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April
/ 2008 News
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 also
undocumented migrant women and girls. In regard to
the state government of Oaxaca the group stated:
"far from establishing conditions allowing for
personal and legal security, they disguise their
ineptitude and misogyny in official acts, and at the
same time allow violent crimes against humanity to
be carried out.
The group demanded that the state government
authorities prosecute those responsible for
kidnappings, rapes and murders of women, and that
they promote public policies that would help the
Triqui people reestablish their autonomous culture
and their right to live free from violence.
- Soledad Jarquín Edgar
April 23, 2008
See also:
Mexico
[Gunmen murder
young indigenous women journalists in Oaxaca]
México, DF.- El Director
General de la UNESCO, Koichiro Matsuura, condenó el
pasado 11 de abril el asesinato a balazos en una
emboscada de las locutoras Felicitas Martínez
Sánchez y Teresa Bautista Merino, de 21 y 24 años de
edad, respectivamente, ...de la comunidad indígena
triqui.
- CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
Mexico City
April 14, 2008
The Director-General of
UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, today condemned the
murder of community radio announcers Felicitas
Martínez Sánchez and Teresa Bautista Merino who were
shot dead in an ambush in the state of Oaxaca, in
southeast Mexico, on 7 April.
- Martínez Sánchez and Teresa
Bautista Merino
UNESCO
Paris, France
April 04, 2008
Added April 19, 2008
Mexico
(Conditions of gender oppression targeting
indigenous women in neighboring Guerrero state)
Grave escalada militar en La
Montaña alerta a mujeres indígenas
Indígenous peoples from the
Me´phaa (Tlapaneco) and the Na´savi (Mixteco) tribes
in the region of Ayutla de los Libres, in Guerrero
state, have organized to denounce the fact that a
recent increase in military and police forces in the
area has brought with it threats of sexual violence
against native women.
Ricky Martin y BID buscan prevenir trata de
personas
Washington, DC - Ricky
Martin se asoció con el Banco Interamericano de
Desarrollo (BID) y varias autoridades
municipales para lanzar una campaña de
prevención de la trata de personas y proteger a
sus víctimas hispanas en esta capital
estadounidense, dijo el jueves el BID en
comunicado de prensa.
- The Associated Press
April 24, 2008
See also:
Llama y Vive promoverá línea
telefónica de asistencia confidencial y gratuita
(1-888 NO-TRATA)
BID, la Fundación Ricky
Martin, Ayuda y socios locales lanzan campaña
contra trata de personas en Washington, D.C.
- El Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID)
Washington, DC, USA
April 24, 2008
The Inter-American
Development Bank (IDB), Ricky Martin Foundation,
the non-governmental organization Ayuda and the
DC Mayor’s Office on Latino Affairs have
partnered to launch Call and Live in Washington
DC, a campaign that promotes an anti-trafficking
hotline for prevention and victim protection.
Other local partners of the initiative include
Telemundo, Univisión, Washington Hispanic and
Radio Viva 900.
Ricky Martin, IDB President Luis Alberto Moreno
and Ayuda Executive Director Mauricio Vivero
will launch the campaign in an event scheduled
to take place on April 29, 2008 from 11:00 a.m.
to 1:00 p.m. at the Enrique V. Iglesias
Auditorium, IDB Headquarters (1330 New York
Avenue, Washington, D.C).
The campaign aims to reach 100,000 Latinos in
the D.C. area with prevention messages about
human trafficking and provide access to legal
and social services for victims through a
Spanish-language hotline. Call and Live has been
implemented in Costa Rica, Dominican Republic,
Peru and Nicaragua, where it has triggered more
than 55,000 relevant calls to the national
hotlines, 60 police investigations, and the
rescue of at least a dozen victims.
The IDB is launching this initiative in
Washington D.C. as part of its local corporate
responsibility efforts...
Members of the press (including print, radio,
and television) wishing to cover the event can
pre-register or register on-site the day of the
event with appropriate press credentials.
- Inter-American Development Bank
April 24, 2008
Llama y Vive / Call and Live
Hotline:
1-888 NO-TRATA
http://www.llamayvive.org/
Ricky Martin Foundation
http://www.rickymartinfoundation.org
Honduras
Honduran labor leaders
Rosa Altagracia Fuentes and Yolanda Virginia
Sánchez were recently ambushed and murdered on a
highway linking the northern Honduran cities of
Progreso and San Pedro Sula.
Altagracia Fuentes was Secretary General of the
Honduran Labor Federation (CTH), and was a
member of the executive committee of the
recently founded Union Confederation of Workers
of the Americas (CSA). Yolanda Santos was a
member of the executive committee of the CTH,
and directed the Labor Union of the National
Institute of Professional Formation (INFOP).
Police report that witnesses saw 6 men dressed
in black clothes and ski masks ambush the
victims. Police believe the attack was
premeditated, given the choice of a dark,
isolated section of road to carry out the crime.
Authorities also believe that the trio was being
followed on the day of the attack.
Honduran former president Rafael Leonardo
Callejas, who had talked to Sánchez hours before
the attack, expressed his condolences.
Daniel Durón, Secretary General of the Workers
Central General (CGT), lamented the murders,
demanded an immediate investigation and called
upon the Honduran government to protect labor
leaders "because we face danger here."
- CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
Mexico City
April 24, 2008
New Jersey, USA
Princeton Township - A man
was arrested and charged after a teenage girl
was assaulted and sexually harassed...
Detectives believe the juvenile... was
approached by a man about 5:30 p.m. Police later
arrested a man suspected of the alleged attack.
Accompanied by her stepfather, the girl reported
the incident to police a couple of hours later.
She told investigators that the unknown man
began making several obscene and sexual comments
towards her, and then slapped her across the
face with an open back hand. The victim
described the attacker as a 6-foot Hispanic man
wearing a red shirt, with tan skin and bushy
brown hair.
Less than 10 minutes after the report was filed,
officers found a man matching the description at
about 8:10 p.m.
Identifying himself as Roman Cabellano Ramirez,
the man admitted to making the lewd comments
toward the teenager, but denied striking her.
Ramirez was taken into custody and charged with
simple assault and harassment. He was later
released on his own recognizance.
- Paul Szaniawski
The Times
April 23, 2008
Southeast Asia
Sexual and physical abuse,
child labor alleged in Southeast Asia shrimp
industry
Washington, DC - Workers in Southeast Asia's
shrimp industry suffer regular abuse and
sometimes live in what amounts to virtual
slavery, a human-rights organization said
Wednesday.
The Solidarity Center report says the global
shrimp industry is worth about $13 billion
annually.
Sexual and physical abuse, debt bondage, child
labor and unsafe working conditions are common
in Thailand and Bangladesh's shrimp processing
factories, the Solidarity Center said in a
40-page report...
Workers told Thai police who raided one factory
in September 2006 "that if they made a mistake
on the shrimp peeling line, asked for sick
leave, or tried to escape, they could expect to
be beaten, sexually molested, or publicly
tortured," according to the report.
..."On average, Americans eat more than three
pounds of shrimp each year; about 80 percent of
that shrimp is imported. In 2006 alone, U.S.
shrimp imports were valued at over $4 billion,
making shrimp the most valuable seafood import
into the United States. Roughly one-third of
that shrimp came from Thailand.
- CNN
April 23, 2008
Texas, USA
Artist's Drawing
of one of two
rape suspects
South Houston Police
Department (SHPD) said that a South Houston
teenager was walking home from school near
Shaver and Vista Road when two men drove up to
her in a white Toyota Camry... and asked what
her name was.
SHPD Police Chief H. Gilbert said the teen reported
trying to ignore them. "She then said that they
pulled the car in front of her and the suspect
passenger got out of the car and grabbed her," he
said.
Gilbert said they drove her to an area behind a Food
Town grocery store and while the driver held her
down, the passenger sexually assaulted her. She was
then released and was able to contact her mother,
who called the police.
The two suspects were described as Hispanic men
between the ages of 30 to 40.
- The Pasedena Citizen
April 24, 2008
Added April 23, 2008
Argentina
Marita Verón
Rescatan a 40 niñas forzadas a
prostituirse en varios prostíbulos argentinos
Forty undernourished children between
the ages of 11 and 12 have been rescued from 30
brothels in the province of Rioja, in northeast
Argentina, where they were sexually exploited.
The announcement was made by Susana
Trimarco during ceremonies to mark the opening of
her foundation dedicated to rescuing young victims
of human trafficking. Trimarco has struggled for 7
years to recover her own daughter, Marita Verón, who
was kidnapped by a sex trafficking network in April
of 2002 in the city of San Miguel Tucumán.
Trimarco's efforts have saved dozens
of lives. With her new foundation, she plans to
extend her work, searching for victims, rescuing
them and working with them during their
recuperation.
Trimarco pointed the finger at the
local police chief, who she accused of "wanting to
block the sun with his own hands." Thanks to
Trimarco'e efforts, dozens of victims have been
rescued from trafficking mafias, a judge has been
sacked, and 30 other people have investigated and
processed.
- Actualidad
Spain
April 23, 2008
See also:
Power of a Mother’s Love Saves
100 Women from Traffickers
 |
|
U.S. State Dept. Under Secretary
Paula Dobriansky stands with Susana Trimarco de Veron in Washington.
|
Argentine woman
wins U.S. International Women of Courage Award
Susana Trimarco: "Women disappear in Argentina every
day, she said. Many are taken away to Colombia,
Mexico, Spain, Paraguay and other countries to work
in the sex industry."
Trimarco said her goals for the coming year are to
establish a foundation to help fight human
trafficking, get more governmental involvement, and,
of course, to find her beloved Marita.
- United States Embassy - Uruguay
June 12, 2007
United States
U Visa - Helping
victims turn violence around
The federal U Visa program
helps unauthorized immigrants who are victims of
domestic violence and other crimes, such as rape,
torture and involuntary servitude.
In exchange for a maximum of four
years to live and work legally in the U.S.,
participants help government and law enforcement
authorities investigate and prosecute crimes,
according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Services, a branch of the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security...
Many women who enter the U.S.
illegally from Latin America or Asia are following
their husbands or partners. Domestic violence is
often a taboo topic in these cultures where female
subservience can be accepted as the norm...
...Members of the Hispanic community
often distrust law enforcement in their home
countries and don't realize that police in the U.S.
can help, she said.
Nevertheless, Blotny said, many
Hispanic immigrants get a chilly reception here, and
deportation rumors swirl, inspiring fear and
uncertainty.
Blotny described a case in Baltimore
where a woman called police to report on an abusive
partner. When the police arrived, the abuser
asked them to check her papers. They discovered she
was not authorized to be in the country, arrested
her and took her to prison.
Still, Blotny encourages her clients
to call the police, get a protection order and then
to seek help in finding relief, possibly in the form
of a U Visa...
Although the act creating U Visas was
passed in 2000, official regulations for the program
were not released by the Homeland Security office
until October 2007.
-
Frederick News Post
Frederick, Maryland
April 22, 2008
Added April 22, 2008
Missouri, USA
Wrongly convicted of rape,
facing decades in jail, broke -- Armand Villasana
turned to his fiancee Wanda.
He asked for her trust; she asked her
brother for money.
A loan of $25,000 led Villasana to
aggressive defense lawyers and -- eventually -- his
now-well-documented vindication.
DNA proved his accuser Judith Ann
Lummis a liar.
Sounds like a great ending, right?
It's not.
Villasana never got a dime for his
wrongful conviction. No compensation for 21 months
in jail on false charges. Nothing to help with his
legal bills...
Villasana has received no money from
a civil suit he filed against Missouri Highway
Patrol evidence collectors in his case, and Greene
County officials have not offered any sort of
reparation for his wrongful prosecution...
"I don't want a million dollars
or nothing," he said. "I just want them to do the
right thing..."
-
The Springfield News-Leader
April 21, 2008
United States, USA
Even as he was flying to the
United States, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of protecting
immigrant families, not dividing them...
...While the immigration theme has
been over-shadowed during Benedict’s trip by his
denunciations of the sexual abuse scandal in the
church, it was the second issue after the abuse
cases that he addressed on the plane from Rome...
The separation of families “is truly
dangerous for the social, moral and human fabric” of
Latin and Central American families, the pope told
reporters aboard his plane.
|
“The
fundamental solution is that there should no
longer be a need to emigrate, that there are
enough jobs in the homeland, a sufficient
social fabric,” he said. Short of that,
families should be protected, not destroyed,
he said. “As much as it can be done it
should be done,” the pontiff said... |
Secular advocates for immigrants...
welcomed the pope’s words. “That’s big news,” said
Teresa Gutierrez, a coordinator for the May 1st
Coalition for Immigrant and Workers Rights. “Any
decent comment about the reality of what’s really
happening to immigration in the United States coming
from such a prestigious person as the pope is
extremely helpful.”
- Daniel J. Wakin and Julia
Preston
- The New York Times
April 20, 2008
Texas, USA
El Paso - A federal judge
Wednesday sentenced a 51-year-old man to more than
nine years in prison after he pleaded guilty to
engaging in sexual activity with teenage girls in
Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted the
investigation.
John Dickens Armstrong, a registered
sex offender, was deported from Mexico... in August
2007... ICE special agents obtained an arrest
warrant for Armstrong last year after learning that
Ciudad Juarez police officers arrested him for
engaging in sexual conduct with underage girls. ICE
charged him with engaging in illicit sexual conduct
in a foreign place, a federal offense.
A U.S. citizen who travels out of the
country for sexual activity with a minor may be
charged with travel with intent to engage in illicit
sexual conduct, more commonly known as "sex
tourism." In April 2007, Juarez police found
Armstrong in his Juarez apartment with a 15-year-old
El Paso girl, who later told authorities she engaged
in sexual conduct with Armstrong in exchange for
money and crack cocaine. The teenager, a U.S.
citizen, lived in Juarez with her grandmother at the
time.
ICE special agents also learned that
Armstrong solicited under-aged girls in a Ciudad
Juarez bar and paid them $40 to have sex with him.
He was also known to offer them crack cocaine.
- U. S. ICE
April 3, 2008
Michigan, USA
Two of seven men who allegedly
raped a 23-year-old mentally impaired woman over
several hours last fall in Washington Township have
been charged while the investigation against the
other suspects proceeds slowly.
Alberto Trejo, 32, of Washington
Township, is scheduled to face trial Tuesday in
Macomb County Circuit Court on four counts of
first-degree criminal sexual conduct for the Sept.
30 incident... Juan Aguilar, 37, faces a preliminary
examination Tuesday in 42nd District Court in front
of Judge Denis LeDuc on one count of first-degree
criminal sexual conduct...
...The two defendants and five
suspects took advantage of a young woman with the
mental ability of a 12-year-old... Four of the men
surrounded her, took her mobile phone and broke it
in half...
"She was very scared"... "She said
she thought if she agreed to drink with them that
they would leave her alone. Remember, she has the
mind of a 12-year-old."
The men started grabbing her breasts,
crotch and thigh, and one man simulated sex with her
on the porch...
"She kept saying no, but they
wouldn't let her get away," she said. They escorted
her to a bedroom inside the unit...
- Jameson Cook
The Macomb Daily
Mount Clemens, Michigan
April 20, 2008
Louisiana, USA
High court split
over execution of child rapists
Washington - The Supreme Court
focused Wednesday on whether "evolving standards of
decency" in the United States forbid a resumption of
capital punishment for any felony but murder. But
the justices offered no clear indication of how they
will rule in the case of a man who is on Louisiana
death row for raping a child.
Patrick Kennedy, 43, is on
Louisiana's death row for the rape of his 8-year-old
stepdaughter.
