Lured To Mexico, Young Girls Often Unable To Return

Mexico

Juan cries at the grave site of his son Javier, who took his own life in the face of his inability to do anything to help his brother Juan junior, who had been sentenced to 12 years in prison in Kentucky for rape. Photo: Aurelia Ventura/ La Opinión

Prisioneros de su ignorancia y costumbres

Part 1 of a series

Más de 20 mil indígenas, cuya mayoría no habla ni español ni inglés, purgan condenas en cárceles de EEUU, y se pierden en un sistema que muchos desconocen y que no entienden

El hijo preso sólo tiene 18 años y, fue sentenciado a 12 años tras las rejas en el Woodford County Detention Center de Kentucky por cargos de violación sexual. Juan, su padre, no lo comprende. Su cultura indígena no lo ve así, porque sus leyes son diferentes.

Sentado en el cementerio de este pequeño pueblo del estado de Guerrero, se pregunta: ¿qué hay de malo en que su hijo tuviera relaciones sexuales con una niña de 12 años?

Indígena mixteco, uno de los 64 grupos nativos de México que ocupan los estados de Guerrero y Oaxaca, en su cultura el matrimonio se pacta en la niñez y los hijos llegan cuando aún no se han cumplido los 15 años.

Con las tragedias de sus hijos, Juan aprendió que en los pueblos del norte, su cultura puede ser vista como delictiva, pero nadie se lo advirtió...

Prisoners of Their Ignorance [of the Law] and Customs

More than 20,000 indigenous Mexicans are in prisons cross the United States. Many are lost in a legal system that they know nothing about and do not understand

Excerpt:

Juan's son, age 18, was jailed in the Woodford County, Kentucky Detention Center on charges of rape. Juan senior, his father, doesn't understand it. He says, "What is wrong with the fact that my son had sexual relations with a 12-year-old girl?"

Juan senior is a 64-year-old indigenous Mixteca man, a member of one of the 64 indigenous cultures that live in the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca. In his culture, parents arrange marriages during the couple's childhood, and children are born before the couple reaches age 15.

With the tragedies that have befallen his sons, Juan senior learned that in the United States, his culture can be seen as condoning criminal acts. But nobody [i.e. the Mexican Government] warned them about that fact...

Claudia Núñez

La Opinion

July 28, 2009

Mixtec girls in California

Faced with Ttheir Cruel Existence

Cochoapa, Mexico – …[Some] 20,000 natives… are behind bars in the U.S. today, a reality whose consequences are suffered on both sides of the border…

For [Steve Jarrett, detective at the Police Department of Montgomery, Alabama], scenes of young drunk immigrants are common in rural Alabama. What he finds new is the presence of Mexicans who do not speak Spanish.

"I did not have the slightest idea that there were Mexicans who did not speak Spanish... It is very frustrating trying to communicate with someone who speaks neither English nor Spanish. And it is even worse to find people who do not understand or respect our laws", he adds.

Over 75% of the cases that involve indigenous Mexicans are reckless crimes. Alcohol, sex with minors, and domestic violence are among the most serious charges that take them to jail, explained Dr. Guillermo Alonso Meneses, researcher and anthropologist at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte, in Tijuana.

At16, Seferino Rosales Ayala's romance with a 14 year-old girl, which is absolutely normal in the Mixteca culture, restrained him to months of confinement in North Carolina, where, in addition, the police listed him as sexual predator of minors...

Almost a year after his deportation, La Opinión interviewed him in Tlapa, a zone belonging to the region known as La Montaña, in the state of Guerrero, whose indigenous population is calculated at 529,780 members who come from as diverse groups as mixtecos, nahuas, me'phaa, amuzgos, among others. All of them speak a dialect different from the Spanish…

The surprise of finding himself behind bars, for something that is considered normal by the mixteca culture, was as great as the message he got from his consulate, telling him "not to bother them any more."

"They talked to my lawyer Smith and told him to let me know not to bother them any longer ... I just wanted them to take me out of there," he comments...

Statistical reports from the Secretary of Foreign Affairs reveal that the legal processes against Mexicans in the United States increased from 1,622 in 2005 to 19,782 in 2008; the highest figure in five years.

Other studies from the Mexican Senate indicate that ten out of 100 Mexicans currently jailed in the United States are of indigenous origins…

The reality, all the specialists agree, it is that at least during the next the 10 years the indigenous, and not only the Mexican, will be the face of migration to the United States, a face that does not deserve to sink into oblivion.

 "There is no step back, we cannot return to be the pre-Hispanic natives, but we must look for a solution to our present reality. We have gangs, HIV; ...colonization is cornering us. I cannot think about the native who is going to come out with his feathers and start dancing, no; we must look for a solution to our current reality, alcoholism, drug addiction, something that was not seen 20 years ago and a great part of that reality is the result of migration...", emphasizes Odilia Romero, from the Indigenous Front of Binational Organizations (FIOB), in Los Angeles…

Claudia Núñez

La Opinión

July 30, 2009

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Added: July 29, 2009

Nicaragua

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega

Prohibición de ILE Deriva en Muerte, Dice Informe de AI

Autoridades negaron entrevistarse con el organismo

En Nicaragua, más del 50 por ciento de los casos de violación reportados hasta 2008 fueron en menores de 18 años de edad, mil 247 niñas fueron víctimas de violación e incesto, el 16 por ciento de ellas resultaron embarazadas mientras que el 87 por ciento de las víctimas que resultaron embarazadas por violación o incesto, tenían entre 10 y 14 años de edad, reportó hoy Amnistía Internacional (AI)...

Abortion Prohibition Results in Deaths, Says Amnesty International

Government authorities refused to meet with Amnesty about the issue

Amnesty International reported today that in Nicaragua, underage girls were the victims in more than 50% of rape cases reported during 2008. Some 1,247 underage girls were victims of rape or incest, of whom 16% became pregnant. Eighty seven percent of victims who became pregnant due to rape or incest were between the ages of 10 and 14...

[See more detail on this issue in English in the below article.]

Lourdes Godínez Leal

CIMAC Noticias

News for Women

Mexico City

July 27, 2009

See also:

Added: July 29, 2009

Therapeutic Abortion Ban a "Disgrace" Says Rights Group

"What happened to me shattered my dreams, my hopes – I wanted to be someone who worked outside the home but I spend all day at home looking after the baby…I can’t even sleep and I feel very unsafe, many of my days are a nightmare, it’s very hard to carry on and I feel very sad and very tired," said "M", who was raped at age 17 by a relative.

Even though she was a victim of incest and rape, "M", who spoke with representatives of Amnesty International on their visit to Nicaragua last week, was unable to abort the pregnancy because of the ban on "therapeutic abortion" in place in this Central American country, one of the poorest in the hemisphere, since 2008.

The Amnesty report issued on Monday, "The total abortion ban in Nicaragua: Women's lives and health endangered, medical professionals criminalized", concludes that the policy has led to a rise in maternal mortality and has put pregnant women of all ages at risk.

"Nicaragua’s ban on therapeutic abortion is a disgrace," Amnesty International’s Executive Deputy Secretary General Kate Gilmore said at a news briefing held Monday in Mexico City to present the report.

"It is a human rights scandal that ridicules medical science and distorts the law into a weapon against the provision of essential medical care to pregnant girls and women," the Australian sociologist added.

Amnesty International describes the total ban on abortion in Nicaragua, even in cases of rape or incest, a deformed fetus, or when the mother's life is in danger, as "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment."

"There’s only one way to describe what we have seen in Nicaragua: sheer horror. Children are being compelled to bear children. Pregnant women are being denied essential - including life-saving - medical care," said Gilmore.

"What alternatives is this government offering a 10-year-old pregnant as a result of rape? And to a cancer sufferer who is denied life-saving treatment just because she is pregnant, while she has other children waiting at home?"

In the first five months of this year, 33 girls and women died from pregnancy and birth-related complications, compared to 20 in the same period last year, according to official figures cited by the report.

President Daniel Ortega of the left-wing Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) backed the law banning abortion to win conservative votes in the elections that brought him to power in January 2007.

Lobbied by Roman Catholic Church leaders and conservative evangelical pastors, on Oct. 26, 2006 the Nicaraguan parliament approved the draft law to revoke article 165 of the criminal code, which had permitted abortion for medical reasons since 1893.

Nicaragua thus became one of the few countries in the world where abortion is illegal under all circumstances, joining Chile, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic in Latin America...

Emilio Godoy

Inter press Service (IPS)

July 27, 2009

 

Derecha Avanza en America Latina, Bajo el Discurso de los Dderechos Humanos

Para cancelar derechos SyR, advierten feministas

Martha María Blandón, directora de IPAS para Centroamérica, alertó que bajo el discurso de los derechos humanos progresistas, los grupos de derecha están avanzando en la región centroamericana y latinoamericana, lo que ha significado un retroceso en la región en materia de derechos humanos, sexuales y reproductivos.

