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Commentary
We at
LibertadLatina
join with humanity in expressing our complete outrage at the leaders
of the coup d'etat in Honduras. The leaders of the coup were not
justified in kidnapping the democratically elected president of the
nation and sending him into exile. The United Nations General
Assembly, the Organization of American States and U.S. President
Barak Obama, among many leaders of nations in the Americas, have all
joined in demanding that President
José Manuel Zelaya Rosales be returned to power.
Although the coup was approved by Honduran Supreme
Court and Congress, this only shows that the nation's democratic
institutions are weak. In Colombia, for example, President Álvaro
Uribe, a conservative, is seeking, just as did President Zelaya in
Honduras, to change the constitution to eliminate the current limits
on the number of terms that a president may serve. Yet nobody is
trying to overthrow Uribe for have proposed such an idea. The fact
that President Zelaya had set-up a popular referendum, to allow the
voters to decide the issue, was apparently too much democracy for
the coup plotters, so they pounced on Zelaya and raped democracy in
the process.
The independent press, including Feminist Radio
International Endeavor (FIRE), CIMAC Noticias in Mexico City, and
Indymedia Chiapas, have provided excellent coverage of the true
story that is taking place inside Honduras. Some of the key stories
are reprinted here.
The coup leaders have declared a state of siege, have
targeted human rights activists, and have used rifle fire to attack
unarmed protesters who are simply outraged that these cowards have
resorted to taking power by force.
Coups were a common power-grabbing tactic in Latin
America in the late 1900s. The region has since made significant
progress in moving towards democracy. This coup is just one of many
indicators that democracy is not a 'done deal' in all nations of the
Americas.
The conservative coup plotters will, consistent with
the emergent anti women's rights movement represented elsewhere in
Latin America (with whom they are apparently allied), not bode well
for women's equality.
We applaud the activism that we are seeing from brave
women and men in the face of this military repression. Just as
happened during the popular uprisings against dictators across Latin
America in the 1980s and 1990s, the coup leaders in Honduras are
using the tactics of the 'dirty wars' that lead to the murders and
rapes of tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Guatemala, El
Salvador, Nicaragua, Chile, Argentina, Mexico and other nations of
Latin America.
Video from a number of sources shows the terrorism
with impunity that the coup's military supporters are using on
innocent protesters.
See especially this YouTube video posted on
Narco News web site that records the rifle fire of soldiers who were
shooting into crowds of protesters, as well as an interview with a
congressional representative as she visits wounded at a local
hospital and expresses her indignation at the coup.
It is an act of cowardice for the current Honduran
coup government to block CCN in Spanish, block the Internet, and
place Honduras in a stage of siege with a suspension of all
individual liberties. Given the repression that just occurred in the
aftermath of presidential elections in Iran, the world community has
very little tolerance for such illegal behavior in Honduras.
Coup leaders, return President Zelaya to his elected
position.
Nobody elected you.
Your corrupt government is not wanted and it will not
stand!
End impunity now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
July 3, 2009
Honduras
 |
|
Banner:
"Feminists in Resistance; Coup
leaders get out!
Photo: CIMAC
Noticias |
Urge mayor presión a golpistas: feministas hondureñas
Lideresa pro-vida,
designada canciller por golpistas
Ante el Estado de
Emergencia en Honduras, feministas y luchadoras sociales lanzaron un
llamado a la comunidad internacional para que pronuncien una condena
más enérgica contra lo que denominaron gobierno usurpador; “nos
están disparando, golpeando, violentando todos nuestros derechos”,
denunciaron…
Honduran Feminists Urge Greater International
Pressure Against Coup Leaders
A female pro-life
leader has been appointed foreign affairs chancellor by the usurpers
In the face of the state of siege that has been declared in
Honduras, feminists and social activists have launched an appeal to
the international community to deliver a strong condemnation against
what they termed a usurper government. They state that: “We are
being shot, beaten, and they are violating all of our rights.”
In a telephone
interview with CIMAC Noticias, Hilda Rivera, coordinator of the
Center for Women's Rights in Honduras, said that support from Latin
America and the global community is urgently needed. Yesterday, the
National Congress of Honduras approved a State of Emergency,
temporarily suspending individual liberties...
"...We are urging
more pressure from the world community, because the situation is
becoming more violent here” says Rivera.
"Policemen and
soldiers are shooting and beating us. It is urgent that the
government not be given additional time [to consider ultimatums to
step down]. We have put up with four days of bullets, beatings and
rain. There is a general tiredness in the population. Nonetheless,
the violence is increasing, so we are standing up to fight.”
Rivera stated that
the coup is a serious setback for the entire society, and
particularly for women, who’s rights were already restricted. With
this coup, the problem is magnified...
Until now, "within
the feminist movement we have not anticipated everything that may
happen, but we are clear in our understanding that, with this ‘law
of the strongest,’ we can be detained, they can raid our offices and
homes, and we cannot assemble. It is of grave concern to us that we
have important issues on our agenda that are threatened by the coup,
such as the legalization of emergency contraception." ...
A central concern
for Rivera is the safety of human rights defenders. “The government
has already begun to ‘hunt’ various organization leaders by raiding
their houses and arresting them." The coup plotters know that
women do not falter in our struggle. There is a danger that
repression against feminist leaders may follow.
As an example that
the coup government is not interested in defending the rights of
women, Rivera cites the naming of the founder of
Provida [Pro Life] in Honduras as Foreign Affairs Chancellor.
Eco-feminist Daysi
Flores told Feminist International Radio (RIF) that the people are
afraid and outraged. They cannot come out of their homes. But, says
Flores, feminist resistance has been declared. Women’s rights are
going to continue to progress, and we are going to continue the
struggle.
Full English Translation
Gladis Torres Ruiz
CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
Mexico City
July 2, 2009
Honduras
Comunicado de grupos y
organizaciones del Movimiento de Mujeres y
Feminista de Honduras
A Las Organizaciones Internacionales, Cooperación Internacional,
Organismos de Derechos Humanos y a lLos Estados del Mundo
El día domingo 28
de Junio, el Presidente de la República José Manuel Zelaya Rosales,
fue agredido, secuestrado y enviado a la República de Costa Rica en
el avión presidencial, custodiado por cuerpos militares argumentando
que había violado la Constitución de la República por implementar
una consulta popular mediante una encuesta de opinión, donde se
consultara al pueblo si estaba de acuerdo o no que el 29 de
noviembre se colocara una cuarta urna para proponer una Asamblea
Nacional Constituyente, que tuviese como objetivo elaborar una nueva
Constitución con la plena participación ciudadana de los diferentes
actores sociales del país…
Statement By Feminist And Women¹s
Organizations From Honduras Following the Coup D‘Etat
To International Organizations, International Development Agencies,
Human Rights Institutions And To The States Of The World:
On Sunday, June 28,
2009 the democratically elected President of the Republic of
Honduras, José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, was assaulted, abducted and
sent to the Republic of Costa Rica in the presidential plane guarded
by the military...
The people are
peacefully expressing their rejection of the coup d’etat, demanding
the immediate reinstatement of President Zelaya, and a return to the
Rule of Law...
Given these
egregious series of events, we request the support of international
development agencies and the international community to demand the
reinstatement of the Rule of Law, to demand an end to the
prosecution of the members of the cabinet of President Manuel Zelaya
Rosales and leaders of social movements and the media, and an end to
all types of brutal violence and to prevent the imposition of
fascism in our country.
Most Honduran
citizens advocate for peace, solidarity and the respect of human
rights. We emphatically denounce the complicity shown in these
events by the Human Rights Commissioner of Honduras, Dr. Ramón
Custodio, before the regional and international human rights
organizations and the international community.
