Febrero / February 2010

 

 

 

    Home

Creating a Bright Future Today for

Children, Women, Men & Families

   

 

 

    

 

 

/ Welcome


Dedicated to Ending the Sexual Oppression of

Latina, Indigenous & African Women & Children in the

Americas 

Since March, 2001


Remember Them!


About the leading edge human rights work of Dr. Laura Bozzo


Search

Site Map


OUR REPORTS

All of our reports and commentaries: 1994 to present

About Us

2006 - Migration, Social Reform and Women's Right to Survive

2005 - Defending 'Maria' from Impunity

2003 Slavery Report


ISSUES INDEX

Our Site Map


The Crisis Facing Indigenous Women and Children

A young Indigenous girl child from Paraguay, South America, freed from sexual slavery by police in Argentina.

Native Latin America

Native Bolivia

Native Brazil

Native Colombia

Native El Salvador

Native Guatemala -

   Femicide & Genocide

Native Mexico

   Acteal Massacre

Native Peru

United States

Native Canada

African Diaspora

Haitian children are routinely enslaved in the Dominican Republic

Afro Latin America and the Caribbean

The Crisis Facing Latin American Women and Children

Introduction

Key Facts

HIV-AIDS Issues

About Machismo

Concept of Impunity

More Information

Central America / Mexico Region

Central America

El Salvador

Honduras

México

   Juarez Femicide

Nicaragua

Panama

Caribbean Region

Spanish Speaking

Cuba

Dominican Republic

Puerto Rico

French Speaking

Haiti / Dominica

English Speaking

Jamaica

Trinidad and Tobago

South American Region

Argentina

Brazil 

Columbia

Ecuador

Guyana

Paraguay

Venezuela

Crisis - U.S. Latinas

Crisis: U.S. Latinas

Washington, DC

Workplace Rape

U.S. Rape Cases

Sexual Slavery

Trafficking Overview

The Global Crisis

Latin American

   Sexual Slavery

U.S. Latina Slavery

Latina Child Sex

   Slavery in San Diego

Worst Cases

Urgent Human Rights Issues in Mexico

Oaxaca

Striking Mexican

   Women Teachers

   are Violently

   Attacked by Police

   in Oaxaca

Antenco

Foto: Belinda Hernández

Mexican Police

   Rape and Assault

   47 Women at

   Street Protest

Lydia Cacho

Journalist / Activist

   Lydia Cacho is

   Railroaded by the

   Legal Process for

   Exposing Child Sex

   Networks In Mexico

Other Issues

School Exploitation

Forced Sterilization

The Jutiapa, Guate-

   mala Child Porn

   Scandal

The Elio Carrion

   Shooting Case

President Bush's

  Immigration

  Proposal

Other Disasters

The Darfur Genocide

Impact of Hurricanes

  Stan and Wilma

Hurricane Katrina

Other Regions

Africa

Asia / Pacific

Middle East

Europe

Reference

Who's Who

Organizations

Books

Media Articles

 

Indigenous & Latina Women & Children's Human Rights News from the Americas 


 

 
Jan.  Feb.  Mar.  Apr.  May June  July  Aug.  Sep.  Oct.  Nov.  Dec.

2006 News and Events - English
Other Available News Archives: 2001 - 2002 - 2003 - 2004 - 2005

November 2006 News


All November News


Added Nov. 26, 2006

Oregon, USA

Juan Manuel Rosa De La Rosa was arrested by Silverton Police on suspicion of third-degree rape, incest, third-degree sex abuse, sexual misconduct and contributing to the sexual delinquency of a minor in the alleged rape of a 15 year old girl.

- Statesman Journal

Salem Oregon
Nov. 22 2006


Added Nov. 26, 2006

Tennessee, USA

Hamilton County -Marino Lopez, facing attempted child rape charges, waived his right to a preliminary hearing and headed back to jail.

Lopez faces three counts of attempted rape and three counts of sexual battery involving a 13 year old girl. 

- WTVC News

Chattanooga, TN

Nov. 22 2006


Added Nov. 25, 2006

Tennessee, USA

Raid ends girl's captivity as a sex slave

Feds say couple lured her from Mexico at age 13

She is known in federal court documents only as "S.M.C."

At the age of 13, they say, she was smuggled into the U.S. from Oaxaca, Mexico, the first leg of a horrific journey that led her to a Harding Place area apartment. There she was beaten, raped and forced into a life of prostitution — an ordeal requiring her to have sex with as many as 40 men a day.

- Sheila Burke
The Tennessean
Nov. 11, 2006

See also:

Five people were indicted today on sex trafficking charges for forcing a now 15-year-old girl to work as a sex slave in a Nashville apartment complex, U.S. Department of Justice officials said.

The Tennessean
Nov. 16, 2006

Video TV news report: "Teenaged Girl Forced Into Prostitution."

- WKRN

Nashville, Tennessee
Nov. 13, 2006


Added Nov. 25, 2006

Latin America

Mexico City - Half of all children in Latin America live below the poverty line, the vice chairman of the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, Argentine pediatrician Norberto Liwski, told EFE here on Tuesday.

[For example…] The number of working children in Argentina rose from 210,000 in 2001 to 1.2 million in 2003 because of the hard times during the four-year slump that saw the country's economy shrink by 20 percent.

…He said that the economic crises in the region have also facilitated an increase in sexual tourism controlled by organized crime.

…Despite the fact that many countries of the region have approved the non-compulsory protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and pornography, a "significant number" of nations have yet to incorporate into their penal codes specific laws governing those areas.

On Monday, Liwski presented to Mexican diplomats the recommend-ations of UNICEF regarding children and suggested raising the legal age for marriage…

- Agencia EFE

Nov. 15, 2006


Added Nov. 25, 2006

United States

Runaway illegitimacy is creating a new U.S. underclass.

['Family values' in the Context of Latin American Immigrant Communities']

Unless the life chances of children raised by single mothers suddenly improve, the explosive growth of the U.S. Hispanic population over the next couple of decades does not bode well for American social stability.

...Hispanic women have the highest unmarried birthrate in the country—over three times that of whites and Asians, and nearly one and a half times that of black women, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

...Social workers report that the impregnators of younger Hispanic women are with some regularity their uncles, not neces-sarily seen as a bad thing by the mother’s family. Alternatively, the father may be the boyfriend of the girl’s mother, who then continues to stay with the grandmother.

...Irene’s round, full face makes her look younger than her 14 years, certainly too young to be a mother. But her own mother’s boyfriend repeatedly forced sex on her, with the mother’s acquiescence.

- Heather Mac Donald, in

Juan Guillermo Tornoe's Hispanic Trending

Autumn, 2006 Edition

See also:

In Peru it is not uncommon for... the mother’s latest companion to rape the eldest daughters, often resulting in pregnancy. One expects a reaction from the mother, but not the sort of reaction that is so evident here in Peru.

- Chuka Chuka

Center for abandoned teen mothers, Lima Peru


Added Nov. 25, 2006

Arizona, USA

A 14-year-old girl who was believed to be abducted from her home Sunday has been found in Mexico, the Arizona Department of Public Safety said.
Police spoke with Jesus "Lilliana" Vega by phone, and she told them that she was... with her boyfriend, Jose Garcia.

Vega told a detective that she went of her own free will...  The girl's parents reportedly do not have a problem with Vega being taken across the border by her boyfriend — who is 19 or 20 years old — and the Amber Alert that was issued for the Vega was canceled.

The alert was issued after Eloy police received a report that the girl was taken from her house... while her mother was at work.

...Vega's 13-year-old brother [had] heard two male voices followed by a scream.

- Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona

Nov. 23, 2006

See also:

Police have identified one suspect - a neighbor who had previously threatened to kidnap Vega. His name is Jose Garcia or Jesus Ramirez, and he is 19 or 20 years old.

- Djamila Grossman
Arizona Daily Star
Nov. 20, 2006

Lilliana Vega's case on America's Most Wanted.

- America's Most Wanted

November 26, 2006

LibertadLatina's  1999 letter to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) about child abuse and exploitation in Gaithersburg, Maryland explains how adult men frequently attempt to kidnap young teen girls with impunity in U.S. immigrant communities.

Many of these men head to Mexico.

LibertadLatina commentary:

Is this a truly voluntary decision by the child???

Should the Amber Alert actually be cancelled because the girl's parents agree with their 14 year old daughter's common law relationship with an adult man?

U.S. society as a whole has a right to debate, and to decide what is acceptable and what is not, in terms of these types of behaviors.  These actions would land any non-Latino man in jail for a long time anywhere in the U.S.  Our immigrant community cannot claim that such issues are internal, private matters that are not the business of the larger society.

In my 1999 letter to the NCMEC (see link above), I explain how policemen refused to intervene in the severe sexual harassment of a 12 year old Latina girl in the U.S. because the officer's police academy had taught them that "it is just a Latino cultural trait."  Really?  The mothers of these girl victims typically do not agree with that apathy and denial of equal rights under the law.

Make such behavior either illegal for all adult men to engage in, or not, but don't just decide that one group has a free pass on a criminal violation of the laws that protect children.

- Chuck Goolsby

LibertadLatina

Nov. 26, 2006


Added Nov. 24, 2006

The World

Geneva,  – UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres on Friday said there was a "massive" culture of neglect and denial about violence against women.

"That culture of neglect and denial exists everywhere," Guterres told staff of the refugee agency during a ceremony to launch the annual 16 Days of Activism to Eliminate Violence Against Women.

- United Nations Human Rights Commission  (UNHCR)

November 24, 2006


Added Nov. 24, 2006

Mexico

Más de 6 mil niñas y mujeres asesi-nadas en los últimos seis meses en el país.

More than 6,000 women and girls have been murdered during the last six months in Mexico.

- CIMAC Noticias

News for Women

Mexico City, Mexico

Nov. 24, 2006

LibertadLatina Note: Sixty percent of all non-natural deaths of females in Mexico occur in the age group of 13 and younger.


Added Nov. 24, 2006

Mexico

- Alberto Rojas - Zócalo

Coahuila - En llanto estallaron ayer en el Juzgado Penal dos sexo-servidoras que fueran ultrajadas, al confrontarse contra el líder de los militares violadores, Juan José Gaytán Santiago, a quien señalaron con el dedo índice como uno de quienes las ultrajaron el pasado 11 de julio.

Coahuila state - Two prostitutes who testified at a hearing against the leader of a group of Mexican Army personnel [accused of the mass rape of 13 women on July 11, 2006]... cried upon seeing Juan José Gaytán Santiago, whom they pointed to as having been the leader of the sexual assault.

The victims have received threats from the families of the accused soldiers.

- Zócalo

Mexico City, Mexico

Nov. 24, 2006


Added Nov. 24, 2006

Mexico

Governor Mario Marín may have violated Activist Lydia  Cacho´s rights

A Supreme Court justice has reached the conclusion that "preliminary evidence" points to interference in the judicial process by Puebla Gov. Mario Marín in the state´s case against crusading journalist Lydia Cacho, according to information obtained by El Universal.

- El Universal
Nov. 24, 2006


Added Nov. 24, 2006

Panamá

En Panamá están registradas unas ocho mil personas con el Síndrome de Inmunodeficiencia Adquirida (SIDA), aunque la cifra real podría ascender hasta 20 mil, revelaron hoy autoridades de salud.

Panamá has 8,000 registered persons with HIV or AIDS.  Activists estimate that there are 20,000 carriers, may of whom are not aware that they are HIV Positive.

- Prensa Latina

Mexico
11-22-2006


Added Nov. 24, 2006

Darfur, Sudan

Help Us Stop the Killing in Darfur!

The conflict in Darfur has led to some of the worst human rights abuses imaginable, including systematic and wide-scale murder, rape, torture, abduction and displacement.

- Amnesty International
11-23-2006See also:
Added Nov. 24, 2006

See also:

Added Nov. 24, 2006

At least 400,000 people have been killed; more than 2 million innocent civilians have been forced to flee their homes.

- SaveDarfur.org

Dollars for Darfur is a national high school fundraising effort to stop the ongoing genocide in Darfur.

- SaveDarfur.org


Added Nov. 24, 2006

Guatemala, United States

 The killings of women and girls in Guatemala are rising at an alarming rate yet actions by the Guatemalan government to bring those responsible to justice are insufficient. A U.S. House Resolution condemning these brutal killings has been introduced... urging both the United States and Guatemalan Governments to do more to bring an end to this human rights scandal (H.RES.1081). Urge your Representative to sign on to this important resolution. Take action »

- Amnesty International
11-23-2006

See also:

Added Nov. 24, 2006

Background information on the murders of women in Guatemala

- Amnesty International

LibertadLatina's special section on the decades-long crisis of anti-indigenous genocide and femicide in Guatemala.


Added Nov. 24, 2006

Mexico

A woman grieves at the grave of a victim.

- Amnesty International

More than 400 women have been abducted and murdered since 1993 in Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua, Mexico, bordering El Paso, Texas just over the Rio Grande. In a significant number of cases, the brutality with which the assailants abduct and murder the women goes further than the act of killing. Many of the women are held captive for several days and subjected to humiliation, torture and the most horrific sexual violence before dying, mostly as a result of asphyxiation caused by strangulation or from being beaten.

- Amnesty International
11-23-2006

See also:

Added Nov. 24, 2006

 A slideshow about the femicide in Ciudad Juarez is available.  Organize a display in your community!

- Amnesty International

See also:

LibertadLatina's special section on the crisis in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico - about the mass rape and murder of women and girls.


Added Nov. 24, 2006

Mexico

Young Latina Women Changing the Face of U.S. Politics

With more young Latinos coming of voting age than ever before, young Latina women, like Mireya Gomez, who ran for a city council seat in her hometown, are trying to making inroads in what has traditionally been a landscape dominated by men.

- Daffodil Altan
Nov 08, 2006


Added Nov. 24, 2006

The World

Liora Kasten and Jesse Sage, former directors of the American Anti-Slavery Group, edit a collection of modern day slave narratives entitled, Enslaved: True Stories of Modern Slavery, published by Palgrave Macmillian.

- iAbolish.org
Nov 08, 2006


Added Nov. 23, 2006

Massachusetts, USA

Indigenous people organize the 37th Day of Mourning on Thanksgiving in the city of Plymouth, Massachusetts.

- United American Indians of New England
11-23-2006

See also:

Native American squash and pumpkin recipes.

