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Guatemala, Mexico

1992 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Mayan leader Rigoberta Menchu

Rigoberta Menchú denuncia venta de niñas indígenas en Centroamérica y México

Mayan Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Rigoberta Menchu denounces the sale of indigenous children into sexual slavery in Mexico and Central America

[Mayan human rights leader] Rigoberta Menchú, the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, during a visit to Veracruz, Mexico, has denounced the sale of indigenous girls in Mexico and Central America, through a process in which traditional indigenous marriage customs are perverted by criminal gangs to force underage girls into sexual slavery.

According to information from Prensa Libre, Menchu said that the trade in minors involves organized mafias, doctors, lawyers, legislators and local authorities.

Menchu regretted that the sale of children, mainly girls, occurs with the knowledge of officials within the affected indigenous communities.

Menchu protested the fact that in Guatemala, there is an extensive, underground trade in boys and girls, which authorities find hard to detect.

Menchu stated that many non-governmental organizations have denounced this situation, and that they are mainly concerned by the fact that families 'sell' [underage] girls to older men to become their wives. In reality, the girls [typically in the age range of 11 to 13] are resold [to child sex traffickers and pimps] for sexual exploitation.

The Nobel Laureate said that in southeastern Mexico and across Guatemala this practice is common, and asked that the public report these sales of children.

Finally, Menchu announced that the Rigoberta Menchu Foundation has signed an agreement with the Government of Veracruz [state in Mexico] to perform various prevention measures in rural [indigenous] communities.

- CERIGUA

Guatemalan Human

Rights News

June. 27, 2008

See also:

Launch event for the book ‘Mirame,’ shining a light on challenges facing indigenous girls in Guatemala

Manuel Manrique, UNICEF Representative in Guatemala: “Indigenous people in general are discriminated against, the indigenous child doubly discriminated against, [and] the indigenous girl triply discriminated against.”  “If you review the life cycle from birth until 18 years of age, the situation of the indigenous girl is worse than that of others...”

'Mirame' is a project of UNICEF and the Office of the Public Defender of Indigenous Women (DEMI) in Guatemala.

- UNICEF

Guatemala City

Aug. 22, 2007

Undercover reporter in Spain poses as buyer, is offered 6 Indigenous 'virgin' girls [all of them age 13] by child sex trafficker.  'Sale' price in Europe for Mayan girls kidnapped from Chiapas state in Mexico: $25,000 Each.  

(In Spanish)

- Cronica

Feb. 29, 2004

Chiapas - State government investigates the sale of young Mayan girls in Europe.

(In Spanish)

- CIMAC Noticias

News for Women

Mexico City

March 15, 2004

The NobelPrize.org biography of Rigoberta Menchu, including the history of how her family was murdered during the anti-Mayan genocide in the 1980s.

- NobelPrize.org

1992

LibertadLatina

Our special section about the crisis of sexual exploitation facing indigenous women and children

in Guatemala - including the history of Mayan Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Rigoberta Menchu.

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Added June 28, 2008

Guatemala

Las agresiones contra las mujeres demuestran la vulnerabilidad que viven

Assaults Against Women Shows their Vulnerability [Machismo Fuels Impunity Against Women]

A wave of assaults against women in Baja Verapaz Department [state] demonstrate the vulnerability of women and the persistence of machismo, with its implicit expressions of domination and subordination, declared Vilma Oxlaj, a representative of the office of the Public Defender of Indigenous Women (DEMI).

According Oxlaj, in the municipalities of Rabinal, San Miguel Chicaj and Cubulco reported several cases of sexual assaults against young women and despite the fact that the scourge is on the rise there is little willingness to report these crimes because of a culture of fear of the aggressors and a knowledge that victims will receive superficial treatment from the authorities.

Oxlaj is saddened by the vulnerability in which these women live, a condition that is based upon the patriarchal construction [within machismo] that women's bodies belong to men.

Fresia Palomo, a psychologist of Office of Public Prosecutions (MP), stated that controlling the sexuality of women by men and the right of their access to our bodies are the main reasons for acts of domination by men towards women.

Palomo said that rape was shielded by impunity because of [the code of] silence, negligence and the poor attitude shown by the authorities responsible for preventing and responding to these aggressions.

