migration (IOM) has released a study that describes details of
sex trafficking from the Latin American country with the highest number of women
working in prostitution overseas...
The IOM study indicates that 29% of the 100,000 Dominican women
who engage in prostitution in Europe were actually offered legitimate jobs, were
then sent to Europe, and when they arrived they were forced into prostitution...
Diario Libre
Dominican Republic
Sep. 14, 2005
NGO- At
least 50,000 Dominican women work as prostitutes abroad
EFE News Service
November 1, 2002
Mexico
 |
|
Congressional Deputy / Diputada
Guillermina López Balbuena
is a member of the Indigenous Affairs, Gender and
Equality and Migratory Affairs committees, and
the Special Committee on Discrimination [against new
populations of victims - addressing gay rights, etcetera.]
E-mail |
 |
|
Cecilia Landerreche Gómez Morin,
head of Mexico's National System for Integral Family
Develop-ment (DIF) - Titular del DIF
Bio in English |
En México 20 mil niños y adolescentes son víctimas de
explotación sexual
La diputada
Guillermina López Balbuena presentó una iniciativa de ley en la cámara baja para
hacer frente a la trata de personas y los delitos de explotación sexual en
México
20 mil adolescentes y niños son víctimas de explotación sexual
comercial en México, según datos del Sistema Nacional de Desarrollo Integral de
la Familia presentados hoy por la Cámara de los Diputados.
En un comunicado, el organismo informó hoy de que la diputada
Guillermina López Balbuena presentó una iniciativa de ley en la cámara baja para
hacer frente a la trata de personas y los delitos de explotación sexual con
menores y jóvenes.
La iniciativa pretende reformar dos leyes relacionadas con la
trata de personas y los derechos de los niños, e introducir cambios al Código
Penal Federal para hacer frente a esos delitos…
Datos de la Red por los Derechos de la Infancia en México citados en el boletín
indican que en este país existen 3.5 millones de niños trabajadores, de los
cuales 170 mil viven y trabajan en las calles.
La misma organización sostiene que, entre ellos, hay unos 16 mil que
viven en zonas indígenas que son explotados sexual y comercialmente.
Otro estudio de la Coalición Regional contra el Tráfico de
Mujeres y Niñas en América Latina y el Caribe indica que un total de 250 mil mujeres
y niñas ejercen la prostitución en la capital mexicana, el 82 por ciento de las
cuales son analfabetas…
In Mexico, 20 thousand children and adolescents
are victims of sexual exploitation
Congressional Deputy Guillermina López
Balbuena has introduced a bill in the lower house to deal with human trafficking
and crimes of sexual exploitation in Mexico
An estimated 20,000 children and adolescents are victims of
commercial sexual exploitation in Mexico, according to data from the National
System for Integral Family Development [the DIF federal social services agency]
presented today by the Chamber of Deputies [equivalent of the U.S. House of
Representatives].
In a press release, the DIF reported today that Deputy
Guillermina López Balbuena [representing part of Puebla state in the PRI Party] has introduced a bill in the lower house to deal with
human trafficking and sexual exploitation offenses involving minors and youth.
The initiative seeks to amend two existing laws related to
trafficking and child rights, and changes the Federal Penal Code to deal with
such crimes…
The Network for the Rights of Children in Mexico stated that
there are 3.5 million child workers in the nation, of whom 170,000 are living
and working in the streets.
The DIF analysis also shows that there are approximately 16,000
children living in indigenous areas who are subject to sexual and labor
exploitation.
Another study, by the Regional Coalition Against Trafficking in
Women and Girls in Latin America and the Caribbean (CATW), indicates that a
total of 250,000 women and girls survive through
prostitution in Mexico City. Some 82% of them are illiterate.
Congressional members stated that many of these people arrive in
the capital city through "deception, fraud, sale, coercion, force and abduction
(kidnapping)." The majority of them are from the states of Puebla, Tlaxcala,
Veracruz, Chiapas and Oaxaca [all heavily indigenous areas]…
EFE / El Universal
Feb. 07, 2009
See also / Vea
tambien:
Sufren explotación sexual 20 mil niños y
adolescentes en el DF
From
a related article on the same press conference:
Eighty
nine percent of prostituted women and girls in Mexico City started
at the ages of 12 or 13. Some 88% of them are from outside
of
Mexico
City.
El Porvenir
Feb. 07, 2009
 |
|
This 7-year-old indigenous girl from Mexico
is today being
sold in prostitution by her own mother
Notes from an
anti-trafficking activist and minister working in Mexico.
"I was finally able to confront a mom who is allowing/
encouraging her 7 year old daughter to give oral sex for 100
pesos or $10...I would love to bring justice to the mom and
I promised her if I ever saw it again I would. I don't know
that was enough to end it but it was enough to send them
both home on a bus today."
Sep. 8, 2008 |
LibertadLatina
Commentary:
Mexican society has condoned the criminal sexual exploitation of
indigenous women and children for five centuries. The rape and even
the murder of an indigenous woman or child carries with it little or
no legal penalty in Mexico, or, for that matter, across much of
Latin America. For that reason, rapists, kidnappers and organized
sex traffickers find easy targets among the women and girls of this
population.
Today, billion
dollar drug cartels, Japanese yakuzas and youth gangs kidnap, rape
and sell into sexual slavery thousands of indigenous women, girls
and boys.
The victim community extends beyond the indigenous population, but
rest assured that in the few cases where the laws against
exploitation are enforced, those acts do not benefit indigenous
victims.
We applaud federal Deputy Guillermina López Balbuena
for introducing legislation to fix deficiencies in the current
anti-trafficking law, a groundbreaking federal act
that President Felipe Calderón has refused, (despite four warnings
from Congress since the summer of 2008) to implement, by his
withholding of the publishing of the required regulations.
We also salute Cecilia Landerreche Gómez Morin,
director of the federal DIF social services agency, for highlighting
the plight of indigenous children, in a Mexican society that today
ignores and exploits them in unspeakable ways.
¡Basta ya con la corupcion y la
impunidad!
Enough with corruption... end impunity
now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
Feb. 07-08, 2009
California, USA
Teen's arranged marriage is allowed in native Mexico
A Monterey County father who allegedly tried to
collect a dowry of beer, cash and meat for his 14-year-old daughter's wedding
was following the custom of the Triqui people, police say.
The police in Greenfield, a Monterey County farm
town, had heard the rumors before: Migrant workers from rural Mexico were
marrying off daughters as young as 12 and receiving sizable dowries...
Marcelino de Jesus MartinezMarcelino de Jesus
Martinez, 36, is in Monterey County Jail, charged with crimes related to an
alleged attempt to set up a marriage for his 14-year-old daughter. According to
police, he complained to them when the 18-year-old would-be groom failed to come
up with the $16,000, 100 cases of beer, meat and other items he promised as a
dowry.
The case has generated headlines worldwide -- "Man
Sells Daughter for Beer!" -- and raised the blood pressure of activists on all
sides of the immigration debate.
In Greenfield, Police Chief Joe Grebmeier has been
swamped, explaining to reporters from Australia to Croatia that his initial
description of the incident as "human trafficking" was ill-advised.
"There was no force, fear or coercion," he said.
"What we're dealing with now is a difference in cultures. All of this would have
been perfectly legal where they came from."
The people involved are Mexican immigrants from
rural Oaxaca. They are members of a tight-knit indigenous group called the
Triqui, several thousand of whom live in Greenfield, depending on the season.
But culture clash or not, Grebmeier said, he was
compelled to enforce the law. He said he had appeared at community meetings to
warn recent immigrants against pursuing underage marriages. And when his
department looked into reports about the 14-year-old girl, finding a matchmaker
and "documents used in the negotiation," he acted.
"I'm tasked with protecting my community, and
14-year-old girls need a lot of protection," he said.
Whether 14-year-olds can legally marry in Oaxaca --
or whether young girls would have a real choice -- is an open question.
UCLA sociologist Gaspar Rivera, a native of Oaxaca,
said he believed the legal age of consent is 16, but he has heard of girls as
young as 12 being wed. He doubted that underage unions in isolated communities
would be prosecuted.
"There would be no legal ramifications as long as
all parties are in consent," said Rivera, project director for UCLA's Center for
Labor Research and Education. "The villages have a high degree of autonomy, with
little or no intervention from state and federal authorities.
...However, Andres Garcia, a fieldworker who lives
in Greenfield, said he knew of several arranged Triqui marriages involving 16-
and 17-year-olds in the last five years. The food and drink included in dowries
is generally for the wedding celebration, and cash is intended to support any
children if the bridegroom leaves...
Johnson said her office was weighing statutory rape
charges against the daughter's boyfriend, Margarito de Jesus Galindo of
Gonzales, Calif.
The girl had moved in with him before her father
allegedly complained to authorities about the dowry, police said. The age of
consent in California is 18.
In the end, no marriage was performed, lawyers on
both sides say.
Steve Chawkins
Ruben Vives Contributing
Los Angeles Times
Jan. 15, 2009
See also
/ Vea tambien:
LibertadLatina
Note
Arranged marriages of underage girls, beginning at age 11, are
commonplace in southern Mexico's indigenous regions, including the
adjoining states of Puebla, Oaxaca, Guerrero and Chiapas. These
areas of the nation are also centers for mass-migration from South
and Central America, and are focal points for Mexico's vast
international child sex trafficking 'industry' that relies upon
kidnapping and deceit to obtain the 'raw materials' for its
lucrative product line of young women and underage girls.
Sex trafficking gangs routinely 'marry' very young girls and then
sell them to brothels and international human slavery operations for
'export' to the United States, Japan and Europe.
Migrant men from these regions, working as farm laborers across
California, are also major exploiters of underage sex trafficking
victims [some as young as age 7] who are kidnapped and brought into
San Diego County and other rural areas to 'serve' this population
(while having their own human lives degraded and shortened).
LibertadLatina
Feb. 09, 2009
From: The
Sex Trafficking of Children in San Diego County, California
Reyna began revealing her
story. She was from Puebla, Mexico. She had barely finished
second grade. Her mother died when she was seven years old.
Reyna was then supported by her grandmother, who also died.
After that, her father was left in charge of her. One day,
when she was 11, her own father gave her as a gift to a
local police chief who raped her without end.
