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Indigenous & Latina Women & Children's Human
Rights News from the Americas |
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Latina Women & Children at Risk |
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U.S. Latina Slavery - San Diego, CA
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This Section Last
Updated on July
31, 2009
|
The
(ongoing)
San Diego, California
Child Mass
Sexual Slavery
Scandal |
About the
Child Rape Camps of San Diego County,
California - A
Crime Against Humanity inside the U.S.A.
The articles
here below describe one of the largest
known child and youth sex trafficking
cases in the United States to date.
In one of several related cases,
hundreds of Mexican girls between 7 and
18 were kidnapped or subjected to false
romantic entrapment by organized
criminal sex trafficking gangs.
Victims were then brought to San Diego
County, California. Over a 10 year
period these girls were raped by
hundreds of men per day in more than 2
dozen home based and agricultural camp
based brothels.
A
Latina medical doctor employed by a U.S. federal
agency provided condoms to the victims for
years, and was told by her supervisors not to
speak out and organize efforts to rescue the
victims. This doctor was ordered under
threat of legal action to keep quiet about the
mass victimization of children in "rape
camps."
When a joint FBI, INS and San Diego Sheriff's
raid was finally organized and executed, ten
years after local law enforcement first learned
about local trafficking, many of the
criminal traffickers and johns escaped.
The 50 johns and traffickers who were captured
were later released when the intimidated child
victims refused to accuse their enslavers.
Most of the victims were then deported to Mexico
without being provided with any victim services.
A
number of murdered immigrant teen girls have
been found in San Diego, possibly linked to
trafficking rings.
The San Diego child sex trafficking case
continues to evolve. In June, 2003 one of
the key trafficking ringleaders was convicted of
a charge that would bring him 18 months in jail.
The rural rape camps continue to exist and were
filmed by a local TV station (see below).
The San Diego Sex Trafficking Case deserves the
full attention of the criminal justice system,
social service providers and victim advocates.
Previous to the notoriety of this case,
anti-trafficking advocates noted that some
concerned members of Congress and other decision
makers would ask "if 50,000 enslaved persons are
trafficked into the U.S. each year, where are
they?"
That question still needs to be researched and
answered on a national basis. In the
present, the San Diego case provides the
"smoking gun" that documents the true horror of
the Latin America to U.S. trafficking crisis.
The San Diego case represents a large tip of the
national trafficking 'iceberg,' and this case
must be addressed with aggressive legal zeal.
The San Diego child sex trafficking case is a
true abomination in the eyes of the creator and
in the eyes of the entire the human race!
Failure to deal with this case effectively will
send a clear message to traffickers that
the U.S. does not care about the lives and
mass-rape of the hundreds of 7 to 18 year old
girls who have been, and are today, victimized
in this international criminal enterprise.
To accomplish an end to such trafficking,
cross-cultural compassion and an end to
anti-immigrant hostility in U.S. society will
have to take place. Otherwise, such
hostility and apathy will allow
traffickers to continue their criminal violence
against these victimized women and children with
impunity.
End criminal impunity now!
LibertadLatina.org
|
Latest San Diego Related News
Mexico, California, USA
San
Diego - Seven months into the year and already 139 underage girls have been reported missing in San Diego.
Some are runaways, some return home on their own.
Others are lured to a place difficult even for police to track, where they are stuck in a life far different from their dreams.
From there, even one rescue is a success.
Nearly 2 months after her 14-year-old daughter disappeared, one lucky mother got word her daughter was found in the interior of Mexico.
“My heart is happy, happy,” said Francisca Guabarrama.
10News waited with Guabarrama, at the International Border until the wee hours of the morning.
The transfer was being coordinated by an international rescue agency.
Finally, word came to Guabarrama that her daughter was clearing customs.
Her daughter beat the odds and made it back.
Law enforcement sources told 10News the girl met an older boy on My-Space, who was believed to be linked to a National City gang.
“Some of these girls leave with people we suspect to be gang members that do have ties to organized crime in Mexico,” said National City Police Detective, Antonio Ybarra.
The two agreed to meet at Kimball Park on June 2, 2009.
Like many other cases, the girl ended up in Mexico, alone and unable to get home, police said.
None of several other girls believed to be in Mexico has been found.
“The farther you go into the interior of Mexico, the more difficult that becomes,” said National City Police Sergeant, Mike Harlan.
What's happening to them is frightening.
“We have some cases that are active where's there's prostitution, human trafficking. They're used for transporting narcotics and we're not able to get to them,” said Ybarra.
The Guabarrama’s happy ending almost didn't happen.
“They went into hiding,” said former San Diego District Attorney Investigator, Juan Briones, who is now with the Bilateral Safety Corridor Coalition.
He was sent to Guadalajara because he has almost 20 years experience with international missing person's cases.
He went down to bring Guabarrama back home.
“The victim somehow feels powerless and that they need help,” Briones said.
Briones said he threatened criminal charges against the men living in the home with the young girl and they eventually released her.
“It’s difficult to get to these kids to understand,” Ybarra said, “that where you and I can go to any pay phone and dial 9-1-1 and get police service, it does not work that way over there.”
While one girl has been given another chance, many others remain in danger south of the border.
Law enforcement sources say the cooperation between Mexican and U.S. law enforcement agencies has improved in recent years, but it still takes time to get a minor home.
