California
Maria Isabel
Vasquez Jimenez
México denuncia situación
laboral en EEUU tras muerte de menor embarazada
Mexico denounces U.S. labor conditions after the
death of a pregnant Mexican teen farmworker.
El Gobierno de México
expresó hoy su preocupación por las condiciones
laborales de los mexicanos inmigrantes en Estados
Unidos, tras divulgarse la información de la muerte
por deshidratación de una menor embarazada en un
campo agrícola de California.
- Actualidad - Terra
Spain
May 29, 2008
Criminal Probe Into
Farmworker's Death Begins
Fresno - Local
investigators are probing whether a labor contractor
may be criminally liable for the death of a young,
pregnant farmworker who collapsed in a vineyard two
weeks ago.
Maria Isabel Vasquez
Jimenez, 17, was pruning grape vines at a San
Joaquin County vineyard in 100-degree heat when she
fell to the ground the afternoon of May 14.
Relatives say
supervisors recommended that she rest in a hot van
and be revived with rubbing alcohol before she was
taken to a Lodi medical clinic, nearly two hours
after she fell ill. Only after her death did doctors
realize she was two months' pregnant.
California State
Attorney General Jerry Brown said Thursday an
investigator from his office was assisting in the
county's probe, along with the California Division
of Occupational Safety and Health...
Vasquez Jimenez, a
Mexican citizen from a Mixtec indigenous town in the
state of Oaxaca, had only worked in the vineyard for
three days.
On Wednesday, Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger made an unannounced appearance
at her funeral at a Catholic church in Lodi.
"Maria's death should
have been prevented, and all Californians must do
everything in their power to ensure no other worker
suffers the same fate," he said in a strongly worded
statement demanding that employers follow state heat
rules...
- Fox Reno and The
Associated Press
May 29, 2008
California, USA
Reaction of the United Farm
Workers Union to the death of Maria Isabel Vasquez
Jimenez (More links in English /Mas Enlaces en
Español)
A four day pilgrimage is
planned in honor of Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez and
her unborn child. It will begin this Sunday, June 1,
starting at St. Anne's Catholic Church, 215 W.
Walnut St., Lodi.
- United Farm Workers
Late May, 2008
Remarks by Arturo S.
Rodriguez, President, United Farm Workers of America
at Services for Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez
- Lodi, California
May 28, 2008
Governor Schwarzenegger Issues
Statement on Death of Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez
- News Blaze
May 29, 2008
California, USA
Peru
Peru excavates mass grave of
villagers
Lima - A Peruvian
forensics team has begun excavating a mass grave
containing the remains of 123 men, women and
children killed by the military 24 years ago, a
human rights representative said Saturday.
Investigators in the
highland village of Putis, in the southern province
of Ayacucho, have exhumed 25 skeletons piled on top
of each other among bullet and clothing fragments,
said German Vargas, head of a group representing
victims' families...
The investigation grew
out of the truth commission, which recommended in
2003 that all military massacre sites be
investigated and victims' bodies exhumed, he said.
So far, the government has been slow to do so.
An estimated 69,280
people died in the civil conflict. The commission
blamed the Shining Path [anti-government guerilla
army] for a little more than half of the killings,
and held the military responsible for massacres and
widespread torture, rape and kidnapping of
civilians.
- Tamy Higa
The Associated Press
May 25, 2008
Mexico
Intimidan por teléfono a
mujeres víctimas de policías en Atenco
Women
Raped by Police at Atenco Protest are Threatened by
Anonymous Callers
Two years after police
operations in the cities of San Salvador de Atenco
and Texcoc, outside of Mexico City in Mexico State,
the harassment of the [26] women who were sexually
assaulted by the police officers who victimized them
has not stopped. The victims continue to receive
threatening phone calls. In one case, a police
officer was tried, and given a "tenuous" sentence
that leaves him free on bail. The intimidating phone
calls continue.
For these reasons,
[Congressional Deputy] Marisela Contreras Julián has
demanded that the National Human Rights Commission
provide a provisional injunction to protect the
safety of the women who were sexually abused
(tortured) during the police operation of May 3rd
and 4th, 2006.
Deputy Contreras Julián
warned that a failure to take action would
"aggravate even more the level of impunity and lack
of justice that these lamentable events represent."
A week ago seven women
who had been raped by police officers at the Atenco
protest held a press conference at the federal
Attorney General's Special Office for Violent Crimes
Against Women and Trafficking. in Persons (FEVIMTRA).
The group denounced the fact that they had been
subjected to acts of intimidation in the form of
threatening phone calls and voice messages asking
the women about their fellow Atenco victims.
- Lourdes Godínez
Leal
CIMAC Noticias News
for Women
Mexico City
May 6, 2008
Mexico
Oaxaca: no hay condiciones
para operar radios comunitarias
Repression Makes Ability to Operate Community Radio
Impossible
Director of Radio Huave denounces his assault by
police
Oaxaca - Leonel Gómez
Cruz, director of Radio Huave, 94.1 FM, "The Voice
of the Sea" has denounced police officers in the
city of San Francisco del Mar, who subjected him to
a beating. Gómez Cruz also declared that efforts by
the city's mayor to have him removed from his post
represent a form of "administrative repressions.
Gómez Cruz and [Ms.]
Noemí Vicente Gómez were beaten by local police
while covering the detention of a group of persons
by authorities for no apparent reason. Señora Noemi,
who does not work for Radio Huave, was taking
photographs of the incident. Police officers shook
her and stole her camera, which documented the
events that were unfolding.
Radio Huave, together
with Radio Copala, where the recently murdered young
indigenous women reports Felícitas Martínez and
Teresa Bautista worked, are members of the [largely
indigenous] Community Radios Network in the state of
Oaxaca.
Gómez Cruz explained
that since January, 2008 when Governor Helidoro
Álvarez of the PRI [Institutional Revolutionary
Party] took power, state authorities started to
engaged in repression against anyone in community
radio who criticized the government.
Radio Huave has a strong
public following. They have been active in
organizing opposition to a local energy project, and
have covered human rights abuses carried out by the
Oaxaca state government.
- Soledad
Jarquín Edgar
CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
Mexico City
May 6, 2008
Added May 29, 2008
California
Judge denies request to move
ex-deputy's trial
[Gilroy] A judge today
denied an attorney's request to move former
sheriff's Sgt. Michael Rodrigues' rape trial out of
San Benito County and agreed to appoint him a public
defender.
Rodrigues' attorney
Christopher Miller argued that because of
"prejudicial publicity, the prominence of the
defendant and negative media saturation," an
unbiased jury could not be found in the county and
his client would not be given a fair trial...
Superior Court Judge
Harry Tobias disagreed and said he was confident
that during jury selection, attorneys could find an
impartial jury here. He noted that if they can't
find an unbiased jury, he would reconsider the
request...
"There is a group in the
community with a strong opinion and they obviously
can't serve (on the jury)," Tobias said in his
ruling. "But there is not sufficient evidence to
convince me that the jury pool has been affected."
- Curtis Cartier
The Gilroy Dispatch
May 27, 2008
Ontario Province,
Canada
Victor Sanchez Ramirez is
wanted by police on child sex assault charges.
Toronto - Police from
North York's 31 Division are turning to YouTube and
Facebook to find a suspect in a child sex assault
investigation.
Police said a man
sexually assaulted two young people between Sept. 1
and April 23.
Victor Sanchez Ramirez,
27, is wanted for sexual assault, sexual
exploitation and sexual interference. He is
Hispanic, five-feet six-inches tall and 150 pounds.
- Inside Toronto
May 27, 2008
Indiana, USA
Police look for suspects in
northwest side rape
Indianapolis - Metro
Police detectives are trying to track down two men
they say raped a woman while her toddler slept in
the next room.
It happened early Friday
morning at the Carlton Apartments on Indianapolis'
Northwest side.
The victim told police
she woke up to two strangers standing in her room
who appeared to have a weapon... She described the
men as Hispanic and in their early 20s.
She said the men told
her to disrobe and the pair raped her...
The victim told police
the men spoke fluent English with Spanish accents...
- Gene Rodriguez
WISH-TV
May 25, 2008
Mexico
Cops: Couple Bought
Mexican Babies to Sell in U.S.
Monterrey - Police
in northern Mexico have arrested two people
accused of buying Mexican babies to sell to
U.S. couples.
Officials say Amado
Torres and his wife Maria Isabel Hernandez are
believed to have bought more than a dozen
children aged 2 or younger.
Investigator Oralia
Mancha says the child-trafficking ring came to
light when the grandmother of one of the babies
reported the child missing Monday in Reynosa.
While making the declaration, she spotted Torres
in the police station and claimed he had the
baby.
Police later
arrested Torres and Hernandez after finding them
with the baby at a house in nearby Rio Bravo.
The baby's mother
was also taken into custody on selling her
newborn for $3,000.
- Fox News
May 28, 2008
Guatemala,
Vietnam, United States
Halted foreign adoptions
leave would-be parents in limbo
...Thousands of
prospective parents, eager to adopt children
from abroad, have found themselves in an
emotional legal limbo since two of the most
popular countries for international adoptions --
Guatemala and Vietnam -- recently halted their
programs.
Guatemala announced
this month that it would conduct a case-by-case
review of every pending foreign adoption case.
That put on hold the adoption plans of about
2,000 American families.
The crackdown comes
amid reports that some in Guatemala coerce
mothers to relinquish their children for
adoption -- or steal the children outright and
present them as orphans...
Families in the
United States adopted 4,728 children from
Guatemala... last year...
The United States
has stopped issuing visas to Guatemalan
children..., blocking their travel to America --
at least until concerns are addressed...
To offset
corruption, the U.S. Embassy has added its own
requirement: That birth mothers appear with the
baby to request a visa for the baby. In August,
officials also began requiring two DNA tests to
confirm the identities of mother and child.
Still, the
Guatemalan solicitor general's office has
identified at least 80 cases of adoption
irregularities, including baby stealing and
false DNA tests.
And the Guatemalan
chief prosecutor's office recently launched a
criminal investigation into the two laboratories
contracted to take DNA samples from birth
mothers and children.
- Samira J.
Simone, Harris Whitbeck and Zain Verjee
CNN
May 28, 2008
LibertadLatina
note:
Guatemala has severe problems with sexist and
anti-indigenous
impunity. One of the most shocking forms
of that arrogance is expressed when lawyers and
officials from the dominant Spanish-descendant
minority 'mine' the bodies of the Mayan
indigenous female majority. These women
are 'mined' for their sexuality, and for their
children, who are sold either into sexual
slavery or are kidnap-ped to be sold, at a very
high price, to U.S. couples seeking to adopt
children.
Many
of the 500,000 children kidnapped in Mexico
during a recent 3-year period were also sold
into illegal adoptions to U.S. couples.
The
frustration and expense endured by couples waiting
to adopt pales by comp-arison to the anguish
felt by mothers who's infants are kidnapped to
satisfy the inventory of a Western cultural
commodity: poor indigenous children.
We
applaud the U.S. government and international
legal bodies for pressuring Guatemala to
clean-up its act, and to stop hustling
indigenous babies to westerners to make a fast
buck.
- Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
May 27, 2008
See also:
LibertadLatina
New Section
The Crisis in
Illegal Adoptions and Child Kidnapping Facing
Latina and Indigenous Women and Children in the
Americas
Haiti, The World
Charity: Aid workers
raping, abusing children
London, England - Humanitarian aid workers and
United Nation peacekeepers are sexually abusing
small children in several war-ravaged and
food-poor countries, a leading European charity
has said...
1 of
2 Children as young as 6 have been forced to
have sex with aid workers and peacekeepers in
return for food and money, Save the Children UK
[United Kingdom] said in a report released
Tuesday.
After interviewing hundreds of children, the
charity said it found instances of rape, child
prostitution, pornography, indecent sexual
assault and trafficking of children for sex.
"It
is hard to imagine a more grotesque abuse of
authority or flagrant violation of children's
rights," Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of
Save the Children UK, said...
Save
the Children says almost as shocking as the
abuse itself, is the "chronic under-reporting"
of the abuses. It believes that thousands more
children around the world could be suffering in
silence...
The
charity's research was centered on Ivory Coast,
southern Sudan and Haiti, but Save the Children
said the perpetrators of sexual abuse of
children could be found in every type of
humanitarian organization at all levels.
Stephanie Busari
CNN
May 27, 2008
Mexico
Detienen a
vendedores de pornografía infantil en Metro
Tepito en D.F.
Street vendors are arrested at subway station
for selling child pornography
Five
alleged sellers of child pornography have been
detailed by police assigned to subway security
in Mexico City. The five were arrested at their
vending stands at the Tepito station on the
city's B Line Metro (subway).
Police confiscated over 4,000 images of child
pornography.