- Bill Mears
CNN
April 16, 2008
Arizona, USA
Gaudalupe - An [undocumented]
immigrant has been arrested on suspicion of raping
and kidnapping a 15-year-old girl at her Guadalupe
home, Maricopa County sheriff's deputies said.
The MCSO Special Victims Unit
arrested Jose Dolores Montoya Sanchez, 24...
The 15-year-old was immediately taken
to a local hospital for medical treatment, MCSO
said. A forensic evaluation confirmed an assault,
according to sheriff's investigators.
- KPHO
April 17, 2008
Colombia
...Colombia...
has the second-highest internal displacement rate in
the world after Sudan, with estimates ranging from
1.9 million to almost 4 million. That's about 6
percent of the population...
Displacement of people who live on
the land [is]... a deliberate strategy to get them
out of the way of armed groups fighting for
strategic territory to cultivate and process
lucrative illegal drug crops...
The reality for many families faced
with the priority of putting food on the table is
that children might have to go out to work.
...Six out of 10 displaced children
go to school - not such a low number - but most drop
out well before the end of high school.
While boys are often drawn to gangs,
girls can get pulled into prostitution, especially
in areas frequented by tourists.
Wherever they are, displaced women
are easy prey to sexual exploitation and abuse -
from partners, relatives, neighbors, landlords and
strangers and many become mothers at a very young
age.
While 20 percent of Colombian teenage
girls have been pregnant, that figure goes up to 30
percent for internally displaced girls.
...One in five internally displaced
women has been raped...
These statistics are shocking, but...
levels of violence against women are shocking all
over Colombia, and few women have access to any kind
of sexual health services. It's especially hard for
women who are illiterate, and women from
Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities, all of
whom make up a sizable portion of Colombia's
displaced population...
In this culture of violence,
discrimin-ation and inequality, ...things are only
going to get worse, as another generation of
displaced children grows up too poor to get a good
education.
- Ruth Gidley
Reuters
April 02, 2008
Mexico
United Nations and UNICEF
Estimate that 50,000 Minors are Prostituted Along
Mexico's Border with the United States
Prostituyen a 50 mil menores
en la frontera, denuncia ONU
A survey conducted by the
United Nations, UNICEF, and children's human rights
organizations such as Casa Alianza (Covenant House,
Latin America), indicates that an estimated 50,000
underage children and youth are prostituted on
Mexico's border with the United States. An
additional 20,000 children are active in the
nation's interior cities and in tourist areas.
Sex traffickers target migrant
children [mostly from Central America], Mexican
children from dysfunctional families, and from
Internet blogs and chat rooms. Despite the existence
of international, federal, state and local laws,
government entities do not address the problem with
diligence, causing alarming growth in the child sex
industry...
According to Sadot Sánchez Carreño,
coordinator of the anti-trafficking program for the
National Human Rights Commission of Mexico (CNDH),
child sex trafficking is not fought with the energy
that should be applied. Neither Mexican children,
who are exploited along the U.S. border, nor Central
American children, who are prostituted along
Mexico's southern border, are protected...
Sánchez Carreño of the CNDH stated
that child sex trafficking is not fought by
authorities in part because it has become an
accepted practice. She noted that globally,
statistics on the age of children entering
prostitution have gone down from age of 15 to ages 5
and 6...
- Judith García Aura
El Sol de México
April 13, 2008
Mexico
Military and police
escalation in indigenous region accompanied by
threats to women
Grave escalada militar en La
Montaña alerta a mujeres indígenas
Indígenous peoples from the Me´phaa (Tlapaneco)
and the Na´savi (Mixteco) tribes in the region of
Ayutla de los Libres, in Guerrero state, have
organized to denounce the fact that a recent
increase in military and police forces in the area
has brought with it threats of sexual violence
against native women.
Soldiers, agents from the Federal
Agency for Investigations (AFI) [similar to the U.S.
FBI] and agents of the Ministerial Investigative
Police (PIM) have subjected indigenous women to
severe sexual harassment, intimidation and threats
of rape.
Orlando Manzanares Lorenzo, a
representative of the Organization of the Me'phaa
Indigenous People (OPIM) announced that in recent
days, these state forces have set-up camps near the
town of El Camalote and told local residents "that
they were going to rape women as they had done in
other locations." They told residents of the area
that they were going to arrest leaders of the OPIM,
and accused them of being guerillas.
These retaliatory actions are
apparently a response to the ambush and murders of 4
police officers by unknown persons in the region.
The retaliation is also related to the fact that
indigenous organizations are demanding compensation
for the fact that government health services had
forcibly sterilized 14 native women in El Camalote,
and had also forcibly sterilized 16 native men in the
native towns
of La Fátima, Ocotlán and Ojo de Agua.
- CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
April 17, 2008
See also:
Obtilia
Eugenio
Manuel
Amnesty International believes
indigenous rights activist and human rights
defender, Obtilia Eugenio Manuel, may be in danger…
As a leading member of the indigenous organization
Organización del Pueblo Indigena Tlapaneco,
AC (OPIT), Obtilia has documented reports of human
rights violations against members of the indigenous
communities in the southern state of Guerrero. At a
conference on indigenous rights in Guerrero [in]
2004, Obtilia… publicly condemned the authorities'
failure to... investigate… rapes in which members of
the military have been implicated.
On 9 December 2004, a few days following the
conference, a letter was reportedly delivered to
Obtilia's house, in the municipality of Ayutla de
los Libres. It warned her that "soon you will rest
in peace", and also threatened her family. It told
her that "You keep on trying to attack us with your
stupid lies about the rape of Valentina and Inés...
We were already going to get you but now you are
really in trouble."
- Amnesty International
2005
Brazil
[A
view into gender rights and crime]
Impunity
...The
police in fact rarely catch criminals, because cases
are normally not investigated diligently, even when
they would involve very serious offences like rape,
torture and first-degree murder. Instead, police
investigations are often conducted in an utterly
superficial and incomplete manner, if not visibly
performed with bad-faith.
Violence Against
Children
...There
are now seven million abandoned children living on
the streets of Brazilian cities. Crimes against
these children are characterized by extreme
brutality and include torture and dismemberment...
Those who manage to
survive another day are left worrying about where
their next meal will come from and finding a safe
place to sleep. ...These children are subject to a
process of "natural selection," in which only the
strong survive to adulthood and the weak die early
from disease and violence...
...Girls from rural
areas are recruited in cities as prostitutes by
strip clubs and modeling agencies, as well as
through "wanted" advertisements. ...Sexual tourism
involves child prostitution and is facilitated by
travel agents, hotel workers and taxi drivers.
...Around 500,000
Brazilian children are victims of sexual
exploitation. ...In the northern and northeastern
regions, "most sexual crimes against children and
adolescents are not investigated, and in some cases
representatives of the judiciary are involved..."
Violence Against Women
Violence against women
is, historically, a frequent occurrence in Brazil.
...Brazilian women are "frequently exposed" to all
forms of sexual victimization. ...The country has
one of the highest levels of incidents in the world
falling under the categories of rape, attempted
rape, and indecent assault. ...Crimes against women
are often under-reported and the perpetrators very
[often] left unpunished.
- Augusto Zimmermann
www.Brazzil.com
Feb. 22, 2008
LibertadLatina
Note:
The above description of epidemic rape and sex
trafficking, coupled with a failure of national,
state and local governments to react and defend the
basic human rights of women and children in their
societies, applies not only to Brazil, but to many
Latin American nations.
Mexico stands out as a notable example, where
activists and journalists who speak out against
rampant child sexual exploit-ation face official
retaliation and even kidnapping and murder.
-
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
April 19,
2008
See
also:
The crisis of sexual exploitation in Brazil
Subasta de Niñas en el Corazon de Brasil
(Fortaleza).
Girls as young as 9-years-old are given false
employment offers, and are taken by boat to remote
jungle mining camps where they are auctioned off as
sex slaves to miners.
-
C ronica
El Mundo
March 03, 2002
Virginia, USA
Virginia State Police have
issued an Endangered Missing Child Alert for the
12-year-old Charlottesville girl who vanished after
returning home from school Tuesday...
“They believe she has or is leaving
the Charlottesville area,” state police Sgt. Ted
Jones said, referring to Charlottesville police, who
could not be reached for comment.
Jones said city authorities believe
Lorena Sanchez-Toledo may be with a Hispanic man named Jeremias Chagala-Mil...
- Daily Progress
April 19,
2008
Mexico - The World
Lydia Cacho
Photo:
Theresa Braine
Paris - Mexican journalist
Lydia Cacho Ribeiro will be given the UNESCO World
Press Freedom Prize for her work exposing political
corruption and organized crime, the UN cultural body
said Wednesday.
“Through investigative journalism, she uncovered the
involvement of businessmen, politicians and drug
traffickers in prostitution and child pornography”
in Mexico, said UNESCO in a statement announcing the
award.
Her work continued “in the face of death threats, an
attempt on her life and legal battles,” it added,
noting that she had also been the victim of police
harassment...
UNESCO’s director-general will hand over the $25,000
(€16,000) prize to Cacho in a ceremony to be held on
World Press Freedom Day on May 3 in the Mozambican
capital Maputo...
The news came as media freedom campaigners Reporters
without Borders (RSF) condemned the killings Monday
of two young women working for a community radio
station in the south of the country.
RSF expressed its shock at the fatal shootings
Monday of Teresa Bautista Flores, 24, and Felicitas
Martinez, 20, at Putla de Guerrero, in the southern
state of Oaxaca.
Both women worked for La Voz que Rompe el Silencio
(The Voice that Breaks the Silence) a community
radio station serving the Trique indigenous
community...
- Agence France-Presse
April 10, 2008
See
also:
LibertadLatina
Journalist / activist
Lydia Cacho is
railroaded by the
legal process in Mexico for exposing
child sex trafficking networks
Added April 18, 2008
Tina Davila
Texas, USA
Houston - The victim of a
fatal carjacking Wednesday evening in northeast
Houston was a mother of five children who loved
being a mother and enjoyed cooking and football, her
eldest child said.
Tina Davila, 39, was trying to fight off a man who
wanted to carjack her vehicle because her
4-month-old daughter was inside, police have said.
Surveillance video shows one of the men trying to
snatch her keys away, and when she fought back, she
was stabbed by a knife or sharp object...
Officials still are looking for the stabbing
suspect, who witnesses describe as two Hispanic
males in their mid- to late-30s.
(Story includes security camera video of the
attack.)
- Fox News, Houston
April 17, 2008
El Salvador
Cárcel para acusados de violar
a bebé de 14 meses
El Guayabo County,
Sonsonate Province - Pedro Ernesto Rodríguez Abarca
and Miguel Ángel Cortez have been arrested and
accused of raping a 14-month-old child. Prosecutors
obtained a 5 month pre-trial detention period while
police seek evidence.
Prosecutor Carmen
Vásquez announced that witness testimony and
scientific evidence will be used against the
suspects. They face a maximum sentence of 30 years
in prison if convicted.
According to the girl
victim's father, the attack has traumatized the
whole family. "We are in very bad shape. At times, I
can't even believe it. I see my wife and children
suffer."
The victim is recovering
in Bloom Hospital, where she had to undergo a
colostomy operation.
- La Prensa Grafica
San Salvador
April 18, 2008
Yemen
Divorcing
husband
in Court
BBC News
San'a, Yemen (AP) -- A Yemeni
judge dissolved the marriage of an 8-year-old girl
to a man nearly four times her age...
The lawyer, Shatha Ali
Nasser, said the girl is just one of thousands of
underaged girls who have been forced into marriages
in this poor tribal country at the southern tip of
the Arabian Peninsula.
The girl's story has
drawn headlines in Yemen because she took the
unusual step of seeking out a judge on her own to
file for divorce...
The girl said her father
forced her to marry a 30-year-old man... She charged
that her husband constantly beat her and forced her
to have sex...
In issuing his ruling
Tuesday, the judge said he was terminating the
marriage because the girl "had not reached
puberty..."
The girl's family was
ordered to pay $250 as "compensation" to [the
husband]
- The Associated
Press
April 17, 2008
Mexico
New attempt by Puebla
authorities to censor Lydia Cacho highlights
difficulty of covering pedophilia
Reporters Without Borders
is worried about the fate of journalists who try to
cover pedophilia in Mexico, especially after the
authorities in the southern city of Puebla
obstructed preparations on 30 March for a
presentation by freelance journalist Lydia Cacho, a
specialist in the subject, of her new book on 5
April.
Two other journalists, Sanjuana Martínez of the
Monterrey-based regional daily Milenio Diario de
Monterrey and Carmen Aristegui of W Radio, have also
run into problems over pedophilia-related reporting
since the start of the year. Martínez’s regular
column was scrapped after she linked church figures
to pedophilia cases, while Aristegui was fired
after revealing how Cacho was arrested in December
2005 on the orders of Puebla’s governor...
The press freedom organization added: “It is clearly
not a good idea for journalists to talk about
pedophilia in Mexico. The presentation of Cacho’s
new book with her two colleagues in attendance,
coming at a time when the media are subject to
strong pressure as soon as the subject is broached,
is an act of courage that we salute. It is vital
that nothing should mar this event.”
A wall poster announcing the presentation of Cacho’s
new book was removed at the behest of the Puebla
police on 30 March. The authorities said it “did not
meet safety standards.” Another poster immediately
replaced it.
The new book, “Memories of Infamy,” published by
Random House Mondadori, includes an account of her
December 2005 arrest and the various attacks and
intimidation attempts to which she was subjected
after the publication in 2004 of her book “The
Demons of Eden,” in which she exposed the alleged
involvement of well-known figures in pedophilia
cases including José Camel Nacif, a textile
entrepreneur close to Puebla governor Mario Marín.
Random House Mondadori told Reporters Without
Borders that six local radio stations and newspapers
called at the last minute to cancel interviews
scheduled with Cacho to talk about the new book. At
the same time, Mario Alberto Mejía, the editor of
the news website Quinta Columna, reported that
access to his site had been blocked in Puebla
government offices.
- Reporters Without Borders
April 3, 2008
See
also:
LibertadLatina
Journalist / activist
Lydia Cacho is
railroaded by the
legal process in Mexico for exposing
child sex trafficking networks
California, USA
Victor Navarro
Suspect arrested
in brutal 2002 rape
A man alleged to have raped a woman and brutalized
her so severely that she now needs a catheter to
urinate was arrested Tuesday, nearly six years after
the incident, Sheriff's Department officials said...
"Just don't give up," said Tammy Chavez, 44. "You'll
get your justice somehow."
San Diego sheriff's deputies arrested Victor
Navarro, 41, on Tuesday morning
The attack has left Chavez severely
crippled...
..."Her insides are ruined," said
Chuck Ryder, a marriage and family counselor who has
worked extensively with Chavez and her husband. "She
is the most severely injured person I have ever
heard of who lived."
Chavez also has suffered from
post-traumatic stress disorder and attempted
suicide. Doctors have tried to fix her internal
problems with a range of surgical and medical
treatments, but she remains unable to control her
urinary and excretory systems.
"I'm 44 years old and I'm in
diapers," she said, wiping away tears.
- Dan Simmons
North County Times
April 16, 2008
Mexico
Balbina Flores of
Reporters Without Borders: Mexico's Special
Prosecutor for Crimes Against Journalists is not
doing their job
Misión internacional indagará
asesinato de reporteras de Copala
Mexico City - A large number
of international organizations have condemned the
recent murders of two young indigenous women
journalists, Teresa Bautista and Felicitas Martínez,
who were ambushed and shot this past April 7, 2008
in the town of San Juan Copala in Oaxaca state in
southeast Mexico.