Palomo emphasized that the most reprehensible cases involve acts of rape and aggression towards women by persons who have the consent or complicity of state agents.

Finally, Palomo said that male violence targeting the female population demonstrated the macho and savage attitudes of men who have no respect for life and the dignity of women.

- CERIGUA

Guatemalan Human

Rights News

June. 27, 2008

See also:

DEMI, velando por los derechos de las mujeres indígenas.

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Guatemala

Justice is Bittersweet as Killers are Sentenced for 1982 Massacre

Salamá, Guatemala - The five former paramilitaries shuffled into the courtroom in this small country town, convicted of participating in one the most notorious massacres in Guatemala's 36-year-long civil war. Now they awaited a sentence.

The hearing, which took place on May 28, has been graphically portrayed in the blogs of Heidi McKinnon, a Peace Fellow from The Advocacy Project (AP). Ms McKinnon is volunteering this summer with the Association for the Integral Development of the Victims of Violence in the Verapaces, Maya Achí (ADIVIMA), a group which represents massacre survivors and brought the charges.

The Río Negro massacre occurred after an indigenous community at Río Negro refused to relocate and make way for the Chixoy Hydroelectric Dam, a massive government energy project supported by The World Bank. After 74 villagers were killed in February 1982, most of the men fled to the hills. Early on March 13, 1982, army soldiers and a civil patrol from the nearby village of Xococ arrived at Río Negro, and murdered 177 women and children. Many of the victims were raped and tortured...

Ms McKinnon: "What I witnessed was a historic event in Guatemala. It was a victory for every survivor." But she also concedes that the victory was bittersweet: "When you are seated a few feet away from a murderer who is over 70, speaks no Spanish and has trouble even walking, it can make one pause and wonder whose definition of justice is being served by such a sentence. Who is more culpable, the man who pulled the trigger or the man who bought him the gun and told him who he should kill if he wanted to stay alive and keep his family safe?"

- AdvocacyNet News

Bulletin 143

June 16, 2008

See also:

Eyewitness testimony from a survivor of the Rio Negro Massacre:

Fifteen years ago, the women of Rio Negro [the town of Black River], some of them pregnant, were dragged from their homes, forced to march to the top of a mountain, and there, along with their children, were raped, tortured and killed.

"The soldiers and the (paramilitary civil defense) patrollers started grabbing the girls and raping us," recalls Ana, one of a handful of survivors of the massacre. "Only two soldiers raped me because my grandmother was there to defend me. All the girls were raped."

In total, 177 women and children [70 women and 107 children] died that day... [The town of Rio Negro] disappeared.

- Jennifer Harbury

Cerigua Weekly Briefs

Number 48

Dec. 11, 1997

LibertadLatina

About the crisis of sexual exploitation facing indigenous women and children

in Guatemala - including the history of the Rio Negro Massacre.

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Added June 28, 2008

California

Child prostitutes sell themselves on Craigslist

Sacramento - For more than two years, undercover cops on the Sacramento Police Department's vice squad have been working one of the most draining beats: trying to crack down on online child prostitution.

Sacramento police have nabbed nearly 70 underage girls for child prostitution since 2005...

Sacramento police are working with the FBI as part of a nationwide campaign to combat underage prostitution called Innocence Lost. The goal of the program, which is now in almost 30 U.S. cities, is to decriminalize the girls and concentrate on catching the pimps who control them.

"It really makes me angry," Seyffert said. "I think everybody on the team has different reactions to it, but I just flat out get really angry that some guy thinks he can take this girl and basically deprive her of her freedom."

...Child prostitution is even tougher on the parents of these girls. Roslyn and Sergio's daughter had been missing for more than two weeks. They waited for hours at police headquarters in hopes that their daughter would be found.

Vice squad officers found her in a downtown apartment with Bruce William Carter, a 21-year-old man who police said had posed on the Internet holding fistfuls of cash. He pleaded not guilty to charges of statutory rape and was held in lieu of $35,000 bail.

The couple's daughter, who had just turned 17, was detained but not arrested.