Arrested were: Jesús Silva Billena, alias
Picachú, age 30; José Barrera Buendía, age 58;
José Hernández Hernández, 25; Aarón León "T",
17; and José "N," age 16.
Some
50 other street vendors attempted to 'rescue'
those arrested, causing the closure of the
Tepito station for two hours.
- El Universal
May 26, 2008
LibertadLatina
note:
T
he
above raid on street vendors who sell child
pornography came, apparently, as a reaction to
the below May 22, 2008 story about impunity in
the sale of such illegal materials in Mexico
City. The raid only addresses the tip of
the iceberg.
Child pornography is also sold by street vendors
in other Latin American nations.
- Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
May 27, 2008
See also:
"Invaden" calles con
pornografía infantil
Child pornography
invades the streets of Mexico City
-
Fernando Martínez
El Universal
May 22, 2008
Virginia, USA
Yorktown family finds
closure in killer's death sentence
Veronica Raver's
hands trembled yesterday after a Virginia judge
handed a death sentence to the man who raped and
murdered her college-aged daughter - a Yorktown
native - nearly 20 years ago...
Veronica Raver, her
daughter Dede, son Matt and other family members
watched as Alfredo Prieto, a convicted killer on
California's death row, was sentenced to die for
the murders of Rachael Raver, 22, and Warren
Fulton III, her college sweetheart.
Fairfax Circuit
Judge Randy Bellows, who upheld the jury's
recommendation for death, choked back tears as
he told Prieto that he made the last moments of
his victims' lives "a living hell" and ruined
the lives of both their families...
Prieto, now 43, was
convicted this year of accosting Raver and
Fulton early on Dec. 4, 1988, as they left a
Washington pub.
He took them to a
field in Reston, Va., where he shot Fulton in
the back, forced Raver to remove her clothes,
shot her as she tried to run away and raped her
as she lay dying.
The case went
unresolved for years as Prieto moved to
California, raped and killed a 15-year-old girl
and was sent to death row. In 2005, a DNA match
identified him as the suspect in Raver's and
Fulton's murders, as well as the slaying of
another Virginia woman.
-
Rebecca Baker
The
Journal News
May 24, 2008
See also:
Fairfax jury calls for two
death sentences
- Tom Jackman
Washington Post
March 4, 2008
Oregon, USA
[Undocumented] immigration
and crime
Petitions are
circulating to put the Respect for the Law Act
onto Oregon's November ballot. If passed, the
act will repeal the portion of state law that
purports to forbid police and sheriffs from
"detecting or apprehending persons whose only
violation of law is that they are persons of
foreign citizenship present in the United
States" illegally...
Jim Kouri, a vice
president of the National Association of Chiefs
of Police, reported recently that two-thirds of
[undocumented] immigrants have been arrested and
61 percent convicted at least once...
Criminal aliens,
scholar Edwin S. Rubenstein reports, account for
27 percent of federal prisoners; "80,000 to
100,000 [undocumented] immigrants who have been
convicted of serious crimes," he writes, "still
walk the streets..."
Every day, estimates
U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, uninsured
[undocumented] immigrants driving drunk kill 13
Americans...
What, specifically,
of Oregon? ...
About 350
[undocumented immigrants in Oregon have] been
imprisoned for crimes involving sex, including
rape...
- Richard F.
LaMountain
May 25, 2008
Arkansas, USA
Judge allows confession of
suspect in rape case
An interpreter
sitting in the jury box spoke Spanish into a
microphone while Jesus Dominguez listened with
headphones Friday during a hearing about
suppressing his confession to police.
Witnesses who worked
with Dominguez at Holiday Inn and his ex-wife
testified that Dominguez spoke English just
fine.
"He had no problem
understanding and communicating in English,"
said Lonnie Miles, who worked alongside
Dominguez at Holiday Inn during the 1990s.
Dominguez, 33, of
Springdale claims his confession to Fayetteville
police should not be allowed as evidence at his
upcoming trial on rape charges because he did
not understand the Miranda warning that he
signed.
He is accused of
molesting a now-16-year-old girl several times
beginning when she was 5.
The confession can
be used at trial because 4th Judicial Circuit
Judge William Storey denied the defense's motion
to suppress it...
- Scott F. Davis
Northwest
Arkansas Times
May 24, 2008
Virginia, USA
[Undocumented] immigrant
charged in rape of girl
Manassas - A
Salvadoran man who was in the United States
illegally and was to be deported this month has
been charged with sexually assaulting a
10-year-old Manassas girl after lab tests linked
his DNA to evidence in the case, Prince William
County police said.
Jose Abel Zelaya
Ascencio, 32, formerly of Manassas, is charged
with breaking into the girl's house in October
and raping her in her bedroom, police said...
- The Washington
Post
May 21, 2008
Illinois, USA
Teen sentenced to
probation in 2006 MySpace rape
A 17-year-old boy
was sentenced to probation Thursday after
pleading guilty last month to a criminal sexual
assault charge stemming from a case involving
the rape of a 14-year-old girl he and two others
met on MySpace.com...
The boy was 15 when
he was arrested in 2006 along with Angel Alverio,
who was then 18, and Tony Pacheco, then 17. The
cases against Alverio and Pacheco are pending.
Both are charged with one count of criminal
sexual assault, and they are scheduled for a
status hearing on Tuesday...
- The Chicago Sun
Times
May 22, 2008
New Hampshire, USA
Pelham man indicted on
charges of statutory rape
Pelham - Two years
after he turned himself in to Pelham police,
Jason Agrella, 36, has been indicted on charges
of statutory rape.
The Hillsborough
County grand jury this week returned two
indictments against Agrella... He is accused of
two counts of felonious sexual assault.
If convicted,
Agrella could face three and a half to seven
years in state prison and a $4,000 fine for each
offense.
Police previously
said the girl, who was 14 at the time, was
visiting relatives and staying in the apartment
building where Agrella lived.
- Margo Sullivan
The Eagle Tribune
May 24, 2008
Missouri, USA
Officers in miscarriage
case to be fired
Kansas City - An
attorney whose firm represents two Kansas City,
Mo., police officers says the pair will be fired
after they failed to get medical treatment for a
pregnant suspect.
Luke Harkins says
the Police Board of Commissioners decided to
fire Officers Melody Spencer and Kevin Schnell.
The officers stopped
Sofia Salva in February 2006 for having a fake
temporary car tag. During the stop, Salva
repeatedly asked for medical help, but the
officers ignored her pleas. They arrested her
and she later miscarried.
- Daily Herald
May 24, 2008
Mexico
Reprime policía marcha
campesina indígena en Veracruz
Police Repress Indigenous March, 250 Wounded
Poza Rica, in Veracruz state - Every year during an event
known as the Tajín Gathering, thousands of
Veracruz
indigenous peoples assemble. During this
year's event, people gathered last Monday to
emphasize their demand for 10,000 hectares for
land to carry out agricultural and community
development projects.
During
this year's event, 2,500 people walked along the
Veracruz-Xalapa highway on their way to meet with the
State Government Secretary, Reynaldo Escobar.
In an operation
directed from the helicopter of Veracruz Public
Security Director Juan Manuel Orozco Méndez,
state police attacked the [peaceful] marchers, leaving 250
persons, including a 21-month-old baby, injured.
Hundreds of police
officers beat the protesters and took all of
their belongings from them.
The group, members
of the Cooperative of Farmworker and Popular
Organizations (COCYP), had travelled from the
communities of Gutiérrez Zamora, Martínez de la
Torre, Coyutla, Espinal, Chicontepec and Pánuco.
Approximately 1,200
were arrested and held in a mass detention camp
at a farmer's market center. They were later
released...
A number of women
who continued on to the protest at the state
capitol showed-up with bandaged injuries.
COCYP leaders
met with state government sub-secretary Andrés
Ortiz Solís, telling him that their people had
been 'invited' into an ambush by the state. Femat
went on to say that the state Security Secretary
and government sub-secretary Ricardo Landa had
threatened COCYP on previous occasions.
Femat: "This police
action is something that has only been seen in
the Nazi era and during similar regimes. He
went on to say that COCYP continues to take the
governor at his word [about an announced
opening-up to social action groups], and would
continue negotiating for the land in question.
Government official
Salvador Sánchez has been appointed as an
intermediary in the conflict.
- Livia Díaz
CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
May 23, 2008
United States
Drugs, prostitution threaten wildlife refuges
Lack of
law enforcement makes sites vulnerable to crime and prostitution
...America's wildlife refuges are so short of money that one-third have no
staff, boardwalks and buildings are in disrepair, and drug dealers are using
them to grow marijuana and make methamphetamine, a group pushing for more
funding says...
"Without adequate funding, we are jeopardizing some of the world's most
spectacular wildlife and wild lands," said Evan Hirsche, president of the
National Wildlife Refuge Association and chairman of the Cooperative Alliance
for Refuge Enhancement...
A
decrease in law enforcement has left the refuges vulnerable to criminal
activity, including prostitution, torched cars and illegal immigrant camps along
the Potomac River in suburban Washington, DC, methamphet-amine labs in Nevada and pot
growing operations in Washington state...
- The Associated Press
May 23, 2008
LibertadLatina
note:
|
 |
|
Great Falls
Potomac River
Maryland, Virginia |
Around 1978, while paddling on the Potomac
River, I ran into a fellow Native American
canoeist, and son of a parks commissioner, on
the Potomac River. He mentioned to me that
around 5,000 people were known to be living on
the banks of the Potomac River, where fishing is
good.
The above report appears to indicate that many
immigrants from Latin America now survive along
the Potomac river, in Virginia and Maryland,
some-thing I have seen myself.
The new twist that this article informs us about
is that prostitu-tion has become part of this
'lifestyle.' This 'model' of prostitution
is almost identical to that which has occurred
for decades in San Diego, Califor-nia's San Luis
Rey River basin child rape camps (see below
link). In this case the ages of the
prostitutes are not yet publicly known.
- Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
May 26, 2008
See also:
About the
rural child sexual slavery camps of San Diego County, California
Indiana, USA
Detectives Ask For Help Finding Man Who Tried To Rape Girl
In Katy-area Park
Fort
Bend County Sheriff's detectives are asking the public for help finding a man
who tried to rape a 15-year-old girl Thursday at a park.
The
girl was lying on "a piece of playground equipment" at about 5:15 p.m. at Falcon
Point Neighborhood Center Park near Katy, when a man walked up and attacked her,
according to a statement from the sheriff's department.
"The
victim struggled to break free, but not before he managed to remove her shorts,"
the sheriff's statement sad. "The victim managed to run from her attacker
without further incident...
The
attacker was described as an Hispanic male in his mid-30s to early 40s, about 5
feet, 10 inches tall with a dark complexion and average build but with "muscular
arms..."
- Bob Dunn
FortBendNow.com
May 24, 2008
Guatemala
|
 |
|
Judge
Carlos
Castresana
presents report
Kattia Vargas
Prensa Libre |
Cicig ve impunidad en
casos de femicidio
Guatemala Holds 3rd Place in Murders of Women in
Latin America
During a
presentation at a Latin American conference
called "No to Femicide," Spanish Judge Carlos Castre-sana,
Director of the United Nations' International Commis-sion Against
Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), stated that
Guatemala occupies third place in the rate of
murders of women in Latin America, and that
impunity has won the day in 98% of these cases.
Mexico falls in first place, and El Salvador in
second place in Latin American female murder
rates.
According to a study
by Castresana, only 2% of the almost 2,000 cases
of murder in Guatemala from 2005 through 2007
have been solved.
Castresana defined
Guatemala's rate of murders, committed 'just
because the victims were women,' as being an
epidemic, and stated that this reflects the high
level of gender discrimi-nation involved.
Castresana: "A woman who is murdered today has a
history of 35 previous attacks against her, but
the problem is that there is no escalating
process of prevention [in response]."
Castresana
recom-mends as solutions the following: improved
preventive measures; improving adherence to the
rule of law; correct processing of crime scenes;
and the
development of a database for DNA samples from
suspects and (espec-ially disappeared) victims.
Castresana: The
first hurdle that we should clear is to declare
that sex crimes are public crimes, that are
automatically investi-gated [Napoleonic law
across Latin America requires a victim to file a
formal criminal complaint before even serious
crimes are investigated]."
"Often a victim will
not report the crime, not because she doesn't
want to, but because she can't, because she has
no trust, and expects no results from the
System. Investigations should be performed by
those who are paid to do them - the staff of the Public
Ministry."
The following is
a sub-part of the same article:
|
 |
|
Ana María de Klein |
Ana María de Klein, a representative of the
Guatemalan group Anguished Mothers,
stated that impunity in the murders of women is
caused by a chain reaction in the system of
justice.
de Klein: "Everything begins with a deficient,
unprofes-sional investigation, that then ties
into the [similarly inadecuate]actions of police officers, prosecutors
and judges."
de Klein: "Behind every murder, some-one looses
a mother, a daughter, and this result can often
be prevented, but it isn't."