An international mission which is now
touring Mexico joined in the condemnation. The
group includes the United Nations Science and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Reporters without
Borders, The World Association of Community Radios,
International Media Support, the Committee for the
Protection of Journalists, the International News
Safety Institute, the Roy Peck Trust, the
Inter-American Press Society, the International
Federation of Journalists and the Foundation for
Press Liberty.
...Members of the Mission announced
that they will be visiting the states of Guerrero
and Oaxaca...
...The two young journalists were
murdered for denouncing the abuses of local caciques
[corrupt town bosses].
...Women in this community face
violence and rape, a reality which federal and state
authorities have completely failed to respond to.
...Since the beginning of 2006, 37
journalists have been murdered in Mexico, with only
4 of those cases having been resolved. Flores
expressed worry that today, 8 journalists are
missing, and there is no law enforcement
mobilization to resolve the mystery of the fate of
our sister and brother journalists.
- Sandra Torres Pastrana
Cimac Noticias
News for Women
Mexico City
April 15, 2008
Colorado, USA
 |
|
Photo by Carol
Berry - Indian Country Today
-- Diane
Millich, Southern Ute, founder
and executive director, Our
Sister's Keeper Coalition with
Kenny Frost, Southern Ute, the
coalition's spiritual adviser.
|
|
Denver - Hazy Colorado
sunshine nearly obscured the light of candles
carried by women who gathered April 5 for a vigil in
front of the state Capitol to honor Native and
non-Native victims of sexual violence.
Gov. Bill Ritter proclaimed April
Native American Sexual Assault Awareness month in
Colorado, where 420 women who were victims of
domestic violence in 2007 were served by Our
Sister's Keeper Coalition, the group that sponsored
the gathering.
...'''We're holding a candlelight
vigil to shine a light on sexual assault on Native
lands,'' said Diane Millich, Southern Ute, founder
and executive director of the coalition, which is
based in Ignacio on the Southern Ute Indian Tribe's
reservation and in Durango, both in southwestern
Colorado. ''It has been hidden far too long.''
''In my community of Towaoc, people
said you shouldn't talk about sexual assault,'' said
Ernest House Jr., Ute Mountain Ute and executive
director of the Colorado Commission on Indian
Affairs, who read the proclamation. ''It is not an
easy thing to talk about.''
...The ceremony began with a Sun
Dance song by Kenny Frost, Southern Ute, an American
Indian consultant in several fields and spiritual
adviser to the coalition. ''The first part of
healing is talking about it,'' he said...
- Carol Berry
Indian Country Today
April 14, 2008
Alaska, USA
Anchorage - A radio station
suspended two disc jockeys Tuesday over a derogatory
remark about Alaska Native women made on their show,
a comment that has Alaskans comparing the shock-jock
duo to Don Imus.
The Anchorage DJs, known as Woody and
Wilcox, were joking about what makes someone a real
Alaskan, when one of them offered a variation on an
old saying — offensive to many — that real Alaskans
have urinated in the Yukon River and made love to an
Alaska Native woman. What the DJ said, however,
switched the verbs, making it far more offensive...
The station said it has indefinitely
suspended the disc jockeys while they get
sensitivity training...
Adding to the anger over the remarks
is the fact that Alaska Native women are
disproportionately targeted in violent crimes,
including rape, said Denise Morris, president of
the Alaska Native Justice Center, an Anchorage-based
social advocacy organization.
The state has long had the highest
sexual assault rate in the nation, and the problem
is worst in rural, largely Native areas, according
to a recent law enforcement study.
"These comments just cannot be taken
lightly," Morris said. "Who is their listening
audience? Young men..."
- Rachel D'Oro
The Associated Press
April 15, 2008
Mexico
 |
|
© UNESCO |
Stop killing
journalists!!
México, DF.- El Director
General de la UNESCO, Koichiro Matsuura, condenó el
pasado 11 de abril el asesinato a balazos en una
emboscada de las locutoras Felicitas Martínez
Sánchez y Teresa Bautista Merino, de 21 y 24 años de
edad, respectivamente, quienes conducían el programa,
“La Voz que Rompe el Silencio”, parte de una emisora
radiofónica comunitaria con sede en el municipio de
San Juan Copala en el estado de Oaxaca, al sureste
de México, y que emplea a jóvenes adultos y
adolescentes de la comunidad indígena triqui.
- CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
Mexico City
April 14, 2008
[Gunmen murder
young indigenous women journalists]
The Director-General of
UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, today condemned the
murder of community radio announcers Felicitas
Martínez Sánchez and Teresa Bautista Merino who were
shot dead in an ambush in the state of Oaxaca, in
southeast Mexico, on 7 April.
“I condemn the murder of Felicitas
Martínez Sánchez and Teresa Bautista Merino,” said
the Director-General. “Killing journalists is a
heinous crime which harms the whole of society as it
undermines the democratic right of citizens to hold
informed debate and make informed political
choices.”
Felicitas Martínez Sánchez (21) and
Teresa Bautista Merino (24), were ambushed on a
highway in Oaxaca state. Four other people were
injured in the attack...
According to the Mexican National
Center for Social Communication (CENCOS), and
Article 19, the journalists were killed while on a
reporting assignment for their community radio, La
Voz que Rompe el Silencio [The Voice that Breaks the
Silence] which is based in San Juan Copala, in
Oaxaca, and employs young adults and teenagers from
the Triqui indigenous community.
UNESCO is the only United Nations
agency with a mandate to defend freedom of
expression and press freedom...
- Martínez Sánchez and Teresa
Bautista Merino
UNESCO
Paris, France
April 04, 2008
Mexico
500,000 indigenas relegados del
poder politico en DF
Mexico City - During the 40th year
commemoration of the assassination of Dr. Martin
Luther King in the
Digna Ochoa
[an assassinated Mexican human rights lawyer]
Auditorium at the Mexico City Human Rights
Commission (CDHDF), CDHDF Technical Secretary
Ricardo Bucio Mújica declared that racial
discrimination against Mexico City's 500,000
indigenous residents co-opts their access to
political, economic and cultural power and equality.
CDHDF officials cited the following
facts: 73% of indigenous residents in the capitol
city have no access to health care; 27% of them live
in homes with dirt floors; 73% have no running
water; 52% have no sewer access; and 11% live
without electricity.
Migrant rights activist Elvira
Arellano, of the Mesoamerican Migrant Movement,
was also present for the event. Arellano called upon
Mexican authorities to respect the human rights of
Central American migrants who pass through Mexico on
their way to the United States. Arellano noted: "the
discrimination that these migrants suffer in our
national [Mexican] territory is terrible."
- CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
Mexico City
April 14, 2008
Colorado, USA
Denver – The U.S. Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) today
announced it has settled its class sexual harassment
lawsuit against the Dillard’s department store chain
for $500,000 and substantial remedial relief on
behalf of a class of 12 female former employees who
were sexually harassed by an assistant store manager
in two states.
The EEOC maintained in its suit that
assistant store manager Scot McGinness sexually
harassed women at two Dillard’s stores. The EEOC
said that Dillard’s knew that McGinness was sexually
harassing young female subordinates at the Palmdale,
Calif., store, but failed to take appropriate action
to stop the misconduct. Instead, Dillard’s
transferred him to a managerial position in its
Westminster, Colo., store, and failed to notify the
new store about McGinness’s history of sexual
harassment.
...Ybarra Lloyd, who worked at the
Palmdale store, said, “The EEOC helped us ladies
stand up to Dillard’s. In order to settle this
lawsuit, Dillard’s had to agree to make changes in
its workplace that, hopefully, will prevent others
from being victimized..."
Ketty Lopez, who worked at the
Palmdale store, said, “Our complaints about sexual
harassment were ignored because no one seemed to
care – but the EEOC made them care. Now Dillard’s
will have to follow up on any complaints about
sexual harassment it receives.”
- The U.S. Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission
April 1, 2008
Florida, USA
Tampa - Police arrested a sex
offender for the 4th time after he was seen
masturbating in front of two children inside a
store.
Fermin Martinez-Ramos has a criminal
history with Tampa Police.
This time two girls ages 9 and 4
confirmed to police he was masturbating in front of
them at the Main Street Grocery store Sunday
evening.
Martinez-Ramos ran out of the store
before police arrived but was captured a short time
later several blocks away....
- The E.W. Scripps Co.
April 7, 2008
Florida, USA
...For
all that sets The Everglades Club apart, the private
social club on Worth Avenue shares something with
the most ordinary family or corporation. When an act
of violence draws a glare of publicity, decades of
history are re-hashed and old stories are
re-examined in the face of new charges.
The current saga was triggered by a sensational
lawsuit claiming the club contributed to an
employee's rape.
In April 2006, Everglades Club employee Melissa
Legare was raped by another employee in a club-owned
dormitory. Esdras Cardona, an [undocumented] alien
from Guatemala, was convicted of the assault and is
serving a 20-year prison term.
But in February, Legare — who no longer works there
— sued the Everglades Club, alleging that its
discriminatory practices fostered a dangerous work
environment.
Circuit Judge John Hoy is scheduled to hear a motion
to dismiss the suit...
Stephanie Murphy
The Palm Beach Daily News
April 13, 2008
Central America, Mexico
Central America migrant
flow to US slows
Arraiga, Mexico - For
thousands of illegal immigrants from Central
America, the long journey to the U.S. starts here,
on the groaning back of a freight train they call
The Beast...
Central Americans without documents now face
increased security within Mexico, including checks
on the train for stowaways. It's also harder for
them to head north once they cross into Mexico
because of hurricane damage to the train tracks.
The result: The number of non-Mexican migrants
stopped by the U.S. Border Patrol has dropped almost
60 percent from 2005, despite increased detention
efforts. About 68,000 non-Mexican migrants — mostly
Central Americans — were detained last year,
compared to 165,000 in 2005. Non-Mexicans make up
about 10 percent of all migrants caught by Border
Patrol officers.
Mexico itself is also seeing fewer illegal
immigrants — 120,000 were arrested last year, a 50
percent drop from 2005...
"The mistreatment of migrants here [along Mexico's
southern border] is brutal, and no one does anything
about it because everyone sees them as booty," said
Heyman Vasquez, a Roman Catholic priest. He
estimated 80 percent of migrants are robbed before
they arrive at his two-room shelter in Arriaga...
...One Nicaraguan man told of the time he saw a
group of criminals gang-rape a woman and shoot her
boyfriend...
- Olga R. Rodriguez
The Associated Press
April 13, 2008
Added April 12, 2008
Maryland, USA
A Montgomery County man,
sentenced to two life sentences for rape Thursday,
posed as a police officer and preyed on the fears of
illegal immigrants, revealing what State’s Attorney
John McCarthy called a growing trend among
criminals.
John Robert Lay, 51, whose criminal history
stretches back more than 30 years, is already
serving time in a Virginia prison for sexually
assaulting an [undocumented] Hispanic woman in
Fairfax County in 2001. He was convicted of that
crime in 2006.
In both cases, prosecutors said, Lay played on the
fear of deportation held by many illegal immigrants
by flashing a fake police badge at his victims and
demanding identification.
When the women said they had none, he put them in
his car, brought them to secluded areas and forced
them to perform sexual acts...
“This is a pattern we’re seeing too often in our
community. … On a regular basis criminals are
targeting Hispanics, believing they can act with
impunity,” McCarthy said, encouraging witnesses and
crime victims, regardless of immigration status, to
step forward...
“Preying on vulnerable victims; targeting Latino
women is an aggravating factor, and so is
impersonating police,” [Judge David] Boynton said.
“You’re a lifelong criminal with offenses in every
walk of life and in every location you’ve been in …
this is to protect the community from you.”
- Freeman Klopott
The DC Examiner
April 11, 2008
California, USA
[Riverside -] A woman was
raped Thursday as she ran along Gage Canal near
Maude Street, a Riverside police spokesman said.
It was the second time in the past five months that
a woman has been attacked in Riverside as she ran
along a popular pedestrian path.
"This was a pretty brazen attack," said Riverside
police spokesman Steven Frasher. "It was along a
well-used recreational trail in the daylight ... so
it's definitely cause for concern..."
"This is one of those deeply distressing cases that
does not have enough clues. That is why we are
reaching out to the public," Frasher said.
The man in Thursday's attack is described as
Hispanic... the release stated.
- The Press-Enterprise
April 11, 2008
California, USA
Friends and family of a
teenager shot and killed last month are urging the
L.A. City Council to support a new policy for the
LAPD they're calling "Jamiel's Law."
Seventeen-year-old Jamiel Shaw was a Los Angeles
High School student and football star. He stayed out
of the street gangs in South L.A. But last month,
someone who thought Shaw was in a gang gunned him
down near his Arlington Heights home.
The LAPD says the suspected gunman, 19-year-old
Pedro Espinoza, was a member of the 18th Street
Gang, and possibly in the country illegally.
Jamiel's father, who is also named Jamiel Shaw,
asked the L.A. City Council to overturn Special
Order 40, at least for gang members. That's a
decades-old guideline that keeps LAPD officers from
asking about the immigration status of people
they've arrested.
Jamiel Shaw: My son was murdered by someone that was
not in the country legally, and he was a documented
18th Street Gang member, that I'm sure was in the
database, and when he was released, he was released
into the community. And it's just sad. We're
devastated, even though it's just, it's been over a
month, we are completely devastated that our son is
gone.
- Brooke Binkowski
KPCC
Southern California Public Radio
April 08, 2008
See also:
Jamiel Shaw's family speaks
out at Los Angeles City Hal in favor of
Jamiel's Law.
Jamiel Shaw Sr.:
"We love Latinos just like we love
our son."
"Our problem is the 18th Street
Gang."
"Eighty percent of the 18th Street
Gang is [undocumented]."
"We want him back [Jamiel] but we
can't get him back."
"Something has to be done."
www.YouiTube.com
April 08, 2008
Angry Los Angeles residents
demand passage of Jamiel's Law, repealing Special
Order 40.
www.YouiTube.com
April 08, 2008
LibertadLatina
note:
The impunity that exists in Mexico and other regions
of Latina America, that focuses on violence against
women and against those who are different from
oneself, has grown into a wave of gang attacks, from
Central America through Mexico into the Unites
States. These attacks focus on rape and forced
sex trafficking on the one hand, and on the other
hand, anti-Black
ethnic cleansing in places like Los Angeles,
California.
It is the responsibility of the
leadership within the Latino communities of the
United States to address this issue in its U.S.
context. Federal,
state and local authorities also have a role to play
that must be more active, and better informed, than what they have done in
the past.
There is no excuse and no
justification for allowing criminal impunity to
continue to exist. To ignore these realities
will cause the anti-immigrant movement to continue
to grow in reaction to these
events, that the
public sees
unfolding every day across the U.S.
-
Chuck Goolsby
April 1, 2008
See also:
...These
[Latino] gangs are responsible for the alarming
spike in gang membership worldwide and share a
racial agenda against African Americans, stemming
from their sworn allegiance to the racist Mexican
Mafia (La Eme) prison
gang that
works with
the Aryan
Brotherhood...
...Black
gangs don’t
have these
chilling
unwritten
rules
whereby once
you join a
Latino gang
you cannot
get out
alive. Nor
do black
gangs share
a racial
agenda to
rid their
neighbor-hoods
of all
Latinos.
Finally,
black gangs
don’t give
out stripes
for
executing a
murderous
racial
agenda, or
threaten to
kill bangers
who won’t.
All of
these,
according to
[Deputy
District
Attorney and
landmark
Mexican
Mafia
prosecutor
Anthony]
Manzella,
are known as
La Eme’s
unwritten
rules.