Marta Maria Blandon is Central American director of Ipas, a group in Chapel Hill, N.C., that advocates against unsafe abortion. Photo and text: WomensNews

Political Right Advances its Agenda in Latin America Using the Progressive Language of Human Rights

Strategy focuses on defeating abortion rights

Martha Maria Blandon, director of Ipas in Central America, has warned that right-wing groups are moving into the Latin American and Central American region, and are promoting their agenda under the cloak of progressive human rights discourse. Their goal is to weaken the defense of human rights, and especially sexual and reproductive rights in the region.

Interviewed after a press conference where Amnesty International presented their report "The total abortion ban in Nicaragua: Women's lives and health endangered, medical professionals criminalized", Blandon, one of the advocates in the case of Rosa, the pseudonym for a 9-year-old girl who was raped and became pregnant, said that those who are making the argument today against a woman’s right to decide are the same people who are also fighting against a large number of other human rights guarantees for individuals.

These opponents of the right to choose are also advocating to ban the right to sex education, family planning, the use of modern contraceptive methods and same sex marriage, noted Blandon. She added that these activists masquerade their rhetoric with that of progressive human rights speech…

Six years after the case of Rosita

...It was in 2003 when Rosa, age 9, worked with her immigrant parents in Costa Rica on a coffee plantation. A 28-year-old man raped her. She became pregnant as a result of the rape.

Rosa was evaluated by two hospitals in Costa Rica, where doctors warned of the complications that would arise from continuing with her then 4 months of pregnancy. However, despite seeking help from the Nicaraguan authorities to return Rosa to her country to perform the therapeutic abortion that Rosa was entitled to, the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health refused the request. The government required that Rosa carry the pregnancy to term.

Finally after a long conflict between government, pro-life, feminist and human rights groups, Rosa was provided with a therapeutic abortion.

Since then, the group of feminists who fought for the right of this girl to have an abortion has faced  an investigation by the public prosecutor’s office, which Blandon says, has served as a tool to intimidate and persecute the group's members...

Blandon said that some of hers colleagues have continued to receive anonymous telephone threats. The callers say, "we hear you on TV," or “we know where your son is studying,” or "we know where you live,” or “remember that you are being persecuted," and that sort of thing.

However, Blandon asserted that everything that has happened and continues in his country, "which is the most extreme, maximum violation of human rights possible," will not hold us back from continuing the struggle.

Full English Translation

Lourdes Godínez Leal

CIMAC Noticias

News for Women

Mexico City

July 27, 2009

See also:

An Ugly Family Affair

Charges of sexual abuse leveled against Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega swirl atop a power struggle

Among Nicaragua's leftist elite, it had long been more than a terrible rumor, but always less than a public scandal. Throughout much of the 1980s, many loyalists of the Marxist-oriented Sandinista Party suspected that Daniel Ortega Saavedra, their dour leader and the country's President from 1979 to 1990 [and also currently], was sexually molesting his adolescent stepdaughter Zoilamerica Narvaez Murillo...

Narvaez claims the abuse started as early as 1979, when she was 11 and Ortega had just led the overthrow of dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle. The molestation continued "repeatedly," she says, until 1990, after Ortega's defeat in presidential elections that year...

[Despite Zoilamerica Narvaez Murillo having held a press conference as an adult to denounce her stepfather, President Daniel Ortega, for having sexually abused her since the age of 11, the people of Nicaragua, with the backing of the Catholic Church, voted Ortega back into power in 2007. - LL]

Tim Padgett

Time Magazine/Time.com

March 23, 1998

 

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Added: July 29, 2009

Oklahoma, USA

Melvin Urbina

Man sought in rape of 11-year-old girl

Police are looking for a man wanted in connection with the reported rape of an 11-year-old girl at a party on Saturday in south Oklahoma City.

An arrest warrant was issued in Oklahoma County today for Melvin Urbina, 33, who is wanted on rape complaints. Police asked the public for help finding him.

According to a police report, the girl was attending a banquet celebration for her godfather at the Imperial Restaurant Banquet Hall, 4701 Shields Blvd. when she was raped.

About 10:30 p.m., someone asked a male employee of the business to get more chairs, and the employee told the girl there were more chairs in the basement, the report said.

The girl told police when she went to the basement with the man, there were no chairs. Police said the loud music at the party kept anyone from hearing the girl scream.

The girl told police the man raped her before another person came to the door looking for chairs, causing him to flee.

Urbina is described as a Hispanic male with black hair and brown eyes. He is 5 feet, 8 inches tall. His name, Melvin, is tattooed on his neck.

Police Sgt. Jennifer Wardlow said Urbina might be wearing his hair in a ponytail. He is considered dangerous.

"He's done this to one girl," Wardlow said. "He should be considered a threat."

Robert Medly and Johnny Johnson

www.NewsOK.com

July 28, 2009

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Added: July 26, 2009

The United States

Ambassador at Large Luis C. de Baca, director of the U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons

Question and Answer Session on human trafficking

Before being sworn-in... as President Obama’s Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Luis C. de Baca was one of the nation’s most decorated federal prosecutors, and helped to write the principal U.S. law on modern-day slavery, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.

On [June 16, 2009], the same day that he and Hillary Clinton released a State Department report condemning 69 countries for failing to do enough to combat trafficking, I spoke with de Baca about his 15-year career, which has included more than a hundred successful convictions of human traffickers.

E. Benjamin Skinner: What is modern-day slavery?

Ambassador de Baca: Modern-day slavery, also called human trafficking, is the phenomenon of people being held in some form of service using coercion.

How much of this is sex trafficking?

Ambassador de Baca: International trafficking and trafficking here in the United States is a big problem whether it’s in the sex industry or labor. While a lot of attention has been paid to sex industry over the years, and it is a terrible there, the problem is in the labor sector as well. Regardless of whether the underlying service is in the labor or sex sectors, we see widespread, routine sexual abuse of women who are being held in servitude no matter what it is that they are being forced to do. That’s something that we have to confront regardless of the labels of sex or labor trafficking. So we’re looking to see whether the ideas about trafficking that are gaining some currency worldwide can actually be applied to all forms of trafficking rather than simply one of its many aspects.

One of the phenomena highlighted in today’s report is how the global economic downturn is affecting human trafficking. Could you elaborate on that?

Ambassador de Baca: One of the reasons why we’re concerned that the global economic crisis is making people more vulnerable to trafficking is that there’s such a displacement of workers and a shutting down of opportunities which leaves people much more willing to expose themselves to risk, as they’ve become increasingly desperate. We’re also worried that governments worldwide, and non-governmental organizations, that so often are able to provide victim services are not going to have the resources to be able to find these people, or to help them once they are free.

You’ve worked on trafficking under three administrations now, starting in the Justice Department under Clinton. Do you have any sense of a difference of approach on this issue between Bush and Obama?

Ambassador de Baca: The common challenge of the three administrations that I’ve worked with on this—including the Clinton Administration in the early years of formulating U.S. policy, and the last years as we tried to take the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) and the Palermo Protocol and tried to give it some life—is the promotion of an underlying assumption that this is a crime of slavery and that this is a crime of compelled service. And the appropriate response to it is through the “Three P’s”: protection, prosecution and prevention. Hillary Clinton remarked at the launch of this year’s trafficking report—and we’ll see more of this throughout the coming years under President Obama—a fourth “P”: partnerships. The United States will look at other countries not solely to rank them but to look at them as partners to enlist...

E. Benjamin Skinner

Author and Journalist

Posted on Anderson Cooper 360 Blog Archive

CNN

June 18, 2009

See also:

A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery

E. Benjamin Skinner

Free Press

2008

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Added: July 26, 2009

California, USA

Judge Orders Trial For Rape, Strangling Death At Fontana Bakery In 2001

Rancho Cucamonga - A man linked by DNA to a brutal rape and killing at a Fontana bakery in 2001 must stand trial for the alleged crimes, a judge ruled Friday after a full day of testimony at a preliminary hearing.

The judge's ruling means that Gilbert Bernard Sanchez, 47, may be eligible for the death penalty if convicted of murdering 30-year-old Sylvia Galindo, an employee at the bakery where she was killed…

Galindo was raped and strangled to death the night of Oct. 18, 2001, after closing time at Maria's Panaderia in the 15300 block of Merrill Avenue.

According to the prosecution's theory of the case, Galindo was standing near the back door of the bakery smoking a cigarette when Sanchez assaulted her.

Galindo ran from the back door toward the front area of the business.

There she was attacked and dragged by force to a storage area of the bakery, where she was raped and strangled to death with an electrical cord and wire coat hanger.

