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| Latin
America |
| Women & Children at Risk |
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Topic: |
Rape Case Profile - California |
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Assailant: |
Three Unknown Suspects |
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Article
Title: |
Woman Reports Rape in Santa Cruz |
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Publisher: |
(c) 2004
Mercury News |
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Author: |
Chuck Carroll |
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Publish
Date: |
2004-02-25 |
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URL: |
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/8040196.htm?1c |
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An 18-year-old
woman in Santa Cruz was dragged into a van with three men inside and raped
Tuesday afternoon before being released near Cabrillo College.
Det. Brad Goodwin said the woman was walking
by herself from the downtown Metro Center to the boardwalk and was about
halfway there, at Cliff and Third streets, when full-size brown van pulled
up to her between 2:30 p.m. and 2:45 p.m.
She said one of three men in their mid-20s
who were in the van pulled her into the van, where she was raped by a
second man as the vehicle drove around town.
The woman was dropped at an unknown street
near Cabrillo College and walked from there to the Capitola Mall, where
she called the police.
Goodwin said investigators have not found
any witnesses to the attack, and that the woman has been too upset to
provide them with a good description of her attackers.
``We're hoping that when she calms down,
she'll be able to give us more,'' he said, adding that she was scheduled
for an afternoon interview today. Police hope to be able to put together a
composite sketch of at least one assailant.
In a preliminary interview, the victim said
all three men were about 25 years old and Hispanic. The one who pulled her
into the van was about 6-foot-2, while the rapist has thick or bushy
eyebrows. They have no make or model on the van.
The attack added yet another bead to a
six-month string of unsolved sex crimes that have plagued the Santa Cruz
community and bedeviled the police.
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News
The World, Latin
America, Venezuela
Kidnapping and Human
Trafficking – the Seamy Side of Globalization
Globalization has
created new opportunities for the transfer of people
and products across borders, and broadened the scope
of many businesses around the world. But it’s not
all good news of course: one of the seamier sides of
growing international commerce is the abduction and
trafficking of human beings.
The problem is
getting worse. Just over a year since the collapse
of the global market, countries around the world
have reported a significant increase in cases of the
exploitation of people for monetary gain. While
cases of kidnapping and ransom continue to be common
in African and Latin American countries, such as
Nigeria and Venezuela, the majority of organized
human trafficking cases are actually in Europe.
The United Nations
Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) announced that the
number of human trafficking cases has increased
dramatically since 2006. In Europe alone, its report
estimated there are 270,000 victims of human
trafficking, but authorities fear it is only a
fraction of unreported cases. The majority of these
victims are women who have been forced into
prostitution.
Yet the most
shocking statistic released by the UN is an estimate
that only around one-in-100,000 traffickers are
actually convicted for human exploitation. “Perhaps
police are not finding the traffickers and victims
because they are not looking for them,” said the
UNODC executive director Antonio Maria Costa. “Lives
should not be for sale or for rent on a continent
that prohibits slavery and forced labour, and prides
itself on upholding human dignity.”
Even though most
human trafficking cases are in Europe, human
abduction and kidnapping have also become a
significant problem in Latin America. Recently,
Venezuela became the continent’s latest hot spot for
kidnappings, with abduction rates higher than both
Colombia and Mexico. The country’s most recent surge
of kidnappings have been in Barinas, in west central
Venezuela, where the abduction rate is 7.2 people
per 100,000 inhabitants. According to the country’s
interior ministry, the national average is much
lower - roughly two kidnappings per 100,000
inhabitants...
Leah Germain
International News Services
Oct. 28, 2009
Added:
Nov. 03, 2009
LibertadLatina
Commentary
 |
|
Chuck Goolsby |
We say again
Give
Latin America and Especially its
At-Risk Indigenous
Peoples a Seat at the Table in the Global Fight
Against Gender Oppression
The above article from International News Services,
Kidnapping and Human Trafficking – the Seamy Side
of Globalization, states that "most human
trafficking cases are in Europe."
From our perspective, the idea that more human
trafficking victims exist in Europe than in Latin
America, or in Asia, does not ring true. Among the
experts trying to focus the spotlight of urgent
action on the crisis in Latin America is Teresa Ulloa, executive director of the Latin American and
Caribbean branch of the Coalition Against
Trafficking in Women (CATW). Ulloa estimates that in
Mexico alone, 500,000 victims of trafficking exist,
far beyond the
United Nations
Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimate that
270,000 victims exist in Europe. Ulloa also notes
that Mexico generates an estimated 17% of its gross
domestic product (DGP) from prostitution.
Repeatedly, the mainstream press, experts in human
trafficking and entities such as human trafficking
task forces around the United States fail to take
notice of the fact that Latin America is an unending
source of sex trafficking victims, given that
regional efforts to combat the problem are weak,
unfunded and largely unsupported by national
governments, civil institutions and the general public.
That source of adult and child victims is funneled
into the United States, Japan and Europe by the many
tens of thousands.
Until the anti-trafficking movement wakes-up and
discovers that modern Latin American sexual slavery and
related forms of community-based sexual exploitation
are absolutely pervasive in the cities and farm
fields in every corner of the United States and
other destination nations for Latin America's
migrant populations, victims
will continue to suffer, anti-trafficking funds will
continue to be misdirected, and multi-billion dollar
trafficking mafias will continue to laugh in the
face of civilized society.
That is not an acceptable scenario for the present,
nor for the future.
Although the anti-trafficking movement in western
nations is made-up of a dedicated cadre of
largely
white and
Asian activists, reflecting the college and women's
studies roots of this form of activism, Latin American, Indigenous American,
African and other populations, who are indeed those who are
especially targeted for kidnapping, rape and
enslavement by sex traffickers across the Americas, deserve an
equal place at the table in the
anti-trafficking movement.
Their interests must be represented. Projects that
target their rescue and restoration must also be
prioritized.
Fair
representation is not being effectively accomplished
today.
That is not acceptable!
End impunity now!
- Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
Nov. 03, 2009
See also:
Un millón de menores
latinoamericanos atrapados por redes de prostitución
Former federal special
prosecutor for violent crimes against women - Alicia
Elena Perez Duarte:
|
At least one million children across Latin
America have been entrapped by child
prostitution and pornography networks.
[In many cases in Mexico] these child
victims are offered to [wealthy] businessmen
and politicians. |
Full story (in
English)
|
Guatemala
Guatemaltecas Son
Madres Desde los Diez Años
Incesto,
violación y falta de educación sexual,
las causas
Las
niñas guatemal-tecas suelen tener hijos
más temprano de lo que mudan dientes.
Desde los diez años de edad ellas ya
conocen una sala de parto y saben lo que
significa recuperarse del dolor de una
cesárea...
Guatemalan Girls
Become Mothers From the Age of Ten
Incest, Rape
and a Lack of Sex Education are the
Causes
Guatemalan girls have children sooner
than they loose all of their baby teeth.
From the age of ten they know what a
delivery room is, and they know what it
means to recover from the pain of a
cesarean section.
Human
rights advocates see this social
phenomenon as a problem that occurs
behind closed doors, and involves abuse
by the father, an uncle or a grandfather
within the home. Prosecutors and the
Public Ministry are convinced that the
statistics are an indication of a high
incidence of rape in this nation.
Experts
on sex education perceive the problem as
resulting from poor knowledge about sex
and its consequences, which leads to a
state of social disorder.
In this
Central American country of 14 million
inhabitants, with a population of five
million children, girls menstruate
between the ages of 10 and 13. According
to the Maternal and Child Health Survey
of 2006, 26 of 100 girls have their
first sexual experience between the ages
of 13 and 15.
These
teens typically have their first
relationship with a friend, a boyfriend
or a partner. But in many cases their
first experience is a result of rape.
Two out of every
ten girls have been raped before
finishing elementary school.
Frightened, rejected and discriminated
against by their families, these girls
accelerate their sexual maturation by
[an average of] 5 years. By the time
they reach age 20, according to the
National Statistics Institute, they
often have two or three children.
A study
conducted in 2006 by the Guttmacher
Institute, entitled "Early Childbearing:
A Continuing Challenge," in Guatemala
there are 114 births per thousand women,
while in the rest of the region, the
figure is 80 births per thousand
women...
However,
the high level of
pregnancies in girls is not
related just to a lack of sex education.
According to Ana Gladys Ollas of the
Prosecutor's Office for Human Rights for
Women, these [child] pregnancies are also the result
of incest, and emotional blackmail
exerted by gang members and gangs of
teenagers who sometimes rape girls
collectively.
The
official noted that the neighborhoods
where poor pregnant girls live are also
places where gangs abound. And the
situation is repeated in prisons.
Girls are brought
to prisons to be raped as a result of
acts of extortion committed against
their families.
In this
country, the poorest are also the most
vulnerable citizens. With just
[pennies] to survive, a [typical]
household with five children must submit
to extortion by gangs that
require them to pay fees of $50 to $1,000...
Spanking, scolding, beating, burning,
being locked in a room and [extreme]
prohibitions are the forms of violent
punishment that girls suffer on a daily
basis. Some 22 of every 100 Guatemalan
girls have been beaten by their parents
before age 15. These forms of violence
drive young girls to seek affection from
teens and men who end-up deceiving them.
Leonel
Dubon, who heads the Foundation for
the Girl, explains that families get
rid of the babies of these young girls through
the use of clandestine abortions.
According to Zenaida Escobedo, head
of gender affairs in the Guatemalan judiciary, in
Guatemala around 65,000 illegal
abortions are performed each year.
Often,
after giving birth, these girls sell
their babies for up to $600 to
clandestine human trafficking
operations...
Mayan
women are the poorest of Guatemalans.
They often have up
to 10 sons and daughters, given that within
their
indigenous culture, condom use among men
and contraceptive use by women is often
frowned upon.
Full English
Translation
CIMAC / SEMIlac
Oct. 30, 2009
LibertadLatina
Note:
The
above story states that the rate of
childbirth in Guatemala is 114 births
per thousand women. In the surrounding
region the birth rate is 80 births per
1,000 women.
Here
are comparable rates for young women
between the ages of 15 and 19 in the
United States:
-
All races and origins, 42
-
Asian/Pacific Islander, 17
-
White (including Hispanic), 38
-
American Indian/Alaska Native, 55
-
Black (including Hispanic), 65
-
Hispanic, 83
Source:
U.S. Centers for
Disease Control (CDC)
- 2006
LibertadLatina
Note:
The
targeting of ten-year-old girls by teen
and adult Latino gang members for rape
with impunity described in the above
story occurs not only in Guatemala, by
across the Americas.
See also:
A Washington, DC- Latina Social Worker
and Community Center Director's Letter -
1999
EXCERPT
"Over the past two years, I have been
observing a systemic pattern of violence
committed against girls and young women
in our community. This violence involves
the sexual abuse/assault against girls
as young as 10 years old...
...There
have been incidents of date rape, gang
rape, abductions, drugging, threats with
firearms, etc. The incidents are just
as you described in
your
[Mr. Goolsby's letter
on the subject to the National Center
for Missing and Exploited Children]
letter
and have been met with the same level of
indifference and dismissal of legal
(never mind moral) responsibility on the
part of civil institutions -- the
police depart-ment, public schools,
etc."
...While some do say this is culturally
accepted behavior, the reality is that
many families -- mothers and fathers
alike -- are enraged and wanting to
pursue prosecution of the perpetrators,
but they find themselves without
recourse when the police won't respond
to them, when they fear risking their
personal safety, and/or when their legal
status (undocumented) prevents them from
believing they have rights or legal
protection in this country. Many girls
and young women's families are
threatened and harassed by the
perpetrators when it becomes apparent
that the family is willing to press
charges for statutory rape/child sexual
abuse.
...The use of intimidation and violence
to control girls and their families
results in the following: 1)
parents/guardians back off from pressing
charges, 2) relatives do not inform the
police or others of sightings of girls
and young women who have been officially
reported as "missing juveniles," and 3)
the victims of sexual violence refuse to
participate as "willing witnesses" in
the prosecution/trial process.
When this sexual violence occurs within
the context of a seemingly permissive
public environment -- indifferent civil
institutions, forced silence and
complicity of families, gang culture, a
society that explicitly promotes the
sexualization and exploitation of
children through media -- its criminal
and immoral nature goes unquestioned. My
question is how and where do we create
the public environment that allows us to
voice our disapproval and to hold the
implicated adults accountable for their
negligent care of our children?
...We're also looking at the rate of
incidence among black and Asian girls
and young women to document that this is
not merely a culturally accepted
behavior, but rather a complex and
systemic form of violence carried out
against poor girls and young women of
color.
- From a
letter by a Latina Social Worker
and girl's community center director
working with young Latina girls in
Washington, DC's largest Latino
neighborhood.
LibertadLatina
Note:
Although this serious, truthful,
accurate and poignant letter was
written in 1999, from my observations,
the same conditions exist today in 2009.
Nothing has changed for the better,
while the code of silence in the barrio
and the extending tentacles of criminal
networks have made the violence worse,
resulting in a permissive environment in
the Washington, DC, Maryland and
Virginia region.
End impunity now!
- Chuck
Goolsby
LibertadLatina
Nov. 03,
2009 |
Texas, USA, Mexico,
Honduras
 |
|
The sex trafficking
routes used by the brutal enslavers
described in the several cases related
in this story.
Map:
LibertadLatina |
Special Investigation: Inside
the Slave Trade
Mission, Texas - One woman was sold on an auction
block. Another became an involuntary servant in the
land of the free.
"Human slavery, we have it. It is in our
neighborhood but a lot of people don't want to see
it," says Jaime Ortiz, a coordinator for the South
Texas Civil Rights Project.
"Slavery is still here in our neighborhood in the
Rio Grande Valley."
During Channel 5 News' investigation into the slave
trade, we met a woman in Reynosa who had escaped her
life as a sex slave the night before we spoke to
her. We'll call her "Carlita."
The Honduran native says her captivity began the
moment she arrived by boat in Veracruz, Mexico. Her
smuggler sold her to a madam and the nightmare
began.
"Carlita" tells us she ended up in a nearby brothel.
Forty-five days later, she was lined up again for
auction in
Reynosa. She was allegedly one of half a dozen women
up for sale.
…A man bought her there for $1,000.
"Carlita" says she was held captive in a home for
three months…
Her captors would allegedly rape her and other
slaves repeatedly. "Carlita" tells us screaming and
yelling only made it worse. She learned to be quiet
and turn the pain inward.
Eventually, she asked a trusted friend for help and
escaped.
"Carlita" tells us her buyer wanted a child. But his
long-term plans were to add "Carlita" into "the
pipeline." It's the dangerous underground sex slave
trade in American cities.
It starts in Houston.
FBI Agent Maritza Conde-Vazquez says Latin women
like "Carlita" become cantineras.
They're forced to work in dirty saloons found among
a cluster of cantinas. The businesses cater to
Central Americans and are often owned by people from
those countries…
From Houston, slaves are taken to Atlanta and
moved up the East Coast. From Washington, D.C., the
pipeline continues to New York. Some women are
eventually trafficked west to San Francisco...
Conde-Vazquez says the only reason traffickers force
women into prostitution is to make money.
"It's a very profitable business, when you come to
think about it," explains the FBI agent. "It's a
human being. And it's basically a person who can
provide you endless services as long as that person
is alive and in fair condition. It's going to
provide you services for the life of that person."
The FBI tells us victims rarely come forward and
traffickers are difficult to catch...
As for "Carlita," she was headed home to Honduras.
There's no word where she is tonight.
Alex Trevino
KRGV.com
Oct. 29, 2009
Mexico, Latin
America, The United States
Expertos: En Auge, la Trata de
Personas en México
Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas - México se ha convertido en uno
de los países que tienen un alto índice de trata de
personas, ilícito sólo superado por el tráfico de
drogas, advirtieron expertos de Centro y Sudamérica
que participan en el primer Congreso internacional
sobre migración, trata de personas y derechos
humanos, que se inició hoy en esta entidad...
Experts: Human Trafficking is
Booming in Mexico
Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas state -Mexico has become
one of the nations that have a high incidence of
trafficking in people, [with profits] second only to
illegal drug trafficking, warned Central and South
American experts participating in the first
International Congress on migration, human
trafficking and human rights , which began today in
this city.
Ana Maria Martinez, coordinator of the Violence and
Trafficking Convention of Save the Children in
Nicaragua; Edith Zavala, coordinator of the
technical secretariat of the Regional Network of
Civil Organizations for Migration of Honduras, and
Rodolfo Casillas Ramirez, a researcher at the Latin
American Faculty of Social Sciences Mexico (FLACSO),
all indicated that in Chiapas state, human
trafficking is on the increase, and declared that
this criminal activity is tied to the smuggling of
migrants seeking to reach the United States.
Edith Zavala stated that the problem has its origins
[principally] in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia,
Guatemala, Nicaragua, Mexico and the Dominican
Republic, and that the principal destinations are
the United States and Argentina.
4
Million Victims
Zavala explained that the International Labor
Organization estimates that there are some 2.5
million victims of trafficking, of which 77 percent
are women and 48 percent under 18, but
non-governmental civil organizations indicate that
people subjected to this form of slavery amount to
more than 4 million people. The revenue generated is
estimated at about 42 billion, 500 million dollars…
Rodolfo Casillas, a researcher at FLACSO, said the
sexual and labor exploitation is present within the
international and domestic migration flows because
current migration policies have undesirable effects
that lead to the existence, development and
operation of networks of smugglers and human
traffickers.
We have moved from simple smugglers to criminal
networks that make this a lucrative business, and
organized crime has discovered this source of
profits, he concluded.
Angeles Mariscal
La Jornada
Oct. 21, 2009
United States, Mexico
 |
|
Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson
|
Mexican Official Calls U.S.
Detention Unfair
Rights watchdog for Chihuahua is released by Customs
and Border Protection
Human-rights official: Mexican soldiers part of drug
violence
El Paso, texas - Chihuahua human-rights investigator Gustavo de la Rosa
Hickerson feels betrayed and disappointed.
One
day after being released by U.S. immigration
authorities, Hickerson said Thursday that he felt
betrayed by the Mexican government for not coming to
his aid after he was taken into custody against his
will last week.
And
he said he was disappointed in a system in the
United States that allows immigration officials to
take someone into custody for his or her own safety
without legal recourse.
"I
was in prison five days without a legal cause to
process me -- why? Because the only thing I did was
to say I was afraid to be in Juárez," Hickerson said
at a news conference.
On
Oct. 15, de la Rosa was crossing at the Paso del
Norte Bridge into El Paso when officers recognized
him as a human-rights activist and questioned him,
said his lawyer, Carlos Spector.
Spector said border agents asked de la Rosa whether
he was afraid to be in Mexico because of his work.
de la Rosa told the agents that he was afraid but
that he did not want asylum.
de
la Rosa said that at the moment of his detention, he
expressed fear to go back to Juárez because one of
his bodyguards was recently killed and he needed
time to find out why. He added that the slaying was
not connected in any way to him. de la Rosa receives
protection from Mexican authorities.
Early in October, de la Rosa said he could document
170 cases in which Mexican soldiers extorted,
kidnapped, tortured, beat or killed innocent people
while deployed in the state to limit the violence
that has taken hold in Chihuahua.
"I
want to know who ordered my detention for being
afraid. They didn't protect me; they detained me.
Why did the Mexican Consulate not intervene?" asked
de la Rosa, a former director of the Cereso prison
in Juárez.
"The Mexican Consulate was notified of my detention
immediately," he said.
"I
feel betrayed by the Mexican consul; he didn't even
show up to visit me once. This is not fair, not only
because of who I am, but for the rest of the
Mexicans," de la Rosa said.
But
Mexican Consul Roberto Rodríguez said that at the
beginning of de la Rosa's detention, he took
immediate action by sending a letter to Ana
Hinojosa, director of field operations for Customs
and Border Protection, asking her to inform the
consulate about de la Rosa's legal status. The
letter was sent on Oct. 16, one day after de la
Rosa's detention...
Aileen B. Flores
The El Paso Times
Oct. 23, 2009
California, USA
Richmond - Four teens could appear in court as early
as Thursday after being charged in the alleged gang
rape of a 15-year-old girl outside her high school
homecoming dance in Northern California.
The four - ages 15, 16, 17 and 19 - were charged
Wednesday with rape and enhancements that they acted
in concert, which could make them eligible for life
in prison.
"These are people who played a significant role in
the incident," Richmond Police Lt. Mark Gagan said.
"I'm confident that more arrests will be made."
Besides rape, the 19-year-old, Manuel Ortega of
Richmond, was charged with robbery and assault
causing great bodily injury. It was unknown if he
had an attorney.
The other three face one count each of felony rape
with a foreign object. They were charged as adults
because of the severity of the crime, Gagan said.
The 16-year-old also faces robbery charges.
All four remained in custody Wednesday. A fifth
suspect arrested Tuesday, 21-year-old Salvador
Rodriguez of Richmond, also remained jailed but had
not been charged.
The alleged gang rape and beating Saturday night at
Richmond High School have rattled the city of about
120,000 in the San Francisco Bay area.
Police believe as many as 10 people ranging in age
from 15 to mid-20s attacked the girl for more than
two hours in a dimly lit area. As many as two dozen
people witnessed the rape without notifying
police...
New York Daily News
Oct. 29, 2009
Nevada, USA
Police Arrest Mother of Girl,
15, in Relationship with Soccer Coach
Daughter told
police her mother approved of relationship, but
mother denies it
Henderson Police have arrested the
mother of a 15-year-old girl who was in an ongoing
sexual relationship with a soccer coach.
The private soccer club coach,
40-year-old Gabriel G. Lopez of Las Vegas, was
booked Wednesday on 11 counts of statutory sexual
seduction, Henderson Police said.
A Henderson police officer spotted a
black Chevy Tahoe parked in a dark area of the
Arroyo Grande Sports Complex parking lot about 10:30
p.m. Tuesday, police said. The officer found a man
and a girl inside the vehicle and the girl said she
had had sexual relations with Lopez since June.
Police said that the alleged sexual
relationship is believed to be consensual, the girl
had not reached the age of consent, which is 16
years under state law.
After Lopez and the girl gave police
separate interviews to the police, the girl told
police that her mother approved of the relationship.
"Love only comes around once," she quoted her mother
as saying.
The girl also told police that her
mother also said, "You can't deny love. You never
know who it will be," according to a police report.
The girl told police that her mother
suggested Lopez provide a second cell phone to the
girl, so her father would not find out about the
relationship, the report said.
According to the mother's interview
with police, she denied approving of her daughter's
relationship with Lopez, and told her to end the
affair.
The mother is facing a felony charge
of child abuse, neglect or endangerment.
Mary Manning
The Nevada Sun
Oct 23, 2009
Texas, USA
 |
|
Francisco Manuel
Rodriguez |
Lubbock Man Sentenced for Rape
of 11-Year-Old Girl
A Lubbock man will spend up to 35 years in prison
for the rape of his young neighbor.
137th District Judge Cecil Puryear sentenced
Francisco Manuel Rodriguez, 36, for the July 2008
rape of an 11-year-old girl.
Rodriguez pleaded guilty Monday. He had faced up to
life in prison.
His victim described the attack Tuesday morning in
front of families from both sides of the case.
Rodriguez walked into the girl’s house while she was
home alone and began rubbing her legs, the girl
said.
It progressed to forced sex from there.
“I asked him what he was doing but he never answered
me,” the girl said. “I told him to stop, but he
didn’t.”
She reported the assault shortly after. Police found
Rodriguez drinking beer on his couch not long after
her call.
Logan G. Carver
Avalanche Journal
Oct. 27, 2009
Connecticut, USA
Norwalk Man Guilty of Sexually
Abusing 11-Year-Old Girl
Stamford - A Norwalk man was found
guilty by a Stamford Superior Court jury of sexually
molesting his girlfriend's 11-year-old daughter and
faces 60 years in prison when sentenced in January.
After the guilty verdict came in at
noon Tuesday, Judge Richard Comerford increased
Ricardo Roman's bond to $250,000, and he was taken
into custody. Since his arrest on two counts of
first-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a
child in January 2008, Roman had been freed on
$20,000 bond.
The jury found Roman, 40, formerly of
3 Trinity Place, Norwalk, guilty on all three
counts.
The verdict, after five hours of
deliberation Monday and Tuesday, followed three days
of testimony last week where the victim, now 18, and
Roman's daughter, 19, testified against him. The
victim's name is being withheld by The Advocate.
Last week, Roman took the stand and denied the
allegations and professed his innocence.
Supervisory Assistant State's
Attorney James Bernardi, the prosecutor, said jurors
made the right decision. "I think the jury carefully
considered the evidence and came to the right
conclusion. The victim in the case lives in South
Carolina, and the victim's advocate said she was
extremely gratified and emotionally overcome by the
verdict," he said...
During the trial, the victim told the
jury that when she was 11 and 12, Roman forced her
to perform oral sex on him at the Trinity Place
apartment on more than one occasion.
The woman said that even though the
sexual abuse occurred much earlier, she decided to
come forward with her allegations against Roman in
2007 after she gave birth to a boy -- not Roman's --
and wanted to give him a "better life."