-
Annette Stark
Los Angeles CityBeat Newspaper
March 19, 2008
See also:
An example racist and
homicidal gang speech
-
AsiaPacificUniverse.com
March 24, 2004
Moving to unite blacks and
Latinos in a neighborhood plagued by fear
- Los Angeles Times
Jan. 7, 2007
Federal prosecutors say a
powerful Latino gang systematically targeted
rival black gang members and innocent black
civilians in a reign of terror.
- Newsweek
Oct. 24, 2007
Sixty one Los Angeles members of Latino gang
arrested for targeting African Americans for
murder.
- KCAL
On
YouTube.com
Oct. 16, 2007
Added April 11, 2008
Illinois, USA
Chicago - Police on Thursday
have issued a community alert as they continue to
search for a man who attempted to lure two young
children into his vehicle on the Southwest Side
Tuesday afternoon.
The attempted child abduction
happened about 2 p.m. on the 2900 block of West 47th
St., according to a release from police.
Police are searching for a Hispanic
male between the ages of 20 and 30 with a thin
build, a scar on his left cheek and black spiked
hair, the release said. He was last seen wearing a
white t-shirt...
- The Chicago Sun-Times
April 10, 2008
California, USA
Lodi - Police have released a
sketch of a man who detectives believe tried to
kidnap a 10-year-old girl in Lodi Monday.
The fifth grader at Washington
Elementary School was approached by a suspicious man
around 3:15 p.m. near the school's playground, she
told investigators.
The man was carrying files and asked
the girl to "look over or review some contracts."
She feared he was tying to kidnap her, so when he
was within a few feet of her, she kicked the man and
ran away. She said the man tried to run after her
but fell...
The girl described the man
as...Hispanic, thin, and standing about 5 feet 4
inches tall. Police released a sketch Thursday...
- Elizabeth Bishop
KXTV
April 10, 2008
Added April 11, 2008
Maryland, USA
Baltimore - U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents yesterday
arrested four convicted sexual predators, passing
the milestone of 100 arrests of sexual predators in
Maryland since 2003. All the predators arrested by
ICE were foreign-born criminals who are subject to
removal from the United States...
The four were arrested... have served
their sentences and are now amenable to be returned
to their countries of origin.
Carlos Alvarado, age, 37, a citizen
of Honduras, was convicted of Rape, 2nd degree,
...and was initially sentenced to six years of
incarceration in 2005. His victim was 11 years
old...
Richard Amos age, 36, a citizen of
the Philippines, was convicted of child abuse... and
sentenced to 18 months incarceration in 1990. His
victim was 5 years old...
Jose Isa Portillo, age 33, a citizen
of El Salvador, was convicted for carrying a handgun
and a fourth-degree sex offense... in 2006. He was
sentenced to one year in jail. His victim was 17
years old...
Yovanni Zelaya Ortega, age 22, a
citizen of El Salvador, was convicted... of
3rd-degree sex offense against a 13-year-old victim
in 2007.
- U.S. ICE
April 04, 2008
Pennsylvania, USA
Police yesterday released a
new composite drawing of the Fairmount Park rapist,
the man thought to have killed one woman in 2003 and
assaulted three others, and warned that he may be
still around.
"We've got better weather," said
Capt. John Darby of the Special Victims Unit. "We
want people to know they are potential witnesses,
but also that they are potential victims."
On July 13, 2003, the attacker raped
and strangled Rebecca Park, 30, a fourth-year
medical student at the Philadelphia College of
Osteopathic Medicine.
After raping two other women that
year, the killer disappeared for four years and
reemerged almost a year ago...
...The attacker may have a
Jekyll-and-Hyde personality. He said that the
attacker consoled one or two of the victims after
the attacks. The attacker also talked of his family
in Puerto Rico.
- Dwight Ott
Philadelphia Inquirer
Apr. 10, 2008
Arizona, USA
The head of the union
representing more than 2,000 Phoenix police officers
says each day of delay in implementing a new
immigration policy puts lives at risk.
Mark Spencer with the Phoenix Law
Enforcement Association says the number of Hispanic
murder victims is alarming, that 63 percent of all
homicide victims in the city in 2006-2007 were
Hispanic. And, he said 50 percent of the murder
suspects were in the United States illegally.
Hispanics are three to four times
more likely to become murder victims, according to
Spencer...
- Jim Cross
KTAR
April 09, 2008
Added April 10, 2008
Young Mexican girls are enslaved and prostituted
in the United States
Niñas mexicanas prostituidas y
esclavizadas al sexo en EU
The business is as
lucrative and sophisticated as the illegal drug
trade. The products are undocumented Mexican girls
as young as 11-years-old who suffer a terrible fate:
to live as sex slaves and serve 25 to 30 clients per
day.
The victims have been
tricked [with false romance and job offers] and
taken from their homes, at times because of the
actions of their own parents.
John Johnson, regional
director of the FBI in McAllen, Texas and former
director of the FBI's Civil Rights unit: "The
victims are the most vulnerable people in society:
poor, without education and easy to manipulate."
"They are brought here with promises of better
opportunities, but when they get here, they face
intimidation and control."
Some victims are seduced
by job announcements seeking young women to be
models or assistants, noted Víctor Manuel Treviño,
Mexico's Consul in Brownsville, Texas.
One job ad published in
newspapers to hook young women states: "What would
you think if someone offered you $600 just to
accompany a man in his travels? We can get you that
type of job."
Other ads seek domestic
workers. Yet others are from "a good American man"
seeking a young Mexican woman to marry.
International
Organizations that fight sex trafficking state that
Mexico is one of the world's nations that is out
of control in regard to this issue, much like
Thailand, Cambodia, India and Brazil. Of the 13,000
homeless street children living in Mexico City, for
example, 95% have had some type of sexual encounter
with adult men.
A study by the U.S.
Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons,
of rescued trafficking victims, has found an
epidemic of rape, abuse, and sexual diseases such as
HIV/AIDS and the viruses that cause cervical cancer.
The violence that they face is so extreme that rape,
broken bones and loss of consciousness are common
experiences.
In San Antonio, a gang that
trafficked Mexican children into Texas was recently
dismantled by police. Court documents have charged
Timothy Michael Gereb and three Mexican-American
sisters with child prostitution.
In another recent case from Houston,
a 16-year-old Mexican girl was freed from sexual
slavery by police. The victim stated that she was
held prisoner in a house guarded by three dogs.
Gregoria Salgado Vázquez, age 58, and her son David
Salazar, 27, were arrested in that case.
- Texas en Linea
(Texas Online)
April 8, 2008
LibertadLatina
commentary:
The above article states that 95% of
the homeless street children in Mexico City have had
sexual encounters with adult men. A study by
Casa Alianza in Nicaragua found that 80% of street
children had such experiences within the first year
of leaving their homes.
Latin America his over 40 million
street children. It is fair to assume that
therefore, many more than 40 million children
survive in the region through child prostitution and
'survival sex' with adult men.
The fact the Latin American cultures
condone and accept impunity in the sexual
exploitation of children by adult men has grave
impacts both within Latin America, and in migrant
destination countries such as the United States.
- Chuck Goolsby
.LibertadLatina
April 10, 2008
Added April 10, 2008
Rhode Island,
USA
Woonsocket - A... man awaiting
trial on charges of kidnapping and sexually
assaulting a 5-year-old girl in 2005 was back in
police custody Wednesday morning after allegedly
kidnapping an 11-year-old girl at knifepoint on her
way to the middle school and sexually assaulting her
in an empty apartment...
The girl was able to
break free from her alleged assailant, Miguel A.
Navarro, 20.... and return home to her family, who
notified police immediately of the incident...
A swarm of city police
officers canvassed the neighborhood where the attack
occurred and had Navarro in custody within 30
minutes of the 7:46 a.m. assault...
...Police are attempting
to determine if Navarro had any role in the March 11
brief kidnapping of a 15-year-old city girl as she
walked to school at the high school or another
incident involving a 10-year-old girl who was
approached by an unidentified male as she walked to
the Citizens Elementary School several days
earlier...
The 15-year-old high
school student was allegedly pulled into a car by a
Hispanic male subject on Elm Street near Jervis on
March 11 but was able to escape the vehicle unharmed
when it slowed in traffic...
-
Joseph B. Nadeau
The Woonsocket Call
April 09, 2008
Added April 10, 2008
Minnesota,
USA
..."Laura"
was 19 and out with friends at Rookie's Sports Grill...
She decided to leave...
A man in a white sedan pulled up. He opened the
passenger side door and asked if she needed a ride
home. When she bent over to respond, he grabbed her
arm and pulled her into the car.
Then, she said, he hit
her on the head with a bottle...
Some closure came Monday
when the assailant, Domingo Perez Santos, was
sentenced to 15 years in prison... He pleaded
guilty to sexually assaulting three women at
different times in 2006 and 2007.
[In] the first
assault... a 40-year-old woman was walking alone...
when a man grabbed her around the neck from behind
and pulled her to the ground. She screamed until he
stuffed a sock or rag in her mouth. He then raped
her more than once. She tried to get away, but he
punched her in the jaw...
The second assault [was]
Laura's...
...In May 2007... a
23-year-old Rochester woman said a man who had given
her a ride got violent after she refused to have
sex. He ordered her out of his car, tackled her into
a ditch, punched her in the chest and raped her. He
fled after she hit him in the head with her shoe...
Laura: "I grew up in
Rochester. I have never before felt at any point it
was not safe. That has all been shattered. I don't
feel safe anywhere..."
"I am not racist, but I
am terrified of Hispanic males," she said...
[Laura] is troubled,
too, that Santos was given only a 15-year prison
term. He will be eligible for release in 10 years,
she said, and then be deported to Mexico.
-
Janice Gregorson
Post-Bulletin
Rochester, Minnesota
April 09, 2008
Added April 09, 2008
Rhode Island,
USA
Patricia Martinez
- The Providence Journal
Providence - A member of
Governor Carcieri’s Cabinet apologized yesterday for
raising concerns that the governor’s effort to curb
illegal immigration has caused hatred and widespread
fear across the state.
“The executive order is
the first step in the right direction toward
immigration reform,” said Department of Children,
Youth and Families Director Patricia Martinez, a day
after saying that Carcieri’s recent order, like
several bills proposed by the legislature, “is
really slamming immigrants” by promoting racial
profiling.
Martinez, a former
leader of the Hispanic advocacy organization
Progreso Latino, met with the governor yesterday
afternoon behind closed doors for roughly 45
minutes.
The meeting came on the
same day that calls for Martinez’s resignation
dominated Rhode Island talk radio.
“I apologize for any
misperceptions my comments might have caused,” she
said in a statement released after the meeting. “In
particular, I did not mean to imply that the
governor’s actions were spreading hatred.”
But in a later interview
with The Journal, she disputed assertions made
recently by the governor and his supporters that
undocumented immigrants are a drain on Rhode
Island’s resources.
“We need to have the
right facts before we begin to point fingers at
everyone,” Martinez said...
- Steve Peoples
The Providence
Journal
April 09, 2008
Added April 05, 2008
North Carolina, USA
...Hundreds
of... women, and dozens of men participated in
"Combating Sex Trafficking," a conference held... at
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The conference featured
academics, social workers, bureaucrats, lawyers and
law enforcement...
To start the conference,
Kika Cerpa shared her story of being lured to New
York from Venezuela as a young woman by a man who
promised to care for her.
Instead, his female
cousin took her passport and her $2,000 in life
savings and forced her into a brothel, where she had
sex with dozens of men every night while her captors
collected the money.
"I felt wounded inside,"
Cerpa said.
She came to see police
as enemies, as they not only patronized the brothel
but also arrested the women and not the pimps or the
johns. Cerpa ended up marrying a customer -- a man
who had threatened her at gunpoint -- to escape the
brothel...
-
Jesse James DeConto
April 05, 2008
Texas, USA
La familia de una adolescente
de 13 años acusada de ofrecerle sexo a un policía
encubierto dentro de un salón de baile de Dallas
afirma que no estaba al tanto de las actividades de
la niña.
- Rebecca López and
Tanya Eiserer
Al Dia Texas
March 26, 2008
[Dallas -] About a dozen
protesters clamored Friday night for the closure of
a Love Field-area nightclub where police said one
13-year-old girl lured another into prostitution.
"The children don't have
a voice. Someone needs to speak up," said organizer
Enrique Carranza outside Metropolis club at 8416
Denton Drive.
Some protesters called
for the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission to step
in and suspend or revoke the club's liquor license
based on numerous complaints.
Mr. Carranza said he is
frustrated by the city's inability to close the
club, because a city ordinance doesn't require it...
The council will discuss
the issue on Wednesday. Ms. Koop hopes a revised
ordinance will specifically address age.
- Holly Yan
April 5, 2008
Colombia
Autoridades enciendan alerta
por turismo sexual infantil en Cartagena
Authorities from the
Colombian Institute for Family Wellbeing (ICBF) and
from the Colombian beach resort city of Cartagena
have stepped up patrols in tourist areas where pimps
offer children for sale in prostitution.
According to Elvira
Forero, director of the ICBF, enforcement activity
is focusing on the city's historic district and
other trouble hot spots. Forero emphasized that
their work to stop child sex tourism cannot be
effective without community cooperation.
Forero: "The most
revealing complaints have focused on the fact that
exploitation has increased, especially in clubs
where minors are performing striptease." Forero went
on to state that her agency will come down hard on
the offenders.
Forero noted that her
agency has an agreement with local hotels wherein
hotel security will prohibit minors from entering
the rooms of single tourists and those who are
acting suspiciously.
-
Caracol Noticias
March 26, 2008
Added April 1, 2008
Ecuador
Un sentenciado por trata
de personas
Chimborazo Province - Ecuador has seen a number
of its underage youth being hired to work in
Venezuela. On February 29, 2008, José Vicente
Yuquilema Cajas, age 57, was sentenced by First
Criminal Court of Chimborazo Province for
illegal trafficking of three children, who were
sent to Venezuela via Colombia. He had offered
parents $1,000 US dollars as the child's annual
pay.
The victims, Pablo N., age 17, Laura N., age 15
and Rosa N., age 13, were taken by the accused
and other suspects to Caracas, where the
children were abused and forced to work 10 hours
a day as street vendors and in cleaning
services. The children received 2 meals a day.
A social service agency report from Caracas
stated that the three children survived by
begging, and faced abuse and physical aggression
during the two years that they were enslaved in
Venezuela.
Pablo N. stated that they were offered $1,000
per year to work, but were never paid over a 21
month period.
Police arrested Yuquilema Cajas on February 21st
as he tried to recruit a 10-year-old girl at the
local Guamote County fair.
Ecuadorian authorities state that over 60
similar cases exist. Parents typically refuse to
file a formal criminal complaint [an
investigation requires a civilian complaint in
Latin America]. Yuquilema Cajas is the first
person to be sentenced for this form of human
trafficking, which has existed for many years.
-
El Comercio - Quito
March 24, 2008
LibertadLatina
note:
The majority of children and
youth trafficked from northern Ecuador to
Colombia and Venezuela are from the indigenous
peoples of the region.
-
Chuck Goolsby
April 1, 2008
Brazil
Procesan 12 personas por
encarcelar niña de 15 años en una celda con 20
hombres
Police arrest 12 people involved in jailing a
15-year-old girl, and then placing her in a cell
with 20 men. The victim was repeated raped, and
was forced to exchange sex for food.
Among the accused are 5 policemen, 5 corrections
authorities and 2 male inmates who are accused
of raping the girl.
Brazilians became enraged when the chief of the
state police of
Pará, Raimundo Benassuly,
accused the victim of having a mental disability... because she did not tell police that she was 15
at the time of her arrest.