“If a young girl has already slipped into the hands of a cartel to be sold into prostitution and drug running, it's, at the very least, extremely difficult to ever reach her,” Briones said.
www.News10.com
July 29,
2009
Mexico
En desventaja, niños mexicanos indocumentados
Mexico's Undocumented Migrant Children are at a Disadvantage
for Refugee Benefits
Thousands of Children Cross Alone
into the U.S. Each Year to Escape Child Sex Trafficking Networks
Many of the 80,000 Mexican children who cross from Mexico into the U.S. alone,
as undocumented immigrants, are fleeing abuse at home, or are escaping from
child prostitution rings. As such, they
would possibly qualify for permission to stay in the United States.
These children would be able to avail themselves of this opportunity if U.S.
Border Patrol officers would provide them with the appropriate interview form,
as federal law requires. Instead, they minors are typically deported in less
than 24 hours after their arrests.
This is the reality facing children at risk, as described by attorney
Christopher Nugent. For many years, Nugent, of the law firm Holland and Knight,
has represented Mexican and Central American children and adults with
immigration problems. His work has been pro bono.
The Border Patrol treats unaccompanied Central American children differently
from Mexican children arrested as undocumented migrants. They are held for 72
hours before a decision is made to deport them. They are taken to a juvenile
detention center where they are given access to lawyers. Nugent estimates that
approximately 20,000 Central American children each year cross into the United
States...
"There are many Mexican children who qualify to receive asylum… most minors are
between 13 and 17 years, but are also 10-year-olds who migrate alone" said
Nugent, who regretted the fact that these Mexican children are not given the
option to talk with lawyers or with the Mexican consulate.
...Thousands of Mexican and Central American
children flee northward into the U.S. each year to escape child prostitution...
Nugent explained how in Mexico there exists terrible child trafficking in the
area of Acapulco, Guerrero, and that many now call this region "the new Bangkok"
of child sex tourism. Nugent also emphasized that Tijuana [on the U.S. border
with San Diego County] has also become an zone controlled by powerful child
prostitution networks. Many children [in prostitution] from Tijuana are trying
to flee to San
Diego.
According to Nugent 70 percent of children who migrate and come to the
Office of
Refugees in the United States have suffered some sort of trauma from violence
or sexual exploitation...
[Expanded
Translation]
Georgina Olson
Excélsior
July 3, 2008
Added Jan. 22, 2008
California, USA
Respected anti-trafficking activist opposes
nomination of new police chief due to past failure
to act against child sex trafficking in migrant
labor camps
John Monti, member
of Save Our State, appeared before the City Council
of
San Diego on January 22, 2008 to oppose the
appointment of Captain
Boyd Long,
San Diego Police Department, as assistant
police chief of the department.
Monti said, “My
opposition is based on the complete denial of what
has been happening and has happened in
McGonigle Canyon.” Monti displayed
a red backpack in the council which was found in
McGongicle Canyon when
girls were brought to be prostituted at a well-known
“prostibulo,” outdoor prostitution area, in the part
of the canyon known as “Los
Diablos” by the migrants. The backpack contained
lubricant, contraceptives
and tissue paper and had belonged to an unknown
prostituted girl.
"To
deny that there is a problem is silence – it is a
silence that equals
death,” thundered Monti. Monti is alarmed that
knowledge of the human
trafficking and forced prostitution of women and
children is being
suppressed by law enforcement and open-borders
activists. “Those girls
are equally deserving of protection as anyone else
in our country – legal or
illegal. If we say there is no problem when there is
– we create victims and
more victims, because no one will know this is
going on. If it is to be stopped the public
must know so they can
identify victims when they see them.”
Jan. 21, 2008
LibertadLatina
note:
John Monti, a
bilingual middle school teacher with
close ties to the Latino community,
is one of the most effective
activists against child sex
trafficking as it occurs in San
Diego County, California.
San Diego is where
the infamous child rape camps,
discussed on this web site, are
located. John Monti's work
calls into question why, after 100's
of thousands of dollars in
anti-trafficking funds were given to
law enforcement in the region, child
and youth sex trafficking remains
largely uncontested.
- Chuck Goolsby
Jan. 22, 2008
LibertadLatina
See also:
An alternative
view of the child rape camps of
rural San Diego County is presented
by this article about migrants in
McGonagle Canyon and
anti-trafficking activism.
"What has gotten
[the] San Diego Minutemen] the most
mainstream mileage is its scary
claim that the migrants of McGonigle
run a child prostitution ring in one
corner of the canyon..."
- Casey Sánchez
Southern Poverty Law
Center
Aug.23, 2007
LibertadLatina
note:
We differ strongly
with Casey
Sánchez'
dismissive conclusion that child sex
trafficking is a non-existent
problem in McGonigle canyon.
The San Diego
child sex trafficking crisis is an
extension of the vast network of
child prostitution that sees 900 or
more children and youth, some as
young as age seven, forced into
prostitution in Tijuana, just blocks
from the the San Diego County line.
Added November 2, 2005
The Oprah Winfrey Show
November
2,
2005
The OPRAH Show presented a special
report on the sale of children into
sexual slavery globally and within
the U.S.
This report has been posted in Web
format Online at:
Human
Trafficking: The Preventable
Disaster.
Featuring:
Investigation by CNN's Christiane
Amanpour

Discussion with Puerto Rican Pop
Star and Trafficked Children's
Advocate Ricky Martin
Write letters
to Congress!
Thank you, Oprah Winfrey!
|
Dear Oprah Winfrey,
Thank you for doing an
excellent job during your
November 2, 2005 show.
Together with CNN Chief
Foreign Correspondent
Christiane Amanpour and
Puerto Rican pop star and
children's advocate Ricky
Martin, you did much to
raise awareness about the
issue of trafficking.