- Prensa Libre
Guatemala
May 23, 2008
See also:
United Nations
Secretary-General Appoints Carlos Castresana
Fernandez Of Spain to Head the International
Commis-sion Against Impunity in Guatemala
- Secretary General
United Nations
Sep. 17, 2007
LibertadLatina
About the Crisis of Femicide Facing Mayan Guatemala
Added May 23, 2008
Mexico
"Invaden" calles con
pornografía infantil
Child Pornography
Invades the Streets of Mexico City
The indiscriminate sale
of child pornography videos and photography becomes
more commonplace with every passing day, especially in
the stalls of street vendors in stations of the city's Metro
subway system.
These vendors sell their
wares in blank white envelopes with hand-written
titles. Authorities do nothing to control these
illicit sales.
In a walking survey by
El Universal, we confirmed that at various busy
intersections and subway stations, sellers of
pirated movies offer child porn as the most
attractive part of their inventory.
The ages of these child
victims are included in the movie titles, from ages
7 through 17.
The advocacy group
Infancia Común (Common Infancy) stated that this
phenomenon has become a major problem because there
are always consumers, the police apparently tolerate
this, and members of society are starting to view
these materials as if they were 'natural.'
Gerardo Rodríguez,
director of Infancia Común, declared that Mexico is
the second-largest producer of child pornography in
the world.
In 1999, researchers
estimated that 20,000 Mexican children were the
victims of Commercial Sexual Exploitation of
Children (CSEC). In 2007, the estimate was 60,000.
Mayra Rojas of Infancia
Común noted that according to the United Nations,
there are 70,000 child victims. Some 50,000 of those
victims are exploited on Mexico's U.S. and southern
borders.
Rodríguez commented that
Mexico's recently-passed law against trafficking is
insufficient, given that it only penalizes acts
committed on federal property, or by federal
employees or organized criminals.
The members of Infancia
Común said that it is urgent that the laws
protecting children from sexual exploitation be
homogenized across the nation (laws are different in
each of the 31 states and the Federal District).
They noted that in some states such as Oaxaca, these abuses are not considered to be major crimes.
They pointed to the case of two preschools in
Oaxaca, where teachers raped their students and
filmed them in pornographic videos. The
state's criminal justice system let the accused out
of jail on bond [and at first they were not
prosecuted].
-
Fernando Martínez
El Universal
May 22, 2008
Mexico
Desplazamientos,
desapariciones forzadas y tortura, práctica del
gobierno actual
According to the the
International Civil Observation Commission for
Human Rights (CCIODH), impunity and a lack of
will have marked the actions of the federal
government in failing to prosecute those responsible for
[grave] human rights violations that have
occurred in the city of [San Salvador de] Atenco
(in Mexico state), and in the states of Oaxaca
and Chiapas.
The Sixth Report of
the CCIODH, produced after their sixth visit to
Mexico in February, 2008, was presented at
Midday to members of the press. The report
indicates that forced relocations, forced
disappearances and torture are the norm
practiced by the current government (of
President Felipe Calderon), a situation that is
comparable to the "Dirty War" carried out in
Mexico during the 1970's.
Juan Ignacio García,
a human rights defender from Spain and member of
the CCIODH, stated that [recent] releases from
jail of prisoners in Atenco, in Oaxaca and in
Chiapas, are not sufficient remedies [for the
human rights abuses involved in their cases].
To García, the fact
that there have been no prosecutions of those
responsible for the rape and sexual assault of
26 women protesters by officers from three
police agencies in Atenco, and the fact that
nobody has been prosecuted for the murders of
social activists in Oaxaca state, reflect the
lack of will on the part of the Mexican
Government to protect human rights...
-Lourdes Godínez
Leal
CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
Mexico City
May 22, 2008
See Also:
Informe de la VI Visita de la CCIODH a México
6th Visit of the CCIODH.
Mexico, February 2008: Conclusions and
Provisional Recommendations
After its 6th visit
and based on 286 interviews of 607 people, the
International Civil Observation Commission for
Human Rights (CCIODH) considers the human rights
situation in Mexico to be extremely critical.
The government of Felipe Calderón has not
provided enough concrete answers and because of
this is entirely responsible for the magnitude
of these [ongoing human rights] violations.
- CCIODH
April 7, 2008
Indiana, USA
Police are asking for help
to track down a man they say raped a 15-year-old
girl.
New Albany - Police
are asking for help to track down a man they say
raped a 15-year-old girl.
Investigators
believe José Najera Catalan, 30, is still in the
area.
According to court
documents, the girl went with Catalan [and] they
began drinking alcohol.
The report said that
after a few shots, the victim began to feel sick
and disoriented. She told police she then
remembered passing out and waking up with
Catalan on top of her.
The report said she
told him to stop and get off of her, but he
didn't.
"[Catalan] is a
native of Illinois who we've learned has served
some prison time in California and involved with
gangs up there..."
- WLKY
May 21, 2008
California, USA
Man sought for questioning
in Adelanto rape of 15-year-old
Adelanto - Sheriff’s
officials are turning to the public to help find
an Adelanto man accused of raping a 15-year-old
repeatedly in early May, said officials on
Monday.
The victim was at a
party on May 10 when she met Victor Velasco, 20,
said San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Adelanto
station officials.
Velasco provided the
teen with alcohol which interacted with her
prescribed medication and left her in an
intoxicated state, confirmed Staci Johnson,
spokes-person for the Adelanto station.
Velasco then
allegedly took the victim to his home where he
repeatedly raped her, authorities said. It does
not appear that she willingly went with the
suspect, officials said, and she was able to get
away and report the incident to police.
- Beatrize E.
Valenzuela
Daily Press
May 19, 2008
Arizona, USA
|
 |
|
Photo of a "Rape
Tree" - a 'tradition' among
rapists on the U.S. Mexican border,
where they hang the underwear of their
Latina migrant rape victims as trophies
|
Two... immigrants report
rape by armed smugglers
Two [undocumented]
immigrant women from Guatemala said on Thursday
they had been raped earlier this week by a group
of armed drug smugglers.
The women, ages 18
and 28, were apprehended along with a group 38
earlier this week but didn’t tell anyone about
the sexual assaults until Thursday morning while
meeting with an assistant U.S. attorney in
preparation for a deportation hearing, said
Mario Escalante, Border Patrol Tucson Sector
spokesman.
...The women were
still set up for formal removal proceedings...
On May 4, three
Mexican women, ages 16, 17 and 20, told agents
that they had been raped by masked, armed
bandits the day before, Daniels said...
On May 6, a Border
Patrol encountered two Nicaraguan women, ages 41
and 36, near milepost 20 on Arivaca Road who
were visibly injured and dehydrated. They said
they had been badly beaten by a the guide, or
coyote, when they asked to slow down, Escalante
said. They were then left behind in the
desert...
It’s unclear if the
violence acts against female [undocument-ed]
border crossers is happening more frequently or
if they simply reported the incidents this week,
Escalante said. Agents know that sexual assaults
and beatings occur but many [undocumented]
immigrants choose not to report them, he said.
“We hear about it
happening but some of the people fear for what
could happen if they say anything,” Escalante
said. “They would much rather not say anything
to us.”
- Brady McCombs
Arizona Daily
Star
May 9, 2008
Iowa, USA
85 sentenced for criminal
offenses in one day following ICE operation in
Iowa
Waterloo - U.S.
Attorney Matt M. Dummermuth announced today that
85 defendants pleaded guilty and were sentenced
Monday on federal felony charges. They were
among the 389 [undocumented] aliens arrested by
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
May 12 at Agriprocessors Inc. in Postville,
Iowa.
Seventy-seven
defendants were sentenced to prison after
pleading guilty to using a false identification
document to obtain employment and admitted they
fraudulently used the identity of an actual
person. The other eight defendants were
sentenced to probation after pleading guilty to
using a false identification document to obtain
employment but the identity did not belong to an
actual person...
- U.S. ICE
May 20, 2008
LibertadLatina
note:
The above story about the Agriprocessors ICE has
repercussions for undocumented immigrants beyond
the straightforward issue of their status as
undocumented immigrants.
Throughout the United States today, a
combination of a recessionary economy and
increased immi-gration law enforce-ment is
causing undocumented women, children and men to
end up with no source of income.
This leaves many women and underage girls with
no alternative (in their worldview), than to
accept quid-pro-quo sexual exploitation in the
underground economy, and in some cases,
'employment' as prostitutes in brothels.
As one study from Mexico points out,
(underedu-cated) women seeking employment face
the options of domestic work, waitressing (both
low-wage sectors with rampant sexual
exploitation), and prostitution.
While government agencies seek to enforce
immigration law on the one-hand, they end-up
throwing women into severe sexual exploitation
on the other.
Comprehensive immigration reform is needed to
bring people out of the shadows. The
current process of leaving people without income
out on the street is not morally acceptable.
- Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
May 22, 2008
Mexico
Mexico's efforts to end
violence against women stymied by macho culture
Mexico City -
...Every day thousands of Mexican women suffer
physical and psychological abuse at the hands of
their spouses, despite a federal law passed over
a year ago to protect them. Nearly one-third of
the country's 31 states still haven't adopted
the law... Even where the law has been adopted,
it's not being applied, say legislators and
activists.
That's because...
Mexico is still very much a man's world when it
comes to violence against women.
...Progress is hard
to come by in a country where just a few years
ago the punishment for killing a cow in some
states was greater than for killing a woman.
A rapist in Mexico
can still escape punishment in 21 states by
claiming he was seeking to satisfy an erotic
fantasy. He can escape punishment in 19 states
if he later marries the victim...
Six out of 10
Mexican women have suffered some form of
violence inflicted by their spouses or
partners...
The National
Institute for Women in Mexico reports that twice
as many Mexican women suffer abuse than the
worldwide average.
...Margarita Guille
Tamayo, director of the National Network, a
women's shelter, answered the phone in March
when Martha called asking for help.
"She was crying and
hysterical," Guille said. "She kept talking
about how the police would not help her..."
Martha said her
husband beat and raped her almost weekly... He
would tell her it was her obligation to have sex
with him "no matter whether I worked all day or
was tired."
...But the state
hasn't passed the federal law. Police never
arrested her husband or even brought him in for
questioning.
"I did what I
thought I was supposed to do," Martha said. "I
asked for help, but they didn't do anything."
- The Associated
Press
May 13, 2008
Mexico
Why Mexican Justice is a
Euphemism
Even in the best of
times, Mexican justice is a euphemism - and these
are not the best of times. With 90% of all
crimes unprosecuted or unreported, conviction rates
are below 10% and too often those who are convicted
are innocent victims themselves…
Atenco
[During a social
protest] in San Salvador Atenco… just outside Mexico
City… [on] May... 4th 2006… 2000 state and federal
police… savagely beat... Twenty six women were
sexually abused while being transported to a state
lockup and two young men were killed…
Two years [later], 16
[people] remain jailed… Twentyseven others, some of
them women who were sexually assaulted by the
police, were recently released on bail, among them
Magdalena Garcia, a Mazahua Indian who was
designated a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty
International…
Twenty one police
officers accused of sexual assault including rape
and sodomy, were warned not to do it again by their
superiors…
The [Femicide]
Victims from Juarez [in Chihuahua state]
Social activists who
take part in civil disobedience are often not
immediately prosecuted for their acts of resistance.
Instead, secret arrest warrants are issued and
served at the whim of judges and police. This April,
Cipriana Herrera, an [anti-femicide] activist, was
stopped by state police agents..., handcuffed, and
taken off to jail, [and] accused of blocking one of
the international bridges between Juarez and El Paso
- in October 2005!...
According to Chihuahua
farmers leader Victor Quintana at least 40 secret
arrest warrants are pending for local social
activists in that northern state.
A New Dirty War
The failure of Mexico's
National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) to
aggressively challenge such egregious violations was
recently critiqued by the Washington-based Human
Rights Watch. In an unprecedented "special" report,
the CNDH was blasted for abdicating its
responsibilities to social activists victimized at
Atenco and in Oaxaca and Chiapas. Similarly, the
Mexican Supreme Court, which has investigative
powers, appears to have abandoned announced probes
into the abuses in Oaxaca and Atenco...
- John Ross
CounterPunch
May 15, 2008
See also:
 |
|
Magdalena
Garcia Duran |
Indigenous woman set free
Magdalena Garcia Duran
was released after more than 18 months in jail
A prisoner of conscience
and mother-of-five has been released from jail in
Mexico after spending more than 18 months in
custody.