After having been so neglected,
and with a baby now in her arms, Reyna met Arturo Lopez,
from the town of Atlixco in the state of Puebla. Arturo,
after pretending to fall in love with her, convinced Reyna
to work as a servant in the United States, for which Arturo
recommended that she leave her baby with some of his
relatives. Reyna had no other options, so she accepted the
offer.
Reyna was taken to Tijuana, and
while she waited to be crossed over the border, she was
forced, with threats that her baby would be killed, to
prostitute herself in the red zone known as "la Coahuila."
She was finally transported across the U.S. border by a
coyote, Alonso Sapien, also known as "El Chivero."
In San Diego, Reyna came to
live in a neighborhood in Vista where she found other girls
like her. A week later she found herself in the sexual
exploitation camps for farm workers.
"The real horror is in the
sheer number of men that, at the age of 15, Reyna was forced
to serve as a prostitute. In one hour she had to serve 20
men, and they made her work from 8 AM until 2 in the
afternoon."
In
English
En
Español
El Universal
Jan. 12, 2003
Ecuador
Ejecutarán Plan cantonal contra trata 2009-02-03
Se firmó un convenio de cooperación internacional entre la Organización
Internacional para las Migraciones (OIM) y el Consejo Cantonal de la Niñez y
Adolescencia.
Este acuerdo tiene la finalidad de que se haga
efectivo y ejecute el Plan cantonal contra la explotación sexual, comercial y
trata de niños, niñas y adolescentes que se aprobó en Cuenca, informó Catalina
Mendoza, secretaria ejecutiva del Consejo de la Niñez.
El convenio tiene cuatro ejes de acción, el primero
es realizar una investigación sobre los factores que impulsan la demanda de
trata de personas.
Este delito está configurado por una serie de
situaciones como la explotación sexual comercial, explotación laboral,
utilización para mendicidad, extracción de órganos para venta ilegal, y
utilización de seres humanos para la explotación y servidumbre, indica.
Todas estas situaciones configuran lo que el Código
Penal determina como delito de trata de personas.
Ecuador and IOM develop county-based anti-trafficking effort
An agreement to
fight human trafficking has been signed
between the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and
Ecuador's Counties Council for Childhood and Adolescence.
According to Catalina Mendoza, Ecuador's Executive Secretary of the Child, the
agreement aims to work at the county level against the
commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking of children and
adolescents. The pact was signed in the city of Cuenca.
The
agreement has four main areas of action. The initial step will
involve a research investigation into the factors that are driving
the demand for trafficking.
Catalina Mendoza stated that the criminal code defines human
trafficking as including situations that involve commercial sexual
exploitation, labor exploitation, using a person for begging, organ
extraction and the illegal sale and use of human beings for
exploitation and servitude.
www.elmercurio.com.ec
Feb. 04, 2009
Costa Rica
 |
|
Attorney
Rodrigo Johanning Quesada |
En Fuga Abogado Costarricense Condenado A 10 Años De Prision
Delitos: Tráfico de personas menores de edad, Delitos de Carácter Internacional
y Tenencia Ilegítima de menores para adopción.
Rodrigo Johanning Quesada, abogado costarricense,
que fue condenado en el año 2006 y cuya sentencia quedó en firme el 1 de abril
del 2008 ha sido declarado en fuga por las autoridades costarricenses.
Johanning fue sentenciado junto a Carlos Hernán
Robles por los delitos de Tráfico de personas menores de edad, Delitos de
Carácter Internacional y Tenencia Ilegítima de menores para adopción, delitos
por los que debería de descontar 10 años de prisión, sin embargo esto no ha
sucedido porque el sujeto está libre.
En el mes de Setiembre del año 2003 se realizo un
allanamiento en una casa-cuna en San José donde las autoridades encontraron 9
niños, de origen guatemalteco, quienes iban a ser dados en adopción de manera
irregular.
Man sentenced to 10 years in prison
has become a fugitive
Rodrigo Johanning Quesada, a Costa Rican lawyer who
was convicted in 2006 and whose sentence was pronounced on April 1, 2008 has
been declared a fugitive by Costa Rican authorities.
Johanning was sentenced along with Carlos Hernan
Robles for the crimes of trafficking of minors, international crimes and illegal
possession of children for adoption, for which crimes he was sentenced to 10 years
in prison.
In September 2003 police conducted a raid on a 'crib house' [a house where kidnapped...
especially Mayan children are literally "fatted-up" before being sold to
foreigners in adoption] in San Jose where authorities found 9 children of Guatemalan
origin, who were to be given up for adoption erratically.
Alianza Por Tus Derechos (Alliance for Your
Rights)
Costa Rica
Feb. 04, 2009
Mexico
En Tamaulipas, sigue en aumento niños que viven en la calle
Aunque aún no se ha dado a conocer el resultado del estudio de las 100 ciudades,
el número de menores en circunstancias especialmente difíciles en tres años aquí
en Tamaulipas ha tenido un aumento de seis mil 800 niños.
Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas - Tita Eugenia Pérez
Montemayor, coordinadora del programa Meced del sistema DIF Tamaulipas, dio a
conocer que dicho aumento ha pasado de diez mil 700 menores, en 2005, a más de
17 mil 500 del año pasado.
Señaló que la atención va en aumento y paralelamente el DIF Tamaulipas, ha
tratado cada año de abarcar a más menores, “porque a lo mejor los menores
estaban desde 2005, pero se está tratando en ampliar la cobertura y cada vez
proponer estrategias más a doc. (Sic) a lo que ellos necesitan”.
Pérez-Montemayor apuntó que quizá en la frontera y en el sur hay mayor
incidencia de menores en calle que en el centro del estado.
Tamaulipas sees an increasing number
of children living on the street
Although the results of a recent survey
have not been formally released, the number of children living in especially
difficult circumstances in three years here in Tamaulipas has grown by 6,800.
Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas - Tita Eugenia Perez
Montemayor, coordinator for the MECED program of the Tamaulipas DIF [government social
services] system, has announced an increase in the numbers of children who are facing severe poverty,
from 10,700 children in 2005 to over 17,500 last year.
Perez Montemayor noted that levels of services are increasing and
parallel with the increase. DIF Tamaulipas has attempted to cover more children
each year...
Perez-Montemayor said that it is likely that there is a
greater incidence of street children at the [U.S.] border and in the south, than in the
center of the state.
www.HoyTamaulipas.net
Feb. 02, 2009
LibertadLatina
Note:
The Mexican Gulf Coast state of
Tamaulipas includes the city of Matamoras, at the U.S. border
crossing of Brownsville, Texas. Matamoros is a known center for
child sex trafficking, were U.S. male sex tourists cross the border
to exploit poor children.
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
Feb. 06, 2009
See Also:
Solapada por policías, florece en Matamoros la
prostitución infantil
Los menores se hacen pasar por vendedores o
limpiaparabrisas; la tarifa, de $50 a 30 dólares
"A cambio de unos pesos" permiten a
niños trabajar la calle; extranjeros, principales clientes
Matamoros, Tams., 1º de septiembre. Niños de la calle que se
hacen pasar por limpiavidrios, vendedores de flores o mendigos se prostituyen en
los cruceros de esta ciudad, donde ofrecen sus servicios sexuales, sobre todo a
ciudadanos estadunidenses.
Shielded by the police, child prostitution
flourishes in Matamoros
Minors at U.S. border crossings pretend to
work as car window washers, and charge $30 to $50 for sex. [U.S.] foreigners are
their main customers.
Boys and
girls between the ages of 9 and 14 sell sex near Mexico's international
border with Texas to
large numbers of older men from the U.S. Local police collect bribes from the
children, while courts allow arrested 'johns' to pay a fine when they are
caught.
Some of these
children engage in prostitution to support their families, others do
it to support drug habits.
Julia Antonieta Le Duc
La Jornada
Sep. 02, 2005
Crece Sin Control la Prostitución Infantil en
Matamoros.
Child Prostitution Grows Out of Control
in Matamoros
In parts of the city where one would not imagine it being, in
dark alleys and along downtown streets, be it morning or afternoon, child
prostitution is increasing. This is occurring while government agencies do
nothing to recognize the seriousness of the problem, and nobody punishes those
responsible for the increased sexual exploitation of girls and boys in this
border region.
Julia Antonieta Le Duc
La Jornada
April 03, 2005
Colombia
Capturada por trata de personas
Estaba condenada a 13 años de
prisión
En la carrera 21 con calle 26 de Armenia agentes del
grupo de capturas del Cuerpo Técnico de Investigación, CTI, de la fiscalía,
capturaron a Rosa Elvira Ardila Álvarez, de 32 años de edad, quien se encontraba
solicitada por la justicia mediante orden de captura vigente...
“Ardila Álvarez se encontraba solicitada por el Juzgado Segundo de Ejecución de
Penas y Medidas de Aseguramiento de Armenia para que cumpliera una condenada a
13 años de prisión que le habían impuesto por el delito de trata de personas”,
aseguraron fuentes de la fuerza pública.
Convicted human trafficker is
arrested
Agents of the Technical Investigation Corps have
arrested Rosa Elvira Ardila Alvarez, age 32, on an outstanding warrant.
Ardila Alvarez had been sought by the Second Court
of Execution of Sentences in Armenia, so that she could begin serving a 13 year
prison sentence for human trafficking.
Cronicadelquindio.com
Feb. 04, 2009
Puerto Rico
Sentenciado a 30 años de prisión por pornografía infantil
El puertorriqueño Mariano Claudio, de 50 años, fue sentenciado a 30 años de
prisión por posesión y producción de pornografía infantil, informó hoy el
Servicio de Inmigración y Aduanas (ICE) de EE.UU. en San Juan.
Claudio había sido arrestado por agentes del ICE en
noviembre de 2006 después de que se encontraran en su residencia de Bayamón,
ciudad aledaña a San Juan, numerosos discos duros de computadora que contenían "imágenes
explícitas de pornografía infantil".
Puerto Rican man sentenced to 30
years in prison for possession and production of child porn
San Juan - A 50-year-old
predator was sentenced in federal court to 30 years
in prison for possession and production of child
pornography following a U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) investigation.