June 29, 2009
Tegucigalpa,
Honduras
Signed:
Centro
De Estudios De La Mujer Honduras (Cem-H) - The Women's Studies
Center
Centro
De Derechos De Mujeres (Cdm) - The Center for Women's Rights
Centro
De Estudios Y Accion Para El Desarrollo De Honduras (Cesadeh) -
The Center for Development Studies and Action of Honduras
Red De
Mujeres Jovenes (Redmuj) - The Young Women's Network
Acciones
Para El Desarrollo Poblacional (Adp) - Action for Population
Development
Red De Mujeres Adultas (Redmucr) -
The Adult Women's Network
Colectivo De Mujeres Universitarias (Cofemun)
- The Collective of University Women
Marcha Mundial De Las Mujeres, Comité
Nacional - Honduras Global Women's March - Honduras
Articulaciones Feminista De Redes
Locales - Articulation of Local Feminist Networks
Comisión De Mujer Pobladora
Articulaciones Feminista De Redes Locales - - Rural Women's
Commission - Articulation of Local Feminist Networks
Movimiento De Mujeres Socialistas, Las
Lolas - The Socialist Women's Movement, The Lolas
Convergencia De Mujeres De Honduras
Iniciativa Centroamericana De Seguimiento A Cairo Y Beijing - The
Honduran Convergence of the Central American Initiative to Follow-up
on Cairo and Beijing
Feministas Independientes -
Independent Feminists
Published by Feminist International Radio Endeavor (FIRE)
June 29, 2009
Honduras
 |
|
"Feminists in
Resistance" Photo: CIMAC
Noticias |
Vive Honduras una insurrección popular
contra usurpadores
Berta Cazares, candidata independiente a
la presidencia
México DF - Vivimos en Honduras una
insurrección popular, un levantamiento
con la decidida participación de las
mujeres, en contra de las fuerzas
armadas y el grupo oligárquico que
derrocó al presidente democráticamente
electo Manuel Zelaya, pero el costo es
alto y la situación de la población
civil, incluida la niñez, es crítica, la
vida cotidiana está alterada y la brutal
represión tiene como blanco principal a
la juventud…
Honduras
is Experiencing a Popular Uprising Against the Usurpers
An interview with Berta Cazares, independent candidate for
president
Honduras is living through a popular uprising, one that is being carried
out with the wholehearted participation of women against the armed
forces and the oligarchic group which overthrew democratically
elected President Manuel Zelaya. The cost has been high, and the situation
for civilians, including children, is critical. Everyday life has
changed, and the brutal repression is targeting our youth.
Bertha
Cazares Flores, an independent candidate for president of Honduras and
the
national leader of the Popular and Indigenous Organizations of
Honduras, described
the
situation in Honduras in a phone interview with CIMAC Noticias, three days after the military high command,
most of Congress and the Supreme Court overthrew the President and
his Cabinet…
Hundreds have been injured in the country, especially young people,
said
Cazares.
In the 'Progress City' (Ciudad Progreso) area, the repression was especially brutal,
perhaps because that area has historically been a center for social
struggles...
In
rural and indigenous areas of Honduras the situation is quite critical,
including in
[the town of] San Francisco de Ocaña, where, during the 1980s, the
Army used machine guns against the civilian population. "That's
where the resources should go, to see what is really happening there," Cazares says.
Cazares
added that the people continue to defy the siege, the curfew and the
ban on travel. There are military checkpoints throughout the
country. Hundreds of people from rural areas, teachers and
indigenous people, are moving toward to the capital...
Thursday
CIMAC: What
should we expect on Thursday, the day announced by Manuel Zelaya for
his
return to Honduras?
[The planned return date for President Zelaya has been pushed back
to Saturday since this story was written.
-
LL]
Cazares:
We
call upon social movements and organizations that defend
international human rights to come to Honduras in delegations, to
support the civilian population...
We hope
that [Mayan Guatemalan Nobel Peace Prize laureate] Rigoberta Menchú,
along with other personalities such as Mirna Anaya, a judge on
the Supreme Court of El Salvador, and [Argentinean 1980 Nobel Peace
Prize leareate]
Adolfo Perez Esquivel will
arrive [to support President Zelaya].
Meanwhile, Berta is preparing - with an arrest warrant against her
and the knowledge that "assassination is a terrible thing in
Honduras" - for progress to be made today, Wednesday, when civic
organizations will protest against the coup at an army cordon, just three
blocks from the house that she one day hopes to govern from.
Full English Translation
Guadalupe Gomez Quintana
CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
Mexico City
July 1 2009
See
also:
Informan de batallones hondureños que se
niegan a reprimir al pueblo
Radio Progreso, pese a ser acallada por
los militares golpistas, confirmó en una de sus transmisiones
clandestinas que varios batallones de las Fuerzas Armadas de
Honduras, desde el lunes han roto con los golpistas y el gobierno de
facto, y han anunciado que permanecerán al margen de la represión al
pueblo de su país...
Honduran Army Battalions
Reject Repressing the Population
Honduran station Radio Progreso, despite
being shut-down by the coup leaders, has confirmed in one of its
clandestine transmissions that a number of battalions of the Armed
Forces of Honduras have, since Monday, June 29th, broken with the
organizers of the coup d'etat and the de facto government. They have
announced that they will remain on the sidelines of the
repression...
Radio La Primerísima
Managua, Nicaragua
June 30, 2009
Chile
 |
|
President
Michelle Bachelet of Chile, during a
June 23, 2009 visit
with U.S. President Barak Obama |
Bachelet Remueve a Jefe Policial
La presidenta de
Chile, Michelle Bachelet, removió al jefe de la policia de
investigaciones (civil), Arturo Herrera, tras una serie de denuncias
de corrupción, incluida una que involucró a policías con una red de
prostitución infantile…
Hace una semana, en
el aniversario 76 de la policía de investigaciones, Herrera lamentó
la relevancia dada por medios de difusión al caso de prostitución
infantil que involucró a un grupo de policías activos.
Bachelet Removes Police Chief
The
president of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, has removed the chief of the
Investigations Police, Arturo Herrera, after a series of allegations
of corruption, including a case in which police officers were
allegedly involved with a child prostitution network.
Herrera
resigned the post three months before his scheduled retirement. He
did so after a telephone conversation with the president, held while
she was visiting Mexico.
Upon
her return to Chile the president accepted the resignation and
appointed as his replacement Marco Antonio Vasquez, now police chief
in the region of Bío Bío, 500 kilometers south of Santiago…
A week
ago, during the 76th anniversary of the Investigations
Police agency, Herrera lamented the importance that the media had
given to a case of child prostitution involving a group of police
officers.
www.ansa.it/ansalatina
June 29, 2009
See also:
Director of Chile's Investigation Police Steps
Down
Americas Quarterly
Online
June 26, 2009
See also:
LibertadLatina
Our January, 2006 news page, which contains
articles about Chile's first woman president, pediatrician Dr.
Michelle Bachelet, who along with her mother was imprisoned and
tortured by former dictator Agosto Pinochet's forces. Bachelet's
father, an air force general, was tortured to death under the
Pinochet regime.
Texas, USA, Mexico
Man handed 5 years in sex trafficking
A former registered
nurse was sentenced Wednesday to five years in prison for engaging
in what was the first and so far only federal sex-trafficking case
in San Antonio.
Brent Andrew
Stephens, 41, who surrendered his nursing license amid the criminal
case, pleaded guilty in March to conspiracy to harbor aliens for
financial gain and conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking by force,
fraud and coercion…
Stephens admitted
that he and his business partner, Timothy Gereb, planned to use
young Mexican women as escorts and in a massage parlor in May 2007.
The two paid
Stephens' personal assistant, Maria de Jesus “Jessica” Ochoa; her
sister, Consuelo Pilar Ochoa; and their mother, Isabel, to recruit
and smuggle females from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, to San Antonio.
The Ochoas smuggled
three victims, including two minors, and took them to Stephens. The
victims were given alcohol, threatened at gunpoint by Gereb and
warned not to return to Mexico, court documents state…
The victims told
agents that once they arrived in San Antonio, they were told they
would have to work as prostitutes for five years to pay the $3,000
smuggling fees…
Gereb, 50, was
sentenced earlier to 10 years in prison. Isabel Ochoa, 60, received
time served. Consuelo Ochoa, 34, was sentenced to 18 months for the
sex-trafficking case and 39 months for a separate drug case. Maria
Ochoa, 32, got 12 months and one day and is now out of jail.
Guillermo
Contreras
Express-New
June 25, 2009
Florida, USA
Lee County at Forefront of Slavery Fight
"We're light years
ahead of other communities," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas
Molloy, who's prosecuted 20 slavery and human trafficking cases
throughout Southwest Florida over the past decade, freeing 50
victims. "Because of our united community efforts, we're in a place
most areas aspire to."
Those efforts
include a two-man team at the Lee County Sheriff's Office, a
multi-agency task force and a new command center at Florida Gulf
Coast University: The Esperanza Project.
"What's happening
at FGCU is electric - just electric," Molloy said.
One of a scant
handful of university-based human trafficking research centers in
the country, it opened eight months ago with $100,000 in seed money
from a federal anti-trafficking grant given to the Lee County
Sheriff's Office.
The center's name
means "hope" in Spanish. It's also the pseudonym of the 11-year-old
girl whose enslavement in Cape Coral became a galvanizing force as
Lee county's first high-profile victim.