Magdalena García Durán,
an indigenous Mazahua street vendor, was set free on
22 November after courts said there was no evidence
justifying her detention...
- Amnesty
International
Dec. 5, 2007
and:
La Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos de México
- Una evaluación crítica
Mexico’s National Human Rights
Commission - A Critical Assesment
This 128-page
report examines the commission's work on more than
40 human rights cases, including recent abuses by
soldiers involved in law enforcement operations,
police crackdowns against demonstrators in...
Atenco, and the killings of women in Ciudad Juárez
over the past decade, among others...
- Feb. 13,
2008
Carta al Presidente Felipe
Calderón
Letter To President Felipe
Calderón
HRW protests
retaliation against the UN's human rights
representative in Mexico for speaking favorably in
regard to the Feb. 13, 2008 HRW report on Mexico's
National Human Rights Commission.
- May 7, 2008
México: Comisión de derechos
humanos distorsiona informe de HRW
Mexico: Rights Commission
Distorts HRW Report
-
April 17, 2008
California, USA
[Traffickers] arrested at
filthy 'drop house' charged
Los Angeles - Three
Mexican men held dozens of illegal immigrants in
a squalid "drop house" in South Los Angeles,
where one woman was raped and others say they
were threatened with sexual assault, authorities
said Friday.
Jose Teul, 23,
Daniel Pena, 18, and Saul Mendez, 35, were
charged with harboring illegal immigrants at the
two-story home that immigration agents raided
Wednesday, said U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice.
The three were
arrested along with 57 immigrants, including
teenagers and toddlers, from Central and South
America, Kice said...
Kice said that an
agent involved in the raid described conditions
in the house as "utter squalor with trash and
food piled up two to three feet high inside..."
According to an
affidavit ICE filed in the case, Pena repeatedly
raped a woman who had been at the house since
last summer. The woman, now seven months
pregnant, said Pena threatened her with a gun.
Several other female
immigrants said Pena and Teul tried to rape
them, relenting only when the women's young
children began to cry, according to the
affidavit...
- The Associated
Press
May 17, 2008
Colombia
Turismo sexual de menores,
ahora por catálogo
Sex Tourism with Children: Now by Catalog
Mayor denounces the fact that catalogs are being
printed advertising underage girls from their
communities as prostitutes
According to Clímaco
Estrada, mayor of Baranoa, a city in the
department [state] of Atlántico, some parents in
poor neighborhoods allow their daughters to work
as prepagos (prostitutes).
This is the second
city in Atlántico that has detected cases of
girls between the ages of 14 and 17 who engage
in prostitution. In the city of Malambo, some
girls have been introduced into selling sex by
their mothers.
A number of these youth now suffer from sexually
transmitted diseases.
- Caracol News
May 15, 2008
See also:
Prepagos
“Prepagos"...
middle-class girls, often models, who work as
prostitutes. It has only really taken off in the
last few years. The University of Eafit,
supposedly the best university in the city, is
particularly known for this.
- Blog
Comtributor
A Colombian man talks
about Prepagos. (Video - In Spanish)
-
Video Commentator
LibertadLatina
note 1
More About 'Catalogs'
The
above story from
Baranoa, Colombia mentions that children
exploited in prostitution are being presented in
catalogs.
A
recent story from Mexico mentioned how the
Attorney General's office targeted a local
prosecutor in Ciudad Juarez who was selling
child prostitutes from a catalog.
|
…Catalogs of child
victims… are used by trafficking
networks…
In one
infamous case, a high official of the
prosecutor's office in Ciudad Juarez (on
the U.S. border) in the previous
administration was found to have one of
these catalogs in his desk… He… was
selling the sexual services of these
children."
- Mexico's Former Special
Prosecutor for Violent Crimes Against Women - Aliacia
Elena Perez Duarte
Terra (Spain)
March 1, 2008 |
International trafficking rings take special
orders for children they have photographed, and
then kidnap those children in Mexico for sale to
overseas buyers.
|
Guillermo
Gutierrez, head of the National Foundation
of Investigations of Stolen and
Disappeared Children: "There is also
what we call 'shopping from a catalog,'
which happens in poor, rural areas."
A few years ago… a clown ring… traveled
to remote indigenous villages in the
states of Guerrero, Oaxaca and Veracruz
to entertain children and take
their photographs…
A couple of months later, the clowns
return to the villages bearing gifts for
the children.
"They give presents except to certain
ones, the ones selected in photographs,"
Gutierrez said. "To those they say 'Oh,
no! We've run out of toys, but there are
more in our van if you come with us.'"
The children follow and are locked
inside, not to be seen again, Gutierrez
said.
"These rings operate where there is
poverty, where people have no power or
political clout," Gutierrez said.
- Susana Hayward
San Antonio Express-News
April 9, 2000 |
LibertadLatina
note 2
In
regard to the term "prepagos" (literally
- prepaids)...
I
cannot vouch for the authenticity of the blog
and video commentator links above.
However...
A
good friend from Colombia once told me that many
middle-class women, who attend classes or hold
professional jobs such as accountants and
university professors... also work at night as
prostitutes, due to the fact that even people
earning a professional salary could not make
enough to live on in Colombia's big cities.
Prepago also refers to a phenomenon in Colombia
that is also seen in Japan, where middle class
teens seeking material goods sell sex while
maintaining an otherwise mundane middle class
lifestyle.
In
the context of the above story from
Baranoa, the term is
used to refer to underage girls from poor
neighborhoods, who are apparently forced into
prostitution for reasons of family economic
survival.
- Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
May 16, 2008
Florida, USA
Colombian paramilitaries
appear in US courts
Miami - Fourteen
warlords from far-right paramilitary militias
suspected in Colombia of thousands of
atrocities began court appearances Wednesday
around the United States on drug trafficking
charges.
...They could face
30-year prison terms after the Bush
administration agreed not to seek life
sentences in exchange for extradition.
Colombian President
Alvaro Uribe said he decided to extradite the
men because they were still committing crimes
from Colombian prisons, not cooperating with
authorities and had failed to pay restitution to
victims.
The 14 include top
leaders of the notorious militias blamed for
modern Colombia's worst atrocities...
...President Uribe
said any assets seized as a result of U.S.
prosecutions would go to compensate victims in
Colombia. At least 160,000 people have
registered there as victims.
Thousands of
Colombians have lodged formal complaints of
"atrocious crimes" against the paramilitaries —
including murder, rape, forced disappearances
and kidnapping. Hundreds of mass graves are
thought to remain hidden in Colombia.
Much of the
suffering was the direct result of orders given
by the warlords now facing U.S. prosecution.
-
Curt Anderson
- The Associated
Press
May 15, 2008
See also:
Indigenous massacred
On Apr. 18, [2004]
rightwing [Colombian] paramilitaries... arrived
in the indigenous Wayuu community of Bahia
Portete, ...where they massacred at least 12
people. Another 30 people are [missing]. ...The
paramilitaries tortured children to get
information about their parents, raped young
girls, murdered children and elderly people and
destroyed the community's cemetery. The massacre
forced many of the community's remaining 580
residents to flee...
- Weekly News
Update on the Americas Issue #745
May 9, 2004
and...
14 Members of Colombian
Paramilitary Group Extradited to the United
States to Face U.S. Drug Charges
U.S. DEA
May 13, 2004
and...
List
of top extradited Colombian
paramilitary warlords
The far-right United
Self-Defense Forces of
Colombia was created by drug
traffickers and land owners
to combat Colombia's leftist
insurgency and its civilians
supporters. The U.S. State
Department has branded it a
foreign
terrorist organization...
- The Associated
Press
May 14, 2008
California, USA
Sexual predator tries to
take 2 girls
A suspected sexual
predator has been caught on tape and police are
releasing the video in hopes of finding him
before he strikes again.
Police say the
suspect tried to abduct an 8-year-old girl last
month on her way to school. He also tried the
same thing in February with a 9-year-old girl.
In both cases, the
victims were lured to apartment buildings where
he tried to sexually assault them, but they were
able to get away unharmed.
The suspect is
described as a Hispanic man, 25 to 30 years old,
5 feet 6 inches, 170 pounds, with black spiked
hair.
- Subha
Ravindhran
KABC
Los Angeles
May 15, 2008
Texas, USA
Police report eight apartment
assaults against women
Midland police said
Wednesday they are now investigating eight
separate assaults on female victims that have
occurred at apartment complexes throughout the
Tall City in the past month...
...Police have had a
hard time trying to get a complete description
of the man.
What they do have is
he is a Hispanic male around 30 years of age
between 5-foot-7 and 5-foot-9...
- Audrie Palmer
Midland
Reporter-Telegram
May 15, 2008
Mexico
Soldados nos agreden:
mujeres Me’phaa de La Montaña, Guerrero
Soldiers Subject Indigenous Women & Communities
to Terror in Guerrero State
Fortina Cruz Ortega, of
the Me`phaa ethnic group (members of the larger
indigenous Tlapaneca tribe of the region called
La Montaña in Guerrero state), joined with four
other indigenous women... to denounce human
rights abuses occurring in La Montaña... The
group... gave testimony before the Indigenous
Affairs Committee of the Chamber of Deputies...
Cruz Ortega: "We,
the women of the Me`phaa, live in everyday fear
of leaving our homes, because military soldiers
harass us... Many of our women have been raped
by these soldiers, but they remain silent
because if their husbands found out, they would
get angry and leave them."
Cruz Ortega, the
wife of Orlando Manzanares Lorenzo, also
denounced the fact that her husband, as well as
the husbands of the other four women present,
had been falsely accused in the homicide of
Alejandro Feliciano García, a police and
military informant. Those detained include:
Manuel Cruz Victoriano... who denounced having
been forcibly sterilized by workers of the
Secretary of Health; ... and Natalio Ortega Cruz
and Romualdo Santiago Enedina, both... cousins
of a woman named Inés, who... was raped by
soldiers in 2002...
The wives of these
prisoners declared that the only 'crime' their
husbands are guilty of is that of having
organized and protected their communities...
After the women
concluded their statements at the press
conference, Deputy Marcos Matías Alonso
announced that the following day, the issue of
the Me`phaa leadership's unjust
arrest would be presented to the Senate of the
Republic by Senator Cuauhtemoc Sandoval, a member of the
Permanent Commission...
- Sandra Torres
Pastrana
CIMAC Noticias
Mexico City
May 8, 2008
See also:
Lorenzo Fernández Ortega,
a leading member of the Me Phaa Indigenous
People’s Organization (Organización del Pueblo
Indígena Me Phaa - OPIM) and brother of Inés
Fernández Ortega, was kidnapped on 9 February
and found dead the following day, in Ayutla de
los Libres, Guerrero State.
Other members of OPIM have also
suffered threats and intimidation since the day
of the kidnapping. Amnesty International is
gravely concerned for their safety.
- Amnesty International
Feb. 22, 2008
Mexico's Indians Target of
Sterilization 'Sweep'
Ayutla de los Libres - Jose
Toribio, a Mixtec Indian from the Sierra Madre
mountains... attributes the pain [in his leg] to
a vasectomy he had two years ago after visits
to his remote village by No. 3 Brigade, a state
medical team...
Toribio now says he had the
operation because of threats made to him by No.
3 Brigade.
His claims are supported by the
official Guerrero Human Rights Commission...
- Linda Diebel
Toronto Star (Canada)
March 26, 2000
LibertadLatina
The crisis of forced
sterilization facing indigenous and Latin
communities in the Americas
Mexico
A view from the
frontlines of grassroots action to rescue
children from sexual slavery in Mexico
About the Breaking Chains
Mission, based in Tijuana, Mexico
Steven Cass: "Our ministry actually works street
level to identify and then rescue victims of
child prostitution and trafficking. We have
over 150 rescues so far from 7-22 years old and
are in the midst of an extended trip in Southern
Mexico where we have identified 100's in this
situation. Over the next month we pray to bring
them to freedom."
[The front page of the
above web site contains a moving video of
testimonies from teen girls rescued from the
street by the Breaking Chains Mission.]
Breaking Chains Mission
Report
For 5-11-2008
Report Excerpt:
From Mexico's Southern Pacific Coastal Tourist
Areas
...In terms of what’s happening here on this
mission…there is much. I am seeing numerous
children involved in prostitution with tourists,
many as young as 5-7 years old. As I walk the
areas where this is prevalent it is clear that
the locals are very aware of what’s happening
between their children and the tourists who
flock here...
North Americans and those from other countries
as well are known here for one thing…looking for
drugs and underage boys and girls...
Last night as I walked through one of the main
party zones I was approached by a hustler who in
perfect English asked me if I wanted “underage
girls.” I asked him “what about the laws?” His
reply made me want to vomit…he said with a grin
that had satan written all over it: “we have a
great government here.”