The brutal incident remained unsolved until 2006, when the California Department of Justice notified local authorities that DNA recovered from the crime scene matched Sanchez's DNA profile in the FBI database…

Will Bigham

Contra Costa Times

July 24, 2009

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Added: July 25, 2009

Latin America

Article author Lucía Nieto is an investi-gator with the Ortega y Gasset Foundation, and is an expert in public policy analysis

Turismo Sexual

Según cifras de la Organización Internacional de Migraciones, cada año se producen más de 600 millones de viajes turísticos internacionales, de estos un 20% buscan sexo fácil -que no seguro-, desconozco si históricamente este ha sido un motivo principal en las decisiones de viajeros por el mundo, de cualquier manera en muchos de los destinos más exóticos tiene su morbo explorar como cada cultura vive y practica aquello de las sensaciones y los placeres…

About Sex Tourism in Latin America

According to figures from the International Organization for Migration, each year there are over 600 million international tourist trips, 20% of which are taken by those who are seeking easy, if not safe access to sex…

…Jamaican nudist beaches, for example, have long been a destination for those seeking this goal. These tourists don’t look at a list of local tourist sights, wondering where to go today. Their happiness is to be found on that beach alone.

The alarm bells go off when the vacation ads appeal to inconceivable, "products," little innocent children who cannot comprehend what is being asked of them. Some 3% of sex tourists have confessed to having pedophile tendencies. This amounts to more than 3 million people who travel the world looking for sex with children [each year].

Child sex tourism is a phenomenon that usually afflicts the developing world. Its focus has shifted from Southeast Asia to Latin America in a process that has been facilitated by permissive laws and high levels of corruption. Latin America, sadly, has become a preferred destination.

…In each country there are different factors that promote child sex tourism. Violence in Colombia, drug trafficking and [civil war refugee] displacement encourage the sexual exploitation of children. In Mexico, there is the phenomenon of "beach, tequila and sex with children.” There is concern in Mexico that the problem is growing problem and that measures taken to combat it are ineffective. In Central America, the problem is growing rapidly and many "sex tourists" in the developed world openly recommend visiting this region.

According to data from the United Nations Fund for Children (UNICEF) and the International Labor Organization, nearly two million children worldwide are involved in child prostitution, and of these, about 50% are from Latin America. This market is worth billions of dollars annually and, therefore, it is a very difficult crime to combat.

This cruel marketplace promotes prostitution, slavery and child abuse. Its consequences are heartbreaking. If these child victims don’t pay with their lives, they pay for [for the brutality of adults] through suffering cruel physical and psychological trauma that is painful and difficult to reverse.

Lucía Nieto

El Imparcial - Spain

June 30, 2009

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Added: July 25, 2009

Willamette Tree Wholesale Sued By EEOC For Severe Sexual Harassment, Retaliation

Latina Workers at Oregon Nursery Sexually Harassed, Threatened, and One Woman Repeatedly Raped, Federal Agency Charges

Seattle - A Molalla, Oregon nursery violated federal law when it allowed female employees to be severely sexually harassed and retaliated against the women and male co-workers after they reported the harassment, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit it filed today. This is the agency’s third such case against Oregon agricultural employers. Last October, the EEOC filed lawsuits against Scheimer Farms of Nyassa, Ore., and against Wilcox Farms, Inc., and Wilcox Dairy Farms Group in Aurora, Ore.

The EEOC’s suit charges that sexual harassment and retaliation occurred at the Molalla, Ore., facility of Willamette Tree Wholesale, which operates 140 acres of retail nursery farmland, including a garden supply store and business office. According to the federal agency’s investigation, one worker, a 38-year-old Latina, was taken to remote areas of the farm by the company foreman and raped repeatedly over several months. In addition to threatening her with termination and loss of needed income, the harasser physically coerced her with pruning shears, and made threats against her life as well as against her family. Ultimately, when she refused to be sexually assaulted yet again, she was fired.

Another Latina co-worker, age 35, faced daily sexual innuendos and propositions for sex as well as grabbing and touching. When she and her husband, who also worked there, reported sexual harassment by a crew leader, Willamette Tree failed to investigate or respond to their complaint. The EEOC alleges that the couple and her brother were terminated in retaliation for having reported and opposed sexual harassment.

“All sexual harassment is unacceptable, but what happened here is unspeakable,” said EEOC Acting Chairman Stuart J. Ishimaru. “This shows how dangerous a situation can become when employers are hostile to workers' rights and sexual harassment goes unchecked. There simply is no excuse for any employer tolerating this sort of worker abuse, and enough is enough. The EEOC is going to be focusing more and more on finding new and better ways to reach the most vulnerable of discrimination victims, like these farm workers, and to halt this kind of horrific mistreatment." ...

EEOC Regional Attorney William R. Tamayo said, “From California, where the fields were called ‘field de calzon’ (or ‘field of panties’) because so many supervisors raped women there, to Florida, where female farm workers call them ‘The Green Motel,’ and throughout the country, we have found women working in agriculture are often particularly vulnerable to sexual harassment. We hope this third Oregon lawsuit will send notice to employers in this industry to stop predatory sexual behavior and abuses of supervisor power.”

EEOC District Director Michael Baldonado noted, “Our investigation found that sexual harassment at Willamette Tree was widespread, tolerated, expected, and a condition of employment...

The EEOC enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. Further information about the EEOC is available on its web site at www.eeoc.gov.

U.S. EEOC

PRESS RELEASE

June 18, 2009

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Added: July 24, 2009

Border Patrol Agents In Arizona Arrest 3 Illegal Immigrants With Sex-Assault Histories

Border Patrol agents in the Tucson sector have arrested three illegal immigrants with sex-related charges or convictions for illegally re-entering the United States.

Agents arrested a 47-year-old Salvadoran man Saturday on the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation who served about six months in prison for conviction of attempted rape and forcible sodomy in New York state before being deported in 2004.

On Sunday, agents arrested a 30-year-old Mexican man near Arivaca who was convicted in 1998 of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old in Illinois. An immigration judge deported the man in 2003.

Also on Sunday, a 23-year-old from Mexico City was arrested south of Ajo who has been charged twice since November with having sex with a minor.

July 20, 2009

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Added: July 24, 2009

Honduras, Arizona, USA

Carly and Richard Cantrell (center) with a few of their young Honduran charges

The Thin Blue Line Ministries' Work in Honduras

During a recent tour through Illinois Valley, a couple from Phoenix, Arizona shared the story of how their ministry to help victims of sexual abuse and trauma has spurred them to relocate to Central America.

Former Illinois Valley resident Carly Cantrell and her husband, Richard, for the past two years have been involved with Thin Blue Line Ministries’ Phoenix House orphanage, which provides a sanctuary for trafficked children in Tegucigalpa, Honduras...

...The International Organization for Migration reports that “Honduras is a country of origin for human trafficking.” The report goes on to state that many female victims are transported out of the country, while internal trafficking takes place from rural areas and small towns to cities. “The majority of these victims are trafficked for sexual exploitation,” said the IOM.

Endemic poverty and corruption lead to a cycle of crime and violence in which young girls’ childhoods evaporate in an arena of exploitation.

Said Cantrell, “Some are orphaned. Some are sold or stolen. Some chose to go out on the streets. There are a number of ways that these girls find themselves in this situation.”

...The couple’s home in Arizona serves as a ministry for young women who have been victims of sexual abuse or trauma. They bring that experience with them in their Central American endeavor.

While the Cantrells have worked at a few different homes in Honduras, the primary location for their ministry serves some 30 girls at a time, and perhaps 75 each year. The girls range between 9 and 18 years old.

Michelle Binker

Illinois Valley News

July 15, 2009

See also:

LibertadLatina

About the crisis of sexual exploitation with impunity facing women and girls in Honduras

See also:

The important victim rescue work of the Breaking Chains Ministry working in Tijuana, Acapulco, and other regions of Mexico

Breaking Chains Ministry

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Added: July 22, 2009

Mexico

A young person in prostitution in Tijuana's massive tolerance zone, just over Mexico's border with San Diego, California, where more than 5,000 prostitutes are registered with local government health clinics

Ley Contra Tráfico Humano Demora Repatriación de Menores Mexicanos

Los niños pasan hasta cuatro meses en los albergues, afirma Ileana Holguín, directora de Servicios para Inmigrantes y Refugiados de la Diócesis de El Paso

Los niños mexicanos que cruzan la frontera de manera ilegal son retenidos hasta cuatro meses en albergues por la equivocada interpretación de una nueva ley contra el tráfico de personas con fines de explotación sexual o laboral…

US Law Against Human Trafficking Delays Repatriation Of Mexican Children

Mexican children who cross the border illegally are held for up-to four months in shelters due to an incorrect interpretation of a new law against human trafficking for purposes of sexual exploitation and labor.

Federal law HR7311, the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, which was enacted in March of 2008, puts particular emphasis on under-age Mexicans who are arrested by the bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

"Previously, Mexican children were repatriated within 24 and 48 hours of being arrested by immigration agents. They now spend up to four months in the shelters where before there were only South American minors were being held," said lawyer Ileana Holguin, director of Services for Immigrants Refugees and the Diocese of El Paso...