John Nickerson
Stamford Advocate
Oct. 27, 2009
Texas, USA
12-year-old
Sexually Assaulted
in Northeast Austin
Police are investigating the
sexual assault of a 12-year-old girl in NE Austin on
Tuesday evening.
Police responded to the call of
a sexual assault around 8:30p.m. at the Dottie
Jordan Recreation Center, located at 2803 Loyola
Lane, that’s near Manor Road and Northeast Drive.
Authorities tell KEYE TV a
Hispanic male enticed the girl into a vehicle where
he sexually assaulted her.
Police aren’t releasing any
other details but say they are investigating the
incident...
John Bumgardner
WeAreAuston.com
Oct 27, 2009
Austin
California, USA
Maximum Sentence Handed Down
in Three Molestations
Oroville - A Gridley farmworker
captured in Mexico was sentenced Tuesday to the
maximum term of 12 years in prison for molesting
three minor girls.
Rodolfo Dolorez Campos had been
facing a potential life sentence on multiple charges
of continuous sexual abuse of minors, before
pleading no contest this summer to three of the
molestation counts.
Prior to sentence being imposed
Tuesday, statements were read to Butte County
Superior Court Judge Thomas Kelly from the
defendant's wife and the three victims.
The spouse said Campos frequently
beat her when he drank, but that she did not
immediately go to the police because he was the sole
breadwinner in the family.
It was after he fled to Mexico that
she said she learned of the molestations involving
the three victims, ages 13 and 14.
In her written statement, Campos'
wife told the judge that before her husband was
arrested last year and extradited back to face
trial, he had been involved in smuggling illegal
aliens across the border.
A victim witness advocate read
prepared statements from two of the molestation
victims and a third victim addressed the court
herself Tuesday.
All three said they reviled Campos
for the humiliating and emotionally scarring crimes
against them and hoped he could receive more time
behind bars than 12 years.
The judge noted that was the maximum
sentence that could be imposed on the counts to
which the defendant had pleaded no contest.
The plea bargain had been offered in
part to avoid the victims having to relive the
ordeal on the witness stand, the judge noted.
Kelly agreed with deputy district attorney Lynda
Hunt the crimes were "particularly cruel and
callous," the teenage victims were vulnerable and
Campos had taken advantage of a position of trust...
|
Terry Vau Dell
ChicoER.com
Oct. 21, 2009 |
California, USA
 |
|
Victim is carried to
waiting helicopter ambulance |
15-year-Old Girl Beaten and
Gang-raped Outside of High School
Richmond, - Police
believe as many as a dozen people watched a
15-year-old girl get beaten and gang-raped outside
her high school homecoming dance without reporting
it.
Two suspects were in
custody Monday, but police said as many as five
other men attacked the girl over a two-hour period
Friday night outside Richmond High School.
"She was raped,
beaten, robbed and dehumanized by several suspects
who were obviously OK enough with it to behave that
way in each other's presence," Lt. Mark Gagan said.
"What makes it even more disturbing is the presence
of others. People came by, saw what was happening
and failed to report it."
The victim remained
hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.
Manuel Ortega, 19,
was arrested at the scene and was being held on
$800,000 bail for investigation of rape and robbery.
He is not a student at the school.
Richmond police Sgt.
David Harris said he did not know if Ortega had
retained an attorney.
A 15-year-old
student also was booked late Monday on one count of
sexual assault...
The Associated Press
Oct. 27, 2009
See also:
Friend of Gang Rape Victim
Blasts School Officials Over Safety
...Police investigating the rape have
arrested five people -- two adults and three minors,
who will be charged as adults, said Lt. Mark Gagan,
the Richmond police spokesman.
As many as 10 people were involved in
the assault in a dimly lighted back alley at the
school, police have said. Another 10 people watched,
without calling 911.
The victim was released from hospital
Wednesday.
[Article includes
link to video report]
Moni Basu
CNN
Oct. 29, 2009
Colombia
 |
|
Indigenous
women in Colombia
Photo:
Intermón Oxfam |
Sexual Violence as Weapon of
War
Women's bodies are not spoils of war, say the women
of Colombia.
Bogota, - Sexual
violence is used as a weapon of war in Colombia by
all parties in the country’s longstanding armed
conflict, and its main victims are women and girls,
states a report recently released by Intermón Oxfam,
backing up claims made repeatedly by national and
international human rights groups.
At the launch of the
report, released simultaneously in Bogota and
Madrid, Paula San Pedro of Intermón Oxfam – the
Spanish branch of the relief and development
organization Oxfam International - stressed that all
of the armed groups in Colombia, including
government security forces, far-right paramilitary
forces and leftist guerrilla rebels, use sexual
violence as a weapon of war, "to the extent that it
has become an integral part of the conflict."
...Over four million
people have been forcibly displaced by the ongoing
conflict since 1995, according to figures from a
number of non-governmental organizations, including
the Consultancy on Human Rights and Displacement
(CODHES). This figure represents roughly 10 percent
of the country’s total population of 42 million.
The majority of the
displaced are peasant farmers and black or
indigenous Colombians forced off their land, often
after witnessing the killing of family members or
rape of women from their communities…
Machista culture
trumps modern laws
The persistent
struggle waged by women eventually had an impact in
the judicial and legislative arenas, leading to
reforms of existing laws and the adoption of new
ones. Their achievements include the recognition of
women as victims of sexual violence and of their
right to compensation.
Nevertheless, "these
legislative advances do not appear to have had any
effect in actual practice," Quintero told IPS.
This is because the
modernization of the country’s laws has done nothing
to change the underlying culture or to curb acts of
aggression against women "in a particularly machista
and patriarchal society," said San Pedro, the
coordinator of the Intermón Oxfam report, at its
launch in Madrid.
The report estimates
that "between 60 and 70 percent of Colombian women
have suffered some form of sexual, physical,
emotional or political violence" - statistics that
show that violence against women is a phenomenon
that goes beyond the problem of the armed conflict.
Moreover, it is a
phenomenon that has actually worsened instead of
diminishing in recent years. Sources consulted by
IPS concurred that the "democratic security policy"
implemented by the right-wing government of
President Álvaro Uribe has resulted in a rise in
violence against women...
...The report to be
released by Sisma-Mujer in November maintains that
the perpetrators of this violence go unpunished in
an astounding 97 percent of cases...
"There is not a
single region in the country where women can feel
safe," said San Pedro, before going on to stress
that "Afro-Colombian and indigenous women are the
most vulnerable to sexual violence, given the triple
discrimination they suffer because of their gender,
ethnicity and poverty."
Helda Martínez
Inter press Service (IPS)
Oct. 21, 2009
Added:
Oct. 25, 2009
Nicaragua
 |
|
Photo:
Evelyn
Hockstein |
Rozievel, 15
and pregnant, is a child prostitute. She gets
into a customer's car on a main street in
downtown Managua, Nicaragua. "I do this to help
my mother, she is a diabetic. My father left us
when I was nine and we have no other
alternatives. My mother knows what I do. I used
to sell goods at the market but I didn't make
enough money. I sold cigarettes and water in
bags. I had a friend who also worked in the
market and she suggested I come with her."
"I was raped when I was 13 by
two guys. It was seven in the evening and I was
on my way home from the market when they raped
me. These two men used to live in the
neighborhood where we used to live. We had
problems with these men. (After the rape) I
stayed home for a month without going out. We
needed money, so we borrowed some, but we were
in so much debt I decided to go to the streets."
"Two months after I started
working she (mother) asked me how I got money,
and I told her. My mom is 60 and a diabetic, and
she can't work. She agreed there was no other
alternative. I finished third grade. I dropped
out when we didn't have any money. ..I go out
every night and I make 100 -150 Cordoba's [$US
4.84 to $7.26]...
Evelyn Hockstein
The above photo and story are
part of a
photo collection on child
and youth prostitution by
Evelyn Hockstein.
Added:
Oct. 24, 2009
Guatemala, Mexico
|
 |
|
Jacqueline
Maria
Jirón Silva,
who was kidnapped at age 11 at a
beach in Nicaragua, is one of many
thousands of children who have been
prostituted in the city of
Tapachula, Mexico.
The NGO
Save the Children has identified
southern Mexico as being the largest
zone for the commercial sexual
exploitation of children (CSEC) in
the entire world. The lawless city
of Tapachula is the epicenter of
that crisis of impunity. |
Buscan rescatar a niños
guatemaltecos explotados en Tapachula
El
Gobierno mexicano pondrá en marcha un programa de
sensibilización denominado “Los Hijos del Águila y
el Quetzal”, que tiene como objetivo rescatar a
niños en riesgo de calle, en su mayoría indígenas
guatemaltecos, que son víctimas de explotación
laboral y de prostitución en Tapachula, Chiapas…
Authorities Seek to Rescue Guatemalan Children
Exploited in Tapachula, Mexico
The
Mexican government will launch an awareness program
called "The Children of the Eagle and the Quetzal,
which aims to rescue street children at risk. Most
of these children are indigenous Guatemalans who
become the victims of labor exploitation and
prostitution in Tapachula, Chiapas.
Moises Sanchez Lopez, head of Human Rights for the
city government of Tapachula, explained that the
first phase of the project is to raise awareness
with messages through the media, including that
adults not give money to street children, because
that money is destined for the pockets of the
criminal networks that exploit them.
Sanchez added that the second phase is to rescue the
street children. They have sought support from the
consulates of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador,
the National Human Rights Commission, the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the
International Organization for Migration (IOM), the
National Migration Institute, the Special Prosecutor
for Attention to Crimes Against Migrants, and the
Catholic Church affiliated NGO Defenders of the
Human Rights of Migrants and Entrepreneurs.
Sanchez said the program seeks to prevent children
from becoming victims of sexual and labor
exploitation.
In
Tapachula, dozens of children, mostly indigenous
Guatemalans, are forced to work in begging, selling
candy and cigarettes, shining shoes, cleaning
windshields and as clowns.
These children, who average 13 years-of-age, work as
many as 12 hours a day for negligible wages, and in
some cases, without pay. They are forced to live in
overcrowded conditions and are only given one meal a
day.
According to the complaint by Guatemala’s diplomats,
the majority of children living in villages on
Mexico’s border are sold by their parents to be
exploited in Mexico. Children with disabilities are
sold for higher prices, and are taken to the cities
of Tuxtla Gutierrez, Tapachula and Huixtla.
The
the program "The Sons of the Eagle and the Quetzal,"
has been developed by the state government of
Chiapas, through its Secretary for Southern Border
Development, Secretaria de Desarrollo de la Frontera
Sur, working together with the DIF
[Integral
Family Development]
social services agency.
Prensa Libre
Oct. 22, 2009
See also:
LibertadLatina
Special Section
The city of
Tapachula, near Mexico's border with Guatemala,
is one of the largest and most lawless child sex
trafficking markets in all of Latin America.
A 2007 study by the international
organization
ECPAT
[End Child Prostitution and Trafficking]...
revealed that over 21,000 Central Americans,
mostly children,
are prostituted in 1,552 bars and brothels in
Tapachula.
According to one study of conditions in Tapachula,
city police efforts focus not on stopping rampant
child prostitution, but on making sure that child
prostitutes don't congregate around city schools and
residential neighborhoods.
Tapachula is also the center of the crisis of rape
with impunity that takes place along Mexico's border
with Guatemala. The International Organization for
Migration's office in Tapachula has estimated that
450 to 600 Central and South American migrant women
per day are raped along the Mexican side of the
border, with no Mexican law enforcement response to
that mass gender atrocity whatsoever.
The largely Mayan state of Chiapas, where Tapachula
is located, is the only non-federal government
entity in the Americas to have developed a working
relationship with the United Nations to obtain
assistance in its efforts to begin to combat
exploitation in the region, due to the urgency of
their crisis of impunity.
- Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
Oct. 24, 2009
Added:
Oct. 24, 2009
The United Nations, The
World, Venezuela
Naciones Unidas: Víctimas de
tráfico humano exponen sus desgarradoras
experiencias
Cuatro víctimas del
tráfico y explotación de personas expusieron hoy en
la sede de la ONU sus desgarradoras experiencias
para exigir a las autoridades mundiales una mayor
persecución de las redes implicadas en esta
actividad criminal.
El evento organizado por
la Alta Comision-ada para los Derechos Humanos de
Naciones Unidas, Navy Pillay, contó con la
participación del secretario general del organismo,
Ban Ki-moon.
"Las cuatro personas que
comparecen hoy aquí son algo más que víctimas y
supervivientes, son testigos de la verdad", afirmó
el máximo responsable de la ONU, quien les encomió
por su "valor".
Ban abogó por
intensificar la lucha contra este fenómeno criminal
para que la "respuesta sea tan amplia como lo es el
problema y se ataque de raíz".
"Los índices de
detenciones en la mayoría de países son
microscópicos comparados con la magnitud del
problema", aseguró...
Las redes criminales
trafican anualmente con unas dos millones de
personas y mantienen en condiciones de trabajo
forzoso en total a unos 12,3 millones, según
diversos organismos internacionales.
"Como todos los que
estamos aquí, queremos contar nuestra historia para
que se persiga más a estos criminales", aseguró la
venezolana Kika Cerpa, que durante tres años fue
obligada a prostituirse en Nueva York por
delincuentes que regentaban burdeles clandestinos.
La joven había conocido
a un hombre en el hotel de Caracas en el que
trabajaba, que años después la convenció de emigrar
a EE.UU. para vivir juntos como pareja, pero a su
llegada la forzó a trabajar para su familia.
Cerpa aseguró que
durante esos tres años fue detenida en varias
ocasiones por la policía, pero en ningún momento se
le ofreció la posibilidad de protegerla de la mafia
que la controlaba...
www.adn.es
Oct. 22, 2009
[Note: An English-language
news article about the
U.N. High Commissioner's human
trafficking testimony presentation covered in the
above story is available immediately below.
-
LL]
Added:
Oct. 23, 2009
The United Nations, The
World, Venezuela
Victims of Human Trafficking
Speak Out
United Nations - A
father of two from Nepal who thought he was going to
America wound up in Iraq, forced to work at a U.S.
airbase. A 14-year-old Ugandan girl kidnapped by
rebels spent nearly eight years in captivity as a
sex slave and human shield. And a young Venezuelan
woman lured to New York by the man she loved wound
up in a brothel his family was running.
The three victims of
human trafficking spoke Thursday at an event
organized by U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights
Navi Pillay who said it was "pressing and urgent"
not only to listen to their stories of survival but
to get their recommendations on how the
international community can help end the growing
global scourge...
Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon, who opened the event, said the global
economic crisis "is making the problem worse."
He urged governments to
heed his "call to action" and step up efforts to
prevent exploitation, protect victims and pursue
traffickers whose conviction rates in most countries
"are microscopic compared to the scope of the
problem."
The U.N. Global
Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking estimated last
year that annual profits from trafficked, forced
labor is around $31.6 billion...
Kikka Cerpa described
falling in love with a man named Daniel while
working at a hotel in the Venezuelan capital,
Caracas, when she was 17 years old. A few years
later, she said, Daniel moved to New York and
eventually she went to join him, only to discover
that his family ran a sex trafficking ring.
Cerpa said her passport
and money were taken, she was put in a basement and
told she owed the family a lot of money, and the
only way to pay it off was to work in a brothel.
"The first night was the
worst," she said, her voice quavering. "I have [had]
to service 90 men."
Cerpa said she was
trafficked from brothel to brothel over the next
three years. Sometimes police
would raid the brothels, but "instead of rescuing
us, they demand that we perform sexual services on
them." After her best friend in the brothel
was murdered by a customer, she said, she knew she
had to leave — so she married a customer, but he
beat her and threatened to have her deported.
Finally, she escaped and
was helped by an organization to get a divorce and
legalize her status in the U.S.
"I'm telling my story to
help all the trafficking victims around the world,"
she said. "We need to pass and enforce laws that
will protect us from traffickers like Daniel."
Cerpa said customers
should also be held accountable and "treated like a
criminal, like they are," and police officers and
prosecutors should be trained to identify and
protect victims.
Edith M. Lederer
The Associated Press
Oct. 23, 2009
Added:
Oct. 23, 2009
Mexico, The United States
 |
|
Human Rights
Advocates Rally Around Hickerson
Monsignor Arturo
Banuelas from St. Pius X Parish, Ray
Rojas, executive director of Las
Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center,
immigrant lawyer Carlos Spector, and
County Attorney Jose Rodriguez stand
behind Gustavo De la Rosa Hickerson
during an Oct. 6, 2009 press
conference in El Paso, Texas, nine
days before his 'forced asylum'
arrest.
“He has said, ‘I will
not seek asylum; I want to confront
my government, I want to seek safety
for the people I defend, and for the
institution that is supposed to
defend these individuals engaged in
no other activity other than trying
to make an honest living in
Mexico.’” - Carlos Spector on
Gustavo De la Rosa Hickerson.
Newspaper Tree
Oct. 06, 2009 |
U.S. Put Mexican Human Rights
Crusader into Forced Asylum
Lawyer likens episode at El Paso crossing to
'Twilight Zone'
Mexico City - Gustavo de
la Rosa looks over his shoulder, notes suspicious
license plates, changes his routine. As one of the
most prominent human rights officials in Ciudad
Juarez, he says he would be a fool not to. On
Wednesday, his home town reached a milestone: more
than 2,000 people slain this year. His phone rings
all day with pleas for help -- and with threats.
When de la Rosa crossed
the international bridge from Ciudad Juarez to El
Paso on Oct. 15, as he has done hundreds of times,
he did not think it unusual that inspectors with the
U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency asked
whether he feared for his life. He said yes. They
asked whether he was seeking political asylum. He
said no, not at this time. Then U.S. agents detained
him, for his own safety.
"They said to me: 'Well,
then, we cannot allow you to return. You have not
violated any law. But neither can we allow you to be
free in El Paso.' I took this as a gesture of
hospitality. And then they said, 'We are going to
protect you by taking you to a secure place,' " de
la Rosa wrote in a letter to his supporters, saying
that he was treated well but was put in handcuffs
when taken to see a doctor. "Could it be true," he
asked, "that I am in prison?"
De la Rosa was held for
almost a week as U.S. officials sorted out his case.
His attorney asked: What case?
"This is one of those
episodes of 'Twilight Zone' on the border," said
Carlos Spector, de la Rosa's attorney and friend.
"It's one of those cases where idiots screw up, but
it is too embarrassing, and so they don't know what
to do. You're just trapped in this bureaucratic
maze."
Spector said de la Rosa
was released late Wednesday.
De la Rosa, 63, is the
public face of human rights in Ciudad Juarez, where
he serves as a top official on Chihuahua state's
human rights commission. He is also a lawyer, a
professor and a source for reporters digging into
allegations of abuses by police, soldiers and
prosecutors...
Between January 2008 and
September, de la Rosa collected 154 human rights
complaints against the Mexican military, including
"allegations of house searches without warrants,
arbitrary detentions, torture, abuse and even
killings during the detention of the victims..."
William Booth
The Washington Post
Oct. 22, 2009
Texas, USA,
Ciudad Juarez, Mexico
 |
|
Chihuahua state human
rights official
Gustavo de
la Rosa Hickerson dared to speak the
truth about military torture and murder
in Ciudad Juarez and across Chihuahua
state, as well as the failure of state
authorities to properly investigate the
'femicide' murders of women. |
U.S. Customs Detains Mexican
Human Rights Activist
El Paso - A Mexican
human rights official is in U.S. customs detention,
apparently for his own safety, after
he reported 170 instances of
Mexican soldiers allegedly torturing, abusing and
killing innocent people in Chihuahua [state].
Customs and Border
Protection agents took Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson
into custody Thursday.
A report in Saturday's
El Paso Times says his lawyer Carlos Spector
believed they wanted him to seek political asylum.
Immigration and Customs
Enforcement spokeswoman Leticia Zamarripa says
Hickerson was taken into custody due to "mandatory
detention provisions and will be afforded all rights
and procedures allowed" under U.S. laws.
Hickerson works for the
Chihuahua State Human Rights Commission.
The Associated Press
Oct. 17,2009
See also:
Arrestan a Gustavo de la Rosa
Hickerson en El Paso
Ciudad
Juárez, Chih.- El visitador de la Comisión Estatal
de Derechos Humanos asignado a la oficina de Ciudad
Juárez, Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson, fue arrestado
en la vecina ciudad de El Paso, Texas por supuestos
cargos de ilegal estancia en los Estados Unidos.
A
finales de septiembre de la Rosa Hickerson, se
refugió en El Paso, Texas, junto con su esposa y su
hijo de 21 años, debido a las amenazas de muerte que
ha recibido y a la falta de protección de las
autoridades mexicanas.
Esta
mañana el abogado Carlos Spector informó a través de
un comunicado sobre la detención del
derechohumanista y aseguró que de la Rosa Hickerson
no cometió ningún delito.
En el
comunicado se asegura que el derechohumanista
ingresó legalmente al vecino país “no cometió ningún
crimen ni violación de la ley", indica.
El
arrestó lo logro personal del Departamento de
Seguridad Interna (DHS, sus siglas en inglés)...
JuarezPress.com
Oct. 16, 2009
See also:
Human Rights Worker Flees Mexico
A prominent human rights worker in
Cuidad, Juarez,
sought temporary refuge in El Paso, Texas, claiming
his life has been threatened. But it's not the drug
cartels who are threatening him, he says, it's the
Mexican military. He says they've targeted him after
he detailed their hundreds of abuses in the past
year. Now he's been placed in detention by U.S.
Customs and Immigration.
[Story includes link to audio news report.]
Monica Ortiz Uribe
[U.S.] National Public Radio
Oct. 17,2009
See also:
Ciudad Juárez Women's News:
Lawyer Beaten, Links Found in Disappearances
Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson, a
Ciudad Juárez labor lawyer, university professor,
women's activist and former prison director, was
pulled over, beaten, robbed and threatened between
12:00 and 1:00 a.m. on Wednesday, December 11 while
driving to his home near Cd. Juárez.
The four men that attacked de la Rosa
tried to stop his car three times but he escaped on
the first two of these occasions. When he was
finally stopped De la Rosa had a gun pointed at him,
was severely beaten and told "not to be so brave or
outspoken." His wallet, passport and cell phone were
also stolen from him.
Because of the lights the pursuing
vehicle used and the men's weapons, de la Rosa
believes that his assailants were police officers.
De la Rosa also believes that robbery was not the
motive for the attack because he is not a wealthy
man, drives an old car and the warning or threat
meant that the men knew who he was.
De la Rosa told the Ciudad Juárez
newspaper El Diario that only two people are angry
at him: State Attorney General Jesús José Solís
Sliva and a local maquiladora owner.
De la Rosa
believes that he angered the attorney general when
he spoke about the investigation of crimes against
women in Cd. Juárez.
De la Rosa is also the lawyer for a group of Cd.
Juárez maquiladora workers and said that the owner
of the facility has threatened him a number of
times.
Frontera Norte Sur
Feb. 2003
See also:
The Dead Women of Juarez: A
New Mexican's Retrospective Upon the Appointment of
Arturo Chavez Chavez
...In May 1998, Mexico's National
Human Rights Commission asked for an investigation
of the attorney general's office in Chihuahua, given
mounting evidence that office was severely deficient
in its inquiries into the crimes. In response, state
authorities belittled the commission's work,
characterizing it as "partial," and "leading to
false conclusions and statements, and lacking any
foundation in objectivity." (Flash forward: last
week Chihuahua State Human Rights Commission
investigator Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson moved to
El Paso from Juarez, he said, after multiple threats
to his life for publicizing complaints about abuses
by army personnel in Joint Operation Chihuahua)...
La Politica: New Mexico!
Sep. 26, 2009
Óscar Arias Sánchez President
of Costa Rica: UN General Assembly Address
United Nations - The following is the English
Summary Statement by H.E. Óscar Arias Sánchez,
President of Costa Rica, delivered to the United
Nations General Assembly in September of 2009 at
United Nations Headquarters in New York City:
Óscar Arias Sánchez,
President of Costa Rica, said that, when he had
first spoken at the United Nations 23 years ago, it
was as “an island of reason in a sea of insanity”,
and he came bearing the cries of millions of Central
Americans who sought a peaceful solution to the
civil wars that lacerated the region. The second
time he had come, it was to ask for support for a
peace plan signed by the Presidents of Central
America. In those days, “no one thought we would
have the strength to confront the Powers of the cold
war and find our own solution to our problems. No
one thought that we would be able to sow the seed of
democracy in our lands.”
Today, he wanted to
recognize the distance Central America had traveled,
but to also warn of the risk of falling back. He
said one Central American nation had seen the
“demons of coup d’état” awaken once again [in
Honduras]. The armies of the region received nearly
$60 billion [mostly from the United States -LL]
to combat “imaginary enemies,” while the people
struggled against the economic crisis with empty
hands. He said some leaders defied democratic rules
in “imaginative ways”, while problems on the
continent have remained the same or have
deteriorated. Poverty continued to afflict more than
a third of its inhabitants, and one in three Latin
Americans had not “seen a high school classroom”.
Additionally, the violent death rates of some
countries in the region exceeded that of countries
at war...