In 2005, the girl
was discovered in Cape Coral, pregnant and bleeding. Born in
Guatemala, she was sold to a man who brought her here and forced her
into sexual and domestic slavery. She was repeatedly raped and
beaten during her two-year captivity. Molloy eventually sent her
captors to federal prison.
Her case sparked a
wave of questions and self-examination among law enforcement and
residents alike.
In short order, the
Sanibel chapter of Zonta International, a service group, made human
trafficking its signature cause.
The U.S. Department
of Justice awarded the Lee County Sheriff's Office a $450,000,
three-year grant to combat human trafficking.
By the end of 2005,
Molloy said authorities were working on more trafficking cases in
Southwest Florida than many entire state sees in a year…
"(The U.S.) spends
about about $23 million on this annually - that's not much at
all,"... "Estimates are there are about 17,000 [new] foreign-born
trafficking victims alone [each and every year] and 17,000 homicide
victims, and yet we solve 70 percent of the homicides and 1 percent
of trafficking cases." ...
The man in the No.
1 human trafficking job in Washington is Luis C. de Baca. The new
ambassador-at-large to monitor and combat trafficking in persons at
the State Department promises trafficking will be a priority of the
new administration as well - especially, of Secretary of State
Hilary Clinton...
Amy Bennett Williams
www.News-Press.com
June 28, 2009
Mexico
 |
|
Mexican Congressional Deputy
Maricela Contreras
speaks out about defects in trafficking law's
regulations |
Denuncian colusión de bandas y funcionarios para secuestrar
migrantes
México - La
presidenta de la Comisión de Equidad y Género de la Cámara de
Diputados, Maricela Contreras, denunció que bandas organizadas
coludidas con autoridades cometen la mayoría de los secuestros
contra migrantes en las zonas fronterizas.
Señaló que según el
Informe Especial sobre los casos de secuestro contra migrantes se
documentaron nueve mil 758 personas privadas de su libertad, y de
ese total en nueve mil 194 casos el delito fue cometido por ese tipo
de organizaciones criminales...
Congress Explores Allegations of Collusion
Between Criminal Gangs and Government Officials to Kidnap Migrants
According to the
Special Report, 9,758 persons were deprived of their liberty
In 9,194 cases,
the offense was committed by criminal organizations
The president of
the Commission on Equality and Gender of the Chamber of Deputies,
Maricela Contreras has reported that Mexican authorities have
colluded with organized gangs to commit the majority of kidnappings
targeting migrants in border regions.
Deputy Contreras
noted that a special report on cases of kidnappings against migrants
documented the fact that 9,758 people had been deprived of their
liberty, and that in 9,194 of these cases, organized crime was the
perpetrator...
The report states
that migrants who enter Mexico are subjected to extortion, robbery,
kidnapping, illegal searches, beatings, chases, being thrown off of
moving trains, rape, threats, psychological pressure and even
murder.
Contreras pointed
out that the assailants most often mentioned by victims are elements
of the Federal Preventive Police, military personnel and agents of
the National Institute for
Migration.
Data reported by
the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL)
indicates that along the southern border of Mexico, 70 per cent of
migrants are victims of violence. Some 60 percent of migrants suffer
some form of sexual abuse, including rape.
The CEPAL report
also emphasizes that the United States border with Mexico is also a
very dangerous region, where women migrants become victims of sexual
violence, forced prostitution, human trafficking and murder.
Deputy Contreras
denounced these human rights violations and called upon Mexican
society to not tolerate inefficiencies, incompetence and
complicity by govern-ment officials, behaviors that threaten the
lives and integrity of thousands of men and women who cross the
borders into Mexico...
Full English Translation
El Financiero
Online
With information
from Notimex / JOT
June 27, 2009
See also:
Mexico
20000 Migrants a Year Kidnapped in Mexico En Route to US
Some 20,000 of the
140,000 illegal migrants en route to the United States who travel
through
Mexico to find work and a better life are kidnapped each year
and subjected to rape, torture and murder, crimes that usually go
unpunished due to the corruption of the authorities, fear of
reprisals and distrust of authorities, according to Mexico’s
independent National Human Rights Commission.
Mexico City – More than 1,600
migrants, above all Central Americans en route to the United
States to find work, are kidnapped monthly and subjected to
humiliations that usually go unpunished due to the corruption of
the authorities, Mexico’s independent National Human Rights
Commission reported.
“The kidnapping of migrants has
become a continuous practice of worrying dimensions, generally
unpunished and with characteristics of extreme cruelty,”
commission chairman Jose Luis Soberanes said Monday at the
presentation of the report.
Between September
2008 and February 2009, the commission registered a total of 198
separate cases of mass kidnappings of migrants involving 9,758
victims...
EFE
June 17, 2009
Sitio Oficial de Maricela Contreras
Julián
-
Maricela
Contreras' official web site (In Spanish)
Maricela Contreras Julián en la
página oficial de la Cámara de Diputados
-
Maricela
Contreras' Congressional web site - In Spanish
Mexico
 |
|
Mexican Congressional Deputy
Maricela Contreras,
chairwoman of the national commission to combat
trafficking, speaks out about defects in the federal
regulations published by President Calderón that weaken
the nation's first federal anti-trafficking law |
Atorada, ley contra tráfico de personas
Señala diputada que Segob no incluyó fiscalía en el reglamento
La Comisión de
Equidad y Género de la Cámara de Diputados lamentó que a pesar de
que se han detectado redes de delincuencia organizada dedicadas a la
trata de personas en el país, el programa nacional de combate contra
este delito no podrá operar sino hasta 2011 debido a que no se ha
instalado la comisión encargada de su elaboración y no cuenta con
una partida presupuestal específica...
Mexico’s Law to Prevent and Punish Trafficking
in Persons is Stuck in the Mud
The Interior Department failed to include a role for the
special prosecutor for trafficking's office in the law’s published
regulations
The regulations as written will tie the hands of the
anti-trafficking law’s enforcement provisions until 2011
The
Commission on Equality and Gender of the Chamber of Deputies (the
lower house of Congress) regrets the fact that despite having
identified organized crime networks involved in human trafficking in
the country, the national program to combat this crime cannot begin
operating until 2011. The [unexpected] delay is due to the fact that
the commission responsible for standing-up these efforts does not
yet have a line item in the federal budget, and therefore it has not
been created.
Deputy
Maricela Contreras of the Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD)
and chairwoman of the anti-trafficking commission, noted that
another failure of the Department of the Interior (SEGOB)
in drafting the required federal regulations that will activate the
2008 anti-trafficking law is the fact that
SEGOB did not create a role
for the office of the Special Prosecutor for Crimes of Violence
Against Women and Trafficking (FEVIMTRA) [an office of the Attorney
General of the Republic] as one of the institutions responsible
for combating trafficking...
Contreras, as part of her analysis of the official anti-trafficking
regulations published on February 27, 2009 in the Official Gazette,
added that
the targeting of organized crime is also absent from the regulations.
"This situation is serious, because the regulations do not recognize
that the problem [of trafficking] originates with various forms of
criminal organizations, from disorganized bands that are just
starting up to the more highly structured trafficking networks and
mafias," says Contreras...
The
Joint Committee of Congress has made an appeal to President Calderón’s legal counsel requesting that the Executive
open the
official regulations for revision [to repair the many defects
within]. Presidential deputy legal counsel Javier Sanchez Arriaga
responded to Congress by stating that changing the regulations was a
responsibility of the Interior Department (Segob).
[And thus, nothing
was ever done to improve the regulations -
LL]
Full English
Translation
Liliana Alcántara
El
Universal
June
20 2009
See also:
The current regulations have no minimum
standards, nor do they integrate the work of
key federal agencies
Mexico City – Mexico City congressional
deputy Maricela Contreras, president of the
Commission on Equality and Gender of the
Chamber of Deputies, has declared that a
re-writing of the published Federal
Regulations that enable the 2008 Law to
Prevent and Punish Trafficking in Persons
is urgently needed,
given that there is an indifference
and unwillingness on the part of the federal
government
to stop this crime wave, [of human
trafficking - in defiance of the will of
Congress].
...Contreras, who had called for the
declaration, stated that "the published
rules were delivered late [after a 9 month
delay following the law’s passage, and after
four warning to President Calderón from
Congress -LL],
they are 'plain,' and they contain
omissions. The rules don’t provide any tools
to combat or prevent trafficking, much less
any provisions for the care of the victims,
who are mostly girls and women. For these
reasons, President Calderón should have the
rules revised, because in their current
state, they aren’t worth anything."
Full English
Translation
CIMAC Noticias
May 22, 2009
See
also:
|
¡Héroes!