The victim has alleged that she has been
threatened by the policemen who permitted the
abuses. She went on to say that, during each of
the 8 times that she has been jailed since July
of 2007, she has been treated as an adult and
sexually assaulted in jail.
- La Voz de Galicia -
['Spain']
March 24, 2008
Mexico
Bandas de explotación
sexual de Puebla y Tlaxcala operan en Orizaba
Sex workers in the Orizaba Valley region have
been made uncomfortable by the growing presence
of underage prostitutes sent to the area by a sex
trafficking network based in the states of Puebla and Tlaxcala. Lead by Jairo Guarneros
Sosa, of the Civil Society Coalition, the adult
sex workers converged on the Orizaba mayor's
office to demand that authorities do something
about the problem.
Guarneros Sosa: "These sex trafficking networks
originate in a region of Puebla state, near Tlaxcala, that is
known nationally and internationally as the
capital of the [sexual] exploitation networks." "The
problem is made worse by the fact that these
youth agree to sex without protection at a low
price, in order to meet the daily quotas of
their pimps." "They are 17, 16 and even 15 years
old."
Activists demand that authorities come up with a
solution to the problem, one which increases the
risks of sexual infections including HIV.
María de la Cruz Jaimes of the Veracruz Women's
Institute stated: "These sex trafficking
networks have set up shop in Orizaba because
nobody [among local legal authorities] tells
them that they can't.
- Marea Informativa
March 27, 2008
California, USA
Vacaville Police arrested
a 15-year-old Vallejo boy Friday in connection
with a sexual assault at an [Osh Kosh B'Gosh] outlet store.
The boy, described as a Hispanic male, faces
charges of penetration with a foreign object,
assault with intent to commit rape, false
imprisonment, burglary and sexual battery.
According to a police statement, the juvenile
suspect was on probation in Solano County for
armed robbery...
- TheReporter.com
Vacaville, CA
March 29, 2008
Texas, USA
Sugar Land - Police have
named a person of interest in the attempted
kidnapping of a15-year-old girl Tuesday...
It happened... while the girl was walking home
around 4:10 p.m. The man, who was driving a
truck, stopped and talked to her. He tried to
grab the girl, but she ran away.
Sugar Land police said the girl told her mom the
same man tried talking to her a couple of weeks
ago, but she'd run into her house.
Now police are looking for Mario Enrique Garcia
Santizo...
A similar situation happened at the Aquatic
Center last week. A man in a white truck
approached an 11-year-old girl who was walking
with her teenaged brother. The two kept walking,
and the man drove off...
- KHOU
March 28, 2008
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LibertadLatina
News /
Noticias |
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Updated:
June 13, 2010
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Últimas Noticias
Latest News
Honduras
Venden niñas por edades
En San Pedro Sula hay unas 10 mil menores que son víctimas de abuso sexual y comercial
Apenas tiene 16 años y “Elena” ya ha tenido relaciones sexuales con diferentes hombres. La menor era prostituida por su padrastro, ahora lo hace por su cuenta.
Desde pequeña empezó a sufrir los maltratos del hombre que apenas esperó a que el cuerpo de ella comenzara a notarse el desarrollo para poder lucrarse.
La niña recuerda que tenía cerca de 12 años cuando su padrastro le dijo que llegarían unos amigos de visita y que tenía que ayudarle a su madre a atenderlos...
Un día, cuando estaba cerca de cumplir los 13 y mientras sus seis hermanos jugaban en la calle, su padrastro la dejó en casa con un amigo.
“Sólo me dijo que no tuviera miedo y que fuera cariñosa, ahora sé que pagaron por estar conmigo y en vez de que gane dinero él, mejor me lo agarro yo”, expresó la menor, que ahora se prostituye en las calles de la ciudad.
Ella logró huir de su casa, pero no del camino al que la orilló su padrastro...
El caso de “Elena” es más común de lo que parece. Sólo en San Pedro Sula hay cerca de 10 mil menores que son víctimas de abuso sexual y comercial, según información en poder de la Fiscalía de la Niñez. Las cifras recogen datos hasta 2008, por lo que las autoridades temen que el número hasta la fecha sea mucho más alarmante. El 98% de las estadísticas corresponde a niñas...
In the northern coastal city of San Pedro
Sula, 10,000 minors are subjected to sexual abuse and commercial
exploitation
Elena has just turned 16, but she has ‘been’ with many men. She
was first prostituted by her stepfather. Now she does it to make
money for herself.
From an early age Elena suffered abuse from her stepfather, who
just waited long enough for her to show signs of maturing before
he started profiting from selling her body.
Elena recalls that she was almost 12 when her stepfather told
her that some of his friends would be coming over to visit, and
that she had to help her mother to attend to his visitors.
At that time, Elena didn’t know that type of ‘attending’ she
would have to do for her stepfather’s friends. She imagined that
she would have to cook for them. Girls her age were expected to
help out with the housework.
One day, when she was close to her 13th birthday,
while her six brothers played in the street, her stepfather left
her in the house with one of his friends. Elena: “He told me not
to be afraid, and asked me to be affectionate with him. Now I
know that this man paid my stepfather to be with me. Instead of
making money for him, now I make it myself.”
Elena was able to escape from her home, but could not escape the
path in life that her stepfather has set her upon.
Cases like Elena’s occur more frequently than one would think.
Just in the city of San Pedro Sula, there are 10,000 minors who
are victims of sexual abuse, including the Commercial Sexual
Exploitation of Children (CSEC), according to data collected by
the special prosecutor for crimes against children. Their
statistics only cover a period through 2008, leaving the
authorities believing that today’s figures are likely much
higher. Some 98% of cases involve girls.
Special prosecutor for crimes against children coordinator
Thelma Martínez indicates that the figures are worrying, given
that an increasing number of these cases involve pimping and
human trafficking.
Martínez declared that these girls and adolescents are
manipulated and recruited by adults who profit from them through
prostitution. The victims are selected for the marketplace based
on the color of their skin, their age and their height.
The obstacle that prosecutors face in going after pimps is that
minors are not willing to testify against them.
Martínez: “Many girls are fearful. Others, unfortunately, have
gotten used to earning money this way, and prefer to say
nothing.”
Due to the increase in these types of cases, a special office
was created to attend to the complaints involving sexual abuse,
kidnapping, pimping, human trafficking and rape, which is the
most commonly reported crime.
According to the special prosecutor’s office, in the month of
May, 2010 alone, 30 child sexual abuse cases were processed.
Although child sexual abuse cases involve a criminal penalty of
from 5 to 10 years of prison time, the damage caused to the
victim is irreversible.
“The worst part of these cases is that the [perpetrator] is in
the same family nucleus. They are fathers, stepfathers, cousins
or others” added Martínez.
In addition to attending to the cases of children who are
victims of crime, the special prosecutor’s office also deals
with at-risk minors and juvenile criminal perpetrators. When
they receive a complaint, they sent the child to one of several
centers run by the Honduran Institute for Children and Families
– IHNFA, while the case is being resolved...
La Prensa - Honduras
June 09, 2010
New York, USA
Smugglers kidnap girl bound for Long Island
A Long Island mom is racing against time to find her teenage daughter -- who is being held captive by immigrant-smugglers threatening to kill her unless a ransom is paid.
"Mom, save me! Please help! They are going to kill me," 14-year-old Eloisa Lopez, who left Honduras more than a month ago, told her mom by phone on Tuesday.
The terrified girl somehow managed to take a cellphone from her captors and call her mom. But she had no clear idea where she was being held, sending her family scrambling for help.
The devastated mom had saved up her earnings as a housekeeper and paid "coyotes" $5,000 to bring the girl to the country nearly a month ago, Eloisa's sister told the Post.
But 10 days later, a smuggler brazenly demanded $7,000 more from the family in exchange for Eloisa's life.
It was cash they didn't have.
Then on Tuesday, Dania received the terrifying call.
"I think I'm in Houston, but I don't know where I am!" Eloisa cried over the phone, fearful that her captors would discover she was calling for help.
"Don't worry, we will save you no matter where you are," Dania told her daughter, before phoning cops.
A law enforcement source told The Post yesterday that "authorities are investigating a claim that may have implications of human trafficking."
Federal authorities have since taken over the case, and Department of Homeland Security agents yesterday went to the Lopez family's home in Woodbury.
"She was due back this week," Ingrid Lopez, 18, said of her sister. "This is horrible. My sister is in danger of losing her life. These coyotes don't care. They will kill you and leave you in the desert."
Ingrid would know. She was smuggled from Honduras to Long Island three years ago on a similarly dangerous journey.
The 18-year-old, now a student, often went without food and water and walked for three days straight.
She now fears her younger sister has met a far worse fate.
"She is so small and slight. She would not be able to defend herself against them," Ingrid said.
Eloisa's mom has been working long and hard to bring all five of her children into the country.
Two, including Ingrid, have been safely brought to Long Island. The youngest two live in Honduras with their grandmother.
"We never imagined this would happen. We just wanted to be reunited as a family," Ingrid Lopez said. "We feel helpless but we have faith in God everything will work out."
Kieran Crowley and Emily Ngo
The New York Post
June 10, 2010
New Jersey, USA
Man admits sexually abusing boy, 5, in Parsippany
An illegal immigrant from Guatemala faces up to 15 years in state prison on his guilty plea Monday to sexually abusing a 5-year-old boy in Parsippany over a six-month period.
Through a Spanish interpreter, Jorge Mario Hernandez, 26, admitted to state Superior Court Judge Thomas V. Manahan in Morristown to one count of aggravated sexual assault on the child between May 1 and Oct. 23, 2009.
Morris County Assistant Prosecutor LaJuan Tucker has recommended that Hernandez be sentenced to 15 years in state prison, with 85 percent or 12 years and nine months to be served before parole consideration. Defense lawyer Neill Hamilton said he would argue for 10 years.
Hernandez, who told the judge he was educated until the 6th grade in his native Guatemala, said he understood he was likely to be deported upon release from prison. Sentencing tentatively was set for July 9.
Hernandez was arrested in October after an unidentified witness contacted police to say that he or she saw Hernandez assaulting the boy. Upon being confronted, the witness told police, Hernandez dropped to his knees and begged for forgiveness. He said in court Monday only that he assaulted the child on more than one occasion; police had accused him of molesting the boy more than 30 times.
Before he is sentenced, Hernandez must be evaluated at the state's Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center in Avenel to determine if he is a compulsive and repetitive sex offender who should be incarcerated there. According to the law, if he receives a sentence of more than seven years and is considered compulsive and repetitive, he still must serve a portion of his punishment in state prison before being transferred to Avenel.
Peggy Wright
The Daily Record
June 07, 2010
Pennsylvania, USA
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Jesus Marrero |
Man Charged with Child Sex Assault
A man from Scranton is accused of sexually assaulting a young boy over the course of a few months.
Jesus Marrero, 44, was arrested Wednesday. Police said he made a seven-year-old boy watch while he had sex with his girlfriend, then forced the boy to have sexual relations with him.
The boy was in Marrero's care at the time.
Police learned what happened when the boy told a school official.
WNEP-TV
June 10, 2010
Texas, USA
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Jose Arturo Lopez |
Former Teacher Charged With Indecency With a Child
El Paso County Sheriff's Officers arrest a former Fabens ISD teacher. Jose Arturo Lopez was arrested for an alleged incident that took place in December of 2008 involving a 15-year-old girl. At the time, Lopez was working at O'Donnell Elementary school as fifth-grade teacher. Lopez is charged with indecency with a child.
Oralia Ortega
KTSM
June 09, 2010
California, USA
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Pedro Hernandez |
Relative Caught In Girl's Sex Assault At San Francisco Elementary School
San Francisco - A 68-year-old man suspected of sexually assaulting his 8-year-old step-granddaughter at her San Francisco elementary school last week was arrested Thursday at a homeless shelter after reportedly being harbored by his children and altering his appearance, police said Friday.
San Francisco police arrested Pedro Hernandez, who allegedly assaulted the girl at Sanchez Elementary School in the Mission District around noon June 3, at a shelter at St. Bruno's Catholic Church in San Bruno Thursday night, police said.
Hernandez is expected to be arraigned Monday morning in San Francisco Superior Court on seven felony counts, according to district attorney's office spokeswoman Erica Derryck.
The charges include continuous sexual abuse of a child, sexual intercourse or sodomy with a child 10 years of age or younger, and oral copulation or sexual penetration with a child 10 years of age or younger. The last two charges are punishable by life in prison.
Three of Hernandez's adult children were also arrested Tuesday in connection with the alleged attack on the girl. Prosecutors filed charges against two of the children, but decided not to charge the third.
Marisol Lopez and Jesus Hernandez were arraigned in court Friday morning in on charges of being an accessory to the crime after the fact, according to Derryck. Both pleaded not guilty and were ordered held on $100,000 bail.
Police spokesman Officer Samson Chan said the children are believed to have helped their father get a motel room in Daly City after the alleged assault.
In addition, Hernandez shaved his moustache and cut his hair short in recent days, Chan said.
"He was actively trying to conceal himself," Chan said.
An investigation by the Police Department's Fugitive Recovery Team led police to the homeless shelter.
Following the alleged assault, police issued a $2 million warrant for his arrest and initiated a statewide and international search.
Police do not believe Hernandez was a member of the San Bruno church or that anyone at the shelter knew he was a fugitive, Chan said.
Hernandez has known the girl's family for several years and has lived with them on and off, according to police.
He had married the girl's grandmother but they are now separated, Chan said.
According to police, Hernandez arrived at the school to bring lunch to the girl and a female school district employee saw him "being overly affectionate toward the victim" and became suspicious.
The same employee then caught Hernandez allegedly sexually assaulting the girl in a secluded stairwell area inside the school and Hernandez ran away, police said. The woman called police.
Hernandez allegedly assaulted the girl in the stairwell multiple times and the acts were recorded on a video surveillance camera, police said.
CBS 5
June 11, 2010
Indiana, USA
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Roberto Vasquez |
A Chicago man convicted of child molesting in Elkhart County will be featured on the "America's Most Wanted" web page.
Roberto Vasquez, 54, was convicted last year. He was sentenced to 247 years behind bars for molesting a young girl from the time she was six until she was 12.
According to the America's Most Wanted website, Vasquez posed as a religious adviser in Elkhart to get into people's homes. He molested one girl from 1999 until 2006, when he was arrested.
On the day of his sentencing in 2009, Vasquez went into hiding and authorities have been looking for him ever since.
The Elkhart Police Department actually contacted “America’s Most Wanted”, hoping to get more publicity in the case on a national level.
“Just because of the severity of this crime; 9 different child molests charges of one child and it had been going on for six years, and the fact that he uses the “I'm a religious adviser” to get into him people’s homes. I mean, this family allowed him to live in their homes,” said Elkhart Police Lt. Ed Windbigler.
WNDU
June 02, 2010
Texas, USA
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Genny Granados |
Salvadoran immigrant gets 50 years for dumping baby in the thrash
On Thursday, in a Harris County courtroom, Genny Granados, 31, was sentenced to 50 years in prison for murder, after leaving her infant son in a Houston emergency room bathroom trash can.
According to prosecutors, sometime around midnight Feb. 9, 2008, Granados, who denied being pregnant, gave birth to a baby boy in an emergency room bathroom at Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital.
She cut the umbilical cord herself, dumped the infant into the trash, and left.
A custodian later found the baby.
Doctors revived the infant, and placed him on life support. The baby was found to be brain-dead and died 11 days later.
At her arraignment, prosecutor Kelli Johnson said of Granados: “She has such little respect for human life that she tells no one, to my knowledge, that she was pregnant. She goes to the hospital, has a pair of scissors in her hand, and cuts her own umbilical cord and looks at her baby and throws it in the trash.”
