United States - Florida - November 26, 2002

Mexican Man Gets Five Years for Prostituting Minors

Hugo Cadena Sosa, charged with prostituting and forcing into sex slavery both women and minors, was sentenced to five years in federal prison. (More articles on Cadenas)

  Costa Rica - November 22, 2002

Death threats against Casa Alianza staff in Costa Rica

With the start of a historic trial against five members of the first Internet pedophile ring brought to light in Costa Rica, key Casa Alianza staff who worked to uncover the child abusers have received a series of death threats.

Egg firm settles rape suit for $1.5 M
Associated Press

DES MOINES, Iowa - DeCoster Farms, a major U.S. producer of eggs, agreed yesterday to pay nearly $1.5 million to 11 Mexican women who claimed they were raped by supervisors at company plants in northern Iowa.

The deal announced by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission settles a discrimination lawsuit filed in August 2001.

The suit claimed the women, who worked as egg packers at four plants in Wright County, were raped and abused by supervisors, who threatened to have  them fired or killed if they did not submit.

"We regret that any worker ever felt abused or harassed in the workplace and  would never have tolerated such a situation had it been known," said Peter DeCoster, who oversees the company's operations in Iowa.

DeCoster Farms is owned by A.J. "Jack" DeCoster, who reached a $6 million settlement in May 2001 with hundreds of Mexican laborers at his operations in Maine who accused him of discrimination.

 Copyright, Associated Press, 2002

DePaul University's International Human Rights Law Institute Issues Report on Sex Trafficking in the Americas "REPORT ON SEX TRAFFICKING IN THE AMERICAS."

  Spain - November 6th, 2002
CASA ALIANZA concerned about Internet Search Engine www.TERRA.ES.

Casa Alianza, a private agency working to defend street children in the Americas, is alarmed at the large quantity of child pornography accessible through the Spanish search engine www.terra.es

(A Spanish language search engine of Lycos.com)

At least 50,000 Dominican women work as prostitutes abroad, mainly in Europe, according to a report presented Thursday at a meeting of the Inter-American Women's Commission.

The document, introduced by the non-governmental organization (NGO) Casa Abierta before a gathering of some 150 delegates from more than 30 countries, also indicated that there are approximately 25,000 underage female prostitutes in the Dominican Republic.

Back on June 11 [Washington Post columnist] Colbert I. King used his op-ed column to discuss violence against women, but he highlighted only the tip of a jagged iceberg. Violence against women in Washington takes many ugly forms, including slavery and forced labor.
 
Contrary to public perception, trafficking in women and children -- for sex as well as for forced labor -- occurs behind closed doors right here. More than 50,000 women from 49 countries are brought into this country each year through major entry ports to be fanned out to underground brothels around the country. And the D.C. area is one of the centers of trafficking activity.

Michele Clark is co-director of the Protection Project at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (JHU/SAIS).

V-Day, the global movement to stop violence against women and girls, formally announced today the launch of its Indian Country Project and the appointment of Native American activist Suzanne Blue Star Boy as Director of the Project. V-Day has developed the INDIAN COUNTRY PROJECT to prioritize raising consciousness, awareness and money around the issues facing Native American women in the United States and First Nations women in Canada at a time when violence against women and girls in Indian Country is at epidemic proportions. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the rate of incidence (of rape or sexual assault) is 3.5 times higher than any other race in the United States. The rate* continues to rise while Indian women and girls remain invisible as an at risk population.

http://www.vday.org/contents/vcampaigns/indiancountry

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC - Counter Trafficking Seminar: The Need for Legislation

IOM Press Briefing Notes Tuesday 24 September 2002
 
- On Thursday the IOM office in Santo Domingo is holding a public seminar on Counter Trafficking and the need for effective legislation. As there is currently no provision on the trafficking of persons in the existing Dominican penal code, it is virtually impossible for victims to go to court and arrested traffickers are difficult to prosecute.

Assistant Deputy Attorney General of the United States Department of Justice, Alexander Acosta and the Dominican Attorney General, Virgilio Bello Rosa and Yadira Henriquez of the State Secretary for Women will address the participants.

Acosta's visit and the seminar are part of IOM's Programme to Prevent and Combat Trafficking of Women in the Dominican Republic. The US Assistant Deputy Attorney General will also hold working sessions with representatives of public institutions and civil society organizations to discuss the main aspects of an effective counter-trafficking legislation.