"The law requires the authorities to ensure that the child has not been a victim of human trafficking prior to repatriation. Because CBP inspectors do not know how to [perform that evaluation], these undocumented children are being sent to shelters," complained Holguin, who added that the majority of Mexican children in shelters are between three and 14 years of age...

Mexico’s Consul in El Paso, Texas, Roberto Rodriguez Hernandez, expressed concern over the delay in the repatriation and outlined the concerns of parents of children who, although having been sent to shelters that are adequate for their age, are still being detained.

"We are concerned that repatriation is carried out now with such a delay because these children may be affected psychologically," said the diplomat...

Rodriguez Hernandez added, "While some agencies distinguish between the [voluntary] smuggling and the human trafficking of children, other agencies do not.” ...

Full English Translation

CIMAC Noticias (Written with information from EFE and CGE)

News for Women

Mexico City

July 14, 2009

Added: July 19, 2009

LibertadLatina Commentary

Let's continue to protect migrating children from sex traffickers and other abusers

On July 3, 2008, U.S. immigration attorney Christopher Nugent provided an eye-opening interview to Mexico's Excélsior newspaper, which we translated into English at that time. Nugent raised concerns about the fact that many thousands of child sex trafficking victims from Mexico were attempting to flee across the U.S. border to escape from slavery, but that U.S. authorities were returning them to an uncertain future in Mexico before they could be evaluated as victims of traffickers or other abuses.

Now that the 2008 William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act has provided a process for assisting these children, we would not want to see at-risk minors put back on the 'deportation mill,' where they will likely end up right back in the hands of their pimps in the border towns of Tijuana, Nogales, Juarez and Matamoros.

If children are being held in U.S. detention for up to 4 months, while families wait in anguish for them, perhaps the above article makes a valid point that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials may not know how to conduct timely processing of the required interviews of these children about their possible history of having been sex trafficked or subjected to domestic violence, conditions that may afford them the right to ongoing protection from the U.S. government.

We agree with Christopher Nugent's basic point, which is that returning Mexican children to Mexican authorities within a short time frame, as was done before the Act went into effect, is an unacceptable solution.

We hope that the current push by Mexican consular officials to speed-up repatriations of children by the U.S. CBP is not an initiative that is being influenced by other policies of the administration of President Felipe Calderón. His policies have reversed equal rights for women in a number of areas. As we have noted elsewhere, President Calderón, together with his National Action Party (PAN), have fought tooth-and-nail during the past year against implementing any effective federal anti-trafficking regulation in Mexico.

Let's keep the current U.S. Government protections for at-risk unaccompanied minor migrants in place, while improving the process and the reducing the time that children spend in detention.

End impunity now!

Chuck Goolsby

LibertadLatina

July 19, 2009

See also:

En Desventaja, Nños Mexicanos Indocumentados

Mexico's Undocumented Migrant Children are at a Disadvantage for Refugee Benefits

Thousands of children cross alone into the United States each year to escape from Mexican child sex trafficking networks

Many of the 80,000 Mexican children who cross from Mexico into the U.S. alone each year as undocumented immigrants are fleeing abuse at home, or are escaping from child prostitution rings. As such, they would possibly qualify for permission to stay in the United States.

These children would be able to avail themselves of this opportunity if U.S. Border Patrol officers would provide them with the appropriate interview form, as federal law requires. Instead, these minors are typically deported less than 24 hours after their arrests.

...Thousands of Mexican and Central American children flee northward into the U.S. each year to escape child prostitution...

[Attorney Christopher]Nugent explained how in Mexico there exists terrible child trafficking in the area of Acapulco, Guerrero, and that many now call this region "the new Bangkok" of child sex tourism.

Nugent also emphasized that Tijuana [on the U.S. border with San Diego County, California] has also become an zone controlled by powerful child prostitution networks.

Many children [enslaved in prostitution] from Tijuana are trying to flee to San Diego [California].

According to Nugent 70 percent of children who migrate and come to the Office of Refugees in the United States have suffered some sort of trauma from violence or sexual exploitation...

...Children who have been caught seven times 'jumping the fence' into the U.S. are considered to be juvenile delinquents by the Mexican authorities. These children face a "black hole" and are thrown into juvenile detention, says Nugent.

Full English Translation

Georgina Olson

Excélsior

July 3, 2008

See also:

From our commentary on Latin American anti-trafficking policy under the administration of former President George W. Bush

Regarding questions posed by Chuck Goolsby at an August, 2008 anti-trafficking conference in Washington, DC, during a presentation by Mark P. Lagon, then Ambassador-at-Large and Director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP), and Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State for the administration of President George W. Bush

...During the question and answer period following Dr. Lagon's remarks at this conference, where he spoke eloquently about the problem of trafficking in Eastern Europe, Asia and the U.S. (but without mention of [any] Latin American issues), I stated in my question to Dr. Lagon that a U.S. immigration lawyer [attorney Christopher Nugent] had been interviewed by a Spanish language newspaper (Excélsior -in Mexico), and that he had stated that thousands of Mexican children and underage youth were fleeing from the hundreds of brothels on the U.S. border, many of them run by the Russian mob. I stated that when they escape into the U.S. and are caught, they were not being afforded the 72 hour waiting period required by law and access to a lawyer, as other arrested migrants, those not from Mexico, are given. I stated that in violation of the law, these minors were being deported back into Mexico after only 24 hours.

As the moderator of the event asked me to get to my question, I simply stated emphatically, "What are you going to do about it?"

Dr. Lagon responded by stating that "all immigrants are God's children," but he did not clearly answer the question, nor did he openly commit the TIP office to doing anything about the issue...

Chuck Goolsby

LibertadLatina

Feb. 16, 17, 2009

See also:

Littlest Immigrants Left in Hands of Smugglers

[50,000 Children Cross the Mexico - U.S. Border Alone Annually]

Cincuenta mil menores cruzan solos la frontera

Ginger Thompson

New York Times

Nov. 03, 2003

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Added: July 21, 2009

Peru

Dr. Beatriz Merino, director of Peru's public ombuds-man's office

La trata de personas se incrementaria en nuestro país 

La representante de la defensoría del pueblo, doctora Mayda Ramos, señaló en horas de la mañana, que la trata de personas sigue siendo ignorada por muchas autoridades...

The Level of Human Trafficking May Increase In Our Nation

Dr. Mayda Ramos, the director of the Division for Children and Adolescents of the Office of the Defender of the People [the public ombudsman's office – a constitutionally mandated federal agency] of Peru has announced that human trafficking is continuing to be ignored by many government authorities.

Dr. Ramos: "It is important that complaints of human trafficking incidents be channeled to the appropriate agencies. Otherwise, we may see an increase in the size of this ‘evil industry’ in future years."

Currently there are no precise figures on the scope of human trafficking in Peru. Several agencies have conducted research studies, including the Public Ministry (the Attorney General), the National Police of Peru and the Ombudsman’s office. Each agency has its own sets of statistics. Therefore, the Ombudsman’s office has volunteered to conduct a new study [to establish an accurate baseline of the scope of the problem].

Dr. Ramos added that women between the ages of 16 and 25 years-of-age are the group who are the most vulnerable to human trafficking in Peru.

www.correoperu.com.pe

July 20, 2009

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Added: July 21, 2009

Mexico

Mexican Sex Traffickers Victimize 10,000 Women Every Year [in Central and Southern Mexico]

Monterrey, Mexico – Every year, rings engaging in human trafficking entrap or abduct 10,000 women in the southern and central states of Mexico for sexual exploitation in the northern part of the country, according to a study presented on Monday.

The investigation, the work of the state University of Nuevo Leon and funded by the National Science and Technology Council, focuses on the sexual exploitation and trafficking of women in northern Mexico, the study coordinator Arum Kumar told EFE.

The investigators found, for example, that in Monterrey, capital of Nuevo Leon [state] and a leading business hub, most sexually exploited women are brought by gangs from other regions under the false pretense of getting them jobs.

“We’re finding that those who entrap the women take photos to their villages showing that Monterrey is a first-world city, they show women pictures of the metropolitan municipality of San Pedro Garza and tell them that they can work there for a salary of between $50 and $100 a day,” Kumar said.

Once the women get to the city of their destination and find they are being duped into working in brothels, most of them decide to return home – at which time they are threatened and submitted to all kinds of physical, sexual and psychological violence to make them stay.

Monterrey, the biggest city in northern Mexico, is one of the most frequented destinations [for] sexual tourism thanks to its proximity to the United States, the study found.

“It is estimated that out of every 10 women trafficked from the states of Michoacan, Oaxaca, Guerrero, Veracruz and Chiapas, three are taken to the United States and seven are exploited within the country,” the expert said.

Most women forced to work as prostitutes in Monterrey come from the central states of Puebla, San Luis Potosi and Zacatecas.

Kumar cited recent investigations showing that close to 5,000 women are trafficked yearly [from Mexico] to the United States and Canada.