Mariano Claudio, of
Bayamon, Puerto Rico, was arrested by ICE special
agents in November 2006 after a search of his
residence resulted in the seizure of several
computer hard disks and other electronic storage
media devices containing explicit images of child
pornography.
According to the
indictment, Claudio persuaded, induced and enticed a
14-year-old female minor to engage in sexually
explicit conduct, specifically, lascivious
exhibition of the genital and pubic areas for the
purpose of producing a visual depiction of such
conduct. He pleaded guilty to the possession and
production of child pornography charges in February
2007.
U.S. ICE
Feb. 02, 2009
Argentina
Seguirá la investigación de la trata de personas
El megaoperativo contra la prostitución realizado el
fin de semana en Rincón de los Sauces sería el puntapié inicial de una
investigación judicial más profunda sobre la trata de personas en la provincia,
un fenómeno que hasta el gobierno admite que existe.
El equipo de fiscales encabezados por Sandra
González Taboada sigue en Rincón, donde desembarcó el sábado pasado con el apoyo
de al menos 300 policías de toda la provincia para allanar los centros de
diversión nocturna de la localidad.
Una decena de cabarets, pubs y confiterías fueron
allanados entre las 22 del sábado y la tarde del domingo. Los procedimientos
incluyeron varias viviendas de personas involucradas con la prostitución.
Investigations will continue in
human trafficking case
A large-scale police operation against prostitution
conducted this past weekend in Rincon de los Sauces was the kick-off of a deeper
investigation on human trafficking in the province, a phenomenon that even the
government admits exists.
A team of prosecutors headed by Sandra Gonzalez Taboada remains in Rincon, where they arrived last Saturday with the support of
at least 300 police officers from across the province to raid the nightlife
district.
Ten cabarets, pubs and tearooms were among the 22
locations raided on Saturday and Sunday afternoon. Raids were also conducted at the homes
of suspects.
www.RioNegro.com.ar
Feb. 04, 2009
Costa Rica
Menor condenado por difusión de pornografía
Mostró video porno a dos niños
Un adolescente fue condenado por difusión de
pornografía, según el fallo del Juzgado Penal Juvenil de San José.
El menor no irá a prisión, pero deberá someterse a
un programa de rehabilitación que ofrece Adaptación Social, del Ministerio de
Justicia, para menores infractores.
La información fue confirmada ayer por la periodista
María Isabel Hernández, de la oficina de prensa del Poder Judicial. No se reveló
la identidad del condenado por tratarse de un menor.
El delito atribuido al adolescente fue cometido en
perjuicio de dos niños de siete y nueve años.
Underage teen is convicted of
distributing child pornography
Teen showed a pornographic
video to two young children
Maria Isabel Hernandez, the press officer of the
Judiciary in the capitol city, has announced that the Juvenile Court in San Jose
has convicted a teenager for disseminating child pornography.
The minor will not go to jail but must undergo a
rehabilitation program that offered by the social rehabilitation program for
juvenile offenders, offered by the Ministry of Justice
The crime involved two children, ages seven and
nine.
www.Nacion.com
Costa Rica
Feb. 04, 2009
New York, USA
Cops on hunt for suspect in brutal rape in East Harlem
laundromat
Cops are hunting for a brutal rapist who stalked an
East Harlem laundermat employee into her workplace and attacked her, police
sources said.
The 38-year-old victim was working alone in the
laundermat and did not notice when a man followed her inside the empty store at
7:15 a.m. Tuesday, police said...
The video shows that the victim was screaming and
struggling until a customer walked into the Second Ave. laundermat with a bag of
clothes, scaring off the rapist. The attacker then ran from the store...
East Harlem residents were shaken up to learn of the
attack.
"It makes me nervous to hear something like that,"
said Denise Rivera, 44. "I hope they catch the person ... it scares me to think
they have a rapist running around over here."
"Nothing like that ever happens around here," said
Mercedes Torres, 80. "I'm scared, very scared to hear that."
Images of the suspect - a Latino man in his 30s
wearing a black jacket, blue jeans, gray hat and white, hooded sweatshirt - were
captured on the video and released to the public.
Alison Gendar and Jonathan Lemire
New York Daily News
Feb. 4, 2009
Mexico
Barrendero acusado de pornografía infantil
La colonia
Ampliación San Francisco destaca por su pobreza. El hombre tenía material en
video y fotografías al lado de las menores, a las cuales también captaba
drogándose. Imprimía las fotos en un laboratorio del bulevar López Mateos
Un barrendero de 62 años de edad, vecino de la
colonia Ampliación San Francisco, fue detenido por agentes de la Procuraduría de
Justicia del Estado acusado de pornografía infantil.
De acuerdo con indagatorias, a cada una de sus
víctimas, todas ellas menores de 13 a 15 años de edad vecinas de la misma
colonia, presuntamente les pagaba desde 100 pesos por tener relaciones sexuales
con él, las fotografiaba en el acto y las drogaba.
“Estamos hablando de al menos diez víctimas menores
de edad, él declaró que lo hacía desde hace varios años, y que como él les
pagaba no creía que fuera un delito”, dijo el Subprocurador Carlos Zamarripa.
Street sweeper charged with child
pornography
The neighborhood of San
Francisco colony is notable for its poverty. The man had photographs and video
of him with underage girls.
A 62-year-old street sweeper has been arrested by
State's Attorney's agents and is being charged with crimes involving child
pornography.
According to investigations, each of the
victims, all of them girls between 13 to 15, was allegedly paid at least 100
pesos to have sex with the defendant. He photographed them in the act, as well
as in the act of
taking drugs.
"We are talking about at least ten victims who are
minors. The accused stated that he had engaged in this type activity for several
years, and thought that because he paid the girls, his acts were not criminal,"
said Deputy prosecutor Carlos Zamarripa.
Alejandro Sandoval
http://www.milenio.com
Feb. 04, 2009
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June 24, 2010
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Últimas Noticias
Latest News
Texas, USA
Texas Supreme Court: Kids in Prostitution Are Victims, Not Criminals
The case of a 13-year-old girl who was prosecuted for prostitution (while her 32-year-old pimp got away) in Texas was decided by the Texas supreme court this week. And they've said categorically that children in the commercial sex industry aren't criminals, they're victims of child sex trafficking. This decision is significant not only for the children of Texas, but for kids around the country as more and more states may begin to see child prostitution for what it is: a crime against children.
On the one hand, declaring that children in prostitution are victims as opposed to criminals sounds like a no-brainer. Every state has an age of sexual consent that prohibits children of a certain age from consenting to sex. Why should the fact that a financial transaction is involved suddenly make children and young teens able to consent to sex? But Texas, like almost all states, never provided an age limit on the crime of prostitution. So it was legally possible for a 13-year-old to be a victim of the crime of statutory rape, but a perpetrator of the crime of prostitution -- both for the same act!
The Texas Supreme Court decision is poised to change that -- not just in Texas, but across the country. The ruling sets an important precedent by stating that children in the commercial sex industry are victims of a crime and should be treated as such. Will other states take this ruling and use it in their own cases, aiming to protect children from sexual exploitation? Will this lead a new movement to decriminalize minors in prostitution while placing the onus for their abuse on their pimps and the men who buy them? Only time will tell.
If this does mark the beginning of a new trend, then one thing is abundantly clear: we need some place to put these girls. One of the major reasons the Texas 13-year-old was prosecuted in the first place was the D.A. argued that jail was safer than the streets, and in juvenile detention she'd have access to social services she couldn't get elsewhere. And the sad thing is in many areas, the only safe place off the streets is juvenile detention. But locking up victims (aside from being wrong) can traumatize them even more. So if we as a country follow Texas's lead and say teens in prostitution are victims, then we need to build them shelters and safe houses, not jails...
Amanda Kloer
Change.org
June 24, 2010
|
Texas, USA
Loophole closed for illegal immigrants accused of serious crimes
They are accused child rapists, drug dealers and thieves. And because of major reforms in the justice system
- spurred by a News 8 investigation - those people now face prosecution.
As recently as November, because of a loophole in the law, many would have simply been set free without ever going to trial.
Until it was fixed, the loophole allowed for the deportation of accused criminals
- and a breakdown in the justice system.
We introduced you to "Sylvia" back in November. While she is an American citizen, her husband, Jose Salvador Tinajero, is Mexican.
He had just been deported instead of prosecuted for molesting her two children.
"There is no justice," Sylvia said last year, "especially for my girls, my family. There is none."
Today, she is simply overwhelmed at the progress that's been made.
News 8 first broke the story that more than 1,000 illegal immigrants who were charged with serious crimes like murder had been deported before their cases ever went to trial.
Many were bused back to Mexico and simply set free across the border.
In November, we spoke to Sgt. Ernesto Fierro, an investigator for the Dallas County District Attorney's office. At the time, little was being done to fix the problem, and Fierro said he was "furious" about it.
Buena Valentin is a Mexican citizen charged with raping his girlfriend's seven-year-old daughter. After the attack on the girl
- and her sister - they immediately ran to church for help.
"She looked really bad. Very bad," said Eleuterio Cabrera of Templo de Dios. "She was crying. The girls were very, very, very bad. It was horrible."
What was the problem?
After an arrest, the district attorney's office was usually not notified until a case had been in the system for several weeks. In that gap of time, the accused paid his bond.
Then - because the suspect was in the U.S. illegally - he was turned over to ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The job of that agency is to deport, regardless of pending charges.
Now, however, because of News 8 reports, those holes in the system are all plugged, and Sgt. Ernesto Fierro has a new, full-time assignment: Keeping people like Buena Valentin in jail.
"I feel great; I feel really good," Fierro said. "I feel like I've really done something here."
And the 90 crime suspects in Fierro's book will remain incarcerated in the Dallas County jail until their cases are settled.
"Many of them would've been on the bus back to their home country," Fierro said, without the changes to the system.
Two big fixes are:
* A mandatory $100,000 bond for anyone who is a flight risk due to possible deportation. In some cases, that's a 20-fold increase.
* Improved communication and cooperation between Dallas County and ICE.
"I appreciate you guys highlighting," said Nuria Prendes, the top ICE agent in Dallas. "If we're not made aware of things, there's no way we can fix them." ...
Federal officials say one in four felony defendants are in the U.S. illegally. News 8 has attempted to find out how many are deported before trial, but no government agency tracks the issue, and privacy rules have impeded our efforts to learn more.