Among other issues
discussed, the sex
trafficking of children from
in Tijuana, Mexico, and
across the international
border into San Diego
County, California was also
discussed. The 'reed
fields' - the open-air
brothels in the San Luis Rey
dry riverbed that were once
the heart of the 'San Diego
Child Rape Camps' - were
shown and discussed during a
taped segment interviewing
San Diego Deputy Sheriff
Rick Castro.
Most importantly, Oprah, you
encouraged the American
public to write to each of
these congressional
representatives (one
congressperson and two
senators), to insist that
the U.S. government make
trafficking a higher
priority than it is now.
I am especially concerned
that, when grass-roots
activists such as the
members of the non-profit
group 'Los Cristeros' - who
have staked-out trafficking
operations, have their
information apparently
ignored, even when they
have brought clearly
credible reports of child
brothel operations to San
Diego County Sheriff's
Department and the local FBI
office for action. Why
were the child sex slaves
involved not rescued?
I don't understand.
Why, in late 2005, are
children still being
smuggled in from Mexico,
forced as slaves to provide
sex for thousands of men in
San Diego County,
California? Why?
Thanks to your efforts, the
United States is coming
closer to the day when these
child rape camps, and
similar criminal operations
around the United States,
will be shut down.
Keep up the great work,
Oprah! We support your
efforts 100%!
Sincerely,
- Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
November 2, 2005 |
|
Added May 23, 2005
California
Anti-Trafficking Group Los Cristeros
Post TV Network News Report Showing
Hidden Camera Footage of Child
Prostitution in Tijuana (Often
Catering to U.S. Tourists) and in
San Diego, California.
May 18, 2005
San
Diego Child Rape Camps Crisis:
Guillermo Romero Flores, 45, and
Guadalupe Ventura, 28, Were
Convicted in San Diego Federal Court in
Relation to a 2001 Raid of a Brothel
Operating in Reeds on the Banks of the
San Luis Rey River.
The Two Face a Maximum of 10 Years in
Prison at a Sentencing Hearing in
August.
April 5, 2005
New
Study Finds 5,000 Children are at Risk
of Being Forced into Prostitution in
Mexican Border City of Tijuana, Near San
Diego, California.
Child Sex Trafficking is Growing
Rapidly.
(This
Large Group of Children is At Risk of
Being Kidnapped into the Child Rape
Camps of San Diego, California.)
April 5, 2005
Three
Carreto Family Suspects Plead Guilty to
All 27 Counts in New York City
Trafficking Trial.
April 4, 2005
New
York - Carreto Gang Trial Begins: Homes
in Queens, New York Were Prisons for
Latin Sex Slaves.

Young
Prostitutes in Tijuana's Red Zone.
©
Warga
News
04/03/2005
New
York Daily News Article Describes the
Kidnapping and Enslavement of Girls From
Age 8 Who are 'Broken In' On Tijuana,
Mexico Streets Before Being Sent to
Brothels in New York City.
Brooklyn Federal Case Against the
Notorious Carreto Family Sex Slavery
Gang to Begin March 4, 2005.
04/03/2005
Mexican
Women Set to Testify Against Carreto
Family Traffickers in Brooklyn Court.
Added 03/31/ 2005
Grassroots
Advocacy Group Los Cristeros 'Again' Demand
Police Action (As Do We)
For Child Sex Slaves Kidnapped from Mexico and Held
in Del Mar (San Diego County, California) Outdoor
Brothel Sitting Near $600,000 Homes. Los
Cristeros Request F.B.I. Assistance to Rescue Minor
Girl Slaves from Known Brothels Long Ago Reported to
Local Sheriffs.
Added 02/23/ 2004
Mexican Authorities Arrest New_York
Slavery Ring. |
|
March 31, 2005
Grassroots
Advocacy Group Los Cristeros 'Again'
Demand Police Action (As Do We at
LibertadLatina)
For Child Sex Slaves Kidnapped from Mexico and
Held in Del Mar (in San Diego County,
California) Brothels Sitting Near $600,000
Homes.
Joaquin Santiago of Los Cristeros:
[About
efforts to get local law enforcement to
React to Brothels where children
kidnapped from Mexico are repeatedly
raped for profit].
Excerpt:
We had the date,
time, and place of this prostibulo, yet no one
arrived to help the girls. And, it is still in
operation. Moreover, the pimps had been
trafficking these girls on that same date and
time for some time. I'm sure there was
surveillance in place, but I guess if you are an
undocumented Mexican girl you are a low
priority. Call the
F.B.I.
and ask if the
Hostage Rescue
Team
is busy with anything more pressing than this,
because this is a "critical incident." Since
nothing came of [providing law enforcement with]
this information I feel it is in the interest of
exposing the problem to show where it is
happening so the girls can be given a chance to
get their freedom back and the afflicted
communities can remove this cancer.
|
March 30, 2005
San
Diego California Child Rape Camps Crisis:
CNN Reports on the San
Diego, California Sex Slavery Crisis and the
Recently Formed Task Force Created to Combat
Trafficking.
March 30, 2005
San
Diego California Child Rape Camps Crisis:
Law Enforcement Task Force
to Prosecute Sex-Trade, Slavery Cases: "750,000
Women Have Been Trafficked Into the U.S. In the
Last Decade."
Added 03/12/ 2005
San
Diego, California Child Rape Camps-Town Hall
Meeting; Regional Police Dept.'s Awarded $448,000 in
2004 by U.S. DOJ to Fight Traffickers.
[San Diego County] Sheriff Bill Kolender and
other law enforcement officials are creating a regional task force to
prosecute those who buy or sell people for sexual exploitation or forced
labor.