I do believe the local authorities are trying to
stop it but like the war on drugs they have
turned a cheek for so long that the problem is
almost beyond hope...
- Steven Cass
Breaking Chains Mission
May 11, 2008
LibertadLatina
note:
Dear Steven Cass,
Thanks for your letter.
Keep up the great work. We know that it is tough
and lonely on the frontlines!
Many of the most effective acts against impunity
are those taken by individuals and small groups
of volunteers who have the fortitude to walk
into the jaws of evil and dare to rescue victims
from impunity. We salute your efforts to
rescue our children and youth in peril.
End
impunity now!
- Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
May 14, 2008
Mexico
Exigen frenar explotación
laboral de menores indígenas
Congress Demands an End to the Labor
Exploitation of Indigenous Children
Approximately three
million mostly indigenous children and
adolescents face labor exploitation in Mexico
due to the economic problems facing 80% of the
population, and due to the customs of families
who use the labor of their children to survive.
According to a
report by Mexico's Chamber of Deputies, the
majority of these children abandon school or are
about to do so, as their families migrate to
cities and agricultural export farming regions.
Deputy César Flores
Maldonado, coordinator for the Revolutionary
Democratic Party (PRD) stated: "The child labor
force can be seen in workshops, farm fields,
warehouses, markets, long-haul trucking and
in high-risk activities such as sexual
exploitation. It is a well-established reality
in our nation. Little-or-nothing is done to
eradicate it."
Some 15.7% of
underage Mexicans engage in some type of work.
An estimated 54.7% of child laborers are
domestic workers [many of whom are sexually
exploited].
About 5,000 children
work as 'carriers' in Mexico City's warehouse
industry. The government does nothing to control
this exploitation, which causes accidents and
deformities in these working children.
Nine in ten indigenous
child laborers receive no pay for their work.
The states with the
highest rates of child labor are Chiapas,
Campeche, Puebla and Veracruz, where 22% of
minors work.
In Mexico City,
15,000 minors live and work on the city's
streets...
- La Cronica
Mexico
May 2, 2008
LibertadLatina
note:
The
feudal Spanish system of slave labor that was
imposed on indigenous peoples in Mexico and
across Latin America during the European
colonial period (1400's-1800's) has continued to
operate
unchanged and
with impunity in Mexico and many other
Latin American countries .
For
500 years indigenous women and children have
remained the primary target of opportunity for labor
slavery, and for
sexual predators and sex traffickers, throughout the Americas.
(Yes, our peoples were sex-trafficked by
colonists even 500
years ago.)
End
impunity now!
- Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
May 14, 2008
See also:
An undercover
reporter in
Spain
poses as
a buyer
[pimp], and is
Offered six
virgin
Indigenous
'girls
[all of them
age 13] by
a trafficker.
The
'sale' price
in Europe
for young Mayan
girls
kidnapped
from
Chiapas,
Mexico:
$25,000
each.
(In Spanish)
-
Antonio Salas and
Joan Manuel Baliellas
Crónica
Spain
Feb. 29, 2004
Investigará
gobierno de
Chiapas
venta de
indígenas en
Europa
Chiapas
State
Investigates
Sale of
Young Mayan
Girls in
Europe.
(In Spanish)
"In one
restaurant
in Madrid,
little girls
from Chiapas
are sold [in
prostitution]
as if they
were a
species of
animal that
was about to
become
extinct."
[In other
words, pimps
buy and sell
13-year-old
Mayan girls
at a high
price
because they
are
considered
to be
"exotic" in
Spain.]
- CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
Mexico City
March 15, 2004
LibertadLatina
About the Crisis of Sexual Exploitation
Affecting Women and Children in Mexico
Idaho, USA
The use of "illegal
immigrant" in Idaho rapist story creates false
connection
An appalling story
out of St. Anthony, Idaho speeded across the
Internet this morning. According to Idaho Falls
CBS affiliate, KIDK, a 10-year-old girl gave
birth to a 6 lb. baby girl as a result of being
raped.
The news story on
the KIDK site read in part: "…That person is
this man, 37-year old Guadalupe
Gutierrez-Juarez. Juarez is actually an illegal
immigrant, and is now behind bars in the Fremont
County Jail on other rape charges...
If convicted the
illegal immigrant could face life in prison, a
$50,000 fine ,or both. Whether he ever serves
anytime behind bars will be up to the judge who
if he places him on probation, could deport
him."
From the way this
story reads, "If convicted the [undocumented]
immigrant could face life in prison,"
dehumanizes not just the intended target, the
rapist, but ALL undocumented immigrants. Also,
it makes it sound that this was a
stranger-on-stranger crime.
It wasn't.
The rapist was
married to the girl's mother. Latina Lista has
yet to verify if the rapist was the child's
father.
At any rate, it
should go without saying that not all
undocumented immigrants are rapists but this
article definitely plants the connection between
the two terms...
By repeatedly
referring to this rapist as the "illegal
immigrant," this media story does a disservice
to the local community and popular perception of
all undocumented immigrant men who are Latino...
-
Marisa Treviño
Politics in Color
May 9, 2008
LibertadLatina
note:
We
at
LibertadLatina
agree with Marisa Treviño's editorial
viewpoint that repeatedly calling an accused
rapist "the illegal alien" instead of using his
actual name is indeed a thinly-veiled effort to
identify all undocumented immigrant men with the
crime of rape (be that a conscious or an
unconscious goal of a given reporter).
However, the fact that a rape suspect is
undocumented is in-fact part of the story.
One
researcher (see below) estimates that 93 sex
offenders and 12 serial sexual offenders come
across the U.S. - Mexican border each day.
While the impact of that fact in the United
States is of concern, of equal concern is the
fact that women and children in Mexico face rape
and abuse with impunity in a nation where laws
against sexual predation are almost never
enforced.
The
crisis of severe sexual exploitation that women
and children face in Latin America has migrated
to the United States and other destination
nations for migrants.
The
responsibility to defend the victims remains the
same in any part of the geography of the
Americas (and across the world).
Therefore, the traditional code of silence in
the Latino community, that has kept quiet the
victims of sexual terror for centuries [and
especially that terror's indigenous victims]...
must be ended.
|
"Historically the voices of women,
especially women of color have been
silenced. As we begin to uncover our
past, the oppression we experienced is
being detailed, however embarrassing it
may be.
To
continue the silence would be a
detrimental step backwards."
-
Puerto Rican women's health rights
advocate Venus Ginés |
While the statistics gathered by researchers
such as
Dr. Deborah Schurman-Kauflin
of Atlanta's Violent Crimes
Institute (see below) are disturbing, do
pro-Latina activists have an obligation to
silence these facts?
We
don't think so.
Human rights activists and those who report the
news are not advancing women's basic human
rights when they remain silent about the truth.
It may be convenient to protecting the Barrio
during a time of obvious hostility towards
immigrants, but that does not justify leaving
'Maria' abandoned to her fate at the hands
of rapists and sex traffickers.
Arguably, much of the hostility facing the
immigrant community in the U.S. would diminish
if the Latino community were seen as being more
visibly active in stopping the impunity of
rapists who today remain protected by the
Barrio's centuries-old code of silence. We
cannot pretend that non-Latinos in the U.S.
don't see clearly what is happening.
"Illegal alien rapes" is an unfortunate headline
in many news stories across the U.S. every
day.
Today, remaining silent is not an option.
We in El Barrio must face these issues head-on,
an exercise that is also taking place, slowly
but surely, across all of Latin America.
At-risk women and children across the Americas
deserve no less from us.
Now is the time to act.
Silence is also
violence!
End impunity now!
- Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
May 14, 2008
See also:
www.LatinaLista.net
- Marisa Treviño
And:
After conducting a 12
month in-depth study of [undocumented]
immigrants who committed sex crimes and murders
for the time period of January 1999 through
April 2006 , it is clear that the U.S. public
faces a dangerous threat from sex predators who
cross the U.S. borders illegally.
There were 1,500 cases analyzed in
depth. ...93 sex offenders and 12 serial sexual
offenders [come] across U.S. borders illegally
per day. The 1,500 offenders in this study had a
total of 5,999 victims. Each sex offender
averaged 4 victims. This places the estimate for
[U.S.]
victimization numbers around 960,000 for the 88
months examined in this study.
- Deborah Schurman-Kauflin,
Ph.D.
Violent Crimes Institute
2006
Idaho, USA
Second person charged in
case of 10-year-old St. Anthony girl
We've just received
new information in the case of the ten-year-old
Fremont County girl who was raped, and who has
given birth to a child.
A second arrest has
been made in the case, St. Anthony police say.
Guadalupe
Gutierrez-Juarez's girlfriend has been arrested
for felony child endangerment.
Isabel Chasarez, 27,
St. Anthony, was booked into the Fremont County
Jail, and will be held at the Madison County
Jail on $50,000 bail.
We spoke to the St.
Anthony police chief Friday evening, who says
the department is not confirming whether the
woman is related to the ten-year-old girl.
Meanwhile,
Gutierrez-Juarez has been charged with two more
counts of felony rape involving the same victim.
- KPVI
May 9, 2008
Tennessee, USA
Suspect named in Monroe
County elderly rape, beating
On March 5th, a 92
year old woman awakened by a man trying to
suffocate her with a pillow. She pretended to
pass out, and the intruder brutally beat and
raped her.
Several law
enforcement agencies were brought in to help
Tellico Plains police investigate the case, and
on Saturday, Police Chief Bill Isbell announced
a break.
DNA evidence
collected from a straw has identified the
suspect as Francisco Barbosa, 35 who is believed
to be an [undocumented] immigrant that stayed in
the area during the rape.
Police say Barbosa
has since skipped town... They think he is now
in Mexico.
In spite of his
wanted status, the chief said Barbosa's victim
is relieved.
"When we got to go
see her this morning, Det. Norwood held her hand
and we told her that we had identified who did
this to you," he said. "Her response was 'praise
God.'"
Federal
Investigators have also joined the search. US
Marshals are talking to the Mexican government
about tracking Barbosa and extraditing him back
to Monroe County.
- WVLT TV
May 10, 2008
Arizona, USA
|
|
|
Photo of a "Rape
Tree" - a 'tradition' among
rapists on the U.S. Mexican border,
where they hang the underwear of their
Latina migrant rape victims as trophies
|
Agents find body; 3
[undocumented] immigrants report rape
The body of an
[undocumented] immigrant was found Friday near
Green Valley by U.S. Border Patrol and three
women reported being raped over the weekend by
armed bandits...
...Three women told
agents Sunday morning that they had been raped
by masked bandits the day before, Daniels said.
Two of them were juveniles, ages 16 and 17, and
the third is 20-years-old, he said.
About 4 a.m.
Saturday a group of men with masks and rifles
approached their group of 10 and raped the
three, the women reported. One woman said she
was raped by six men and the other two said they
were each raped once, he said.
The Mexican Consulate was called and the Santa
Cruz County Sheriff’s deputies took statements
on the incident, he said. The three women didn’t
want to file a formal complaint but did write
statements on what happened, Daniels said.
They were granted
voluntary return and turned over to officials
from the Mexican Consulate who were waiting for
them at the border.
- Arizona Daily
Star
Tucson, Arizona
May 5, 2008
Colombia
El flagelo de la trata de
personas tocó a los municipios de Cundinamarca.
The tragedy of Trafficking Comes to the Cities
of Cundinamarca
Recent studies
conducted by Colombia's Interior and Justice
Ministry and the United Nations have identified
a serious problem of human trafficking in the
region of Cundinamarca. The cities affected
include: Girardot, La Mesa, Puerto Salgar, Agua
de Dios, Ricaurte, Nilo, Nariño the nation's
capitol, Bogotá.
Women, children and
men are tricked with false promises of
employment paying fantastic salaries, if they
would only go to work in an Asian or European
country. Their journeys end in nightmares.
The profile of the
victim community includes women between 16 and
35, youth with limited education, and adult men
who have no opportunities for work and must
support their families.
The United Nations
Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) states that
these victims are subjected to work in sexual
and labor exploitation, begging, servile
marriages and illegal organ trafficking.
Sergio Restrepo, an
official with UNODC observed that Colombia is
today coordinating more effectively with its
neighbors to capture the delinquents who
transport trafficking victims.
Officials stated
that people who are spontaneously offered a good
overseas job by someone must take extraordinary
steps to verify that the job is legitimate,
avoid signing contracts without understanding
them, and check on the validity of the job offer
with embassies of the destination nations.
- El Tiempo
Colombia
May 5, 2008
Mexico
Border crackdown, US
slowdown has Mexican migrants giving up sooner
Sasabe, Mexico: The
sandy streets of Sasabe are empty. Migrant
smugglers have to hunt for business at
border-town shelters. Deported migrants give up
after one try, taking their government up on
free bus rides home.