- Paula Giese
1995/1996

A recipe for pumpkin frybread and other dishes.

- Indian Country
Nov. 22, 2006

Thanksgiving con un toque Latino.

- El Diario la Prensa

New York/New Jersey
Nov. 22, 2006


Added Nov. 23, 2006

Massachusetts, USA

Salem - Jesus Pimental , 17, of New York City, and Caled Marquez Donatiu , 23, of Salem have been arrested after being caught in the act of raping a girl, age 11, who was kidnapped from the street after a Halloween Party. Marquez Donatiu had recently arrived in Salem from Puerto Rico.

- The Boston Globe
11-01-2006


Added Nov. 20, 2006

Arizona

MISSING

Tucson - Authorities are searching for 14-year-old Jesus "Lilliana" Vega, who police say was abducted from her home early Sunday.

...Police have identified one suspect - a neighbor who had previously threatened to kidnap Vega. His name is Jose Garcia or Jesus Ramirez, Blakeman said, and he is 19 or 20 years old.

The suspect's aunt said the man has family members in Mexico, which is why authorities believe he might head toward the border.

- Djamila Grossman
Arizona Daily Star
11.20.2006

Jesus "Lilliana" Vega's poster on the NCMEC's MissingKids.com

LibertadLatina's  1998 letter to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) about child abuse and exploitation in Gaithersburg, Maryland explains how adult men attempt to kidnap young teen girls with impunity in U.S. immigrant communities.

Many of these men head to Mexico.


Added Nov. 19, 2006

Mexico

Mexican army units withdraw from Coahuila state in apparent retaliation for the military prosecution of some soldiers responsible for the mass rape of 13 Prostitutes on July 11, 2006.

- Frontera Norte Sur

(North South Frontier)

Nov.-Dec., 2006 Edition

Added Nov. 19, 2006

Mexico

Continúa juicio contra soldados acusados de violación en Coahuila.

The trial against 12 Mexican Army officers and enlisted men charged in the rape of 14 prostit-utes in Coahuila state continues.  Four officers and four enlisted men are standing trial.  Four other men are now fugitives.

- CIMAC Noticias

News for Women

Mexico City, Mexico

Nov. 17, 2006


Added Nov. 19, 2006

New York, USA

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says no region of the U.S. is immune to human trafficking

- Carolyn Thompson

Associated Press

Nov. 14, 2006


Added Nov. 19, 2006

New York, USA

Former U.S. federal immigration inspector Nisim Yushuvayev has been hit with a 10-year prison sentence for his role in a plot to kidnap two Korean women involved in a human trafficking network.

- New York Newsday

Nov. 16, 2006


Added Nov. 19, 2006

Ohio, USA

Hamilton - Mexican national Jose Antonio Lopez-Rivera, 25, who had been a fugitive from justice for more than a year, has been arrested and indicted on rape and kidnapping charges. 

- Journal-News.com

Dayton, Ohio

Nov. 16, 2006

See also:

Hamilton, Ohio - Vigilantes torch house where a 9-year-old child was raped by immigrant.

- WRC 12

Cincinnati, Ohio

June 22, 2005


Added Nov. 19, 2006

Illinois, USA

Wheaton, Illinois - A former nursing home worker charged with raping a profoundly brain-damaged resident who later gave birth changed his plea to guilty Wednesday.

Authorities said Reynaldo Brucal Jr., 19, of Schaumburg, raped the 23-year-old woman, who has cerebral palsy.

- Associated Press
November 16, 2006

See also:

Nineteen-year-old Filipino immigrant Reynaldo B. Brucal Jr. pleaded guilty to raping a severely and mentally handicapped resident of a health care facility.

- Asian Journal
November 18, 2006


Added Nov. 18, 2006

Texas, USA

White supremacist David Henry Tuck, 18, was sentenced to life in prison for savagely beating and sodomizing a Hispanic boy at a drug-fueled party.

- Associated Press
November 18, 2006


Added Nov. 18, 2006

Maryland, USA

Baltimore -Reversing a... man’s rape conviction... the Court of Special Appeals said Monday that “no rape occurred if the jury found that” the 18-year-old woman in the case “withdrew her prior consent after penetration.”

- Baltimore Examiner
November 1, 2006

 


Added Nov. 18, 2006

Colorado, USA / Saudi Arabia

Denver - State Attorney General John Suthers traveled to Saudi Arabia this week to assure officials that a Saudi man convicted in Colorado of sexually abusing and virtually enslaving his housekeeper was treated fairly. 

...Homaidan Al-Turki, 37, was convicted of sexually assaulting an Indonesian housekeeper and keeping her as a virtual slave for four years.  ...A State Department official with knowledge of the matter said the Al-Turki case has been a "thorn in our relations with the Saudis"

- Associated Press
November 17, 2006


Added Nov. 18, 2006

Pakistan

Rape law reform roils Pakistan's Islamists

- Christian

Science Monitor
November 17, 2006


Added Nov. 18, 2006

United States

The Justice Department on Thursday announced the arrests of more than 1,600 fugitive sex offenders as part of a weeklong roundup, the largest number ever arrested in a single operation.

- New York Times
November 13, 2006


Added Nov. 17, 2006

Texas, USA

State appeals court chastises President Bush for intervening in case of Mexican born murderer

Houston - The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday rejected an argument from Jose Ernesto Medellin that he was denied legal help under international treaties.

Medellin was sentenced in 1994 to die for the rapes and killings of Jennifer Ertman, 14, and Elizabeth Peña, 16. The pair had been tortured, raped and strangled.

- Associated Press
November 16, 2006


Added Nov. 16, 2006

Chiapas, Mexico

Massacre in Chiapas: Six Women, Three Men, Two Children, Assassinated in Mayan Community of Montes Azules

Indigenous Communities and Human Rights Organizations Warned State and Federal Governments of Threats, but Authorities Failed to Act

- Al Giordano
'The Other Journalism' with the'Other Campaign in Chiapas

Nov ember 13, 2006


Added Nov. 16, 2006

North Carolina, USA

Candidate Elected as Sheriff Despite Facing Rape Charges

- New York Times Regional Newspapers

Nov ember 13, 2006 


Added Nov. 16, 2006

Mexico

Buscan castigar turismo sexual de menores

Tijuana, Baja California - Con el fin de frenar el abuso sexual a menores que se da a través del turismo sexual, que empieza a repuntar en Tijuana, Elvira Luna Pineda, diputada local del PAN, presentó una iniciativa de reforma al Código Penal de Baja California.
 

Legislators seek to punish child sex tourism

Tijuana, Baja California state - Elvira Pineda Luna, the local deputy (state legislative representative) of the National Action Party (PAN) has presented an initiative to reform the Penal Code of Baja California aimed at restraining the sexual abuse to children and youth in sexual tourism, a problem that is beginning to appear in [the border city of] Tijuana.

...Pineda Luna indicated that ‘sexual paradises’ such as Cancún exist in Mexico, but the city of Tijuana and the rest of Baja California state is increasingly involved in this problem.

[We note that Tijuana has over 3,000 registered 'legal' adult prostitutes.  Experts estimate that 900 children and underage youth are exploited in prostitution in TJ. This has been a problem, attracting many U.S. sex tourists, for decades, - Chuck Goolsby]

- Luis Adolph San
Tijuana, Baja California

Nov ember 10, 2006 


Added Nov. 15, 2006

Native America

Expert says past genocide linked to high suicide rates

- The Spokesman-Review, via

Indian Country

 Nov. 13,2006


Added Nov. 15, 2006

Guatemala

Extradition of Former Military Officials Proceeds

[Guatemalan Government Begins to Address Past Acts of Murder and Genocide.]

- Guatemala Human Rights Commission/ USA
 Nov. 07,2006


Added Nov. 15, 2006

El Mundo

Vaticano: Existen en el mundo unos 270 millones de esclavos

The World

The Vatican: 270 Million slaves exist in the World

La Prensa

Argentina
 Nov. 11,2006


Added November 14, 2006

Guatemala

Over 400 Women Murdered So Far This Year in Guatemala

Guatemalan human rights organizations are expressing concern over the wave of femicides in Guatemala, which has claimed over 400 victims so far this year. According to the Public Prosecutor's Office, the murders of women in Guatemala City increased during the month of September. The number rose from eleven murders in July, to sixteen in August, to seventeen as of September 27. Congressional representative Nineth Montenegro has noted that the murders of women, along with those of children and adolescents, have increased in Guatemala as never before. The majority of the murders were committed in the capital city, as well as Escuintla and Petén.

Montenegro noted that, of the 322 femicide cases reported from January to August, only twelve were being investigated at the time of her report and only two suspects connected to one murder are currently in prison. She listed a misogynous attitude toward women, the increasing involvement of women in the public sphere, and rising gang activity and organized crime as factors in the rise in femicides. As women become more active in the economy, politics, and education, they become more vulnerable and some also get involved in gangs and organized crime. Montenegro emphasized that participation in criminal activity does not justify the women’s deaths. She said the lack of response on the part of the authorities in cases involving women was also a factor, adding that the justice system is inefficient and the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) fails to carry out the necessary investigations.

Mario Polanco, an activist with the Mutual Support Group (GAM), said that this crisis reveals serious institutional weaknesses. In Guatemala there is no security policy for the general population. Polanco said the population is in a position of extreme vulnerability and women are particularly affected because the government lacks the will to guarantee their security much less investigate crimes committed against them. Polanco disagreed with official statements claiming that the investigation process has improved. According to Polanco, monitoring in the courts has shown that there has been absolutely no improvement.

Human rights activists continue to be concerned that the number of women murdered this year will surpass last year’s total.

- Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA
October 26, 2006


Added November 13, 2006

Latin America

¿Cuántos niños latinoamericanos son explotados sexualmente?

BOGOTA, Nov. 9 (Prensa Sur). No se conoce cuántos niños y niñas están envueltos en las redes de explotación sexual que operan en América Latina, pero las señas de esta actividad que aparecen frecuentemente en muchas ciudades de la región, hacen temer un alevoso crecimiento del delito.

Según estimados de la Fundación “Renacer” de Colombia, sólo en Brasil unos 600.000 niños y niñas estarían siendo explotados sexualmente, en República Dominicana la cifra aproximada sería de unos 25.000 niños y niñas dedicados a la prostitución, y en Venezuela habría unos 40.000 niños en esa actividad.

...Diversas investigaciones han planteado la necesidad de abordar el problema con enfoques que vayan más allá de considerar a los niños como víctimas, asumiéndolos como sujetos de procesos integrales, que actúan por encima de sus condiciones particulares.

...Las prácticas de abuso sexual infantil son reforzadas por la ausencia de políticas de protección especial para menores y por la vigencia de paradigmas que asocian “sexualidad con juventud”, legitimando las relaciones sexuales entre jóvenes y adultos y hasta otorgándoles cierta “aceptación social”, sostiene Renacer.
 

How Many Children are Sexually Exploited in Latin America

Bogotá - It is not known how many children and youth are trapped by the sex trafficking networks that operate in Latin America, but such criminal activity exists in many cities across the region, causing fears that the problem is growing explosively.

According to Fundación Renacer (The Rebirth Foundation, which works to rescue children trapped in prostitution) in Colombia, in Brazil alone about 600.000 boys and girls are sexually exploited.  In the Dominican Republic there are approximately 25.000 children who ‘work’ in prostitution.  In Venezuela there could be about 40,000 children in prostitution.

...A number of investigations into the problem of CSEC have come to the conclusion that a need exists to address the problem with approaches that go beyond considering children as victims.  Children trapped in CSEC should be viewed as being subjected to interrelated social processes that control their particular conditions.

...The practice of child sexual abuse is reinforced by the absence of [governmental and social] policies supporting special protection for minors and by the existence of paradigms that associate “sexuality with youth”, that legitimize sexual relations between young people and adults and grants social legitimacy to such activity, according to  Fundación Renacer.

- Prensa Sur

Co;ombia

November 9, 2006


Added November 12, 2006

California, USA

San Francisco Chronicle Writes 4 Part Series on Asian Sex Trafficking in San Francisco

Part 1: San Francisco Is A Major Center For International Crime Networks That Smuggle And Enslave.

- Meredith May,

San Francisco Chronicle
October 6, 2006

Part 2: A Youthful Mistake

You Mi was a typical college student, until her first credit card got her into trouble.

- Meredith May, Deanne Fitzmaurice,

San Francisco Chronicle
October 8, 2006

Part 3: Bought and Sold

You Mi is put into debt bondage -- life becomes an endless cycle of sex with strangers.

- Meredith May,

San Francisco Chronicle
October 9, 2006

Part 4: Sex Slave Freed, Trapped

Meredith May, Deanne Fitzmaurice

After paying off her debt to int'l sex traffickers, You Mi still owed $40K and creditors in S. Korea were circling her family. So she went to work in an SF massage parlor. Then, she fell in love.

- Meredith May,

San Francisco Chronicle
October 10, 2006

 


Added November 12, 2006

Florida, USA

Rapist Pleads Guilty to 5 Assaults

Miami - A man convicted of raping an 11-year-old girl pleaded guilty Thursday to five other sexual assaults and to charges of escaping from jail last year.

Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Barbara Areces sentenced Reynaldo E. Rapalo, 35, to between 15 and 45 years in prison for each of the five attacks, as well as the December escape. The sentences will run concurrently with the life term he was given last month for the attack on the girl.

As part of a plea agreement, prosecutors dropped charges against two people who had been accused of assisting Rapalo after his Dec. 20 jail escape, which triggered an extensive manhunt until his capture Dec. 26.

Rapalo escaped by prying open a ceiling vent, cutting through bars and rappelling down the side of the building using tied-together bed sheets.

The agreement also will spare the victims from testifying about the assaults, part of a string of attacks in 2002 and 2003 by the so-called "Shenandoah rapist," named for the Miami neighborhood where most of them occurred...

- Associated Press
November 9, 2006

 


Added November 11, 2006

Mexico

Mexico City, Mexico - Assistant High Commissioner for Refugees Erika Feller has said Mexico faces a major challenge protecting refugees as the country becomes more important as a migration route to North America.

...Noting that there was now a mass exodus of migrants from Central America through Mexico towards the United States and Canada, Feller said: "The pressure this entails puts the humanitarian principle of refugee protection in danger." She added that Mexico had a significant role to play in fulfilling its obligations to vulnerable refugees caught up in mixed migration movements, particularly in the southern border area.