He said it was difficult
for Latin America to not feel it was always rescuing
the future from the claws of the past. The problems
of democracy, development and fighting militarism
and oppression were cycles that repeated themselves
in most developing nations. These nations also bore
the worst part of the struggle against global
warming, and would carry the heaviest burden of
population growth.
Success would depend on
whether three fundamental challenges could be taken
on, namely strengthening democracy; promoting
development through the reduction of military
spending and arms trafficking; and the creation of a
new international order for the transfer of aid,
information and technology to combat climate
change...
(Article includes Full-Text & Video in Spanish and
English)
MaximsNews Network
Oct. 09, 2009
Added:
Oct. 10, 2009
The United States
Report: U.S. Officials Unaware
of Child Sex-Trafficking Problem
Washington, DC - Most Americans, including far too
many government officials, have no idea that
children under the age of 18 are being shipped from
state to state as child prostitutes, according to a
report from an anti-sex trafficking organization.
In
fact, an estimated 100,000 American children under
18 years of age are victimized through prostitution
every year and children rented for sex acts might be
raped 6,000 times over the course of five years. In
addition, the United States should be -- but is not
-- listed on the "Tier 2" watch list in the State
Department's Trafficking in Persons Report.
Those are among the troubling findings by Shared
Hope International (SHI), which conducted
investigations in 10 United States cities with a
grant from the U.S. Department of Justice.
"Few
participants in the assessments realized that the
victims described in the [federal anti-trafficking
law] definition of sex trafficking victims included
specifically U.S. citizen and lawful permanent
resident minors under 18 years of age regardless of
their perceived consent to the commercial sex
activities," SHI reported.
The report also found:
|
- The
majority of law enforcement personnel and
social service providers have little or no
awareness of the Trafficking Victims
Protection Act (TVPA), the federal law that
provides the means to combat trafficking in
persons.
- There is
a widespread failure by police, courts and
youth shelters to identify under-age victims
of sex trafficking.
- Children
often are arrested and charged with
prostitution, even though the TVPA says
victims must not be held responsible for
being forced to commit a crime.
- There are
few shelters in the country to house and
protect minor victims of sex trafficking. |
Domestic minor sex trafficking consists of "child
sex slavery, child sex trafficking, prostitution of
children, commercial sexual exploitation of children
... and rape of a child," the report said. Children
are exploited through prostitution, pornography
and/or stripping, among other means, according to
the report.
It
is estimated at least 100,000 American [U.S.]
children under 18 years of age are victimized
through prostitution every year, according to SHI.
Demonstrating the magnitude of the problem for a
single child trapped in sexual slavery, SHI said in
its 82-page report published in May: "A domestic
minor sex trafficking victim who is rented for sex
acts with five different men per night, for five
nights per week, for an average of five years, would
be raped by 6,000 buyers during the course of her
victimization through prostitution."
Cindy Ortiz
Baptist Press
Oct. 5, 2009
Thousands Believed to be
Enslaved in the United States
Kevin Bales, president
of the nonprofit group
Free the Slaves,
said there are 40,000 to 50,000 slaves in the United
States, based on conservative estimates.
Bales said about 14,500
slaves are brought into the U.S. each year. Prior to
Sept. 11, 2001, the Central Intelligence Agency
estimated 50,000 people were being trafficked into
the country annually. Bales credited border
tightening with the reduction.
Experts said about half
of all slaves in the U.S. are in the sex industry.
The rest are used in agriculture, domestic service
and other forms of labor.
Many nationalities are
involved in the U.S. sex trade and slavery,
including Mexicans, Russians and Chinese,
investigators said.
One recent study found
slaves from 60 countries in 90 U.S. cities.
According to the United
Nations, human trafficking is the third most
lucrative criminal enterprise in the world after
weapons and narcotics.
In 2000 Congress passed
the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which makes
trafficking people a federal crime and sets aside
5,000 special visas annually for the victims of
human trafficking.
Bales said women who are
trafficked into the U.S. as sex slaves are subjected
to serial sexual assaults that have a traumatic
effect.
"It's the complete loss
of freedom," Bales said of the sex slaves. "You're
under violent control. This meets all the legal
criteria for slavery. It is slavery."
Jason A. Kahl
The Reading Eagle
Sep. 27, 2009
Detectives Arrest Sex Battery
Suspect
Kissimmee - Osceola
County Sheriff's detectives on Friday arrested Edwin
Antonio Torres-Cruz, 20, of Kissimmee, and charged
him with sexual battery, kidnapping, possession or
use of a weapon and attempted armed robbery.
Torres-Cruz was
identified several days after the incident when
detectives received information the suspect was seen
back in the area where the crime occurred. He was
brought in for questioning and initially cooperated
but then refused to provide any information,
according to detectives.
Investigators eventually
obtained a positive match from DNA evidence from the
crime scene that matched Torres-Cruz. An arrest
warrant was obtained early Friday and he was picked
up and brought back to the Osceola County Sheriff's
Office...
Osceola County Sheriff's
deputies responded to the Indian Wells subdivision
in Kissimmee. Upon arrival, deputies spoke with a
47-year-old Hispanic victim who indicated she was
walking in the area of Warrior Lane and Moccasin
Drive when an unknown male attacked her from behind.
The suspect demanded money from the victim and
threatened her with a knife. When the victim told
the suspect she did not have any money, he sexually
battered her before leaving the area.
"I jog once in a while,
but I never jog by myself," said resident Carla
Lorena. "My husband jogs with me."
WOFL FOX 35
Oct 10, 2009
Added:
Oct. 8, 2009
Maryland, USA
 |
|
Dr. Mark Lagon -
Executive Director of
Polaris Project
and previously the Ambassador-at-Large
and Director of the U.S. State
Department's Office to Monitor and
Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP),
will speak at the October 24th
anti-trafficking rally in Baltimore.
|
Upcoming Event
Coalition Of Anti-Human
Trafficking Organizations To Host "Maryland Stop
Modern Slavery Rally
Baltimore, MD - A
"Maryland Stop Modern Slavery Rally" will be held on
October 24, 2009, in Baltimore, MD, a coalition of
anti-human trafficking organizations, including the
Maryland Human Trafficking Task Force announced
today.
This ground-breaking
rally will be held on "Make a Difference Day." There
will be speakers from government and non-profit
organizations, live entertainment and information
sessions/booths set up by organizations dedicated to
combating modern-day slavery.
This event will endeavor
to inform the communities and citizens of Maryland
on the issues and presence of human trafficking in
our 'back-yard.' There will also be information from
the various organizations in the region that fight
to combat human trafficking, and how YOU can make a
difference.
Event speakers:
*
Herman Ingram - representing the Maryland Governor's
office of Crime Control and Prevention.
*
Rev. Jerome Stephens - representing the office of
Senator Benjamin L. Cardin
*
Trudy Perkins will be at the rally representing the
office of Congressman Elijah E. Cummings
*
Mark Lagon - Executive Director and CEO of Polaris
Project and previously the Ambassador-at-Large and
Director of the Office to Monitor and Combat
Trafficking in Persons (TIP)
*
Nancy Winston - Shared Hope International, National
Awareness, Member Board of Directors.
*
Lisa Lynn Chapman - Survivor Services Director at
Boat People SOS.
*
Sidney Ford - Director of the YANA Place and Victim
Services Subcommittee Chair of the Maryland Human
Trafficking Task Force.
*
Dan Kane - Justice Advocate at International Justice
Mission.
Address: 901 Hollins St.,
Baltimore, MD
Date: Saturday, October 24, 2009
Time: 3:00 to 5:00 pm
A coalition of
anti-human trafficking organizations and the
Maryland Human Trafficking Task Force
Added:
Oct. 5, 2009
Minnesota, USA
Trafficking Native American
Girls and Women in Minnesota
On
September 25, Minneapolis
councilmember Gary Schiff's monthly
breakfast meeting addressed the
trafficking of Native American girls
and women in Minnesota. Guest
speakers Suzanne Koepplinger,
Executive Director of the
Minnesota
Indian Women's Resource Center
(MWIRC) and Suzanne Tibbits Young
from the
Division of
Indian Work presented the
results of recent research on the
subject in an effort to increase
community awareness of this issue.
About 20
people attended the meeting, which
included a summary of the report
entitled "Shattered
Hearts: The Commercial Sexual
Exploitation of American Indian
Women and Girls in Minnesota."
The MIWRC and the Division of Indian
Work also made recommendations for
confronting the problem. The report
was spurred by a 2007 Human
Trafficking Task Force estimate that
showed a disproportionate amount of
Native American Women experiencing
sexual exploitation.
In response to the
August 2009 report, Suzanne Koepplinger discussed
finding solutions that would be "meeting the needs
of the victim from their perspective, not our
perspective." A view shared by both Koepplinger and
Tibbits Young was that a multidimensional approach
to helping victims is key, considering the number of
contributing factors associated with this problem.
The women explained that poverty, lack of housing
options, lack of importance placed on education, and
institutionalized racism are all contributing
factors to the increased number of Native American
women in risk of sexual exploitation.
A main focus of the
meeting was community awareness of the problem.
Suzanne Tibbits Young stressed that support from the
community is a large stepping-stone to action.
Tibbits Young said that to begin helping, the first
step is to agree that, "Our community is not going
to accept this". The MIWRC and Division of Indian
Work are promoting the development of broad based
training programs aimed at educating police,
teachers and medical providers to recognize signs or
risks of sexual exploitation...
Nora Leinen
TC Daily Planet
Oct. 05, 2009
See also:
Decades Old Problem Becoming a
Priority
Newsweek, the national
weekly magazine that "discovered'' a juvenile
prostitution problem in Minnesota..., was heavily
criticized by journalism peers and law enforcement
types for hyping the obvious and painting the
Mall of America as
a mega breeding farm for pimp recruiting.
Right state, wrong
locale. Try [Indigenous] reservations, or
practically any mall, street corner, rave party,
juice bar or other place where teens will
congregate.
"There's an explosion of
girls coming from reservations,'' Minneapolis Police
Sgt. Andrew Schmidt informed attendees at an all-day
conference on the sexual trafficking of women and
children at the College of St. Catherine last week.
"Girls there are easy to recruit. It's not much of a
sell up in
Red Lake [a large
reservation of the Chippewa Nation].''
Schmidt knows a thing or
two about the subject. Four years ago, he teamed up
with a St. Louis-area detective and with the help of
federal prosecutors in that city dismantled a
Minneapolis-based ring that prostituted young girls
in 24 states and Canada. One of the ring's leaders
is currently serving an 85-year federal prison
term...
Ruben Rosario
Pioneer Press
Oct. 27, 2003
Added:
Oct. 5, 2009
Iowa, USA
In Police Put Out Alert About
Attempted Abduction in Council Bluffs
...Council Bluffs Police
are putting out an alert about an attempted
abduction. A boy says a man tried to chase him down
on Friday afternoon, just outside of Wilson Junior
High School at 21st and Avenue G. It happened after
school let out for the weekend.
The boy tells Police the
man drove up in a red mini van, got out and held up
a cell phone. He then told the boy his mother was on
the line and he was supposed to go with him in his
van.
The 13-year old kid ran
several blocks from the school to 21st and Broadway
Streets. The entire time, he says the man was
chasing him in the van, then on foot. When the boy
ran into a nearby business, the man took off. People
in the business took action and called 911 for help.
Police are taking this
case seriously. They put out the following
description of the suspect.
He is a Hispanic man
wearing a black shirt, blue jeans and a black
baseball cap turned sideways.
He was driving a
darker-color red minivan with no license plates...
Action 3 News, Omaha,
nNebraska
Oct 02, 2009
Added:
Oct. 4, 2009
North Carolina,
USA
 |
|
Convicted Sex Trafficker
Jorge Flores Rojas |
Teens Become Prey in Charlotte
Sex Trade
This story is based
on court documents and numerous interviews with
federal agents and attorneys involved in the Flores
case.
In his east Charlotte
apartment less than a mile from Windsor Park
Elementary, Jorge Flores Rojas created a religious
shrine to a mystical figure known as the patron
saint of death, who is said to protect pimps and
other criminals.
Each day, Flores prayed
to Santa Muerte, or "Saint Death," joined by the
teenage girls whom he forced to have sex with as
many as 20 men a day...
Local and federal
authorities are not sure how extensive the Charlotte
sex rings have become. They say Flores' ring brought
in hundreds of young women each year to work as
prostitutes.
Flores was convicted of
trafficking in April. But authorities say other
pimps in Charlotte continue to prey on young girls
from poor countries.
"I don't think we really
realized how big this was," says Delbert Richburg,
assistant special agent in charge of U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Office of
Investigations in Charlotte. "We're probably just
scratching the surface."
The growth is so
extensive that this month ICE stationed a team of
agents in Charlotte to focus on human trafficking,
smuggling and exploitation. Across the Carolinas,
immigrant sex rings have been broken up in Monroe,
Durham and Columbia.
Jennifer Stuart, a staff
attorney for Legal Aid of North Carolina, says her
office has seen a "sharp increase" in trafficking
case referrals the last few months.
Federal agents say
Flores, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, picked up
vans full of eight to 10 young women each week
outside the McDonald's on West Sugar Creek Road near
Interstate 85, where other traffickers had brought
them. Others, he smuggled in directly from Latin
America...
An undercover agent says
the teenagers would be made to have sex with up to
100 men a week.
"I have daughters," he
says. "... Every time I think of that number, it's
something I can't fathom."
Trading
in New York, and Washington, D.C.
To keep a fresh cycle of
women in Charlotte, Flores traded with traffickers,
including relatives, in Washington, D.C., and New
York.
In November 2007, court
documents say, he "sold" at least two teenagers from
Mexico to Yaneth Martinez, a D.C. madam, who
advertised her services with cards offering "Hair
Cuts for Men Only." ...
Their business
relationship worked like this for more than a year,
federal authorities said. Then, Flores took a liking
to Martinez's teenage daughter.
He asked her if she'd
work with him. She refused. Flores didn't give up.
He later called the
girl's cell phone and asked her to meet him. He
threatened to hurt her mother if she didn't.
She agreed to meet him.
She hoped he only wanted to talk, but Flores threw
her in his car, authorities said...
Martinez tipped off a
women's center in Washington that her daughter had
been kidnapped. The center contacted authorities...
Martinez's daughter
spent about three weeks as Flores' captive.
Authorities say he raped her repeatedly. He forced
her to have sex with dozens of men...
The FBI estimates that
some 18,000 people are trafficked into the United
States for sex or forced labor. About a fourth end
up in the Southeast; thousands come to the
Carolinas.
Most victims of the sex
rings are from Latin America, others from Asia and
Eastern Europe...
A... 14-year-old from
Mexico, who thought she was to work at a restaurant,
was forced to have sex with men in Greenville, S.C.,
Columbia and Charlotte...
Martinez's daughter is
doing much better, Nugent said. She's living with a
foster family. She is getting a special green card
for abused or abandoned children.
She wants to go to
college and be a lawyer.
Two other girls found
with Flores at the time of his arrest were also
placed with foster families through a Charlotte
women's center, authorities said.
The center arranged
medical care and new clothes. ICE agents arranged
work permits.
Before the permits
arrived, the girls disappeared...
Franco Ordoñez
Charlotte
Observer.com
Oct. 04, 2009
Added:
Oct. 4, 2009
The World,
Belarus
 |
|
Belarus
Foreign Minister Sergei
Martynov
|
Belarus to Promote Global Action Plan
to Fight Human Trafficking at
United
Nations General Assembly Session
Minsk -
At the session of the UN General
Assembly Belarus will push forward the
adoption of the global action plan to
fight trafficking in human beings, the
press service of the Belarusian Foreign
Ministry told BelTA.
As head
of the delegation Belarus Foreign
Minister Sergei Martynov is
participating in the 64th session of the
United Nations General Assembly that
opened in the UN headquarters in New
York.
The
head of the Belarusian Ministry of
Foreign Affairs will take part in
general political discussions to present
Belarus’ views on the most topical
problems of the international agenda.
The Belarusian delegation will focus
efforts on promoting Belarus’
initiatives, namely the adoption of the
global action plan to fight slave trade,
creation of an effective international
mechanism to facilitate access of all
countries to technologies of new and
renewable energy sources, enhancement of
international development aid to
countries with average incomes.
The
Minister is also supposed to take part
in events timed to the start of the
General Assembly session. Those are the
Conference on the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty, ministerial meetings on fighting
violence against girls, dialogue between
religions.
Sergei
Martynov is also expected to hold
meetings with top executives of the UN
Secretariat, several international
organizations, and foreign ministers of
several countries of Europe, Asia,
Africa, and Latin America.
BelTA
Sep. 23, 2009
See also:
Women's Rights at
the Crossroads in Mexico
...A
Global Plan of Action... must be
implemented to get around the seemingly
insurmountable obstacle of state
impunity.
In
extreme circumstances, the United
Nations overcomes the problem of
criminal impunity by mounting an
international force to combat state
actors who engage in crimes against
humanity.
A
Global Plan of Action does not have to
target state actors through the use of
military action, but some new, creative
process must be employed to show nations
like Mexico that they cannot just sell
the poor and minority women and girls in
their nations 'down the river' into a
tortured, shortened life of sexual
slavery in the brothels of Mexico City,
Tijuana, Tokyo, Los Angeles, New York,
Amsterdam and Madrid, just because they
are willing to look the other way in
exchange for a 'piece' of this
multi-million dollar criminal action.
We
strongly encourage the people of the
world to wake up and actively combat the
mass crime against humanity that the
oppression of women and girl children in
Mexico represents.
Enough
is enough!
...We also
applaud Ecuadorian Minister of Justice
and Human Rights (Attorney General)
Néstor Arbito Chica and diplomats from a
number of nations including Belarus, who
have recently spoken out to demand that
the United Nations develop a Global Plan
of Action to really step-up-the-game to
effectively combat modern slavery.
The policy
of the United States should, we believe,
embrace the efforts of Ecuador, Belarus
and other nations to develop a Global
Plan of Action to get past the
ineffectiveness of the Palermo
Protocol...
Chuck
Goolsby
LibertadLatina
May 30,
2009
See also:
The
World, Ecuador
 |
|
Ecuadorian
Minister of Justice and
Human Rights (Attorney
General) Néstor Arbito Chica |
Few Governments
Serious About Human Trafficking, U.N.
Finds
United
Nations - The U.N. General Assembly
discussed ways of taking stronger
collective action to end human
trafficking on Wednesday, with delegates
debating the need for… a "global plan of
action" to end this form of modern
slavery.
"National and
regional efforts are not enough to cope
with this global problem," said
Ecuadorian Minister of Justice and Human
Rights Néstor Arbito Chica. "That’s why
we call on the U.N. to take action."
The starting point
for the debate was whether the
Protocol to
Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking
in Persons, especially Women
and Children, passed in Palermo, Italy,
in 2000, is enough to stop this global
problem.
"The protocol is
not a sufficient tool for stopping human
trafficking, and more than one-third of
U.N. member states are not a party to
it," said Valentin Rybakov, assistant to
the president of Belarus.
"The Palermo
Protocol is, if you will, an aspirin
which helps us to bring the fever down,
but aspirin cannot cure us."
The need for a new
global plan of action was echoed by the
majority of speakers and delegates. The
United States, however, felt otherwise:
"We believe that the U.N. is already
effectively leading the fight against
global trafficking."
The U.S.
representative’s concerns were that
launching a global plan of action would
strain the limited resources of the U.N.
and, likewise, that the U.N. Office on
Drugs and Crime’s (UNODC)
"financial and personnel resources would
be severely stretched if it were to
undertake such a plan of action."
"Efforts
undertaken at regional and national
levels are clearly not enough," Rybakov
countered. "Adopting a global plan of
action is not an end in itself to us,
but this plan is a logical step."
The U.N. has
passed compre-hensive plans of action
before - for instance on terrorism, as
pointed out by Antonio Maria Costa,
executive director of UNODC…
Sexual
exploitation accounts for 79 percent of
human trafficking, it says, while forced
labor makes up 18 percent…
"In 2006,
the last year for which we have
statistics, 22,000 victims were rescued,
and we know the problem goes into the
millions," Costa said…
Matthew Berger
Inter-Press Service (IPS)
May 14, 2009 |
Added:
Oct. 3, 2009
Colorado, USA
 |
|
Frank
Gutierrez |
Longmont Man Who Sexually
Assaulted Child Asks For Life Sentence -- And Gets
It
Frank
Gutierrez not eligible for parole for 24 years in
assault on 9-year-old boy
An 11-year-old boy said
his life had been "ruined" by an adult neighbor who
sexually assaulted him numerous times at his
Longmont apartment two years ago and that his abuser
should be imprisoned for the rest of his life.
In a videotaped
statement played at a drama-filled sentencing
hearing Friday, the victim -- who was 9-years-old at
the time of the assault -- said Frank Gutierrez, 64,
should "stay away" from children and adults.
Gutierrez injected an
unexpected twist into the proceedings by ignoring
the advice of his lawyer and asking the judge to
forgo the hearing and impose the maximum sentence --
life in prison with a chance for parole after 24
years. He claimed that there was no way he could be
cured of his sexual pathologies.
"I would rather take the
sentence than take the chance of being on the street
again and hurting someone else," Gutierrez said. "I
was abused and I don't know how to change it."
Boulder District Judge
Maria Berkenkotter sentenced Gutierrez to the
maximum prison term...
Gutierrez said he was
molested for 10 years as a child and would never be
able to control his impulses again...
Gutierrez still faces a
charge of sexually assaulting an at-risk adult --
one of his fellow inmates at Boulder County Jail --
last year...
John Aguilar
Daily Camera
Oct. 02, 2009
Added:
Oct. 3, 2009
Ohio, USA / Mexico
ICE Deports Mexican Fugitive Sought for Sexually
Assaulting a Child
Columbus, Ohio - U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) officers deported a Mexican
national on Thursday wanted by authorities for
sexually assaulting a minor in his home country.
Jose Luis Martinez-Gonzalez, 23, was turned over to
Mexican authorities at 10 a.m. on Sept. 29 at the
Port of El Paso's Stanton Street Bridge.
Martinez-Gonzalez is wanted in Oaxaca, Mexico, for
raping a minor.
Martinez-Gonzalez entered the country illegally at
an undisclosed location along the Arizona-Mexico
border. He has been sought by Mexican authorities
since February. Earlier this month, ICE agents with
the Office of Investigations in Columbus, Ohio,
apprehended Martinez-Gonzalez without incident.
An immigration judge ordered Martinez-Gonzalez
removed to Mexico on Sept. 17. A week later, the
Mexican attorney general's office asked ICE for
assistance in returning the fugitive to Mexico.
Martinez-Gonzalez, who was arrested and charged on
administrative immigration charges, arrived in El
Paso Del Norte Port of Entry (Stanton Bridge) in El
Paso, Texas, and was turned over to Mexican
authorities, Oct. 1 on a flight that originated in
Columbus, Ohio...
U.S. ICE
Oct. 1, 2009
Added:
Oct. 3, 2009
New Mexico, USA / Mexico
BEST Team Arrests Convicted Child Predator for
Illegally Returning to the U.S.
Las Cruces - Members of
the local U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE)-led Border Enforcement Security Task Force
(BEST) on Friday arrested a convicted aggravated
felon who illegally re-entered the United States
after he was deported in 2004 for raping a minor.
Cesar Gonzalez-Gomez,
43, from Mexico, was arrested Sept. 25 outside a
residence in Anthony, N.M. He was convicted of
aggravated burglary, criminal sexual contact with a
minor, and other related sex crimes. He was
sentenced to nine years in prison. After his release
from prison, ICE deported him in October 2004.
Recently BEST members
received information that Gonzalez-Gomez was back in
the United States. He is believed to have returned
to the country illegally in January. As a deported
aggravated felon, he is charged with re-entry after
deportation, which is punishable by up to 20 years
in prison.
Doña Ana County
Sheriff's Office also served him with an outstanding
warrant for failing to register as a convicted
sexual offender...
U.S. ICE
Sep. 28, 2009
Added:
Oct. 3, 2009
California, USA
Grandfather Pleads Guilty To Molesting Two Young
Girls
Santa Ana - An Orange grandfather who watched
neighborhood children after school until their
parents came home from work pleaded guilty today to
molesting two girls younger than 7.
Octavio Reyes Cortez, 59, a landscaper, will be
sentenced by Superior Court Judge Frank F. Fasel on
Friday to 18 years in prison for six felony counts
of lewd conduct on a minor.
Deputy District Attorney Mark Birney said the
molestations date back to 1995, and the victims
included a 7-year-old girl who came to Cortez' home
to play with Barbie dolls with his granddaughter.
Cortez also admitted to repeated acts of molestation
on a girl who was younger than 6 between 1995 and
1997.
Larry Welborn
The Orange County Register
Sep. 29, 2009
Added:
Oct. 3, 2009
Ohio,
USA
Man Pleads Not Guilty to Rape
Charges
Zanesville - Charged
with three counts of rape and eight counts of gross
sexual imposition, Carlos Alfredo Orantes is looking
at spending 70 years in prison if convicted on all
counts. Orantes, 35, of Zanesville, pleaded not
guilty to each charge in front of Muskingum County
Common Pleas Judge Kelly Cottrill on Wednesday.