Still, there is strong evidence the loophole does exists nationwide. We found cases in Florida, Massachusetts and New York...
Davis Schechter
WFAA
June 23, 2010
See also:
Texas, USA
Hundreds in Dallas County
Deported Before Their Trials
Hundreds of defendants awaiting trial for violent
crimes in Dallas County have been deported by
federal immigration officials and then set free in
their home countries.
The practice goes back to at least 1991 and includes
the release of murder, kidnapping and child rape
suspects. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
officials say they're required to deport illegal
immigrants quickly but are now in talks with local
agencies who are trying to resolve the problem...
One survey of prosecutors shows that since 1991 in
Dallas County, nearly 1,000 illegal immigrants have
not stood trial after being accused of felonies.
That number also counts cases in which a wanted
person fled before being arrested, but does not
include all Dallas County cases - just ones that
prosecutors judged to be of the highest priority.
Those who post bail and agree to then be sent home
are taking advantage of the system to escape
justice, said Terri Moore, top assistant to District
Attorney Craig Watkins...
Officials from the DA's office, the Dallas County
Sheriff's Department and ICE met this week to
discuss the problem. No quick fixes were found, but
they plan to meet again, officials said...
The agency's policies led to
the deportation of one defendant, Jose Rico, who
returned to Mexico before he could stand trial in
the rape of two girls in separate incidents. DNA
connected him to both sexual assaults, court records
show.
Both girls, ages 12 and 14,
were bound with clear duct tape. The attacker told
one of the girls: "I have a gun. I will kill you."
Rico, 34, posted his $125,000
bond and was deported in August...
In Dallas County, judges this week took a step
toward decreasing the chances that someone in the
country illegally will post bond and be deported
before trial. Judges began setting the bail at
$100,000 per charge if a defendant is in the country
illegally.
Under the new system, the bail for Rico, the child
rape suspect, probably would have been $200,000...
Jennifer Emily
Dallas News
Nov. 14, 2009
See also:
Dallas Police Identify Suspect
in 2 Child Rapes
Dallas police today released the identity of the man
believed to be responsible for raping two children
in northeast Dallas.
He
was identified as Jose Rico, 33, an illegal
immigrant, police said.
Rico
was being held in the Dallas County jail on charges
of aggravated sexual assault and burglary of a
habitation.
He
is also under an immigration hold...
In
both assaults, the victims -- girls between 12 and
14 -- were home alone when a man entered through an
unlocked doors. Both girls were bound before they
were raped.
[During] the
Oct. 16 assault the attacker... entered the home
while the girl and an 11-month-old baby were alone.
The
man confronted the girl as she was coming out of a
bathroom, pushed her back in and turned off the
lights. He threatened to hurt the baby if she
screamed.
[During] the
Jan. 30 attack... a man with a similar description
bound and raped a girl while she was home alone.
Dan X. McGraw
The Dallas Morning News
March 26, 2009 |
Connecticut, USA
|
 |
|
Kimberly Revolorio and Celetino Aguilar |
New Haven Police Ask For Help Finding Missing Teen
Police are asking for the public's help locating a missing 15-year-old girl.
Kimberly Revolorio was last seen on May 29 at 903 Congress Ave.
Police said they believe she left willingly and may be with Celetino Aguilar, 35.
Revolorio is described as a 5-foot-tall, 103-pound Hispanic female with long black hair and a light brown complexion, police said.
Aguilar is a 6-foot-tall, 175-pound Hispanic male with short black hair. He may be clean shaven but is known to have a mustache and goatee, police said.
Anyone with information on their whereabouts is asked to call the New Haven Police Department at 203-946-6316 or the Special Investigations Unit at 203-946-6290.
Julie Stagis
The Hartford Courant
June 24, 2010
New Jersey, USA
Pennsylvania halfway house escapee is caught in Newark, charged with sex assault
A man who escaped from a Pennsylvania Department of Corrections halfway house and was captured Wednesday in Newark has been charged with raping a 12-year-old child while he was on the loose.
Daniel Rosario, 33, was captured by the U.S. Marshals Service in Newark.
U.S. Marshal Michael Regan says Rosario failed to return March 25 to a halfway house in Scranton where he had been serving time on burglary charges. Authorities allege that Rosario raped a child in Dickson City earlier this month.
U.S. Marshals caught up with Rosario at an apartment building in Newark. Regan says Rosario fled on foot and scaled a razor-wire fence before being captured...
The Associated Press
June 24, 2010
The World, Latin America
|
 |
|
Latin America in the global crime big
picture
* Latin America exports $38 billion
annually in cocaine to the U.S., while exporting $34
billion to Europe
* The region generates $6.6 billion
by smuggling 3 million migrants annually into the
U.S. and Canada
Note that much of Latin America's
drug trade profits are used to finance human
trafficking operations.
By comparison, the world's second
largest organized criminal enterprise - heroin
trafficking from Afghanistan, generates $33 billion
in annual sales to Europe and Asia.
In other words, the impunity of human
trafficking is not ending any time soon in Latin
America. - LL |
UN warns of gangs’ global muscle
International crime networks now enjoy such an extensive reach that the gangs behind them must be regarded as a significant economic power, says a United Nations report.
In one of the most comprehensive analyses undertaken of transnational criminal activity, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime has calculated that the illicit trade in a range of commodities – including drugs, people, arms, fake goods and stolen natural resources – has an annual value of roughly $130
billion.
The report shows how transnational crime continues to be dominated by the trade in cocaine and heroin, a business whose product is worth about $105
billion
a year...
Cocaine trafficking from the Andean region to North America, a business with an annual value of $38
billion
at destination, is the biggest sector in the illegal narcotics trade. The export of cocaine from the Andean region to Europe is worth about $34
billion
a year.
However, the UNODC believes that the North American cocaine market is shrinking because of lower demand and greater law enforcement. It says this has generated a turf war among trafficking gangs, particularly in Mexico, and prompted them to forge new drug routes...
The second-biggest sector in international organized crime is people-trafficking.
The trade in women for sexual exploitation is now worth about $3
billion a year. Much of the trade involves trafficking people from Africa and the Balkans to other parts of Europe, where about 140,000 women are being manipulated by gangs at any one time.
The illegal smuggling of economic migrants is worth about $6.6
billion
a year to those who run the trade, according to the report.
The dominant illegal migrant flow is across the southern border of the US, with about
3 million Latin Americans illegally moving to North America each year. Flows from Africa to Europe are far smaller, with about 55,000 migrants smuggled into Europe in 2008...
James Blitz
The Financial Times Limited
June 17, 2010
See also:
"La delincuencia organizada se ha globalizado
convirtiéndose
en una amenaza para la seguridad"
En un nuevo informe de la UNODC se expone cómo, mediante la
violencia y los sobornos,
los mercados internacionales de la delincuencia han pasado a ser grandes centros
de poder
"Organized Crime Has Globalized and Turned
into a Security Threat"
A new UNODC report shows how, using violence and
bribes, international criminal markets have become major centres
of power
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)
June 17, 2010
Mexico
Delitos impunes, a pesar de que la CIDH pidió enviarlos a la vía civil
Suma justicia militar 5 casos de violación a mujeres indígenas
México, D.F. - Desde hace nueve años, la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (CIDH) recomendó al Estado mexicano que fuera la justicia civil quien investigara la violación sexual ejercida por militares en perjuicio de tres mujeres indígenas, no obstante, hoy dicha recomendación no se ha cumplido y a ella se han sumado dos casos similares en la jurisprudencia militar.
El 4 de abril de 2001, fue la primera vez que la CIDH exhortó al gobierno mexicano trasladar a la Procuraduría General de la República (PGR) un caso de violación sexual ejercida por soldados, esto con el objetivo de juzgar con mayor efectividad a los miembros de las fuerzas armadas que incurrieran en violaciones contra los derechos humanos.
Dicha recomendación del organismo internacional fue por el caso de Ana, Beatriz y Celia González Pérez (nombres ficticios), de tres indígenas tzeltales, que el 4 de junio de 1994 fueron detenidas en un retén militar, instalado tras el levantamiento del Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN) en Chiapas.
Cabe recordar que las hermanas González Pérez y su madre, Delia Pérez de González fueron interrogadas y privadas de su libertad durante dos horas. En tanto, las tres hermanas fueron golpeadas y violadas en reiteradas ocasiones por los militares. Después de lo ocurrido, el 30 de junio de 1994, las jóvenes agredidas -de 20, 18 y 16 años de edad- presentaron una denuncia ante el Ministerio Público Federal.
Sin Justicia Expedita
Sin embargo, el 2 de septiembre de 1994, el expediente de dicha denuncia fue trasladado a la Procuraduría General de Justicia Militar, quién dos años después, en febrero de 1996, decidió archivar el expediente con el argumento de: “la falta de comparecencia de las víctimas a declarar nuevamente y a someterse a pericias ginecológicas”.
Cabe mencionar que el 17 de septiembre de ese año, la defensa de las víctimas presentó un amparo para evitar que la justicia militar investigara el caso, pero éste fue negado.
Este hecho permitió que el caso permaneciera en la impunidad, ya que a decir de la defensa de las tres indígenas, era inaceptable la pretensión de que estas mujeres, que fueron torturadas por miembros de la institución castrense, se sintieran seguras declarando (por tercera vez) ante este organismo...
A pesar de estas declaraciones y de que han transcurrido 16 años, la investigación permanece en la justicia militar y en la impunidad.
Rapes of civilian indigenous women remain in impunity
despite the demands of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission that Mexico
move the cases to civilian courts
The case of the 1994 beatings and rapes of three Tzeltal Mayan indigenous
sisters, who were then ages 16, 18 and 20, and are known by their pseudonyms of Ana, Beatriz y Celia González Pérez, remains
in impunity 16 years after the fact. Mexican President Felipe Calderón's policies
have never allowed civilian jurisdiction in this case, nor in the cases of two other
indigenous rape victims, who have also faced impunity (and ongoing intimidation
for having sought to bring criminal complaints against soldiers).
Despite the fact that the Inter-American Human Rights Commission has, since
2001, called upon Mexico to allow its civilian criminal justice system to take
over cases involving soldiers attacking Mexican civilians, President Calderón
has ignored these pleas.