Granados’ defense attorneys blamed hospital staff for the child’s death, saying they should have known that Granados gave birth in the restroom.
Granados is a legal U.S. resident who came to this country from El Salvador, and has two other children.
This sad case is reminiscent of another in which an illegal alien abandoned her baby in a dumpster in California.
In December 2009, the staff at Anaheim Medical Center became suspicious of the story given them by Juana Perez Valencia, 19, who though showing all of the signs, claimed she had not just given birth. Orange County deputies arrived and questioned her, eventually finding the corpse of her newborn daughter in the dumpster behind Sombrero’s restaurant, where Valencia worked as a waitress.
Apparently, Valencia gave birth to the girl in the restaurant’s bathroom, and allegedly placed the baby into a plastic bag, before tossing her into the dumpster.
An autopsy concluded that the baby had in fact, been born alive and healthy.
Deputy District Attorney Ebrahim Baytieh told the Orange County Register that the Mexican national had concealed her pregnancy, and was fully aware that she could have simply handed the baby over to authorities with no questions asked, but instead chose to let her die in a trash bin.
The Orange County District Attorney‘s Office issued the following statement: “The baby girl was born alive. Baby Doe weighed 6.3 pounds and was 17 inches long. The defendant is accused of murdering the baby, putting Baby Doe in a plastic bag, and throwing her body in a dumpster behind the restaurant.”
Valencia was charged with murder and currently sits in the Orange County Jail awaiting trial. If convicted, she faces a sentence of 25 years to life.
Dave Gibson
The Examiner
June 12, 2010
Ohio, USA
Police investigate the use of date rape drug at bar
A 31-year-old Grove City woman reported to Grove City Police that at 1:17 a.m. May 26 that she was the victim of rape while she was at a bar in the 3000 block of Southwest Boulevard. She told police that she believed someone slipped a date rape drug in her drink.
She woke up next to the trash receptacles behind the bar, bleeding copiously and complaining of internal pain. She told police that two to three men, one of whom had a scar above his right eye, raped her.
She told police she believed the men were Hispanic and mentioned a gang initiation. She also complained of confusion. The bartender reported seeing the woman in the company of a number of individuals during the course of the night.
One witness said she saw the victim vomiting and bleeding in the bathroom, but none of the bar patrons reported any awareness of a rape.
Columbus Local News
June 02, 2010
Southwest USA
U.S. Border Patrol Crime Blotter - May 27 - June 9, 2010
June 9, 2010 - Tucson Sector - Agents arrested an illegal alien from Honduras near Casa Grande, Arizona.
Records checks revealed the subject had a prior conviction for sexual abuse of a child under the age of 12 in the state of Kentucky and had previously been removed from the United States.
June 7, 2010 - El Centro Sector - Agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Calexico, California.
Records checks revealed the subject is a convicted sex offender and had previously been removed from the United States.
June 7, 2010 - El Centro Sector - Agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Ocotillo, California.
Records checks revealed the subject had a prior conviction for lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 in the state of California and had previously been removed from the United States.
June 7, 2010 - Tucson Sector - Agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Cowlic, Arizona. During processing, the subject admitted to being a Latin Kings gang member. Records checks revealed he had a prior conviction for statutory rape in the state of Georgia.
June 5, 2010 - Del Rio Sector - Agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Eagle Pass, Texas.
Records checks revealed the subject had a prior conviction for indecency with a child with sexual contact in the state of Texas, and had previously been removed from the United States.
June 4, 2010 - Tucson Sector - Agents arrested an illegal alien from El Salvador near Naco, Arizona.
Records checks revealed the subject was a Mara Salvatrucha 13 (MS-13) gang member and had a prior conviction for possession/purchase of cocaine and spousal abuse. He had also previously been removed from the United States.
June 3, 2010 - Tucson Sector - Agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Ajo, Arizona.
Records checks revealed the subject had a prior conviction for molestation of a child in the state of California and he had previously been removed from the United States.
June 2, 2010 - Del Rio Sector - Agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico in Weatherford, Texas.
Records checks revealed the subject had a prior conviction for delivery of a controlled substance and an active arrest warrant for aggravated sexual assault on a child issued in the state of Texas. The subject had also been previously removed from the United States.
May 29, 2010 - Yuma Sector - Agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Yuma, Arizona.
Records checks revealed the subject had an extensive criminal history, to include convictions for aggravated driving under the influence, assault and disorderly conduct. The subject was also a registered sex offender and had been previously removed from the United States.
May 29, 2010 - Tucson Sector - Agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Casa Grande, Arizona.
Records checks revealed the subject had a prior conviction for rape in the state of Washington and had been previously removed from the United States.
May 29, 2010 - Tucson Sector - Agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Douglas, Arizona.
Records checks revealed the subject had a prior conviction for lascivious acts and sexual penetration with foreign object of a minor in the state of California. The subject had also been previously removed from the United States.
May 27, 2010 - Laredo Sector - Agents assisted other Federal and local law enforcement officers in the arrest of an illegal alien from Mexico for kidnapping at a bus station near Laredo, Texas. The subject was en route to Mexico after kidnapping an 11-year-old female in the state of Illinois. The child was returned unharmed to proper authorities.
May 27, 2010 - Tucson Sector - Agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Gila Bend, Arizona.
Records checks revealed the subject had a prior conviction for rape in the state of California and had been previously removed from the United States.
U.S. Border Patrol
June 9, 2010
Delaware, USA
New Castle Police Investigate Child's Abduction and Rape
Hockessin - New Castle County police are investigating a late night abduction and rape of a 9-year-old girl who accepted a ride from a stranger after she was inadvertently locked out of her home.
The investigation revealed that around 8:45 p.m. Wednesday, a family friend drove the victim to her home on the 500 block of Homestead Road in Alban Park home. After the friend drove away, the victim initially entered her building but was unable to get into her home as the door was locked. Police learned she then walked back outside to search for her sister and her parents.
While walking along Alban Drive, near the rear of the Canby Park Shopping Center, the victim was approached by an unknown man who was driving a four-door vehicle. The man offered the victim a ride and after some conversation, she accepted. The two drove out of the community and then to an undisclosed location in the city of Wilmington where the car was parked.
Police say the male suspect then sexually assaulted the victim before she was able get out of the car and run. A good Samaritan found the young girl walking in the area and took her to a nearby convenience store. The victim was able to reach a family member by phone who responded to the store, picked her up and then drove her home. She then disclosed the assault to her mother, who in turned called 911.
The suspect is described as an Asian or Hispanic male with short black hair. Anyone with information regarding this investigation is asked to contact the New Castle County Police Department at (302) 395-8110 (attention Detective Brian Faulkner) or visit
www.nccpd.com. Citizens may also provide a text tip at: 847411 (TIP411); begin your message with NCCPD and then type your message. Tipsters may also call Crime Stoppers at (800) TIP-3333.
Police say investigators do not have any evidence at this point to believe this case is related to the two recent abduction and rape crimes that are being investigated by the Delaware State Police.
Kye Parsons
WBOC
June 10, 2010
California, USA
Man Tries to Grab Child Walking to School
San Diego - A 14-year-old girls escaped from a kidnapping attempt Thursday morning in City Heights.
The girl told San Diego Police she was walking to school when a man walked out of an apartment complex at 4029 44th Street near University Avenue at about 7:15 a.m. He reportedly tried to grab her and started chasing her.
A passing school bus driver saw the girl appeared to be in trouble and called police.
Police describe the suspect as a Latino male, about 25 years old, 6 feet tall with a medium build, shaved head, wearing dark blue shorts and long white socks.
While the driver called police, the man fled. He was described as Hispanic, about 25 years old, 6 feet tall with a medium build and shaved head.
He had on dark blue Dickies shorts and long white socks.
San Diego 6
June 10, 2010
New Jersey, USA
Police Arrest Summit Man in Luring Case
Summit Police arrested Jose Gerardo Mazariedo, a 23 year old city resident, and charged him with two counts of third degree providing obscene materials to a minor and one count of second degree Child Luring on Monday, according to Detective Steve Zagorski.
This arrest, Zagorski emphasized, is not related to the May attempted luring on Linden Place.
On Saturday, the mother of a 14-year-old female reported to police that her daughter and three of her classmates had been followed home from school, every day for the past week, by an unidentified Hispanic male in his late 20s or early 30s who was operating a newer model Honda, color blue, Zagorski said.
At school dismissal time on June 7, the police set up surveillance around the victim's school and in the area of her walking route home. At around 3 p.m. police observed a 2010 Honda, which was being operated by Mazariedo, driving in the area under surveillance, Zagorski said.
The police stopped the vehicle and identified Mazariedo as the suspect from the June 7 complaint. Mazariedo was arrested after police uncovered additional evidence linking him to an additional victim, a 13-year-old female.
Mazariedo was committed to the Union County Jail in Elizabeth where he is being held in lieu of $200,000 bail.
Chief Robert C. Lucid commended the actions and skills of the two detectives assigned to the case, Sgt. Thomas Rich and Det. John Padilla, for "quickly securing the necessary information for these criminal charges before this individual could perpetrate a sexual assault. Without their diligence we may have had a very different story to tell."
Heather Collura
Summit Patch
June 08, 2010
Illinois, USA
Cops seek suspect in assault on Waukegan bike path
Waukegan police are asking for the public's help in locating a man suspected in the sexual assault last week of a woman near a bike path in the far northern suburb, officials said today.
Police said a 38-year-old woman was attacked at about 5 p.m. on June 4, on the Robert McClorey Bike Path just north of Montesano Avenue.
The woman was riding her bicycle on the path when she a man on another bicycle knocked her off of her bicycle and forced her in to a wooded area, officials said. The man assaulted her at knife point, police said.
After the attack the man left the area on his bicycle, traveling southbound on the path from Montesano Avenue.
The man is described as Hispanic, about 26-years-old, about 5 feet 9 inches tall, with a thin build and short black hair. The bicycle he was riding is described as a dark colored BMX style bicycle with foot pegs on the front wheel.
Police officials said they have a possible suspect identified and are "actively looking for him." Officials are asking anyone with any information about the incident to call detectives at (847)599-2608.
Carlos Sadovi
The Chicago Tribune / WGN
June 09, 2010
Virginia, USA
Short Pump jogger fights off attacker whose genitals were exposed
Henrico - Scary moments for a [city of] Short Pump woman who says she was attacked while on a morning jog near Lauderdale Drive and Park Terrace Drive. Tonight, police say they're treating this as an assault, and, exposure case, because when the woman tried to fight back, it turns out the man wasn't entirely covered up.
It's a crime that is as stunning, as it is unusual...in the upscale, private, and peaceful Wellesley neighborhood.
Police say a woman was on a mid-morning jog, when she saw a man walking toward her. She said, "Good morning". But police say the man, all of a sudden, shoved her backward. Police say the woman responded with a push of her own...only to notice the man's genitals were exposed.
"Kind of, just, you know...shocked. You don't really hear that kind of thing going on in our neighborhood," said Wellesley resident Sharon Sachdeva.
After the initial tussle, police say the man tried to run away, so the woman and a passerby chased him. Police say the man then got into a pickup truck, and drove out of sight.
Those who grew up in the area say it makes them think twice about their personal safety, which they usually don't have to do...
Henrico Police are looking for a person who fits this description: Hispanic male. Approximately 6' tall and 230 pounds, wearing white painter-style pants and a dingy white t-shirt. Police say he was driving a pickup truck. If you have information that can help, call Henrico Police at 501-5000 or Crime Stoppers at 780-1000.
WWBT
June 10, 2010
California, USA
Woman fights off suspect in attack at San Jose storage facility
Police are searching for a man who attempted to sexually assault and rob a woman in a rented unit of a San Jose storage facility this afternoon.
The woman managed to fight off her assailant in the attack at about 4:30 p.m. at Public Storage in the 900 block of Felipe Avenue, police spokesman Dirk Parsons said.
He said the victim had entered her storage unit when an unknown man came up behind her, hit her with his elbow and attempted to lift her skirt.
The woman fought him off, but the suspect then threatened to steal her car. Parsons said the victim was holding keys to her Mercedes and that the suspect tried to grab them.
The victim, however, resisted and the suspect ran out the door of the storage unit, shutting it behind him, according to Parsons. The woman managed to quickly escape the unit, but the suspect then grabbed her.
Parsons said the victim again resisted and the suspect ran to his vehicle and drove off.
The victim was taken to a local hospital to be treated for minor injuries.
Police described the suspect as a Hispanic man in his 30s, about 5 feet 6 inches tall and 170 pounds. He was wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt, and a blue shirt and pants. A security camera at the business showed him driving away in a small Honda or similar vehicle, Parsons said.
Parson said the suspect could face charges of assault with attempt to commit rape, assault with a deadly weapon and attempted robbery.
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Anyone with information regarding the case is asked to call police at (408) 277-4102. To remain anonymous, call Crime Stoppers at (408) 947-STOP.
Bay City News Service
June 02, 2010
The United States
Female Migrants Charge Sexual Abuse in
Detention
New York
- In the wake of allegations that a male guard at a central
Texas detention facility sexually assaulted female detainees on
their way to being deported, immigrant advocacy groups say
stronger oversight and accountability is urgently needed to
prevent further abuse of female detainees.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), part of the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said last week that the
guard has been fired. It added that Corrections Corporation of
America, the private prison company that manages the Hutto
facility, has been placed on probation pending the
investigation's outcome. The consequences of probation were not
immediately clear.
ICE said
that several women who were held at Hutto facility in Taylor,
Texas, were groped while being patted down and at least one was
propositioned for sex.
"We
understand that this employee was able to commit these alleged
crimes because ICE-mandated transport policies and procedures
were not followed," David Sanders, DHS's contracting officer,
said in a letter to Corrections Corporation of America obtained
by The Associated Press.
ICE has
ordered Corrections Corporation of America to take corrective
actions. Among them is forbidding male guards from being alone
with female detainees.
"Hutto is
not an isolated incident," Jacki Esposito of Detention Watch
Network, a coalition of organizations that monitors ICE
treatment of detainees, told IPS. "Allegations of sexual assault
have plagued other facilities where immigrants are being held by
the federal government." ...
William
Fisher
Inter Press Service (IPS)
June 07, 2010
Maryland, USA
Baltimore, Maryland - U.S. District
Judge Richard D. Bennett sentenced Jose Jhonson
Hernandez-Ramos, age 34, a Honduran national
living in Baltimore, today to 87 months in
prison followed by lifetime supervised release
for interstate travel to have sex with a minor.
Judge Bennett also ordered that Hernandez-Ramos
be removed from the United States by U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement after he has
completed his sentence.
The sentence was announced by
United States Attorney for the District of
Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein; Special Agent in
Charge William Winter of U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement; Baltimore Police
Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III; and
Baltimore City State’s Attorney Patricia C.
Jessamy.
According to Hernandez-Ramos’
plea agreement, Hernandez-Ramos met the victim
in California, when she was 14 years old, and
they began to have a sexual relationship in May
2008. After the victim turned 15 years old, Jose
Jhonson Hernandez- Ramos brought her from
California to Baltimore in December 2008, where
they continued a sexual relationship until
August 4, 2009.
This case was brought as part of
Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative
to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual
exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by
the Department of Justice. Led by United States
Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division's
Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS),
Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state
and local resources to better locate, apprehend
and prosecute individuals who exploit children
via the internet, as well as to identify and
rescue victims. For more information about
Project Safe Childhood, please visit
projectsafechildhood.gov
United States Attorney Rod J.
Rosenstein commended Baltimore Child Abuse
Center Executive Director Adam Rosenberg and his
staff, for their assistance in this
investigation and thanked Assistant U.S.