...Among the refugees she met were unaccompanied minors and women, who are regarded as particularly vulnerable. "I only know that I want to stay in a safe place, I cannot go back to my country. I want to study. And I want my mother to come and be with me," a teenage girl, who was a victim of sex trafficking and may be in need of international protection, told Feller.

Some 250,000 undocumented migrants were deported from Tapachula to their respective Central American countries last year alone. "Migrants are determined to reach the US. They are even willing to give up their lives in the attempt. Some have tried up to 16 times," said an official from Mexico's Beta Group, which provides medical care, information and rescue operations for undocumented migrants...

- Mariana Echandi

UNHCR

- Reuters AlertNet
November 10, 2006


Added November 11, 2006

Colorado, USA

Hit-and-run driver hits stroller; mom, 2 kids killed

Denver - A hit-and-run driver struck a couple crossing a street with a stroller, killing a woman and her two young children and injuring the youngsters' father, police said.

...Lawrence Trujillo, 36, was arrested on three counts of investigation of vehicular homicide, as well as leaving the scene of an accident and resisting arrest, police said. Eric Phil Snell, 35, was arrested on three counts of investigation of accessory to a crime.

- CNN
November 11, 2006


Added November 11, 2006

New York, USA

Ex-teacher pleads guilty to sex crime

Five days after his statutory rape trial ended with a hung jury, former North Babylon High School teacher Danny Cuesta admitted in court yesterday that he had sex with an underaged student.

Prosecutors also revealed in court that two other girls have come forward, saying Cuesta had sex with them.

With his accuser watching from the court gallery, Danny Cuesta, 30, of Coram, pleaded guilty to one count of third-degree rape, two counts of third-degree criminal sexual act and one count of endangering the welfare of the child. In exchange for his plea, prosecutors recommended a sentence of 15 months in jail. Suffolk County Court Judge C. Randall Hinrichs will sentence him Jan. 4.

...Yesterday, Cuesta rubbed his face, bit his lip, and occasionally shook his head as he admitted - with short answers of "Yes" - to a two-year sexual relationship with the girl.

Prosecutors also said that as part of the plea deal, they would drop a pending investigation into charges by two other girls that Cuesta had sex with them.

...Upon hearing Cuesta say "guilty" in entering his plea, the girl began quietly weeping in court. Her father braced her head on his shoulder and later said he was proud of his daughter for standing up to Cuesta.

"We knew he was guilty from the start," the girl's father said. "I guess the walls closed in on him."

- Alfonso Castillo
New York Newsday
November 2, 2006

See also:

Hung jury in ex-teacher's rape case

- Alfonso Castillo
New York Newsday
October 28, 2006

Mom's rape trial testimony appears to waver

- Alfonso Castillo
New York Newsday
October 20, 2006


Added November 9, 2006

Arizona, USA

Sketch of attacker released

 
Phoenix police have released a composite sketch of a man they believe snatched a 5-year-old girl from her bed late Sunday and held her for 90 minutes. He then knocked on the door of a home near 22nd Avenue and Indian School Road, more than two miles from the girl's home, and gave her to the woman who answered.

Police said there was "sexual contact" with the girl. Her panties and pajama bottoms are missing.

The man is described as Hispanic, bilingual, in his mid-20s, 5 feet 3 to 5 feet 9 inches tall, 150 to 180 pounds, with a medium build. advertisement

Anyone with information is asked to call (602) 534-3200 or Silent Witness at 1-800-343-TIPS.

- Judy Villa

The Arizona Republic

 Nov. 7,2006


Added November 9, 2006

Virginia, USA

Groping victim steps forward

The latest victim has come forward in what is believed by Fairfax County, Virginia Police to be a related series of assaults.

During the investigation of an assault that occurred Oct. 25 near the Circle Towers apartments in Fairfax, a 50-year-old Fairfax woman told police she had also been assaulted the same day.

This latest victim was waiting for an elevator Oct. 25 at 11 p.m. in the basement of Tower 3 of the Circle Towers apartments when a man approached her from behind and touched her inappropriately. According to police, the suspect then tried to take her purse but ran away when she resisted.

Prior to this latest victim's revelation, police had been investigating a similar incident, believed to be connected, that occurred at Circle Towers around 1:30 p.m. That victim, a 27-year-old woman, was approached from behind by a man who tried to pull down her pants but fled when she screamed.

The earlier victim described her attacker as a 5 foot 7 inch Hispanic man weighing around 150 pounds with black hair, long on top but shaved in the back.

In the last three months, five other women have been assaulted in similar fashion.

Like these latest incidents, three of the earlier attacks occurred in August near the Vienna Metro. Other similar attacks occurred in September in the Fair Lakes area.

In each case, an Hispanic man approached a lone female from behind and attempted to pull down her pants or touch her inappropriately. In each attack, the assailant fled when the women began screaming.

This latest incident is the first where the attacker has tried to rob his victim. Since the first group of incidents, police have been concerned that the attacker could become more violent if not apprehended.

A composite sketch has been provided, and anyone with information is asked to call Crime Solvers at 1-866-411-TIPS/8477 or Fairfax County Police at 703-691-2131.

- Monty Tayloe

Fairfax County Times
11/07/2006


Added November 7, 2006

Nicaragua

Ortega wins Nicaragua's presidency

MANAGUA, Nicaragua - Nicaragua's former Marxist guerrilla leader Daniel Ortega bounced back to power on Tuesday in a presidential-election victory that bolsters an increasingly assertive anti-U.S. bloc in Latin America.

Ortega won with 38 percent of the vote, 9 points ahead of his Washington-backed conservative rival Eduardo Montealegre.

Ortega, who first seized power in a popular 1979 revolution and then fought U.S.-backed Contra rebels as president in the 1980s, was conciliatory in victory, but the White House warned its support for Nicaragua would hinge on his commitment to democracy.

The 60-year-old president-elect met Montealegre late on Tuesday and both promised to work together to attack poverty and encourage the investment need to create jobs.

- Associated Press
11/07/2006


Added November 7, 2006

Nicaragua

Ortega: I'm Not the Same Revolutionary

MANAGUA, Nicaragua -- Daniel Ortega says he's not the same revolutionary the United States once tried to overthrow.

The Sandinista leader won his fifth bid for the presidency preaching harmony, love and reconciliation, often with the music of John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance" playing in the background.

...Ortega has made three unsuccessful runs for the presidency -- in 1990, 1996 and 2001 -- and used congressional immunity to dodge rape allegations filed by a stepdaughter, Zoilamerica Narvaez. He has denied the charges, but Narvaez continues to push her case publicly.

...Now 60 and balding, he has toned down his revolutionary rhetoric, invoking both Lennon and God and promising to favor free trade policies and improve health care and education.

- Filadelfo Aleman

Associated Press

November 7, 2006

March 23, 1998

Nicaragua

An Ugly Family Affair

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

[Daniel Ortega's stepdaughter Zoilamerica Narvaez Murillo] 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 by the moderate, U.S.-backed Violeta Barrios de Chamorro.

- Associated Press
03/23/1998

 


Added November 7, 2006

El Mundo

Entre un millón y dos millones de mujeres, hombres, niñas y niños son usados para explotación y los traficantes ganan entre cuatro mil y 50 mil dólares por persona.

(Between one and two million women, men, girls and boys are exploited.  Human traffickers earn between $4,000 and $50,000 per victim.)

México. Alrededor de 32 mil millones de dólares se mueven cada año en el negocio de trata de personas, convirtiéndose en el crimen más lucrativo después del tráfico de drogas, destaca el Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID).

- Notimex

 Nov. 6,2006


Added November 7, 2006

The World

Human trafficking has dirty profits and huge costs

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is working in Latin America and the Caribbean to halt the growing people trafficking problem that is vastly under-researched and under-funded.

Poverty, unemployment and lack of opportunity force millions of people to look for a better life by moving away from the places they call home. In Latin America and the Caribbean, illegal emigration is a huge problem, and it goes hand-in-hand with people trafficking and exploitation—pointed out IDB modernization of the state specialist Nybia Laguarda, during a presentation at the Bank’s headquarters in Washington, DC.

According to the United Nations, “people trafficking” is defined as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons (…) for the purpose of exploitation.” It ranges from domestic servitude to forced labor, the removal of organs, prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation.

Unfortunately, it is also big business, bringing in US $32 billion annually, worldwide. This makes people trafficking the most lucrative crime after drug trafficking, according to statistics from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 2006). Every year, some 1 to 2 million children, women and men become victims of human trafficking; while traffickers make anywhere between $4,000 and $50,000 per person trafficked, depending on the victim’s place of origin and destination.

Inter-American Development Bank
 Nov. 2,2006


Added November 6, 2006

New York, USA

Man charged with rape

A 60-year-old Copiague man burglarized and raped his female tenant, Suffolk police said.


The incident happened about 4 p.m. Saturday at the apartment the woman rented from Antonio Alvarez in his home on 43rd Street in Copiague, police said.


Police said Alvarez broke into the apartment and forced the woman, whom police did not identify, into "acts of sexual intercourse."

Alvarez was arrested on Saturday, and he was charged with rape in the first degree and burglary in the second degree.

He was arraigned yesterday in First District Court in Central Islip, police said.

- Jennifer Smith
New York NewsDay
November 6, 2006


Added November 6, 2006

Florida, USA

A 21-year-old Immokalee man is charged with having sex with and impregnating a 12-year-old girl.

Immokalee, Florida - Antonio Alvarez Maldonado was arrested on Wednesday, but apparently the sexual encounter happened in either late May or early June.

According to police reports, the victim’s mother discovered the pregnancy when she took her daughter took to the doctor earlier this week. The mother immediately called the sheriff’s office.

The victim told deputies Maldonado threatened to hurt her if she told anyone about the incident.

- ABC7 Online

Florida
 Nov. 6,2006


Added November 5, 2006

Undocumented immigrant gets 33 years in rape, thefts

Albany, NY - A 16-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico was sentenced Tuesday to 33 years in state prison in the brutal knifepoint rape in December of a University at Albany student and two separate burglaries.

Felipe Dejesus-Flores pleaded guilty previously to breaking into the young woman's home on Dec. 10, waking her from a sound sleep and then raping her.

- Michele Morgan Bolton

Times Sun Union

Albany, NY
 Nov. 1,2006

 

 
     

LibertadLatina

News / Noticias

 


Last Updated: Feb. 08, 2010


Mandanos un...

Email

Send us an...


LibertadLatina

Búsqueda Google

Google Search

Google


News Archive

Jan.  2010

2010

Dec.  2009

2009

Nov.  2009

2008

Oct.   2009

2007

Sep.  2009

2006

Aug.  2009

2005

July   2009

2004

June 2009

2003

May   2009

2002

April  2009

2001



LibertadLatina

Analysis of the political actions and policies of Mexico's National Action Party (PAN) in regard to their detrimental impact on women's basic human rights


Map shows the epicenter of the earthquake in the Caribbean island nation of Haiti, and its proximity to the capitol city - Port-Au-Prince

Haiti

Donate to Haiti Disaster Relief

On January 12, 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti. Join recovery efforts mobilizing around the world to assist earthquake victims. Your donation will help disaster victims rebuild their lives and their communities.

UNICEF (1-800-4UNICEF)

Direct Relief

Yele Haiti

Partners in Health

Red Cross

World Food Program

Mercy Corps (1-888-256-1900)

Save the Children

Lambi Fund

Doctors Without Borders

The International Rescue Committee

Care

See Also:

AlertNet.org - A humanitarian public service of Reuters News

See Also:

LibertadLatina

Special Section

About the impact of natural disasters on women and children's human rights in the Americas


Últimas Noticias

Latest News


Added: Feb. 08, 2010

Mexico

Family and friends bid farewell Wednesday to a victim of Sunday's massacre, one of 12 teens and 3 adults killed at a party in Ciudad Juarez.

Photo: Julian Cardona For the Houston Chronicle

Feb. 3, 2010

Dallas Morning News Editorial: Mexico's Rock-bottom Moment

Excerpt

Against a two-decade timeline of drug-trafficking outrages in Mexico, last Sunday's slaughter of 16 at a teenager's quinceañera party in Ciudad Juárez seems likely to follow a familiar pattern. First comes stunned horror. Then comes the national outcry to do something. Government officials get hauled before the legislature for questioning. Someone resigns. Outrage subsides. Life goes on, same as before.

The Mexican government's behavior resembles that of an addict who's yet to hit that rock-bottom moment of realization that things absolutely must change. Yes, President Felipe Calderón has deployed thousands of soldiers and police officers to border cities and targeted corrupt public figures for prosecution. But that's clearly not sufficient.

Back in the 1990s, it seemed impossible that Mexico could slide any further into the depths. Remember when a Catholic cardinal was murdered by drug-cartel gunmen in Guadalajara? Or the well-reported links between a president's brother and the drug cartels? The army general named head of Mexico's drug enforcement agency who was subsequently arrested as an operative for a major cartel? The two northern governors implicated as operatives in a major cartel?

The next decade brought unspeakable levels of violence as rival cartels vied for territorial control. Thousands died. A free-for-all atmosphere now prevails, especially in Juárez.

"Mexico has abandoned us, betrayed us," José Luís Aguilar Rangel said as he looked down upon the coffins of his son and nephew, two of the young victims of the Sunday massacre.

In late 2008, Mexico's federal human rights commission reported that, on average, prosecution and conviction occurs in only one out of every 100 crimes. That's for reported crime. In 90 percent of cases, people don't even bother. Rangel clearly isn't alone in believing the government has abandoned him.

Yet, through it all, Mexican officials consistently play down what's happening. It's worse in Guatemala, they say. Just last month, Dallas Consul General Juan Carlos Cue-Vega sought to minimize the border-area violence as mainly drug thugs killing other drug thugs.

We don't buy it. Those Juárez teens had nothing to do with the drug cartels. In December, gunmen killed the mother, sister and aunt of a military hero who had been killed participating in a drug raid. The terrorists made clear: Come after us, and we'll go after your entire family.

"Where is the line drawn on indiffer-ence? If we cannot answer this question, the assassins can continue hiding themselves under the cloak of a complicit population – [complicit] either by conviction or by apathy," the Mexico City daily El Universal commented...