Lea nuestra sección
sobre la lucha de varios congresistas y defensoras
de los derechos humanos para lograr obligar que el
Presidente Felipe Calderón
publica un reglamiento fuerte respladar a la nueva
ley: Prevenir y Sancionar la Trata de
Personas, de 2008, que hasta ahora es sigue
siendo una ley sin fuerzas.
Read our special section
about the brave work of advocates and congressional
leaders in Mexico to break-through the barriers of
impunity and achieve truly effective federal
regulations that will enforce the original
congress-ional intent of Mexico's 2008
Law to
Prevent and Punish Trafficking in Persons.
LibertadLatina
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Mexico, Canada
Pedophile ring suspect caught in Mexico
A Canadian suspected of heading a North
American pedophilia ring has been arrested in Mexico in
possession of four million photographs and videos of children
shown naked or striking suggestive poses.
The suspect, Arthur Lelland Sayer, "was
caught red-handed at his home in Tijuana, Baja California (close to
the US border) with a large number of photos and videos that were
stored on over a dozen hard drives", Mexico City's public prosecutor
said in a statement on Thursday.
A Mexican police investigation is
ongoing to dismantle a major child pornography network and to "find
evidence that it is active in the three North American countries:
Mexico, the United States and Canada."
The crime ring was discovered by the
"cyber police" of Mexico's Public Safety Ministry, which arrested
the Canadian on Sunday along with agents from FEVIMTRA, a special
unit that combats human trafficking.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) June
27, 2009
Added:
June 28, 2009
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Cecilia Romero, head of Mexico's national
immigration service, says that sex tourism and pedophile
networks are "inevitable."
"El
turismo sexual es inevitable" -
Cecilia Romero del Instituto Nacional de Migración de
México
Photo: El
Universal |
LibertadLatina
Commentary
President Calderón, the Human Rights
Crisis at Mexico's Southern Border is Unacceptable
Our current series of articles covering the human rights emergency
facing women and girl migrants at Mexico's southern border responds
directly to the recent comments of Cecilia Romero, head of Mexico's
national immigration service (the
National Institute for Migration - INM). Director Romero stated in a
press interview with El Universal, a major Mexico City daily paper, that human
trafficking is "inevitable", and that, "the
existence of the smuggling of migrants, human trafficking, pedophile
networks, and the kidnappings and violence that affect thousands of
migrants are only
"evils of mankind"
that Mexico cannot eradicate.
We strongly disagree with Director Romero and others in the
leadership of Mexico's National Action Party, who habitually dismiss critical women's
rights issues, including the femicide murders in Ciudad Juarez, as being the
inevitable, and 'normal' results of male human behavior.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The citizens of Mexico, Mexico's Congress and the international
community need to hold the government of President Felipe Calderón accountable
for his allowing unending mass gender atrocities to occur on Mexico's southern
border with Guatemala and Belize.
In this hell-on-earth, an estimated 450 to 600 migrant women are
sexually assaulted each day, according to the International Organization for
Migration. Police response is almost non-existent. At times,
police are complicit in this criminal violence.
Mexico's southern border is also the largest zone on earth for
the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC), according to Save the
Children.
As Father
Luis Nieto states in the below article about Salvadoran mothers who must come to
Mexico's border to grieve for their raped and murdered daughters,
"We cannot keep quiet, we cannot be complicit in this."
We strongly agree with that sentiment. Silence is also violence.
The federal government of Mexico is not ignorant of this ongoing
catastrophe. The United Nations, the International Organization for Migration,
Save the Children, elements of the Catholic Church, the National Human Rights
Commission (CNDH) and many members of Congress have, for the last several years,
demanded action to end these atrocities.
Although INM director Cecilia Romero promised in February of 2007 that she
would "entirely
eliminate this terrible situation," no visible action
has been taken to do so as of June of 2009, 16 months after Romero made that
promise.
With the current economic slowdown and the expansion of
global
criminal sex trafficking operations, the rapes,
kidnappings and sexual enslavement of innocent migrants on that border is increasing with no end in sight.
As the United States Congress prepares to send over $400 million
dollars in largely military aid to Mexico as part of the Merida Initiative to
combat the drug cartels, we insist that human rights conditions be placed on
those and other U.S. foreign aid funds that are headed to Mexico.
Mexico must close down the mass rape, kidnapping, murder and
child sex trafficking gauntlet that exists with total impunity on its southern border.
We also want to see the estimated 4,000 mostly Mayan indigenous
children kidnapped from this region and sold to brothels in Tokyo, and also the
uncounted thousands of other indigenous child victims who have been sold to brothels in New York and
Madrid rescued, repatriated and then truly cared for.
Do you need money, President Calderón, to get these things done?
Or is a misogynist, 'socially conservative' ideology that is resurgent in Mexico, and that has
as its strongest voice the PAN political party, the real problem here?
Esta barbarie no será perdonado por
Dios!
This barbarity will not be pardoned by God!
If Mexico does not have control over this part of its own
territory, or if, as appears to actually be the case, the PAN's socially
conservative agenda won't allow it to defend innocent and vulnerable women and
children in crisis, consistent with their apathetic reaction to the femicide
murders in Ciudad Juarez, then perhaps an international force organized by the
Organization of American States, or by the United Nations needs to step-up to
the plate, offer to help Mexico, and take control of the situation.
This crisis in Mexico is the best example in the Americas of why
a new Global Plan of Action, as proposed by
Ecuadorian Minister
of Justice and Human Rights (Attorney
General)
Néstor Arbito
Chica
and diplomats gathered at the United Nations on May 13, 2009, is
needed to get around this impasse.
Somehow, the fact that the
government of Mexico is a signatory to the
Palermo Protocol, and the fact that
Mexico passed its 2009 U.S. Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report
evaluation with a relatively positive Level 2 Rating (as we also acknowledge State's strong
critique of corruption in Mexico), misses the point.
New and out-of-the box strategies are needed to oblige Mexico to
fulfill its international obligations to end this mass gender atrocity
once and for all.
It is not an impossible task.
The status quo today is... unacceptable!
End impunity
now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
June 28, 2009
Mexico
 |
|
Salvadoran mothers gather to pray and
leave offerings and crosses for their family members who were
abused, kidnapped and murdered in the 'mugging and rape guantlet' at Mexico's southern border
region known as
'La Arrocera' - the Rice Cooker. |
Madres salvadoreñas depositan ofrendas en "La Arrocera"
El 80 porciento de los abusos cometidos contra los inmigrantes se
cometen en esta zona de Huixtla, Chiapas
Huixtla, Chiapas -
Los parientes de indocumentados fallecidos y desaparecidos visitaron
"La Arrocera" , un pequeño tramo de escasos cuatro kilómetros que
los indocumentados utilizan para evadir la caseta migratoria El
hueyate, en Huixtla...
Salvadoran mothers
leave offerings for their murdered children at
"The Rice Cooker"
80 percent of abuses against migrants occur in this area near the
city of Huixtla, Chiapas
Huixtla, Chiapas - relatives of deceased and missing undocumented
migrants visited "La Arrocera," a four kilometer long rural trail that
north-bound Central and South American migrants use to bypass the
Hueyate immigration
station in the city of Huixtla, Chiapas.
Under strict
security arrangements and with the support of Mexico's National
Commission on Human Rights (CNDH), members of the Committee of
Families of Deceased and Missing Migrants toured the area of "the
Rice Cooker" near Huixtla, a municipality in the state of Chiapas,
where dozens of men and women have been assaulted, raped and
murdered.
"The Rice
Cooker" is a
[rural] migrant trail where 80 percent of the assaults and homicides
in the region are committed, according to testimony gathered by the
Catholic Church and human rights organizations.
Even police will not
enter this zone unless they have several officers armed with
high-powered weapons.
Father
Luis Angel Nieto prayed for eternal rest for all of those
migrants who lost their lives here in their attempt to reach "the
American Dream."
For the second time
during the trip,
Father
Luis Nieto demanded that the Mexican authorities combat these
crimes, that for several years have sewn pain and fear.
"We cannot keep
quiet, we cannot be complicit in this," he said.
After prayer, the
Salvadorans planted dozens of crosses in memory of those who lost
their lives here and who were never identified.
During the
emotional ceremony, the mothers and fathers could not contain their
tears. The sadness and pain invaded their faces. Most knew the
true meaning of "the Rice Cooker".
Juan de Dios
Garcia Davish
Feb. 11, 2009
See also:
“Wall of Violence” on Mexico’s Southern
Border
Calderon’s
“two-faced” policy combines police, the military, gangs, and Los
Zetas [ex-military, who are now 'hit men' for the drug cartels] to fulfill US
mandate to deter Central American migration
... Wall
of Violence
“Migrants don’t have
rights in Mexico,” says Father Heyman Vazquez Medina, founder of El
Hogar de la Misericordia. “It’s ok to beat them, extort money from
them, rob them, sexually abuse them, murder them, and nothing
happens.