The problem is poorly documented in San Diego County because many
officers are not adequately trained to spot it, authorities said
yesterday in announcing the formation of the Human Trafficking Task
Force.
There have been roughly a dozen cases of such trafficking prosecuted
since 2003, but hundreds of such crimes, Deputy Rick Castro said. He has
focused on such activity in North County since 1996.
"I personally let more than 100 victims go, from 1996 through 1998,
without recognizing what I had," Castro said... |
March 8, 2005 - International Women's Day
LibertadLatina.org
comments in our 2005,
4th
Anniversary and International Women's Day
Statement:
Defending 'Maria'
from Impunity
-
about the ongoing child rape crisis in San Diego
County.
|
March 8, 2005
LibertadLatina.org
Excerpt 1:
If the well known and unfortunate White
American child kidnap and murder victims
such as Polly Klass, Megan Kanca and
Carlie Brucia (may they rest in peace)
had been known to have been trapped in a
child rape camp in San Diego,
California, or in a residential brothel
in Queens, New York run by sex
traffickers, helicopters and hundreds of
police and volunteers would have quickly
rescued them. Yet in San Diego
County, California, 12 year old
kidnapped 'little brown Maria' is
trapped in a brothel. It is known
to activists and others that she will
not be rescued by law enforcement.
Why?
The San Diego rape camps have been known to federal and local law
enforcement for over ten years. Ten years after
learning about the camps, federal, state and local law enforcement
conducted a raid of the worst open-air child rape camps. The raid
resulted in no convictions of the 40 men apprehended. The 47
enslaved underage girl victims remained silent because they had been
threatened with harm to themselves, to their families and to their
children, who are sometimes held hostage by traffickers. U.S. federal,
state and local law enforcement today know exactly where the traffickers
are pimping underage girls who have been kidnapped from Mexico.
Yet we see no visible efforts to rescue victims.
Therefore, We the People must stand and act in their defense.
Only We the People can pressure our governments to shut down the
child rape camps of San Diego County and across the Americas and the
World. LibertadLatina
would like to see the public join together to hold
governments accountable for these child rape camps. We look
forward to seeing real results from the $2 million in federal grants
sent in 2004 to San Diego based advocacy agencies and law enforcement.
The victims are waiting!
San Diego is part of a growing ‘zone of impunity’ that is emerging in
the U.S.-Mexican border region. Centuries of anti-Indigenous and
anti-Latina sexual exploitation is now enabling ruthless
traffickers.
Excerpt 2:
Within the United States, anti-immigrant hostility,
Spanish/English language barriers, machismo, official indifference and a
lack of political will appear to be 'binding the hands' of those
concerned law enforcement officials who would like to shut down the rape
camps and sex slavery brothels that now exist across the United States.
Even in instances where officials know where sex slavery exists, the
'rules of engagement' and the politics of police work sometimes cause
police not to act to rescue victims. Activist organizations such
as
Polaris Project are starting to
educate local police departments about best practices in how to respond
effectively to human slavery cases. The U.S. Department of Justice
is now funding regional anti-trafficking task forces across the United
States. Non-profit agencies are being well funded to assist
victims. The United States, the United Nations and the
Organization of American States are now funding initiatives to fight
trafficking in Latin America.
Yet San Diego's child rape camps continue to exist.
Under-staffed local law enforcement is fighting a loosing battle with
Tijuana, Mexico based traffickers. Gangs continue to kidnap and
enslave young girls with impunity because they know that U.S. law
enforcement won't or can’t act to shut down the child rape camps and
save lives! Across Latin America institutional sexism (and
classism and racism), official corruption and the huge profits available
from sex trafficking allow these criminals to operate in safety.
Leadership from the grassroots will be critical to change
these realities. Governments will not act unless they are pushed
to do so. We the People must unite and demand effective
action now!
|
Latest San Diego News - Added February
28, 2005
Convicted Sex Trafficker Luciano Salazar
Released From Prison on a Technicality
Anti-trafficking
activists have reported that the one and only
member of the infamous Salazar Brothers Child
Sex trafficking gang ever to be jailed - Luciano
Salazar-Juarez, was released early on a
technicality from a two year prison sentence in
January, 2005.
LibertadLatina.org
has not seen this
reported release mentioned in the press, but we
believe the report to be credible.
On June 19, 2003,
Luciano Salazar-Juarez pleaded guilty to
conspiracy, harboring aliens and transporting
undocumented immigrants. Salazar-Juarez arranged
for the smuggling of Guillermina Hernandez-Ramos
into the United States. He rented an apartment
for her and another immigrant woman for the
purpose of engaging in prostitution. Both
women drowned while attempting to drive through
a flooded road near a known farm labor
prostitution site. On October 8, 2003
Luciano Salazar-Juarez was sentenced to 2 years
in jail for his crimes.
Salazar-Juarez is
apparently living in Tijuana, Mexico, the
staging area for transporting trafficking
victims across the border into San Diego County,
California.
See the below
articles in regard to Luciano Salazar:
[The San Diego,
California community of] Vista named in
'sex slave' repor0 01-24-2004
VISTA ----
An article in Sunday's New York Times
Magazine that portrays this North County
city as a hub for crime rings that force
young girls into prostitution is
probably accurate, local and county
officials said this week.
Prostitution Smuggler Gets
Two Years in Jail - 10-08-2003
Mexican man pleads guilty
to smuggling, harboring women as prostitutes -
6/2003
Man
Admits Guilt To Smuggling Prostitutes
Luciano Salizar Pleads Guilty -
06-20-2003
The groundbreaking January 2003 article
in El Universal newspaper (in English
and Spanish) that first told the story
of Luciano Salazar's involvement with
his brother's child sex slavery
operation - 01-09-2003.