"It hurt," said Roslyn, who appeared weary and a bit shell-shocked. "Because you don't want to see your children involved in things like this. You don't realize how dangerous the Internet is. Now, we got to keep her away from the Internet."

Police say most of the ads appear on Craigslist, the popular and free Internet classifieds site... Even though Craigslist has posted a bold disclaimer warning against human trafficking and the exploitation of children, law enforcement officials said it doesn't seem to deter girls from posting the ads or men who are searching for sex...

- Veronica De La Cruz and David Fitzpatrick CNN June. 28, 2008

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California, USA

Surveillance photo of attempted [child] kidnapping suspect released

Long Beach - Authorities searching for a man who tried to snatch a 5-year-old girl from the Long Beach Towne Center last weekend released an image of the suspect on Friday in the hope that it would spur a break in the case.

The girl was shopping with her mother at a clothing store at the popular mall, located on Carson Street just west of the San Gabriel (605) Freeway, at about 7 p.m. when the suspect picked up the girl and tried to carry her away, according to police.

The suspect dropped the 5-year-old and ran when the girl's mother saw him and started screaming, authorities said.

Police have aggressively followed all leads they can find in the attempted kidnapping case. Investigators on Tuesday released a description of the suspect. By Friday, police were able to extract an image of the man captured by a surveillance system in the store...

The suspect is described a Hispanic man in his mid-20 s to early 30s...

- Press Telegram

June. 27, 2008

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Mexico

Piden cese impunidad en asesinato de mujeres indígenas

Legislators, activists and the public demand an end to murders with impunity of indigenous women in Veracruz

Veracruz state - Student and civil organizations in Veracruz state are planning a march this coming Friday in the city of Córdova, to demand and end to the femicide and insecurity which women must live with in the state. At the same time, female state legislators are demanding that the many cases of murders of indigenous in Veracruz not be ignored as they are today, with impunity...

Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) state deputy Margarita Guillaumin, president of the Commission for Human Rights and Attention for Vulnerable Groups of the state legislature, described the designation by state governor Fidel Herrera Beltrán of a special prosecutor to investigate the murder of Karina Reyes Luna, a niece of Archbishop of Xalapa - Hipolito Reyes Larios, and daughter of a local businessman, as an act of discrimination. She objected because at the same time, the murders of dozens of indigenous women continue within being investigated, in a state of impunity.

Indigenous deputy Bernardina Tequiliquihua Ajactle indicated that the slow response by the Public Ministry in resolving the murders of two elderly indigenous women from the Zongolica Mountain region, which the indigenous community views as having been ignored by the state, has caused panic among local women, who are afraid to come out of their houses for fear of being murdered...

[The full translation of this article also discusses the murders of Susana Xocua, Anastacia Coyohua, and Avelina Palacios Osorio (Xocua and Coyohua were also raped), cases where authorities made excuses for not conducting homicide investigations.]

This impunity in the murders of indigenous women motivated civic organization to participate in the march planned for this coming Friday. One of the participants will be the group Noche y Viento (Night and Wind. The group's director, Alejandro Morales Ruiz, announced that they will demand justice in the death of Susana Xocua, a case which has awakened in many people doubts about the fairness of the way in which the law is applied in Veracruz...

(Extended translation)

- Laura Castro Medina

CIMAC Noticias News for Women

Mexico City

June 25, 2008

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New York, USA

NY millionaire gets prison for enslaving workers

Central Islip - A millionaire who inflicted years of abuse on two Indonesian housekeepers held as virtual slaves in her Long Island mansion was sentenced Thursday to 11 years in prison.

Varsha Sabhnani, 46, was convicted with her husband in December on a 12-count federal indictment that included forced labor, conspiracy, involuntary servitude and harboring aliens.

The trial provided a glimpse into a growing U.S. problem of domestic workers exploited in slave-like conditions.

The victims testified that they were beaten with brooms and umbrellas, slashed with knives, and forced to climb stairs and take freezing showers as punishment...

U.S. District Judge Arthur Spatt called the testimony "eye-opening, to say the least — that things like that go on in our country."

"In her arrogance, she treated Samirah and Enung as less than people," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Demetri Jones. "Justice for the victims: That's what the government is asking for..."