A U.S. crackdown is
causing the longest and most significant drop in
[undocumented] migration from Mexico since the
Sept. 11 attacks. Officials say the U.S.
economic downturn, tighter security and a more
perilous and expensive journey are persuading
many who try to sneak into the U.S. to give up
sooner.
Border Patrol
arrests are down 17 percent so far this year
along the U.S.-Mexico border after falling 20
percent all of last fiscal year and 8 percent
the year before that...
The downturn in
[undocumented] immigration has created labor
shortages throughout the United States and
several states are considering temporary-worker
programs, especially in agricultural fields,
where produce is going bad.
Mexicans in the U.S.
are starting to send less money home, too...
- The Associated
Press
May 1, 2008
Arizona, USA
Douglas girl, 11, two
months pregnant
At eleven years old,
a Douglas elementary school girl finds herself
pregnant and under the protection of Child
Protective Services...
In late January or
early February 2008, when her homeroom teacher
and the school nurse noticed the slight swell of
her tummy, the girl dismissed her girth as a
tumor...
When her
grandparents, who have legal custody of the
girl, were questioned, they told Douglas
detectives that she ate too much and that’s why
she was gaining weight...
At first the
11-year-old was hesitant to open up to anyone at
the school, but later she revealed her situation
to a teacher whom she trusted. She said that in
December 2007 she had been on school break and
had been sexually abused by her father. The
assault occurred at her father’s house in Agua
Prieta, Sonora. Douglas police immediately
contacted CPS...
According to the
police report, the mother, upon learning about
her daughter’s assault, called the girl’s father
and threatened him.
Because the father
is in Mexico, the case now belongs to the
Mexican authorities...
- Xavier Zaragoza
The Daily
Dispatch
Dec. , 2007
Idaho, USA
Police: Girl, 10, raped,
gives birth
A 10-year-old girl
police say was raped by a 37-year-old man gives
birth. See: video news story.
- CNN
May 9, 2008
See also:
Residents Shocked, A 10-Year Old Girl Gives
Birth
St.
Anthony - We
broke the unbelievable story last night of a 10-year old girl in St. Anthony who
gave birth to a baby...
Thirty-seven-year-old Guadalupe Gutierrez-Juarez... is now behind bars in the Fremont
County Jail on other rape charges...
- Araksya Karapetyan
KIDK TV News
Idaho Falls, Idaho
May 7, 2008
Louisiana
Man accused of trying to
rape housekeeper
A Bossier Parish man
has been arrested on charges he tried to rape
his housekeeper.
Villalt Carlos
"Santos" Canales, 32..., was arrested Thursday.
Bossier Parish
sheriff's deputies said the woman told them she
had gone to Canales' residence to do
housekeeping on Wednesday when he tried to
remove her clothes and have sex with her. She
struggled and got away, deputies said, ran to a
neighbor’s house and called 911.
After an all-night
search, Canales was arrested about 6 a.m.
Thursday.
Sheriff's deputies
said Canales, who is a horse trainer, was in the
country illegally. They said he has been
deported at least twice - in 1999 and in 2004.
- KTBS News
Shriveport
May 9, 2008
Arizona, USA
53 [undocumented] immigrants held
against will in Phoenix
Phoenix -
Fifty-three [documented] immigrants found Sunday had
been held against their will in a fortified home
by suspected smugglers demanding more money,
authorities said.
The group of rescued
immigrants included two 13-year-old girls, three
women and a mentally disabled man. The rest were
men, Department of Public Safety spokesman
Harold Sanders said.
Authorities began
investigating Saturday after getting a tip that
immigrants were being held captive. Sanders said
the smugglers wanted an average of $2,500 for
each person's release.
The single-family
home where they were kept had been fortified to
prevent escape and weapons were seized at the
location. The suspected smugglers also took away
the immigrants' shoes so they couldn't run off.
Sanders said five
people, all residents of Mexico, were being
jailed on charges of extortion, kidnapping,
aggravated assault and human smuggling...
- The Associated
Press
May 11, 2008
Georgia, USA
[Man] charged with rape
A 27 year-old
Palmetto man was arrested April 27, charged with
the statutory rape of a 13 year-old girl at her
home on the city’s south side. Police said the
man had been living illegally in the United
States for 16 years.
Francisco Torres
Landeros, a nearby resident of the 13 year-old,
was charged with statutory rape, according to
Palmetto Police Det. John Cooper.
Cooper said police
were called by a family member at the girl’s
residence shortly after midnight. The family
member told Officer Ron Stripling that Landeros
was found in the girl’s bedroom after noises
were heard coming from the room. Officers were
told that Landeros was found in the bedroom
closet naked and that he ran out of the house
after being discovered.
- Ben Nelms
Fayetteville,
Georgia
May 08, 2008
Florida, USA
Everglades bid to dismiss
suit by rape victim denied
Circuit Judge John
J. Hoy has denied a motion to dismiss a lawsuit
against the Everglades Club, which was filed in
February by a former employee who was raped by
another employee in 2006.
Hoy also denied a
motion to strike some of the allegations
contained in the complaint.
Melissa Legare, a
former pantry cook, was raped by a co-worker in
the predawn hours of April 2, 2006, in her
dormitory room at the club. Esdras Cardona, an
[documented] resident from Guatemala, was convicted
of the rape last summer and is serving a 20-year
sentence.
The club wanted Hoy
to strike Legare's claims of negligent security
and negligent hiring. The club also wanted
allegations that the club's long history of
discrimination created an atmosphere of
hostility and led to the attack. In addition,
the club wanted any reference to Cardona's
illegal status removed from the complaint.
- Michele Dargan
Palm Beach Daily
News
May 06, 2008
Guatemala
Guatemala
|
(Who is not part
of this story)
|
Guatemalan
Mayan Leader
and Nobel
Peace Prize
Laureate
Rigoberta
Mench u
|
Madres que reclaman
devolución de sus hijas siguen en huelga de
hambre
Mothers Hold Hunger Strike to Demand the Return of their Kidnapped
Children
Four Guatemalan
mothers whose babies were kidnapped to be sold
in foreign adoption are continuing a hunger
strike in front of the National Palace of
Culture. The women started the protest on April
28th.
Norma Cruz, director
of the Survivors Foundation, which assist women
victims of violence, stated that representatives
of the National Council on Adoptions, and the
federal Attorney General's office have expressed
interest in assisting the families.
Nonetheless, Cruz
lamented, we don't see real, concrete action,
and the investigation has not brought-about any
positive results.
The mothers have
vowed to continue their protest until there are
clear signs that authorities are taking these
cases seriously.
Raquel Par, an
indigenous woman of the Kakchiquel Mayan ethnic
group, told of how on April 4, 2006, her
daughter, Heidi Saraí Batz, was drugged and then
kidnapped by a woman in the Villa Hermosa
neighborhood on the south side of Gauatemala
City.
Ana Escobar, another
victim, related how on March 26, 2006 an armed
man entered the shoe repair shop where she
worked, attempted to rape her, locked her in a
bathroom, and then kidnapped her 6-month-old
daughter Esther Zulamitha.
Olga López, whose
daughter Arlene Escarleth disappeared on
November 27, 2006, and Loyda Rodríguez, mother
of Angielyn Lisset Hernández, kidnapped on
November 3, 2006, also discussed their
tragedies.
According to Cruz,
these are just four of the hundreds of cases in
which young, poor and unprotected [and mostly
indigenous] women become
victims of organized criminal gangs whose
business it is to rob children to sell to
foreigners [mostly from the United States] in adoption.
Cruz: "We have
denounced dozens of adoption lawyers. The
authorities take this information, but they
don't do much to stop these crimes."
In December of 2007,
the Guatemalan Parliament adopted the Law of
Adoptions, authored by the National Council on
Adoptions, an organization representing diverse
sectors of society.
Guatemala's
government was pressured into enacting the law
after the
Hague Conference on
Private International Law declared in
July, 2007 that Guatemala was the number one
source country in the world for children given
in adoption, where the legality of these
adoptions are not guaranteed.
- Actualidad -
Terra
Spain
May 5, 2008
See also:
LibertadLatina
note:
Indigenous women and girls in
Latin American countries face extreme violations
of their human rights and dignity due to the
continuation of 500 years of feudalism based on
their sexual and labor exploitation.
Few human rights efforts address
the dynamics of racism and sexism facing
indigenous and African Descendent women in Latin
America. At
LibertadLatina,
active advocacy against such modern impunity
is a large part of the focus of our work.
We remember them and all women
and children facing oppression!
Happy Mothers Day!
- Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
May 11, 2008
LibertadLatina
The
Crisis of Sexual Exploitation and Femicide
Facing Guatemalan Indigenous Women and Girls
Paraguay
Niños indígenas fueron
abandonados en Luque
Indigenous children live abandoned on the street
Approximately 30
indigenous children from the community of
Caaguazú live on the streets of the capitol city
of Asunción because, they say, there is no food
to eat in their community. The children told of
hold the community has no more land, and nobody
is buying what their parents make for sale.
The children pass
the day sniffing glue and begging on the
streets. They flee when the National Indigenous
Institute (INDI) picks them up, because they
feel that they are not treated right by INDI
staff.
Attorney Myriam
Antonia Mora de Cáceres, of the local Center for
Child and Adolescent Counseling states that when
she brings the children clothing and checks up
on them, they express fear of being taken back
to INDI.
- abc.com.py
May 2, 2008
LibertadLatina
note:
Indigenous peoples in Paraguay faced an active
genocide until the 1970's, where entire villages
were hunted down, the adults were murdered and
the 12 to 14-year-old girls were raped and sold
into sexual slavery.
The above article appears to indicate that, as
has happened across the Americas, the last land
base has been stolen from this tribal group,
leaving adults with no means to support
themselves, and children with no food to eat.
Similar battles for land are taking place today
with the Mapuche tribe in Chile, and with tribal
groups in Colombia, who's land is stolen with
impunity because they are made vulnerable by
socially accepted racism against them, that
justifies all manner of acts of impunity.
We will do our best to investigate this case
further and report back to our readers.
- Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
May 11, 2008
Nicaragua
Niña obligada a
prostituirse
An Underage Girl is Kidnapped into Forced
Prostitution
Police are
investigating the case of a 16-year-old girl
from Somoto, who was offered work in Guatemala
and ended-up enslaved in a brothel.
Rosa Díaz Martínez
filed a criminal complaint stating that 18 days
ago, a local human trafficker and taxi driver,
Luis Alfonso Benavides, from San Lucas, had
taken her daughter to the Guatemalan border,
where he paid a bribe to border agents to allow
the minor to pass into Guatemala.
The girl, who had
been offered a good job, was picked-up on the
other side of the border by her supposed new
Guatemalan employer, who took her to San Luis.
Díaz Martínez: "This
man promised my daughter a job. But she was able
to call me from Guatemala, and told me that she
was being held against her will in a brothel
together with other girls, some of whom were
also from Somoto, Nicaragua."
During the phone
call, the girl told her mother that the taxi
driver told her during the trip that he would
return her to Nicaragua, but only after her
family had paid him $1,800.
Díaz Martínez: "I am
afraid that something bad will happen to my
daughter, because I have come to find out that
this trafficker is a very dangerous man, who
tricks many young girls by offering them good
jobs, and then sells them into prostitution."
Díaz Martínez has also learned that this
trafficker is protected by police in Guatemala.
During an interview
with La Prensa, the taxi driver Benavides denied
having taken the girl to Guatemala. He states
that Antonio Díaz, a businessman from
Tecohumante, Guatemala was visiting him, and the
girl asked him for work. Benavides states that
she made an agreement to go to Guatemala
directly with Díaz.
- William Aragón
Rodríguez
La Prensa
Nicaragua
May 2, 2008
New York State,
USA
Jesus De-Maria
Sandoval-Lopez
Cops: Man flashed girl in
Mount Kisco store
Mount Kisco - An
[undocumented] immigrant living in Mount Kisco
has been arrested for allegedly exposing himself
to a 10-year-old girl at the T.J. Maxx store on
Main Street, police said.
Jesus De-Maria
Sandoval-Lopez, 23... was arraigned... on
misdemeanor charges of endangering the welfare
of a child and public lewdness, Mount Kisco
police Detective Lt. Patrick O'Reilly said.
Sandoval-Lopez was
arrested Wednesday afternoon at the store after
he allegedly displayed his genitals to the child
in the girls clothing section. A security guard
detained him until police arrived.
The girl was crying
hysterically as she told officers what had
happened, police said.
He is being held on
$7,500 bail at the Westchester County jail in
Valhalla, pending a hearing in village court
Thursday. Federal authorities have also issued a
detainer warrant, considering him a fugitive
because he entered the country illegally from
Guatemala in 2001, O'Reilly said.