Orantes was indicted
last week. He is accused of having sexual conduct
(rape) and sexual contact (gross sexual imposition)
with two girls, ages 11 and 9, from October 2006 to
September 2009.
Judge Cottrill ordered
Orantes' bond set at $500,000...
Zanesville Times
Recorder
Kathy Thompson
Sep. 23, 2009
Added:
Oct. 3, 2009
Ohio,
USA
Former Stripper Claims Priest
Fathered Baby
Pembroke Pines - A woman
who described herself as a former stripper in Miami
has filed a petition for a restraining order against
a South Florida priest, who she now claims fathered
her baby.
The woman, Beatrice
Hernandez, told CBS4 News that she was a dancer at a
Miami strip club, Porky's. She said she met Father
David Dueppen at that strip club and started a
relationship shortly thereafter.
Early this year,
Hernandez had a baby and demanded Dueppen take DNA
paternity tests, according to court documents
obtained by CBS4 News. But, in the restraining order
petition, Hernandez said that after several attempts
for a DNA test, "the [priest's] rage escalated as he
attacked [Hernandez], grabbing her by the throat and
choking her."
"I'm afraid. I'm on the
street. I'm running from people," Hernandez told
CBS4's Jim DeFede over the phone. "David said to me
that if I go to the media, he would make me
disappear and take my baby."
Dueppen last served as
an associate priest at St. Maximilian Kolbe Church
in Pembroke Pines. He has been on administrative
leave for one month, according to Miami Archdiocese
spokeswoman Mary Ross Agosta...
CBS 4 Miami
Sep. 20, 2009
See also:
Along Came a Spider: What the
Pope Doesn’t See
...In the official “Year
for Priests,” dedicated by Pope Benedict, a priest
in Florida has upped the ante on clerical
malfeasance, allegedly fathering a child with a
stripper, and threatening the woman with violence.
What will it take for the Catholic Church to begin
to take responsibility for priests gone wild? ...
Anthea Butler
Religion Dispatches
Sep.27, 2009
Added:
Oct. 2, 2009
Mexico
 |
|
Child Sex Trafficking
Routes: (Purple) Puebla to Tijuana;
(Blue) Puebla to Matamoros -
Larger Map
Map:
LibertadLatina |
Desde Puebla Parten Dos Rutas
de Trata de Personas Hacia EU
Las
bandas dedicadas a la trata de personas con fines de
explotación laboral y sexual ocupan al menos dos
rutas para traficar con menores que parten desde
Puebla, y llegan al norte del país, a fin de
internar a las víctimas a los Estados Unidos o bien,
desde ahí llevarlas a las Bahamas y España...
Authorities Discover Two Child
Sex Trafficking Routes from Puebla to the United
States
Gangs engaged in trafficking in persons for sexual
and labor exploitation are using at least two routes
to smuggle children starting in the city of Puebla.
Victims are taken to the United States. From the
U.S. some of these children are taken to the Bahamas
or Spain.
Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission announced these
findings as part of a study of Mexico’s
vulnerability to human trafficking.
The
first route runs from Puebla through the cities of
Hidalgo, Ciudad Victoria, Chihuahua, and Matamoros
(a city adjacent to Brownsville, Texas). The second
route also starts in Puebla, and passes through
Mexico City, Michoacan, Guadalajara, Sinaloa, Sonora
and ends in Tijuana (on the U.S. / Mexico border
near San Diego, California).
The
report reveals that the Special Prosecutor for
Crimes of Violence against Women and Trafficking in
Persons (FEVIMTRA) of the Attorney General's Office
(PGR) reported that during 2008, 24 preliminary
investigations were initiated in regard to human
trafficking. Only two cases were prosecuted.
[To
date, there has never been a
federal conviction on human trafficking
charges in Mexico -
LL.]
These preliminary investigations occurred primarily
in the states of Coahuila, Chiapas, Chihuahua,
Mexico state, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Morelos, Nayarit, Oaxaca, Puebla, Tlaxcala,
Veracruz and Yucatan, as well in the Federal
District (Mexico City). Three of the investiga-tions
related to crimes committed in Spain, Bahamas and
the United States.
Among the victims in the Puebla case are Mexican and
foreign women [and girls] who are mainly from El
Salvador, Korea, Argentina, China, Honduras, Peru
and Guatemala.
The
study shows that in Puebla, 283,236 children between
the ages of 5 and 17 work. Some 106,295 of them do
not attend school.
Full English Translation
Suzana De Los Ángeles
e-consulta.com
Sep. 28, 2009
Added:
Oct. 2, 2009
Maryland, USA
Police: Men Tried to Abduct
Kids Playing Outside
Laurel - Police are
looking for two men who attempted to kidnap a group
of children playing outside Wednesday night.
The three children - a
7-year-old girl, an 8-year-old boy and a 9-year-old
boy - were playing outside next to an apartment
building in the 300 block of Thomas Drive around
6:45 p.m.
Police say two Hispanic
men sitting in a truck in a parking lot next to a
nearby office building began calling out to the
children and telling them to "come closer."
The children were able
to get away and got home safely...
Police say the men were
driving a light blue Mazda pickup truck. The truck
is described as being very dirty, with a dent on the
driver's side front fender.
Witnesses were only able
to provide partial tag information on the truck:
41641W. They did not see the state on the license
plate.
Anyone with information
is asked to call Laurel Police at 301-498-0092.
Veronica Robinson
WTOP.com
Oct. 01, 2009
Government is moving to prevent the emergence of
human trafficking in Trinidad and Tobago.
According to a release from the Ministry of National
Security, Cabinet has approved a proposal from the
International Organization for Migration for a
nine-month plan to counter any emergence of human
trafficking in Trinidad and Tobago.
The plan seeks to address the issue of trafficking
in persons. It does so from two bases - that of
prevention and protection of victims of trafficking;
and that of criminalizing and prosecution of those
engaged in human trafficking.
The plan calls for the establishment of a
multi-agency task force to develop and oversee a
medium-to-long term plan of action. The task force,
which will consist of various government ministries,
non-governmental organizations, faith-based
organizations and the IOM, will be responsible for:
implementing a referral process to identify and
assist victims; establishing a hotline to field
calls pertaining to human trafficking and conducting
a nationwide information campaign, using
IOM-supplied material.
The release said Government would enact legislation
to criminalize trafficking in persons and IOM would
support this effort.
The release said: "The Ministry of National Security
believes that the assistance offered by IOM through
the nine-month plan would serve to address the issue
of human trafficking in its embryonic stages, to
avoid it becoming a widespread criminal activity in
Trinidad and Tobago ... while building public
awareness of and minimizing the misconceptions about
the nature of the crime of human trafficking."
In implementing the plan, the IOM would conduct a
series of outreach and/or training sessions for
various audiences, including key stakeholders in
government, hotline staff operators, media, NGOs and
other representatives of civil society...
Trinidad and Tobago Express
Sep. 28, 2009
Added:
Sep. 29, 2009
Illinois
Police Seek Man Who Sexually
Exploited Kids On Chicago's Northwest Side
Chicago - Police are
looking for a man who allegedly masturbated in front
of three children in a Northwest Side garage on
Friday.
The incident happened in
a garage in the 4100 block of North Sacramento,
where three children ages 6 to 11 were playing,
according to a release from the Special
Investigations Unit.
A man entered the garage
while speaking English on a cell phone, the release
said. He told two of the children to keep playing
and told the third child to watch him while he
masturbated. He then fled the scene.
The offender is
described as a Hispanic male, 35 to 45 years old,
5-foot-8 to 5-foot-10, 170 pounds with black hair,
brown eyes and a dark complexion, the release said.
He had a full beard and was wearing a black and
white striped shirt, black shoes and either reading
or sunglasses....
The Chicago
Sun-Times.
Sep. 27,2009
Added:
Sep. 27, 2009
The World
 |
|
Pop Star /
Activist Ricky Martin is
Presenter at the 2009 Clinton
Global Initiative Annual Meeting
Ricky Martin: "I feel that my
heart is, is going to come out
of my mouth, and... it goes
through my throat. Its not that
I'm nervous. I'm just going to
say that there are millions of
children that are... that
didn't make it. Millions of
children who are forced into
prostitution, into slavery - and
just didn't make it. Today they
are using me, they are using my
voice, because they were never
heard. That's what inspires me
to be here..."
"Creo que se me va a salir el
corazón por la boca. No son los
nervios, sino la emoción por dar
voz a los millones de niños que
se han visto forzados a
prostituirse o que han caído en
la esclavitud y a quienes nadie
ha escuchado."
Spanish
translation - EFE
From a
video of
Ricky Martin's remarks
at the 2009 Clinton Global
Initiative's meeting - posted on
YouTube.com |
Ricky Martin Abandera la Lucha
Contra el Abuso Infantil en la Iniciativa Clinton
Nueva York, New York - El cantante puertorriqueño
Ricky Martin llevó hoy la lucha contra el abuso
infantil a la reunión que la Iniciativa Global
Clinton celebra en Nueva York, donde reafirmó el
compromiso de su fundación para mejorar la vida de
los niños.
En
el encuentro anual que el ex presidente de Estados
Unidos Bill Clinton celebra para impulsar medidas
filantrópicas que mejoren las condiciones de los más
desfavorecidos en el mundo, Martin reiteró su
compromiso con la defensa de los derechos humanos y
explicó el trabajo que su fundación realiza en favor
de los más pequeños.
EFE
Sep. 24, 2009
See also:
Ricky Martin Fights Human
Trafficking at Clinton Summit
New York,
New
York –
When Ricky Martin took the stage at the Clinton
Global Initiative on Thursday, he did not sing, or
dance, or even flash his trademark grin. Following
the same stage directions as dozens of other
celebrities who dropped by Clinton's 5th annual
global summit, from Brad Pitt to Bono to Jessica
Alba, Martin struck a somber note while discussing
the fight against human trafficking.
"I feel that my heart is
going to come out of my mouth," he said, recounting
his sadness for the "millions of children that
didn't make it." Martin was followed by testimony
from a woman who, along with her two children, was
kidnapped and held for four years of forced labor.
Then
Luis CdeBaca, a
former counsel to Rep. John Conyers who now serves
as President Obama's chief diplomat for combating
human trafficking, explained that between 12 and 27
million people are enslaved around the world today.
In its official materials, The Clinton Global
Initiative notes that the higher estimates mean
there are more people enslaved "than at any other
time in human history..."
Ari Melber
The Nation
Sep. 24, 2009
Added:
Sep. 27, 2009
The World
 |
|
U.S.
Secretary of State Hillary
Rodham Clinton |
U.S. Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton: Opening Remarks at Combating
Violence Against Girls Event
At an
event hosted by the Government of the Netherlands
Secretary Clinton: I
want to start by saying something that I believe
with all my heart, and, obviously, those of you who
are here believe it also, that the issues related to
girls and women are not an annex to the important
business of the world and the United Nations,
they’re not an add-on, they’re not an afterthought;
they are truly at the core of what we are attempting
to do under the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights that is the guiding message of this
organization and what each of us in our own
countries is called to do on behalf of equal
opportunity and social justice.
So for me, this is a
tremendous opportunity to speak about an issue that
has basically been relegated to the backwaters of
the international agenda until relatively recently:
violence against girls and women, and particularly
today, violence against girls.
I wish that we could
transport ourselves into a setting where we could be
in the midst of girls and women who have been
suffering from violence, but we don’t have to
because it’s all around us. It is in the home, it is
in the workplace, it is on the streets of many of
the countries represented here, including my friends
Maxine and Celso. And it is in the places that make
the headlines from time to time, and then in the
very bottom paragraphs, there’s a reference to the
violence that is a tactic of war and intimidation
and oppression to prevent girls from going to school
by throwing acid in their faces, by raping girls as
a way of intimidating them and keeping them
subjugated and demonstrating power.
So this, for me, is one
of the most important events that I’ve done at the
UN. ...
New York City, NY
Sep. 25, 2009
Added:
Sep. 27, 2009
The World
Corporate and
Foundation Partners Announce $4 Million
Raised at Clinton Global Initiative Toward
Vital Voices’ Global Women’s Empowerment
Efforts
Washington,
D.C., – A major commitment to action
was made to Vital Voices programs during the
Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) annual
meeting totaling $4 million.
Humanity
United, Avon Foundation, Mosaic Foundation,
ExxonMobil Foundation, Ambassador Elizabeth
Frawley Bagley and Donna McLarty joined
together to seed a Vital Voices initiative
in 2010 that will bring new solutions to
enduring and emerging challenges facing
women across the globe. The initiative named
“Turning the Tide: Translating the Promise
of the UN Fourth World Conference on Women
into Action” is timed to coincide with the
15th anniversary of the landmark UN Fourth
World Conference on Women which brought
together women leaders from the public and
private sectors in Beijing, China in 1995.
This commitment seeks to assess progress and
bring innovation to women’s empowerment
efforts.
“Despite
the undeniable progress towards women’s
empowerment over the past 15 years, far too
much remains unfinished business and
threatens to remain so. The international
community must leverage this milestone in
history to pursue gender equality in new and
innovative ways” said Alyse Nelson,
President & CEO of Vital Voices Global
Partnership, a global non-profit that traces
its roots to the Beijing conference in
1995...
Vital Voices
Sep. 24, 2009
See also:
Vital Voices' programs in
Latin America and the Caribbean
Port St. Lucie - It's
every parent's worst nightmare, and yesterday
afternoon, it happened to Tiffany Serrano.
"I saw him pull up, wave
at my daughter, called her "baby girl" and tried to
get her in the truck," said Serrano.
Serrano told Newschannel
5 her kids were playing in the drive way, in front
of her house, she walked into the garage for a
moment, and when she came out, she saw a strange
truck parked in front.
She was able to get her
4 year old daughter out of harm's way, and not a
minute too soon.
"If I had gone in, I
know she would've been gone, because she was going
to get in, she was going towards the vehicle," said
Serrano...
Serrano says she saw two
men inside the truck, and was able to get a good
look at the one trying to lure her little girl.
Police describe that man
as a Hispanic male possibly in 30's with short hair,
heavy eyebrows and big ears.
Serrano says she's
talked to her children several times about never
getting in a car with strangers, and always tries to
keep a close eye on them, but yesterday's incident
taught her anything can happen when you turn your
back even for a split second.
"I am scared for them,
I'm not letting them play outside anymore, I
refuse," said Serrano.
If you have any
information about the vehicle or the suspect, call
Detective Black at (772) 871-5000.
WPTV
Sep. 27, 2009
Added:
Sep. 26, 2009
The World
 |
|
Former U.S.
President Bill Clinton (left)
presents the initiative to
address violence against girls
at the closing plenary of the
Clinton Global Initiative's 2009
annual meeting.
Photo: UNIFEM |
New Initiative to Address
Sexual Violence Against Girls Launched at Clinton
Global Initiative Annual Meeting in New York
Collaboration among leading public and private
sector organizations formed to bring international
attention to this injustice
New
York - The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC), five United Nations organizations
(UNICEF, UNAIDS, UNFPA, UNIFEM, WHO) and private
sector supporters will join together later today via
the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in a new
approach to address the rights violations and health
impacts of sexual violence against girls. According
to the World Health Organization, in 2002
approximately 150 million girls experienced some
form of sexual violence with physical contact.
“Sexual violence against children is a gross
violation of their rights, a moral and ethical
outrage and an assault on the world’s conscience,”
said Ann M. Veneman, Executive Director of UNICEF.
“Sexual abuse can lead to lost childhoods, abandoned
education, physical and emotional problems, the
spread of HIV, and an often irrevocable loss of
dignity and self-esteem.” ...
“While it is generally known that sexual violence
against girls is a global problem, very limited data
exist on the extent of this problem in the
developing world. Obtaining valid data is a key step
toward mobilizing policy and other positive
interventions,” said Dr. Rodney Hammond, Director of
the Division of Violence Prevention in CDC’s Injury
Center.
“Sexual violence, including coercion, abuse,
exploitation, rape and trafficking, has a
devastating impact on children, particularly
adolescent and pre-adolescent girls, who are among
the most vulnerable members of any society,” said
Gary Cohen, Board Director of the CDC [U.S. Centers
for Disease Control] Foundation and the US Fund for
UNICEF... “This grave injustice ruins lives,
undermines human potential and drives the cycle of
infectious disease spread, increasing the population
of people who require treatment. It also has broader
societal impacts, because girls who are protected
and educated contribute dispropor-tionately back to
their families and communities.”
Research demonstrates that sexual violence against
girls is a direct and an indirect driver of the HIV
and AIDS epidemic...
United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)
Sept. 25, 2009
Added:
Sep. 26, 2009
Mexico
 |
|
Arturo Chavez
Chavez is sworn-in as Attorney
General of Mexico
Photo:
Mario Guzmán /
EPA |
Mexico Senate Confirms Arturo
Chavez Chavez as Attorney General
Legislators back the nomination by a 75-27 vote
despite criticism from human rights activists.
Mexico political deal the stuff of drama
Reporting from Mexico City - Mexico's Senate on
Thursday confirmed Arturo Chavez Chavez as the
nation's attorney general, despite objections by
human rights activists who assailed his record as
prosecutor in the northern state of Chihuahua during
the 1990s.
Chavez, 49, who was quickly sworn in, becomes
Mexico's top law enforcement official at a crucial
moment. The government of President Felipe Calderon
is at war with drug-trafficking groups that have
unleashed waves of violence across the country.
A lawyer from Calderon's conservative National
Action Party, or PAN, Chavez picked up opposition
support to win confirmation by a hefty margin, 75 to
27. He takes over for Eduardo Medina Mora, who
resigned this month amid criticism by political
opponents that the government's anti-crime offensive
is foundering.
"I come with my head held high and will work the
same way: with honesty, transparency and with a
commitment to serve my country," Chavez said after
his swearing-in.
Rights advocates charged that Chavez had failed as
Chihuahua state prosecutor to properly investigate
the killings of hundreds of women in the border city
of Ciudad Juarez. Foes lobbied to defeat the
nomination, and sign-toting protesters camped
outside the Senate as the vote took place...
Ken Ellingwood
The
Los Angeles Times
Sep. 25, 2009
See also:
Confirma el Senado a Chávez
Chávez para titular de la PGR
Sin escuchar a
las madres de las víctimas
México, DF - Con 75 votos a favor, 27
en contra y una abstención, senadores de la
República ratificaron hoy a Arturo Chávez Chávez
como Procurador General de la República, pese al
escrutinio internacional que lo considera “un
funcionario negligente y omiso” en la procuración de
justicia durante los dos años que estuvo al mando de
la Procuraduría de Justicia de Chihuahua, periodo en
que se incrementó la impunidad en dicha entidad.
Arturo
Chávez Chávez is confirmed by the
Senate as Attorney General
The Senate did not hear testimony from mothers of
the victims [of the Ciudad Juarez femicide]
Lourdes Godínez Leal
CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
Mexico City
Sep. 24, 2009
Mendelson,
Lagon, Army of Me to Rally Against Human Trafficking
in Washington, DC this Saturday, September 25, 2009
...As September comes to an end our Nation's Capital
wraps up a successful Human Trafficking Awareness
Month. [Washington] DC has united to bring the
face of modern slavery and human trafficking to the
forefront. ...The city is truly going to take
the fight against child trafficking to the streets,
as citizen politicians, musicians and activists
unite for the first ever Walk Against Child
Trafficking...
[Speaking] at the walk will be:
[Washington, DC Council Member Phil Mendelson],
Dr.
Mark Lagon, former Ambassador-at-Large and director
of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in
Persons at the State Department and current
Executive Director and CEO of Polaris Project;
former U.S. Representative Linda Smith (R-WA) and
current president of Shared Hope International; and
Dr. Laura Lederer, former Senior Advisor on
Trafficking in Persons at the State Department.
Prominent non-profit officials will also be
well-represented at the walk. Non-profit luminaries
will include Sarah Symons, executive director of the
Emancipation Network; Andrea Powell, co-founder and
executive director of Fair Fund; and Ray Lian, lead
organizer of the citizen activist group DC Stop
Modern Slavery. Prominent authors Aaron Cohen,
author of Slave Hunter and Ben Skinner, author of A
Crime So Monstrous will also speak following the
walk...
Cassandra Clifford
The Examiner
Sep. 25, 2009
Added:
Sep. 23, 2009
Guatemala
 |
|
Jesús Tecú Osorio at the site of
the Rio Negro (town of Black
River) massacre.
Photo:
Renata Avila |
The Activism of Massacre
Survivor Jesús Tecú
Maya
Achí activist Jesús Tecú Osorio is a survivor. When
he was a child, he witnessed the Río Negro Massacre,
one of the most horrific massacres of Guatemala's
armed conflict. Many of his friends, his 2-year-old
brother, and his young parents were murdered. He
spent some time forced to work, along with 17 other
child survivors, doing domestic work for the man who
killed his brother.
Years later, after he was released into the custody
of his older sister, Tecú began to work to exhume
the mass grave of those killed in the Massacre.
Eventually, this work led to the convictions of 3 of
the men who took part in the killings. This work has
been crucial in the pursuit of justice and the
preservation of the historical memory on local and
international levels.
Tecú
wrote a book called “Memory of the Río Negro
Massacres” that tells his experience as a homeless
child who survived the war. Tadeo explains more
about the story that Tecú tells:
|
The military and paramilitary forces
rounded up all of the women and children
and accused them of collaborating with
the guerrillas. Together they proceeded
to rape, torture, and murder everyone.
Some 177 human beings, including 107
children, were massacred on the 13th of
March, 1982, in Rio Negro. The few
survivors, mostly young boys, were
forced into slavery. |
In
The Massacres of Río Negro, survivor Jesús
Tecú described being enslaved by a leader of the
Xococ PAC [civilian auto-defense patrol - a civilian
collaborator of the armed forces], a man who ripped
his youngest brother out of his arms and swung him
by his feet, smashing his brains against rocks in
front of his eyes because his wife was “not used to
caring for [such] a small child."
Tecú's case is different from many others, because
he stayed in his community helping... to fight for
their human rights. He is leading a Legal Clinic to
help poor and under-educated people to fight for
their rights. This struggle by Tecú and other
survivors of Guatemala's civil war led to the
creation of the New Hope Foundation (FNE). Their
mission can be found on their
blog...
For
his work, Tecú was awarded the Reebok Human Rights
Award...
Despite the progress made by Tecú and the Achí
community, the work continues. Survivors are still
pressing the Guatemalan government to convict those
responsible for the massacres, as shown by the
Colectivo Guatemala Blog.
Some of these individuals are being intimidated for
their work.
Recently, Tecú has received threatening phone
calls...
Global Voices
Sep. 22, 2009
See also:
LibertadLatina
Special Section
Added:
Sep. 23, 2009
Mexico
 |
|
Mothers of some
of the murdered women from
Ciudad Juárez testify before a
Mexican Senate panel.
Photo by Jesús
Robles |
Mexico: Protests Against
Nomination of Arturo Chávez for Attorney General
Human rights activists in Ciudad Juárez are opposing
the recent nomination of Arturo Chávez Chávez as the
Attorney General of Mexico. He was nominated by
Mexican President Felipe Calderón. Protesters claim
that Chávez’s track record regarding human rights
work leaves much to be desired and point to the time
when he was the Attorney General of the State of
Chihuahua in the early 1990s.
This was a time when Ciudad Juárez erupted in a
violent wave of femicides—mass murder of women. Most
of the protesters and activists are the mothers,
family members, and friends of the deceased or
missing women. They claim that public officials from
Chihuahua have been involved in covering up the
crimes and have not done much to solve them.
As [the former] chief prosecutor for the state of
Chihuahua, Chávez has been denounced by Mexican and
international human rights organizations...
[including] the National Human Rights Commission
(CNDH), the Inter-American Human Rights Commission
(CIDH), members of the European Parliament, and
others from the international human rights
community...
The death toll continues to climb and many crimes
remain unsolved, leaving the community with little
recourse but to take matters into their own hands by
forming grassroots non-profit groups to shed light
on the issue of the border city femicides. Nuestras
Hijas de Regreso a Casa A.C. (May Our Daughters
Return Home, Civil Association) is at the forefront
of the current protests which have taken the streets
in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, bordering the city of
El Paso in Texas. They also held protests in
Chihuahua's state capital and nation’s capital,
Mexico City. Protesters who traveled to Mexico City
on September 14, 2009 were unsuccessful in their
attempts to speak directly with members of the
Senate regarding Chavez’s human rights track record...
Chávez met with Senate on September 21, 2009 and
admitted failures from some of his agents during his
tenure...
However, the PAN political party has already nodded
in his favor regarding the nomination.
Ganchoblog writes
that Chávez is likely to pass since three Senators
who would be vital to derailing his nomination as
Attorney General will not stand in his way.
Gina Cardenas
Global Voices
Sep. 23, 2009
Mexico Cartels Kidnap, Kill
Migrants Headed to U.S.
Tecate - Mexico's violent drug gangs are
increasingly kidnapping illegal migrants for ransom
and forcing them to carry narcotics into the United
States as they muscle into the lucrative trade of
smuggling people across the border.
