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April / 2008 News


Added April 26, 2008

Ricky Martin:

Llama y Vive

Washington, DC - Ricky Martin lanza una campaña de prevención de la trata de personas y proteger a sus víctimas hispanas en esta capital estadounidense.

- The Associated Press

April 24, 2008

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Ricky Martin Foundation [and others] have partnered to launch Call and Live in Washington DC, a campaign that promotes an anti-trafficking hotline.

- Inter-American Development Bank

April 24, 2008

Llama y Vive / Call and Live Hotline:

1-888 NO-TRATA

llamayvive.org/


Added April 30, 2008

Washington, DC  USA

Ricky Martin at the

April 29th Inter-

American Develop-

ment Bank (IADB)

event kicking-off the

"CALL AND LIVE"

campaign in

Washington, DC

El cantante Ricky Martin ha decidido extender su lucha contra el tráfico de personas a Estados Unidos, donde se calcula que hay unas 20 mil personas [nuevas cada año] que son retenidas o han sido desplazadas contra su voluntad.

El artista, que desarrolla esta labor a través de la Ricky Martin Foundation (RMF) , presentó hoy en Washington la campaña "Llama y Vive"...

La campaña consta de anuncios de radio, televisión y prensa escrita, en los que el cantante promociona una línea telefónica de información y asistencia contra el tráfico de personas en la capital estado-unidense...

"Si estás lejos de casa y te están explotando sexual o laboralmente, eres víctima de trata" rezan los tres comerciales dirigidos a la población latina...

"No están solos" dijo Martin dirigiéndose a los latinos de Washington. "Vamos a llamar a sus puertas si es necesario, para preguntarles si necesitan nuestra ayuda"...

- EFE / El Universal

April 29, 2008

Ricky Martin campaigns against human trafficking [in Washington, DC]

Latin heartthrob Ricky Martin is using his star power to launch "Llama y Vive" or "Call and Live", a campaign to prevent human trafficking from Latin America and also provide services for victims.

"Call and Live" has already been implemented in Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Peru, and Nicaragua. Now, it's expanding to five more Latin American countries.

Martin has partnered with the Inter-American Develop-ment Bank and Ayuda [a local Latino legal services agency] to launch "Call and Live".

Ricky Martin on human trafficking says: "My dream right now is all about seeing abolition, abolition of a new era, abolition of what we call a modern day form of slavery which is human trafficking and I'm not going to give up."

The campaign works to prevent human trafficking from Latin America and provide protection services to Latino victims in Washington, D.C. including offering a confidential victims' hotline...

- TimesNow.tv - with material from Reuters

India

April 30, 2008

LibertadLatina note:

The Llama y Vive / Call and Live kick-off event in Washington, DC on April 29, 2008 was an historic occasion.  Human trafficking, in its many forms, has long-existed in the Washington, DC region.  Ten and twenty years ago when I began seeking help from Latino agencies and the local press for exploited Latinas, few people and organizations in a position to help answered the call.

The LibertadLatina project and this web site came into existence as a result of those efforts, dating back to 1986, to bring assistance to the victim community.

I salute Ricky Martin, his foundation, the Ayuda legal services agency, the Washing-ton DC Office of Latino Affairs, other collabor-ating agencies and local Latino media outlets for working to address the issues of human trafficking and exploitation head on.

¡Mil gracias!

A thousand thanks!

The victim community awaits our serious and substantial efforts to help them!

- Chuck Goolsby

LibertadLatina

April 30, 2008

See also:

The exploitation of Latin American women and children in the greater Washington, DC region

- LibertadLatina

Latina worker sexual exploitation in the office cleaning Industry - a 1990's case in which Washington, DC area government agencies, corporations and the press refused to come to the assistance of Latina women & girls.

- LibertadLatina

There is one form of prostitution slavery that exists in almost every neighborhood in greater Washington.

It is well-known that the women and girls involved are forced to work against their will, and that the traffickers transport in new groups of them to each apartment-based brothel every two weeks from New York City.  Nothing has changed since the time of the below 1994 article, except that the city of Washington, DC now has even more Latin brothels than ever before:

String of Latino brothels found in [Washington, DC's] Virginia and Maryland Suburbs: Police Say Women Come from New York

- Washington Post

Sep. 21, 1994

Law enforcement - shut down the [mega-brothel] rape camps of Langley Park, Maryland!

