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 illegal immigrants held
against will in Phoenix
Phoenix - Fifty-three
illegal 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 illegal 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
|
(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
neighbor-hood 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
investig-ating 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
c
/ Welcome