Traffickers armed with automatic weapons are
snatching weary Mexican and Central American
migrants on both sides of the border and holding
them in cramped houses with little water or food
until families pay ransoms of up to $12,000.
The Mexican army and U.S. border officials say that
those who cannot pay are killed, stripped and dumped
in shallow graves in remote stretches of the desert
frontier.
"My sons were tricked, tortured and then killed by
the smugglers," said Esmeralda Guerrero outside the
morgue in the barren town of Tecate across from
California, where she came to identify the bodies of
her two sons in their 20s last month.
"They kidnapped them and demanded $4,000 to keep
them alive. It took me two days to send the money.
They didn't wait," said Guerrero, whose sons trekked
up from Mexico City...
Mexican soldiers stormed a suburban house in the
factory city of Reynosa across from Texas last month
to rescue more than 120 kidnapped Central Americans
who were huddled together and watched over by men
with guns and baseball bats...
"The kidnapping of migrants is happening in both
Mexico and the United States ... and it is on the
rise," said Mexico's consul-general in San Diego,
Maria de los Remedios Gomez...
Lizbeth Diaz
Reuters
Sep. 22, 2009
 |
|
Suspected
sexual assailant |
Commerce Police Ask for Info
After Attempted Sexual Assaults at Wal-Mart
On September 11,2009, an
unknown Hispanic male grabbed a female from behind
and attempted to sexually assault her.
He is described as
approximately 5'6", 155 lbs, and at the time of the
offense he was wearing blue jeans, light blue and
white horizontally striped shirt and a maroon ball
cap.
This occurred at
Wal-Mart in Commerce.
While reviewing the
video, police realized the man attacked another
woman who did not report the crime.
If anyone has
information on this crime, please contact Commerce
Police Department, Detective Steve Scott at
903-886-1139...
Commerce Police
Department
Sep. 22, 2009
Added:
Sep. 22, 2009
North Dakota, USA
 |
|
Dru
Sjodin |
 |
|
Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. |
Prosecutors: Glad, Not
Surprised Rodriguez Death Sentence Appeal Denied
Fargo - The team of
prosecutors that made the federal case against
Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. said at a news conference
Tuesday they were glad but not surprised to learn
that the Crookston man’s death sentence appeal in
the Dru Sjodin case was rebuffed by a federal court
in Minneapolis.
“We are gratified by
this outcome,” acting U.S. Attorney Lynn Jordheim
said. “But we know this is just a step on the road
to the ultimate resolution of this case.”
The 2-1 decision by the
8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals came down three
years to the day that a jury decided Rodriguez
should die for the kidnapping and murder of Sjodin,
a UND student, on Nov. 22, 2003. It’s the first
death penalty case in North Dakota, which has no
death penalty law, in a century.
Rodriguez remains on
death row in a federal prison in Indiana. His
attorneys, Richard Ney, Wichita, Kan., and Robert
Hoy, West Fargo, are expected to begin further
appeals...
Stephen J. Lee, Grand
Forks Herald
Sep. 22, 2009
Added:
Sep. 21, 2009
Peru
 |
|
This
map shows the cities of Iquitos
and Pucallpa, centers of child
prostitution and pornography in
Peru's northeastern Amazon
region. |
Padres Prostituyen a
Sus Hijos por Menos de Medio Dólar
Muchas familias pobres prostituyen a sus hijos por
un nuevo sol (unos 0,34 dólares) en el interior de
Perú, donde también se denunció que niños de hasta
tres años son violados en vídeos pornográficos,
informó hoy la prensa local...
Parents are Prostituting Their Children for Less
Than Half a Dollar in Peru's Impoverished Amazonian
Cities
Lima - "Many families in the interior of Peru, such
as in the [Amazonian] city of Iquitos, 'rent-out'
their children for money. In exchange for one New
Sol
(about $ 0.34)
or a quarter chicken, parents prostitute their
children in canoes," complained
Maria Teresa Mosquera,
director of Action for Children, in a column
published in the newspaper Peru.21.
Mosquera, a children’s rights advocate, said that
families are handing their children over to the
mafia in exchange for better economic conditions or
to acquire luxury goods.
The Peruvian Network Against Child Pornography
(RPCPI) has reported that its specialists have
discovered that several foreign networks take
advantage of the availability of prostituted
children in the poorest areas of Peru to record
pornographic movies, which are then sold on the
black market.
"We have information that recordings are being made
in the jungle regions of Peru, in cities like
Iquitos, Pucallpa and Madre de Dios [Mother of
God]," said the executive director of RPCPI, Dimitri
Senmache.
Senmache added that children as young as age three
are used in pornographic films, that some children
are killed, and that others are taken abroad for
prostitution or to be used in many types of slave
labor.
Trafficking networks
also operate in the tourist cities of Cuzco and
Puno, where child pornography videos are recorded by
foreigners.
Peruvian police sources revealed that some of the
videos containing child pornography are sold in
retail shopping centers in Lima. They emphasized
that it was difficult to combat these illicit
materials due to delays in getting arrest warrants
and because of the restrictions placed on obtaining
wiretaps.
EFE
Sept. 20, 2009
Added:
Sep. 21, 2009
The United States
 |
|
Linda Smith of Shared Hope
International
Photo:
Roger Werth - The
Daily News
|
Shared Hope: Repairing the
Damage of Nation's Sex Trafficking
For more than a decade,
Linda Smith’s
Shared Hope International
organization has rescued thousands of women and
children around the world from the sordid world of
prostitution...
In 2006, Shared Hope
International received a grant from the U.S.
Department of Justice to research the sex
trafficking of American children. Investigation was
made in 10 targeted locations — Dallas; San Antonio,
Texas; Fort Worth, Texas; Salt Lake City; Buffalo,
N.Y.; New Orleans, Independence, Mo.; Las Vegas,
Clearwater, Fla.; and the Commonwealth of the
Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory.
A private grant allowed
further investigation in Atlanta and Washington,
D.C. Smith presented the results, “The National
Report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking: America’s
Prostituted Children,” to Congress in July. She also
wrote a book, “Renting
Lacy,” which was published last month.
Shared Hope’s
investigation revealed there are at least 100,000
American children being sexually exploited by pimps
and traffickers and the “johns” who pay for them.
The average “recruitment” age for the girls is 12 to
13 years of age.
“By the time we got
done, between undercover footage and interviews, we
pretty well had the nation,” Smith said. “What we
found is I can go to Craigslist or a strip club or
an adult shop anywhere and find a minor for sex.
There’s no town, I don’t care where; if there’s
buyers, there’s sellers. Pornography is driving the
sex train for younger and younger girls.”
Shared Hope’s national
report found that too often, the trafficked children
were treated more like criminals than victims...
Cheryll A. Borgaard
The Daily News
Longview, Washington
Sep. 19, 2009
Added:
Sep. 21, 2009
Mexico
 |
|
Photo: W Radio |
Chávez No Hizo Nada en
Chihuahua: Organización Justicia Para Nuestras Hijas
Patricia Cervante de la
organización Justicia para nuestras Hijas, aseguró
que “pensé que Calderón era un hombre honesto y
justo, pero ahora veo que no”.
Para la Tercera Emisión
de Hoy por Hoy con Salvador Camarena, Patricia
señaló que Arturo Chávez Chávez “no hizo nada en
Chihuahua, sólo le abrió la puerta a los
delincuentes a cometer sus fechorías hasta el día de
hoy”.
"Si hubiera trabajado
como se debe nuestras hijas estuvieran en casa."
“Es machista y
misógino”, finalizó Patricia Cervantes, de la
organización Justicia para nuestras Hijas.
Chavez did Nothing in
Chihuahua: Justice for our Daughters
Patricia Cervantes of
the organization "Justice for our Daughters," said,
"I thought that [Mexican President Felipe] Calderón
was an honest and fair person, but now I see that it
is not so."
Cervantes said, [federal
attorney general nominee] Arturo Chávez Chávez "did
nothing in Chihuahua [state, in which Ciudad Juarez
is located]. He only opened the door for criminals
to commit their atrocities [femicide], right-up
through today.
"If he had done his job,
our daughters would be [alive and] back home."
"Chávez is sexist and
misogynist," concluded Cervantes.
W Radio
Sep. 21, 2009
A Wrong Sign in Mexico
The nomination of Arturo
Chavez Chavez as Attorney General of Mexico (PGR) is
disconcerting. At this moment, Mexico needs a person
of impeccable credentials to lead the fight against
organized crime and corruption. Yet, the government
of Felipe Calderon has chosen to nominate an
ultraconservative PAN [National Action Party]
political operative who is tainted by the murders of
hundreds of young women in Ciudad Juarez. There
couldn’t be worse choice for a nominee.
There is a long list of
complaints against Chavez stemming from his previous
job as Under-Attorney General and as head prosecutor
for Chihuahua [state]. The National Commission on
Human Rights said he allowed agents to alter
evidence, violate procedures, and frame suspects,
among other irregularities. These investigations
have been in relation to the murders of women and
the disappearances of individuals, according to the
Commission...
Calderon’s nomination is
a slap in the face to those inside and outside of
Mexico who — with good reason — are concerned by the
abuses against civilians and the impunity of those
responsible. The removal of the former attorney
general has to do with Calderon’s concerns that
Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza had used the Office for
political ends. Chavez represents PAN discipline,
but nothing else. The price is a civil servant
considered incompetent, suspected of negligence, and
tainted by the horrific murders of hundreds of women
about whom he said, "they were raped and murdered
because they were prostitutes," as if this somehow
justified the crimes...
La Opinión
Editorial
Sep. 21, 2009
Added:
Sep. 21, 2009
Indiana, USA
 |
|
David Alex Flores |
Man charged in Slayings of 2
Sisters, House Fire
An
Indiana man faces murder, rape and arson charges in
the slayings of two sisters after he attended a
party at one sister's house in Griffith, Indiana,
authorities said.
David Alex Flores, 35, of Griffith, was charged
Wednesday with murdering Jennifer Evans, 28, and her
sister, Kristen Evans-Kennedy, 25, and
Evans-Kennedy's rape, as well as with setting fire
to Evans' home after the slayings sometime late
Sept. 10 or early last Friday, according to Lake
County, Indiana, prosecutors...
In a
statement, Flores told police he was at a small
party in Evans' garage on Sep. 10 and fell asleep on
the couch after drinking, according to the release.
When
Flores awoke sometime late that night or early the
morning of last Friday, he went into a bedroom where
Evans-Kennedy was sleeping, and raped her when she
resisted his attempt to kiss her; afterwards, he
stabbed her in the neck and three or four other
places with a knife he got from the home's kitchen,
prosecutors said.
After stabbing the younger sister, Flores went to
Evans' room and choked her into unconsciousness,
then put her into a bathtub and brought
Evans-Kennedy's body into the bathroom also, leaving
it on the floor, where he covered it with bed
linens, prosecutors said...
Flores... could face 130 years in prison,
prosecutors said.
The Chicago Tribune
Sep. 17, 2009
Tighter Laws On Traffickers
Get Results
Advocates praise state’s
progress against human smugglers
Advocates for human trafficking victims say Texas
lawmakers have strengthened state legislation aimed
at prosecuting traffickers, leading to the first
batch of indictments since Texas first criminalized
human trafficking in 2003.
San Antonio prosecutors in August secured
multi-count indictments under the state law in cases
involving the trafficking of two children, ages 13
and 15, said Sgt. Chris Burchell, a investigator
with the Bexar County Sheriff's Office.
Burchell, who also heads up the Texas
Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Child Sexual
Exploitation Coalition, said prosecutors brought the
charges against seven suspects in the two cases...
Law enforcement officials have long described Texas
as a major corridor exploited by human traffickers.
According to the U.S. State Department, between
14,500 and 17,500 people are trafficked into the
United States each year, with nearly one in five
victims of human trafficking traveling through
Texas.
Texas gained the distinction of being the first
state in the U.S. to criminalize human trafficking
in 2003, but no cases were prosecuted under the
original law in part because it lacked “teeth,” said
Robert Sanborn, president of the Houston
organization Children at Risk, which aims to combat
human trafficking...
Houston is considered a hub for traffickers,
officials said, in part because of its diverse
population, proximity to the U.S.-Mexico border and
international air and sea ports. Recognition of the
growing human-trafficking problem locally has
spawned coalitions and task forces that include law
enforcement agencies and nongovernmental
organizations.
“Houston has become the American hub for human
trafficking,” Sanborn said. “Girls from abroad and
girls from the United States are brought to Houston,
and it's here that they are beaten and raped and
drugged into submission before being sent to
clandestine bordellos all over the country.” ...
Most traffickers generally are prosecuted under
federal statutes, but since local authorities are
often the first to encounter the victims in such
cases, it made sense to give local law enforcement
and prosecutors the power to present cases, said
Jennifer Solak, a staff attorney with Children at
Risk.
Susan Carroll
Houston Chronicle
Sept. 19, 2009
United Nations Report: Human
Trafficking Likely to Rise Due to Economic Decline
United Nations -
Human trafficking is likely to escalate because the
global economic crisis has fueled its major causes -
poverty, youth unemployment, gender inequality and
the demand for cheap labor, the U.N. investigator on
trafficking said Thursday.
In a report to the General Assembly, Joy Ngozi
Ezeilo expressed concern that trafficking "continues
to thrive" because these root causes are not being
sufficiently addressed and "potential victims become
more desperate to escape their unfavorable
situations."
Ezeilo, a human rights lawyer and professor at the
University of Nigeria who was appointed by the
Geneva-based Human Rights Council job in August
2008, also expressed concern that trafficking
victims are sometimes deported "without a sufficient
period for recovery and reflection."
People who are trafficked should not be detained,
charged, prosecuted or summarily deported, she
stressed.
"Often, victims of trafficking ... have suffered
severe trauma of a physical, sexual or psychological
nature and require an enabling environment and the
specialized services provided by trained personnel
to trust, feel safe to talk about their
victimization to, and assist law enforcement
officials," Ezeilo said.
She expressed concern that governments are not
paying adequate attention to the identification of
women, children and men trafficked for sexual
exploitation and cheap labor, and to measures to
protect and assist them.
Only 24 of 86 countries that responded to a
questionnaire she sent in 2008 indicated that those
issues were a priority in the fight against human
trafficking.
Overall, Ezeilo said, less than 30 percent of
trafficking cases - both internally and across
borders - are reported to officials...
Ezeilo reported on visits to Belarus, Poland and
Japan and said each country needs to do more to
identify and help victims...
The Associated Press
Sep. 10, 2009
LibertadLatina
Note
The above story is yet another example of coverage
of global trafficking that omits any mention
whatsoever of the mass gender atrocities that are
occurring in Latin America.
End impunity now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
Sep. 20, 2009
Added:
Sep. 20, 2009
Arizona, USA
 |
|
Andrew Robles |
Missing Man Caught
After Sexually Assaulting Young Girl
Scottsdale police are seeking
a man wanted in connection with the sexual
assault of an 11-year-old girl...
Officers said Andrew Robles,
54, is wanted on a charge of sexual conduct
with a minor. Police said the girl was
staying at his home in the area of Granite
Reef and McDonald Drive.
Robles is Hispanic, about 5
feet 8 inches tall and weighs 190 pounds. He
has a mustache and a scar across the bridge
of his nose.
Investigators said he has
been known to disappear for days and weeks
on end and lives a transitory lifestyle.
People who know of his
whereabouts are asked to call Scottsdale
police at 480-312-5000.
KPHO
Sep. 18, 2009
Added:
Sep. 18, 2009
Mexico
 |
|
Jacinta Francisco
Marcial
Photo:
CIMAC Noticias |
Tras 37 Meses de Prisión, Liberan a Jacinta
Francisco
México, DF - Tras la
liberación el pasado 16 de septiembre de la
indígena otomí Jacinta Francisco Marcial,
acusada con otras dos mujeres del secuestro
de seis elementos de la Agencia Federal de
Investigación (AFI) en 2006 --por lo que
había sido sentenciada a 21 años de
prisión--, Amnistía Internacional (AI) hizo
un llamado a revisar completamente su
proceso y a que sea resarcida por el daño
causado por los tres años que permaneció en
la cárcel, así como a revisar el proceso
contra las coacusadas Alberta Alcántara y
Teresa González...
See Also:
Las Otras
Jacintas
"The 'Other' Jacintas"
CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
Mexico City
Sep. 17, 2009
See Also:
 |
|
Jacinta Francisco
Marcial, in her cell in San José
El Alto prison, Querétaro state,
Mexico, June
29,
2009
Photo:
Ricardo Ramírez
Arriola - Amnesty International |
Freedom for
Indigenous Mexican Woman Wrongly
Imprisoned for Three Years
Amnesty International welcomes the
release of Mexican prisoner of
conscience Jacinta Francisco Marcial,
who was held in prison for three years
after being falsely accused of
kidnapping six federal agents.
The mother of six, an Otomí Indigenous
woman from Santiago Mexquititlán in the
Mexican state of Querétaro, was
sentenced to 21 years' imprisonment in
December 2006.
Amnesty International is calling for a
full review into her unfounded
prosecution and for her to receive full
compensation for unfair and wrongful
imprisonment.
“The Mexican government has finally
recognized that there was never evidence
to justify Jacinta’s trial and
conviction of 21 years imprisonment on
charges of kidnapping,” said Kerrie
Howard, Americas Deputy Director at
Amnesty International...
The 46-year-old was released by the
judge presiding over the retrial
following an appeal won in her favour
earlier in 2009. The judge’s decision
was inevitable after the Federal
Attorney General’s Office announced that
it was dropping the case against Jacinta
due to lack of evidence.
Jacinta Francisco Marcial was convicted
of the kidnapping of six Mexican Federal
Investigation Agency (Agencia Federal de
Investigación, AFI) agents...
Amnesty International
Sep. 17, 2009
See Also:
Indigenous Mexican Woman Unfairly Accused of
Kidnapping Agents
A Mexican market stall holder accused of kidnapping
six federal agents has been adopted as a prisoner of
conscience by Amnesty International.
Mother of six Jacinta Francisco Marcial, 46, an
Otomí Indigenous woman from Santiago Mexquititlán,
Querétaro state, has been sentenced to 21 years in
prison.
Amnesty International said she has been denied a
fair trial and is in prison solely due to her
marginal status in society as a poor Indigenous
woman with limited access to justice. It has
demanded that the Mexican authorities release her
immediately and unconditionally...
"Jacinta's case is a scandal," said Rupert Knox,
Mexico Researcher at Amnesty International. "This is
a travesty of justice and a clear example of the
second class justice Indigenous People often receive
in Mexico.
"Jacinta's story shows how the Mexican criminal
justice system is being misused to unfairly
prosecute the most vulnerable. She has been targeted
because of her ethnicity, gender and social status,"
said Rupert Knox...
On July 17, 2009, the National Human Rights
Commission concluded that there were serious
irregularities and fabricated evidence in Jacinta's
case. Jacinta remains in prison pending the outcome
of a retrial.
Amnesty International
Aug. 18, 2009
Added:
Sep. 18, 2009
Brazil
Policía brasileña
desbarata red de pedofilia internacional
La policía brasileña detuvo este martes a siete
personas que integraban una red de pedofilia
internacional que operaba por internet desde 24
países, informó la prensa local.
En el marco de la operación Laio, contra la
producción y divulgación de imágenes sexuales de
niños y adolescentes, la Policía Federal (PF)
detuvo a seis hombres en el Estado de Sao Paulo
y uno en Minas Gerais...
Police
Dismantle International Pedophile Ring
Sao Paulo - As part of an
operation targeting the production and
dissemination of sexual images of children and
adolescents, Brazil's Federal Police (PF) have
arrested six men in the State of Sao Paulo and
one in Minas Gerais.
"The group distributed
pictures, and later began to produce them," said
the PF spokesperson Jesse Coelho.
"With court approval, our
officers posed posing as pedophiles and
connected with the group," added Coelho.
The investigation identified
11 pedophile suspects in Brazil and about 60 in
23 other countries. Coelho said that his agency
does not yet know the outcome of the operations
in other countries related to this case, which
were to be conducted on Tuesday.
Agence France-Presse (AFP)
Sep. 16, 2009
Attacker Tries To Take Girl From Mother In San
Rafael
A man tried to kidnap a 6-year-old girl who was
walking in San Rafael with her mother, police said
Thursday.
The incident occurred at 7:30 p.m. Sep. 4, but the
woman, shaken and afraid after the attack, did not
decide to report it until Thursday, said San Rafael
police Sgt. Jim Correa.
The woman told police the man approached while she
was walking with her daughter and 4-year-old son on
Mission Avenue near Union Street, near San Rafael
High School.
The man started to speak with them, but the mother
walked away with the children. Then the man ran
toward them and tried to take the girl away, Correa
said.
As the woman and the attacker struggled over the
child, the woman screamed and a bystander rushed to
help. The man fled and was last seen running on
Mission Avenue...
The man was described as Hispanic, 23 to 25 years
old and about 5 feet 10 inches tall. He had a heavy
build and a large belly, and wore a white shirt with
black lettering...
Anyone with information about the man can call
police directly at 485-3000 or place anonymous tips
with Bay Area Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS, which
is a multilingual call center...
Correa said the attack does not appear to be related
to an incident on Aug. 15, when a 12-year-old girl
said two men forced her into a car in Gerstle Park
and drove away with her. The girl said she was able
to get out of the car in the Bret Harte neighborhood
and walk home.
Gary Klien
Sep. 17, 2009
La Habra Teen Grabbed on Way
to School
Authorities today sought a man who grabbed a
16-year- old La Habra High School student as she
walked to school along some railroad tracks about a
half mile from the campus…
The man was described as Hispanic, in his 30s,
between 5 feet 8 and 5 feet 10, with short hair and
a stocky build, Knapp said. He was wearing a black
jacket, blue jeans, and black athletic shoes.
The assailant "approached her from behind, grabbing
her buttocks and then wrapping his arms around her
in a 'bear hug' fashion," Knapp said in a statement.
"The victim screamed loudly several times and the
subject released her," Knapp said. "The suspect then
fled the location running away from the victim and
down the tracks toward Beach Boulevard." …
Anyone with information about the case was urged to
call police at (562) 905-9750.
Al Naipo
FOX 11 News
Los Angeles, CA
Sep. 17, 2009
Added:
Sep. 17, 2009
Mexico
 |
|
Mexican Attorney
General nominee Arturo Chávez
Chávez
Photo: Notimex |
Senado Mexicano
Debate Propuesta de Nuevo Procurador
El Senado mexicano se enfrascó el lunes
en un debate inicial sobre los méritos
del hombre propuesto por el Ejecutivo
como nuevo procurador general, quien ha
recibido severas críticas de activistas
y organismos civiles por sus
cuestionados antecedentes como fiscal de
un estado que padeció el asesinato de
cientos de mujeres...
Mexican Senate Debates Attorney General
Nominee
On Monday the Mexican Senate began
initial discussions of the merits of the
man nominated by President Felipe Calderón
to be the nation's new attorney
general. Arturo Chávez
has received severe criticism from
activists and non-governmental
organizations for his history as the
head prosecutor in Chihuahua state,
where hundreds women have been
murdered...
The
Associated Press
Sep. 14,
2009
See also:
With New Attorney General,
Mexico Tries to Revamp Drug War
Mexico City - With a new
attorney general, Mexican President Felipe Calderon
is trying to get even tougher on drug cartels and
those who protect them.
But critics say he
tapped the wrong man for the job: Arturo Chavez was
mired in controversy as attorney general of a border
state where corruption ran rampant and hundreds of
women were raped and murdered with impunity...
During his 1996-98 term
as state attorney general, state police botched
investigations into the murders of hundreds of women
whose bodies turned up dead in the desert outside
Ciudad Juarez so badly that former President Vicente
Fox later had to send in federal prosecutors to take
over the cases.
Activists accused
Chihuahua state officials of torturing suspects,
contaminating and falsifying evidence and harassing
victims' relatives.
Chavez drew fire for suggesting the victims were
partly to blame "for wearing miniskirts."
He recommended women take karate classes and carry
pepper-spray.
"God help us," said
Victoria Caraveo, a women's activist in Ciudad
Juarez. "He did nothing when faced with this problem
in Juarez. What will he do as attorney general for
Mexico?" ...
Julie Watson
Olivia Torres
contributing
The Associated Press
Sep. 8, 2009
See also:
Barrio Terrazas: dejó atrás el
feminicidio y es embajador en Canadá
Las víctimas ocasionaron su
muerte, decía el ex gobernador
México DF, 16 enero 09 (CIMAC).-
México ratificó como embajador ante el Gobierno de
Canadá al hombre que afirmó que los asesinatos de
mujeres en Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua --más de 400
hasta hoy-- era una situación “natural”, en virtud
de que las víctimas caminaban por sitios oscuros y
“se vestían de manera provocativa” con minifaldas:
Francisco Javier Barrio Terrazas, del Partido Acción
Nacional
(PAN)...