Central American
migrants’
legal security guarantees appear to
be repeatedly and permanently violated by individuals and groups of
people who rely on the protection, consent, tolerance, or
acquiescence of the State and who have the power of weapons,
money, police protection, corruption, and impunity. They have put a
price on the head of each migrant.”
Migrant shelter
staffers say those who abuse migrants operate with absolute
impunity... [Father Alejandro Solalinde
Guerra, the southern coordinator of the Catholic Church’s Human
Mobility Mission Migrants program]
recalls one case where a woman was kidnapped from one of the
shelters he oversees. Solalinde remained in contact with her family
throughout the ordeal. When she finally turned up in the United
States, she said that the group that kidnapped her forced her to
make several [pornographic movies]. When they finally brought her to
the US-Mexico border, they made her family pay thousands of dollars
in ransom. Solalinde offered to fly her back south and pay all of
her expenses if she filed a complaint with the government. The woman
refused, saying she never wanted to set foot in Mexico ever again.
Even when migrants
or human rights organizations do file complaints, they almost never
result in arrests or convictions. Solalinde says that almost every
time he calls the police because migrants have identified and
located their attackers, he can’t find a police force that will
arrest the suspects. They all say they don’t have jurisdiction in
immigration affairs...
...[Mercedes
Osuna of La Semilla del Sur, a Chiapas-based organization that works
primarily on indigenous issues]
explains that [after crossing into Mexico, to avoid a migration
station on the highway north], undocumented migrants must walk a
roundabout route through an area called la Arrocera. La Arrocera is
teeming with violent criminals who mug [and rape and kidnap]
migrants as they pass through. Osuna spoke with some migrants who
recently passed through la Arrocera. They told her that in la
Arrocera they saw uniformed Chiapas state police in marked vehicles
pick up and drop off people who mugged migrants. In la Arrocera, the
muggers are painfully thorough: migrants complained to Osuna of
being stripped searched. The assailants even checked their victims’
anuses and vaginas for hidden valuables.
Police don’t just
offer rides to assailants; they often are the assailants...
**
The “Wall of Violence” is fierce: El Hogar de la Misericordia [a
migrant shelter] estimates that 80% of all migrants who pass through
Chiapas state have been assaulted during their travels.
Approximately 30% of the women who come to El Hogar de la
Misericordia report being sexually assaulted in la Arrocera,
Chiapas, which is only one of many stops along the migrants’ route.
Fermina Rodriguez of the Fray [Friar] Matias de Cordova Human Rights
Center, which monitors human rights on Mexico’s southern border,
says, “When you talk to women, they consider rape to be part of the
price they pay to migrate.” ...
Kristen Bricker
My Word is My Weapon
Dec. 24, 2008
Panama
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A 'Genteleman's
Club' in Panama
Photo: Panama
Star |
The Sexual
Reality of the Country
Panama is not
only seen as a tax haven, but also a sexual paradise for tourists
where everything is available for the right price
Every country has a seedy side and Panama is no
exception. Like many other places in the world the sex industry is
thriving and attracting visitors.
For many
tourists that is one of Panama’s attractions. The so called
“gentlemen’s clubs” offer not only beautiful women willing to do
anything for the right price, but also the promise of forbidden
pleasures.
Technically
speaking sexual tourism is a crime, however there are Internet sites
where the would be traveler will not only have all the their
traveling arrangement taken care of, but also they throw into the
package a lovely companion of whatever sex and age depending on the
client’s preference...
Prostitution is
a big business and organized crime gangs regularly bring women from
Colombia, the Dominican Republic and other countries to work in the
sex industry.
They bring the
girls under false pretences promising them work. In reality the
human traffickers take away their passports and use them as
prostitutes in nightclubs and bars.
They are scared
and lonely, in a foreign country, with nowhere to run to. They are
terrified of the human traders and too afraid to go to the police
because they know they are going to be deported...
Perhaps the
worst part of the sex industry is the commercial sexual exploitation
of children through on-line pornography and actual prostitution.
The Public
Ministry is currently investigating 40 cases involving commercial
sexual exploitation of children and pornography...
Marijulia
Pujol Lloyd
Panama
Star
06-04-2009
Mexico
 |
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Senators José Luis Máximo
García Zalvidea (left) and Rubén Velázquez, |
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|
Senators Lázaro Mazón (left) and
Francisco Javier Castellón Fonseca |
PRD pide a INM explicación por red de
lenocinio
Legisladores del
PRD pidieron la comparecencia de Cecilia Romero Castillo,
comisionada del Instituto Nacional de Migración (INM), por el caso
de mujeres sin papeles de Centroamérica prostituidas...
Legislators call
upon the Joint Committee of Congress to call immigration (INM)
director Cecilia Romero in to appear and explain apparent
involvement of INM agents
in
Yucatán
sex trafficking
network
Congressional
lawmakers from the Party of the Democratic Revolution [one of
Mexico’s three main political parties] have called for Cecilia
Romero Castillo, commissioner of the National Institute for
Migration (INM) to appear before Congress to explain the situation
of a case in which undocumented Central American women where
prostituted in [the state of Yucatán, with the alleged involvement
of immigration agents in criminal activity].
Senators
José Luis Máximo García Zalvidea,
Rubén Velázquez,
Lázaro Mazón and
Francisco Javier Castellón Fonseca presented an accord before
the Standing [joint] Committee of Congress to "invite" to the
commissioner of the INM to a meeting with legislative members of the
First Committee.
PRD legislators
want Romero to report on the performance of INM immigration officers
in the areas of human rights, and especially in the state of Yucatán,
“where a network dedicated to trafficking in persons and sexual
exploitation of women" [involving INM officers] has been discovered.
The PRD
congressional members have also asked the Standing Committee of
Congress to request that the Attorney General’s Special Prosecutor
for Crimes of Violence Against Women and Trafficking in Persons
(FEVIMTRA) investigate and take action against agents in the INM’s
Yucatán office for their involvement in human trafficking and sexual
exploitation.
The Standing
Committee was also asked to request from the National Commission on
Human Rights that it open an investigation into the case, and assist
the foreign national victims who have filed criminal complaints in
the case.
Jorge Ramos and
Ricardo Gomez
El Universal
Mexico City
June 17 2009
Colombia
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|
The 11 month police
operation was code named for this well known
Colombian novel |
Así operaba la red de trata de personas más poderosa del país,
desmantelada por la Policía
Un grupo de 20
investigadores de la Policía de Infancia y Adolescencia de Medellín
adelantó toda la investigación, que se inició en julio del año
pasado. Una joven de 18 años denunció su caso.
"Una amiga me dijo
que le estaban ofreciendo un trabajo en Bogotá y que nos iban a
pagar 300 o 400 mil pesos. Cuando nos presentamos nos subieron a un
bus, pero para el Urabá. Luego nos recogieron en un taxi, nos
quitaron los papeles y nos llevaron a una casa de citas. Allá un
señor nos dijo que ya sabíamos a qué íbamos, hasta que la ley nos
encontró como a los cinco días"...
Police dismantle the largest sex trafficking
network discovered to date in Colombia
A group of 20 police investigators from the Children and Adolescents
unit in the city of Medellin developed the entire investigation,
which began in July of 2008. An 18-year-old youth originally
reported to network to authorities.
"A
friend told me that she had been offered a job in [the capital city
of] Bogotá
that would pay 300 to 400 pesos [between $140 and $185 US dollars].
When we reported for work we were told to board a bus, but it was
bound for the city of Urabá. Then our employers picked us up in a
taxi, they took our identification and took us to a brothel. There,
a man told us that we knew what we were going to have to do. We were
rescued by the police 5 days later.” ...
The authorities arrested 69 people, including 17 women. Police
remain on the trail of another 28 suspects.
There were so many similar complaints from victims that
investigators had concluded that they were not dealing with two or
three people who induced women into prostitution, but a powerful
network. One that trafficked women from Medellin not only to other
cities in Antioquia department [state], but also to the capital,
Bogota , and to Cucuta, Cartagena, Santa Marta and towns in the
Magdalena Medio [the eastern-most region of Antioquia]. There are
also indications that the network had contacts abroad to traffic
women to Aruba and Venezuela...
"Send me another one like her and we will call the account even"
Police
intercepted communications between members of the network. They were
able to establish that eight people, which they called ‘The
Commission,’ sold women for amounts ranging from 30,000 to a million
Colombian pesos [between $14 and $467 US dollars].