Dallas Morning News

Feb. 05, 2010

See also:

LibertadLatina Commentary

From top left: Rigoberta Menchu, Esther Chavez, Teresa Ulloa and Lydia Cacho

A Rock-bottom Moment in U.S. Action to Combat Latin American Human Trafficking and Slavery?

Let's draw the line  on indifference!

The February 5, 2010 editorial by the Dallas Morning News, Mexico's Rock-bottom Moment, accurately describes the atmosphere of government corruption and indifference (at the federal, state and local level) that permeates Mexico and allows criminals to engage in horrendous behavior with reckless abandon.

That reality does not only apply to the war on drug cartels. These conditions of impunity also make it nearly impossible to effectively fight modern human slavery and other forms of sexual and labor exploitation.

We say 'modern' human slavery, but in Mexico, slavery, from the time of the Spanish colonization, had actually never stopped. Poor Indigenous and mixed-race (Mestizo) peoples, who are racially marginalized in Mexico, have always been easy marks for sexual and labor exploitation. This reality impacts children especially hard.

In 1994, for example, a U.S. National Public Radio news report noted that in Mexico's southern Chiapas state, the majority indigenous population was expected to serve their whole lives as unpaid peon farm workers on the plantations of wealthy Mexicans of European descent, in exchange for nothing more than being given rice and beans.

That is slavery!

The ability to rape and demand free labor of the Indigenous and Mestizo poor in Mexico with impunity has been a 'right' of the Spanish descended elites for 500 years.

As we have stated in previous comment-aries, our focus on the crisis of gender oppression in Mexico came about because:

1) The oppression of women is severe, and especially impacts indigenous women and girls;

2) by extension, the sex trafficking industry, fueled by the multi-billion dollar drug cartels, enslaves tens of thousands of women and girls each year;

3) Mexico is Latin America's border with the United States, causing the great majority of migration and human trafficking from the region into the U.S. to be funneled through Mexico;

4) With "60 plus" percent of the human trafficking victims in the U.S. being victims who are Latin American, solving the Mexican crisis holds the key to solving foreign sex and labor trafficking in the U.S., and potentially in much of Latin America;

5) Mexico has a brave and very articulate women's rights, indigenous rights and anti-trafficking movement, lead by many unseen leaders, and others who are more visible. they dare to confront impunity in Mexico, despite the risk of government sponsored intimidation, false imprisonment and murder that they face for disrupting the status quo and the power of the elites.

How can a Mexican Government that acts to support those who oppress women be an honest partner in suppressing the power of sex and labor traffickers?

How can a Mexican society that is based upon very strongly embedded traditions of male supremacy (machismo) change to actually begin to defend the basic human rights of women and girls, when its own government fights reform to maintain the status quo?

How can a Mexico where influential business and political leaders have corrupt ties to the sex trafficking 'industry' defeat those forces?

How can activists make progress when international organizations such as Amnesty International have identified the fact that human rights activists face false imprisonment to halt their work, and, together with activist journalists, face a very real threat of being murdered?

These are the pressing questions that the women's rights movement face and seek answers to.

This movement deserves the full moral and financial and collaborative support of human rights, indigenous rights and women's rights activists, and all people of moral conscience, from across the world.

Most importantly, the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama must stand up and very publicly demand that the State of Mexico stop fighting against these human rights movements, and finally adhere to their international commitments to respect the rights of women and children.

The recent track record of the Calderón administration shows that it is indifferent to the issue of human slavery, and will only take minimal action to avoid getting a bad grade (and thus risk possible U.S. sanctions) from the annual U.S. State Department Trafficking in Persons report. Therefore, the movement to end slavery continues its long struggle to force the Calderón government to change its misogynist ways.

Among the leaders of Mexico's pioneering women and children's rights movement are Teresa Ulloa, a pioneering women's rights lawyer and Executive Director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women for Latin America and the Caribbean (CATW-LAC). Ulloa has been a clear voice for identifying the need to enact and enforce anti-trafficking laws. She has identified the fact that 50 million women and children are at-risk of falling into the hands of human traffickers across all of Latin America. She has also declared that 5 million victims of human trafficking exist within Mexico. Ulloa has also stated that an estimated 1.5 million persons engage in prostitution in Central Mexico alone, and that 75% of those at any given time are girls between the ages of 12 and 13. Ulloa's serious research into these problems contradicts the research of others who conclude that only 20,000 children are engaged in prostitution in Mexico.

We also salute award winning journalist, author and women's center director Lydia Cacho, who responded to the impunity in child sex trafficking in the internationally popular tourist city of Cancun, Mexico by writing a well-researched book that exposed the complex links of collaboration between millionaire entrepreneur Jean Succar Kuri and child sex trafficker and a network of other businessmen and corrupt government officials. In response to the publication of Cacho's book, in December of 2005 the child sex trafficking network exposed by Cacho arranged with the governor of Puebla state, Mario Marin, to have Puebla state police officers arrest Cacho and drive her over 1,000 miles to Puebla state to face criminal charges of defamation for the accusations made in her book. During the trip and while in prison, state officers threatened Cacho with rape and with death.

Eventually cleared of the charges, Cacho has recently faced continuing threats to her life by armed suspects who shadow her daily movements. She lives 24 hours a day with armed guards. While Cacho's supporters in Congress demanded an investigation by the Supreme Court (a role that the Court may play in state corruption cases under Mexico's constitution), and despite the fact that one Supreme Court justice assigned to investigate the case found evidence to warrant investigation of Governor Marin by the full Court, the Court's justices decided that Cacho's treatment did not constitute a violation of her basic rights.

In utter disgust at the Supreme Court's behavior in this case, the Attorney General's special prosecutor for crimes against women, Alicia Elena Perez Duarte, resigned.

Child sex trafficker Jean Succar Kuri is in jail thanks to Cacho's efforts. However Puebla Governor Mario Marin and Succar Kuri's other accomplices continue living undisturbed in complete freedom.

We posthumously salute Esther Chavez, Lydia Cacho's mentor and the founder of the movement to publicize and demand action to end the mass murder (femicide) of women in northern Mexico's Ciudad Juarez. Chavez' tireless work to confront the apathy and impunity of government officials was the training ground that taught a generation of new leadership in the Mexican women's rights movement. By extension, Esther Chavez' legacy guides all of our efforts to dare to face into the wind and openly confront misogynist terrorism across Latin America.

Like Esther Chavez, Rigoberta Menchu is a long time leader working in defense of the basic human rights of indigenous peoples. A K'iche' Maya woman from Guatemala, Menchu's work impacts conditions for indigenous women and children in both Guatemala and Mexico. Winner of the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize, Menchu was a 1997 candidate in Guatemala's presidential elections.

Rigoberta Menchu and her family survived the 1970s-to-1990s anti-Mayan genocide in Guatemala in which 200,00 people died, including 50,000 women. Several members of Menchu's family were murdered, and she, like hundreds of thousands of Mayan Guatemalans, had to flee the attempts of the nation's government to mass murder its indigenous citizens.

Today Menchu continues to promote indigenous and women's human rights through the Rigoberta Menchu Tum Foundation (La Fundación Rigoberta Menchú Tum).

Menchu has been especially active in efforts to end the sex trafficking of young indigenous girls in Guatemala and Mexico, where they consitute one of the largest groups victimized by commercial sexploitation of children (CSEC).

We also give high praises to the CIMAC women's news agency. Their large network of women reporters has persistently documented the outrageous injustices confronting women and girls in Mexican society. CIMAC is not afraid to point the finger at government agencies and officials where that is warranted, in addition to identifying major criminal organizations and individuals who victimize women and girls with impunity.

CIMAC's highly professional news team has described in accurate detail the facts surrounding the issues of sex trafficking, rape and other crimes against women, and the lack of legislative and law enforcement action in Mexico to protect women and girls from these atrocities.

On the single issue of the rape with impunity of (mostly indigenous women and girls) by Mexican military personnel, CIMAC has published more than 340 comprehensive articles since 2007.

In July of 2008, CIMAC's offices were ransacked by 'unknown' vandals. CIMAC's computers were destroyed or stolen. This act of intimidation occurred days after CIMAC published an article that identified the fact that high ranking military officers working at Mexico City's equivalent of the Pentagon frequented the child prostitution brothels that exist just down the street from military headquarters.

Letters of solidarity poured in from across the globe in response to these criminal acts, which remain in impunity.

We especially applaud the fact that CIMAC for covering the mass gender atrocities facing poor indigenous women in a Mexico where such crimes are never, ever punished.

A Google search of the CIMAC News web site shows that:

* 120 CIMAC articles mention Rigoberta Menchu

* 170 CIMAC articles mention the late Esther Chavez

* 120 CIMAC articles mention Teresa Ulloa

* 550 CIMAC articles mention Lydia Cacho

We also give kudos to CIMAC for publishing information from the International Organization for Migration's office in Tapachula, noting that the southern Mexican border with Guatemala is a lawless zone where between 450 and 600 women and girl migrants from Central and South America are raped each day. The same CIMAC article notes that the global NGO Save the Children has identified southern Mexico as being the largest zone for the commercial sexual exploitation of children in the entire world.

Thanks to the trailblazing work of these brave journalists and activists, the criminals, the wealthy business owners and corrupt public servants who cooperate with them can no longer hide under a rock. The evidence is irrefutable that an ongoing mass gender atrocity is taking place in Mexico, and neither the Mexican federal government (lead by a National Action Party which has openly misogynist policies), nor the United States is taking any visible action of significance to stop that violence.

Thanks to the heroic work of Rigoberta Menchu, Esther Chavez, Teresa Ulloa, Lydia Cacho, the team at CIMAC and many other activists, the fact of the human slavery crisis in Mexico and the rest of Latin America cannot be denied by anyone.

These realities present a challenge to the global, and especially to the U.S. based anti-trafficking movements. Do they remain silent on this issue, or do they take appropriate action to give the crisis facing Latinas a proper seat at the table of deliberations in this movement?

The modern anti-trafficking movement was born in the 1990s in response to the enslavement of thousands of Eastern European and Russian women after the fall of the Soviet Union, and focused today principally on the issues of the enslavement of European, South Asian, East Asian and domestic minor U.S. youth. The focus areas reflect, interestingly enough, the ethnicities of the the majority of the activists in this movement.

All of those populations deserve attention. So do Latin American victims. Latin American and Asian victims were trafficked into the U.S. long before the anti-slavery sprung-up in Western nations (The risk of being sex trafficked was known in the U.S. even in the 1950s).

Yet more than ten years into the development of this movement, we have yet to hear public pronouncements about the Latin American / Latina immigrant human slavery crisis from the U.S. Federal Government, nor from the academics nor major U.S. NGO heads in the U.S. who have pioneered the effort to stop modern slavery.

During a number of major speeches on human trafficking that I have attended, virtually every region of the world will be  mentioned except Latin America. Latina immigrant victims in the U.S. are almost never mentioned. Academic papers, speeches and promotional materials from the major anti-trafficking organizations are equally lacking in coverage of the crisis facing Latin America.

In late 2009, for example, I called Public Radio's nationally broadcast Diane Rehm Show based at WAMU, from American University Radio, to talk with Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times reporters Nicholas D. Kristof and his wife Sheryl WuDunn (a former Times reporter), as they discussed their book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide.

In a reflection of the limited priorities of the majority of NGOs and U.S. federal government voices in the anti-slavery movement, Kristoff and WuDunn emphasized both in their book and during their radio interview, that their coverage of the crisis in women's rights as it exists in developing nations involved East Asia, South Asia and Africa. They did not even mention Latin America.

When I stated that Mexico is a major crisis area for human trafficking and that Save the Children had identified southern Mexico as the largest region for commercial sexual exploitation of children in the world, both authors responded by saying that, in their view, India was the largest zone for sex trafficking in the world and had to be tackled first. They admitted that they had not looked at Latin America in researching their otherwise important book on gender oppression. 

In point of fact, the sex trafficking networks began to focus on Latin America in their search for large numbers of women and children to enslave as law enforcement began to crack-down on Asian sex trafficking several year ago. Latin America's crisis is, arguably, just as large as that of India, where around 1 million children are sex trafficked at any given time.

One of my main motivations for expanding the LibertadLatina project (we are now in our ninth year), was to respond to the lack of publicly available factual information on the crisis in Latin America. That information gap leaves Latin American relatively isolated and without support from the global community (with the active role of the United Nations being a welcome exception to that fact).

I recall that about 7 years ago, a young Asian American man who had just graduated from college with a major in Women's Studies, and who was then a volunteer at Polaris Project, one of the leading anti-trafficking NGOs in the U.S., told me that "Latin America doesn't have a human trafficking problem. My professors said that Latin America didn't have a problem." This guy changed his attitude after I referred him to the LibertadLatina web site.

We would hope that such ignorance was a thing of the past. But today in 2010, the U.S. based anti-slavery movement continues to discuss anti-trafficking as a crime that impacts Europeans, Asians and U.S. domestic minor victims only.

We really have to wonder what the motivations are that drive that misguided thinking.

U.S. Ambassador-at-Large Luis CdeBaca, the Director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the U.S. State Department, is the U.S. Government's leading voice on human slavery issues. He is Mexican-American, and has prosecuted over 100 human trafficking cases, many involving Latin American victims and perpetrators.

In 2002 CdeBaca invited me to apply for a position as a victim advocate working with his team at the Justice Department's inter-agency Worker's Exploitation Task Force. So it is with great respect that we implore Ambassador CdeBaca to respond forcefully to the critical emergency facing women and girls in Latin America and its Diaspora in the U.S., a crisis that he is thoroughly familiar with.

We also insist that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Ambassador CdeBaca's boss, and U.S. President Barack Obama, Secretary Clinton's boss, move into action forthwith to address the defense of women and girls being exploited by the Latin American networks who prostitute enslaved Latina victims in urban brothels and rural farm worker camps in almost every county and city in America.

Ambassador CdeBaca, Secretary Clinton and President Obama, we insist that you get together and collaborate to develop a public policy and action plan to address the "60 plus percent" according to Ambassador CdeBaca, of human slavery victims in the U.S. who originated from Latin America. Funding a few NGOs across the region (some of whom are known to misuse their mandates), is not an adequate answer.

You can act to combat these problems without requiring an earthquake to kick-start you in the right direction, which is a process that we have seen of late in regard to Haiti.