Barrio Terrazas has Left
Femicide Behind and is Now Mexico's Ambassador to
Canada
Congress has confirmed Francisco Javier Barrio
Terrazas, of the National Action Party (PAN), as
ambassador to Canada. Barrio
Terrazas once declared that the murders of women in
Ciudad Juarez, in Chihuahua state - of which there
are over 400 to date - were "natural" because the
victims were walking in dark places and had dressed
provocatively in miniskirts...
[ Javier
Barrio
Barrio Terrazas was the Mayor
of Ciudad Juarez in the 1980s, and became Chihuahua
state's governor in 1992.]
Gladis Torres Ruiz
CIMAC Noticias
Jan. 18, 2009
See also:
LibertadLatina
Special Section
About the Femicide Murders and
Impunity in Ciudad Juarez and Other Regions of
Chihuahua State, Mexico
Added:
Sep. 16, 2009
Mexico
Critics Blast Work History
of Calderón's Choice to Lead Drug Battle [as
Attorney General]
Mexico City – President Felipe Calderón's choice
to lead the battle against drug traffickers is
under attack by critics who question the
nominee's previous work in the state of
Chihuahua.
Arturo Chávez Chávez is set to replace Eduardo
Medina Mora, who for nine years has been the
face of Mexico's campaign against traffickers.
In
announcing the change Monday, Calderón praised
Chávez, who faces a tough nomination fight in
the Mexican Congress.
...Critics in Chihuahua [state] and Ciudad
Juárez, the violent border city across from El
Paso, [Texas] took issue with Calderón's
assessment. They include Oscar Maynes, a former
forensics director for the state, and Esther
Chávez, director of Casa Amiga, which has
documented the killing and disappearance of
women in Juárez.
"If
there is one thing we're sure of in Chihuahua,
it is Chávez's incompetence," Maynes said. "This
is a very delicate time for Mexico - the
massacre of Juárez and Mexico is under way - and
Calderón names a person with a questionable
history. This is a sad, terrible mistake."
Once known as a beacon of democratic change,
Juárez is best known today as Mexico's murder
capital. More than 1,500 people have been killed
this year, including nearly 100 in the first
eight days of September. Nationwide, more than
5,000 people have been killed in drug violence.
Between 1992 and 1999, when Chávez worked in
different roles with the Chihuahua state
attorney general's office, the Juárez drug
cartel cemented its presence in the region and
the cases of hundreds of slain women came to
light...
Alfredo Corchado
The Dallas Morning News
Sep. 9, 2009
Added:
Sep. 15, 2009
Half the Sky
Turning Oppression into
Opportunity for Women Worldwide
Written by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
New book abstract:
From two of our most fiercely moral voices, a
passionate call to arms against our era’s most
pervasive human rights violation: the oppression
of women and girls in the developing world.
With Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas D. Kristof
and Sheryl WuDunn as our guides, we undertake an
odyssey through Africa and Asia to meet the
extraordinary women struggling there, among them
a Cambodian teenager sold into sex slavery and
an Ethiopian woman who suffered devastating
injuries in childbirth. Drawing on the breadth
of their combined reporting experience, Kristof
and WuDunn depict our world with anger, sadness,
clarity, and, ultimately, hope...
Random House
Sep., 2009
Added:
Sep. 14, 2009
The World
 |
|
Report co-author and Chief
Executive of the Australian
NGO
Child
Wise, Bernadette
McMenamin |
One Million Children Trafficked for Sexual
Exploitation: Report
A new report on
child sex slavery says nearly 80 percent of all
global trafficking is for sexual exploitation.
The End Child
Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking
(ECPAT)report released today says an estimated
1.2 million children are trafficked for sexual
exploitation or cheap labor every year.
The report says the
proportion of minors involved in all forms of
human trafficking has increased between 2003 and
2007, from 15 per cent to 22 per cent.
Co-author of the
report and Chief Executive of Child Wise,
Bernadette McMenamin says there's also concern
the global recession could result in a rise in
child sex trafficking.
"There is new
anecdotal evidence coming from many countries
including Asia and the Pacific where we're
seeing more children entering or being sold into
prostitution because there are less jobs around
- there are less opportunities for education,"
she said.
"And the global
economic crisis has definitely increased this
problem. So governments have paid a lot of lip
service to this problem, they've signed
declarations, they've introduced laws, etc etc,
but they're not working."
The study is part of
a global campaign involving 45 countries, aimed
at raising awareness about the scale of the
child sex trade.
Reuters
Sep. 14, 2009
Added:
Sep. 14, 2009
The World
|
|
|
U.S. Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton |
Clinton Urges Crackdown on
Human Trafficking
Vienna, Austria -
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
warns that human trafficking is flourishing in
the shadows of the global economic downturn.
Clinton gave a video
address to an international conference in Vienna
examining the scourge of forced labor, sexual
slavery and other forms of exploitation. She
says urgent steps are needed to crack down on
traffickers.
Clinton says she has
seen the suffering firsthand: girls in Thailand
who were trafficked as young children and are
now dying of AIDS, and mothers in Eastern Europe
whose daughters have vanished.
She warns that "new
economic pressures are likely to aggravate the
problem further."
Clinton's speech
Monday kicked off a two-day conference of the
Organization of Security and Cooperation in
Europe.
The Associated
Press
Sep. 14, 2009
Added:
Sep. 15, 2009
LibertadLatina
Commentary
|
|
|
Chuck Goolsby |
Give
Latin America and Especially its
At-Risk Indigenous
Peoples a Seat at the Table in the Global Fight
Against Gender Oppression
Three recent news stories that have been
prominently covered by the press include: U.S.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's call to
crackdown on human slavery; a new report by
Australia's Bernadette McMenamin and End Child
Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking (ECPAT),
identifying 1.2 million children as being made
the victims of global sex trafficking each year;
and a new book, Half the Sky, by Pulitzer
Prize winners and New York Times veteran couple
Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, which
presents views of the crisis of mass gender
oppression in Asia and Africa.
All of these events are important .
They
will no doubt raise awareness about modern human
slavery. That consciousness raising is an
important element in helping to build the public
pressure that will allow truly effective action
to be taken to end modern slavery.
The common theme across all of the above-listed
events is an emphasis on addressing the gender
rights crisis in Asia, and to a lesser extent in
Eastern Europe and Africa. While these regions
of the world do have critical women's human
rights emergencies to contend with, Latin
America is also one of the world's most serious
hotspots for modern human slavery and gender
exploitation with impunity.
We have previously called out the fact that the
modern human trafficking movement in western
nations started in the 1990s when the former
Soviet Union disbanded, causing widespread sex
trafficking to occur in Eastern Europe. In fact,
Latin American women and girls had been sex
trafficked into the U.S. for decades prior to
these events, with no visible reaction from the
women's movement in the West. Some aspects of
the same problem, that of looking at gender
exploitation issues through a lens that ignores
Latin America, continue to concern us.
During a recent edition of the U.S.-based,
nationally broadcast Diane Rehm Show, from WAMU
public radio in Washington, DC, authors
Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn discussed
their new book, Half the Sky, that focuses on
the mass rapes, sex trafficking and other forms
of gender oppression facing women in Africa and
Asia.
I called-in to the show, and mentioned that
currently, Latin America, and specifically
Mexico were, in addition to Asia, Africa and
Europe, also hot spots for the oppression of
women that need public attention. I mentioned
that: 1) Hundreds of thousands of women and
girls have been forced into prostitution in
Mexico; 2) that Save the Children has identified
southern Mexico as being the largest region in
the world for the commercial sexual exploitation
of children; and 3) that all along the southern
border of Mexico, an estimated 450 to 600 women
and girls are raped each and every day as they
attempt to migrate from South and Central
America to the U.S.
In response,
Nicholas Kristof stated that he had done a
minimal amount of work looking into Latin
America, but that in his view, India was that
largest hot spot in the world for sex
trafficking. He added that women prostitutes are
"bred" - and that their children are also forced
into prostitution.
Kristof mentioned that women trapped in
prostitution in India are often caged, and are
at times killed by their enslavers.
Sheryl WuDunn went on to acknowledge that Mexico
was a growing problem that needed to be
addressed. But, she said, something has to be
done about India before it grows even further
out of control.
We agree that India, the rest of Asia, Africa
and Eastern Europe are crisis hot spots for the
oppression of women and modern human
trafficking. That is not in dispute. That does
not mean that Latin America should be ignored as
yet another critical issue.
We call upon the mainstream media and the U.S.
administration of President Barack Obama to
address the fact that the crisis of sex
trafficking, labor slavery and other severe
forms of the oppression of women in Latin
America constitute a regional emergency, and
that many of the region's governments, such as
that of Mexico, actually aid and abet criminal
sex traffickers through their political stances,
and by way of their actions and acts of
omission.
Importantly, indigenous and African descendant
peoples are made highly vulnerable to these
abuses by a long history of continuing racial
prejudice across Latin America, and especially
in Mexico.
Many statistics can be presented to show that
Latin America has a number of child and adult
women victims of sexual exploitation that is
roughly equivalent to the numbers of victims
seen today in Asia. It is well known that the
sex trafficking 'industry' 'mines' victims in
Latin America as if they were coal in the
ground, to be exploited locally or sent across
the world to a life of torture and death in
sexual slavery.
This ugly reality, one that continues to be
partially hidden by the fuedal 'code of silence'
that the misogynist 'El
Yunque' movement and other
ultraconservative, pro-feudal and pro-machismo
forces promote in Mexico and the rest of Latin
America, must be acknowledged by the movement to
end modern slavery. Based on that knowledge, we
as civilized societies and governments must
stand-up and take action to end the mass gender
atrocities that plague this region of the world.
Neither the modern anti-slavery movement nor the
government entities that have been created to
fight human trafficking in the Americas are
set-up to address the problem of dealing with
nations that actually support modern
human slavery, directly or indirectly.
It is apparent from a number of political
stances and actions taken by the administration
of President Felipe Calderón that Mexico is in
fact such a nation.
Is the global anti-trafficking movement ready to
tackle the ultraconservative, misogynist and
apparently pro-trafficking El Yunque movement,
who hold significant power as a dominant faction
of the ruling National Action Party (PAN)?
Does the anti-trafficking movement understand
that a Mexico that is governed by the PAN will
likely never lift a single finger to actually
attempt to end the labor and sexual slavery that
Mexico has relied-upon to sustain its economy
for hundreds of years?
Significant international pressure must be put
on the PAN to require it to change its course.
Pro-women's rights activists in Mexico must also
be supported in ways that send a message to the
PAN and to
El Yunque (who's Falangist
fanaticism literally views all social activists,
including women's rights advocates as the
children of Satan),
that their violations of international norms
governing the human rights of women will not be
tolerated.
The victims, and those who are at risk in Latin
America cannot await the procrastination of the
United Nations, the Organization of American
States and the United States Government in
regard to these issues.
Women, girls and other victims of modern slavery
and other forms of gender and race-based
criminal exploitation in Latin America deserve
our immediate attention.
There is just no excuse for allowing
these horrors to continue uncontested.
End
impunity now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
Sep. 15, 2009
Updated Sep. 17, 2009
Added:
Sep. 14, 2009
Illinois, USA
 |
|
Sketch of
attempted child abduction
suspect |
Police seek offender in
attempted abduction on Far North Side
Police have issued a
community alert following the attempted
abduction of a 10-year-old girl last week in the
East Rogers Park neighborhood on the North
Side...
The girl was
crossing the alley when a man driving a white
pickup passed by and told the girl to get into
his truck for a ride home. The girl reported the
incident to a citizen standing nearby and the
offender fled in an unknown direction.
The offender is
described as a Hispanic man 35-45 with a
mustache and a dark complexion. He was wearing a
baseball cap and spoke only Spanish to the
victim. The vehicle is described as a white
pickup with a black strip, the alert said. It
has a wood board surrounding the cab of the
truck, which may be used for scrap or junk
collecting...
Anyone with
information should call Bemont Area detectives
at (312) 744-8200.
Sun Times News
Group
Sep. 14, 2009
Added:
Sep. 14, 2009
Border Mothers Angry Over
Mexican Nominee for Attorney General
Ciudad Juarez,
Mexico - A group of women whose daughters were
murdered in a violent Mexican border city are
protesting President Felipe Calderon's choice
for new attorney general.
Protesters say the
nominee, Arturo Chavez, did little to solve
dozens of rapes and murders of women in Ciudad
Juarez when he was Chihuahua state attorney
general from 1996 to 1998.
About 25 women
picketed Wednesday outside the federal attorney
general's office in Ciudad Juarez, across from
El Paso, Texas.
Ester Luna, whose
15-year-old daughter was killed in 1997, said
Chavez "didn't care about those killings, (so)
what makes him fit for this post?"
Chavez was
nominated... to replace Attorney General Eduardo
Medina-Mora.
The Associated
Press
Sep. 09, 2009
Added:
Sep. 14, 2009
...[The] PAN [National Action
Party], like the Republican Party north of the
border, has come to rely heavily on a religious
right “base” to turn out the vote. As happened
in the United States, this has ended up costing
the party in general elections, but unlike the
Republicans, PAN is showing signs of being
willing to jettison the narrow interests of that
base in return for a chance to maintain more
than a regional dominance. Eduardo Medina-Moro
Icaza — a stalwart in the piety wing of the
party, and said to have close ties to the
shadowy Catholic fascist group, El Yunque, is
out as Procurador General (Attorney General)...
The
Mex Files
Sep. 09, 2009
Added:
Sep. 14, 2009
Mexico, The
United States
[More background on
the 'El Yunque' movement in Mexico]
‘Purge Anti-Semites from
Mexican Government Before Giving U.S. Military
Aid’ Friends of Brad Will Tells Congress
Denouncing the appointments of members of El
Yunque, an ultra-right anti-semitic movement, to
the highest levels of the Mexican government,
Friends of Brad Will has told key [U.S.]
Democratic Party leaders to reject the Bush
military aid package called the Merida
Initiative. Friends of Brad Will is a
non-government organization advocating for
accountability for the murder of U.S. journalist
Brad Will, who
was killed by Mexican government paramilitaries
in October, 2006.
Members of the group have spoken with the
powerful Democrat Chairs of the Congressional
Subcommittees on Foreign Operations and on
Western Hemispheric Affairs, warning that
President Bush’s proposed
Merida Initiative would arm a Mexican
Administration that has recently appointed
members of El Yunque, who advocate
discrimination against women, homosexuals, and
Jews,
to top posts. Friends of Brad Will
noted the initiative would risk the democratic
advances made by Mexico since the ending of
one-party rule...
An investigative piece by journalist and
feminist activist Irene Ortiz published in the
January/February 2008 issue of NACLA [North
American Congress on Latin America] Report on
the Americas, ‘Putting
Down Roots: The Latin American Right Today‘
details the history of the secretive
organization dedicated to ‘eternal combat (with)
the forces of Judaism, Masonry and Communism’.
Excerpt:
|
Building the
City of God: Mexico's Ultra-Right
Yunque [PDF]
…The Yunque has positioned itself
not only against critical,
independent movements of the left
(movements for indigenous rights and
autonomy, reproductive rights,
feminism in general, rights for
sexual minorities, independent
unionism, independent neighborhood
movements) but also against most of
the long-standing institutions of
the secular state (religious
pluralism; public education and the
teachers who carry it out; and
organizing/activity by students,
labor, campesinos and urban
residents…).
The Yunque sees itself not as a
conservative group trying to
preserve some version of the status
quo (nor even some Mexican status
quo ante) but as a radical
organization out to overturn “the
system.” It is very much on the
cutting edge of the radical right: a
movement to overthrow a godless,
secular state, and to replace it
with a theocratic (Catholic) state.
That explains its current anger at
Calderon’s pragmatic, opportunistic
[political] shift...
Irene Ortiz
NACLA Reports
Jan. / Feb. 2008 |
Alvaro Delgado, who published a book on El
Yunque in 2003, used the group’s written
internal communi-cations and the testimonies of
members and deserters, to expose its
determination to “create the City of God in
accordance with the Gospels”...
Friends of Brad
Will
April 17, 2008
The Raging Storm Over
Mexico's New Attorney General
If Arturo Chavez
Chavez is confirmed as Mexico's new Attorney
General, the lawyer from the state of Chihuahua
will be in a pivotal role to influence, steer
and direct the binational, anti-drug Merida
Initiative between the United States and Mexico,
as well as an expanded version with Canada and
other nations, in the drug war.
As Mexico's chief
law enforcement officer, Chavez will also be in
charge of federal prosecutions for human
trafficking, women's murders, product piracy,
and environmental crimes, among others.
But President Felipe
Calderon's nomination of Chavez, to replace
Eduardo Medina-Mora, has stirred up a storm of
controversy.
Women's and human
rights organizations, and members of opposition
political parties, reject Chavez. They accuse
the controversial lawyer of covering up the mass
murders of women and the disappearances of many
men in Ciudad Juarez, as well as helping to
fabricate a scapegoat, the late Egyptian
national Abdel Latif Sharif Sharif, in the
border femicides.
"This is a bad piece
of news," said Paula Flores, mother of 1998
Ciudad Juarez femicide victim Sagrario Gonzalez.
"It could be more of a political favor, because
Chavez is a member of the PAN (National Action
Party) and President Calderon is a member of the
PAN."
Mexican press accounts allege Chavez concealed
from the public a series of 1996-97 armed
robberies in Chihuahua that could be linked to
the PAN and a clandestine ultra-conservative
organization, El Yunque, which promotes a
[misogynist] Catholic theocracy as the solution
to Mexico's crisis...
In his different
capacities, Chavez was among the first state law
enforcement officials to oversee the
investigations of numerous sex-related slayings
in Ciudad Juarez, as well as the kidnappings of
men (and some women) said to have fallen out
with the dominant drug cartel. Both the women's
and men's murder investigations were
characterized by indifference, irregularities,
lost files and evidence, threats against
victims' family members, and no credible
prosecutions, in spite of credible leads.
In 1998, Mexico's
National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) issued
its Recommendation #44/98 that held Chavez and
other Chihuahua state officials responsible for
bungling the femicide investigations. Later
probes by the Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights, Amnesty International, the United
Nations, and others reached similar conclusions.
In another matter,
Chavez's office was also found responsible by
the official Chihuahua State Human Rights
Commission for violating the human rights of
indigenous members of the Monterde Ejido who
were brutally attacked by the Chihuahua state
police while conducting an anti-logging protest
in 1997...
Frontera NorteSur
Sep. 14, 2009
See also:
LibertadLatina
Commentary
The federal government of Mexico as well as a number
of state governments have been very active in recent
years in reversing the basic human rights of women
and people of non-European ancestry. We have covered
the mass gender atrocities that continually affect
poor women of all ethnicities, with a focus on the
horrendous abuses that indigenous women face. The
ruling National Action Party (PAN) has been the
unashamed author of these acts, and their forces
continue to attack equality for women as if it were
a national security threat.
PAN officials have publicly declared that women
victims of mass murder in Ciudad Juarez caused their
own deaths because they wore "immodest" clothing and
walked in bad parts of town. PAN city officials have
attempted to ban the wearing of short skirts,
low-cut blouses and kissing in public.
PAN activists have criminalized all forms of
abortion in 14 states, and have also made the use of
some forms of contraception illegal. With the most
recent congressional elections, the PAN and their
allies in the Institutional Revolutionary Party
stand ready to pass national legislation banning
abortion under all circumstances, a feat that has
already been accomplished in Nicaragua.
At the same time, the PAN's leader, President Felipe
Calderón, intentionally delayed publishing the
regulations for the nation's first human trafficking
law for over a year, and then made sure that the
final version of the regulations were watered down
and did not allow inter-agency coordination of
anti-slavery efforts.
The PAN has no objections to current state laws that
consider incest to be a voluntary act between the
parties, which subjects victimized children to
criminal prosecution and exposes them to the same
types of sentencing that an adult victimizer faces.
Under this system, even the limited right of rape
victims to abortion that still exists in some states
cannot apply to the case of a child impregnated by a
family member, because such acts of incest are not
legally considered to be rape.
President Felipe Calderón also resists having
members of the armed services come under civilian
criminal justice jurisdiction when they are accused
(as they often are) of having raped and even
murdered Mexican civilian women in rural areas where
they patrol. This form of impunity especially
impacts the lives of countless indigenous women,
who, when they see that the judicial system does not
react by providing them with justice, suffer these
sexual crimes in silence, afraid to raise their
voices to the corrupt public servants who refuse to
serve them because they are women, and because they
are indigenous. It has been that way in Mexico for
500 years.
In the Mexico City suburb of San Salvador de Atenco
in May of 2006, 30 police officers raped and
sodomized 26 women who they had arrested at a
protest. Only after worldwide condem-nation over a
period of three years did prosecutors in FEVIMTRA,
the PAN controlled special prosecutor's office to
combat violent crimes against women and human
trafficking - choose to call the officers
responsible into court to answer for their crimes.
Lydia Cacho, an award-winning author, journalist and
champion of children and women's human rights, was
kidnapped, threatened with rape, tortured and
unjustly jailed in retaliation for exposing wealthy,
politically connected child sex traffickers in the
resort city of Cancun. When the Puebla state police
agents responsible for these crimes were taken to
state court, FEVIMTRA announced that they had 'lost'
the files related to Cacho's case. FEVIMTRA also
refused to conduct a federal prosecution, the normal
practice in cases of suspected state-level
corruption.
In May of 2009 a PAN city councilman in Mexico City
demanded that
Father Rafael López Muñiz, who had been arrested as
a ringleader in a major child pornography ring, be
released from pre-trial detention. Many PAN party
activists also held rallies to advocate for Father
López Muñiz' release.
Some 450 to 600 Central and South American women are
systematically raped as they migrate across Mexico's
southern border each day, as police forces not only
do nothing to protect them or arrest any of the
'trolling serial rapists,' but at-times they
actively participate in these crimes. The southern
border region of Mexico has been identified by Save
the Children as the largest region condoning the
commercial sexual exploitation of children the
entire world. Yet in response to these horrors, PAN
activist and head of the National Institute for
Migration (INM) Cecilia Romero has declared that
criminal pedophile networks, sex trafficking and the
abuses of migrants are simply inevitable evils of
mankind that cannot be stopped in Mexico.
Finally, the federal General Law on Women's Access
to a Life Free of Violence has not been effectively
implemented at the state level, a development that
also apparently had can be attributed to the PAN's
lack of enthusiasm for the measure.
We do not know if the PAN is infiltrated by the
ultra-conservative Catholic El Yunque secret
society, as
Álvaro Delgado, reporter for Mexico's
Progreso Magazine and others have alleged.
What we do know is that the PAN has repeatedly shown
itself to engage in activities that reverse women's
basic rights, with a special focus on maintaining
the state of virtual slavery in which poor
indigenous women continue to live across Mexico.
The PAN has established itself as a leader in the
movement to promote the continued existence and
empowerment of the concept of machismo, that views
women as being literally inferior to men, and
indigenous women as being less than full human
beings. Its policies are having a negative impact in
Mexico, which can be seen by all.
It is the responsibility of the civilized world, and
that means civil society (the general public and its
diverse non-profit organizations), religious
institutions (and especially the main-stream
Catholic Church), governments around the globe, and
intergovernmental organizations to stand up
and confront the PAN on its policies.
There is no justification for allowing the PAN
government of Mexico to continue to permit mass
gender atrocities to be the accepted mainstream of
social and government behavior in a modern state.
If the PAN continues to behave like the Taliban, and
wants to be known as a modern
Falangist TaliPAN,
then the civilized world must stand up and sanction
Mexico for its promotion of mass gender atrocities
and repression of equal rights for women.
We propose a global human rights protest and boycott
movement to put an economic and political dent in
the PAN's assumption that they can violate the human
rights of the innocent with impunity.
We also propose that the U.S. government run by the
Obama Administration take a second look at U.S.
foreign aid and military funding. Most U.S. citizens
can agree that U.S. tax dollars should not fund
state-sponsored mass gender atrocities against
women!!!
End impunity now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
Sep. 14, 2009
See also:
About El Yunque
The National Organization of the
Anvil, or simply El Yunque (The Anvil), is
the name of a secret society of Mexican regional
character... whose purpose, according to the
reporter Alvaro Delgado, "is to defend the Catholic
religion and fight the forces of Satan, whether
through violence or murder "and establish" the
kingdom of God in the land that is subject to the
Mexican Government, to the mandates of the Catholic
Church, through the infiltration of all its members
at the highest levels of political power.
Wealthy businessmen and
politicians (mostly from the
National Action Party)
have been named as alleged founders and members of
The Anvil...
According to its critics, the secret organization of
El Yunque was supposedly paramilitary in nature,
performing its actions (including political
assassination) mostly through a set of front
organizations, and, according to the magazine
"Contralinea", this included the student
organization MURO at the
National Autonomous University
of Mexico in the 1960s. Over time,
the organization supposedly evolved and began
working towards the establishment of what critics
call "a fascist" government in Mexico achieving its
goals through more conventional political means.
Wikipedia.com
See also:
Critics Say Secret Society Has Infiltrated Mexican
Government
Despite denials, critics say hard-liners have
infiltrated ruling party
Mexico City - It sounds
like a Hollywood thriller.
A secret organization
born in the Cold War and determined to overthrow an
authoritarian government outlives the regime and
instead begins to undermine a democratically elected
administration in hopes of installing a modern
theocracy.