- LibertadLatina

Aug. 5, 2005

Our first report on the Sexual Exploitation of Latina immigrant Women and Girls [in the workplace] in the greater Washington, DC region.

- Chuck Goolsby

LibertadLatina

Feb., 1994


Added April 30, 2008

Dominican Republic

Republica Dominicana: ONG denuncia incremento de trata de blancas en República Dominicana

Advocacy group in the Dominican Republic has denounced a recent increase in human trafficking, and calls for urgent help from the national government to address the crisis.

The nation is the forth largest source country for women trafficked in prostitution across the globe (following Thailand, Brazil and the Philippines).

Santo Domingo - According to the a spokesperson for the Aquelarre Assistance Center (CEAPA), between 50,000 and 60,000 Dominican women are forced to work in prostitution abroad.

During a recent workshop conducted by CEAPA, victims of exploitation shared their stories of abuse at the hands of exploiters, and discussed the fact that the number of Dominican women trapped in exploitation is increasing. Many victims are entrapped by typically false overseas job offers, and are pushed to migrate by poverty or to flee an abusive relationship.

During the workshop, a woman identified only as Fátima gave testimony that these victims are extorted, are subjected to physical abuses, are forced to serve up to 10 clients each day, and are murdered with impunity.

- PrensaLatina.com

Mexico

April 24, 2008


Added April 30, 2008

Arizona, USA

[Undocumented] immigrant suffers miscarriage

An [undocumented] immigrant woman from Chiapas, Mexico had a miscarriage Sunday after entering the U.S... and being left behind by traveling companions near Marana.

...The 25-year-old woman called 911 and said she had been dropped on Sandario Road and needed help...

She was transported to Northwest Hospital but the unborn baby was dead upon arrival...

She went into labor in a vehicle that was transporting the group and had the miscarriage inside. The group agreed to drop her off at Sandario Road where she would call for help, Daniels said. She was not traveling with any family members or friends.

The Border Patrol contacted the Mexican Consulate in Tucson and they are working together to get her safely to her home in Chiapas, located in southern Mexico, Daniels said.

- Brady McCombs

Arizona Daily Star

April 28, 2008


Added April 30, 2008

Costa Rica and California, USA

Accused California sex tourist added to ICE 'most wanted' list

Oakland - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is appealing for the public's help in locating a 61-year-old Bay Area mortgage finance expert who fled after an ICE investigation led to him being charged with child sex tourism and possession of child pornography.

Leonard B. Auerbach, of Orinda, Calif., was added today to ICE's list of "most wanted" fugitives. The action comes after Auerbach failed to appear for his arraignment in federal court...

...Search warrants, including one executed at his Orinda residence, showed that Auerbach traveled to Costa Rica approximately 40 times between 2003 and 2007. ...ICE agents discovered computers and thumb drives containing images of Auerbach with a minor female in various stages of undress...

The public is encouraged to report suspected child predators and suspicious activity by contacting ICE's 24-hour toll-free hotline at 1-866-DHS-2ICE; and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, at 1-800-843-5678 or cybertipline.com.

- U.S. ICE

April 22, 2008


Added April 30, 2008

Virginia, USA

Woman Abducted, Raped While Walking With Baby

Fairfax - A team of detectives went door-to-door Friday night, searching for clues in the alleged rape of a woman who was attacked walking her infant daughter in the Springfield area, authorities said.

The 18-year-old woman was carrying her 3-month-old daughter in a car seat outside the Commerce Plaza shopping center when she was approached by a man with a handgun in his waistband at about 8 p.m. Thursday.

"She was then forced down along several streets to finally end up in the 6200 block of Dana Avenue," said Camille Neville, of Fairfax County police. "At gunpoint she was forced to go behind one of the residences there and she was raped."

Police said the man threatened the baby, raped the woman and fled...

Police described the attacker as a Hispanic man in his mid-20s...

- NBC4

Washington, DC

April 25, 2008


Added April 30, 2008

Rhode Island, USA

Outcry follows crackdown on [undocumented] immigration

Providence - Rhode Island's closest international border is the Canadian one, about 200 miles to the north. About 11 percent of the 1 million people who live in Rhode Island were born in another country, and estimates say a third or less of those people are in the country illegally.

But Gov. Don Carcieri says [undocumented] immigration has become such a problem -- and costs the state so much money as it grapples with a $568 million budget deficit -- that last month he signed an executive order directing state police to crack down on illegal immigrants.