Anayeli García Martínez
CIMAC Noticias Women's News Agency
June 14, 2010
See also:
|
 |
|
CIMAC Noticias' collection
of over 300 news articles on the rape of (mostly
indigenous) women with impunity by soldiers in
Mexico
(in Spanish) |
Cuba
Cuba denounces US criticism on human trafficking
Havana - Cuba reacted angrily... to its inclusion on a U.S. list of countries that could be sanctioned for failing to fight human and child trafficking, calling it a "shameful slander" and part of Washington's efforts to justify its trade embargo.
Cuba is one of 13 countries put on notice... that they are not complying with the minimum international standards to eliminate the trade in human beings and sexual slavery, and could face U.S. penalties.
Compiled by President Barack Obama's administration, the list also includes Iran, North Korea, and Myanmar. Another 58 countries were placed on a "watch list" that could lead to sanctions unless their records improve.
Cuba was singled out for allegedly not doing enough to prevent the trafficking of children who work as prostitutes on the island, mostly serving foreign tourists. It also said some Cuban doctors have complained that the government leases out their services to foreign countries as a way of canceling Cuba's debt.
"Cuba categorically rejects these allegations as false and disrespectful," Josefina Vidal Ferreiro, director of the Cuban Foreign Ministry's North American affairs office, said in a statement sent to the foreign news media Tuesday.
She said the allegations are all the more offensive because the communist government has concentrated its limited resources on protecting women and the young, providing far more for the most vulnerable members of society than most nations in the region.
While Cubans receive low wages, the island offers free education through college, free health care and heavily subsidized housing and transportation. Crime rates and drug usage are extremely low in a country where the state maintains near total control.
"These shameful slanders profoundly hurt the Cuban people. In Cuba, there is no
sexual abuse against minors
[well, that certainly is an exaggeration -
LL],
but rather an exemplary effort to protect children, young people and women,"
Vidal Ferreiro said. She said Cuban laws "put us among the countries in the
region with the most advanced norms and mechanisms for the prevention of abuse."
...
The latest report notes that Cuban laws against trafficking appear stringent, but that the country has not provided enough evidence to show they are being enforced.
Interestingly, the report does not concentrate on Cubans seeking to emigrate to the United States, a diaspora
which has meant vast profits for traffickers, who can charge thousands of
dollars for illicit transportation to the U.S., often through Mexico...
Vidal Ferreiro said Cuba's inclusion on the trafficking list is political.
"It can only be explained by the desperate need that the U.S. government has to justify, under whatever pretext, the persistence of its cruel blockade, which has been overwhelmingly rejected by the international community."
Cuba was not the only country in the region to react strongly to the report.
Guyana, which received slightly better marks than Cuba, said the report hurts its friendship with the United States. The Dominican Republic is also included on the list
[and richly deserved to be there -
LL]. The country's official in charge of monitoring human trafficking, Frank Soto, called the list "a lie with no merit."
Paul haven
The Associated Press
June 15, 2010
Colorado, USA
Woman molested at 7-11 in Colorado Springs
Colorado Springs police are warning residents about a sexual assault that happened this weekend at the 7-11 store at 3306 E. Fountain Blvd.
A 17-year-old girl was standing with some friends while filling their car at about 4:40 p.m. Saturday when a large green van pulled up behind the car.
The victim said a Hispanic man, age 30-40, made some small talk with her and then molested her.
The man was described as 5-feet-7-inches tall, heavy and wearing black Dickies shorts and a gray or white tanktop shirt.
The van was large and had red "For Sale" signs on the side and the rear windows.
James Amos
KOAA
June 22, 2010
The World
|
 |
|
2010 report from
the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) |
UN: Organized crime spans planet, involves big economies - Summary
New York/Vienna - International mafias with their enormous power in money and weapons have sent and marketed illicit goods across and in all continents, affecting the world's biggest economies, the first UN report on transnational crime said Thursday.
Europe has become one of the destinations, with an estimated 140,000 victims of sexual exploitation generating gross annual income of 3 billion dollars to human traffickers, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime
(UNODC) said in the report The Globalization of Crime.
Major human trafficking routes flow from Africa to Europe and from Latin America to the United States.
"Worldwide there are millions of modern slaves traded at a price not higher in real terms than centuries ago," said UNODC executive director Antonia Maria Costa who presented the report in New York.
"Transnational crime has become a threat to peace and development, even to the sovereignty of nations," Costa said. "Criminals use weapons and violence, but also money and bribes to buy elections, politicians and power."
...
UNODC warned that transnational crime threatens to derail security especially in poor countries that already suffer from conflicts.
"Crime is fuelling corruption, infiltrating business and politics, and hindering development," Costa said.
He pointed to drug cartels that spread violence in Central America, the Caribbean and West Africa, as well as to cooperation between insurgents and criminals in Southeast Asia and Northern and Central Africa.
The UNODC said governments should try fighting criminal markets rather than crime syndicates, by stopping money laundering and informal transfer systems...
Two main routes for smuggling migrants are from Africa to Europe and from Latin American to the US. Up to 3 million migrants are smuggled from Latin America to the US every year, providing more than 6 billion dollars to smugglers.
The heroin market in North America has declined because of lower demand and more effective law enforcement. But it triggered a turf war among gangs, particularly in Mexico, for new drugs trafficking routes.
Afghanistan produces opium and Colombia coca, but the drug profits are made at their destination rich countries. Afghan heroin is sold for an estimated 55 billion dollars around the world, but Afghan farmers, traders and insurgents probably receive only about 2.3 billion dollars...
Earth Times
June 17, 2010
See also:
International criminal markets have become major centres
of power, UNODC report shows
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime
June 17, 2010
Guyana
The US human trafficking report is defective
US human trafficking policy is a product of religious leaders,
neo-conservatives, and abolitionist feminists. It was Michael Horowitz from the
Hudson Institute who set up a coalition of evangelicals to advocate for the
legislation that became the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA); the
legislation received approval from the US House of Representatives by a 371-1
vote, and by the US Senate by 95-0 vote, and was signed into law by President
Clinton on October 28, 2000.
The TVPA’s aims are to prevent human trafficking overseas, protecting the
victims of traffickers, and prosecuting traffickers. A singular dimension of
TVPA has to do with the US’s demands on overseas countries to enact preventive
measures against sex trafficking.
This TVPA as a matter of policy requires the State Department to
effect an annual assessment of other countries’ anti-trafficking efforts, and to
evaluate each country on the basis of its procedures undertaken to combat
trafficking. For this reason, the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in
Persons with the State Department executes its work through a mandate from
Congress to produce annual Trafficking in Persons (TIPS) reports that ranks each
country’s progress to end trafficking.
The US keeps awarding itself a Tier 1 status, meaning it is
making sufficient efforts to end trafficking; countries that do not do well in
US judgment are labeled Tier 2 or Tier 3.Tier 3 countries could receive
sanctions from the US.
If you look carefully, you will see that Tier 3 countries are
countries that may be more concerned about paying no mind to this US program,
rather than their efforts to end trafficking. Some recent Tier 3 countries are
Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, Indonesia, India, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain,
Lebanon, Sudan, Qatar, Turkey, etc. These are countries not comfortable with US
imperialism, where Enloe (2000) argued that the US sets itself up as “a model to
be emulated” and [performs] the role of “global policeman.”
Trends in Organized Crime (2006) noted that the US State
Department’s justifications for its ranking awards to countries that do not
satisfy minimum standards to end human trafficking, are deficient, and the State
Department’s report is applied patchily to establish government-wide
anti-trafficking programs and projects.
Some of the minimum standards are subjective, and the report
fails to delineate how these standards were applied, reducing the report’s
integrity. For instance, country narratives for Tier 1 countries do not make
clear compliance with the second minimum standard pertaining to approved
penalties for sex-trafficking crimes.
The US itself has to address domestically the problem of about
200,000 children at risk for human trafficking each year, and it would serve
that country well to effect some house cleaning there, as that problem has begun
to fester. And instead of sitting in judgment over other countries’ issues on
trafficking, there may be better outcomes if all the affected countries worked
in unison to stamp out this evil trade.
Yours
faithfully,
Prem Misir
Letter to the editor
Stabroek News
June 17, 2010
Added: Jun. 22, 2010
Cuba,
The Americas
We present a continuing dialog on the
perennial inclusion of Cuba in the worst rating categories in
the annual U.S. Trafficking in Persons Report
Cuba,
The Americas
Added: Jun. 22, 2010
Response to the 2007 TIP Report
 |
|
Rosa Miriam Elizalde
|
Crime or Punishment in Cuba
Myths about the sex trade
[A Cuban activist's analysis in
response to the
2007
U.S. Trafficking in Persons report's
allegations of child sex trafficking in Cuba]
"...The... report... avoids to mention that
before the 1959 triumph of Revolution, Cuba had a population of
about 6 million and was known as the "North American brothel in
the Caribbean." Some 100,000 women worked either directly or
indirectly on prostitution due to poverty, discrimi-nation or the
absence of jobs. The Revolution educated them and offered them
employment."
In... the “2007 Trafficking in Persons Report," Cuba and
Venezuela head-up the U.S. State Department’s black list. The
annual verdict - it has been issued now since 2001 - repeats
practically the same arguments already used for seven years. It
reiterates that both women and children are "internally
trafficked" for sexual exploitation and that the country,
[is] an
important destination...
In the Cuban case, it is not in the social or the individual
levels where this myth “woman = prostitute” reveals itself more
clearly, but in the international news media. Cuba has lived the
unusual experience of a political manipulation of the drama of
prostitution that has become the center of an international
campaign presenting Cubans, all of them, as potential saleable
objects. “You will feel watched by hundreds of approachable
women,” starts an article in Man magazine...
By linking the reemergence of prostitution in Cuba with the
measures enacted to strengthen [the] economy they are actually trying
to demonstrate the unfeasibility of the Cuban social project.
...It [the existence of prostitution] is offered-up as
the highest evidence of the political disintegration of the
Cuban system, the return to a type of trade that had disappeared
in the initial decades of the Revolution. “This campaign intends
to present the increasing number of tourists in the country as a
wave of sex-starved males that will find their desires fulfilled
in an island plunged into poverty, with women selling their
bodies for their daily bread," as a Spanish journalist who
took part in a debate on the topic in the magazine Cambio 16
stated.