Luis Paredes Moctezuma,
the former mayor of Puebla in central Mexico, said
that very scenario exists in the administration of
President Felipe Calderón and the National Action
Party, or PAN. He asserted that the party has been
slowly infiltrated by the radical group over
decades.
Mr. Paredes, a PAN
member, said he spent three decades in the secret
group El Yunque, or The Anvil, and participated in
an ongoing conspiracy "to restore the rule of God"
through an ultraconservative Roman Catholic
government.
"El Yunque is more
dangerous than the narcos," Mr. Paredes said,
referring to the government's struggle to recover
large swaths of Mexico from drug cartels. Hundreds
of Yunque members are now in the bureaucracy, and
they control four state governments, he said.
Mr. Paredes said El
Yunque established cells in the U.S. 15 years ago,
as university-educated professionals migrated and
put down roots. "They're in Dallas, in Boston, in
Washington, D.C., in Los Angeles, in Miami," he
said...
Laurence Iliff
The Dallas Morning
News
July 9, 2007
See also:
El Yunque, la ultraderecha en
el poder
The Anvil - The
Extreme Right in Power
Habla el reportero Álvaro Delgado
sobre El Yunque, una organización secreta de extrema
derecha que opera en México y tiene raíces
católicas...
Noticieros Televisa
June 21, 2004
Operativo contra la trata en
Sechura rescata a 8 menores de edad
Piura - En una intervención policial realizada el 1
de septiembre en la provincia piurana de Sechura a
15 cantinas se identificó a ocho menores de edad que
eran víctimas de la trata y la prostitución
infantil...
Anti-Trafficking Operation
Rescues 8 Underage Youth in Sechura
Piura - During a raid on 15 bars carried out on
September 1st in the [northwestern
Peruvian] city of Sechura, police identified eight
underage youth who were the victims of trafficking
and child prostitution.
The operation, led by General Walter Rivera, found
girls between 13 and 16 who were working as
waitresses and were forced to exercise prostitution.
Prosecutors ordered these victims to be sent to a
shelter. Their relatives where informed.
The victims apparently were trafficked from the
eastern Peruvian Amazon province of Bagua. They were
recruited with offers of work as waitresses and
nannies with a salary of between 200 and 400 nuevos
soles [US$63 to $126].
The head of the Municipal Defender of Children and
Adolescents (DEMUNA) in Sechura, Nelly Chapa, is
doing legal work to arrange for the girls’
safekeeping. Police made no arrests during the
operation, although they have summoned the owners of
the bars, My Betty, My Jungle, My Cinthia, Blue Sea
and Las Delicias.
Leoncio Rumiche
Radio Cutivalú (Piura)
Sep. 11, 2009
Brownsville Couple Pleads Guilty In Sex Trafficking
Case
A Brownsville couple has
pleaded guilty to running a sex trafficking ring
that brought women and teenage girls into the United
States for prostitution.
Juan Luis Coronado and
Lee Ann Zieger appeared before U.S. District Court
Judge Hilda Tagle in Brownsville on Wednesday.
Coronado pleaded guilty
to smuggling a teenage girl into the United States
for prostitution.
Zeiger pleaded guilty to
two counts of harboring illegal immigrants for
prostitution.
Prosecutors told Action
4 News that the prostitutes were housed in a
Brownsville hotel where 40-year-old Zieger was the
manager and Coronado used a room key labeled
“Property Manager”...
U.S. Immigration &
Customs Enforcement agents launched an investigation
after a prostitute working for Coronado was found
accompanying a 14-year-old illegal immigrant at the
Gateway International Bridge in Brownsville back in
October.
KGBT 4
Sep. 11, 2009
Added:
Sep. 13, 2009
Texas, USA
 |
|
Wanted: Ezequiel
Moreno |
Kidnap, Sex Assault Suspect
[Mistakenly] Released From Dallas County Jail
Despite High Bail
A man accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl
in 2008 and then plotting her kidnapping last week
was released from jail despite a judge's order that
he be held on more than $1 million bail.
Authorities were searching Monday for Ezequiel
Moreno, 45, to rearrest him after he posted $100,000
bail early Saturday on charges that he planned a
failed plot to take the girl and her mother from
Dallas to the Mexican border.
Dallas County Jail officials apparently were not
informed of state District Judge Andy Chatham's
order two days earlier that bail on the two sexual
assault charges be raised to more than $1 million in
an effort by police and prosecutors to keep Moreno
behind bars...
A $5,000 reward is being offered for information
leading to Moreno's arrest.
He is Hispanic, 5 feet, 7 inches tall and weighs 140
pounds.
Anyone with information can call police at
214-767-6700 or 214-671-3584.
Moreno's girlfriend, Rosemary Garza Inocencio, 39,
and her cousin, Michael Garcia, 40, are accused of
carrying out the kidnapping plot last week. Police
say they handcuffed and kidnapped the 16-year-old
girl and her mother from a Far North Dallas shopping
center by pretending to be federal immigration
officers...
The teen said she does not plan to go back to school
until Moreno is caught.
"I feel like I'm a prisoner in my own house," said
the girl, who is not being named because The Dallas
Morning News typically does not identify victims of
sexual assault.
"I feel real unsafe, and I just want him to pay for
what he did," she said.
Scott Goldstein Jennifer Emily
The Dallas Morning News
Sep. 01, 2009
Added:
Sep. 12, 2009
Mexico
 |
|
Women textile
workers in Mexico |
Trabajadoras en México Recurren a la
Prostitución Ocasional por Crisis
Aguascalientes, México - Obreras y empleadas
mexicanas recurren a la prostitución
ocasional como actividad paralela ante la
crisis económica, en el estado de
Aguascalientes (centro), donde líderes
sindicales y ONG empiezan a alzar la voz...
Women Workers Resort to
Occasional Prostitution to Survive the Economic
Crisis
Aguascalientes, Mexico - Mexican women workers are occasionally
resorting to prostitution as a part time source of
income during the economic crisis in the state of
Aguascalientes. In response, union leaders and
non-governmental organizations are beginning to
speak-out on the issue...
Women workers in Aguascalientes state hold jobs in
important industrial activities such as automotive,
electronics, auto parts and textile manufacturing,
among others. A large number of women in the city
are involved in manufacturing blue jeans. They earn
an average of 600 pesos a week (about US$44).
"The truth is that if I do it (engage in
prostitution), it is not every week, but one or two
times a month, because I have two children and my
husband left me six years ago, and by doing this I
earn about 300 pesos (20 dollars) more," said
Jazmin, a young worker at a textile company...
"This is an issue that instead of highlighting us
should focus on our employers and government
officials and make them feel ashamed. While they eat
high on the hog, we women have to do things like
this [prostitution] just to be able to eat [at
all],” added a poultry worker...
The
new phenomenon is less perceptible in [local] red
light districts, because "we do it with co-workers
or with men we contact through them," said one of
the workers...
Full English Translation
Agence France-Presse (AFP)
Sep. 11, 2009
Cárcel para promotores de
turismo sexual
En primera votación, el Congreso de la República
aprobó la Ley General del Turismo, que contempla una
pena carcelaria no menor de cuatro años ni mayor de
ocho para quienes publiciten o promuevan la
explotación sexual comercial de menores de edad en
el ámbito turístico...
New Law Includes Prison for
Promoters of Child Sex Tourism
On the first vote, Peru’s Congress approved the
General Law of Tourism, which provides for a prison
sentence... for those who advertise or promote the
commercial sexual exploitation of minors in relation
to tourism.
The penalty would apply to any person who creates
brochures or other printed media, or audio visual,
electronic, magnetic or Internet materials in order
to offer commercial sexual relations with minors.
The penalty for exploiting teens who are between 14
and 18 years of age will be a prison sentence of not
less than four years nor more than eight. If the
victim is less than 14-years-of-age, the sentence is
six and eight years. If the offender is a parent,
guardian, public authority or teacher of the victim,
the penalty is a term of between eight and 10 years.
The law also requires tourism service providers to
disseminate and publicize rules designed to prevent
and punish the commercial sexual exploitation of
children and adolescents, and the use of drugs.
Moreover, the Act provides for the need to approve
and update the nation's Strategic Plan for Tourism…
www.losandes.com.pe/
Sep. 11, 2009
Police: Man Attacking Women Near Fair Oaks Becoming
More Violent
Fairfax County police worry a man attacking women
walking alone in the dark just north of Fair Oaks
Mall is becoming more violent.
The attacker has gone from assaulting with just his
hands to wielding a knife, and investigators say the
quick escalation is a dangerous sign of what might
come...
"Our concern is that these type of attacks tend to
escalate," said Fairfax County police spokesman Bud
Walker. "We can already see he's escalated from the
first to second attack, so we want everyone in that
area to be aware and on the lookout."
On Sunday night, the attacker, who is described as a
Hispanic man with curly black hair, approached a
56-year-old woman... authorities said. After the
victim fended him off, the attacker fled toward West
Ox Road.
On Wednesday night, he went after a much younger
target, grabbing an 18-year-old woman from behind
and threatening her with a knife before the victim
broke free. The attacker ran off, heading toward
Monument Drive...
"We want to get him off the street before there's a
third attack," Walker said. "Who knows what he will
do on a third attack."
Anyone with information on these cases should call
Crime Solvers at 1-866-411-TIPS(8477) or Fairfax
County police at 703-691-2131.
Freeman Klopott
The Examiner
Sep. 11, 2009
Guatemalan Army Stole Children
For Adoption, Report Says
The
Guatemalan army stole at least 333 children and sold
them for adoption in other countries during the
Central American nation's 36-year civil war, a
government report has concluded...
Many of those children ended up in the United
States, as well as Sweden, Italy and France, said
the report's author and lead investigator, Marco
Tulio Alvarez.
In
some cases, the report said, parents were killed so
the children could be taken and given to
government-operated agencies to be adopted abroad.
In other instances, the children were abducted
without physical harm to the parents.
"This was a great abuse by the state," Alvarez told
CNN on Friday.
Alvarez acknowledges that many more children
possibly were taken. Investigators zeroed in on the
1977-89 period because peak adoptions occurred
during that time frame, particularly in 1986. They
will investigate through 1995 and hope to have
another report ready by early next year, he said.
A
presidential ministry has determined that about
45,000 people disappeared during the nation's civil
war, which lasted from 1960 to 1996. About 5,000 of
those were children, the ministry said. Another
200,000 people died in the conflict between the
leftist guerrillas and right-wing governments...
Guatemala
has the world's highest per capita rate of adoption
and is one of the leading providers of adoptive
children for the United States. Nearly one in 100
babies born in Guatemala end up with adoptive
parents in the United States, according to the U.S.
consulate in Guatemala...
CNN
Sep. 12, 2009
Added:
Sep. 11, 2009
Guatemala
 |
|
Closeup of a
community mural scene, showing a
1980's military massacre of women
and children in the Mayan town of
Comalapa, Guatemala.
From a short film
by
Ian Ramsey North |
Guatemalan Soldiers Sold
Children in War - Government
Guatemala City - At least 333 children and probably
thousands more were taken by Guatemalan security
forces and sold abroad during the country's 36-year
civil war, a government report said on Thursday.
Soldiers and police killed children's parents, lied
about how they had been found and handed them to
state-run homes for sale to adoptive parents in the
United States and Europe, said the report, which was
based on government archives.
The archives in the Guatemalan presidency's social
welfare department show hundreds of children whose
parents were killed by the army or who were
forcefully taken from their families and were put up
for adoption with false papers.
"Some of the people involved in organizing these
adoptions made the process into a very lucrative
business for themselves, and with that in mind they
gave priority to international adoptions," Marco
Tulio Alvarez, the report's author and the director
of the archives, told a news conference.
By the end of the war in 1996, Guatemala was the
second largest source of children adopted
internationally after China, but numbers have
dropped after the government tightened regulations
in 2007...
Around 250,000 people, mostly indigenous Mayan
Indians, died in the war between successive
right-wing governments and leftist insurgents, which
ended with the signing of UN-backed peace accords in
1996.
Human rights groups hope that dozens of people could
be prosecuted based on the new report. There may be
thousands more cases but little paperwork survives
as proof...
|
Sarah Grainger
Reuters
Sep. 11, 2009 |
 |
|
Photo: Prensa Libre |
Condenan a 150 Años de
Prisión a Ex Comisionado Militar
El
primer juicio por desaparición forzada en el
país concluyó ayer con la condena de 150 años de
prisión contra el ex comisionado militar Felipe
Cusanero Coj, hallado culpable de la
desaparición forzada de seis personas...
Aura Elena Farfán, de Familiares de
Detenidos-Desaparecidos, expresó: “En el país
hay 45 mil personas desaparecidas, y esta
condena es un precedente para continuar la lucha
en busca de nuestros seres queridos”.
En el juicio estuvieron presentes los
embajadores de Holanda y de Chile, quienes
expresaron su beneplácito por la sentencia.
Former Paramilitary
Officer is Sentenced to 150 Years in Prison
The
first trial involving a case of forced
disappearance in Guatemala [during the
1980's-1090s civil war] has concluded with a 150
year prison sentence for former military
commissioner Felipe Cusanero Coj, who was found
guilty of causing the forced disappearances of 6
people...
Aura Elena Farfán, from the group Families of
the Detained and Disappeared, stated, "In our
nation there are 45,000 disappeared persons.
This sentence sets a precedence for continuing
our struggle to find our loved ones.
The
Ambassadors of Chile and Holland to Guatemala
were present at the trial, and expressed their
approval of the conviction and sentence...
Prensa Libre
Aug. 31, 2009
See also:
Added:
Sep. 11, 2009
Guatemala Sees Landmark
Sentence
A
Guatemalan court has sentenced an ex-paramilitary
officer to 150 years in prison for the forced
disappearance of civilians in the civil war.
Felipe Cusanero, found guilty over the disappearance
in the 1980s of six indigenous Maya farmers, is the
first person to be jailed for such crimes.
Human rights groups have hailed the verdict as a
breakthrough in the fight against impunity in
Guatemala.
Some
250,000 people were killed in the 36-year conflict,
which ended in 1996.
The
court in Chimaltenango, about 40km (25 miles) west
of Guatemala City, was packed as the judges read
their verdict and sentence - 25 years for each
victim.
Cusanero was found guilty in connection with the
disappearances of six people in the Chimaltenango
region between 1982 and 1984.
At
the time, which was the height of the long-running
civil war between government forces and left-wing
guerrillas, he was a military commissioner, a
civilian working with the army.
"We
weren't looking for vengeance but for the truth and
justice," Hilarion Lopez, whose 24-year-old son was
taken by soldiers in 1984 and never seen again, told
Reuters news agency.
Rights groups believe Cusanero was involved in the
disappearances of more people but only six families
came forward to testify against him.
A
UN-backed truth commission found that between 1960
and 1996 some 200,000 people were killed and more
than 45,000 [were] disappeared.
Most
of those who died were civilians.
BBC
Sep. 1, 2009
See also:
LibertadLatina
Special Section
(Guatemala has a rate of
'femicide' murders that is ten times higher than
the rate of such murders in Ciudad Juarez,
Mexico. -LL)
Added:
Sep. 10, 2009
New York State
 |
|
Police arrest sex
slavery suspect at the
La Hija del
Mariachi Bar in Farmingville, on
Long Island
in New York state in August of
2009
Photo:
James Carbone /
Newsday |
Three Plead Not Guilty to Running Sex Slavery Ring
The brother-and-sister owners of two Suffolk County
bars who authorities say ran a sexual slavery ring
pleaded not guilty Wednesday in federal court to
charges in a 13-count grand jury indictment.
Attorneys representing Antonio Rivera and Jasmin
Rivera, along with a third defendant, John Whaley,
pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court in Central
Islip to conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking by
means of force, fraud and coercion; sex trafficking
by means of force, fraud and coercion; conspiracy to
commit forced labor; forced labor; conspiracy to
harbor illegal immigrants; and illegal immigrant
harboring.
Federal and county agents raided Sonidos de la
Frontera in Lake Ronkonkoma and La Hija del Mariachi
in Farmingville last month.
Federal prosecutors have described Antonio Rivera,
34, of Patchogue, Jasmin Rivera, 31, of Medford, and
John Whaley, 29, of Bellport, as ringleaders.
According to the indictment, the three "compelled
the Latin American women, through deception,
coercion and threats of harm, to engage in
commercial sex acts and sexual contact with patrons
at Sonidos, Mariachi and elsewhere, and to turn over
a portion of the proceeds they received from
engaging in commercial sex acts and sexual contact
with patrons to the defendants."
The indictment says the defendants recruited women
who entered the United States illegally from Latin
America to work as waitresses at the bars.
According to the allegations, one of the operators
repeatedly raped some of the women, referred to in
the indictment as Jane Does. The women were kept in
line through beatings, and threats of deportation
and death, according to court papers...
Jennifer Sinco Kelleher
Newsday
Sep. 9, 2009
See also:
Sex-slave bars reportedly
overwhelmingly profitable
Robert E. Kessler
Newsday
Aug. 12,
2009
See also:
Women In Sex-Slave Case Could
Be Eligible For Visas
The 23 immigrant women who federal authorities say
were forced into prostitution at two Suffolk bars
could be eligible for visas if they are deemed to be
victims and cooperate with law enforcement.
Mostly undocumented immigrants from Central America,
the women are being held at an undisclosed hotel as
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents continue
investigating. If authorities decide they're not
victims, they will face deportation...
The T Visas ("T" for trafficking) were established
in 2000 and allow immigrants and their family
members to eventually apply for legal permanent
residency. Victims can also be eligible for U Visas,
which are available to undocumented immigrants who
are victims of a broader range of crimes.
However, advocates say applying for the visas is a
lengthy and unwieldy process and few are granted.
There is a national 5,000-person annual cap for the
granting of T Visas and fewer than half of that have
been granted since 2001, according to U.S.
Department of Justice statistics...
While some of the women were recruited through ads
for jobs as waitresses, a common tactic, others
entered the country illegally on their own and
sought jobs at the establishments, less common in
trafficking cases...
Sumathi Reddy
Newsday
Aug. 10, 2009
See also:
 |
|
Human trafficking victims
are lead from a bar in Long Island |
 |
|
Antonio Rivera |
Long Island Horror: Sex traffickers enslave
teenaged women
Jim Kouri, CPP, is currently fifth
vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs
of Police
Law Enforcement Examiner
August 13, 2009
See also:
Feds Bust Long Island Bar
Owners, Sex Offender In Sex Trafficking Ring
...In 1998, Antonio
Rivera, 34, was convicted of rape in the second and
third degrees, respectively...
[Story includes video news report]
WPIX.com
August 10, 2009
Added:
Sep. 09, 2009
Mexico
 |
|
Outgoing
Congressional Deputy
Elsa Conde
of the
Partido
Alternativa Socialdemócrata
(Alternative
Social Democratic Party)
|
Tres Años de Retroceso Para las Mujeres
Ciudad de México.- Hay evidencias documentadas de
que en los últimos tres años las mujeres hemos
vivido un profundo retroceso en derechos, posición
pública, empleo y capacidad organizativa.
Hace unos días, al cierre de la LX Legislatura, Elsa
Conde, del Partido Socialdemócrata (PSD), integrante
del pequeño grupo de legisladoras feministas, reveló
que las diputadas progresistas tuvieron que
enfrentar en resistencia un cúmulo de acciones,
algunas fallidas, contra los avances de las mujeres...
Three Years of Reversals for
Women
[Feminist Caucus in Congress regroups after
electoral losses]
Mexico City - There is documented evidence that
during the past three years women have experienced a
profound decline in rights, social position, jobs
and organizational capacity in Mexico.
A few days ago, at the closure of the 60th
Legislature, Elsa Conde, of the Social Democratic
Party (PSD), who is a member of a small caucus of
feminist legislators, announced that progressive
deputies have had to resist a host of initiatives,
some of which failed, that have aimed at impeding
progress for women.
The group was able to temper a long tirade against
emergency contraception. There was a flaw in the
electoral reform initiative that reduced rather than
increased seats for women in Congress. The national
PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) joined with
the PAN (National Action Party) to declare, via
amendments to the constitutions of 14 states, that
the fetus is a judicially protected human being -
and thus previously legal exemptions that allow for
abortion [such as in cases of rape] have been
eliminated.
For the first time in nearly one hundred years women
are being persecuted and imprisoned for having an
abortion...
Meanwhile, during these past three years we have
seen an increase in violence against women, yet not
one state has taken into account the fact that two
federal laws have been passed [in recent years], one
establishing equality between women and men, and the
other designed to ensure that women have a right to
a life without violence...
A subdued meeting was held by the feminist caucus,
where outgoing deputies declared their resistance.
The four women left in the new caucus busily
discussed what had happened with their proposals for
women. The group had to acknowledge that there were
reversals, and that a resolution completely banning
abortion at the national level, and restrictions in
the use of birth control, loom on the horizon in the
new Congress. Many of the new deputies from the PRI,
as well as activists such as the PRI governor of
Yucatan state, Ivonne Ortega Pacheco, have expressed
delight with the reversals experienced by the
progressive women’s agenda.
The federal laws that provide for gender equality,
and the General Law on Women's Access to a
Life Free of Violence,
simply can not be applied, not only because there
are backward-looking ‘fiefdoms’ among the states,
but also because within some states, such as
Guerrero, acts of violence against women and the
kidnapping of women are not considered serious
crimes. In other locations including Guanajuato,
state government has simply refused to set-up the
‘gender alert’ system [required by federal law to
respond to gender violence emergencies under the
right to life without violence law]. Gender alerts
exist on paper but are not actually supported by
these states...
Full English Translation
Sara Lovera
Proceso
Sep. 04, 2009
See also:
Diputadas Enfrentarán Embates
de la Derecha Contra Mujeres
Female Congressional Deputies Face Attacks
From the Right Against Women's Rights
Gladis Torres Ruiz
CIMAC Noticias
Sep. 07, 2009
See also:
La Nueva Legislatura Deberá Superar Retrocesos en
Derechos de Mujeres
México DF -
Diputadas de la LX legislatura señalaron que en los
tres años que duró su trabajo se enfrentaron a un
Congreso dominado por acuerdos copulares y por un
machismo soterrado, dedicando gran parte de su
tiempo a detener iniciativas que violentaban los
derechos de las mujeres y que lejos de representar
una avance a su favor implicaban un retroceso…
The New Legislature Must Overcome Setbacks In
Women's Rights
Mexico City – Women representatives from the 60th
Legislature have noted that during the last three
years of work they have faced a Congress dominated
by “copulated” agreements and an underground
machismo. They have devoted much of their time to
stopping initiatives that violate the rights of
women and that represent a major setback [to the
women’s rights
agenda].
During a presentation titled, The 60th
Legislature - Legislative Balance and the Commitment
to Equality, Congress-woman Elsa Conde of the Social
Democratic Alternative Party (PSD) declared that
progress was made on some fronts, but that much work
has been left undone for the 61st
Legislature to address.
Deputy Conde said that the 60th Legislature involved
a climate of polarization and constant conflict
between the main political forces…
"We were in constant dispute during the entire
initial period of sessions in regard to [control] of
the Special Commission on Femicide and the Center
for the Advancement of Women. Despite our efforts,
these committees ended-up being chaired by the party
in power" [the National Action
Party]...
Gladis Torres Ruiz
CIMAC Noticias
Aug. 26, 2009
See also:
Ending Gender Violence in
Mexico
…The March 2007 General Law on Women's Access to a
Life Free of Violence seeks to end violence against
women, while addressing what advocates consider its
root cause: gender-inequity…
The General Law on Women's Access to a Life Free of
Violence has been celebrated by many women's groups
and lawmakers who say that its innovative features,
which include the regulation and coordination of
domestic violence shelters nationwide, mandatory
gender reeducation for those who commit gender-based
crimes, and a Gender Violence Alert System, modeled
after natural-disaster alert mechanisms, will
improve services for gender violence survivors and
treat the root causes of the problem.
But, even some of the law's supporters worry about
its implemen-tation, because it is designated as a
general law, which means no federal or state
resources have been allocated, and some critics,
most notably the Archdiocese of the Catholic Church,
argue that the law could further divide the
genders...
Press Institute For Women In The
Developing World
Newswire
Dec. 02, 2008
Added:
Sep. 07, 2009
Mexico, United States
 |
|
The green line
on the above map
shows the child
sex trafficking
route from
Navojoa to
Imuris, in
Sonora state,
Mexico. The red
route shows how
U.S. pedophile
men travel on
U.S. Route 19 to
the Mexican
border, before
continuing the
short distance
from Nogales to
the child
brothel located
in Imuris. |
"Interesa" a PGR posible
caso de prostitución
infantil
La Procuraduría General
de la República (PGR)
está “interesada” en la
posible existencia de
una red de prostitución
infantil que fue
descubierta a través de
una investigación que
realizó Diario del
Yaqui, al recibir una
denuncia del caso por
parte de los afectados,
por lo que en breve se
dijo se iniciará un
proceso de indagación
del hecho…
Federal Attorney
General’s Office
Expresses “Interest” in
Possible Child
Prostitution Case in
Sonora
The Attorney General's
of the Republic (PGR) is
"interested" in the
possible existence of a
child prostitution ring
that was discovered
through an investigation
conducted by the Diario
del Yaqui newspaper in
Sonora state. The PGR
has received a complaint
in regard to the case
from the victims, and it
has declared that it
will soon begin its
fact-finding process.