- Frank Eltman

The Associated Press

June. 26, 2008

Mexico

Breaking Chains Ministry Rescues Sex Trafficked Children in Mexico

Founder Steven Cass: "The main focus and purpose of Breaking Chains Ministry is to work toward rescuing children from bondage, those who are being prostituted and trafficked. As of January 26, 2008, we have successfully rescued more than 80 children ranging in ages from 7-18; most were being sold for sex."

Gabby from Mexico…age when rescued 14 …now 16:

One of the first rescues we did she was one of 7 girls and 2 boys who were held captive in a house in Tijuana, Mexico. She had been robbed from the street in another part of Mexico at 13 and brought to this border town to work in a private home that was a brothel serving mostly American pedophiles. She was forced to have sex with more than 10 men a day and was raped on a weekly basis by her captors.

After she was rescued we attempted to locate her mom who was the only family she had, but she too had disappeared and has not been found.

Her captives kept her and the others literally handcuffed to beds and the clients had the option of having sex with her chained. She had black and blue marks on several parts of her body from weekly beatings at the hands of her captors.

Her wrists were literally bleeding where the handcuffs had dug into her skin. I was beaten with a baseball bat during this rescue to the point of being knocked unconscious and still have both the scar and knot on my head.

The Victory: Gabby is my hero, she has overcome pure hell and is has become a powerful woman of God at only 16 years of age. She is excelling in her studies has become fluent in English in part due to her desire to share with me. She has led more than 30 people to Christ and I know will some day be a leader in Gods war on this evil...

- Steven Cass, Founder

Breaking Chains Ministry

June 17, 2008

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Mexico

Implican a los Zetas con la mafia rusa, con Los Mexicanos y la Yakuza en la explotación sexual y laboral y cobro de cuotas

'Zeta' hitmen, Russian Mob, Japanese Yakuza and Mexican drug cartels are implicated in sexual and labor exploitation and extortion

From the Russian Mob to the Japanese Yakuza, which dedicates itself to drug trafficking, child pornography and money laundering in Mexico, international criminal networks cover our country like a giant brotherhood.

According to reports from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), close to 3,000 Mexican women have been taken by the Yakuza and enslaved in prostitution in Japan. The Yakuza collaborates with the Russian Mob. "There are mafias that are not just working in Mexico, but are cooperating [to send Mexican women into the sex industry in Japan], notes Aquiles Colimoro, coordinator of the foundation Casa de Mercedes.

These mafias place employment ads in newspapers seeking models and secretaries without experience. They obtain passports for these young women for the trip to Japan, where the passport is taken away from them.

Lately, these mafias have built alliances with the 'Zetas' [former soldiers who work as hit men for Mexican drug cartels], who extort bar owners.

Mexico's drug cartels are also heavily involved in sex trafficking. According to Sadot Sánchez Carreño, head of the Program Against Trafficking in Persons at Mexico's National Human Rights Commission: "We know that many of the cartels that are dedicated to illegal drug and arms trafficking are also involved in human trafficking."

Mario Luis Fuentes, director of the Center for Studies and Investigation in Development and Social Assistance (CEIDAS) agrees. "There are indications detected by the United Nations, that conclude that the same criminal networks that traffic in drugs and arms also engage in human trafficking, given the level of sophistication, relationships and logistics needed to navigate around the legal and migration controls in Mexico.

(Full English text)

- A. Olivier Pavón

Cronica

June 18, 2008

See also:

Infancia robada - El tráfico de mujeres y niñas

Teresa Ulloa, head of the the Latin American and Caribbean branch of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW):

...The Russian Mafia "have an infinity of brothels on the Mexican-U.S. border, in cities such as Tijuana, where they prostitute girls that are ever younger in age. The last time I accompanied a police raid we found seven-year-old girls.

- Univision Online

Oct., 2007

And:

UNICEF: An estimated 50,000 minors are prostituted along Mexico's border with the United States

- Judith García Aura

El Sol de México

April 13, 2008

Massachusetts, USA

Sex assault prompts North End warning

Boston police said they believe a sexual assault this week in the North End may be related to two other attacks, in January and last summer. Patrols have been increased in the neighborhood, and police are urging women traveling late at night to go in groups.     

The at