We need everyone, the general public, concerned NGOs, academics and other activists to contact the White House, the  U.S. State Department and their congressional members to demand immediate action in regard to the Latin American and indigenous aspects of the human slavery crisis.

Without our efforts, the crisis will continue to grow out of control, putting at risk and entire generation of young women and girls who deserve the right to live in freedom from the tyranny of the gender hostile environment that they live in today.

Write to you senators.

Write to your House of Representatives members.

Write to President Obama

U.S. Department of State 2201 C Street, NW Washington, DC 20520. Main Switchboard: 202-647-4000.

End Impunity Now!

Chuck Goolsby

LibertadLatina

Feb. 08, 2010

See also:

Trata de blancas en Centroamérica

Human Trafficking in Central America [and Mexico]

María de Jesús Silva [who's daughter Jackeline Jirón Silva was kidnapped into sexual slavery at age 11 - comments on her search across Central America and southern Mexico for her daughter]: "I saw things that I never imagined existed... The brothels are full of children, sold by traffickers and abandoned by their parents. I saw them prostitute them-selves and wished that any one of them would have been my daughter. I settled for caressing the hair of these girls, and I imagined that in the 'next' brothel, I was going to find my daughter. Everything that I have suffered through is nothing compared to what my girl is going through."

...According to Ana Salvadó, executive director for Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean for Save the Children:  "the panorama for childhood in Latin America is growing more bleak over time, and child trafficking is growing rapidly in each of these countries..."

Save the Children has identified the border region between Guatemala and Mexico as being the largest hot spot for the commercial sexual exploitation of children in the entire world.  Ana Salvadó: "It is a bottleneck, because many children attempt to migrate from Central [and South] America to the United States, and they never get past [southern] Mexico…

…A study by the international organization ECPAT… ...reveals that over 21,000 Central Americans, mostly children, are prostituted in 1,552 bars and brothels in Tapachula, Mexico… 

Traffickers sell these child victims to Tapachula's pimps for $200 each.

More that 50% of these children are from [indigenous] Guatemala.  The rest are Salvadorans, Hondurans and Nicaraguans.  They range in age from eight to fourteen-years-old.

...In 2006, the International Labor Organization conducted a survey of adult attitudes in Mexico, Central America and South America, where it is quite easy [for men] to engage in sexual relations with children.

Some 65% of respondents stated that they don't see any problem, and they don't feel any sort of conflict or fear in regard to having sex with boy and girl children, and "they don't feel that there is anything wrong with doing it."

...Mexico has been converted into a paradise for pimps and a living hell for thousands of Central American girl children like Jackeline Jirón Silva, whose captors have prostituted her during the past 32 months.  It is known that during half of that time, Jackeline has been held in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.

- Ana Lilia Pérez

Revista Contralínea

Oct. 22, 2007

See also:

En Japón, de 3 a 4 mil niñas mexicanas víctimas de ESCI

Afirma la experta Teresa Ulloa

Three to four thousand underage indigenous girls from the poor states of Oaxaca, Chiapas, Guerrero and Mexico [state] have become victims of commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) in Japan.

Puebla city, in Puebla state - Teresa Ulloa, Latin America and Caribbean Director of the Coalition Against Trafficking of Women (CATW) announced her estimates of the numbers of indigenous children sex trafficked to Japan, and explained that traffickers trick the victims using offers of thousands of dollars for their parents in exchange for  [obtaining permission] to take their daughters. The parents are told that their girls are going to the United States to work in fast food restaurant jobs.

Taking advantage of the condition of submission that Mexico's indigenous communities are forced to live in, the traffickers take their victims to Japan where they are prostituted and work as geishas, a role that Asian women no-longer want to play because today they have more decision-making power than in the past.

Ulloa said that before these victims from Japan are repatriated, the home conditions of these girls must be investigated to assure that they can be reintegrated without facing the risk of being sold or sexually exploited again.

Ulloa noted that in the year 2002 the CATW helped to repatriate two sisters, ages 8 and 10, who had been prostituted in a brothel in New York. They were subjected to exploitation again, 15 days later, because their family "had sold their daughters in exchange for two goats and two cases of beer."

During her interview with CIMAC Noticias, Ulloa declared: "the subject [of child protection] is not on the national agenda. Much attention is paid to drug trafficking, but the government hasn't even realized that the same drug trafficking networks are used for the [sex] trafficking of children, and that organized crime regards this activity to be one of their most important businesses."

Nadia Altamirano Díaz

CIMAC Noticias

Dec. 12, 2008

See Also:

Human Rights Activists in Mexico Under Attack

Activists suffer imprisonment on fabricated charges to stop them from doing their work

Amnesty International

Jan. 21, 2010

See Also:

LibertadLatina

Special Section

Journalist / Activist

Lydia Cacho is

Railroaded by the

Legal Process for

Exposing Child Sex

Networks In Mexico

See also:

The United States

Obama's Slavery Czar

Ambassador-at-Large Luis CdeBaca fights human slavery for a living...

...Whether it was farm workers, or women in brothels, the percentages continue to be overwhelmingly Latino. Sixty-plus per cent of the [trafficking] victims in the U.S. are Hispanic.” ...

Lynn Sherr

The Daily Beast

Nov. 24, 2009

See also:

Ransacking of Longtime Women’s News Agency in Mexico City Raises Concerns About Motives

The devastation and disorder of a burglary and violent vandalism at the women’s news agency CIMAC (Women’s Communication & Information) offices in Mexico City last weekend suggest that it was more than a common break-in, according to Lucía Lagunes Huerta, general director of the organization. Manual Fuentes, a lawyer for CIMAC noted that the evidence might be “leaving a message that CIMAC is vulnerable.” On behalf of the news agency, Fuentes filed a burglary charge with the Attorney General’s office of the federal district of Mexico.

CIMAC has covered women and women’s human rights issues throughout Mexico, Central & Latin America and the world for 20 years, including special in-depth articles about various unresolved cases of femicide and sexual violence against women in Mexico as a systemic violation of women’s human rights. This journalistic work has included the hundreds of murders and disappearances of women in Juarez, Mexico; the 14 cases of sexual assault charges of women against soldiers on July 11, 2006 in Castaños in the northern state of Coahuila; and charges of sexual assault and torture of 26 women by Mexican police on May 3, 2006 in San Salvador Atenco (northeast of Mexico City), all of which remain unresolved.

Fuentes said that in the legal documents filed about the burglary against CIMAC, Erica Cervantes, a staff member declared that when they arrived the morning of Monday, July 28th they found the locks to their offices smashed and totally destroyed. Likewise, the disarray in the office was extensive and unlike typical burglaries was focused more on documents and files, including those containing confidential information about special investigations and coverage by CIMAC. Fuentes said, “it was obvious they were searching for information and documents…this is something that is very serious since CIMAC is dedicated to the denouncement and dissemination of issues that affect women in the exercise of their human rights.” ...

FIRE – Feminist International Radio Endeavour

July 30, 2008

See also:

Modern-Day Slavery in Mexico and the United States

...As Mexico and the U.S. are connected physically and through criminal links, issues the Mexican government deals with will subsequently impact the U.S. Many of the Mexican criminal networks notable for narcotrafficking are also involved in human trafficking. According to the Inter Press Service, “at least 20 networks are involved in the trafficking of persons, with links to organized crime rings involved in other activities like drug smuggling.” Rampant corruption plagues the U.S.-Mexico border, where high-ranking Mexican officials have been accused of taking bribes from drug rings. According to Gary Hale, DEA intelligence chief for Houston, the U.S. effort to end the drug war has forced these criminal networks to seek “other crime activities to generate their income.” Hale reports that, due to the U.S. government’s crackdown on drug trafficking, crime rings income has decreased significantly. As a result, many of the criminal networks have searched for other activities, like human trafficking, to supplement their income.

Ambassador C. de Baca believes that focusing on eradicating human trafficking could improve U.S.-Mexican efforts to combat other forms of transnational crime. According to C. de Baca, human trafficking “appears to be an area where the [Mexican government] is prepared to cooperate with [the U.S.].” C. de Baca and others are hopeful that the exchange of information on human trafficking cases will build relationships between Mexican and U.S. officials that might help further combat the drug war...

Megan McAdams

Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Dec. 21, 2009

United States: Migration and Trafficking in Women
A comparison study on migration and trafficking in women in the US.

Until recently, trafficking of women in the United States was rarely acknowledged. It was not until Russian and Ukrainian women began to be trafficked to the United States in the early 1990s that governmental agencies and many NGOs began to recognize the problem. As many critics, including us, have pointed out, Latin American and Asian women were trafficked into the United States for many years prior to the influx of Russian traffickers and trafficked women. The fact that it took blond and blue-eyed victims to draw governmental and public attention to trafficking in the United States gives, at least, the appearance of racism.

Patricia Hyne

Coalitio Against Trafficking in Women (CATW)

2002


Added: Feb. 08, 2010

Guatemala

At the January 31st, 2010 commemoration of the 1980 Spanish Embassy Massacre, Nobel Laureate Dr. Rigoberta Menchu Tum kneels at a tapestry covered with the names of many of those who were murdered by government forces during the Guatemalan civil conflict.

Exposición fotográfica y artística en conmemoración del 30 aniversario de la masacre de la embajada de España

El día domingo 31 de enero de 2010 diferentes organizaciones de derechos humanos de Guatemala, montaron una exposición plástica en la Plaza Mayor de la ciudad  que incluyo una galería fotográfica de los acontecimientos sucedidos hace 30 años.  La actividad se abrió con una conferencia de prensa presidida por la Dra. Rigoberta Menchú Tum.

Photographic and artistic exhibition in the 30 commemoration of anniversary of the massacre of the embassy of Spain

On January 31st, 2010, human rights organizations from across Guatemala presented an art and photography exhibit to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Spanish Embassy Massacre in Guatemala City. The event began with a press conference by moderated by Dr. Rigoberta Menchú Tum.

Distinguished human rights defenders, including Aura Elena Farfan, Julio Solorzano Foppa, Miguel Ángel Alvizures participated.

Gustavo Meoño and Mario Minera related to the assembled crowd the history of the Spanish Embassy Massacre, in which 37 Mayans, students and Spanish diplomats were killed. The victims included Vicente Menchú, father of Dr. Rigoberta Menchu.

 Noting that, despite the time that passed, this crime remains in impunity. The participants called on the authorities to take action, open an investigation, and punish those responsible for the murders.

The exhibition included photographs that the events of the day of the massacre, as well as the consequences of the government repression during the civil conflict. The photos of some of the [45,000] persons who were made to disappear [during the genocide] were shown.

A huge quilt with the names of victims of the armed conflict was laid in the center of the event grounds.

Guatemalan artist Marlon García displayed some of his works, and collaborated in organizing the exposition. 

Rigoberta Menchu Tum Foundation

La Fundación Rigoberta Menchú Tum

Feb. 02, 2010

See also:

An indigenous woman in Guatemala holds a sign saying: Wanted: Jose Erain Rios Montt (the unseen part says, "for genocide") - during the 28th anniversary of the Spanish Embassy Massacre in Guatemala City, Guatemala in 2008.

General José Efraín Ríos Montt is best known outside Guatemala for heading a military regime (1982–1983) that was responsible for some of the worst atrocities against civilians in the 36-year Guatemalan civil conflict.

Photo: MiMundo

About the Spanish Embassy Massacre

Starting in 1977, a large number of Maya K’iche’ and Maya Ixil inhabitants from the municipalities of Nebaj, Chajul, San Juan Cotzal and San Miguel Uspantan, all located in the northern region of the Department of Quiche, began to organize under the newly created Committee for Peasant Union (CUC). During the year 1979, a number of oppressive acts were carried out by the army against the residents of these municipalities. [That is - military campaigns by government soldiers of mass-rapes and massacres carried out against entire villages of innocent civilians].

In response to such repression, Maya Ixil and Maya K’iche’ peasants, many of them members or local leaders within the CUC, travelled to Guatemala City so as to denounce both at national and international levels the human rights atrocities which were taking place in their communities.

Once in Guatemala City, the peasant delegation visited a number offices and personalities seeking help in divulging their accounts. But their effort was in vain. At the National Congress, access was denied to them. The press also refused to cover the story.

The delegation, however, did receive support from students at the University of San Carlos (USAC), militants from the Robin Garcia Student Revolutionary Front (FERG), some labor unions, as well as a few social organizations... In the end, they decided to occupy an Embassy.

A public declaration from the indigenous communities which peacefully occupied the Spanish Embassy, dated January 31, 1980, states: “...We have been left no other choice but to occupy the Spanish Embassy as the only resource to make our pleas known at both local and international levels.”

The military government of General Lucas Garcia decisively selected to remove the protesters “by any means”. Hence, after only a few minutes after the occupation took place, dozens of police and state security agents surrounded the Spanish Embassy grounds.

Immediately after knocking down the door, [the security forces] made use of a flamethrower, or similar gas-emitting device, against those found inside the ambassador’s office; most were struck by the flames from the waist up and propelled backwards, hence causing a pile-up effect.

Dark smoke was seen come out of the windows, and all 37 people present were burned alive.

The case of the Spanish Embassy Massacre serves as precedent and proof of the intensive and excessive political repression applied by the Government of Lucas Garcia in 1980. It clearly reflects the situation lived during such time where political opposition, demands for social justice, and the denouncement of human rights violations were completely disallowed. In addition, it also reflects the state of terror in which Guatemala society lived under at that time.

Twenty-eight years after the event, a number of activities were carried out to commemorate those massacred: a demonstration in front of the Constitutionality Court (CC), a forum focusing on the topic of Impunity, as well as a vigil in front of the current Spanish Embassy.

Spanish Embassy Massacre: 28th Anniversary

MiMundo

Feb. 27, 2008

See also:

Rigoberta Menchú in Nicaragua

On October 16, 1992, Rigoberta Menchú Tum, heir of the Maya-Quiché people of Guatemala, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Committee recognized in Rigoberta Menchú "a symbol of peace and reconciliation 500 years after Christopher Columbus' arrival to America," underscoring that she is a "vivid symbol of peace and reconciliation despite the ethnic, cultural and social divisions in her country, the American continent and the world."

Only a week before, Rigoberta Menchú had been in Nicaragua to attend the III Encounter of the Continental Campaign of 500 Years of Indigenous, Black and Grassroots Resistance, held in Managua from October 7-12. During her stay, she was given an honorary doctorate in Humanities from the Central American University (UCA). The UCA paid homage to her "contribution to the defense of human rights and the indigenous peoples of Latin America, particularly in her country, for more than 15 years," describing her as "a dignified and distinguished representative of the indigenous peoples of our continent."