At present “Mexico is the leading destination for sexual tourism in all Latin America, and has become known as the Bangkok of Latin America,” he said.

Kumar added that trafficking in women represents a serious problem of violence against females that Mexican authorities and society in general have to face and fight...

[And yet the federal government of Mexico has done virtually nothing to recognize this crisis and stand up to fight the destruction of generations of women and girls, both Mexican and immigrant, who are targeted by criminal sex traffickers. - LL]

EFE

July 21, 2009

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Added: July 19, 2009

Mexico

Attorney General of the Republic, Eduardo Medina Mora (left) and the Interior Minister, Fernando Gomez Mont (right) participate in a ceremony to inaugurate the nation's federal human trafficking commission. Photo: EFE

México acogerá lanzamiento en América de campaña de ONU contra trata personas

México acogerá en 2010 el lanzamiento en América de la campaña 'Corazón Azul', promovida por la Oficina de las Naciones Unidas contra la Droga y el Delito (ONUDD), que pretende combatir la trata de personas, informaron hoy fuentes oficiales…

[President Felipe Calderón's Adminis-tration Finally Creates Mexico's Anti-Trafficking Commission]

Mexico will host the launch of the United Nations campaign against human trafficking in the Americas

In 2010 Mexico will host the launch in the Americas of the 'Blue Heart' campaign, promoted by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which aims to combat trafficking in persons, official sources reported today.

[The initiative] aims to raise awareness of public opinion about this phenomenon and its impact, to promote civil society's participation [in finding solutions] and to develop measures to contribute to its eradication," said Undersecretary of Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights, Juan Manuel Gomez Robledo.

[In related news...]

Mexico's new inter-agency commission to fight trafficking has been inaugurated in an event held at the Interior Ministry.

The Commission will begin its work by documenting accurate figures on human trafficking, an effort that will occur in the first trimester of 2010, Gomez-Robledo said.

Gomez-Robledo noted that Mexico has worked in recent years in the 'prevention, punishment and protection' of human trafficking, a task which 'favors international cooperation.'

[Many anti-trafficking advocates in Congress would disagree that Mexico's federal government has been actively combating trafficking at all. Indeed, there have been zero convictions in Mexico for trafficking related offenses to date. - LL]

The new commission, which will begin its work immediately, will be coordinated by the Special Prosecutor for Crimes of Violence Against Women and Human Trafficking, Guadalupe Morfin, who declared that human trafficking is the 'third-largest global crime,' after drug and weapons trafficking.

In Mexico "we work in a minefield of social tolerance and the complicity of state agents" Morfín regretted. She pledged to create public knowledge and awareness about the crime.

In particular Morfín said that [her office] has detected cases of duped farm laborers, underground sweatshops, forced prostitution and labor associated with child trafficking...

Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora stressed that Mexico already has a law against trafficking in persons, [passed by Congress on November 27, 2007], and also a Protocol of Care for Victims of Trafficking in Persons.

"This is the first time Mexico has had a tool like this, the result of interdisciplinary work that facilitates the development of institutional processes to address this very sensitive issue," he added.

It "puts the victim and the protection of their rights at the heart" of the Government's efforts to exchange information, deal with the victims and bringing to justice those responsible.

EFE

July 16, 2009

See also:

Vienna - Today at the Women's World Awards in Vienna, the Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Antonio Maria Costa, launched the Blue Heart Campaign against human trafficking.

UNODC

March 05, 2009

Added: July 19, 2009

LibertadLatina

Commentary

Finally creating an anti-trafficking program is a good first step, Mr. President, but now show us that you are really sincere about fighting human trafficking in Mexico

We at LibertadLatina applaud President Felipe Calderón of Mexico for finally creating the long-awaited national inter-agency commission to manage the National Program To Prevent and Punish Trafficking In Persons, as called for in the National Law To Prevent and Punish Trafficking In Persons, passed by congress in November of 2007. This significant action is one small step in the right direction. Many others must now be taken.

During the media event held by the Interior Department to announce the inauguration of the Commission, Undersecretary of Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights Juan Manuel Gomez Robledo, Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora and Mexico’s special prosecutor for Crimes of Violence Against Women and Trafficking in Persons (FEVIMTRA), Maria Guadalupe Morfín Otero, spoke profound and wonderful words about their dedication to ending human trafficking. We sincerely hope that they are speaking the truth.

What was not discussed at the press conference was the fact that concerned members of Congress from several political parties have had to agitate, and even send repeated, stern congressional warnings to President Calderón to push him and his federal agencies to finally take action to combat human trafficking in Mexico.

The July 16, 2009 creation of the national inter-agency commission came about only as the result of intensive pressure from anti-trafficking activists within Congress, within Mexican non-governmental organizations, and from the international community (including our own editorializing on the topic)...

As we have described through articles reprinted here, and in commentaries written on Libertad Latina in the recent past, the more conservative elements of the ruling National Action Party (PAN) have engaged in a wide range of actions that have had the cumulative result of reversing women's equal rights in Mexico. From our observations, we can see no enthusiasm on the part of the PAN for supporting a serious fight against human trafficking.

It has become obvious, since President Calderón intentionally delayed publishing the official federal regulations required to enable the new law for over a year, resulting in four formal warnings from Congress, that the Administration has not been interested in combating human trafficking. The poor quality of the official regulations published in February 2009, that omitted a role for the leading anti-trafficking prosecutor's office (FEVIMTRA) in enforcing the new law (a flaw now rectified), was further evidence of the disinterest on the part of the Calderón Administration in regard to anti-trafficking enforcement...

Anti-trafficking activists within Congress, in Mexican civil society and across the globe will have to maintain a constant vigilance, monitoring the actions and the progress of the Mexican government in regard to its willingness to combat trafficking and assist victims.

This one eloquent press conference, designed to quiet criticism of the Executive Branch's lack of action in regard to this emergency, is a good start, but we all want to see President Calderón back up those words, not with smoke and mirrors, but with an honest commitment, and aggressive action, finally, to end the barbaric 'mass gender atrocities' that today are tolerated in every corner of that great nation.

And by the way, President Calderón, we still want you to rescue and return the estimated 3,000 to 4,000 underage Mayan and other Mexican indigenous girls who have been sold from Mexico by the Yakuza to become enslaved geisha prostitutes in Japan!

We also want to see an end to the child rape 'mega-center' in the city of Tapachula, in Chiapas state, on Mexico's southern border, where over half of the 21,000 persons trafficked into prostitution are children and underage youth!

And we want you to shut down the ongoing 'rape mill' that also exists on the southern border of Mexico, where between 450 and 600 Central and South American migrant women and girls of all ages are kidnapped and raped with impunity each and every day with no law enforce-ment intervention whatsoever!

Many of those victims are later sold into sexual slavery.

To date, all of these gender atrocities have occurred with govern-ment complicity and/or tolerance.

You say that you are serious about combating trafficking President Calderón? Then let us see real action on these three issues, among the many other crises that exist. Then we will have faith in the words that your agency heads speak about their commitment to ending human trafficking.

Read the full text of this commentary

End impunity now!

Chuck Goolsby

LibertadLatina

July 19, 2009

See also:

Beltrones exige a gobierno combatir trata de personas

Senator Beltrones Demands That Government Combat Trafficking In Persons

...[Senator] Manlio Fabio Beltrones said that he feels that it is urgent that the federal government create the National Program To Prevent and Punish Trafficking In Persons, which action remains on hold, as El Universal reported yesterday.

Beltrones recalled that the Law to Prevent and Punish Trafficking in Persons was approved by Congress in 2007, as a priority for action within its legislative agenda support of the fight against organized crime.  The anti-trafficking law was passed on November 27 of that year.

However, more than a year passed before [President Calderón] published the [official federal] regulations rules. Those regulations were finally released in February of 2009. To date, the Interior Ministry has not created the National Program to Prevent and Punish Trafficking in Persons, as called for in Article 12 of the Act.

Senator Beltrones, who is a former governor of Sonora state, noted that the National Program has not been created by the Interior Ministry despite the fact that for the past four months (since the regulations were published in February, 2009), they have had all of the legal instruments necessary to do so.

Ricardo Gomez

El Universal

June 22, 2009

See also:

Mexico

Special prosecutor Maria Guadalupe Morfín Otero, during her January 2008 swearing in as Mexico special prosecutor for Crimes of Violence Against Women and Trafficking in Persons

Prioritario combatir y erradicar la trata de personas: PGR

Combating and Eradicating Trafficking In Persons is a Priority: Federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR)

Noticiero Enfoque

June 27, 2009

By Special Prosecutor Guadalupe Morfín Otero

Released by the Office of President Felipe Calderón

June 27, 2009

Lydia Cacho: three years of combating impunity

Her case is now before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights

Lourdes Godínez Leal

CIMAC Noticias

Dec. 18, 2008

See also:

LibertadLatina

Lydia Cacho

Journalist / Activist Lydia Cacho is Railroaded by the Legal Process for    Exposing Child Sex Trafficking Networks in Cancun, Mexico

LibertadLatina Note

As part of the socially conservative PAN administration of President Felipe Calderón, FEVIMTRA has not previously demonstrated that it can address serious violations of women's basic human rights with independence. Although Special prosecutor Maria Guadalupe Morfín Otero has received high marks for advocacy for women's human rights, in the past, FEVIMTRA has apparently been diminished in its effectiveness by the policies of the PAN.