Church leaders and some of Carcieri's own advisers have urged him to rescind the order or have said it is creating a climate of fear among minorities.

Protesters stormed the office of Carcieri's top policy aide. Police departments are divided. Some say they'll enforce the order, but the chief in Providence says it's destroying the bonds of trust officers have built with communities.

After meeting with concerned clergy Friday, Carcieri declined to rescind his order. But he agreed to create an advisory committee that will monitor how it is enforced.

- Ray Henry

The Associated Press

April 27, 2008


Added April 30, 2008

Texas, USA

[Undocumented] Immigrant Faces Deportation After Crash

Irving - A woman faces the threat of deportation and losing her children after police discovered she is an illegal immigrant.

Police said they learned Patricia Sarmiento was an [undocumented] immigrant after she was involved in a crash Thursday morning.

Officials from Accion America said they were told by representatives of the city of Irving that only criminal [undocu-mented immigrants] would be deported. Accion America’s Carlos Quintanilla said he thinks they went back on their word.

Quintanilla said the organization is planning a rally at the Irving Police Department May 1.

- nbc5i.com

April 25, 2008


Added April 30, 2008

California, USA

Wanted: Man Who Tried To Rape Woman In Pacoima

Pacioma - Police Friday were searching for a man who tried to rape a woman at Hansen Dam Park in Pacoima.

Lorena Vasquez was pushing her granddaughter in a stroller when she was attacked from behind about 3 p.m. Thursday, according to Richard French of the Los Angeles Police Department.

"He was punching me on my face and in my jaw," Vasquez said. "He punched me, I would say, like 20 times. He just started hitting me -- hitting me from the back -- and just punching me. He threw me on the floor and he wanted to rape me."

The man was described as Hispanic, 18 to 22 years old, 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighing 160 pounds.

- CBS News

Apr 25, 2008


Added April 30, 2008

Arizona, USA

Nogales cop faces trial in sex assault case

[Tucson -] A Nogales police officer who goes on trial for sexual assault and kidnapping this week has been accused of sexually inappropriate behavior by four other young women or girls.

Nogales police and Department of Public Safety investigators dismissed three of the other four complaints against Ramon Borbon, 38 — two of which were made before the 2005 incident he will stand trial for.

But he has now been additionally charged with molesting a 16-year-old who came forward only after he was charged in the assault case.

The girl said she kept quiet for nine months after Borbon reminded her her mother is vulnerable as an illegal immigrant...

- Kim Smith

Arizona Daily Star

April 26, 2008


Added April 30, 2008

Texas, USA

Two Men Sentenced For Human Trafficking and Alien Smuggling Charges

Washington - Two brothers, Victor Omar Lopez and Oscar Mondragon, were sentenced for their roles in a scheme to smuggle Central American women and girls into the United States and hold them in a condition of forced labor in bars and cantinas in the Houston area, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Grace C. Becker and U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas Don DeGabrielle...

In all, eight defendants have been convicted in connection with this scheme to compel the victims into service in restaurants, bars and cantinas in the Houston area, using threats to harm the victims and their families if they attempted to leave before paying off their smuggling debts...

- U.S. Dept. of Justice

April 29, 2008


Added April 30, 2008

United States

Latinos outraged over CBS report

...[Katie Couric, anchor of the “CBS Evening News"] recently aired a one-sided and inaccurate report about illegal immigrant women who give birth to their children in the United States. The news story challenged the broader constitutional law of birthright citizenship and stated — without providing the correct context — that the births cost U.S. taxpayers millions of dollars annually.

The story’s central figure was a woman identified as an illegal immigrant, who was lying in her South Texas hospital bed — her right arm wrapped around her newborn and her left hand punctured by an intravenous needle — while reporter Byron Pitts lectured her that “many Americans who struggle to take care of their own families think it is unfair that they should have to take care” of non-U.S. citizens...

“Anti-Latino falsehoods deserve no time on our public airwaves,” stated a letter to CBS by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the National Council of La Raza. The groups and others have asked to meet with CBS “to help raise the dialogue and provide the American public an honest and accurate analysis of this nation’s broken immigration system...”

- Gebe Martinez

www.Politico.com

April 29, 2008


Added April 27, 2008

Florida, USA

Tampa - More than anything, the young mother wanted her children in a permanent home so they could succeed in elementary school. They must not end up like her and their father, hunched over rows of crops all day...