Rigoberta Menchú's personal denunciations of the marginalization of the continent's indigenous peoples, of which she and her family have been victims, praised UCA rector Xabier Gorostiaga, have "contributed to educating international public opinion about these very serious problems." He noted that she has become "a genuine representative of the indigenous peoples and popular majorities of Central and Latin America, reclaiming the right to freedom and to the life of our cultures, principles shared by the Society of Jesus and the Central American University of Nicaragua."

Father Gorostiaga also recognized that Menchú has been a "Christian leader in her indigenous community, daughter and sister of martyrs, participating since age 10 in pastoral activities, deeply dedicated to an evangelizing mission in favor of the most oppressed and to the formation of an autochthonous church in Guatemala."

 Central American University

Dec., 1992

See also:

LibertadLatina Special Section

About the genocide and femicide confronting women and girls in Guatemala


Added: Feb. 08, 2010

Florida, USA

Advocates Hope to Rescue Underage Super Bowl Sex Slaves

Super Bowl XLIV

Two dozen volunteers from around the country gathered inside a Miami conference room earlier this week to prepare for the Super Bowl.

They're not here for the game, though. They will spend several days fanning out through the city to rescue underage girls who have been trafficked to South Florida as sex workers.

``The Super Bowl is obviously a really big deal for prostitution,'' Sandy Skelaney, a program manager at Kristi House, a program for sexually abused children, told the group.

``We have a bunch of girls being brought down by pimps.''

Just as police, hoteliers, restaurateurs and retailers have prepared for the big game, so too have children's advocates. For weeks, volunteers have printed fliers, prepared scripts and organized outreach teams in an effort to identify -- and, with luck, rescue -- girls who are being forced into prostitution.

Last year, when the Super Bowl was held in Tampa, the state Department of Children & Families took in 24 children who were brought to the city to serve as sex workers, said Regina Bernadin, DCF's statewide human-trafficking coordinator.

``Miami is known as a destination city for human trafficking, and sporting events are generally recognized by the experts as magnets for prostitution,'' said Trudy Novicki, who heads Kristi House...

Throughout the year, Miami-Dade police hold between 15 and 20 operations targeting underage prostitution. For major events, such as the Super Bowl, the department works with the FBI's Innocence Lost Task Force.

``At large events such as this, we increase our presence . . . with the ultimate goal being that no children are sexually exploited,'' Maj. Raul Ubieta, who works with the department's Strategic and Specialized Investigations Bureau, said through a spokesman...

The outreach workers are organized into eight teams, divvying up the Spanish-speakers and trying to have one man each. In teams of two, three or four, the volunteers -- who came from as far as New York City and Alabama -- spread out across Miami-Dade -- from South Beach to Hialeah to Downtown Miami....

Marbin Miller And Jennifer Lebovich

The Miami Herald

Feb. 5, 2010


Added: Feb. 08, 2010

North Carolina, USA

Human-Trafficking Ring Busted in Wilson

Wilson County Sheriff Wayne Gay says that investigators arrested a man Thursday for allegedly running a prostitution ring with ties to human trafficking, according to media reports.

WITN News reports that Felipe Ramirez Chavez faces a misdemeanor charge of maintaining a place for prostitution. Chavez was being held in the Wayne County Jail Saturday under a $1,000 bond and has also been placed placed under a detainer by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Gay told WITN that a few weeks ago, acting on tips about a prostitution ring, deputies raided a house on U.S. Highway 301 and found one woman. Information from that raid led them to arrest Chavez at his residence at 2101 Fair Place in Wilson.

Two women were found at Chavez's residence, but investigators believe that three or four women lived there, Gay said.

The sheriff said he believes this prostitution ring is unique in the county.

Chavez's first court appearance was set for March 5.

WRAL

Feb. 6, 2010


Added: Feb. 06, 2010

Missouri, USA

Flor, 37, talks about her experience as a labor trafficking victim: "I thought slaves were only in the past, just in history. It happens every day."

From: A New Slavery: Border Crossing - Photo Gallery - The Kansas City Star

Photo: Keith Myers / Kansas City Star

Kansas City Star’s Human Trafficking Series Wins Award in Kansas

The Kansas City Star’s series on human trafficking in America has won the 2009 Burton W. Marvin Kansas News Enterprise Award.

The award was presented Friday to reporters Laura Bauer, Mike McGraw and Mark Morris during the annual William Allen White Day festivities on the University of Kansas campus.

“We are again happy to honor quality journalism in Kansas,” said Ann Brill, dean of KU’s journalism school. “The winners this year represent the impact that great storytelling can have in a community.”

The five-part series, published in December, found that the U.S. government is failing to find and help thousands of human trafficking victims. According to the judges, the series reflected a “commitment to serving the public and demonstrated initiative on acting on that commitment.”

The Kansas City Star

Feb. 05, 2010

See also:

The Kansas City Star’s week-long human trafficking series from December of 2009

The Kansas City Star

Dec., 2009

See also:

LibertadLatina Note

We would like to applaud the Kansas City Star for their December, 2009 special series of articles on human trafficking. Their work was one of the few mainstream English language print articles in recent years that focused on the fact that Mexico, Guatemala and other regions of Latin America confront a major sex and labor trafficking crisis. They also highlighted the fact that Latin Americans comprise the majority of human trafficking victims in the United States.

End Impunity Now!

Chuck Goolsby

LibertadLatina

Feb. 06/07, 2010


Added: Feb. 06, 2010

Haiti

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton in Haiti

Photo: Reuters

Clinton Urges Solution to Haiti 'Kidnap' Case

Port-au-Prince - Former U.S. President Bill Clinton urged the U.S. and Haitian governments on Friday to resolve the case of 10 American missionaries accused of trying to take children illegally out of quake-hit Haiti.

Clinton, named by the United Nations to coordinate relief efforts for survivors of the devastating Jan. 12 quake, made the appeal during a visit to the shattered Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, his second since last month's disaster.

The accused U.S. missionaries, most of whom belong to an Idaho-based Baptist church, were arrested a week ago and charged on Thursday with child kidnapping and criminal association.

Haitian authorities say the group tried to take a busload of 33 Haitian children across the border into the Dominican Republic without any papers proving the minors were orphans or any official permission to take them out of the country.

The missionaries deny any intentional wrongdoing and say they were only trying to help children left destitute by the Jan. 12 earthquake, which killed more than 200,000 people, injured some 300,000 and left over a million more homeless.

The Americans' case is diplomatically sensitive and aid groups complain it has distracted media and world attention away from the struggle to feed and shelter hundreds of thousands of Haitians camped out in wrecked streets.

"What's important now is for the government of Haiti and the government of the United States to get together and work through this," Clinton told CNN in Port-au-Prince.

He said he understood the Haitian government's efforts to try to protect its children from possible child traffickers and unlawful adoptions following the catastrophic quake.

But he also said the missionaries could be telling the truth when they argued they simply wanted to help the children and did not mean to violate any laws. Evidence has emerged that many of the intercepted children were not orphans but were given up by parents who wanted them to have a better life [Note that the missionaries at-first stated to the press that all of the children were orphans - LL].

"The government of Haiti ... (is) not looking for some big fight here. They just want to protect their children and they also want to make sure they have a good inventory so they don't send children away that maybe have an aunt or an uncle that have an income," Clinton said...

Reuters

Feb. 5, 2010


Added: Feb. 06, 2010

Texas, USA

Deputies Investigating Alleged Abduction, Sex Assault

Houston  -- A nine-year-old girl was approached and nearly abducted at an apartment complex in southwest Houston Saturday. Her family is thankful she's safe, but police haven't found the man who investigators say tried to lure her away.

The Precinct 5 Constables Office was called out to the University Apartments on Beechnut near Fondren at around 2pm. When they arrived, they found the shaken nine-year-old girl. She told authorities the man lured her to the back of the apartment complex by asking her to help him find his cat.

When he got back there, authorities say the man made a sexual advance on the girl and tried to get her into his truck.

Fortunately, she managed to escape and ran and reported the incident. Neighbors meantime, are mad.

"What I think about it is that if I see him, you won't have to worry about him," said neighbor Joe York. "You'll never have to worry about him again."

"It's kind of worries me because you know it can happen to anybody," said neighbor Erik Benitez. "Just like it happened to a little kid, it could happen to any grownup."

The suspect is described as an Hispanic man between 35 and 40 years old. He was last seen driving a blue Toyota truck. Deputy constables, as well as Houston police officers, searched the neighborhood Saturday afternoon, but he was not located.

We are told HPD's juvenile sex crimes unit has been notified. Anyone with information is encouraged to call Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS.

KTRK

Jan. 24, 2010


Added: Feb. 06, 2010

Florida, USA

Composite image of suspect

Deputies Investigating Alleged Abduction, Sex Assault

The Charlotte County Sheriff's Office is asking for help with their investigation of reported abduction and sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl in the area of Palmetto Circle in Port Charlotte.

Deputies took the call about the alleged abduction shortly after 9:30 p.m. Thursday. The girl said she was walking by herself and that two men forced her into their car.

The girl says both of the men were in their mid twenties.

She said one of the men was Hispanic and described him as tall and skinny with black spiky hair and wearing a red shirt.

She told deputies the other man was white and wore glasses. The girl described that man as tall and thin, wearing a white T-shirt and jeans.

She said both suspects speak English with a Spanish accent.

The vehicle is an older white 4-door car, with dark tinted windows, and a reflective stripe down the side.

If anyone has information about this case, please call Detective Ian Alvarez at (941) 575-5361 or Crime Stoppers at 800-780-TIPS.

WBBH

Feb 05, 2010


Added: Feb. 05, 2010

Georgia, USA

Thomas E. Perez
Assistant Attorney - General - Civil Rights Division - U.S. Department of Justice: "...
Human trafficking will not be tolerated in the United States..."

Citizen of Mexico Sentenced for Role in Federal Sex Trafficking Conspiracy

Atlanta - Miguel Rugerio, 28, a Mexican national, was sentenced to federal prison today by United States District Judge Clarence Cooper on charges of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and related immigration offenses, and of transporting one of the victims of the conspiracy, a young Mexican woman identified as “N.M.,” in interstate and foreign commerce for purposes of prostitution.

Acting United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said of today’s sentencing, “This defendant lured young women from Mexico with the promise of money and legitimate jobs and then forced them into prostitution and repulsive living conditions. He is now going to federal prison for five years and then will be expelled from the United States.”

In Washington, D.C., Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, said, “This defendant deprived vulnerable victims of their freedom, their dignity and their civil rights. Today’s sentencing should send a clear message to would-be perpetrators that human trafficking will not be tolerated in the United States.”

“Few crimes are more repugnant than sex trafficking helpless and innocent victims,” said Kenneth Smith, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Immigration and Customs (ICE) Enforcement Office of Investigations in Atlanta.

“This sentencing is gratifying given the horrible conditions the victims in this case were forced to endure. While we can’t erase the suffering these women experienced, by aggressively investigating and prosecuting these cases, ICE and its law enforcement partners are sending a powerful warning about the consequences facing those responsible for such schemes.”

FBI Atlanta Special Agent in Charge Greg Jones said, “Today’s sentencing of Mr. Rugerio provides further opportunities for law enforcement agencies such as the FBI, as well as the many and varied victim assistance based agencies, to highlight the growing crime problem known as human trafficking. Mr. Rugerio will now have five years in federal prison to consider the exploitation and victimization of those that he brought in to the U.S. under false pretenses for purposes of prostitution.”

Chicago Press Release

Feb. 04, 2010


Added: Feb. 04, 2010

The United States, The World, Haiti

U.S. Ambassador-at-Large Luis CdeBaca, the Director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the U.S. State Department, speaks at the Preview to the Annual Meeting of the President's Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons

Preview to the Annual Meeting of the President's Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons

Ambassador Luis CdeBaca: …I’m the Ambassador-at-Large for the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking. Today, Secretary Clinton will chair the President’s interagency task force. She’ll be joined by other members of the task force, including the Attorney General, the secretaries of Labor, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services; the USAID Administrator, the Director of National Intelligence, as well as representatives from the White House, Department of Defense, Education, Agriculture, and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

This meeting, which… is mandated under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, is the first held under the Obama Administration. In today’s meeting, we will look forward to a very candid and progressive discussion that highlights the work that each agency is conducting individually as well as collectively to combat modern slavery. In addition, it’s a chance to preview the anti-trafficking efforts in the days, weeks, and months ahead as we work together to make measured progress against every form of exploitation, including forced labor, peonage, and sexual servitude, in response to the President’s declaration of January as Human Trafficking and Slavery Awareness and Prevention Month.

[In regard to child trafficking in Haiti:]

Ambassador CdeBaca: We have begun to – we’ve actually got funding out the door already to a group called Heartland Alliance that’s part of the child cluster that’s one of the more experienced U.S. counter-trafficking organizations. They work with a lot of the trafficking victims in the Midwest. They’re out of Chicago. But they also do counter-trafficking projects for – with grant money from us around the world. And they’re stepping up their activities in Haiti…

Ambassador CdeBaca: …There’s been reports, that I think have been reported on in the news as well, of men coming into some of the camps, using offers of food or water to get girls to leave with them in trucks. Now, obviously, we don’t have any hard evidence as to what’s happening to those girls once they leave with those men, and so that’s why the term “the notion of” trafficking…

What we’ve done in the last three weeks is we’ve repositioned a number of those projects. In the Dominican Republic, for instance, we’re working with the Solidarity Center so that we can try to turn that project around a little bit and have it catch, if there are folks that are coming over the border in search of jobs, in search of work, that they know their rights, that they know that they shouldn’t put themselves into a situation where they can be exploited.

So we’re working on the Dominican side with that project, and then we’re also moving money into Haiti as far as trying to build up those child protection brigades, as far as working with the groups such as the Jean Robert Cadet Restavek Foundation and others to try to make sure that we can have some things in place to protect those children.

Question: You asking for more money for Haiti? You said that previously you had about $500,000 a year in projects. And I know you guys have – don’t have yet an exact sum for assistance for Haiti. But do you plan to ask for additional money to combat these kinds of – to combat trafficking in Haiti?