The attempt at [highlighting this part of the economy continues
to grow] thanks to the sex
market... There have even been those who have
rashly awarded Cuba the credential of “erotic imperialist” when
trying to explain the signs of economic recovery in a blockaded
country. In this type of analysis, of course, the image of Cuban
prostitutes is presented out of context. Since, as a rule, the
phenomenon is seen superficially and tendentious information is
offered, foreigners imagine that these prostitutes are not
essentially different from those who sell themselves in
bordellos and streets in their cities and that form part of a
highly organized and lucrative business, all this quite far from
Cuban reality.
"Whether directly or indirectly, what is being sold as an image
is the possibility of subduing the Cuban nation."
As a mathematical formula [that runs in an endless loop], the equation
“woman = prostitute = Cuba” has ended up as a new version of the
myth maintaining that all women are whores: it is the
stigmatized identity of a country and the tropical version of
the failure of socialism.
Whether directly or indirectly, what is
being sold as an image is the possibility of subduing the Cuban
nation. That “all women are approachable” does not only mean
that you can buy sexuality and power over another human being –
and, by extension, take control of a country for a period of
time established beforehand – but that you can avail yourself of
their intimacy, [that place] in human beings, no matter where
they are from, where the link with shame and taboo runs deep. ..
Rosa Miriam Elizalde
Translated by María Teresa Ortega
July 27, 2007
See also:
Cuba
Response to the 2010 TIP Report
Reconoce UNICEF ejemplo de Cuba en protección a la infancia
Es el cuento de nunca acabar. Autoridades estadounidenses ya no
saben de cuál gajo colgarse en su enfermizo empeño contra Cuba.
La mala nueva es ahora la aparición de la lsla entre los peores
países del globo en cuanto al tráfico de personas, según informe
elaborado por el Departamento de Estado en relación con el tema…
Paradojas: hace apenas cinco días, en La Habana, Juan José
Ortiz, representante del Fondo de Naciones Unidas para la
Infancia (UNICEF) ofreció declaraciones en las cuales resaltó:
"En el planeta, millones de menores sufren la falta de
escolarización y de vacunación contra enfermedades prevenibles,
además de ser víctimas de explotación laboral y sexual en las
redes internacionales de prostitución, ninguno es cubano"...
UNICEF recognizes Cuba as a leader in
childhood protection
The story never ends. U.S. authorities no longer know from which
hook to hang in the ongoing campaign against Cuba.
The newest story to come out is that Cuba appears as one of the
worst nations on earth in regard to human trafficking, according
the [2010 Trafficking in Persons report of the] U.S. Department
of State.
Cuba did not hesitate to respond. Josefina Vidal,
director for North America for the Cuban Chancellery responded
to the 2010 TIP report by declaring the allegations to be “false
and disrespectful.”
Paradoxically, five days ago, Juan Jose Ortiz, a representative
of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), made the
following statement: “Across the world, millions of minors
suffer from a lack of access to education and vaccines to
protect against preventable diseases, in addition to being
victims of international sexual and labor exploitation networks.
None of these children are Cuban."
During recent years Cuba has achieved important, positive
progress in regard to protecting children, a fact which has
transformed Cuba into the Latin American nation with the highest
quality of life for girls and boys.
An age-old saying in Cuba goes: “Tell me what you accuse me of,
and I will show you what you, yourself are lacking.” This fits
like a ring on a finger in the case of the allegations made
against Cuba.
The U.S. leads in statistics regarding all forms of trafficking,
immigration. Drug use, murders, mafias, wars, etcetera…
The [allegations of child trafficking made against Cuba] show
the blindness of certain authorities in the Obama
Administration. They have never visited Cuba, and they have
apparently never read UNICEF’s reports in regard to conditions
for children here.
Continuing with the statement of conditions in Cuba by UNICEF’s
Juan Jose Ortiz, he says: “quantitatively and qualitatively, we
can say that the
Convention on the Rights of the Child is applied very well
in Cuba."
In Ortiz’ opinion, this state of affairs has come about through
the collaboration between the Cuban Government and UNICEF,
making Cuba a shining example for children rights for the rest
of Latin America.
Everything is not perfect. Nothing exists in simple, black and
white tones. Shades of grey do exist. As one poet stated it:
“none of use live in a perfect society.” But to say that
children in Cuba are subjected to the degrading business of
human trafficking and child prostitution is a repugnant form of
political aggression.
Cuba is not a rich country, but it does not interfere in
the “persistent effort to guarantee protections for children,”
which is, according to UNICEF, a state of affairs made possible by
[the actions of] Cuba’s
government.”
Children in
Cuba may lack financial resources, but there is no lack of love
and good will to support them…
Marcos Alfonso
Radio Guantanamo
June 16, 2010
See also:
Added: Jun. 21, 2010
Cuba,
The Americas
LibertadLatina
Commentary
Response to the 2010 TIP Report
|
 |
|
Chuck Goolsby |
We do not take a position on the political situation in Cuba, beyond
acknowledging that Democracy must come, some day, to that island nation. In
addition, we are not communists, socialists or any other 'ist' that can be
negatively labeled.
As a musician specializing in, among other things, Afro-Cuban folkloric music
(Rumba) for the past 32 years, I have had many Cuban friends, of all ages, races and political
leanings. As one of Cuba's best African folklorist's, a man named Hector, told
me when he came to Washington, DC after the
1980 Mariel Boatlift exodus of
refugees: "The lack of political freedom in Cuba was terrible, but the fact
that all of your needs were met - education, food, housing and
healthcare - was a good thing."
In regard to the rights of children and human trafficking, we find that the
recent report from Cuba's
Radio Guantanamo (see the above article), and also UNICEF official
Juan Jose Ortiz's recent comments on Cuba's treatment of children, ring much closer to the truth than the
allegations contained in the 2010
U.S. State Department's assessment, which declares that Cuba deserves a "Tier 3" (the
lowest) rating for supposedly
refusing to address the issue of human trafficking.
Before the Cuban revolution in 1958, Cuba was literally the top sex
tourism destination for U.S. citizens in the Americas. After the revolution, prostitution was
banned and former prostitutes were given job training, an approach that would
have been considered unthinkable in any other Latin American nation at the time,
despite the continent-wide epidemic of prostitution that then plagued (and still
plagues) the region.
After the victory of Castro's forces in 1958, one of his first acts was to allow
Afro-Cubans to attend public beaches (a practice banned under the dictator
Batista). We note with horror that Mexican police had been known to clear
Acapulco's beaches of
Afro-Mexican children and adults - also with
the goal of 'pleasing' U.S. tourists, as recently as
a decade ago.
In
1975, I recall seeing a mainstream television news story about Fidel Castro
declaring that women would be given equal rights in Cuba.
At the time, this policy change caused enraged men to flock to Cuba's streets en-mass to protest.
Yet equality became official policy. By contrast, women did not even win the
right to vote in Mexico until 1953.
In 1991, a very high level official in the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services (the director of an HHS region) had a very long conversation with me about the human rights of children in
Latin America. What this official said to me was that Cuba was the only nation in
Latin America that properly cared for all of its children. He added that hunger,
lack of access to medical care, lack of access to education and other maladies
that plague all other Latin American nations are non-existent in Cuba. This
official's assessment from 1991 is compatible with UNICEF's recent (2010)
comments on the positive, pro-children efforts that are clearly visible
throughout Cuba.
In addition, African descendents, who are 60% of Cuba's current population, are
given access to equal education and, even if poor, can look forward to attending
excellent medical schools if they qualify academically and so desire. You
will not find that state of affairs anywhere else in the Americas.
The
Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) in Havana, has graduated more than
7,000 doctors from Latin America and nations around the world, often via
scholarships. One family friend, who's son's medical practice partner in Colombia is
Afro-Colombian, noted that Colombia's racist medical schools refuse to admit even ONE
Afro-Colombian student. This perfectly qualified physician therefore received
his training in Cuba.
In Cuba, the social drivers that create the conditions necessary to expose
children to mass human trafficking simply do not exist.
By contrast, millions of indigenous children in Mexico are forced to work for a
living while facing unspeakable racial hatred focused against them by the
nation's Spanish descendents. It is well documented that indigenous and African
descendant children in Mexico are forced to go to schools with dirt floors and
often without bathroom facilities (a public health factor that was widely
discussed in the context of the 2009 Swine Flu outbreak). Tens of thousands of
poor indigenous girls in the 12 to 14-years-of-age range must work, with no
access to schooling, as domestic servants for middle and upper class Mexican
households. Only a few of these children are actually paid, and many of them are
routinely raped with impunity by the homeowner and/or his sons.
In addition, some 3,000 to 4,000 indigenous children and youth
have been kidnapped with complete impunity by Japanese Yakuza mafias and their
accomplices in Mexico, and have been sent to Japan to be enslaved as Geisha prostitutes,
while neither Mexico nor Japan have ever lifted even one little finger to help these innocent victims
of serial rape until death.
Activists in Mexico admit that the federal government does little to stop human
trafficking, and police agents are complicit in a large number of trafficking crimes.
None of these critical human rights issues are visibly active on Mexico's national agenda, even
now that the United Nations Blue Heart Campaign against human trafficking has
begun a ground breaking effort to combat human slavery in that nation.
It has been a concern of ours for years that the U.S. State Department
Trafficking in Persons Report has
repeatedly rated Cuba as the worst location in the Americas for human
trafficking (which is a stretch, at best), while virtually ignoring the easily
demonstrable pandemic of mass enslavement of poor women and
children in Mexico, Argentina, the Dominican Republic and other major source
countries for victims.
Does prostitution and adult sex tourism exist in Cuba? Yes. Is Cuba's problem
with human trafficking anywhere near as bad as it is in Mexico? No. Not by a long
shot.
Cuba was always targeted for low ratings in the TIP report when President George
W. Bush was in office. It was understood by many that this was political payback.
If Cuba deserves a Tier 3 rating, then Mexico and Argentina deserve a Tier 4
rating (of course, tier 4 does not actually exist).
If Mexico is a gleaming example of a nation that is doing good work, and better
work than Cuba to stop child sex trafficking, then our nation's assessment techniques
are flawed and inaccurate, and are therefore in BIG trouble.