Attorney Bonnie S. Greenberg, who prosecuted the
case.
The Maryland Human Trafficking Task Force
June 07, 2010
Maryland, USA
Illegal immigrant pleads to sex abuse of 6-year-old boy
Man faces between 15 and 30 years in prison, deportation for crimes
An illegal immigrant caught on video sexually assaulting a 6-year-old boy has pleaded guilty to exploiting a child to make child pornography.
The arrest of 25-five-year-old Maynor Quintanilla-Leon occurred after someone found a videotape in a Hyattsville trash bin that showed Quintanilla-Leon sexually abusing a male child, according to charging documents.
Quintanilla-Leon faces between 15 and 30 years in prison, and will be deported after he serves his time, prosecutors said.
"Mr. Quintanilla-Leon's despicable acts committed on a 6-year-old boy cry out for a long period of incarceration," Prince George's Police Chief Roberto Hylton said.
On July 8, 2009, authorities were tipped off about the attack after someone turned over a video tape that had been found with a VCR in a trash bin.
The tape lasts 47 minutes and depicts acts of sadistic violence, charging documents said. During the video, the child refers to his assailant as "Maynor."
Three days later, a witness spotted the man on the videotape in Hyattsville and contacted police. Police identified the man as Quintanilla-Leon, but because they did not have a victim they did not immediately arrest him, police said.
Detectives were able to find the boy in the video by going back to the previous addresses where Quintanilla-Leon had lived. Quintanilla-Leon had rented a home near where the boy lived. The child told police that Quintanilla-Leon abused him 20 times.
Quintanilla-Leon had fled to Texas, but U.S. Marshals captured him in Houston on July 29.
In Greenbelt's district court on Friday, Quintanilla-Leon admitted to sexually assaulting the boy twice. He did not admit to videotaping the assault, but admitted to throwing away the videotape in the trash near his brother's house.
Scott McCabe
The Washington Examiner
June 06, 2010
California, USA
Manhunt for man who attacked 14-year-old in Kensington
San Diego - Police are looking for a man who tried to rape a 14-year-old girl in Kensington.
The girl says she was walking along on 41st Street near Monroe Avenue at about 9:30 p.m. Sunday when the man threw her to the ground and tore off her undergarments.
A nearby neighbor apparently heard the girl's screams and attempted to apprehend the suspect, but he got away.
The suspect is described as a Latino male in his 30s with a goatee and tattoo on his right forearm. He was last seen wearing a dark colored hooded sweatshirt and shorts.
CBS 8
June 07, 2010
New York, USA
Police Seek Suspects In Central Park Sexual Assault
Police released surveillance video that shows three men believed to be suspects in the sexual assault of a woman in Central Park early Sunday morning. The victim, 23, was near the crosstown bus stop at East 86th Street and Fifth Avenue around 3 a.m. when, according to the Daily News, "The men offered to walk her through the park." Police Commissioner Kelly said, "She was taken into Central Park, where she was attacked."
The News also reports, "Two of the men pushed her to the ground, while the third exposed himself. She was sexually assaulted, hit on the head and robbed, the source said." The men allegedly told her they were smoking marijuana with PCP. The woman was able to run out of the park, half naked, onto Fifth Avenue where a cab driver saw her, gave her a shirt and called 911.
Upon learning about the attack, one 24-year-old told the News, "I always walk this way at night, but no way I'm doing that now." And WABC 7 has descriptions of the suspects: "Suspect #1: Hispanic man, 5'5" tall, with a dark colored Yankee baseball cap, dark colored patterned shirt and khaki shorts; Suspect #2: Hispanic man, 5'5" tall, with a red Yankee cap, red shirt and black shorts; Suspect #3: Hispanic man, 5'5" tall, with a light blue baseball cap, light blue shirt and khaki pants." People with information are urged to call Crime Stoppers (800-577-TIPS), log onto the Crimes Stoppers website or texting 274637 (CRIMES) with TIP577.
Gothamist
June 07, 2010
Colorado, USA
Fort Collins police arrest suspect in attempted kidnapping
Luis Garcia-Gonzales, 24, of Greeley, was taken into custody at 10:47 p.m. Saturday after a Greeley police officer noticed the vehicle he was driving matched the description of a vehicle Fort Collins police believed was tied to Thursday's attempted kidnapping incident.
Garcia-Gonzales was originally arrested for driving under restraint, but after an interview with a Fort Collins police detective, he was arrested on suspicion of felony attempted second-degree kidnapping and felony menacing.
Police began searching for a suspect after a 21-year-old woman reported that she was riding her bike northbound about 6:30 a.m. Thursday on Shields Street near Hill Pond Road when she noticed a man near an older white station wagon trying to get her attention.
According to police, the man was described as being Hispanic, in his mid-20s with a shaved head or very short hair, about 5-foot-7 and about 200 or 250 pounds.
The woman said the unknown man obstructed her path as she rode along the sidewalk and she stopped thinking he needed assistance.
"It was then that she saw the man had a knife in his hand. She attempted to flee, fell to the ground and two passing motorists stopped to assist," police said in a press release last week. "The suspect fled northbound on Shields Street in his vehicle. The victim was not injured."
Coloradan.com
June 07, 2010
Mexico
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A
young child labors in a melon field
Photo: El Universal |
En México, 3.6 millones de niños son explotados
La mayoría de niños, mujeres, adolescentes que laboran en malas condiciones y sin la posibilidad de asistir a la escuela provienen de contextos de pobreza, derivada de la falta de oportunidades educativas
La presidenta de la Comisión Especial de Lucha Contra la Trata de Personas, la panista Rosi Orozco (PAN), informó que con base en datos del Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía, en México hay 3.6 millones de niños trabajadores entre cinco y 17 años en condiciones de explotación.
"El Instituto estima que en México hay 3.6 millones de niños trabajadores entre cinco y 17 años trabajando en malas condiciones, sin la posibilidad de asistir a la escuela y buscar un mejor futuro", dijo.
Aseguró que la trata de personas es un delito con un impacto social complejo, cuya principal característica es convertir a las personas en mercancías que se intercambian en mercados clandestinos nacionales e internacionales, que laboran al amparo de la impunidad que les brindan las autoridades.
Orozco dijo que se deben combatir las raíces que propician el fenómeno de la trata de personas, pues la mayoría de niños, mujeres, adolescentes víctimas de ese delito provienen de contextos de pobreza, derivada de la falta de oportunidades educativas y laborales.
In Mexico, 3.6 million children are exploited
The majority of girls, boys and adolescents who labor
in abusive situations, with no hope of being able to attend school, live in
poverty that is also caused by a lack of educational opportunities.
National Actional Party (PAN) Congressional deputy Rosi Orozco, who is the
president of the Special Commission to Fight Human Trafficking in the Chamber of
Deputies, has announced the results of a statistical analysis on conditions
facing working children, conducted by the National Institute for Statistics and
Geography (INEG).
Deputy Orozco: The INEG estimates that in Mexico, 3.6 million minors between the ages of
5 and 17 work in [deplorable] labor conditions, and are unable to attend school
or seek a better future for themselves.
Orozco added that human trafficking is a crime that has a complicated impact on
society. Its principal characteristic is that it converts people into
merchandise, who are then bought and sold in national and international
clandestine marketplaces with the assistance of the impunity that is offered by corrupt authorities.
The deputy added that human trafficking should be fought from the roots up. They
majority of children, adolescents and women who are victims of these crimes come
from backgrounds of poverty, which itself derives from a lack of educational and
labor opportunities.
Andrea Merlos y Juan Arvizu
El Universal
June 02, 2010
Texas, USA
Human trafficking decried as "a horrible problem" in Texas
Austin - In the 2008 film thriller Taken, two American girls on a pleasure trip to France are kidnapped from their apartment and thrown into a brutal world of modern-day slavery and forced prostitution.
On Thursday, Texas lawmakers heard grim real-life episodes of human trafficking as law enforcement officials described a burgeoning criminal enterprise that has spread across Texas and other states.
Bexar County District Attorney Susan Reed told of one case in which a homeless teenage girl was abducted from a parking lot and spirited away to a strip club in Corpus Christi.
Capt. Rick Cruz of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, a participant of a task force operation in Houston, said officers rescued nearly 100 girls from "basically forced slavery" in the break-up of a trafficking ring in Houston in 2005.
Victims are often told that their families will be killed or injured if they try to contact someone on the outside, Cruz said.
Dallas police Lt. Thon Overstreet opened testimony at a legislative hearing by revealing a coordinated law enforcement strike at three locations in the Metroplex on Thursday to arrest suspects in a human trafficking network in North Texas. Overstreet declined to divulge certain details or locations because the operation had not been completed...
"It's a horrible problem," said Rep. Paula Pierson, D-Arlington, a member of the state House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee, citing estimates that more than a half-million young people -- boys as well as girls -- have been kidnapped and forced into prostitution. Pierson said human trafficking often surges around "big events," such as the Super Bowl at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington on Feb. 6.
Overstreet, interviewed after the hearing, said members of a North Texas task force on human smuggling are mapping strategy to combat it as the Super Bowl approaches. The game is expected to draw legions of visitors to North Texas...
Growing problem
During the joint hearing of the Criminal Jurisprudence and the Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence committees, lawmakers heard testimony that human trafficking rings have grown in sophistication and technological skill, often using the Internet to lure victims or conduct business. There are also strong indications that Mexican drug cartels are increasingly moving into human trafficking to expand their illicit profits.
"It's grown dramatically, and I don't think we've even scratched the surface on a lot of these organizations," Overstreet said.
Asked by Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, to rank where law enforcement stands against human trafficking organizations on a scale of one to 10, Overstreet responded, "two or three, right now."
Overstreet clutched a rolled-up chart that he said detailed the operations of
[a] human smuggling ring targeted by [a recent] raid.
The criminal network has ties in Nigeria, Colombia and Mexico, operates in more than 20 U.S. cities, and boasts $12 million in physical assets and more than $6 million cash, he said...
Dave Montgomery
The Star-Telegram
June 03, 2010
The Americas
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Isabel Allende |
Author Isabel Allende to visit New Orleans, hoping to draw attention to modern-day problem of human trafficking
Chilean writer Isabel Allende is no stranger to the rough currents of history. A cousin of Chilean President Salvador Allende, she was forced to flee her native country in the mid-1970s after a military coup overthrew his government. She lived for many years in Venezuela but now is a U.S. citizen, making her home in California with her second husband and extended family.
The author of 18 books -- fiction, memoirs and novels for young adults -- Allende's literary focus is primarily on families and interpersonal relationships, with an emphasis on the lives of women. While fluent in English, she writes in Spanish; her works are then translated into English. Her wildly successful first novel, "The House of the Spirits, " a complex, multigenerational saga set in Latin America, remains for many readers her most important work.
Her new novel, "Island Beneath the Sea, " coming 28 years and 16 books later, echoes in many ways her earliest. The story follows the complicated, often troubled intertwining of several families as they move from Saint Domingue (now Haiti) to New Orleans during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
The rich history of her settings exerted a natural attraction for Allende...
Allende writes, "The legacy of slavery is like an open wound. In the United States we are only beginning to deal with it. Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 but it took 100 years for the Civil Rights movement to empower the blacks. To this day, they suffer from discrimination, racism and inequality.
"Unfortunately, in Haiti there are around 300,000 slave children, given away by their families because they can't feed them. It's a system that supposedly ensures that the children will be fed and sheltered, but in reality they are exploited as house servants and brutally abused; they don't receive education of any kind, no one cares for them."
The Isabel Allende Foundation, created in 1996 to honor the memory of her daughter Paula, who died in her late 20s, is focused on "social and economic justice" as well as "empowerment and protection" for women and girls.
The author connects the story of Zarite's journey from enslavement to freedom to contemporary concerns. She writes, "I hope that Zarité's story draws attention to the plight of modern slaves. Today there are 27 million slaves counted. Who knows how many more have not been counted? Some are victims of slave trafficking, but most are enslaved by debt bondage, kidnapping in war zones (child soldiers, for example), exploited under inhuman conditions in mines, fishing industry, sweatshops, agriculture, etc. Slavery is illegal and no country admits that it happens within its borders, yet there is slavery everywhere, even in the U.S. (Google 'Free the Slaves'). Before, slaves were an investment, and therefore valuable. Today slaves are so cheap that they are disposable, they have no voice; they are invisible.
"My foundation supports several grass-roots programs that empower women and girls in the U.S. and other countries. We do some work with clinics in Haiti. We also support programs that rescue women and girls from slavery in sex traffic and in bonded servitude."
...
Marigny Dupuy
The New Orleans Times-Picayune
May 13, 2010
The Americas
Tackle immigration problems at economic roots, bishops say
Washington, DC - Bishops of the United States, Canada, Central America and the Caribbean called on their governments to address the economic root causes of migration and seek policies that will help create jobs for people in their homelands.
During a regional consultation on migration held at the headquarters of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops June 2-4, Bishop John C. Wester of Salt Lake City and bishops from Canada, Haiti and Latin America spoke with reporters about some of the issues being discussed at the meeting.
Addressing economic root causes of migration "in our mind, is the lasting and humane solution to the challenge of illegal immigration," said Bishop Wester, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Migration, in a statement he read at the June 3 news conference.
"Second, we believe that all governments, not only the U.S., should look at their immigration laws and reform them in a manner which respects basic human rights," Bishop Wester continued. The nations of the hemisphere also must "redouble their efforts against the scourge of human trafficking," he said.
He noted that in a globalized world, where capital, communications and goods are readily exchanged, the movement of labor has not been regularized, and the impact of globalization on human beings has not been acknowledged or addressed...
Guatemalan Bishop Alvaro Ramazzini Imeri said, for example, that the poor of his country have not benefited from the Central American Free Trade Agreement, known as CAFTA, which it ratified three years ago.
"The level of poverty in Guatemala is increasing," he said...
In an interview with Catholic News Service, Bishop Ramazzini said Guatemala is reeling from the twin effects in less than a week of a volcanic eruption near the capital, Guatemala City, that coated streets and farms with inches of ash and the inundation of much of the country with up to 3 feet of rain by Tropical Storm Agatha. The two have destroyed many farmers' entire production for the season, he said. That jeopardizes their income as well as the source of affordable food for Guatemalans, he said.
At the news conference, Bishop Rafael Romo Munoz of Tijuana, Mexico, chairman of the Mexican bishops' migration commission, said his country is becoming a collection of semi-abandoned small towns as working-age teens and men have gone to the United States to be able to provide for women, children and elderly people left behind...
Participants included more than two dozen bishops from the United States, Canada, Haiti, Mexico and Central America and other representatives of national bishops' conferences, including the migration program director for the Cuban bishops.
Patricia Zapor
Catholic News Service / U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
June 04, 2010
Costa Rica
Menor llegó violada y forense la manoseó
Cuando estaba en valoración médica, Cartago
A pesar de que estaba acostumbrado a ver y tocar mujeres desnudas, el irresistible cuerpo de una joven menor de edad lo llevó a la tentación.
Un médico forense del Poder Judicial de Cartago, de apellidos Durán Ramírez, fue detenido por sus propios compañeros de trabajo porque al parecer abusó sexualmente de una menor de edad, quien fue víctima de una violación.
La muchacha llegó a los Tribunales de Cartago para una valoración médica, por lo cual fue atendida por el funcionario, quien además del examen de rutina llevó sus manos más lejos y aparentemente le tocó las partes íntimas.
El incidente se produjo en setiembre de 2009, pero la afectada no interpuso la denuncia hasta la semana pasada...