We can see no indication that those dynamics have changed, or that the current creation of the anti-trafficking commission is anything other than a response to heavy international pressure on the Calderon Administra-tion to finally get some work done in regard to this ongoing crisis!  

Mexico

Mauricio Farah Gebara, 'Fifth Visitor General' (left), and ombudsman José Luis Soberanes, both of the National Human Rights Commission of Mexico, seen in this photograph from June 16, 2009 announcing their study showing that 9,758 undocumented immigrants in Mexico had been kidnapped during a recent six month period. In Spanish   Related Story in English Photo: María Luisa Severiano - La Jornada

It is obvious to everyone that the majority of victims of sexual harassment and sexual assault are female, and that the majority of perpetrators are male. However, men can certainly be victims of actions by women perpetrators.

During my years of work in independent victim advocacy, I have seen several such cases.

In one instance, a Nicaraguan woman who supervised a cleaning company (that was owned by a local police officer) demanded, according to her sister's account, sex from her male employees. Any man who refused, or who did not perform well, was summarily fired (this is a dynamic of impunity that is common in many Latino immigrant run workplaces, but these abuses usually affect female workers).

In the second case, a male co-worker and friend from South America complained to me that his manager, a woman from Mexico, routinely demanded sex from him. When he refused, his manager downgraded his periodic performance reports. He told me that he felt bad about doing this. He had a wife and children. This occurred at a party-affiliated computer services bureau supporting one of the two major U.S. political parties.

A white female medical doctor once subjected me to a medical exam than I can only define as a sexual assault. As in the case of Raymond Smith described in the above story, it is a reasonable assumption that any man reporting such an incident of impunity perpetrated by a woman would only bring laughter from the investigating  authorities. That was my thinking at the time. Therefore I did not report it. Yet if a male doctor had done the same thing to a woman patient, he would have gone to jail.

Men also subject other men to exploitation in the workplace. A friend from Guatemala who is an air conditioning mechanic applied for a job in his profession at a major hotel in Los Angeles, California. A long line of applicants waited patiently for their turn to interview with the hiring manager.

My friend told me that after a while, the manager, a Latino man, came out of his office, went down the line, and told five men to line up for the interview at his office (totally disrespecting the line, a common practice in Latin American cultures). My friend was one of the five men selected.

The hiring manager told my friend during his interview for the job that, "I have a job for you, but you have to agree to have sex with me" (on a regular basis). My friend refused to 'participate.'

'Of course' these types of experiences are faced by women and girls across the board. It is important to acknowledge, though, that men and boys can experience these types of abuses also.

Chuck Goolsby

LibertadLatina

July 17, 2009

Honduras

Xiomara Castro -First Lady of Honduras

Honduras' first lady leads fight for Zelaya return

Tegucigalpa - Honduras' first lady has emerged as the public face of the movement to restore President Manuel Zelaya to power, a role she took against her husband's wishes and despite her continuing fears for her safety.

Xiomara Castro told The Associated Press on Wednesday that she was so afraid the Honduran military would shoot her on sight after soldiers whisked Zelaya out of the country in his pajamas, she fled to the U.S. Embassy.

Though she still sleeps in hiding, she vowed to take to the streets daily in protest of the June 28 coup that ousted her husband. The family of a pro-Zelaya demonstrator slain by soldiers on Sunday urged her to get involved — over Zelaya's objections.

"He told me that my presence could cause more problems, more persecution on the family. But I insisted," Castro said, while trudging up a steep road with 3,000 Zelaya supporters, who blocked traffic on a route connecting the capital of Tegucigalpa with a highway to Nicaragua. "I consider our presence here as like having the president himself here, like feeling that the president is standing firm." ...

The morning of the coup, Castro said she and her teenage son Hector sneaked to the U.S. embassy, then stayed there until the attorney general's office said no charges would be filed against Zelaya family members...

Castro remained out of sight for nine days after the coup. But she came out of hiding at the request of the family of Isis Obed Murillo Mencia, 19, a protester from Zelaya's home state of Olancho who was shot by soldiers at the airport Sunday during Zelaya's unsuccessful attempt to return...

"Today we are a fractured family because (Zelaya is) in one place and my kids are in another and I'm in another," ... "But all of this has strengthened us."

Will Weissert

The Associated Press

July 8, 2009

Honduras

Judge says defendant denied speedy trial; issue likely to go to Kansas Supreme Court

Newton - The case against a man charged with the rape of a girl who was younger than 10 was dismissed Monday in Harvey County District Court because of an appellate court ruling regarding speedy trials.

Margarito Cervantes-Aguilar, of Wichita and allegedly a citizen of Mexico and in the United States illegally, was charged with two counts of rape and three counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child...

Until recently, courts and prosecutors assumed an immigration hold constituted a second reason for the defendant to be held. This would extend the deadline required by law for a speedy trial from 90 days to 180 days, Harvey County Attorney David Yoder said.

However, a recent ruling by an appeals court in a Lyons County case Kansas v. Montes-Mata said an immigration hold could not be considered a second charge against the defendant, which extends the speedy trial time...

Judge Richard Walker said in his decision the court was in new waters as the Montes-Mata, which was being appealed to the Kansas Supreme Court, and a similar case in Ohio, Ohio v. Sanchez, were the only cases that addressed the issue of immigration holds and speedy trials...

Although the case against Cervantes-Aguilar was dismissed, he still faces charges and possible deportation because of his immigration status.

James Gutierrez, an immigration agent who testified at the hearing, said his investigation indicated Cervantes-Aguilar already had been deported twice from the United States and served probation for illegal re-entry to the United States...

If convicted of illegal re-entry into the United States, Cervantes-Aguilar could face five to 10 years in a federal prison.

Yoder also expressed his desire to appeal Walker’s decision pending the decision of the Kansas Supreme Court on the Montes-Mata case.

“This is very new, very unsettled law,” Yoder said. “I will pursue an appeal. I will not let this case go. I will not let this case go until they make me.”

Cristina Janney

Newton Kansan

July 14, 2009

See also:

Arrestan a Violador

...Agentes de la Patrulla Fronteriza de la estación oeste de Laredo, arrestaron a un hombre que estaba pendiente con dos cargos de violación sexual y de indecencias contra una menor de edad.

Se trata de Margarito Cervantes Aguilar, un indocumentado originario de México, quien estaba siendo requerido por las autoridades judiciales del estado de Kansas, por lo que ahora se encuentra recluido en la cárcel del Condado de Webb, en espera de ser extraditado hacia aquella entidad norteamericana.

Rapist is Arrested

U.S. Border Patrol agents at the Laredo, Texas border station have arrested a man who had outstanding warrants on charges of rape and taking indecent liberties with a child,

The case involves Margarito Cervantes Aguilar, an undocumented immigrant originally from Mexico, who was being sought by authorities in Kansas. He awaiting extradition to Kansas in the Webb County jail.

El Mañana

Dec. 17, 2008

Louisiana, USA

Sex Crime Lands Man in Custody

Marco Guerrero, 33, ...was booked into Ouachita Correctional Center on charges of indecent behavior with a juvenile, two counts of simple battery and theft.

According to an arrest affidavit, deputies were called to Shoney's Inn on Thomas Road in West Monroe early Tuesday about an attempted rape call.

[The 15-year-old]... minor told police while she was taking a shower, the suspect got into the shower with her, telling her he wanted sex. She told him, "No, " and to get out. She also told them he did not force or attempt to force himself upon her.

The suspect told police [that]... he was an undocumented immigrant...

The News Star

July 15, 2009

Peru

Schoolgirls in an Amazon community Photo: Milagros Salazar / IPS

Going to School Still a Feat for Rural Girls

Wawas, Peru - María Belén Sabio, a 30-year-old Awajun woman from Peru’s northeastern Amazonia province, was able to complete a teacher training programme despite having five children to raise. "Life here in the countryside is not easy, and I’ve had a hard time getting ahead," she told IPS.

But not all indigenous women can beat the odds stacked against them. Most only make it as far as primary school, the statistics show...

A brutal crackdown on indigenous protests in Bagua in early June drew attention to the marginalization and exclusion faced by native peoples in Peru's Amazon jungle region.

According to the 1993 census, indigenous people made up one-third of the Peruvian population. But more recent estimates put the proportion at 45 percent, with most of the rest of the population of 28.7 million being of mixed-race (mestizo) heritage, around 15 percent of European descent, and a small minority of African descent...