Ambassador CdeBaca: Well, we have 500,000 to begin with. We will reposition about another a million, taking that from other projects, frankly. And so we need to look at how we make sure that those projects, which – the money of which hasn’t gone out the door yet. And those countries don’t necessarily (inaudible) or not, now that we’re looking at the Haitian side.

Obviously, we’re looking at what the long-term funding needs are. We have about $20-, $22 million in grant funds that we administer in the Trafficking office. We work with our partners at USAID and at the International Labor Affairs Bureau over at DOL, and we are shaking the trees right now to figure out what money there is in this year’s budget, as opposed to looking into the next year...

[The linked web page contains a video recording of this presentation.]

Luis CdeBaca

Director, Office To Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons

U.S. Department of State

Feb. 3, 2010

See also:

Changing Views: Government Promises Action

The Obama administration is weeks away from announcing a new surge — this one aimed at escalating the war on human trafficking in America.

“In January we are going to be announcing a major set of initiatives,” Janet Napolitano, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, told The Kansas City Star.

Napolitano disclosed the administration’s plans at the conclusion of The Star’s six-month investigation exposing numerous failures in America’s anti-trafficking battle.

Although details of the plan were not released, advocates and other experts said they’re cautiously optimistic that this is the best chance in years to address many of the problems revealed in the newspaper’s five-part series. They’re also hopeful that the administration, which has reached out to them and asked what changes are needed, will correct structural flaws in the broken system.

“It is time to go back to the drawing board and promote a more seamless, coordinated plan,” said Florrie Burke, a nationally known advocate for trafficking victims.

Other experts said it’s also time for congressional oversight hearings on the flagging decade-long struggle, and time to centralize an anti-trafficking effort that is thinly spread across a vast bureaucracy plagued by inter-agency wrangling and a lack of coordination.

Part of: Human Trafficking in America | A Star series

Mark Morris, Mike Mcgraw And Laura Bauer

The Kansas City

Dec. 15, 2009

See also:

LibertadLatina Commentary

Chuck Goolsby

We note for the record that the Obama Administration indicated in December of 2009 that they would be presenting a major new initiative to combat human trafficking during January of 2010. As of February 3rd, 2010, that announcement had not yet happened.

It is not hard to understand that an escalation in attempts at terrorism within the U.S., as well as the Haitian earthquake emergency are likely to be among the factors that have pushed back such an announcement. It is concerning, though, that we see no sign in the February 3, 2010 news conference comments of Luis CdeBaca, Director of the U.S. State Department's Office To Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, that the Obama Administration is on the verge of rolling-out any such effort.

We hope that, whenever this action is taken (and even if it never comes about), the Obama Administration recognizes that, as Ambassador CdeBaca stated in a December, 2009 press interview with the Kansas City Star, some 60% of trafficking victims within the U.S. are from Latin America, and a great many victims are trafficked across the Mexican / U.S. border.

Currently, the attention to Haiti's emergency is very much in order. We note that the world press has sounded the alarm bell about the risk of child sex trafficking in the wake of the Haitian earthquake like never before.

While the press, assisting governments and NGO organizations work through the ongoing crisis in Haiti, we ask the world to also remember that hundreds of thousands, if not millions of children and young women face an equally urgent risk of kidnapping, rape and sex trafficking across Latin America and the Caribbean. Yet neither the U.S. federal government nor the NGO community nor most major news entities in the English speaking world have strongly acknowledged, nor have they reacted effectively to that harsh reality.

We hope that the press and the NGOs who get invited to attend events such as the February 3rd Preview to the Annual Meeting of the President's Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons dare to ask the hard questions, as some reporters at the event asked in regard to Haiti (see the linked event transcript).

The same questions need to be asked about U.S. government policy and action in defense of human trafficking and exploitation victims across the Americas, and indeed the world.

We are most concerned at this time about the deafening silence in regard to Latin America's enormous problems with human exploitation and slavery. That silence has existed not only during President Obama's term, but it also occurred during the administration of President George W. Bush.

When prominent academics, government leaders and press writers and authors speak publicly about human trafficking, the focus is invariably on the crisis in Europe, Asia, and to a lesser extent Africa and domestic minor sex trafficking victims in the U.S. All of these communities deserve, and have gotten attention.

Those who have not gotten attention are the women and children of Latin America and the Caribbean where, as leading anti-trafficking activist Teresa Ulloa, director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) for Latin America and the Caribbean (CATW-LAC) notes, an estimated 50 million women and children are at-risk of falling into the hands of human traffickers. As Ulloa further states, some 5 million victims exist in Mexico alone.

Given that 60% of the trafficking victims in the U.S. are Latin Americans, where is the U.S. government's attention to their crisis?

'Little Brown Maria Trapped in the Brothel' deserves our help now!

Ignoring the issue allows the drug cartel financed mega-traffickers to laugh all the way to the bank, because they know that at least today, Uncle Sam is not even thinking about coming after them. Nor, apparently, is Uncle Sam planning to defend and rescue 'Maria' anytime soon.

We insist upon a change to that way of thinking. Does the fact that poor indigenous and African descendent victims in Mexico and the Dominican Republic are people of color really mean that CNN, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and anti-trafficking NGOs who receive federal funds can't ring the alarm bell and help put out the fire, and must continually ignore this raging emergency?

We insist, among dozens of other items on our to-do list, that the U.S. Government demand that Mexico and Japan ACT NOW to rescue and restore the estimated 3,000 to 4,000 indigenous children who have been kidnapped with impunity by the Japanese Yakuza mafias and taken to Japan to be sold as 'geishas' in sexual slavery.

Giving attention to Haiti is a good start. Of course, hundreds of thousands of trafficked children existed in Haiti before the earthquake.

Where was the press then?

Writing from the middle of an anti-trafficking movement that is maturing... but slowly!

End Impunity Now!

Chuck Goolsby

LibertadLatina

Feb. 04/05, 2010

See also:

The United States

Obama's Slavery Czar

Ambassador-at-Large Luis CdeBaca fights human slavery for a living...

...Whether it was farm workers, or women in brothels, the percentages continue to be overwhelmingly Latino. Sixty-plus per cent of the [trafficking] victims in the U.S. are Hispanic.” ...

Lynn Sherr

The Daily Beast

Nov. 24, 2009


Added: Feb. 04, 2010

Haiti

Haitian music star Wycelf Jean

Wycelf Jean Reacts To Human Trafficking Arrests In Haiti

In light of the tragedy in Haiti, a new problem is rising in the capital of Port Au Prince, human trafficking.

Ten Americans were arrested Sunday on charges of human trafficking after Haitian officials say they tried to take 33 Haitian children ranging in age from 2 months to 12 years to the Dominican Republic without proper documentation and permission.

Now outraged about the turmoil racking his country, Wyclef Jean released a series of angry tweets denouncing the traffickers saying, “My message to the child traffickers n Haiti I give you my word we will hunt you Down one by one, and you will be judge[d] with no Mercy!”

The civilians accused of trafficking are part of a Baptist church in the U.S. and maintain that they were trying to save abandoned and orphaned children and planned to relocate them to safety.

They are being held at a government building until officials determine if they should go before a judge.

Haiti's government has halted all adoptions for the time being unless the adoption plans were set in motion before the quake.

Danielle Canada

HipHipWired.com

Feb. 1, 2010

See also:

Wyclef Jean Volunteer Killed By Haitian Car-Jacker

Hip-hop star Wyclef Jean was forced to deal with another tragedy while helping desperate survivors of the Haiti earthquake, after a volunteer for his Yele Haiti foundation was shot dead in a car-jacking.

The former Fugees star and native Haitian rushed to his homeland when the massive tremor hit the nation earlier this month, ravaging the poor country's infrastructure and killing more than 150,000 people.

But Jean and his team of volunteers had to contend with more than just the devastation left by the earthquake, they witnessed the desperate lengths Haiti's people were going to in a bid to survive - which ended in terrible consequences for one young helper.

He explains, "Jo Jo was shot and killed on the second day we were there. He was the victim of a car-jacking. I left him alone for two hours and he was driving in the city.

"A guy stopped him and told him to get out of the car. No one knows quite what happened next but he was shot twice and killed instantly. The jacker didn't even want the car, he just wanted to take the fuel."

And Jean is adamant he will never be able to forget the horrific scenes he witnessed.

He says, "It looked like the apocalypse - there were bodies everywhere. It's a sight that will stay with me for ever. It's something you just can't put into words. I filmed everything with a video camera because I was convinced people would not believe what we told them."

www.StarPulse.com

Jan. 31st, 2010


Added: Feb. 04, 2010

Haiti, Puerto Rico

Ricky Martin arrives at the 52nd Annual GRAMMY Awards held at Staples Center on January 31, 2010 in Los Angeles, California.

Photo: Larry Busacca, Getty Images for NARAS

Ricky Martin Has Haiti on His Mind
Amid the glamour of the red carpet, Ricky Martin's mind was on Haiti.
The singer, who has been campaigning against human trafficking for several years, just returned from the island.
"Situations like this, unfortunately, people take advantage and they start traffic human beings," he said. "It's very intense down there, kids crying in the street, corpses everywhere. It's going to take a while for things to get back to normal."
Martin plans to start working with Habitat for Humanity to start rebuilding homes in Haiti.

Marco R. della Cava

USA Today

Jan. 31, 2010

See also:

The Ricky Martin Foundation


Added: Feb. 04, 2010

Missouri and Kansas, USA

Two Agencies Won't Seek Federal Funds in an Effort Against Human Trafficking

Two local agencies - the Independence Police Department and Hope House - received three-year Justice Department grants in 2006 but will not reapply, officials said. The grants expired at the end of last year.

It is unknown whether other local agencies will apply for grants, according to Justice Department officials. New grants will be given later this year.

Independence police didn’t reapply because detectives must focus on other crimes, said Maj. Ken Jarnigan. Two detectives assigned to human trafficking are now fighting cyber crimes, he said.

“It was a juggling act; which priority do we focus on?” Jarnigan said. “We felt like our department and citizens would be better served by them doing cyber crimes rather than human trafficking. In a perfect world we would have tried to do both.”

Hope House CEO Mary Anne Metheny said in a statement that the shelter would continue to provide services for victims eligible for existing programs.

“However, we will no longer offer human trafficking training or facilitate the coalition against human trafficking,” Metheny said.

The Kansas City Star reported in December that the U.S. attorney’s office had stopped referring human trafficking victims to Hope House after the shelter reportedly failed to fulfill some of its obligations under the grant.

Although trafficking is considered a coastal phenomenon, more alleged traffickers — 36 in the past three years — have been prosecuted by federal authorities in western Missouri than anywhere else in the nation. One Kansas City case, involving Giant Labor Solutions, is thought to be the largest labor trafficking ring uncovered in U.S. history.

But the absence of federal money for the human trafficking task force won’t change what local authorities are doing, said U.S. Attorney Beth Phillips.

“The task force is still fully functioning,” Phillips said. “It’s still meeting and investigating and prosecuting cases. Human trafficking investigations remain a priority of our office.”

Laura Bauer and Mike McGraw

The Kansas City Star

Feb. 02, 2010


Added: Feb. 04, 2010

Haiti

Bandas de Violadores Aterran a las Haitianas

Bands of Rapists Terrorize Haitian Women

Los criminales recorren como alimañas los campamentos de desplazados para elegir a sus víctimas. La policía se confiesa incapaz de proteger a las mujeres.

When night falls, criminal men with lanterns roam the refugee camps in search of their victims. The police confess that they cannot protect all women...

www.publico.es

Feb. 03, 2010


Added: Feb. 04, 2010

Haiti

Aumenta a un Millón la Cifra de Niños Huérfanos

Earthquake Pushes Number of Haitian Orphans to 1 Million

El número de niños huérfanos tras el terremoto que devastó Haití se ha duplicado y alcanza actualmente el millón de afectados, según un informe de la Comisión Europea.

El Universal

Mexico City

Feb. 03, 2010


Added: Feb. 04, 2010

Haiti, The Dominican Republic

Haitiana Recupera Hijo Robado en Cabo Haitiano y Vendido en Dominicana

Haitian Woman Recovers Her Child, Kidnapped in Cape Haitien. Child had been sold in the Dominican Republic

Tras ser secuestrados en Haití, muchos menores son vendidos para luego ser explotados en las calles de República Dominicana, como pedigueños o en actividades de prostitución, como fuera el caso del hijo de Cariné Oguí Pié, quien recuperó en esta ciudad, al norte de Dominicana, a su hijo de siete años, que fuera robado en Cabo Haitiano y trasladado, vendido y obligado a trabajar en las calles santiagueras como mendigo.

La Nacion Dominicana

Feb. 03, 2010


Added: Feb. 04, 2010

Haiti

Niños Haitianos Pululan por las Calles

Haitian Children Mass in the Streets

La procuradora del Tribunal de Niños, Niñas y Adolescentes de Santiago, Antia Beato, estimó ayer necesario que instituciones públicas y privadas realicen esfuerzos conjuntos para resolver el drama que representa la cantidad de menores de origen haitiano que pernocta en las calles de esta ciudad, al ser traficados desde su país.

www.listindiario.com.do

Feb. 03, 2010


Added: Feb. 04, 2010

Haiti

Miles de Haitianas, Sin Servicios Salud y Con Mayor Riesgo de Violencia Sexual

Thousands of Haitian Women Lack Health Services and Risk Sexual Violence

Miles de haitianas no pueden acceder ni a los servicios de salud reproductiva ni a sus métodos habituales de planificación familiar y afrontan un mayor riesgo de violencia y de explotación sexual.

EFE

Feb. 02, 2010


Added: Feb. 04, 2010

Indonesia

Red de Prostitución Infantil que Operaba por Facebook fue Desmantelada

A Prostitution Network Selling 15- and 16-year-old Girls, Operating on FaceBook, is Taken Down by the Police in Jakarta.

La Policía de Indonesia arrestó a dos supuestos proxenetas que administraban la organización.