Government officials and staff of private institutions involved in counter trafficking will attend the seminar. It is co-organized with the Attorney General's Office, the State Secretariat for Women, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Inter-Institutional Committee for the Protection of Migrant Women, and the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences.

Besides advocacy and technical assistance activities regarding the
preparation of legislation, IOM's programme includes public information campaigns on the risks of trafficking, training of government personnel and civil society leaders, and return and reintegration assistance of victims of trafficking.

Since the beginning of the programme, IOM has assisted 45 victims of trafficking to return home from Argentina. IOM estimates that as many as 1,000 may need urgent assistance to return home.

IOM's Chief of Mission Juan Artola says, "In the past few years Argentina had become the new destination for trafficked Dominican women. In February we began receiving information confirming the dramatic situation of the some 5,000 Dominican women currently in Argentina. This coincided with the economic crisis in that country, so many migrants are desperate to return home."

The Dominican Republic, the Philippines, Brazil and Colombia are considered to be important source countries from where women are fraudulently recruited with bogus jobs offers and then trafficked to Western Europe where they are enslaved in the sex industry.

It is estimated that more than 70,000 Dominican women are involved in the sex industry abroad, the majority of them victims of trafficking. The main countries of destination are the Dutch Antilles in the Caribbean, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany and Switzerland, and more recently Argentina.

In the past few months IOM has organized counter-trafficking training
workshops for the members of the Inter-institutional Committee for the Protection of Migrant Women, composed of 15 public institutions and NGOs.  In the coming months IOM will carry out an information campaign in targeted locations in the Dominican Republic and compile legal information for the drafting of new legislation. IOM is working in close partnership with public and non-governmental institutions in the destination countries to offer protection and assistance to Dominican women abroad.

The IOM counter trafficking programme is funded by the Bureau of
Population, Refugees and Migration of the US Department of State.

  DOMINICAN REPUBLIC - , Sep 24, 2002 (EFE)

Interantional Organization for Migration (IOM) denounces forced prostitution of Dominican women - EFE News Service

Geneva - Some 70,000 Dominican women are involved in the sex industry outside their country, most of them forced into prostitution by immigrant-smugglers, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said here Tuesday.

Traffickers, who recruit the women with false promises of jobs, smuggle them into nations such Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Argentina, as well as nearby Caribbean countries.

Once they reach their destinations, the women are held against their will and forced to work as prostitutes.

The IOM has helped 45 such women return to the Dominican Republic from Argentina, according to spokesman Jean Philippe Chauzy, who estimated that roughly 1,000 other Dominican women are in the same plight in the South American nation.

In recent years, Argentina has become one of the leading countries for such business.

The IOM, which is compiling information with an eye toward drafting new legislation against immigrant-trafficking, on Thursday will host a seminar on the problem in Santo Domingo.

<<Europe Intelligence Wire -- 09/24/02>>

  September 17th, 2002 -- FROM MURDERS TO MASSACRES - CHILD KILLINGS ACCELARATE IN HONDURAS - Casa Alianza

A total of 53 children and youth under the age of 23 were murdered in Honduras in the month of August 2002, nine of them in two massacres...  This brings the total of children and youth murdered to 1,343 since January 1998, making Honduras one of the most violent countries per capita for young people in Latin America. - From Casa-Alianza.org

July 19, 2002 120 Children Kidnapped Daily in Mexico

From NPR Show: All Things Considered  (Get RealAudio Player)

Child Kidnappings "While the recent kidnappings of children in California have horrified Americans, an extraordinarily high rate of child disappearances in Mexico has alarmed authorities and citizens there. Child advocacy groups say as many as 135,000 children have been kidnapped in the past three years. It is feared that  many of the children are being sold into the sex and pornography industries. NPR's Gerry Hadden reports from Mexico City. (4:00)"

June 3, 2002 - Washington, DC - 

U.S. State Dept. 2002 Human Trafficking Report Released

“Over the past year, at least 700,000, and possibly as many as four million men women and children worldwide were bought, sold, transported and held against their will in slave-like conditions.”

(More evidence, perhaps, that Latina girl children's human rights issues as they relate to sexual exploitation in the United States have real, measurable impact in daily life.)  - LibertadLatina