Other Recently Added Articles
Speaker: North County a
hot spot in migrant sex trade
(Marisa
Ugarte, Executive Director of the Bilateral
Safety Corridor Coalition, spoke at the Bravo
Foundation's Speaker Series Luncheon at the
California Center for the Arts in Escondido -
April 28, 2004.) |
Dec. 13, 2004
Tijuana Newspaper Describes
Ongoing Sexual Enslavement of Minor Girls from the
Age of 14 in Forced Prostitution for Farm Workers at
[Child Rape] Camps Across San Diego County,
California.
|
More News
About this
Crisis
January 19,
2004
Los
Cristeros
conducted a
rally
outside of
the San
Diego
Federal
Courthouse
today.
Although the
turnout was
small, press
interviews
were done,
especially
with the
Spanish
language
Univision
Network
news.
Congratulations
to Los
Cristeros
for
communicating
this
important
issue to a
wider
audience.
The ongoing
crisis and
scandal of
child sexual
slavery in
San Diego
County,
California
continues
uncontested
by a serious
response
from state
and federal
officials.
The child
victims of
this outrage
await our
effective
actions to
rescue them.
The January
19th rally
was an
important
step in
keeping the
pressure up
to oblige
government
agencies to
take action
now and shut
down the
child rape
camps of San
Diego,
California,
USA!
- Chuck
Goolsby
LibertadLatina.org
January
19, 2005
|
Public
Demonstration
Organized
by
Los
Cristeros
Demonstrate
Against
Child
Abduction
and
Mass
Child
Exploitation!
Wednesday
January
19th,
2005
9:00
a.m.
In
front
of
the
San
Diego
Federal
Court
House.
PRESS RELEASE
Los Cristeros
PO Box 226785
Los Angeles, CA 90022
(760)917-4079
www.loscristeros.org
contact@loscristeros.org
The Cristeros will hold a demonstration on Wednesday, January 19, 2005 from 9:00 a.m. to 12 p.m. noon in front of the Edward J. Schwartz Federal Courthouse at 940 Front St. in downtown San Diego.
This demonstration is focused on the trial of Guillermo Romero-Flores and Guadalupe Ventura who are on trial for the trafficking of women into the United States for the purpose of forced prostitution. We demand that they receive the maximum sentences possible for their crimes against humanity.
Further, this demonstration is being held in support of the victims of human trafficking and sexual exploitation to let them know that we care for
them. We believe it is critical to send a message that people care for the welfare of these girls and women on both sides of the border. The message alone provides hope for those struggling. For more information write us at
contact@loscristeros.org or call (760)917-4079. |
Two
child
abductors
/
child
enslavers/child
torturers
Guillermo
Romero-Flores
and
Guadalupe
Ventura
are
starting
their
trial
on
January
19th,
2004.
We
want
to
make
a
presence
to
demand
that
they
get
the
maximum
sentences
possible!
We
don't
want
the
public's
conscience
to
go
to
sleep!
Coordination
Information
Contact
us
at:
joaquincristero@yahoo.com
to
coordinate
with
us.
Check
back
for
updates
on
coordination.
Los
Cristeros |
|
|
From
www.LosCristeros.org
Added 9/07/2004
Los Cristeros - Un
Grupo Comunitario se
Organize para
Combatir el Mal de
la Esclavitud de
Niñas en San Diego,
California.
San Diego,
California - Los
Cristeros - A Group
of Californians
Organize Grass Roots
Effort to End Human
Slavery in the San
Diego County Child
Rape Camps.
Protesta en San
Diego,
California
Protest Rally -
San Diego,
California
|
Protest
Rally Date
Change:
Monday,
September
20, 2004
Cambio en la
Fecha de la
Protesta:
Lunes, el
20
de
Septiembre,
2004 |
Grupo
Comunitario
Organiza
Protesta en la
Corte Federal de
San Diego,
California
Guillermo Romero
y Guadalupe
Ventura están en
proceso judicial
por esclavizar
sexualmente a
niñas mexicanas,
del cual algunas
niñas son
menores de 10
años. El proceso
judicial que se
está llevando
acabo es parte
del proceso en
contra de San
Luis Rey del
2001 y el
continuo
seguimiento de
esclavizar las
niñas.
Dale clic aquí
para los
detalles de las
atrocidades que
ellos están
cometiendo.
Dale clic aquí
para ir a la
página de la
Libertad Latina
para el
seguimiento
profundo de la
historia.
Estamos
planeando una
protesta el
martes, 21 de
septiembre, 2004
en frente de el
Southern
District of
California
Federal Court
House. En este
día se llevara
acabo el juicio
a las 2:00 p.m.
contra los
acusados.
Nuestra
protesta
comenzara a las
12:00 p.m.
(mediodía).
Hazle saber a
estos criminales
y al sistema
judicial que
nosotros
demandamos la
pena máxima.
Protesta:
¡Demandamos la
Pena Máxima!
Grass Roots
Group Los
Cristeros
Plans Courthouse
Rally in San
Diego,
California
Against Child
Sex Traffickers
Who Enslaved
Girls as Young
as Age 10.
Guillermo Romero
and Guadalupe
Ventura are on
trial for the
sexual
enslavement of
little Mexican
girls, some of
whom were as
young as 10
years old. The
present trial
concerns the
2001 San Luis
Rey case and
their continued
enslaving of
Mexican girls.