A child sexual abuse victim is victimized again by a
forensic examiner
Despite the fact that a forensic medical examiner (last names
Durán Ramírez) was accustomed to examining unclothed women, he proceeded to
sexually abuse an underage sexual assault victim who he was assigned to examine.
The victim came to the judicial center of the city of Cartago for a medical
examination, which was conducted by
Durán Ramírez. After the exam, the doctor touched the victim's intimate areas.
The incident happened in September of 2009, but the victim did not file a
complaint until last week.
Surprised by the case, the forensic medical examiner's office immediately opened
an investigation.
In the hallways of the local judicial center, the accusations were not taken
seriously, given that the 38-year-old was well liked, and was considered to be
very professional by his colleagues.
After his arrest, the local prosecutor interrogated
Durán Ramírez, and recommend pre-trial detention. He was charged with the crime
of sexually abusing a minor.
Despite the prosecutor's recommendation in the case, the Cartago Criminal Court
ordered bail and a restraining order that does not allow
Durán Ramírez to approach the victim, or the Cartago Legal Medical Office, for a
period of three months...
Danny León González
Diario Extra
June 02, 2010
Virginia, USA
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Hugo Antonio Callejas |
Salvadoran immigrant sentenced to prison for pursuing 13-year-old Virginia girl
On May 26, Loudoun County Judge James Chamblin sentenced Hugo Antonio Callejas, 43, to seven years in prison for soliciting a 13-year-old Leesburg girl for sex. Callejas originally approached the girl at a lemonade stand she set up on Memorial Day 2009, trying to raise money for the Relay for Life charity.
Callejas, who was found guilty in January, was working in the girl’s neighborhood and visited the lemonade stand three times in one day. During his last visit, he gave the girl his phone number and told her she was beautiful.
The girl’s friend, told her parents, who called the police.
Loudoun County Sheriff’s investigator, Shannon Cumberledge, then called Callejas, pretending to be the 13-year-old girl.
She and Callejas had 11 conversations over a two-day period. Some of the recorded calls were played during his trial.
Callejas could be heard saying: “You’re beautiful, and I love you.”
During other phone calls, he talked about kissing and touching the teenager, and how he would like to see her without any underwear.
Callejas said: “If you want to touch a lot, I’ll touch a lot. If you want to touch a little bit, I’ll touch you a little bit.”
The investigator agreed to meet Callejas at a community swimming pool. When he showed up, Loudoun County Sheriff’s deputies too him into custody.
Initially, Callejas denied the allegations, telling detectives that he only gave the teenager his number so that he could buy more cookies and lemonade from her. However, once confronted with the taped phone conversations, Callejas admitted to his actions.
Callejas came to this country from El Salvador, eventually becoming a U.S. citizen. He is married with three children.
Dave Gibson
The Examiner
June 05, 2010
Deleware, USA
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Gino Alfonso Laflora |
North Carolina Man Charged With Raping Deleware Teen
Frederica, Deleware - Delaware State Police have charged a North Carolina man with sexually assaulting a teenage girl.
Gino Alfonso Laflora, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, is facing several charges in connection to the alleged incident on May 16.
According to investigators, Laflora was visiting family in Kent County, Delaware when the assault occurred. The victim told police that the assault occurred near an open lot between Willow Drive and Maple Drive in Frederica.
The victim said she knew the suspect from a friend in the neighborhood. She said she was alone with Laflora in his car when the assault happened.
Laflora surrendered to authorities on June 3. He has been charged with Rape and Unlawful Imprisonment.
Laflora is being held on $52,000 bail pending a preliminary hearing.
CBS 3
June 05, 2010
Oregon, USA
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Hernan Hernandez Vera |
High school student charged with sexual assault on graduation day
An Eastern Oregon high school senior who planned to attend his own graduation today, instead is in jail, facing felony sexual assault charges.
The Bellingham Herald reports that 19-year-old Hernan Hernandez Vera was charged with first-degree sodomy, rape and sexual abuse.
The sexual assault was reported around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday by staff at Good Shepherd Hospital.
Deputies learned the victim had been assaulted earlier in the day in Irrigon and around 1 a.m. Wednesday tracked Vera down at his home.
Vera, an Irrigon High senior, was jailed on suspicion of three counts of first-degree sodomy.
Kimberly A.C. Wilson
The Oregonian
June 04, 2010
Mexico
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Mexican congressional deputy Rosi Orozco, president of the Special
Commission to Fight Human Trafficking in the Chamber of Deputies |
México, número uno en pornografía infantil
Este fenómeno tiende a incrementarse más.
Ciudad de México.- El país ocupa el primer lugar en apertura de páginas web de pornografía infantil, y tiende a incrementarse más de 5% la distribución de videos de imágenes de abuso a recién nacidos, afirmó la diputada Rosi Orozco, presidenta de la Comisión Especial de Lucha contra la Trata de Personas.
La legisladora dijo que las denuncias telefónicas por delitos de pornografía infantil aumentaron 200% entre el 2008 y el 2009, y que otro problema radica en el uso de internet para la comercialización y funcionamiento de redes de trata de niños y niñas y de explotación sexual comercial...
Mexico is Number 1 in Child Pornography
The problem is continuing to grow
Mexico City - Mexico occupies first place [globally] in access of child
pornography by way of the Internet. The problem includes a [recent] 5% increase
in the distribution of obscene photos of recently born babies, according to
Mexican congressional deputy Rosi Orozco, president of the Special Commission to
Fight Human Trafficking in the Chamber of Deputies.
Deputy Orozco stated that phoned-in complaints about child pornography increased
200% between 2008 and 2009. She noted that another Internet-based aspect of the
problem involves the fact that child sex trafficking networks in Mexico are
using the Web to commercialize and operate their illicit businesses.
She warned that currently, no [anti-pornography] filters exist for cell phone
users who browse the Web, which is concerning, given that 75.6 million cell
phone users exist in Mexico, 29% of those have Internet access, and 55% of youth
between the ages of 12 and 18 use those services.
In response to this problem, Deputy Orozco has presented a non-binding
resolution calling upon the nation's state legislatures to reform their penal
codes to include crimes that involve public and private telecommunications
[networks].
Deputy Orozco also stated that the top criminal activities that take place on
the Internet involve, in order of importance: 1) fraud; 2) threats; and 3) child
pornography.
The Deputy concluded by noting that 11 million computers have Internet access in
Mexico. Some 55% of them are installed in homes, which represents 3.5 computers
for every 10 households. Thirty nine percent of the nation's 23 million
computer-based Internet users are between the ages of 12 and 18.
El Manana
May 14, 2010
New York, USA
Mayor Bloomberg and Deputy Mayor Robles-Roman launch new public education campaign to end human trafficking
“Let’s Call an End to Human Trafficking” Campaign Encourages New Yorkers To “See It. Know It. Report It.”
Press Release (excerpt)
New York City - Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Deputy Mayor Carol A. Robles-Roman and Chief Advisor for Policy and Strategic Planning John Feinblatt today launched a new public-education campaign to raise awareness about human trafficking and encourage New Yorkers to report potential trafficking situations. The multi-media campaign called “Let’s Call an End to Human Trafficking,” features silhouettes of everyday people who may be affected by trafficking. Human trafficking is a horrible crime that involves the recruiting, transporting, selling, or buying of people for the purpose of various forms of exploitation. These victims are often controlled through force, fraud, or coercion. The print advertisements in English and Spanish, created by Grey New York, in partnership with the Somaly Mam Foundation and the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City, will appear on bus shelters in the five boroughs from May 20 – June 13. As part of the new campaign, the City’s new anti-trafficking website, which can be found on
www.nyc.gov, was also launched to provide more information about the plight of human trafficking...
“Human Trafficking is happening here, but we don’t know it because we don’t see it,” said Alice Ericsson, Executive Creative Director of Grey New York. “If we want New Yorkers to see the problem, we have to put it in plain view. And, in plain language. The silhouettes will tell the stories of human trafficking that can happen right here in our own town.” ...
The Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs will also help to disseminate information and materials to vulnerable communities in the city, and bring broader awareness about human trafficking and where to go for help. Outreach to community and faith- based organizations serving immigrants as well as ethnic media will reinforce these efforts...
If you are a victim of human trafficking or would like to report a tip regarding suspected human trafficking, call 911. If you would like more information about human trafficking or would like to learn about how you can help, call 311 or visit
nyc.gov/ humantrafficking...
Mayor Michael Bloomberg
May 20, 2010
Washington State, USA
Crime Spree in Washington State
One woman is dead and two others were raped recently and police say each crime was committed by a different illegal immigrant. One of the sexual assaults happened just hours before the Seattle city council passed an ordinance boycotting Arizona over its new immigration law.
Gregorio Luna Luna had a history of beating up his live-in girlfriend Griselda Ocampo Meza. He was also in the U.S. illegally. On May 1,
[2010] Luna Luna was deported to Mexico. Three weeks later Meza was murdered in her apartment in a violent knife attack.
Franklin County prosecutors say Luna Luna slipped past the border again and killed Meza in front of their five year old son. He's in the county jail awaiting trial.
A suspected rapist in Edmonds, Washington has been deported at least 4 times according to Snohomish County prosecutors. Jose Lopez Madrigal has been charged with raping a woman next to a dumpster behind a Safeway store. A witness to the attack alerted police and Madrigal was taken into custody.
An illegal immigrant just convicted of his possible 3rd strike in Whatcom county- a rape of a homeless woman- has been deported to Mexico five times.
Dan Springer
Fox News
June 01, 2010
Texas, USA
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Joe Chavez |
Former TABC officer indicted on sexual assault charges
Bastrop - A former Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission officer was indicted by a Bastrop County grand jury on Tuesday on charges of sexual assault of a child.
During a TABC undercover investigation of alcohol sales in May 2009, 41-year-old Joe Chavez allegedly sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl hired to assist in the sting.
Investigators say that the incident took place in Chavez's state-issued vehicle immediately after the sting. He also reportedly texted explicit photos of himself to the teen a day before the operation.
He was arrested on Friday by investigators with the Office of the Attorney General.
Prior to being stationed in Bastrop, Chavez was a TABC officer in Waco from June 2004 to August 2005.
Chavez is charged with two counts of Sexual Assault of a Child and one count each of online solicitation of a minor, abuse of official capacity and official oppression.
Louis Ojeda Jr.
KXXV
June 01, 2010
Mexico / The United States
 |
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Mexican congressional deputy
Cora Pinedo Alonso, of the New Alliance Party, speaks
with reporters as she calls for the nation's current
federal anti-trafficking law to be enforced at the
federal level (it currently is limited to being enforced
by states in most circumstances. |
Segundo proveedor de EU de víctimas de trata
Entre 16 mil y 20 mil niños y niñas son víctimas de explotación sexual cada año en México, lo que convierte al país en la segunda nación que más víctimas de trata provee a Estados Unidos, superado únicamente por Tailandia, afirmó la diputada, Cora Pinedo Alonso, del Partido Nueva Alianza.
La también secretaria de la Mesa Directiva de la Cámara baja precisó que el municipio de Tapachula, Chiapas, es el lugar donde se realiza la mayor venta de mujeres, niñas y niños con fines de trata.
Muchos de esos menores son "redistribuidos" a los estados de Oaxaca, Michoacán, Guerrero, Jalisco, Nayarit, Sinaloa y el Distrito Federal, señaló con base a estudios de la organización internacional End Child Prostitution Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT).
Mexico is the second largest provider of human trafficking
victims to the United States
Between 16 and 20 thousand boys and girls are victims of sexual exploitation in
Mexico each year. As a result, Mexico has become the second largest provider of
human trafficking victims to the United States, according to congressional
deputy Cora Pinedo Alonso of the New Alliance Party.
Pinedo Alonso, who is the secretary of the governing council in the Chamber of
Deputies, also stated that Mexico's southern border city of Tapachula,
located in Chiapas state, is the largest center for the sale of women, girls and
boys for purposes of human trafficking in the nation.
Many of child victims are "redistributed" to the states of Oaxaca, Michoacán, Guerrero, Jalisco, Nayarit and Sinaloa, as well as to Mexico City.
Pinedo Alonso based her statements on a research study conducted [in 2007] by the organization End Child Prostitution Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT).
In response to this situation,
Pinedo Alonso has presented a non-binding resolution that has been submitted to the
Second Permanent Commission
of Congress (37 members of the Senate and Chamber of Deputies who conduct
congressional business when Congress is not in session) for consideration. The resolution calls
for the creation of stricter measures than now exist to investigate trafficking
crimes and to punish those responsible.
The resolution calls upon the
director of the National Institute of Migration (INM) to assign staff to
supervise and evaluate anti-trafficking activities on Mexico's southern border,
and specifically in the city of Tapachula, with reports on conditions there to
be sent to Congress.
According the the ECPAT study, Central American adolescents, the
majority of whom are minors, "are prostituted in 1, 552 bars and
brothels in Chiapas, and also in other cities and towns along the nation's
southern border [with Guatemala
and
Belize.]"
Pinedo Alonso added that in 50% of these cases, the victims are Guatemalans. [Salvadorans, Hondurans and Nicaraguans
are also victims]. The victims are usually between
the ages of 8 and 14. "They are sold by traffickers [to brothels] for $200
dollars each," Pinedo Alonso denounced.
Joining in the call for action, Chiapas state governor Juan Sabines has asked
for working groups to be created that coordinate the work of non-governmental
organizations, state agencies, the Chiapas state Human Rights Commission and
the state's office of the Special Prosecutor for Crimes of Violence Against
Women and Human Trafficking. The goal of the working groups would be to evaluate
the effectiveness of policies implemented to fight human trafficking.
Governor Sabines also called for an analysis to be conducted to track actions
taken in regard to cases of human trafficking that involve both Mexican and
Central American girls, boys and adolescents, and to document the number of
prosecutions pursued.
Governor Sabines: "We wish to express our indignation and complete repudiation
of these criminal practices. We energetically condemn
those public servants who, through acts of omission or commission, have been
complicit in collaborating with human trafficking networks. We call upon
the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government to join forces
[to combat these crimes]."
Cronica
May 31, 2010
See also:
Central America and Mexico
María de Jesús Silva,
Jackeline's mother
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 the case 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."
Mexico - The Hot Spot
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 globally.
Ana Salvadó: "It is the neck in the bottle,
because many children attempt to migrate
from Central America [and South America] to
the United States, and they never get past
[southern] Mexico, where they are sold by
pimps and sometimes are returned to Central
America."
A study by the international organization
ECPAT (End Child Prostitution, Child
Pornography and Trafficking of Children for
Sexual Purposes)... reveals that over 21,000
Central Americans, with the majority being
children, are prostituted in 1,552 bars and
brothels in Tapachula, Mexico (near the
Guatemala border).
Traffickers sell these children to
Tapachula's pimps for $200 each.
Prostitution in cities like Tapachula
operates openly. Contralínea Magazine has
documented the fact that traffickers work
with corrupt federal and local officials in
exchange for bribes or as direct
participants in the criminal networks...
According to ECPAT's report "Ending Child
Prostitution, Child Pornography and
Trafficking of Children for Sexual
Purposes," from Tapachula, where these
children are sold, the victims are
transported to the Mexican cities of Oaxaca,
Michoacán, Guerrero, Jalisco, Nayarit,
Sinaloa and Mexico City.
More that 50% of these child victims are
from [indigenous] Guatemala. The rest are
Salvadorans, Hondurans and Nicaraguans. They
range in age from eight to
fourteen-years-old.
-
Ana Lilia
Pérez
Revista Contralínea
Oct. 22, 2007
See also:
LibertadLatina
Note
About the numbers used
to discuss minors involved in sex
trafficking in Mexico
We reiterate our belief that the official
Mexican Government estimates in regard to
the numbers of underag | |
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