...Just keeping the discussion honest.
End impunity now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
June 21/22/23, 2010
See also:
UNICEF's background report on conditions
Cuba
See also:
Press response to the 2010 TIP Report
Ambassador CdeBaca on 10th Annual
Trafficking in Persons Report
CdeBaca answers questions on modern
slavery, sex and labor trafficking
Question [from a reporter]: Thank
you.
Ambassador CdeBaca: Yes.
Question: Yes. Back on the case of
Cuba, I’m wondering what actually is the justification for the -
I mean, I read a little bit, but it sounds - it seems like the
U.S. might be open to charges of political ranking. I’m just
trying to get why Cuba is on Tier 3.
Ambassador CdeBaca: Well, I think
that one of the things that we see for Cuba is that there is no
law against this practice. There’s some other laws that could be
cobbled together perhaps in order to prosecute a trafficker, but
there’s no evidence that that has actually been done. I think
one of the things that we also look at there is, again, the age
of legal prostitution. Again, children are – can legally be in
prostitution at ages 16 and 17.
[We note that the age of sexual consent in
Mexico continues to be age 12 in the majority of states, a fact
the fuels a massive child sex trafficking industry who's
regulation is not even hinted at by Mexico's government. Police
do not enforce any laws against 12-year-olds being involved in
prostitution in Mexico because these girls and boys are of legal
age to consent to sex.
Yet
that fact did not place Mexico in a Tier 3 ranking,
contradicting Ambassador CdeBaca's rationale for singling out
Cuba (where he states that 16 and 17-year-olds, who are of the
age of consent in Cuba, engage in prostitution).
Most Latin
American nations have ages of consent in the 12 to 15-years-of-age
range, and their prostitution 'industries' reflect that fact. -
LL]
Ambassador CdeBaca: We also see the lack of human trafficking protections and no
training for the police, prosecutors, or social workers on what
to do if one sees a human trafficking situation. So in a country
where not only do you have a – such a large tourist industry,
other countries in the region that draw tourists from the same
places as Cuba, have large child sex tourism problems, and are
working to address those, we don’t see the same activity in
Cuba. So it’s a multifaceted approach as far as why they would
end up on Tier 3.
U.S. Department of State
June 14, 2010
[We note that Latin American
and Caribbean nations other than Cuba, where child sex tourism is rampant,
have few if any of the extensive protections that are available in Cuba that guarantee
children shelter, food and a good education.
The result is that young
people in these other nations easily fall victim to sexual exploitation. Cuba
maintains a high level of support for children despite the fact that, as the UNICEF web page
on Cuba
notes, the U.S. trade embargo has had the effect of raising infant
mortality rates. -
LL]
Cuba
Another view of the Cuban reality
Havana Has The Air of a Brothel...
...Havana has the air of a brothel at times, particularly if you pass through Monte Street where it meets Cienfuegos. Young women in their flashy - if a little faded - clothes offer their "merchandise," especially after night falls and the spandex doesn't look quite as baggy nor the circles under their eyes quite as dark. These are the ones who can't compete with those who can snag a manager or a tourist to take them to a hotel and offer them, the next morning, a breakfast that comes with milk. These are the ones who don't wear perfume and who finish their work in the cramped quarters of a solar or even on the landing under the stairs. They traffic in groans, exchanging spasms for money.
These men and women - merchants of desire - avoid tripping over the uniformed police who guard the area. Falling into their hands can mean a night in a cell or, for those in the city illegally, deportation to your home province. Everything can be "resolved" if the officer accepts the hint of a probing thigh and agrees to withhold an official warning in exchange for a few minutes of privacy. Some officers return regularly to take their cut, in money or in services, that allows these nocturnal beings to continue taking up their positions on the corner. A woman who refuses the exchange can find herself in a prostitute reeducation camp, while the men might be charged with the crime of pre-criminal dangerousness.
And so the cycle of sex for money comes full circle, in a city where honest work is a museum relic and the needs bring many to position their bodies and swing their hips in hopes of an offer.
Yoani Sanchez - Award-Winning Cuban Blogger
The Huffington Post
April 26, 2010
See also:
Cuba
Response to the 2008 TIP Report
Cuba Rejects Its Inclusion on US List of Countries Not Fighting Human Trafficking
Cuba on Sunday rejected U.S. claims that it does not do enough to combat human trafficking, saying that Washington "has a lot to learn" about life on the island.
U.S. authorities "are unfamiliar with and distort" Cuban reality, the Foreign Relations Ministry said in a written response to the U.S. State Department's annual "Trafficking in Persons Report," released Wednesday. The report tracks human trafficking for the sex trade, coerced labor and the recruitment of child soldiers, outlining efforts to fight it, including prosecution, sentencing and programs to help victims.
Listing Cuba among the world's worst offenders, the report said poor women and
children on the island are often forced into prostitution by family members. But
it also noted that human trafficking cannot be properly measured in Cuba, given
the government's refusal to cooperate with independent observers. Cuba said it
maintains a "firm" policy against human trafficking and prostitution and noted
that its communist system provides for the basic needs of all citizens...
"Cuba does not see any value in the State Department's report," the Foreign Ministry's statement said. "The government of the United States has a lot to do in its own country to combat the rampant phenomenon there of prostitution, sexual exploitation, forced labor and the trafficking of people."
"The government of the United States has a lot to learn about Cuba and is not in a position to judge anyone," it said.
The International Herald Tribune
June 13, 2008
See also:
Cuba, The World
Sixty-second General Assembly - Thematic Debate on Human Trafficking
The representative of Cuba said that, since industrialized countries were the main destination for human trafficking, and their actions increased the demand for women and child sex workers, a credible United Nations anti-trafficking strategy should advance a more just international economic order that would put a stop to inequalities.
The United Nations General Assembly
June 03, 2008
See also:
Venezuela
Response to the 2006 TIP Report
Venezuela's Record in Combating Human Trafficking
Since 2000 the U.S. State Department has issued a yearly report on the status of trafficking in persons (TIP) throughout the world. In June 2006 the Office to Combat and Monitor the Trafficking of Persons, the State Department body responsible for studying TIP and issuing the report, characterized Venezuela as an egregious human trafficker and designated it a Tier 3 nation, subject to economic sanctions. The TIP Report claims that Venezuela “does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so.”[1] This ruling, for the second year in a row, sits in stark contrast to the facts surrounding Venezuela’s human trafficking record.
Is Venezuela's tier 3 designation politically motivated?
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) many countries with many more human trafficking violations than Venezuela have been assigned Tier 1 or Tier 2 status while others with less serious records receive Tier 3. Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue notes in an opinion piece published in the New York Times that “in the State Department’s 2003 Human Trafficking report Venezuela did not even appear among the five worst offenders in the Western Hemisphere” and that “the Bush administration has not provided compelling and persuasive evidence that warrants singling out one country.”
Mexico serves as a case in point.
In the 2006 TIP Report Mexico is described in far worse terms than Venezuela and even noted as “a source, transit, and destination country for persons trafficked for sexual exploitation and labor.” In contrast to Venezuela’s record, the government of Mexico has repeatedly refused to gather official data on human trafficking within its borders and keeps no law enforcement statistics on trafficking investigations, arrests, prosecutions, or convictions. Even more disturbing, “there are no shelters or related services that specifically aid trafficking victims” in Mexico. Despite these dismal results, Mexico was assigned a Tier 2 designation for the third consecutive year. Washington justifies this designation in the Report by noting a “future commitment” from the Mexican government to undertake efforts in prosecution, protection, and prevention. Venezuela on the other hand has pro-actively addressed all of these areas.
In a statement regarding the State Department’s Human Rights Report issued in early 2005 the Deputy Director of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) Kimberly Stanton noted “political considerations are evident in some of the findings… The credibility of the reports depends on consistent, objective analysis. This year the U.S. government policy priorities are affecting the evaluation of the data in some cases.”
VenInfo.org
2006
See Also:
The reality is that
Mexico fares much worse than Cuba or
Venezuela in regard to the treatment of its
self-created mega-crisis of child and adult trafficking
Mexico
Víctimas del tráfico
de personas, 5 millones de mujeres y niñas
en América Latina
De esa
cifra, más de 500 mil casos ocurren en
México, señalan especialistas.
Five million victims
of Human Trafficking Exist in Latin America
Saltillo, Coahuila state -
Teresa Ulloa Ziaurriz, the director of the
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women's
Latin American / Caribbean regional office,
announced this past Monday that more than
five million women and girls are currently
victims of human trafficking in Latin
America and the Caribbean.
During a forum on successful
treatment approaches for trafficking victims
held by the Women's Institute of Coahuila,
Ulloa Ziaurriz stated that
500,000 of these
cases exist in Mexico, where women and girls
are trafficked for sexual exploitation,
pornography and the illegal harvesting of
human organs...
Mexico is a country of
origin, transit and also destination for
trafficked persons. Of 500,000 victims in
Mexico, 87% are subjected to commercial
sexual exploitation.
Ulloa Ziaurriz pointed out
that locally in Coahuila state, the nation's
human trafficking problem shows up in the
form of child prostitution in cities such as
Ciudad Acuña as well as other population
centers along Mexico's border with the
United States.
- Notimex /
La Jornada Online
Mexico City
Dec. 12, 2007
See also:
Added March 23, 2008
Mexico
Un millón de menores
latinoamericanos atrapados por redes de prostitución
Former Special
Prosecutor for Violent Crimes Against
Women - Alicia Elena Perez Duarte:
|
At least one million children across Latin
America have been entrapped by child
prostitution and pornography networks.
[In many cases in Mexico] these child
victims are offered to businessmen
and politicians. |
Full story (in
English)
See also:
Added Oct. 28, 2007
Central America and Mexico
Trata de blancas
en Centroamérica
For
non-governmental organizations, the child kidnapping
and sex trafficking case of 11-year-old Jackeline
Jirón Silva fom Nicaragua is emblematic, as it
shows clearly how the third most profitable criminal
enterprise in the world operates.
...Jackeline has been forced to work in brothels all
over Central America. Her pimps now have her in
Tapachula, in Chiapas state [near Mexico's southern
border with Guatemala].