"As girls grow older their mothers choose not to send them to school because they need them at home to help care for their younger siblings or with household chores," Fidel Datsa, a teacher at a school in Wawas, told IPS...

Most communities have primary schools, but in order to attend secondary school girls usually have to travel long distances, which is a source of worry for parents.

...Many fear that if they send their daughters far from their villages, they might get lost or be attacked by strangers, and that they’d be putting them in harm’s way...

"We want our girls to study. As mothers, we do everything we can to help them be better than us. But that doesn’t always happen with women who live in the most remote communities, where men have greater control," said Julia Esamat, a 53-year-old woman from the village of Nazareth, a three-hour drive from the town of Bagua...

"Here, all the women work, and little by little we’ve learned to make a place for ourselves," Esamat told IPS. "Things are changing, even if we still have to beat 'machista' (sexist) attitudes." ...

According to Karem Escudero, an expert on indigenous issues, access to schools and quality education in rural areas will directly affect the possibility of women gaining a leadership role in the indigenous movement.

"Women who know how to read and write and are articulate are seen as potential leaders. Being a leader entails having certain social skills and abilities that are developed through both formal and informal education," she told IPS.

Being able to enjoy a basic right like the right to education will allow indigenous women to be active citizens and defend other rights more effectively, to the benefit of their family and their community, the expert concluded.

Milagros Salazar

Inter Press Service (IPS)

Jul 15, 2009

Mexico

WOLA and Others Urge Protection of Mexican Human Rights Defenders:
Denounce Attempted Murder of Margarita Martín de las Nieves

Today the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), the Due Process of Law Foundation (DPLF), Human Rights Watch (HRW), and the Latin America Working Group (LAWG) sent a letter to Ambassador Juan Manuel Gomez Robledo, the Mexican Assistant Secretary for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights, expressing concern for the attempted assassination of Margarita Martín de las Nieves, the widow of Manuel Ponce Rosas, and indigenous human rights defender who was kidnapped and executed in the state of Guerrero last February along with another defender, Raul Lucas Lucia. WOLA, LAWG, DPLF, and HRW issued a letter to the Attorney General of Guerrero following the murder of Manuel Ponce Rosas and Raul Lucas Lucia and we are deeply troubled by the recent attempts against Ponce Rosas' widow. In our current letter, we urge Assistant Secretary Gomez to ensure the implementation of protective measures awarded to 107 human rights defenders in Guerrero by the Inter-American Court on Human Rights. To date, Margarita Martín de las Nieves remains vulnerable, as the State has yet to provide her increased protections. We also request that the authorities investigate the attempt on Margarita's life and ensure that the perpetrators are brought to justice.

Human rights defenders face increasing levels of persecution in Guerrero, and WOLA has worked with counterparts in the state to oppose militarization and the criminalization of social protest. We are deeply concerned that human rights defenders in Guerrero work in a system of impunity, where abusers are unpunished and crimes are rarely investigated.

Washington Office On Latin America

Washington, DC

July 1, 2009

Florida, USA

Pop star Ricky Martin poses with CAHT director Anna Rodriguez Photo: News-Press.com

Anti-Slavery Group Losing Allies Amid Tax Allegations

The high-profile Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking (CAHT), which has received nearly $2 million in government grants and private donations the last three years, hasn't filed returns with the Internal Revenue Service to show how that money is being used.

There are other signs things are beginning to sour for the group as well.

Last year, the group lost its contract to provide services to trafficking victims in Lee County.

World Relief, a Baltimore charity that distributes grants from the Department of Justice, didn't renew the group's $200,000 grant.

And the group's director Anna Rodriguez no longer attends meetings of the Lee County Human Trafficking Task force, the key coordinating body for anti-trafficking efforts in Lee County.

In fact, many of Rodriguez's colleagues have distanced themselves from her and are loath to speak about her on the record…

Julie Rocco resigned last fall after 18 months as associate director of the Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking. She's one of many former employees who worried about the way Rodriguez did business.

Rocco knew the group hadn't filed with the IRS and said she tried to convince Rodriguez to do so, with no success.

"Passion does not equate to knowledge of how to run a nonprofit," Rocco said. "Victims should not be secondary to dollars."

Meanwhile, the group celebrated its fifth anniversary with a gala last month.

In addition to the Bonita Springs headquarters, it now has offices in five other Florida cities: Tampa, Miami, Orlando, Shalimar and Melbourne.

Amy Bennett Williams

News-Press.com

June 28, 2009

Mexico

Cárcel a mujer por impedir que ex esposo vea a su hijo de quien abusó

Chihuahua, Chih., 8 julio 09 (CIMAC).- Con tal de que no conviviera con su hijo de seis años, su exmarido Miguel Ángel Barrera Balderrama, y convencida de que el señor abusa sexualmente del niño, la señora Guadalupe Galindo Rodríguez prefirió cumplir las 36 horas de arresto que le ordenó el Juzgado Segundo de lo Familiar...

Chihuahua city in Chihuahua state - Guadalupe Rodriguez Galindo has chosen the option provided by the Second Family Court here, of  going to jail for 36 hours rather than allow her ex-husband, Miguel Angel Barrera Balderrama visitation with their six-year-old son. Rodriguez Galindo believes that her ex-husband sexually abused the child.

Accompanied by Jasmine Solis, an attorney with the Center for Human Rights of Women, Guadeloupe presented herself last Friday evening at 6pm at the Northern Command of the Municipal Public Security Bureau, where she remained under arrest until six o'clock on Sunday...

In August 2006 Guadeloupe filed a criminal complaint against her Miguel Angel for child sexual abuse. Sex crimes investigators took testimony from the child, who stated: "... I visit my dad and sometimes I go with him, sometimes I like to go with him and sometimes I don’t, because my dad played my rear and my penis." ...

When the Seventh Penal Court acquitted Miguel Angel, the Second Court ruled that he should be allowed to take the child every few days, as the divorce settlement requires.

Guadeloupe strongly objected, explaining that Miguel Angel sexually abused their son. "As much as I explained to the judge the risk to my son, she did not care. She demanded that my son be given to Miguel Angel, which I will not do even if they kill me. I prefer to be in prison before seeing my son abused."

The judge fined Guadalupe because she refused Miguel Angel’s visitations. She paid the fine.

Guadalupe was not opposed to visitations by Miguel Angel, but she demanded that her ex-husband visit their son in her presence. Miguel Angel would not accept these conditions.

Under pressure from Miguel Angel, the judge has taken steps against Guadalupe that are increasingly stringent. The latest was her arrest and incarceration for 36 hours. Guadalupe remains willing to go to jail before allowing Miguel Angel to visit their son alone.

Full English Translation

Dora Villalobos Mendoza

CIMAC Noticias

News for Women

Mexico City

July 8, 2009

México

"Rape Carried Out by Soldiers" - See CIMAC Noticias' extensive collection of over 300 articles written since 2006, covering the factual history of the perpetration of rape with impunity by Mexico's military. This 'weapon of war' especially targets rural indigenous women and girls. (In Spanish) Graphic: CIMAC Noticias

EE.UU. debe retener ayuda militar

La Iniciativa Mérida brinda al Gobierno de Obama una importante oportunidad para fortalecer la cooperación estadounidense-mexicana en la lucha contra las drogas y en la defensa de los derechos humanos. Sin embargo, para aprovechar esta oportunidad, el Gobierno de Obama debe exigir enérgicamente que se cumpla con los requisitos de derechos humanos incluidos en el paquete.

Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch (Washington, DC) - The US State Department should not certify Mexico's compliance with the Merida Initiative's human rights requirements so long as Mexican army abuses continue to be tried in military rather than civilian courts, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released today.

The US Congress mandated that 15 percent of funds to be provided to Mexico under the Merida Initiative, a multi-year regional aid package to help address the increasing violence and corruption of heavily armed drug cartels, should be withheld until the secretary of state reports to Congress that the Mexican government has met four human rights conditions. They include the requirement that military abuses be investigated and prosecuted by civilian rather than military authorities...

The letter expresses concern over the rapidly growing number of serious abuses committed by the Mexican military during counter-narcotics and public security operations, including rapes, killings, torture, and arbitrary detentions, and the failure to bring those responsible to justice.

México

CIDH Presenta Demandas Ante La Corte Interamericana

Washington, DC -

...El 7 de mayo de 2009 la CIDH presentó una demanda en el Caso No. 12.580, Inés Fernández Ortega, México. El caso se relaciona con la violación y tortura de la mujer indígena Me’phaa Inés Fernández Ortega, por parte de agentes del Ejercito mexicano, el 22 de marzo de 2002 en la Comunidad Barranca Tecuani, Municipio de Ayutla de Los Libres, Estado de Guerrero; con la utilización del fuero militar para la investigación y juzgamiento de violaciones a los derechos humanos; con la falta de debida diligencia en la investigación y la falta de sanción a los responsables de los hechos; con la falta de reparación a la víctima y sus familiares; y con las dificultades que enfrentan los miembros de los pueblos indígenas, en particular las mujeres, para acceder a la justicia...