One
intercepted communicated from a customer of the network [a brothel
owner] to a member of the ‘Commission stated: "You sent me a woman
for 30,000 pesos, but she was very ugly. Send me another one like
her and we’ll call the account even.” ...
After
the operation, code named 'Candida
Eréndida' [Innocent
Eréndira, a novel by famed Colombian Nobel
Literature Prize winner Gabriel
García Márquez],
police
distributed leaflets in the city of Medellin to
warn the public not to be taken in by these networks.
Police
continue to investigate the network’s
links abroad.
Full English Translation
www.eltiempo.com
June 26, 2009
Mexico, Guatemala
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|
Photo: CIMAC Noticias |
Niñez y prostitución en la frontera sur, el
costo de llegar a EU
Leticia, una vida entre ebrios, maras y policías
Segunda y última parte
Suchiate, Chiapas.
- Leticia, como miles de púberes y jóvenes en el submundo de la
explotación sexual infantil en México, sobrevive entre ebrios, en
esta zona de 700 kilómetros de frontera con Guatemala y Belice.
Tenía 12 años
cuando llegó sola a Chiapas por primera vez, con la ilusión de
continuar viaje y cruzar la frontera estadounidense en busca de un
mejor futuro. Ahora, en su sexto intento, trabaja en una cantina de
la zona. Apenas ha cumplido 14 años de edad...
The
Cost of Reaching
the U.S.; Children and
Prostitution at Mexico’s Southern
Border
Leticia at age 14: a life drinking, gangs and police
Second and last part
Suchiate, Chiapas state - Leticia, like many pre-teen and teenage
youth living in the underworld of child sexual exploitation in
Mexico, survives between bouts of
heavy
drinking here along Mexico’s 700 kilometer border with
Guatemala and Belize.
Leticia was
12-years-old when she came alone to Chiapas for the first time, with
the illusion of being able to reach and then cross the U.S. border
in search of a better future. Now, after her sixth attempt, she
works in a cantina (bar) in the area. She has just turned 14...
Unlike many of her
fellow teen prostitutes, Leticia did not have to sell her virginity,
a ‘service’ that customers are charged between $2,000 and $3,500
for. "I wanted to marry my boyfriend, but he abandoned me when he
learned that I was pregnant. I had an abortion at two months out of
disappointment," said Leticia, expressing with her child’s eyes a
false maturity that shows even more her clearly her helpless...
Leticia says that
many customers not only want to have sex, but they also want to
photograph her or record her on videotape or on cell phones in
exchange for an additional amount of money...
...The
Chiapas State’s Attorney has, during 2009, dismantled three gangs
dedicated to the sexual exploitation of minors in the cities of
Tapachula, Tuxtla Gutierrez and Rayón. At least 14 detainees facing
charges for procuring, criminal association and assault, among other
charges.
The children and
underage youth freed from these gangs had been forced to work in
sexual slavery for more than 12 hours each day. They had to bring
their enslavers $2,000 during that period. In exchange, they were
given one plate of rice and beans to eat. These facts are just the
tip of an ominous iceberg...
Full English Translation
Manuel de la Cruz
CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
Mexico City
June 25, 2009
LibertadLatina
Commentary
We at
LibertadLatina
once again applaud the
detailed, consistent and high quality reporting that CIMAC Noticias
in Mexico has provided on the critical issues affecting women and
girls in Mexico and across Latin America.
The global humanitarian organization Save the Children has
identified Mexico's southern border with Guatemala and Belize as
being the largest zone for the commercial sexual exploitation of
children (CSEC) in the entire world. We have long recognized this
fact, and accurate reporting in the Spanish language press, from
CIMAC and also mainstream Mexican newspapers has provided a window
into this nightmare.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) office in
Tapachula, Chiapas has estimated that between 450 to 600 women and girl
migrants who cross the border into southern Mexico are raped each
and every day, with little or no law enforcement reaction in response.
In Tapachula, a prostitution 'mega-center' in Chiapas state, over 50% of the 20,000
females working in prostitution are underage girls and youth who
have been forced by others or by economic necessity to accept a life
of sexual exploitation. Some 50% of them are from the Mayan majority
nation of Guatemala.
Chiapas, being a state located on this lawless border, is the only government entity
in the world that is not actually a nation to have established a direct relationship with
the United Nations to address human trafficking. This region's
crisis is indeed an emergency that requires the focused attention from the
world community.
President Felipe Calderón of Mexico has been less than enthusiastic
about fighting human trafficking, given his year-long effort to foot drag
on efforts to publish effective regulations to enable the nation's
first anti-trafficking law.
Now, Cecilia Romero, head of Mexico's immigration service (the
National Institute for Migration - INM), has stated that human
trafficking is "inevitable", and added that, "the
existence of the smuggling of migrants, human trafficking, pedophile
networks, and the kidnappings and violence that affect thousands of
migrants are only
"evils of mankind"
that Mexico cannot eradicate.
Women and children's rights and immigrant rights groups in Mexico
have been under-standably outraged by these comments. We join with
them in denouncing such a hands-off and dismissive approach to confronting the mass
gender atrocity of sexual exploitation and violence with impunity
that is now taking place across Mexico.
We remain especially concerned that Cecilia Romero, a former
congressional deputy, senator and
a long-time
activist and official in the National Action Party (PAN)
since 1982, is, through
her statements about the 'inevitability' of sex trafficking,
effectively justifying such criminal sexual exploitation and the lack of
a Mexican federal response to that illegal enterprise. This policy
position is consistent with many other
statements and actions from
the socially conservative PAN, that actively seek to diminish the
independence and basic individual human rights of women.
It thus remains the responsibility of the international community to
address these issues in collaboration, and in solidarity with the
many elements of Mexican society who desire to be liberated from
this Taliban-like mass movement to repress the basic humanity of women and girls.
Members of Congress, and activists in organizations such as the
Teresa Ulloa's Mexico City based Latin America and Caribbean branch
of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, as well as brave
reporters like Lydia Cacho (who has been unjustly jailed and still faces
death threats for her activism), and news agencies such as CIMAC
Noticias (who's offices have been ransacked in the past for their
reporting on sexual exploitation), all deserve the support of the
international community, and they deserve our help.
We especially laud Teresa Ulloa and CIMAC Noticias for standing up
to denounce the exploitation of indigenous women and girls, who are
the primary target of many traffickers and rapists.
Let's give the advocates for women and girl's human rights in Mexico
the help that they need now, while there is still time to avert
an even more well organized war against women and girls than the one
that is happening today!
End impunity
now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
June 26/27, 2009
See also:
Mexico vows to improve
migrant's treatment
Mexico City - Mexico's head
of migration [Cecilia Romero Castillo] on
Tuesday pledged to improve the agency's
detention centers in response to criticism
that Mexico fails to give Central American
immigrants the same respect it demands for
its own citizens in the United States....
The Mexican government has
acknowledged that many officials are bribed
by human smugglers. Migrants face abuse from
corrupt police as well as
violent gangs who wait on the southern
border to rob and assault them.
The government-funded
National Human Rights Commission, U.N. human
rights officials and other non-governmental
organiza-tions say they have documented
abuses.
The migration depart-ment's plan aims "to
entirely eliminate this terrible situation,"
Romero told a news conference.
[Yet as of June, 2009 they have failed to
act on this promise -
LL.]
Answering U.S. concerns,
President Felipe Calderon also has promised
to strengthen security on Mexico's southern
border to stop the tide of illegal migrants
- the majority of whom use Mexico as a way
station to the United States...
In January [2007], Mexico
detained more than 10,000 illegal migrants,
and
expects that number to increase to 205,000
by the end of [2007],
according to a report by the migration
department....
Lisa J. Adams
The
Associated Press
Feb. 28, 2007
Mexico, Guatemala
 |
|
Photo: CIMAC Noticias |
Leticia, de 14 años, sobrevive en la
explotación sexual
24 mil niñas y niños prostituidos u obligados a la pornografía
Primera de dos partes
Suchiate, Chiapas - Leticia es una niña centroamericana de 14 años,
sin documentos, a quien prostituyen en una cantina de este municipio
fronterizo con Guatemala.
Han pasado casi dos
años desde que dejó su país natal para migrar rumbo a Estados
Unidos. A pesar de las duras condiciones en que vive para lograr su
objetivo, no deja de intentarlo. Sabe que la deportación es casi
segura, según sus propias palabras, pero ni eso la detiene en su
idea de cruzar la frontera, alternativa que encontró ante la miseria
y el incierto futuro en su lugar de origen...