María de Jesús Silva [Jackeline's mother, who
searched all over Central America and southern
Mexico for her daughter]: "I saw things that I never
imagined existed... The brothels are full of
children, sold by traffickers and abandoned by their
parents. I saw them prostitute themselves and wished
that any one of them would have been my daughter. I
settled for caressing the hair of these girls, and I
imagined that in the 'next' brothel, I was going to
find my daughter. Everything that I have suffered
through is nothing compared to what my girl is going
through."
...According to Ana Salvadó, executive director for
Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean for
Save the Children:
"the panorama for childhood in Latin America is
growing more bleak over time, and child trafficking
is growing rapidly in each of these countries..."
…Save the Children has
identified the border region between Guatemala and
Mexico as being the largest hot spot for the
commercial sexual exploitation of children in the
entire world. Ana Salvadó: "It is a
bottleneck, because many children attempt to migrate
from Central [and South] America to the United
States, and they never get past [southern] Mexico…
…A study by the international organization
ECPAT…
made public three weeks ago in Guatemala City,
reveals that over 21,000
Central Americans, mostly children, are prostituted
in 1,552 bars and brothels in Tapachula, Mexico…
Traffickers sell these child victims to Tapachula's
pimps for $200 each.
More that 50% of these children are from
[indigenous] Guatemala. The rest are Salvadorans,
Hondurans and Nicaraguans.
They range in age from eight to fourteen-years-old.
...In 2006, the
International
Labor Organization conducted a survey of
adult attitudes in Mexico, Central America and South
America, where it is quite easy [for men] to engage
in sexual relations with children.
|
Some 65% of
respondents stated that they don't see any
problem, and they don't feel any sort of
conflict or fear in regard to having sex
with boy and girl children, and "they don't
feel that there is anything wrong with doing
it." |
...Mexico has been converted into a paradise for
pimps and a living hell for thousands of Central
American girl children like Jackeline Jirón Silva,
whose captors have prostituted her during the past
32 months. It is known that during half of that
time, Jackeline has been held in the southern
Mexican state of Chiapas.
-
Ana Lilia Pérez
Revista Contralínea
Oct. 22, 2007
See also:
Mexico: Más de un
millón de menores se prostituyen en el
centro del país: especialista
Expert: More than one
million minors are sexually exploited in
Central Mexico
Tlaxcala city, in Tlaxcala
state - Around 1.5 million people in the
central region of Mexico are engaged in
prostitution, and some 75% of them are
between 12 and 13 years of age, reported
Teresa Ulloa, director of the Regional
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women and
Girls in Latin America and the Caribbean...
La Jornada de Oriente
Sep. 26, 200
[Note: The figure of 75% of 1.5 million
indicates that 1.1 million girls between the
ages of 12 and 13 at any given time engage
in prostitution in central Mexico alone. -
LL]
See also:
Blacks in Mexico: A
Forgotten Minority
...The [estimated one million] Afro-Mexicans
face considerable hurdles. ...The all-black
shantytowns near
Yanga [in
Veracruz state] lack schools, and eager
young migrants who move to bigger cities for
work complain of blatant discrimination.
A report released... by Mexico's Congress
said that roughly 200,000 black Mexicans who
reside in the rural areas of Veracruz and
Oaxaca and in tourist cities like Acapulco
are out of the reach of social programs like
employment support, health coverage, public
education and food assistance. ..
LibertadLatina
We truly appreciate the wonderful work of the
Office To Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons
(TIP) in the U.S. Department of
State, but it
is absolutely ridiculous to point the finger
at Cuba on the issue of child sex trafficking, when,
by comparison, Mexico's
'pampered' government has not even pretended to bring the
crisis of mass gender atrocities
affecting Mexican and migrant Central American children in its territory under the control
of the rule of law.
The TIP office cannot employ a double standard that
uses their annual report to advance geopolitical
goals that are not tied directly to the issue of
human trafficking.
The whole world is watching!
End impunity now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
June 22/23, 2010
|
North Carolina, USA
|
 |
|
Pedro Ventura Chavez |
Cary man charged with sexually abusing child
A [city of] Cary man has been accused of sexually abusing a 10-year-old girl, according an arrest warrant.
Pedro Ventura Chavez, 33, had been abusing the girl for over a year, sources told WRAL News.
Chavez, of 304 Middleton Ave., was charged Sunday with one count of felony taking indecent liberties with a child.
He was being held Sunday in the Wake County jail under a $150,000 bond. His first court appearance was set for Monday afternoon.
Chavez has also been placed under a retainer by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
North Carolina Most Wanted
June 20, 2010
Delaware, USA
|
 |
|
Sketch of suspect |
Camera Captures Images of 9-Year-Old’s Rapist
Child rape suspect's Chevy Tahoe caught on surveillance camera
A surveillance camera captured images of what police believe to be the car of the man who abducted and raped a 9-year-old Alban Park, Del. girl June 9.
The 9-year-old girl accepted a ride from a stranger when she was accidentally locked out of her home. The man drove her to the 200-block of Liberty Street in Wilmington and raped her before she could get out of the car, police say.
The young girl was dropped off at her 500-block of Homestead Road address by a family friend. She walked into her building but when she was unable to get inside her door, she walked back outside to look for her sister and parents, police say.
While walking along Alban Drive near the Canby Park Shopping Center, a man described as an Asian or Hispanic male with short black hair, round eyes, “chubby cheeks” and a “chubby build” offered her a ride. After some conversation the child accepted the ride, police say.
The suspect’s SUV is a 1995-2005 Chevrolet Tahoe with a registration containing a “2” in the middle of the tag.
If you have any information on the suspect, please contact the New Castle County Police Department at 395-8110, attention Detective Timothy Argoe. Or text tip at: 847411 (TIP411) and begin your message with NCCPD and then type your message. Tipsters may also call Crime Stoppers at (800) TIP-3333.
Teresa Masterson
NBC Philadelphia
June 21, 2010
Texas, USA
Body Found in Field - Woman Strangled
Houston - An autopsy has revealed that a woman whose body was found in a southeast Houston field was strangled.
Investigators found the body of Raquel Mundy at approximately 4 p.m. Friday in the 300 block of North St. Charles Street.
Police say Mundy, 24, was seen at 1:30 a.m. Thursday driving her mother and two children to the Greyhound Lines bus station in downtown Houston. Mundy had apparently parked the vehicle in a McDonald's restaurant parking lot where it had been towed from.
After Mundy had obtained her mother's debit card to pay for the tow bill, she tried to contact other relatives to get a ride but was not able to reach anyone, according to a statement released by the Houston Police Department on Monday.
Witnesses told investigators that Mundy was seen entering a gray car with a male. Mundy sent a text message to her mother that said she thought she was in danger and was with a Hispanic male.
Police ask anyone with information about Mundy's death to contact the HPD Homicide Division at 713-308-3600 or Crime Stoppers of Houston at 713-222-8477 (TIPS).
Alexander Supgul
Fox Houston
June 21, 2010
New York, USA
|
 |
|
Christian Inga |
Undocumented immigrant held in Cortlandt home invasion
Cortlandt - A Peekskill man faces felony charges in the home invasion of an ex-girlfriend's apartment where police say he struggled with a 15-year-old girl who was inside with a 2-year-old at the time.
Christian Inga, who state police said is an undocumented immigrant from Ecuador, has been charged with first-degree burglary and second degree attempted kidnapping, felonies. Additional charges are expected as an investigation continues.
The break-in was reported by a neighbor who heard screams around 6:40 p.m. Friday and called 911. Arriving troopers say they found Inga attempting to flee out of a rear window. Police did not disclose the location of the home invasion.
Inga was said to be wearing all black at the time, including a black bandana over his face, a black hat and black gloves.
He was to be remanded to the Westchester County Jail in Valhalla following arraignment. Police filed an Immigration and Customs detainer.
The arrest was made by Trooper Peter A. Zerrle and investigators Sean J. Morgan and Paul M. Schneeloch of the Cortlandt barracks.
Brian J. Howard
Lower Hudson dot com
June 19, 2010
Colombia
Explotación sexual infantil, amenaza a los menores del Valle
Ana María* solo tiene 16 años y un bebé de trece meses de edad, vive en una humilde vivienda en el oriente de la ciudad junto a su padre y a su madre. Los progenitores de esta menor la obligan a que ejerza la prostitución en un bar todas las noches.
El papá y la mamá de Ana María la explotan sexualmente con la condición de echarla de la casa sino accede. Lo peor de este caso, el dueño del prostíbulo entrega el dinero directamente a los progenitores de Ana María. Este es sólo un caso de los muchos que atiende la línea infantil 106.
En lo que va corrido del año el Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar, Icbf, ha recibido 223 denuncias de abuso sexual en el Valle del Cauca, en esta categoría entran los casos de explotación sexual comercial infantil, pornografía infantil, turismo sexual infantil y acto sexual abusivo.
"En Cali y el Valle del Cauca la prostitución es un problema social que está tocando todas las esferas en los menores", dice Lucy Mancilla Marulanda, aboga especializada en derechos humanos del Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad, DAS...
Child sexual exploitation threatens the lives of minors in
the Cauca Valley and the city of Cali
[English translation to follow.]
Diario Occidente
June 20, 2010
Louisiana, USA
61-year-old Gretna man sentenced to life in prison for raping boy
A 61-year-old Gretna man received a mandatory life sentence in prison Thursday for his conviction of raping a boy under his care.
Carlos Hernandez was convicted June 4 of the aggravated rape of a boy who said he was 5 or 6 years old when the crimes occurred.
In handing down the sentence, Judge Henry Sullivan of the 24th Judicial District Court said he found that Hernandez was a risk to society. Hernandez's attorney Marquita Naquin objected to the sentence and said the conviction will be appealed.
Assistant District Attorneys Amanda Calogero and Jennifer Rosenbach prosecuted the case.
The boy was 11 years old in January 2008 when he told his mother that Hernandez had abused him. The claim came to light after Hernandez was arrested amid allegations that he sexually abused girls, when the boy's mother began asking whether Hernandez had abused anyone else.
Hernandez is awaiting trial on a charge of aggravated incest involving a 7-year-old girl and sexual battery, for allegedly touching two 7-year-old girls in December 2007, according to the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office.
The Times-Picayune
June 17, 2010
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