Ixil Mayan Women Seek Solidarity, Support And Accompaniment In Obtaining Justice

Marielos Carranza

June 23, 2009

[Six men were rescued. Some 19 people, include all women hostages, remain missing.]

Patrick George

July 10, 2009

Noelle Newton

July 10, 2009

Citizen's Voice

July 5, 2009

The rampant sexual exploitation with impunity of women and girls in Latin America, especially when they belong to 'minority' groups such as indigenous and African descendent populations who are not defended at all in their societies, is a fact that cannot be denied. The mass-migration from Latin America has brought these problems to the United States, making them the responsibility of the general public, politicians, law enforcement and the judicial system to monitor and resolve.

To openly discuss these facts is not to engage in an act of prejudice against the Latin American immigrant population. It is in fact an action taken in defense of immigrant women and girls who routinely experience severe sexual harassment, rape and sexual slavery in every corner of the U.S. at the hands of immigrant men from Latin America and throughout the world. The perpetrators are men who grew up in cultures where raping 10-year-old girls is literally considered to be a normal part of adult male behavior.

Such acts do not represent the actions of the majority of migrant men, but they do accurately reflect the beliefs of a majority of men who come from Latin America to live in the United States.

A 2006 survey across Latin America by the International Labor Organization found that 65% of respondents found nothing wrong with, and stated that they would feel no fear or remorse in regard to having sex with children. Millions of underage girls are sexually exploited across Latin America.

Indeed very large numbers of men engage in exploiting the 40 million street children in Latin America (almost all of whom survive through 'survival sex' and prostitution). They also exploit the many tens of thousands of children who engage the virtually legal street and brothel based prostitution that exists and is today expanding in every Latin American nation.

What has been the most surprising for me during my decades of gender advocacy work in the Washington, DC region's Latin community has been to see the intense and misplaced sense of defiance and entitlement that such men, who grew up under the feudal-era code of machismo, display when engaging in sexual harassment and attempted criminal conduct targeting immigrant women and girls. Men who believe this way feel incensed and outraged whenever any person interferes with their actions, which constitute behaviors that they believe are ordained by the 'cult' of machismo.

For example, I know of men in their 20s and 30s who have approached Latina migrant mothers to ask them directly if they can (and if the answer is no, to tell them that they will) date their underage Latina daughters, whether they are 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 or 17. Such a request, and the act of forcing the issue, is indeed 'traditional' and legal across Mexico, Central America and much of the rest of Latin America. These mothers are hard-pressed to defend their daughters when they must work two and three jobs to support their families.

The fact that the largely undocumented Latin immigrant migrant community lives virtually 'underground' means that the social rules and abuses that exist in Latin America (corruption, impunity, retaliation, and sexist and racist machismo) are being applied by predatory immigrant men in the U.S. and other Latin American Diaspora cultures, with little fear of any real law enforcement response to those crimes. Youth gangs further codify this thinking into a formal set of rituals that include the gang rape of underage girls as an act of group initiation.

These men, and also U.S. born sexual predators of all races who collaborate in this impunity, know that 'little Miss Latina' lives in an underground world where an ancient, sexist, Mediterranean derived 'code of silence' is enforced, and where her access to police assistance, as a person at risk for - or as an actual victim of sexual violence, is limited by the language barrier, fear of deportation and, at times, by police apathy, indifference, red tape and hostility.

Although leaders in the immigrant community would like to limit talk of these types of uncomfortable issues during the current push for comprehensive immigration reform, the topic of sexual violence and impunity in immigrant communities must take a center-stage position during such discussions.

Everyone in the U.S. has a right to know about this criminal behavior and to participate in decision making in regard to it.

In addition, those at-risk, as well as those in the victim community would like to see an end to this self serving code of silence once and for all.

The U.S. public, and law enforcement officers as well, have already seen the reality of these dynamics of sexual exploitation over time, in community life and in news article about local arrests, as the article by Dave Gibson of the Norfolk Crime Examiner shows. The same arrogant impunity that many sexist immigrant men use to subject women and girls to very brutal forms of criminal sexual exploitation must not be tolerated in the form of aggressive efforts to silence any open discussion of these issues as part of the larger immigration debate.

The sexist attitudes involved in this crisis can be seen almost daily on TV shows such as the Spanish language NBC Telemundo network's very popular court show, Caso Cerado (Case Closed), presented by Judge Ana Maria Polo.

Numerous arbitration cases presented on Dr. Polo's program involve addressing the actions of men who openly declare on international television that they have a right to 'take' sex from adult and underage women in a variety of settings, including in cases that involve sex trafficking, kidnapping, rape and child sexual abuse.

The accused, who starts out on the show as a party to voluntary arbitration of what is usually a civil dispute, is often surprised when a sworn officer appears and handcuffs him, as Judge Polo reacts to the man's confession of criminal sexual conduct against a woman or child, which conduct he often expects the judge to ratify as his birthright (as a judge would often do in Latin America).

Any solution to the immigration issue in the U.S. must include a clear and open recognition of these forms of impunity, and clear, enforceable measures for bringing this constantly expanding crisis of sexual exploitation under control.

At the same time, the U.S. must use its influence to demand that social and legal tolerance for the 'gender hostile living environment' that exists across Latin America be rolled-back, and then eliminated all together. That will be a tall order, but an urgently need one!

LibertadLatina

July 12/13, 2009

...As Alamance county's demographic landscape changed, and with the increase of Latinos in all facets of community, tensions arose. In an interview with the Raleigh News & Observer, Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson complained that more Latino criminals were arriving to the area. In an example where a local official implementing federal law reveals ignorance and hostility, Johnson made brazenly racist claims about Mexicans, stating,

"[t]heir values are a lot different - their morals - than what we have here," Johnson said. "In Mexico, there's nothing wrong with having sex with a 12-, 13-year-old girl..." He linked the Latino presence with growing crime rates...

The fact that Sheriff Terry Johnson of Alamance County, North Carolina made the observation that he is seeing, through his department's law enforcement work, cases of adult men from Mexico having sexual relationships with 12 and 13-year old girls makes his observations neither racist, nor ignorant, nor hostile to the Latino immigrant community. What about the well being of the underage girl victims of these abuses? Knowing what we know today about the crisis of sexual exploitation facing many tens of thousands of girls in this age group in Mexico, Sheriff Johnson's comments are consistent with the observations of women and children's rights advocates all over that nation.

See also:

Mary Jordan

The Washington Post

June 30, 2002

A Washington, DC- Latina Social Worker and Community Center Director's Letter - 1999

...Over the past two years, I have been observing a systemic pattern of violence committed against girls and young women in our community. This violence involves the sexual abuse/assault against girls as young as 10 years old...  

...There have been incidents of date rape, gang rape, abductions, drugging, threats with firearms, etc.  The incidents are just as you described in your [Mr. Goolsby's below NCMEC] letter and have been met with the same level of indifference and dismissal of legal (never mind moral) responsibility on the part of civil institutions -- the police department, public schools, etc." 

...While some do say this is culturally accepted behavior, the reality is that many families -- mothers and fathers alike -- are enraged and wanting to pursue prosecution of the perpetrators, but they find themselves without recourse when the police won't respond to them, when they fear risking their personal safety, and/or when their legal status (undocumented) prevents them from believing they have rights or legal protection in this country. Many girls and young women's families are threatened and harassed by the perpetrators when it becomes apparent that the family is willing to press charges for statutory rape/child sexual abuse. 

...The use of intimidation and violence to control girls and their families results in the following: 1) parents/guardians back off from pressing charges, 2) relatives do not inform the police or others of sightings of girls and young women who have been officially reported as "missing juveniles," and 3) the victims of sexual violence refuse to participate as "willing witnesses" in the prosecution/trial process...

My question is how and where do we create the public environment that allows us to voice our disapproval and to hold the implicated adults accountable for their negligent care of our children? ...

- From a letter by a Latina Social Worker and girl's community center director working with young Latina girls in Washington, DC's largest Latino neighborhood.

Dec., 1999

(The above social worker's letter responds to this letter).

...In 1997 I reported the ongoing, daily sexual harassment of an 11 year old Latin immigrant girl from El Salvador by an adult man, to the Gaithersburg City Police Department. The first visits by a patrol officers on two occasions involved (first visit) a [Gaithersburg City Police] officer who didn't care at all and took no action; and (second visit) [by one Gaithersburg, and one Montgomery County officer] a lack of willingness to follow up on the case when the harasser was found not to be home (I served as translator for these two officers)... These two officers told me in a matter of fact way that they could not respond to what the county Police Academy had taught them (in cultural sensitivity classes there) was just a part of Latino culture.

The next year, 1998, I again approached the Gaithersburg City Police Force to report that the same adult man was now sexually involved with this now 12 year old girl. The officer whom I spoke with at the city's police station stated to me that "We can't just pick him up, he might sue the city." ...