Leticia, Age 14, Survives in Sexual Exploitation
24,000 boys and girls forced into prostitution or pornography across
Mexico
First of two parts
Suchiate, Chiapas state – Leticia is a 14-year-old undocumented
Central American girl who is being prostituted in a Cantina (bar) in
this town on the Guatemalan border.
It has
been almost two years since Leticia left her native country to
migrate to the United States. Despite the harsh conditions she has
had to live through in order to achieve that goal, she will not give
up. She knows that her deportation from Mexico is almost certain, as
she herself says. But she will not be detained in her effort to
reach the U.S. border, seeking to find an alternative to the misery
and uncertain future that she faced in her homeland.
Leticia’s situation is no different than that of hundreds of
children who have been trapped by this border region’s commercial
sex networks, who have offered their victims “a way to make fast
money.”
They
are victims of exploitation of the international networks of
traffickers who grab them either before or after they cross the
border at the Suchiate River or along clandestine smuggling paths
that exist all along the border with Guatemala. Advocacy
organizations who fight on their behalf refer to them as “sex
slaves...”
The
director of the Movimiento Ciudadano de la Frontera Sur (Southern
Frontier Citizen’s Movement), Juan José González, notes that the
phenomenon of prostitution in the region has increased alarmingly.
These are not isolated cases, he says.
On the
streets, and in bars, clubs, schools and outside of shopping centers
in cities such as Suchiate, Tapachula, Cacahoatán, Tuxtla Chico and
Huixtla, it is common to find women [and girls] of different ages
engaged in prostitution...
For
now, while Leticia continues to be a victim of sexual exploitation,
the director of Mexico’s National Institute for Migration (INM),
Cecilia Romero, has recently told the newspaper El Universal that
the existence of smuggling of migrants, human trafficking, pedophile
networks, and the kidnappings and violence that affect thousands of
migrants are only
"evils of mankind"
that Mexico cannot eradicate.
Full English Translation
Manuel de la Cruz
CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
Mexico City
June 24, 2009
The United States, Mexico
 |
|
Joaquín Aguilar Méndez,
right, a former altar boy, has sued the Rev. Nicolás
Aguilar, shown in photo at left. (From a web site that
takes an opposing position in the case of
Nicolás Aguilar - in Spanish). |
Arquidiócesis de Puebla y Los Ángeles toleran
pederastia
México DF.-
Integrantes de la Red de Sobrevivientes de Abusos por Sacerdotes
(SNAP, por sus siglas en inglés) interpusieron una demanda contra
las arquidiócesis de Los Ángeles, California, y de Tehuacán, Puebla,
querella que involucra a los cardenales Roger Mahony y Norberto
Rivera, respectivamente, informa la Agencia NotieSe.
El ciudadano,
identificado como Juan Doe (“Juan Nadie”), abusado sexualmente en
1988 por el sacerdote mexicano Nicolás Aguilar, acusa a esas
instancias eclesiales y al Departamento de Educación de California
de negligencia en la protección a su persona, puesto que Aguilar
trabajó como profesor después de ser transferido de Tehuacán a Los
Ángeles por el entonces obispo local, Norberto Rivera...
CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
Mexico City
June 23, 2009
Charges of cross-border church abuses continue
Mexico City
- A victims’ group said Thursday that it was filing a new lawsuit in
Los Angeles, California, against Mexican and U.S. church officials
accused of sheltering a suspected pedophile priest.
The lawsuit accuses
Mexico City Cardinal Norberto Rivera of conspiring with Roman
Catholic officials in the United States to shelter Nicolas Aguilar,
a Mexican priest wanted in California for 19 felony counts of
committing lewd acts on a child.
This is the third
lawsuit filed by the group,
Survivor’s Network of Those Abused by Priests,
or SNAP, against the Catholic Church for allegedly protecting
Aguilar. Two previous lawsuits filed in Los Angeles against the
Mexican cardinal by Mexican citizens were dismissed in 2007.
This time, however,
the unnamed plaintiff is a U.S. citizen.
“In this case it
was a North American boy molested in North American territory,” said
Jose Bonilla, a lawyer for SNAP.
Bonilla said he was
“practically 100 percent sure” that the plaintiff, identified only
as John Doe, would have his day in court. “But it’s going to be a
long process,” he said.
In addition to
Cardinal Rivera, the lawsuit charges the archdiocese of Tehuacan in
the Mexican state of Puebla, where Rivera worked at the time, the
archdiocese of Los Angeles and the California Department of
Education with failing to protect the plaintiff from Rev. Aguilar.
Foreign Correspondency
June 18, 2009
Colombia
 |
|
Stella Cardenas, director of Fundacion
Renacer (the Rebirth Foundation) |
Insuficientes, Nuevas Sanciones Sobre Turismo Sexual Y Pornografía
Infantil En Colombia
Bogotá.- La muerte
de Yesid Torres, de apenas 15 años, conmovió a los habitantes de
Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, donde la explotación sexual va en
aumento. El menor de edad falleció a consecuencia de una sobredosis
de cocaína que consumió en el apartamento del italiano Paolo
Pravisani, pederasta de 72 años, quien lo había contratado para
proveerle servicios sexuales, informó la agencia Semlac…
New Sanctions on Child Pornography and Sexual Tourism in Colombia
are Insufficient
Bogota
.- The death of Yesid Torres, a boy who had just turned 15, shocked
the people of the city of Cartagena de Indias, where sexual
exploitation is increasing. The youth died from an overdose of
cocaine consumed in the apartment of Italian Paolo Pravisani, a 72
year old pedophile who had contracted Torres to provide sexual
services.
In
response to increasing levels of sexual exploitation, Colombian
lawmakers passed a law on June 10, 2009 that applies new penalties,
including a 20 year prison term for those who engage in producing
child pornography. The law also makes child sex tourism a crime.
The
legislation provides for prison sentences of 4 to 8 years for
persons who promote child sex tourism, without the possibility of
parole. The length of the sentence may be increased by half when the
victim is under 12 years of age.
Stella
Cardenas, director of Fundacion Renacer (the Rebirth Foundation),
notes that although the penalty for promoting child sex tourism
under the new law is higher than the 3 year sentence available under
the old law, the length of sentence is still too low. She adds that
the law fails to address cases of aggressors who sexually exploit
youth between the ages of 14 and 18 who have consented to engage in
[commercial] sex, often due to economic hardship.
CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
Mexico city
June 23, 2009
Véase también:
Luz Stella Cardenas
Luz Stella es la directora y fundadora de la
Fundación Renacer, una organización que trabaja con niños y niñas
víctimas de explotación sexual y ha atendido a lo largo de su
historia a más de quince mil niños de Bogotá, Cartagena y
Barranquilla. Desde 1988, su propósito fundamental ha sido combatir
la explotación sexual infantil y acompañar a las personas explotadas
sexualmente en su recuperación y realización personal...
Somos Más
Feb. 08, 2006
See also:
About Stella Cárdenas
Stella Cárdenas is
building new institutional protections against child prostitution
and pornography in Colombia by persuading the government to extend
the mandate of its ministry charged with protection of children, the
Ministry of Family Welfare... Stella and her Fundación Renacer
("Rebirth Foundation") contributed substantially to the passage of
Law 360. This law, passed in 1997, for the first time assigned
penalties–fines or jail sentences–for anyone who draws children into
prostitution...
Ashoka
International
2001
Mexico
 |
|
Mexico's immigration commissioner Cecilia
Romero |
El turismo sexual es inevitable: INM
Para la comisionada del Instituto Nacional de Migración, Cecilia
Romero, el turismo sexual, tráfico de personas, comercio de mujeres,
redes de pederastia, plagio y violencia contra miles de migrantes
son “males de la humanidad” que México no puede erradicar...
Mexico’s Immigration Chief: Sex Tourism is
Inevitable
According to Cecilia Romero, the commissioner of Mexico’s National
Migration Institute (immigration service), sex tourism, human
trafficking, female commercial sex work, pedophile networks, and the
kidnappings and violence that victimize thousands of migrants
[crossing Mexico to get to the U.S.] are
"evils of mankind" that
Mexico cannot eradicate.
Even if
such practices have triggered: 1) harsh reports [about Mexico] from the
U.S. Department of State and Mexico’s National Human Rights
Commission (CNDH);
2) complaints by foreign victims about their forced prostitution
and sex trafficking; and 3) complaints from [undocumented] Cuban
migrants who have been extorted for thousands of dollars in their quest to get
to Florida, Romero concludes that all of these problems have existed
since the origins of migration...
