Japan urged to stamp put trafficking in women (About Columbian Slavery in Japan)- 11-29-2003

Embassies in Tokyo are taking in a rising tide of foreign women who say they have been forced to work in the sex trade after being brought to Japan by criminal organizations.

Given Japan's regrettable track record in this field--until World War II there was a history of Japanese women going abroad to work in the sex trade--authorities should be taking every measure to stamp out such human trafficking.

In a video program compiled by the National Police Agency and distributed to police stations nationwide, a Colombian woman recounts how she was victimized by the traffickers.

"I was told there was a job at a beauty salon. But when I arrived in Japan, I was taken to a strip joint and confined in a second-floor room," said the woman in a vivid description of her treatment.

"Then they demanded I return 5 million yen in travel expenses and I was forced to work as a prostitute.

"A Japanese broker took pictures of me naked and said he would kill my family if I ran away. He kept punching me until I was left covered in bruises," the woman went on to say.

This woman ran into the Colombian Embassy in May last year, seeking protection after running away from her captors.

According to the embassy, more than 70 such women have sought refuge at the embassy.

An official of the Thai Embassy said one or two people have sought protection at the embassy every day of late, in what is becoming a routine scene for embassy staff.

Earlier this month, the Metropolitan Police Department raided a large organization suspected of trafficking women from Colombia to Japan. It was the first time the trafficking group had come under investigation.

However, this is just the tip of the iceberg and Japan faces criticism for being slow to address the issue.

"Trafficking" used to mainly apply to illegal trade in drugs and weapons. However, with increasing cross-border movement of people, the meaning of the term is shifting to focus on trade in women.

Only relatively recently have international organizations begun to issue policy documents on trafficking in people.

In the 2000 U.N. protocol on trafficking in persons, it was defined as: "The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation."
The protocol, officially titled, "Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children," then reads:
"Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs."

Taking the view that trafficking of women was a serious crime that damages the human rights of women, and that it was becoming a major source of revenue for criminal organizations, the issue had been discussed at meetings of leaders of advanced nations in the late 1990s.

As a result, many nations have worked in recent years to establish legal frameworks to protect victims and punish traffickers.

For example, in new U.S. legislation introduced in 2000, the United States has brought in a system in which a victim can stay for an additional three years without a visa and receive public support.

However, although it has become a major destination country for traffickers, Japan has been slow to address the issue.

"It's a problem for Japan that the country does not have a law to ban trafficking in persons and to punish those who violate such a ban," said Yoko Yoshida, a lawyer working to support victims of exploitation.

The Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law bans brokering illegal work and the Labor Standards Law bans forced labor. However, violators of the laws usually only face fines and are then free to resume their work. Victims, on the other hand, are often deported.

Lawyers and operators of refuge facilities have established an organization called Japan Network Against Trafficking In Persons to press the government to establish a law banning trading in persons.

"Japanese society shows little concern for victimized women because people take the attitude that these women came to Japan purely for money. I want Japanese society to realize the seriousness of the issue," Omaira Rivera, a social worker at the Colombian Embassy, said.

Japan must now come up with effective ways to root out such human trafficking, including close cooperation with victims' home states and the countries they pass through en route to Japan.

Ricky Martin

Llama y Vive

See: The National Network to End Violence Against Immigrant Women

And: La Alianza Latina Nacional para Erradicar la Violencia Doméstica.

The National Latino Alliance for the Elimination of Domestic Violence

Recent Event

Thursday, July 10th Washington, DC

The Profits of Pimping:

Abolishing Sex Trafficking In The United States

Noticias de Julio, 2008

July 2008 News

(News Added During July, 2008)

Added July 5, 2008

Mexico

En Desventaja, Nños Mexi-canos Indocu-mentados

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

Thousands of Children Cross Alone into the United States Each Year to Escape from Mexican Child Sex Trafficking Networks

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

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

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

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

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

[Expanded Translation]

Georgina Olson

Excélsior

July 3, 2008

Also regarding the work of Christopher Nugent:

Missing in America: 8,000 immigrant children

The Examiner

Washington, DC

Feb. 1, 2007

Added July 15, 2008

Mexico

Ocho de cada diez migrantes son violadas

Eight in every ten migrant women is raped as they cross Mexico

The 'American Dream' for many migrating women turns into a nightmare when, as they cross from Central America into Mexico, they become victims of psycho-logical torture and other abuses of all kinds.

According to the latest report of the Forum on Migration, drafted this year, eight out of 10 Central American women migrants who cross the southern border of Mexico are raped, regardless of whether they are adolescents or elderly women. Among them are a high percentage of Guatemalan migrants [the majority of Guatemalans are indigenous].

Mary Galván, a social worker with the Instituto Madre Assunta, a migrant assistance agency, notes that sexual abuse is prevalent along both the southern and northern borders of Mexico. Galván lamented that: "Central American women are the most vulnerable, because they attach them-selves to a male fellow traveler for protection, and he takes advantage of her."

Galván recalled a case from 2007, in which three sisters wanted to cross the border. Assailants forced them to strip naked. The youngest sister, because she was mentally disabled, did not strip. She was grabbed by the hair and taken away. She has not been heard from since...

Pedro Pantoja, a priest who is in charge of the Posada Belén (Bethlehem Shelter), located in Saltillo, in Coahuila state, related the story of Marisa, a Central American woman. Pantoja: "After passing through the city of Tapachula [a border town near Guatemala], due to a lack of freight trains [to ride], Marisa had to walk through the forest. Twelve men robbed her of everything, and then they each raped her. A few days before this, a policeman had also raped Marisa..."