He was arrested
after crossing the Mexican border into Texas,
but failed to appear for a follow-up court date.
- Shawn Cohen
The Journal News
May 9, 2008
Mexico
Violación a migrantes
centroamericanas en territorio mexicano
Bad News: The Rape of Central American Migrant
Women in Mexico
There are no exact figures
regarding the number of Central American migrant
women who have been raped after they cross into
Mexico through its southern border, seeking to
reach the United States. They remain quiet from
shame, and from the fear that comes from knowing
that to report rape in Mexico could result in
their arrest and deportation...
Martha Villareal,
spokesperson for the central region for the
Migration Forum, recently held a press
conference to denounce the rape of migrant
women, who for cultural reasons are dehumanized,
and are left highly vulnerable to sexual assault.
Villareal regards
the rape of Central American migrant women as a
hidden crisis, because these women do not report the
crime, there is really no process for them to do
so, and if they do manage to file a complaint,
the criminal justice system does nothing about
it.
Villareal stated that the most notable groups of
rapists include police officers, soldiers and gang
members. When migrants travel by walking in
groups, the women tend to fall behind. When they
do, they are attached by criminals and also by
the authorities....
Family members and fellow travelers also expose
migrant women to rape.
Martha Villareal:
|
"Women report to us the fact that their
own families utilize them to avoid
violence from officials committing acts
of corruption, and from gangs who rob
them. If a gang demands money and the
family has none, they tell the gang:
"Here is my daughter. 'Use her' and let
us pass." |
...The Migration Forum estimates that 80% of
migrating Central American women have their rights violated as they
cross Mexico.
In view of this
crisis, Martha Villareal believes that Mexico's
federal government must take a number of steps
to protect migrant women, including efforts to
place controls on the immigration inspection
process, and the organization of law enforcement
efforts to protect migrants.
Related human rights
issues affecting southeastern Mexico include the
separation of mothers from their children during
migration, human trafficking, and rampant sexual
exploitation faced by the many domestic workers
in the region.
Full Translation
- Guadalupe Cruz
Jaimes and Carolina Velázquez
CIMAC Noticias
News For Women
Mexico City
May 8, 2008
Mexico, Spain
Lydia Cacho
Asegura Lydia Cacho que
premios "no blindan"
Lydia Cacho: Receiving a Prize Does not “Bullet-
proof Me”
Barcelona, Spain – Mexican
journalist Lydia Cacho today received the House
of Catalonia’s Freedom of Expression Award.
Accepting the prize,
Cacho declared that
winning honors is no protection from the death
threats she faces for denouncing pedophilia
[specifically child sex trafficking] and
corruption in Mexico.
Lydia Cacho:
|
“These awards don’t protect us, they are
not bullet-proof vests shielding us from
the death threats, but they do raise
the ‘price’ a little for those who
would like to eliminate[murder] us." |
Cacho was also
recently honored as the 2008 laureate of this
year’s UNESCO World Press Freedom Prize during a
ceremony in Mozambique.
These prizes honor a
woman who faced torture and jail at the hands of
Mario Marín, governor of the state of Puebla.
Her 2005 book “The
Demons of the Eden, The Power That Protects
Child Pornography” lead to a long series of
acts of retaliation against her by the [child
sex] trafficking network that she exposed.
This year, Cacho has
published “Memories of an Act of Infamy.” In an
intimate, diary-like tone, Cacho recounts, play
by play, the acts of persecution and defamation
that she suffered after publishing Demons of
Eden.
For the past three
years, Cacho has traveled by bulletproof car,
accompanied by a permanent security detail.
Full Translation
-
ElFinanciero.com.mx
(With inputs from
EFE and AYV)
May 06, 2008
See also:
2008 UNESCO/ Guillermo
Cano World Press Freedom Prize awarded to
Mexican reporter Lydia Cacho Ribeiro
- UNESCO
April 9, 2008
LibertadLatina
Journalist / Activist
Lydia Cacho
Railroaded
by the Legal Process for
Exposing
Child Sex
Networks In Mexico
United States,
World
Defending the Freedom and
Dignity of the World's Vulnerable
Most of the victims
of human trafficking in the United States and in
most other places in the world are the most
vulnerable among us, destitute women and
children who are sold into bondage as sex
slaves. A 2004 State Department report concludes
that of the estimated 600,000 to 800,000 men,
women, and children transported across
international borders each year, approximately
80 percent are women and girls, and up to 50
percent are minors. The State Department
estimates that between 15,000 and 18,000 human
slaves are brought into the United States, many
of whom are forced into the sex trade every
year.
While the past few
years have seen increased efforts on the part of
the State and Justice Departments and the FBI to
combat the human slave trade, we must do more.
As President, I'll increase cooperation and
communication between all agencies of the
federal government by establishing an
Inter-Agency Task Force on Human Trafficking,
whose purpose will be to focus exclusively on
the prosecution of human traffickers and the
rescue of their victims...
- U.S. Senator
John McCain
Rochester,
Michigan
May 07, 2008
See also:
Past comments about the
anti-trafficking movement movement by Senator
Barak Obama.
Past
comments about the anti-trafficking movement by
Senator Hillary Clinton and also from President
George W. Bush
Idaho, USA
Residents Shocked, A 10-Year Old Girl Gives
Birth
St.
Anthony - We
broke the unbelievable story last night of a 10-year old girl in St. Anthony who
gave birth to a baby...
Residents both on and off camera were shocked and in dismay over the situation,
today this is what they had to say about our story...
Lyle
Rumsey: "I don't think anything is wrong with our town. I just think something's
wrong with that person."
That
person is this man, 37-year old Guadalupe Gutierrez-Juarez. Juarez is
actually an [undocumented] immigrant, and is now behind bars in the Fremont
County Jail on other rape charges...
The
criminal complaint against Gutierrez-Juarez says the rape of the 10-year old
happened between November and January. As we told you last night the girl gave
birth at Madison Memorial this weekend and both mother and child are doing well.
If
convicted [Gutierrez-Juarez] could face life in prison, a $50,000 fine ,or both.
Whether he ever serves anytime behind bars will be up to the judge who if he
places him on probation, could deport him.
- Araksya Karapetyan
KIDK TV News
Idaho Falls, Idaho
May 7, 2008
North Carolina,
USA
Prostitution ring
defendants claim ignorance of crime
[Eight people were
charged last fall in relation to a]...
prostitution ring that prosecutors say stretched
across the Southeast and involved more than 100
women from Latin America.
Last week, seven of
the eight were sentenced to prison after
pleading guilty to charges connected with the
ring. Sentenced were Santana, Hernandez, Maria
Adelfa-Letrado, Fricman Alexander Rodriguez,
German Garcia, Carlos Castillo-Rodriguez and
Adriana Hernandez...
Letrado -- the
so-called "madam" of the local ring whose job
was to manage the operation and collect money --
once spoke at a seminar for abused women after
she was a victim of domestic violence when her
live-in boyfriend at the time shot her four
times...
Letrado received the
stiffest sentence -- 30 months...
The raids netted the
arrest of six women ages 18 to 22 from Mexico
and El Salvador who authorities charged were
actively engaging in prostitution.
In the prostitution
ring, women -- brought in from the Charlotte,
Raleigh and Atlanta areas -- would be rotated
from town to town every eight to 10 days. The
women were held as material witnesses and have
since been deported...
- Eric Connor
Greenville Online
May 4, 2008
Mexico
Aprobaron despenalizar a
inmigrantes
Iniciativa la maneja
como delito menor
- The Associated
Press
April 29, 2008
Lawmakers Decriminalize
Migrants
Mexico City -
Migrant rights activists applauded a vote by
Mexico's Congress to remove long-standing
criminal penalties for undocumented migrants
found in the country.
....President Felipe
Calderon's office declined to say whether he
would sign the popular measure into law.
...Immigrants,
mostly from Central America, are often
robbed, mistreated and subject to extortion by
bandits and even police as they try
to reach the U.S.
...Current law lays
out punishments of 1 1/2 to 6 years, while the
new measure makes undocumented immigration a
minor offense punishable by fines equivalent to
about US$475.
Some Mexican
officials acknowledged that the current harsh
penalties weakened Mexico's position in arguing
for better treatment of its own migrants in the
United States....
Congresswoman Irma
Pineiro of the small New Alliance Party...
"Mexico is politically and morally obligated to
treat migrants with dignity and to make a
commitment to human rights, as a country that
both exports and receives migrants..."
- The Associated
Press
April 29, 2008
Mexico
Detienen en Chiapas a 84
extranjeros
Eighty four Undocumented Migrants Detained
The city of San
Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas state - Agents
from the National Institute for Migration (INM)
discovered 84 undocumented Central and South
American immigrants in the false bottom of a
truck at a migration checkpoint in Tuxtla
Gutiérrez. The migrants were heading for the
United States.
The migrants were
suffering from dehydration and headaches. Three
had passed out.
Forty one
Guatemalans, 31 Salvador-ans, 8 Ecuadorians and
4 Hondurans had started the trip in La Mesilla,
a Guatemalan town on the Mexican border.
The driver is being
held on federal charges.
- La Jornada
Mexico City
May 5, 2008
Mexico
Capturan a otra integrante
de la red de explotadores
[Child Sex
Traffickers are Arrested]
The federal Attorney
General's Office (PGR), in coordination with
authorities in the state of Veracruz have
captured Ana Josefa Santos Mora, age 50, of
Catemaco, Veracruz. Authorities say that Santos
Mora is a member of a child sex trafficking
network that forced minors to work in its
brothels in Veracruz.
Santos Mora was
charged with corruption of minors, organized
delinquency, prostitution and human trafficking.
In addition, Mauro Meza Canales, Ana Josefa
Santos Mora, Oscar Morales Zempoolteca, Elías
Meza Meza, Ana Lilia García López, “La Gata”,
Carolina Meza Diyarza, “La Diana”, Mariana
Castillo Ramos, “La Minica”, Isabel Hernández
Hernández , Isidro Morales Meza and Salvador Juárez Morales were arrested and jailed.
Mauro Meza Canales,
from Tlaxcala [a major child trafficking center]
was identified as the head of the trafficking
gang. Police stated that Meza Canales has been a
trafficker for 20 years.
Oscar Morales
Zempoolteca and Elías Meza Meza, also from
Tlaxcala, confessed there complicity in
recruiting children and their direct
participation in 'adapting them to prostitution'
by holding child victims captive, terrorizing
them, and then raping them.
One young victim,
who was rescued by police, told of how the gang
offered her and her 13-year-old sister
high-paying jobs as waitresses in Morelia state.
Without telling their parents, they accepted and
traveled to the state of Michoacan. Upon
arriving at the house of Mauro Meza, both were
raped by the men of the trafficking gang. They
were then forced to prostitute themselves daily
in the Cantera Hotel.
The 13-year-old girl
escaped and found her way home. Upon relating
her story to her family, the girl's mother filed
a criminal complaint in Morelia, which resulted
in the recent raid.
[Note: Citizens must
initiate criminal complaints in most Latin
American nations, before police action is taken].
- ReporteDigital
Mexico
May 5, 2008
Honduras
Hondureñas explotadas en
Europa, Norteamérica y CA
Honduran women are sexually exploited in Europe,
North America and Central America
Enrique Reina, Vice
Chancellor of the Republic, has identified a
network of human traffickers that has, during
recent months, tricked dozens of Honduran women
into going to other parts of Central America,
and to North America and Europe, where they are
sexually exploited.
Reina stated that
trafficking cases have increased recently. He
has received many reports from victims who are
now in Holland, Italy and Spain. Reina:
"All of them were tricked with false job offers
of domestic employment."
Reina added that
Honduran victims from this network are also
taken to the United States, Canada and Mexico.
According to German
Espinal, ex head of the Directorate of
Migration, on a daily basis 500 Hondurans leave
the country. One hundred of these migrants are
children. Of those children, the Chancellery
registered the deportations of 2,354. A large
number of these returning minors reported being
sexually exploited.
Less than 50% of
Hondurans are employed. Of those who work, 70%
do not make the minimum wage. Under these
circumstances it is difficult to find ways to
avoid the annual exodus of 185,000 people in
search of a better life.
Congress has
allotted 1 million lempiras to assist
trafficking victims, out of a total 15 million
lempira budget destined to assist migrants.
Honduras is seeking to coordinate with other
Central American governments to protect the
rights of migrants.
- Mario Cerna
El Heraldo
Honduras
May 5, 2008
Argentina
Jóvenes denuncian que
fueron víctimas de abuso sexual en las calles de
Eldorado
Two young women
denounce sexual abuse on the streets of Eldorado.
A 17-year-old
student and a domestic worker, age 23, have
reported to authorities their sexual abuse at
the hands of a 30-year-old man.