When the owner of the farm began sexually assaulting her, she kept it a secret. If her hot-headed husband learned of it, he might take matters into his own hands. If he went to prison, she and her children would be destitute...

...Lourdes Villa-nueva... with the Redlands Christian Migrant Association in Plant City tried to help. But the woman was ashamed and terrified - of immi-gration officials, of deportation, of her husband's wrath, of the boss, of getting her family blackballed from working again. No, she would handle it. No policia, no.

When Villanueva visited her trailer this month, the family was gone...

Mary Bauer, director of the Immigrant Justice Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, testified April 15 about farmworker exploitation before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions... Bauer told the senators that of the estimated 70,000 female farmworkers in Florida, hundreds if not thousands face chronic sexual harassment on the job. They often are forced to have sex with supervisors to get or keep jobs, she said, and they put up with a "constant barrage of grabbing, touching and propositions for sex by their supervisors."

...Ramirez says the few studies that have been done on sexual exploitation reveal a pattern.

"It's like a Catch-22," she says. "The women know the abusers won't get in trouble, and the abusers know it, too. They'll use threats against the woman's family or say, 'I'll have your husband and children deported.'

"If they're undocu-mented, they are certain no one will believe them..."

- Donna Koehn

The Tampa Tribune

April 27, 2008

LibertadLatina note:

The above tragic story of severe sexual harassment and 'legalized' (because nobody ever gets prosecuted) serial rape is repeated daily and nightly in thousands of farmworker communities, and in tens of thousands of low-wage work-places... restaurants, office cleaning and hotels, and others, all across the United States. 

During my 25+ years of advocacy work for this population in the Washington, DC region, I have seen little improvement in conditions for women and underage girl immigrants who came to the U.S. largely to escape the impunity of 'legalized' sexual assault that they have faced all across the map of Latin America.

Latin American community leaders within the U.S. have a responsibility to change course from the past pattern of ignoring this issue (something I have also seen) and stand-up to fight for the dignity and basic human rights of women and children.

Government agencies at all levels have a similar obligation to take responsibility for protecting women and children in the U.S. workplace from criminal impunity.

Silence is also violence!

End impunity now!

- Chuck Goolsby

LibertadLatina

April 19, 2008

See also:

LibertadLatina

The sexual Exploitation of Women and Children in the Washington, DC Region

LibertadLatina

The workplace rape of Latina and Indigenous women in the U.S. and Latin America

LibertadLatina

Our first report on the Sexual Exploitation of Latina immigrant Women and Girls [in the workplace] in the greater Washington, DC region.

- Chuck Goolsby

LibertadLatina

Feb., 1994

Congressional Testimony - The Cadenas Case - Forced Sexual Slavery of Mexican Women in Florida's Agricultural Industry

- U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee

April 4, 2000

LibertadLatina Commentary

...Ms. undocumented Latina finds herself with no relief from comprehensive immigration reform, no green card, no work permit, no job, little understanding of the details of federal, state and local laws, no protection from crime, protection that should be provided by police forces that today may arrest and deport her, no way to feed herself and her children, and no access to the social services that could help to alleviate those desperate circumstances.

In that situation, Ms. Latina will not report rape to police.  She [also] will not say "no!" to a potential or current employer who says (in violation of the law) that sex is the price she must pay for employment...

- Chuck Goolsby

LibertadLatina

Mar 29, 2008


Added April 26, 2008

Mexico

[Activists Demand "Gender Alert" in Oaxaca State]

Demandan OSC de Oaxaca Alerta de Género en región Triqui

Oaxaca city, Oaxaca state - Beatriz Ramírez from the Huaxyacac Collective, together with representatives of 45 civic organizations, announced during a press conference that the group is demanding the Mexico's Interior Ministry (Segob) declare a "Gender Emergency" in the Triqui tribal region in Guerrero state.

A Gender Emergency is written into the recently enacted federal Law Giving Access to a Life Without Violence to Women.

Eduardo Liendro, of the group Diversities, stated that the Gender Alert would make federal resources available to communities, would create more 'spaces' for community dialog, would sensitize local authorities to women's rights, would halt the proliferation of firearms in the region, and would facilitate the deployment of human rights observers.

The group said that a long list of bloody crimes against humanity have lead to the call for a Gender Alert in the region. Among these acts including rapes and murders targeting indigenous and al