Click here for
details of the
atrocities they
committed.
Click here to go
to Libertad
Latina for in
depth coverage.
We are planning
a demonstration
on Tuesday,
September 21st,
2004 in front of
the Southern
District of
California
Federal Court
House
Let them know
and the criminal
justice system
know that we
demand the
MAXIMUM.
|
Protest: We
Demand the
Maximum!
September 20,
2004
12:00 Noon
Edward J.
Schwartz
Courthouse
940 Front St.
San Diego,
California
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Added 08/23/2004
DIF* Tijuana and
the Bilateral
Safety Corridor
Coalition (BSCC)
invites you to
its Fourth
conference
Closing the
Borders to Human
Trafficking:
Best
Practices in
Fighting Child
Sexual Tourism
and Other Forms
of Trafficking
Sept. 30th-Oct.1
in San Diego, CA
For more
information,
contact Marisa
Ugarte at
SDBSCC@yahoo.com
or (619)
459-8559
From:
http://www.bsccoalition.org/BSCC/events.htm
*
DIF - Desarrollo
Integral de la
Familia - The
Mexican national
government's
social service
agency:
Integrated
Family
Development.
|
07/21/2004
Article
Highlights
Over $1.5
Million in
Federal and
Private
Grants
Recently
Provided to
San
Diego,
California
Based BSCC
(the
Bilateral
Safety
Corridor
Commission)
Supporting
Their
Efforts to
Rescue
Mexican
Child Sexual
Slavery
Victims in
the
Southwestern
U.S.
07/16/2004
Bush Administration Hosts First National Training Conference to
Combat Human Trafficking. President Bush Announces $14 Million
for Police and Service Agencies, and $4.5 Million in Grants to
Non-Profit Advocacy Agencies (including $500,000 to the
Bilateral Safety Corridor Coalition in San Diego) to Assist
Trafficking Victims.
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LibertadLatina
note: We at
LibertadLatina
congratulate the the Bilateral Safety Corridor Coalition (BSCC) and
founder Marisa Ugarte's groundbreaking efforts to end the mass sex
trafficking of especially underage Mexican and Central American
girls, and other trafficking victims into the Southwest United
States. We sincerely desire that recently increased grant
funding to non-profits and to the government law enforcement and
services community be effective in saving the lives of these
victims.
- Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
July 21, 2004
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January 25, 2004
From the comprehensive January 25, 2004
New York Times expose' of the sex
trafficking of Latina and European girls
and women across the Mexican Border into
the U.S.:
...In Vista, Calif., I followed a pickup
truck driven by a San Diego sheriff's
deputy named Rick Castro. We wound past
a tidy suburban downtown, a supermall
and the usual hometown franchises. We
stopped alongside the San Luis Rey
River, across the street from a Baptist
church, a strawberry farm and a
municipal ballfield.
A neat subdivision and cycling path ran
along the opposite bank. The San Luis
Rey was mostly dry, filled now with an
impenetrable jungle of 15-foot-high
bamboolike reeds. As Castro and I
started down a well-worn path into the
thicket, he told me about the time he
first heard about this place, in October
2001. A local health care worker had
heard rumors about Mexican immigrants
using the reeds for sex and came down to
offer condoms and advice.
She found more than 400 men and 50 young
women between 12 and 15 dressed in tight
clothing and high heels. There was a
separate group of a dozen girls no more
than 11 or 12 wearing white communion
dresses. ''The girls huddled in a circle
for protection,'' Castro told me, ''and
had big eyes like terrified deer.''
I followed Castro into the riverbed, and
only 50 yards from the road we found a
confounding warren of more than 30
roomlike caves carved into the reeds. It
was a sunny morning, but the light in
there was refracted, dreary and
basementlike. The ground in each was a
squalid nest of mud, tamped leaves,
condom wrappers, clumps of toilet paper
and magazines. Soiled underwear was
strewn here and there, plastic garbage
bags jury-rigged through the reeds in
lieu of walls. One of the caves'
inhabitants had hung old CD's on the
tips of branches, like Christmas
ornaments. It looked vaguely like a
recent massacre site. It was 8 in the
morning, but the girls could begin
arriving any minute. Castro told me how
it works: the girls are dropped off at
the ballfield, then herded through a
drainage sluice under the road into the
riverbed. Vans shuttle the men from a
7-Eleven a mile away. The girls are
forced to turn 15 tricks in five hours
in the mud. The johns pay $15 and get 10
minutes. I! t is in nearly every respect
a perfect extension of Calle Santo Tomas
in Mexico City. Except that this is what
some of those girls are training for...
Dear readers:
Note that this outrage is happening on
United States soil.
Why have these crimes against the human
race in California not been stopped by
now, more than ten years after these
horrors were first brought to law
enforcement attention?
We encourage our readers in the United
States to write to your local
congressional representative today and
insist that the child rape camps of San
Diego be shut down for good!
- LibertadLatina.org |
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Dec. 18, 2003
LibertadLatina.org
coordinator Chuck Goolsby speaks out and
advocates for Latina women & girl's
human rights at a Washington, DC
conference on sex trafficking in the
Latin American & Caribbean region.
The ongoing crisis of the San Diego,
California child rape camps was a major
focus of the information presented to the
assembled officials from the U.S. Department
of Justice, DOJ's Worker Exploitation Task
Force, the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security, the Organization of American
States, the Society for International
Development and many local and national
academics and officials from many
non-governmental organizations.