(Extended Translation)

- Prensa Libre

July. 14, 2008

Added July 15, 2008

Dominican Republic

Republica Dominicana: En primeros lugares del continente en trata de personas

Dominican Republic Holds Record for Latin American Sex Trafficking

An estimated 50,000 Dominican women are victims of sex trafficking networks

The Dominican Republic occupies one of the three ghastly first place positions in the number of victims of human trafficking in the Americas, with an estimated 50,000 women victims, aside from additional numbers of girls, boys and men also trapped in slavery.

During her remarks at the opening of the seminar 'Protection for Persons Affected by Trafficking,' Margarita Cedeño de Fernández, First Lady of the Republic, stated that trafficking in persons is a crime against the state and those who are affected by it. It is a crime, she said, that is linked to poverty, gender inequality, racial discrimination, social marginalization and unequal development...

A plan needed

The First Lady noted that a national strategic plan of consolidated action is needed. That plan must be well designed and coordinated to serve as an effective tool to eliminate this scourge, which, after trafficking in weapons and drugs, has become the world's most lucrative illegal activity.

In that vein, the First Lady said that the Dominican Republic has been combating human trafficking since 1999. Work began with the founding of the Inter-Agency Committee for the Protection of Migrant Women (CIPROM), created by Order 97-99. Since 2003 the country has had a specific law, 137-03, to combat human trafficking...

(Extended Translation)

- Diario Libre

July. 14, 2008

Added July 15, 2008

Central America, Mexico

What is the status of the Jacqueline Maria Jirón Silva case?

Question from Chuck Goolsby to Catalina Fernandez, development coordinator, Alianza Por Tus Derechos – June 12, 2008:

"What is the status of the Jacqueline Maria Jirón Silva case?

Although every victim is equal, this case is unique because we have a picture of this Nicaraguan girl who was kidnapped into sexual slavery at age 11, and because her mother, a domestic worker in Costa Rica, has travelled to every corner of Central America to find her. See: The Jaqueline Maria Jiron Silva case."

Answer from Catalina Fernandez – June 20, 2008:

"Jacqueline turned 15 this June 11, 2008, and we continue searching.

The investigation team of Alianza Por Tus Derechos (Alliance For Your Rights) in Central America looked tirelessly for Jacqueline in the border area between Guatemala and Mexico, which has given us information that she is there. However many factors make us believe that her rescue is not possible.

First, the case of Jacqueline reached Alliance for Your Rights nearly a year after she disappeared. This caused us to loose a lot of time in the search for her. Further, the corruption that rules among many Central American authorities has caused these officials to warn Jacqueline’s captors when we are in a given area, and they move her.

Here at Alliance for Your Rights, we are convinced that she was the victim of a network of traffickers that began in [the city of] Chinandega, Nicaragua . She was moved among the Central American countries, and she is being sexually exploited in a brothel in the Guatemala / Mexico border area.

We will not rest in our search for Jacqueline, but we call upon the authorities to help us. We know that there are honest people in their ranks, and we want them, and also the truck drivers who transit the border region, to alert us when they see Jacqueline."

- www.ChangeMakers.net

July 14, 2008

Added July 15, 2008

Guatemala

Rescatan a unos 150 menores

Some 150 children have been rescued from prostitution during 2008

During the 2008 authorities in Guatemala have rescued 150 underage victims from prostitution. The victims were being exploited in bars, nightclubs and clandestine parties.

In raids conducted by multi-state task forces, 65% of the women detained have been underage.

- Coralia Orantes

Prensa Libre

July 14, 2008

Added July 15, 2008

Argentina

Unos 5.000 niños se prostituyen en Buenos Aires, según informe periodístico

Thousands of children and youth engage in prostitution in Buenos Aires, according to a newspaper report

Some 5,000 underage prostitutes exist on the streets of Buenos Aires... says a report today that the Diario Popular (the People's Journal), quoting sources from the Argentine Federal Police.

According to an expert from the federal police, poor children between the ages of 8 and 17 are exploited by gangs that offer tourists a "low cost and relatively safe" form of impunity...

According to Fabiana Tuñes, who directs the NGO Casa Encuentro, 80% of the women who are victims of sexual exploitation are underage. Tuñes believes that the unofficial estimate of 5,000 child victims in Argentina's capitol "could be triple: that number. She said that in Buenos Aires: "We have to dismember trafficking networks and their accomplices in our political, judicial and law enforcement environments." Tuñes emphasized that "It is clear to us that these [criminal child sex trafficking] organiza-tions could not operate in the relaxed way that they do if 'liberated zones' that allowed pedophilia did not exist.

(Extended Translation)

- EFE News

July 14, 2008

Added July 15, 2008

Illinois, USA

Man accused of caging children in back of pickup

Posen - A suburban Chicago man locked his two young daughters in a wire cage hidden in the back of his pickup truck because he didn't have a baby sitter, officials said Thursday.

Ricardo Gonzalez, 35, of Midlothian, was arrested Monday after a woman at a gas station in Posen heard a crying child and spotted him pushing small hands back into a cage, police said.

He had a wire cage behind the front seats of his truck, police said. Black-tinted windows and a large plywood board in the back window concealed it.

Gonzalez told polic