EFE

Feb. 03, 2010


Added: Feb. 04, 2010

Spain

Las Niñas Agredidas en el Bus Escolar, Invitadas a Irse de su Instituto

Two 12-year-old Girls Sexually Assaulted on School Bus are Invited to Leave their School

Una ya ha sido trasladada a un centro concertado. La otra víctima de la agresión no puede pagarlo y convive a diario con cuatro de sus agresores.

www.20Minutos.es

Feb. 03, 2010


Added: Feb. 04, 2010

Spain

Una Madre se Enfrenta a 30 Años por Prostituir a Sus Hijas, Menores de Edad

A Mother Faces 30 Years in Prison for Exhibitionism and for Prostituting Her Underage Daughters

El padre también se sentará en el banquillo por mantener supuestamente relaciones sexuales delante de las pequeñas

www.diariodesevilla.es

Feb. 03, 2010


Added: Feb. 04, 2010

Brazil

Campaña Contra la Explotación Sexual Será Lanzada en Rio de Janeiro, el 8

Rio de Janeiro Will Start a New Campaign Against Sexual Exploitation February 8th

Con el slogan "Explotación Sexual de Niñas/os y Adolescentes es Crimen.

www.adital.com.br/s

Feb. 03, 2010


Added: Feb. 04, 2010

Bolivia

Víctimas de Abuso Sexual en Hogar Vida ya Son 42

Forty Two Victims of Sexual Abuse Have Been Discovered in an Orphanage Run by Evangelical Christians in the town of Sipe Sipe

El personal sabía desde hace tres años que los mayores violaban a los más pequeños

Staff remained silent for at least the past three years while knowing that children between the ages of 4 and 13 were were being raped at the Life Center.

www.lostiempos.com

Feb. 03, 2010


Added: Feb. 04, 2010

Texas, USA

Benito Vargas

Fugitive Finder: Sex Trafficking Suspect

Benito Vargas has a history of human trafficking and is currently wanted on Suspicion of Aggravated Sexual Assault of a Child.

Investigators said he found his latest victim in Jalisco, Mexico, and his mother and sister both participated in abusing the girl.

On October 27, 2009, while in Jalisco, Vargas persuaded a 16-year-old girl to leave her home and return with him to his home 210 W. 10th Street in San Juan.

Vargas took the girl to Matamoros and arranged for her to be smuggled into the United States.

Upon arriving at the San Juan [Texas] home, investigators said Vargas repeatedly assaulted, verbally abused and raped the girl.

The teen was forced to wake up at 5 a.m., bathe three children who lived in the house with Vargas' mother and sister, and walk the children to a nearby school.

The girl was also expected to complete daily chores including preparing breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Investigators said the teen tried to defend herself and received countless threats that she would be killed or arrested for being in the U.S. illegally.

On December 13, 2009, the girl was kicked out of the house.

With no relatives, friends or anywhere to go, she sat by the curb in front of the house for two days and did not eat.

At night, she would sneak onto the property and sleep on an old sofa in the front yard.

Police believe Vargas is in Mexico along the U.S./Mexico border.

Vargas is described as a 23-year-old Hispanic male with brown eyes and black hair.

He is 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighs 180 pounds.

Vargas also goes by the name Benito Cordero-Vargas.

Call the San Juan Crime Stoppers line at (956) 283-TIPS if you know how to find him.

Benito's mother, Ofelia Vargas, has been arrested for not reporting the abuse.

Benito's sister, Belen Vargas, was already in custody on unrelated charges and is now facing assault charges.
 

ValleyCentral.com

Feb. 01, 2010


Added: Feb. 04, 2010

Texas, USA

ICE: Houston a Hub for Human Trafficking

HOUSTON -- U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have conducted what they call an "unprecedented" criminal investigation into Houston transport businesses suspected of illegally smuggling people into the county.

On Tuesday, 22 people were arrested and charged with using their businesses to transport recently smuggled aliens. Eighty-one illegal immigrants were also arrested and have been placed in removal proceedings.

The three-month investigation dubbed "Night Moves" targeted both transport businesses suspected of housing immigrants, as well as the individual drivers who move them. ICE agents say Houston has become a growing hub for human trafficking. In one location, immigrants were guarded with weapons, pit bulls and surveillance cameras.

In addition to the arrests, ICE agents also seized 32 vehicles, 18 weapons, and $45,000 cash.

Katherine Whaley

Feb. 3, 2010


Added: Jan. 31, 2010

Haiti

A girl stands inside an open air market in Port-au-Prince.

Photo: Reuters / Shannon Stapleton

Haitian Women Lose Out In Post-Quake "Survival Of The Strongest"

In one of the camps sheltering the homeless in Haiti's earthquake-stricken capital, a group of male volunteers stands guard over hundreds of teenage girls and young women as they sleep during the night.

The women there are so afraid of being attacked that they have organized the protection themselves, according to ActionAid, which says several women have already reported cases of rape or sexual abuse to their staff in the camp.

Elsewhere in Port-au-Prince, women have left food lines empty-handed after groups of men raided food distribution sites watched by police who were too few and too powerless to stop them...

Aid workers and human rights activists are increasingly worried that in a country where women's rights are routinely trampled upon or ignored, women are again being marginalized. This time, they fear women are losing out on their fair share of desperately-needed aid following the devastating quake that killed up to 200,000 people and left nearly 1 million more homeless in the Caribbean island nation...

Loss of Rights Icons

Experts with experience of responding to natural disasters say women and children are especially vulnerable after such calamities.

But this is particularly true in a country where one-third of women and girls said they had suffered physical or sexual violence, and more than 50 percent of those who had experienced violence were under the age of 18 -- such were the findings of a study carried out by the Inter-American Development Bank in Haiti in 2006.

In one report, a Swiss doctor described how he treated a girl -- who, he said was at most, 12 years old -- for vaginal lacerations after she had been pulled out from under the rubble and raped by her rescuer. The account was a harrowing reminder of how precarious life can be for women and girls in Haiti, Bien-Aime said.

On top of their battle to deal with the aftermath of quake, Haitian women lost three of their best champions in the Jan. 12 disaster.

Myriam Merlet, Magalie Marcelin and Anne-Marie Coriolan were women's rights icons who were instrumental in the campaign to criminalize rape, experts say.

The law was eventually changed in 2005.

"What the loss of these women for Haiti means is really the loss of half of the women's movement which was a powerful movement but nevertheless very, very small in numbers, very limited in capacity and resources," Bien-Aime told AlertNet.

"Each of these women who died contributed enormously to the lives of women in terms of changing laws and seeking justice for women who have been violated in some way whether it's domestic violence or rape. They were irreplaceable in the context of Haiti."

Merlet, who held a senior position in the Ministry for the Rights of Women, was one of the first women to document cases of rape during Haiti's 1991-4 military regime and identify its use as a political weapon, Amnesty's Ducos said.

Marcelin founded Kay Fanm, which for many years operated the only shelter in the country for women who had been battered by their husbands and boyfriends. It later opened another shelter for survivors of sexual violence.

Coriolan founded one of Haiti's largest women's advocacy groups, Solidarite Fanm Ayisyèn (SOFA).

Against a backdrop of widespread impunity and poverty, these organizations were important in ensuring that survivors of sexual abuse received immediate access to adequate medical care -- anti-retrovirals, contraceptive pills -- as well as psychological support and legal advice.

The deaths of these leading activists were a blow to Haiti's women's rights movement, but Ducos said many women were part of this movement which despite the challenges continues to evolve and grow.

Katie Nguyen

AlertNet

29 Jan 2010


Added: Jan. 31, 2010

Haiti, Latin America

Ecuador's President Rafael Correa answers questions from journalists next to Haitian President Rene Preval, during a news conference in Port-au-Prince January 29, 2010.

Shipment From Puerto Rico Unexpected Blessing For Orphans And The Hungry

Today World Concern is beginning to feed 3,000 additional people and provide emotional support to orphans because of a donor from Puerto Rico. The donor decided to help those suffering in Haiti and coordinate the shipment of two barges full of food, tarps, clothes, toys and other emergency supplies to Haiti.

Though it was not neatly packaged, this aid has provided World Concern yet another opportunity to immediately deliver food to hundreds of hungry families. World Concern is delivering the toys included in the shipment to an orphanage.

"There are a lot of people around the world who want to help," said World Concern President David Eller. "This is a great example of the world's generosity to Haiti."

In the meantime, World Concern waits on massive supplies of aid to be released by larger clearinghouses, hopefully within the next day.

"It has been frustrating knowing that resources have landed in the country and systems have been delayed in getting these supplies released," said Eller...

Seattle-based World Concern has worked in Haiti for more than 30 years and currently provides hope to 125,000 people. Our staff of more than 100 in Haiti work with the poor includes microfinance, agriculture, disaster response and small business development. World Concern works with the poor in 24 countries, with the goal of transforming the lives of those we touch, leading them on a path to self-sustainability.

For more information and to donate, visit www.worldconcern.org or call 1-866-530-5433 (LIFE)

World Concern - USA

Via Reuters' Alertnet.org

Jan. 29, 2010


Added: Jan. 31, 2010

Florida, USA

Some of the members of the Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission of American Baptists, mostly from Idaho, accused of taking children out of Haiti without government authorization

American Baptists with 'Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission' Detained in Haiti for Child Trafficking

A group of American Baptists have become embroiled in the center of a growing fear in Haiti after the devastating earthquake - human trafficking.

Ten men and women were detained in Malpasse while allegedly attempting to cross the border into the Dominican Republic with 33 children in tow without proper paperwork, according to officials.

"No children can leave Haiti without proper authorization, and these people did not have that authorization," Haiti's social affairs minister, Yves Cristalin, told Reuters.

The church group, most of whom are from Idaho, were arrested Friday night. They claim to have been taking the children - ranging in age from two months to 12 years old - to an orphanage in the neighboring nation.

"In this chaos the government is in right now, we were just trying to do the right thing," said Laura Silsby, a spokesperson for group, to the Associated Press.

The Baptists were part of the "Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission," Silsby said. It's goal is to save abandoned children and bring them to a 45-room hotel at Cabarete, a beach resort in the Dominican Republic, which the group claims to be converting into an orphanage.

"We had permission from the Dominican Republic government to bring the children to an orphanage that we have there," she told Reuters.

"They accuse us of children trafficking," Sillsby said. "This is something I would never do. We were not trying to do something wrong."

Haitian officials fear child trafficking could be underway following the devastating earthquake.

Speaking to CNN last week, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said he has received reports of kids being sold, and he believed human organs were also being taken from victims of the quake for profit.

But aid group UNICEF was quick to refute the claims, saying child trafficking is a major concern in the impoverished nation, but there is no hard evidence to back up the government official's claims.

Michael Sheridan

New York Daily News

Jan. 31, 2010


Added: Jan. 31, 2010

Texas, USA

[Texas Supreme Court to Make Decision on the Rights of Prostituted Children]

Sixteen-year-old Angela was said to be a “case study” in the difficulty domestic human trafficking victims represent to law enforcement.

Though first forced into prostitution at age 11, it would be several years before local police would discover her. But instead of being rescued as a child victim, she was placed into the juvenile system in 2008 on a theft charge after a man accused her of stealing his wallet and pants. Only after first prosecuting her as a criminal — due in part, they said, to her uncooperativeness — did law enforcement recognize her as a child victim. Some months later her full story came out.

County officials said last summer that ‘Angela,’ diagnosed with hepatitis and HIV, was finally in a “safe place” getting counseling and medical attention.

Some would like to see child victims jump straight to the help line, and a decision pending with the Texas Supreme Court could move things strongly in that direction, according to Dottie Laster, a New Braunfels-based advocate fighting against human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of children.

The case involves a girl identified as B.W., taken from her mother at age 11 and placed with Child Protective Services. After running away from CPS, she was picked up by Houston Police Department officers two years later after they observed her trying to sell herself on the street. She was booked on charges of prostitution. Later, after her age of 13 became known, she was placed in the juvenile system and charged with delinquency for committing prostitution instead of returning her to CPS.

Attorney Ann Johnson argued that the child should have never been put on the “prosecutorial train.” That state law holds that children under the age of 14 cannot consent to sex. Period.

“Despite their discovery that one of the passengers on that train was a 13-year-old, mentally deficient child with undeniable evidence of sexual exploitation no one to this day has pulled the emergency stop cord to say, ‘Wait. We’re supposed to be handling this issue differently’” Johnson said...

“You can protect a child when they’re in danger without charging them with a crime,” Laster said, adding that the outcome in the case could transform how state law enforcement responds to child victims.

“I believe if they rule to protect the victim that it could greatly change the way juveniles are protected in Texas; if they rule to punish the victim, it could set us back years and cause harm to many more juveniles, or minors, children. However you want to say it, I still look at them as children.”

And if Texas judges find their way to the federal mindset, they will discover that “any child in commercial sex is considered a victim of trafficking,” Laster said.

Of course, this is Texas. Worse. This is Houston, Texas, we're talking about.

The city was pegged last year as the national hub in child trafficking. Judging from the position of the DA's office, reform there — despite the training that Laster, now working with MillionKids.org and running her own consulting group, has given many of its law-enforcement officers - may come most grudgingly.

Greg Harman

The San Antonio Current

Jan. 30, 2010

 


Added: Jan. 31, 2010

Mexico

Niñez cada vez más expuesta a migración y trata

Children are Ever-More Exposed to the Migration and Trafficking

México DF, - Esther es una niña guatemalteca de cuatro años de dad que durante varios días viajó a través de México con la finalidad de llegar a Estados Unidos para reencontrarse con sus padres, quienes pagaron a una “coyote” para que la acompañara.

Antes de partir, la “coyote” le dio instrucciones para responder a los interrogatorios de la migra mexicana: tendría que guardar silencio, mientras que su acompañante fingiría ser su madre. También tendría que “hablar como mexicana” y aprender el himno nacional de México.

Sin embargo, en un retén de Coahuila a Esther le preguntaron que si traía “pisto” y ella respondió que sí, evidenciando no ser mexicana, pues en algunas partes de Centro América “pisto” significa dinero. Fue entonces cuando las detuvieron y Esther fue repatriada a Guatemala.

Esto es solo un pequeño esbozo del contenido de la publicación “Migración sueños y esperanzas del sur”, divulgado por la organización chiapaneca Melel Xojobal, que muestra la migración en la frontera sur, principalmente de niña y niños que viajan de Centroamérica a México para alcanzar el sueño americano...

Narce Santibáñez Alejandre

CIMAC Noticias

News for Women

Jan. 29, 2010


Added: Jan. 31, 2010

Mexico

Tráfico de Influencias Beneficia Pederastas en Oaxaca

Impunidad en el caso del Instituto San Felipe

Influence Peddling Benfits Pedophiles in Oax