In both cases the
subject approached the women as they walked on
the street, touched the victims inappropriately,
and ran off.
The case is similar
to others registered in 2007. A suspect was
arrested in those cases, but was later released.
It is not known if the same man is involved in
the current cases.
- Missiones
Online
Argentina
May 5, 2008
Puerto Rico
Centro de Servicios
Transdisciplinario para víctimas de abuso sexual
The Secretary for
the Department of Families (ADFAN), the
Honorable Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, and Larry
Emil Alicea Rodríguez, director of the Program
for Assistance for Victims of Sexual Abuse and
their Families (PAF), which is affiliated with
Carlos Albizu University, recently inaugurated
the first cross-disciplinary service center for
victims of sexual abuse in the regions of
Mayagüez and Ponce.
The Hon. Matos
Rodríguez: "Child sexual abuse has a negative
impact both short and long term on the
physical and mental health of our children. The
underage victim of sexual abuse confronts a
complex process that can result in
victimization. For this reason specialized
inter-agency services are required to minimize
the consequences of abuse."
Funded with $1.6
million dollars from ADFAN, the new center
expects to serve 200 minor victims during the
coming year. Services will focus upon
investigation, evaluation, medical treatment,
legal processing and protection.
The center will
assist the work of law enforcement, prosecutors, ADFAN lawyers and social workers
involved in victim cases.
- Universia.pr
May 5, 2008
Mexico
Más mujeres denuncian
violencia en zona indígena de Chiapas
City of Tuxtla
Gutiérrez, Chiapas state - Alma Rosa Cariño Pozo,
the special prosecutor for crimes against women
for Chiapas state, has announced that women in
the region are recognizing their rights, and are
demanding that they be respected. The result has
been an increase in complaints of violence by
women in this [Mayan] indigenous region of
Mexico.
Cariño Pozo stated
that she does not feel that the actual number of
cases has increased, but local women have broken
the code of silence that has hidden violence in
the past.
Although the 270
cases reported to Cariño Pozo's office by
victims during the 6 months ending in March,
2008 seems large, the receipt of that number
complaints is a recent development. Women are
increasingly approaching government institutions
to denounce physical, psychological, economic
and sexual violence against them.
More than one
indigenous woman faces violence each day in the
zone of Los Altos, noted Cariño Pozo. She went
on to say that this [state] government is
pro-women, and we rapidly follow-up on the
endless complaints that arrive daily at her
office.
Gertudris Hernández,
the family and adoptions lawyer for the federal
Department for Integral Family Development
(DIF), noted that just in the city of Tuxtla
Gutiérrez, 800 women have filed complaints of
violence. She noted that public awareness has
been raised through electronic media, helping
them to avoid violence, and to report it when it
happens.
- Candelaria
Rodríguez
CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
Mexico City
May 1, 2008
California, USA
Man wanted in attack of
girl
Stockton – A man on
parole for attempted murder is being sought by
Stockton police for allegedly trying to molest
his girlfriend's 10-year-old daughter and
hitting her over the head with a hammer.
Edward Roland McEvoy,
31, allegedly went into the girl's bedroom about
3:30 a.m. Thursday, according to a Stockton
police report, and tried to molest her. McEvoy
allegedly hit the girl with a hammer during the
attack.
She was taken to St.
Joseph's Medical Center for treatment.
Police described
McEvoy as a Hispanic man standing 5 feet 4
inches tall and weighing about 135 pounds. He
has brown eyes and hair. He was last seen
wearing a brown and blue jacket...
- www.Record.net
May 02, 2008
Arizona, USA
[Man] rapes, impregnates
girl, 11
An 18-year-old [undocumented]
immigrant has been arrested in connection with
the rape of an 11-year-old girl, Maricopa County
sheriff's deputies said.
Enrique Jacobo-Valdez
was booked... on two counts of sexual conduct
with a minor.
Jacobo-Valdez, who
is known to the young girl's family, is
currently unemployed and had a warrant out for
his arrest from Pinal County for possession of
dangerous drugs, deputies said.
...The grandmother
and mother of the victim took the girl to a
local hospital where it was determined that she
is at least six weeks pregnant and may have been
impregnated by the rape, deputies said.
- KPHO
Phoenix
May 2, 2008
Michigan, USA
[Man] charged with
molesting girl
A 12-year-old girl
sexually molested by an [undocumented]
immigrant last fall was allegedly raped by
another another suspected [undocumented]
immigrant.
Jose Trinidad Rojas-Gamino,
36, was arrested on April 19 shortly after he
was caught in the act of allegedly molesting the
girl.
He's been charged
with two counts of first degree criminal sexual
conduct, said Gratiot County Chief Assistant
Prosecutor Kristin Bakker...
The girl had gone to
babysit for a friend of her mother's in Alma,
Bakker said. Rojas-Gamino was a guest in the
home and present when the 12 year-old was there.
The homeowner's sister and her boyfriend arrived
at the home to find Rojas-Gamino allegedly
molesting her on the living room sofa.
- Linda Gittleman
The Morning Sun
Mt Pleasant,
Michigan
May 2, 2008
New Jersey, USA
[Man] sentenced to 3 years
for sex assault
Bridgeton - The last
of six [undocumented] immigrants charged with
picking up a 13-year-old girl at an Irving
Avenue dollar store, then sexually assaulting
her multiple times before she turned up 24 hours
later, pleaded guilty Friday.
Vincente Rodriguez,
26..., pleaded guilty to third-degree
endangering the welfare of a child in exchange
for a three-year prison sentence...
Rodriguez was
originally offered a plea deal of eight years in
state prison if he pleaded guilty to sexual
assault.
Earlier in the day,
19-year-old Edson Leontes was sentenced to a
state prison term after pleading guilty...
Raul Chasares, 24,
and Oscare Estrada Lopez... pleaded guilty last
year to third-degree endangering the welfare of
a child in connection with the incident...
Alfonso Ponce, 20,
of Bridgeton, admitted sexually penetrating the
victim... and was sentenced to five years in
state prison.
- Bridgeton News
May 03, 2008
California, USA
Man Accused Of Sexually
Assaulting Lake Elsinore Deaf Girl
Lake Elsinore,
Calif. -- Sheriff's deputies said Thursday they
are searching for a man accused of sexually
assaulting a deaf girl in Riverside County.
According to Officer
Jerry Franchville, the alleged assault took
place on April 12 in the city of Lake Elsinore
around 10 p.m.
A 16-year-old girl
told authorities she was attacked by a man who
agreed to give her a ride to San Diego.
According to Franchville, the teen met the man,
who identified himself as Marcos, outside of a
gas station off Interstate 15 in the city of
Corona.
"She's deaf but she
can read lips," Detective Joe Greco said.
The man spoke
Spanish and the girl is Hispanic...
Investigators said
from there, the man drove the victim to a
business center parking lot... and sexually
assaulted her. While in the man's car, the
victim told officials she saw "numerous photos
of children" in plain sight.
- KNBC
Los Angeles
May 1, 2008
Massachusetts,
USA
Woman groped and abducted
after Red Sox game
Brookline - A
27-year-old woman walking home alone from a Red
Sox game Thursday night was assaulted and
briefly abducted in a residential neighborhood...
The woman described
the man as Hispanic with short, slicked-back,
curly hair and a round face.
At first, the
encounter seemed friendly. The man struck up a
conversation about the Sox, but then the
situation quickly turned dangerous as the two
stood in front of a house with a cement
staircase.
"All of a sudden, he
grabs her and throws her against the steps, and
he indecently touched her," said Captain John
O'Leary of the Brookline police. "He then
grabbed her again and dragged her into a
mid-sized gray SUV with three guys inside."
The man punched the
woman in the face twice before the door was
shut, and the men sped away with her inside,
police said
The van traveled
only about 20 yards, crossing into Allston,
before the woman jumped out at a traffic
light...
- The Boston
Globe
May 3, 2008
Argentina /
Dominican Republic
Análisis de Lay Ley 26.364
de Argentina: Prevencion Y Sancion De La Trata
De Personas Y Asistencia A Sus Victimas
First anti-trafficking law is passed by
Argentina's Congress
On April 29, 2008,
the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies of the
nation of Argentina passed the first national
law against human trafficking. The legislation
is called Law 26.364 - The Prevention and
Punishment of the Trafficking of Persons, and
Assistance for Victims.
What will happen in
the many cases in which the victims are women
who were trafficked from the Dominican Republic?
The situation of
Dominican women is worse than ever, and involves
a world of prostitution, trafficking, drugs and
drug mules. Many women have fallen prey, and
they have all been silenced. The Argentine
prostitution continues to depend upon trafficked
Dominican women.
This would be a good
time to see the development by Argentine and
Dominican authorities of an anti-trafficking
campaign, directed by the United Nations Office
on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Organized crime
clearly at the middle of Dominican trafficking
to Argentina. The problem is that this fact is
ignored and hidden. An effective project needs
to be created, one that is more than blowing
bubbles in the air.
- Contributor
Carla Conde-Freudendorff
May 2, 2008
See also:
LibertadLatina
The
crisis of sexual exploitation in Argentina
California, USA
Ninth Circuit Court
Affirms Latina Farm Worker’s Jury Award of Over
$1 Million
During a six-week
trial in the U.S. District Court... in Fresno,
Olivia Tamayo, a Mexican immigrant who began
picking crops for Harris Farms in the early
1980s, testified that her supervisor raped her
on several occasions and threatened her with a
gun or a knife to ensure her compliance. He also
subjected her to repeated verbal sexual
harassment and intimidation. ...Conditions
finally became so intolerable that she was
forced to resign.
...Tamayo has been
recognized by farm workers and advocacy
organizations nationwide for her courage in
standing up to her employer and reporting the
sexual harassment and retaliation she suffered.
Upon being informed of the Ninth Circuit’s
decision, she said, “In the past years, I have
talked to many farm worker women who did not
know that they were protected from being abused
in the fields. This decision is for everyone who
thinks that it is useless to step forward.”
EEOC’s Regional
Attorney William Tamayo [no relation to Olivia
Tamayo]: "As an immigrant with limited education
and limited English, [Olivia Tamayo] faced
significant financial risks and social obstacles
to speak out against harassment. In fact, her
harasser threatened to kill her husband and
otherwise harm her family. To come forward under
these circumstances only to be met with further
retaliation by Harris Farms is unjust and
illegal.”
- U.S. EEOC
April 25, 2008
See also:
[From the original trial:]
Jury Orders Harris Farms To Pay $994,000 In
Sexual Harassment Suit By EEOC
...Joan Ehrlich, Director of the EEOC's San
Francisco District Office, noted: "Agriculture
is California's second largest industry, after
high tech, and the EEOC has received many
charges of sexual harassment in this sector. We
are doing our best, through aggressive
litigation and extensive education for employers
and workers both, to ensure that this trend
changes..."
- U.S. EEOC
Jan. 21, 2005
Mexico
Rescatan a adolescente
secuestrada y víctima de abuso sexual
Over 100 police
officers from the Secretary of Public Security
for Mexico City (SSP-DF) successfully carried
out a raid to rescue a 17-year-old girl who was
kidnapped by two male suspects and held captive
in a hotel room.
Héctor Montero
callejas, age 21, and César “N”, age 16, were
arrested. After her rescue, the victim stated to
police that one of the kidnappers was her
ex-boyfriend. With his accomplice, the two men
repeat-edly beat and raped the victim for more
than a day.
- El Universal
Mexico City
April 28, 2008
California, USA
Suspect in rape of teen
girl in custody
Thermal - A
22-year-old man from Baja California was in
custody Saturday after his arrest on suspicion
of raping a 13-year-old girl near Indio,
authorities said.
Daniel Sanchez...,
of Mexicali, was being held in lieu of $1
million bail in the Riverside County Jail in
Indio, according to a spokeswoman reached
Saturday afternoon.
- MyDesert.com
April 27, 2008
Texas, USA
Teen positively IDs
alleged sexual assaulter
A teenager who was
allegedly sexually assaulted on Monday
identified her attacker in a live police line-up
Friday.
The South Houston
Police Department arrested Jose Rosales Lopez
after receiving a Crime Stoppers tip that a
suspect in the sexual assault case of a
17-year-old female student from South Houston
High School was living in a trailer park in
South Houston...
Police Chief H.
Gilbert: “The victim picked the suspect out of
the line-up as the person who was the passenger
and the person who sexually assaulted her on the
day of the incident.”
- Houston
Community Newspapers Online
April 26, 2008
See also:
Second Suspect in South
Houston Assault Released
A man, who is
considered a potential suspect who drove the car
where a 17-year-old South Houston High School
student was sexually assaulted, is released by
police after the victim is unable to identify
him in a lineup.
- Fox News -
Houston
April 27, 2008
/ Welcome