[Commenting on strong criticism of the INM and repeated calls for her
resignation,] Romero
argues that the National Migration Institute has implemented a
'purification' effort which has caused a number of problems to emerge
into the public spotlight.
The
immigration director noted that since her team arrived as part
of President Felipe Calderón’s government, she has accomplished
much, but she is also aware that those achievements will never be enough
[to solve the problems that exist].
Romero
said that the vast majority of complaints that have been submitted
[about official corruption] originate from within the INM itself. So far about 300 immigration officers have been reprimanded or removed.
"This shows that we are making progress, although I will never be
satisfied in our war against organized crime."
Romero
adds that when there is discussion about immigrants, the finger is
always pointed at the INM. But, she says, the criminal networks have state police, corrections officers and also immigration agents
on their payrolls. We are investigating and pursuing them. Romero
insists that her agency is taking action to get to the bottom of the
problem of corruption.
Jose Gerardo Mejia
El Universal
June 20 2009
LibertadLatina
Commentary
We appreciate the fact that
Cecilia Romero, the commissioner of Mexico’s National Migration
Institute, is a rare federal agency
director who is willing to be honest in expressing the Felipe Calderón Administration's
lack of interest in treating the mass gender atrocity of adult and
child sexual exploitation in that nation as a serious crisis requiring an
urgent response.
According to the traditional beliefs of Roman feudalism
that still prevail in Mexico, such behavior is, as
Director Romero says, simply "inevitable."
The hidden follow-on to that statement is: "If it is
inevitable, why do anything to fight it?"
So a nation like Mexico
ends up doing only the minimum necessary to placate the U.S. State
Department's Trafficking in Persons Office with the objective of
receiving a
reasonably good rating in the annual TIP report.
In other words, Romero is saying: Victims, don't
hold your breath as you wait for help. That help is not forthcoming from
President Calderón's federal government.
That is not a good enough answer!
Commissioner Romero's statement is consistent with
the lack of action that the Mexican public sees from its federal
government in regard to addressing modern human slavery and other
forms of violence against women.
We are especially concerned that this policy
position, stating that mass sexual violence and slavery is
inevitable, is consistent with other positions taken on women's
human rights issues
by President Calderón's National Action Party (PAN),
such as stating that the women who have been kidnapped, tortured,
raped and murdered by the hundreds in Ciudad Juarez caused their own
deaths because they wore immodest clothing and walked in bad parts
of town.
End impunity
now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
June 23/24, 2009
See also:
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
Colombia
El turismo sexual aumenta cada día más en el país
Bogotá - Las
cifras sobre turismo sexual en Colombia son alarmantes. Vender el
cuerpo a clientes que llegan de todas partes del mundo, se ha
convertido en uno de los mejores negocios en el país, siendo Cali
una de las primeras ciudades en la lista...
Sex tourism is increasing on a daily basis
Bogota - The figures on sexual tourism in
Colombia are alarming. To sell your body to customers who arrive
from all over the world has become one of the best businesses in the
nation, with Cali being the city at the top of the list.
According to a report of the Rebirth
Foundation (Foundation Renacer), in the past two years the
phenomenon has grown 53% in Cali, the capital of Valle del Cauca
department [state]. Minors form the majority of those involved in
the business.
The most appealing magnets for foreign
tourists who come to our nation are the bodies of girls between 12
and 14 years [who are sold to them in prostitution]. This business
generates huge profits for the mafia. Although 202 cases have been
documented during the past 24 months, these incidents have been reported
neither to the police for minors nor to the SIJIN (the Judicial
Investigations and Intelligence Service).
elpaisvallenato.com
June 21, 2009
LibertadLatina
Commentary
Colombia may indeed be a leader in efforts to combat modern human
trafficking. In the U.S. State Department's 2009 Trafficking in
Persons (TIP) report, Colombia received a 'Tier 1' rating, the
highest possible, to reward their efforts against human trafficking.
Yet Colombia's government and certain social elements contribute to
a large number of human rights abuses, especially those that
victimize Afro-Colombians in Indigenous peoples, who face
wanton murder, rape and displacement by the military
and
right wing paramilitary forces hell bent on stealing their land and
conducting their own perverted version of 'social cleansing.' Leftist guerillas are not innocent
either.
These abuses, including the forced conscription of underage
girls and accompanying sexual abuse perpetrated by illegal armed groups on both sides of the conflict
contribute to an environment where mass human trafficking is made
possible.
With an estimated 70,000 victims of human trafficking being created
annually, Colombia is right up there with Brazil, the Dominican
Republic and Argentina as one of the major nations involved in the illegal
trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation.
We recommend that an index of trafficking behavior in these nations
that is separate from the annual TIP report be developed to assess
the true story 'on the ground' in the nations of the Americas.
Currently, the TIP rating system does not reflect the true intensity of the
problem.
End impunity
now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
June 23, 2009
Colombia - The United States
 |
|
María is
keeping her identity hidden, for fear of reprisals.
Photo:
Helda Martínez/IPS |
Trafficking Victims’ Ordeal Never Over
Bogota - A
mixture of rage, impotence and terror is evident behind the sadness
in María’s eyes. It’s been five months since she escaped from her
captors in the United States, where she was taken under a false job
contract, and she still can’t shake off her fear…
According to the
available data, some 70,000 people fall victim to human trafficking
every year in Colombia, which ranks third in the number of victims
in Latin America, behind the Dominican Republic and Brazil.
…Statistics only
partially reflect the magnitude of the crime, because many of the
victims refuse to go to the police for fear traffickers will carry
out their threats, or that they will be shunned by their community,
or simply because they don’t realize just how severely their rights
have been violated…
…People do fall
for the bogus offers because they are in dire need of an opportunity
for a better life. That was what happened to María, a 40-year old
woman originally from the central province of Tolima, who was living
on the outskirts of Bogotá when she was captured by members of a
trafficking mafia.
She admitted to
IPS that she’s still scared her captors will find her or come after
her kids…
She’s also
filled with rage. In November 2008 she and her family carefully
examined the work contract before she decided to accept a job as a
domestic in the home of a wealthy Colombian family in the United
States…
But everything
changed when she arrived at her destination somewhere in the U.S. …
They took away her passport and other documents, then forced her to
work all day long, from 5 a.m. through midnight, with only half a
day’s rest on Sundays, and drastically reduced her meals, feeding
her a meager vegetable diet…
[A]
woman from El Salvador told María that what her "employers" were
doing was illegal, explained how to unblock the telephone, and gave
her an emergency number to phone the police for help.
But the police
merely forced her captors to give back her passport and admonished
them for how they were treating her.
That night,
María’s kidnappers scared her with all sorts of threats against her
and her family back in Colombia. They warned her that if she didn’t
sign a paper exonerating them from all responsibility, they would
report her to the police and accuse her of several offences, and she
would be thrown in jail for years.
She was finally
able to sneak out of the house while her kidnappers thought she was
sleeping, and was driven to a shelter for human trafficking victims
by the Salvadoran woman and her husband.
"There I started
to get better. I spoke several times with my children and the rest
of my family, and I came to realize that there are many people in
the same difficult situation as me. Two other Colombian women were
there with me, and another four had left the day I arrived," she
said…
Inter press Service (IPS)
June 10, 2009
LibertadLatina
Commentary
Ten years ago a Colombian woman caught in an
almost identical situation of domestic labor
slavery approached a hair dresser, asking
for help to escape her employer - a wealthy
Colombian diplomatic family living in the
Washington, DC region. I made good her
escape, and that of a friend who worked for
another diplomatic family from Colombia.
The victim's employer yelled and screamed at
her, made her work under constant verbal threats from 6 am
until midnight, forced her to cook, clean, mow the lawn and shovel the snow for a family of five
living in a big house on a large piece of
land, and forbade her to
leave the house alone. Only during one of
her 'supervised' visits to a local hair
salon was she able to contact a sympathetic
person willing to help. That person
contacted me.
This woman still lives in fear of her
employer, but has gotten married and has
brought her daughter to the U.S.
Many middle and upper class women across
Latin America employ domestic workers. A
very large number of these employers act in
a fashion that reflects extreme cruelty, and
is consistent with the manner in which
wealthy women in the Roman Empire treated
enslaved women in their homes.
We see the results of this attitude in the
Roman Empire through the example of the
poorly fed and frail servant girls, barely
given enough food to survive, whose
well-preserved bodies have been found in the
ruins of the houses of wealthy Romans who
lived in the city of Pompeii.
Many wealthy
and middle class women continue to treat
their 'hired help' in the same slave-like
fashion in one offshoot of the Roman Empire
known as modern Latin America. You just have to
watch a Mexican soap opera on a |
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