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EL
UNIVERSAL'S ARTICLE ON THIS CRISIS
United
States - California -
January 9, 2003
"The Sex Trafficking of Children in
San Diego County, California"
(In
English) (En
Español)
Mexico's El Universal newspaper presents a detailed three
part exposé on a criminal child sex trafficking gang that
kidnapped or tricked hundreds of 7 to 18 year old Mexican
girls into coming to San Diego, where they were threatened
with death, or threatened with the death of their children,
unless they agreed to become sex slaves in unpaid
prostitution serving San Diego's Latino farm labor and also
non-Latino communities.
A three part series from January 9,10 and 11, 2003
- El Universal (The Universal) Newspaper, Mexico City
Spanish to English translation by Chuck Goolsby
The January, 2003 translation of this comprehensive news
article from Spanish to English allowed the story of the San
Diego rape camps to be distributed to a number of government
officials and advocates, expanding official awareness of the
details of this tragic human rights case.
According to anti-trafficking activists, the El Universal
article's Spanish and English language versions had
significant impact with government officials in Mexico City
and in Washington, DC.
Excerpt
...The
local police department had received an
emergency call reporting that a young
girl had escaped from prostitution in
the farm labor camps and had been beaten
by her pimp, Arturo Lopez, who worked
for the Salazar brothers.
When the police found her she had a
split lip, and she was bruised and
scared. "She wore a tiny miniskirt
and a jacket, and was so over-painted
that you almost couldn't recognize her
real face. She looked to be
between ten and fifteen years older than
her real age. Her hair was short
and dyed brown, her mouth was small, she
had the eyes of a dreamer and a very
seductive attitude.
"When we began to interview her she
broke down and out came an agonized
human being drowning in pain."
Excerpt
...Once,
in one of the Salazar brother's houses
in Vista, Julia, 17 years old, refused
to work. Tomas, who exploited her,
closed the business and in front of
everyone else beat her with a hook until
he ripped flesh from her arms, legs and
back. Tomas was imprisoned for domestic
violence and is serving a 20 year
sentence, made easier by the thousands
of dollars that he continues to make
every week from exploiting women, even
while behind bars.
Excerpt
..."The first time I went to the
[child rape] camps I didn't vomit only because I had an
empty stomach. It was truly grotesque and
unimaginable," recalls Patricia, our fictitious name for a
medical doctor who works with government supplied resources,
and who for the last five years has been in contact with the
Salazar brothers, working to prevent HIV/AIDS and other
venereal diseases in these exploited minor girls.
..."When I came here, in one hour I counted that one little
girl had been with 35 men, one after the other. (Patricia)
"A lot of
money is involved in this business, thousands and thousands
of dollars. I have seen myself how U.S. INS agents
have sex with these minor girls for free, in exchange for
protection. These agents even enter the houses of
prostitution in uniform. May a lightning-bolt split me
in half if I am lying!" (Patricia)
More detail on the life history of the one victim of this
case to come forward and attempt to assist U.S. prosecutors,
Reina, is described in the below article.
United States -
California -
January 9, 2003
Reina’s Story
A
Mexican Girl Forced into Prostitution
In April 2001, 15-year-old
Reina was leaving her home in Tenancingo, a high-plateau
town west of Mexico City. She was happier than she’d
been in a while, traveling north to Tijuana...
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The Bilateral Safety Corridor Coalition
In response to the ongoing and growing crisis in
Mexico to U.S. sex trafficking in San Diego, the
Bilateral Safety Corridor Coalition
has been formed to coordinate the responses of
40 Mexican, Central American and U.S. based
government and non-governmental agencies.
The pioneering efforts of the BSCC are providing
a new professional benchmark for the treatment
of immigrant girl and woman criminal sex
trafficking victims in the U.S.
All of the
important information about the San Diego child
sex trafficking crisis reviewed on this web site
and in the press about the San Diego trafficking
crisis is derived from information assembled by
the BSCC and its skillful founder and director,
Marisa B. Urgate, MA.
See their web
site at:
http://www.bsccoalition.org/BSCC/
LibertadLatina.org
salutes Marisa B. Ugarte for her persistent
pioneering of effective strategies to assist
young girls and youth trapped by criminal sex
trafficking.

New Book Release - Fall, 2003
Prostitution, Trafficking and
Traumatic Stress
Edited by Melissa Farley, PhD
Includes the following important
chapter:
Prostitution and Trafficking of
Women and Children from Mexico to
the United States, by Marisa Bava,
Laura Zarate, and Melissa Farley,
PhD.
Availabe from
The Hawthorne Press
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LibertadLatina.org
congratulates Dr. Melissa Farley (San
Francisco Women's Center/
www.ProstitutionResearch.com);
Marisa Bava, MA, Executive Director of
the San Diego, California based
Bilateral Safety
Corridor Coalition, and Laura
Zarate, Executive Director of the Texas
based Latina intervention and advocacy
group Arte Sana (Art Heals) -
www.ArteSana.org
-- on their successful collaboration and
the recent release of their important
paper: Prostitution and Trafficking of
Women and Children from Mexico to the
United States, in the above book.
This
backgrounder for trauma professionals is
also available in the Fall, 2003 edition
of the Journal of Trauma Practice, also
by Hawthorne Press. Chuck
Goolsby of
LibertadLatina.org
thanks Dr.
Melissa Farley for having allowed him
the opportunity to have spent several
months developing the original outline
and drafts of this important
anti-trafficking paper. |
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MORE INFORMATION
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San Diego, California
BSCC News and Events
DIF Tijuana (Mexico's
Social Services Agency) and the Bilateral Safety
Corridor
invites you to its third conference
Parallel Worlds: Tijuana and San Diego
Child Sexual Tourism and Other Forms of
Trafficking
August 26 and 27 in San Diego, CA
For more information, contact Marisa Ugarte at
mubava@msn.com
or 619-260-0105
Speakers
Mohamed Mattar, Protection Project
Norma Hotaling, Director of Sage
Chris Tenorio, US Department of Justice
Donna Hughes, University of Rhode Island
http://www.bsccoalition.org/BSCC/
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Comments of
conference participants:
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I... want to send my thanks and
congratulations to Marisa Ugarte
and the BSCC for the San Diego conference earlier this week.
A
bilateral or multilateral approach to trafficking is
incredibly
important. Cooperation between countries (in this case
Mexico, USA, & Costa Rica) is crucial in stopping
trafficking and assisting victims. Marisa's networking
and organizing skills are what made the Bilateral Safety
Corridor Coalition (and the conference) happen. As
she's told me and others, in one case it took more than 20
governmental, social service, legal, healthcare, and human
rights agencies to get one adolescent away from her
pimp/trafficker and out of prostitution. Her knowledge
about what it takes to get young people out of prostitution,
and her passionate commitment to broadening the
effectiveness all agencies doing this work - are awesome.
- Dr. Melissa Farley,
Director,
Prostitution Research, San Francisco Women's Center
And...
I am sending big congratulations to Marissa Ugarte and the
Bilateral Safety Corridor Coalition for a successful
conference last week in San Diego, California. "Parallel
Worlds: Tijuana and San Diego" brought together government
officials, service providers, researchers, and activists
from the U.S., Mexico, and Central America to talk about the
problems of trafficking of women and children for sexual
exploitation and sex tourism.
One of the most compelling presentations was the investigative
news report from a local TV channel on the trafficking and
prostitution of girls in what is known as the "strawberry
fields." From hidden locations they were able to film the
pimps bringing the girls into the fields and the men
arriving at the parking lot, then being taken into the hills
to use (rape) the girls. They caught on film the exchange of
money between men and pimps and even the acts of
prostitution. They filmed the grass dens and pathways
constructed by the pimps in what amounts to an open-air
brothel.
The presentations were all very high quality and often on the
cutting edge of the movement against trafficking.
-
Dr. Donna M. Hughes holds the Carlson Endowed Chair in
Women's Studies at the University of Rhode Island.
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1st Annual Candlelight Vigil:
September 28 in San Diego, CA
http://www.bsccoalition.org/BSCC/
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SAN DIEGO -
Mexican man pleads guilty to smuggling, harboring women as
prostitutes
- Associated Press -
6/2003
(Two News Stories)
A Mexican man who is linked to a
suspected prostitution ring operating at migrant worker
camps pleaded guilty Thursday to federal charges of
smuggling and harboring women who worked as prostitutes in
northern San Diego County.
Luciano Salazar Juarez pleaded guilty to one count of
immigrant smuggling and two counts of harboring illegal
immigrants. The charges carry maximum sentences of five and
10 years each, respectively, but prosecutors will recommend
an 18-month term when he is sentenced in September,
according to his lawyer, Tom Mix. Since he was in the United
States illegally, Salazar will be deported after serving his
term.
The charges state that Salazar, 36, recruited women from
Mexico to engage in prostitution in the United States and
that he conspired to do so with his brother, Julio Salazar
Juarez, who is a fugitive and believed to be in Mexico.
Salazar said little during a hearing in U.S. District Court on
Thursday. He stood stiffly with his hands clasped behind his
back as he faced Judge Irma Gonzalez, nodding his head to
signal "yes," as the charges were read against him.
The investigation stemmed from a December accident in which
three women drowned as they attempted to drive across a
rain-swollen river while trying to reach a migrant camp in
Carlsbad.
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San Diego - Sexual Slavery - 2002 -
A law enforcement team.. burst open a criminal ring
smuggling young Mexican girls into northern San Diego
County... forcing them to work as prostitutes, serving
hundreds of men who were being shuttled to a remote camp on
a given day.
...More than 40 people were arrested, and 16
young women and teens who had been held as sex slaves were
rescued...
...``Because of the high intimidation factor,
we were unable to get the evidence we needed to charge [the
suspects]."
...The case in Oceanside came to light after a
15-year-old girl fled to a private home and sought help. The
girl, identified only by her first name, Reina, was
recruited from a central Mexican village with promises of a
good job.
...But then her captors took her infant son
away from her and threatened to harm him unless she
prostituted herself.
(c) 2002 Associated Press - 08/29/2002
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Humanitarian Sexploitation: The World's Sex Slaves Need
Liberation, not Condoms - An editorial piece
in The Weekly Standard by Dr. Donna Hughes - 02/24/2003
"An anonymous American doctor who worked for a community
health clinic that provided health care to migrant workers
said, "The first time I went to the camps I didn't vomit
only because I had nothing in my stomach. It was truly
grotesque and unimaginable." Over time, the girls got
younger; a number were 9 and 10 years old. One time, the
doctor counted 35 men using a girl in one hour. When the
police raided the brothels, they found dozens of empty boxes
of condoms, each box having held a thousand condoms.
Calculate how many rapes that represents."
Dr. Donna M. Hughes holds the Carlson Endowed Chair in
Women's Studies at the University of Rhode Island.
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See Also:
More About Sex Slavery in the United States
About Sex Slavery in
Latin America
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LibertadLatina
News /
Noticias |
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Last Updated:
Feb. 08, 2010
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Últimas Noticias
Latest News
Added:
Feb. 08, 2010
Mexico
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
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 |
|
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.
I n 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
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
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
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
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