A spokesman for the
PGR’s office in southern
Sonora pointed out that
although the Sonora
State Attorney General
has denied the existence
of a sex trafficking
network..., the PGR will
conduct a separate
investigation, as there
is a [formal criminal]
complaint, and given
that agents of the
Imuris Preventive Police
and the Sonora State
Investigative Police, as
well as American
citizens and also truck
drivers are implicated…
Oscar
Felix
Diario
del Yaqui
Aug. 17,
2009
Added:
Sep. 08, 2009
Mexico
 |
|
Sonora
state
Attorney
General's
offices |
Niega PGJE
que en
Sonora
exista red
para
prostituir
infantes
Mientras que
la
Procuraduría
General de
Justicia en
el Estado
negó de la
existencia
de una red
de
prostitución
infantil que
opera en
todo Sonora
y que tiene
su punto
final en
Imuris, la
misma
corporación
se encuentra
tras la
localización
de Yajaira
Berenice
Rentería
Bonilla, de
23 años de
edad, a
quien se
busca para
ser
interrogada
con relación
al rapto de
dos
menores...
State Attorney General’s
Office Denies That a
Child Prostitution
Network Exists in Sonora
While the Attorney
General of Sonora state
(PGJE) denied the
existence of a child
prostitution ring
operating throughout
Sonora that has its
endpoint the town of
Imuris, they were at the
same time searching for
Yajaira Berenice
Renteria Bonilla, 23,
who is wanted for
questioning in relation
to the abduction of two
children.
[Renteria
Bonilla was at-first
arrested during a police
raid on the child
brothel in Imuris, and
was then mysteriously
released by
authorities.]
PGJE spokesman José
Larrinaga Talamantes
said that Rosalía
Rentería Silva, age 23,
a resident of Loma de
Guamuchil, filed a
criminal complaint
regarding the
disappearance of her
daughters, thereby
initiating a preliminary
investigation of child
kidnapping, but not of
child prostitution...
Larrinaga Talamantes
denied any complicity
and protection [of a sex
trafficking network] by
state police officers
and agents of the
[Imuris] preventive
municipal police. He
also denied that child
abuse had occurred, and
cited as proof the
medical and
psychological
examinations conducted
by the PGJE of
kidnapping victims
Stephanie Yucupicio
Renteria, age 11, and
Fatima Silva Renteria,
age 8. The report, he
says, states that
neither sexual nor
psychological abuse
occurred...
Nonetheless, Diario del
Yaqui has been informed
by unofficial sources
that the federal Office
of the Attorney General
(PGR), will launch an
investigation into the
child prostitution
network in Sonora. This
network was discovered
through an investigation
carried out by Diario
del Yaqui. The case has
alarmed citizens of
Sonora, especially in
regard to the fact that
the customer’s of the
brothel were truckers
and men from the United
States...
Full English Translation
Diario
del Yaqui
Aug. 16,
2009
 |
|
Child sex
trafficking
suspect Yajaira
Berenice
Renteria Bonilla |
Descubren En
Sonora Red De Prostitución Infantil;
Opera Desde Navojoa Hasta Imuris
“Levantan” menores desde Navojoa a
Imuris, donde todo hace indicar que
la jefa de la organización delictiva
cuenta con la complicidad y
protección de agentes de las
policías Estatal Investigadora y
Preventiva Municipal, quienes como
premio son los primeros en abusar
sexualmente de las víctimas...
Child
Prostitution Ring That Kidnapped
Over 20 Indigenous Children is
Discovered in Sonora Operating
Between Navojoa and Imuris
Sonora state - Children are being
kidnapped from the town of Navojoa
and are then taken to the town of
Imuris [near the Arizona U.S.
border], where it appears that the
woman ringleader of a child sex
trafficking ring can count on the
connivance and protection of state
police and municipal preventive
police officers in Imuris, who
become the ‘first in line’ to
sexually abuse the victims.
The child sex ring, which operates
throughout the state, was discovered
during an ongoing investigation into
the disappearance of two girls, ages
8 and 11, originally from the Yaqui
indigenous community of Loma de
Guamuchil.
According to an investigation
carried out by the Diario del Yaqui
newspaper, after these police
officers quench their base instincts
with the children, the victims are
prostituted in Imuris to the highest
bidder. The customers include
truckers, who are charged 3,000
Mexican pesos [$220], and U.S. men,
who are charged $1,500.
[Yajaira
Berenice Renteria Bonilla,
the kidnapping suspect] had
previously taken over 20 girls to
[the home of a Madame named
Doña Tere in Imuris].
[The
suspect's 15-year-old brother told
police] that the house where the
girls were being kept was also
visited by officers of the municipal
police and the PEI (State
Investigative Police) stationed in
[the town of] Imuris, and that they
apparently sexually abuse the
victims before anyone else was
allowed to, as a reward for the
protection they give to Doña Tere.
Upon learning of these facts, the
PEI commander in the town of
Esperanza, Julian Rafael Hernández Gómez, spoke to
the PEI commander in Imuris, who
immediately conducted a raid to
rescue more than 10 girls, including
Estefanía Yucupicio Rentería
and Fátima Rentería Silva.
Five people were arrested on charges
related to child prostitution.
Some
hours after the rescue, authorities
contacted the police station in
Imuris to confirm whether
Estefanía Yucupicio Rentería,
age 11, and Fátima Rentería
Silva were actually rescued in the
raid.
In
circumstances that are suspicious,
the Imuris police reported that the
two missing girls had been released
into the
hands of suspect Yajaira Berenice
Rentería, who was released from
custody...
Full English
Translation
Oscar Felix
Diario del Yaqui
Aug. 15, 2009
See
also:
LibertadLatina
Commentary
The recently discovered child sex
trafficking case in Mexico's Sonora
state, involving the kidnapping of
over 20 children from unsuspecting
families, highlights several major
problems that plague the effort to
end modern human slavery in the
'Aztec Nation,' as TV network news
services like to call Mexico.
Because indigenous peoples continue
to be treated largely as less than
second class citizens and peons,
they are not typically taken
seriously when facing the crisis of
having had a child kidnapped from
them.
Indigenous children have been
kidnapped from across Mexico with
impunity. Some three to four
thousand of them are currently
enslaved as 'geishas' - forced
prostitutes, in Japan. Many others
have been taken to Spain and other
western European countries, where
they are sold to brothel owners for
up to $25,000 each because they are
viewed as 'exotic' merchandise.
The fact that one of the kidnappers
in this case is an indigenous woman,
Yajaira Berenice
Renteria Bonilla, ads a different
twist to the typical modus operandi
of Mexican sex trafficking gangs,
who typically involve non-indigenous
Mexicans, Japanese Yakuza and
Russian Mob members in the dirty
work of enslaving underage
indigenous Mexican girls.
The fact that Sonora state
prosecutors responded with denials
after the investigation by the
Diario del Yaqui newspaper, that
lead to the discovery of this child
sex trafficking network, is
disconcerting. However, that is also
a common response to crimes of
impunity across Mexico. We are
encouraged that the Attorney General
of the Republic has expressed
interest in the case, despite their
past lack of follow-through on cases
of severe violations of women's
rights.
Another aspect of this case that is
common across thousands of other
similar crimes is the fact that
criminals target underage girls,
especially those who are indigenous,
from rural, interior regions of
Mexico for kidnapping into
prostitution along Mexico's northern
and southern borders.
The involvement of state and local
police officers, who are alleged to
have been the first to rape each of
these kidnapped children, is also
part of a pattern that has been seen
across Mexico. In some cases, police
officers are themselves the pimps.
In one example of that type of
behavior that has been seen within
the U.S., a Latina U.S. Health and
Human Services Administration
contractor and medical doctor who
provided condoms to victims of the
San Diego,
California child rape camps,
alleged in a widely publicized
2003 article
in the Mexico City daily newspaper
El Universal that U.S.
immigration agents entered some of
the 25 suburban house-based child
brothels set-up by the infamous
Salazar Brothers trafficking gang in
northern San Diego County, and
exchanged protection of the criminal
gang for access to rape the enslaved
children in these brothels. At least
one victim in the San Diego case was
7-years-old.
It has been reported by
anti-trafficking activists for over
a decade that thousands of men from
the U.S. cross the Mexican Border
each day to have sex with children
who are forced into prostitution.
Despite modernized U.S. laws that
criminalize child sex tourism
perpetrated by U.S. citizens, we
have seen no evidence whatsoever
that federal law enforcement have
targeted pedophiles who victimize
the thousands of children and
underage youth who are literally
chained to beds in brothels in
Tijuana, Nogales, Imuris, Ciudad
Juarez, Matamoros, Tapachula,
Acapulco and Cancun.
We request that the administration
of U.S. President Barack Obama
step up to the plate and take
aggressive action to curb the mass
sexual victimization of Mexican
children by U.S. sex tourists along
the U.S. / Mexican border.
We also request that the U.S.
Government, the United Nations,
international human rights agencies
and the anti-trafficking movement
take a serious look at the dynamics
of anti-indigenous exploitation,
including the mass kidnappings of
underage indigenous girls to be sold
wholesale into sexual slavery across
Mexico, in the United States, and in
Europe and Japan.
To date, this most severely affected
victim community has not been given
a visible seat at the table in the
movement to stop modern human sex
and labor slavery.
There just is no excuse for this
situation!
End impunity now!
Chuck
Goolsby
LibertadLatina
Sep. 08,
2009 |
Added:
Sep. 08, 2009
Utah, USA
 |
|
Jorge Gutierrez-Ortiz |
Man Arrested in Alleged
Bathroom Sex Assault on 7-Year-Old Boy
West Valley City police
have arrested a man accused of sexually assaulting a
young boy in a Burger King bathroom.
The 7-year-old boy was
assaulted on Aug. 15 by a man allegedly waiting in
the bathroom at the restaurant, located at 5600 West
and 3500 South. He was with his mother and sibling
when he left to use the restroom, then came back out
and told his mother about the attack, police said.
Officers searched nearby
businesses for clear surveillance video of the man,
and released it Thursday. Dozens of tips came in,
and police arrested 44-year-old Jorge D. Gutierrez
of West Valley City later the same day, said Lt.
Bill Merritt. He was booked on suspicion of child
kidnapping and sodomy on a child.A search of court
records did not show a criminal history for
Gutierrez.
The Salt Lake Tribune
Sep. 04, 2009
Man Accused of Raping Boy, 17
Emigdio Asencio, 48, is in Bucks County Prison after
the incident at Bucks Landing Apartments.
"That's him," the boy said, crying. "That's him."
The
17-year-old was in tears as he identified the
48-year-old man he was accusing of raping him at the
Bucks Landing Apartments in Warminster, according to
court records.
Police arrested Emigdio Asencio, who lives at the
apartment complex…
Asencio was sent to Bucks County Prison on 10
percent of $1 million bail. He remained incarcerated
Thursday, according to a prison official.
Immigration authorities have placed a detainer on
Asencio, meaning there are suspicions he is in the
United States illegally…
Asencio made "sexual overtures" toward the teen and
then exposed himself to the boy, court papers said.
The
man made the boy touch him sexually, then became
more aggressive, pinning the teen's arms behind his
back and forcing him toward another building, said
records.
The
two ended up inside an apartment where Asencio held
the boy down on a bed and raped him, according to an
affidavit of probable cause…
A
nurse at Abington Memorial Hospital examined the
alleged victim. She determined he had injuries
consistent with being raped…
Christopher Ruvo
Bucks County Courier Times
Aug. 28, 2009
Nevada, USA
Pastor Arrested on Lewdness
Charges
A
local pastor was arrested last week in Las Vegas on
multiple counts of lewdness with a minor and open
and gross lewdness charges, Las Vegas police said.
Ladislao "Constantino " Morales, 56, was arrested
Tuesday. He was booked into the Clark County
Detention Center on two charges of lewdness with a
minor under 14 and four counts of open and gross
lewdness.
Morales is a pastor of the local "Centro
Evangelistico Alfa y Omega" church. It is unknown
who the victim was or whether they attended the
church.
He
is being held on $24,000 bond.
Maggie Lillis
Las Vegas Review-Journal
Aug. 31, 2009
Federal
Agency Says Latina Employee Forced to Quit to Escape
Abusive Supervisor
Portland - Wilcox Farms,
which operates dairy and egg production facilities
in Oregon and Washington, will pay $260,000 and
provide remedial relief to settle a federal sexual
harassment and retaliation suit, the U.S. Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced
today.
The EEOC’s lawsuit
charged that a male supervisor repeatedly grabbed,
sought to forcibly undress and propositioned Wilcox
Farms employee Diana Dominguez at its Aurora, Ore.,
facility. According to the federal agency’s
investigation, the harassment continued over many
months despite Dominguez’s complaints to management,
to the point where she began to fear for her
physical safety. The EEOC found that Wilcox
retaliated against Dominguez for reporting the
harassment by isolating her from co-workers, forcing
her to continue to work with the harasser and
pressuring her to resign. Dominguez ultimately was
forced to quit out of fear for her safety...
Under the terms of the
consent decree settling the suit, Wilcox Farms
denied any wrongdoing but will pay Dominguez
$260,000. The company also agreed to adopt and to
distribute to all employees a sexual harassment
policy written in both English and Spanish; make its
complaint procedures more convenient for employees
to report harassment and retaliation; conduct sexual
harassment training in English and Spanish for all
managers, supervisors and employees; and to provide
various reports to the EEOC over a three-year
period.
Dominguez said, “This
job was important to me, but I had to leave it to
feel safe. I am thankful to the EEOC, Oregon Law
Center and Legal Aid Services for protecting my
right to be safe at work. And I am glad that the
company will make changes so that what happened to
me doesn’t happen to other workers.” ...
U.S. EEOC
Aug. 20, 2009
Hometown Buffet, Inc. Agrees
to Settle Sexual Harassment Suit With EEOC
EEOC
Says Women Subjected to Groping and Sexual Advances
by Male Managers
San Diego - The U.S.
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) today
announced a class litigation settlement against
Hometown Buffet, Inc., on behalf of teens and
Latinas who were subjected to a sexually hostile
workplace, including verbal and physical abuse, in
violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
Specifically, the EEOC
alleged that Hometown Buffet failed to prevent and
tolerated a pattern of ongoing sexual harassment in
which male managers, supervisors, and co-workers
subjected female employees to a sexually hostile
workplace, including groping, hugging, kissing,
sexual advances, and stalking employees outside the
workplace. One female victim was allegedly raped by
a male co-worker. The EEOC further alleged that due
to the female employees’ young age and/or lack of
English proficiency, a breakdown in the company’s
complaint process failed to adequately remedy the
sexual harassment.
In addition to a
monetary settlement of $710,000, the two-year
consent decree resolving the matter will also ensure
the implementation of measures to prevent and remedy
sexual harassment at the company’s El Cajon
location...
U.S. EEOC
Aug. 03, 2009
Mother, Son Accused of Human
Trafficking
Manatee County - A
mother and son are facing charges after
investigators said they were involved with a human
trafficking organization.
According to reports,
Lazara Moreira-Penin, 53, and her son, Erisbel
Artiles, 31, helped smuggle a 30-year-old Guatemalan
man into Bradenton, and then held him captive when
his family couldn't pay a "transportation fee."
A family member of the
victim, who lives in Bradenton, contacted law
enforcement. Officers from the Manatee County
Sheriff's Office, Immigration and Customs
Enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation
started investigating the case.
On Saturday, officers
found the victim. He is expected to be OK.
Moreira-Penin and
Artiles, both residents of Miami, were arrested.
They are facing charges of extortion and financial
benefit from forced labor service.
Moreira-Penin was being
held at Manatee County Jail. She has since posted
bond of $12,500. Artiles was incarcerated in Miami.
Central Florida News
13 / Bay News 9
Sep. 06, 2009
Texas Enacts Law to Aid
Human-Trafficking Victims
Texas has become the
first state in the nation to provide assistance to
domestic human-trafficking victims with a landmark
law that Governor Rick Perry signed into law in
August.
The law establishes a
statewide Human Trafficking Prevention Task Force in
the attorney general's office, creates a
human-trafficking training component for
law-enforcement officers, starts a program to
connect services to trafficking victims and begins a
grant program for groups that provide assistance to
domestic trafficking victims.
Among faith groups that
helped shepherd the bipartisan bill through the Lone
Star State's legislature was the Texas Baptist
Christian Life Commission. Human-trafficking victims
account for 74 percent of the sex-trade market,
according to statistics provided by the commission.
"Most people think human
trafficking happens elsewhere in places like
Thailand and Cambodia, but the reality is that it is
happening in our own backyard," said Republican
state representative Randy Weber of Pearland, who
authored the legislation, which was also sponsored
by Democratic senator Leticia Van de Putte of San
Antonio.
"In fact, the vast
majority of the victims identified within Texas are
actually our own citizens," said Weber.
Republican governor
Perry, in signing the bill August 24, said, "The
task force created by this bill will focus state
efforts on ending this criminal activity that
primarily targets women and children."
ABP
Christian Century
Sep. 22, 2009
Added:
Sep. 07, 2009
Oklahoma, USA
 |
|
Melvin
Urbina |
Suspect in Oklahoma City Rape
is a Registered Sex Offender
Officials say a man
wanted in connection with the rape of an 11-year-old
girl at a wedding anniversary celebration in
Oklahoma City is a high-risk registered sex offender
and illegal immigrant.
Oklahoma City police say
33-year-old Melvin Urbina is a suspect in the July
25th, 2009 rape at the Imperial Restaurant Banquet
Hall.
According to court
records, Urbina was convicted of sexual assault in
Tarrant County, Texas, in 1999, and was required to
register as a lifetime sex offender.
Finding no evidence that
Urbina had registered as a sex offender in Oklahoma,
officials charged him in federal court Aug. 19 with
failing to register.
Police say Urbina has
relatives in Mexico and Honduras and suspect he has
fled Oklahoma.
The Associated Press
Sept. 2, 2009
See also:
Man Sought in Rape of
11-Year-Old Girl
Police are looking for a
man wanted in connection with the reported rape of
an 11-year-old girl at a party on Saturday in south
Oklahoma City...
Robert Medly and
Johnny Johnson
www.NewsOK.com
July 28, 2009
13-Year-Old Female Comes
Forward with Allegation of Rape
Logan police say a 13-year-old female adolescent
came forward last week to report she was the victim
of a sex crime.
Jose
Rios Jimenez, 24 of Logan, is behind bars at the
Cache County Sheriff’s Complex after being charged
with first-degree felony rape of a child.
Logan Police Capt. Jeff Curtis said Jimenez and the
girl were alone in an apartment when the situation
between the two escalated. The alleged victim in the
case was visiting a girlfriend and planned to stay
the night, police say.
“Because of the age of the young lady, she is unable
to consent,” said Curtis.
The
alleged victim told police the incident took place
Aug. 26. She and her parents reported it to police
just days later. Investigators issued an arrest
warrant for Jimenez and located him Thursday...
...He was arrested.
Jail
staff said Friday that bail for Jimenez is set at
$20,000.
Utah
court records show Jimenez was arrested in 2007 on
burglary charges and earlier this year for multiple
counts of theft and vehicle burglary.
A
Utah legal statute defines the rape of a child as
sexual intercourse with a child who is younger than
14. The offense is “punishable by a term of
imprisonment of not less than 25 years and which may
be for life,” the code reads.
Matthew K. Jensen
Sep. 05, 2009
Man Sentenced To 10 Years For
Rape, Drugs
A Sioux Falls man who
authorities say took a 15-year-old girl to a party
house for a weekend of drugs and sex last February
has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The defense attorney for
25-year-old Benjamin Dejesus Cruz says Cruz believed
the girl to be 18 years old. Circuit Judge Peter
Lieberman told Cruz that his drug use and the
drawn-out nature of his relationship with the girl
went against the notion that the crimes were a
simple mistake.
Cruz was arrested for
methamphetamine possession after his release on bond
for the rape charge.
The Associated Press
Sep. 04, 2009
Rape Victim, 66, Identifies
Assailant in Allston, Police Say
It was recycling day in Allston last Thursday and
the 66-year-old woman got up early to collect cans
she planned to return for cash.
At around 5:30, a
slight, clean-shaven man she had seen in the
neighborhood before rode up to her on his scooter
and told her of a place nearby where she could find
more cans, prosecutors said yesterday. Instead, he
lured her to an alley near Gardner Street and
Harvard Avenue, where he suddenly turned on her,
beating her about the head and face, and then raping
her, according to law enforcement officials.
Yesterday morning, one
week later and almost at the same time the assault
took place, the victim led police to her alleged
attacker. The suspect was walking just a few blocks
from where police said she was raped.
The woman identified
Jose Sariano Gonzalez, a 20-year-old Allston man, as
her attacker and police ran after him. Gonzalez
tried to get away, police said, but the officers
arrested him after wrestling with him.
A Brighton District
Court judge ordered that he be held on $250,000 cash
bail. He pleaded not guilty to sexual assault,
assault and battery on a person over 60, and
resisting arrest, said Jake Wark, spokesman for
Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley. Little
was known yesterday about Gonzalez, who is from El
Salvador and lives close to where the alleged
assault took place...
Gonzalez was ordered to
surrender his passport, Wark said. US Immigration
and Customs Enforcement has ordered Gonzalez
detained so they can determine whether he should be
deported. It was unclear yesterday whether Gonzalez
was in the country legally.
Even if he posts bail,
Gonzalez would still be held by federal officials,
Wark said...
Gonzalez was also
charged with receiving stolen property after police
found him with a stolen credit card belonging to
another woman, Wark said. That charge does not
appear to be related to the case, he said.
Maria Cramer
The Boston Globe
Sep. 4, 2009
Added:
Sep. 04, 2009
Mexico
 |
|
Protest
signs proclaim "Freedom for
Political Prisoners" at May,
2009 commemoration of Atenco
El Frente de
Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra
y organizaciones sociales
realizaron una manifestacion
conmemorando el tercer
aniversario de la represión en
San Salvador Atenco.
The Front of
Peoples in Defense of the Land
and social organizations of
Mexico held a demonstration in
commemoration of the third
anniversary of the police
repression in San Salvador
Atenco.
Three years after
the violence, a number of
protesters remain in state
prison in cases related to the
Atenco protests.
Photo:
Prometeo Lucero / LatinPhoto |
 |
|
Protest
wall: "47
women... In Mexico there is
torture!" |
Van por Policías Torturadores
Después de tres años, la PGR concluye que 30
funcionarios son responsables de los hechos de San
Salvador Atenco
La
Procuraduría General de la República (PGR) concluyó
que existen elementos de prueba para acusar y
detener a 30 servidores públicos del gobierno del
Estado de México involucrados en los hechos
violentos de San Salvador Atenco, del 3 y 4 de mayo
de 2006...
Federal Prosecutors Will
Charge 30 Rogue Police Officers / Torturers of 47
Women Protesters in Atenco Case
Three years after the fact, Mexico’s federal
Attorney General’s office (PGR) has concluded that
30 public servants of the government of the
state of Mexico
were involved in the violent events in the city of
San Salvador Atenco on May 3rd and 4th
of 2006.
In the near future the PGR will ask a federal judge
to issue arrest warrants for those who are presumed
to be responsible for the acts of torture and sexual
crimes that were perpetrated against a number of
women who were in the state of Mexico during a
security crackdown.
High-level sources in the PGR have stated that the
case is being managed by the Special Prosecutor for
Crimes of Violence against Women and Trafficking in
Persons (FEVIMTRA). After three years of
investigation, FEVIMTRA is basing its charges on eye
witness testimony, the work of experts and other
sources of evidence.
The
PGR
investigation found that federal law enforcement
agents [who participated in the police action] were
not involved in the violations of individual rights
and against the physical integrity of victims that
occurred...
Sources within the PGR said that it has been
determined that acts of torture with sexist
connotations… serious acts of violation of women's
rights, did take place.
The case has been documented and examined by
experts. Foreign victims from Chile, Germany and
Spain will be allowed to join in the complaint.
One Spanish victim provided testimony to
investigators that ultimately proved essential to
support the charges against the 30 accused state
government employees.
During the research process investigators focused on
the 47 women who were injured by the security
forces, mainly on May 4th, 2006. Some of them had
since changed there place of residence for fear of
reprisals...
The Supreme Court of Justice (SCJN) had ordered, in
regard to this matter, the formation of a commission
to investigate the case of Atenco, to see which
authorities had violated individual rights during
the operations in question, and to restore public
order in that area of the country.
The Court indicated that the crime of torture is
classified as serious, and therefore the suspects
would not be permitted to remain free on bail.
Full English Translation
Excélsior
Lemic Madrid
Sep. 02, 2009
LibertadLatina
Commentary
According to unnamed internal PGR sources, the
Attorney General of Republic (PGR) and the
office of the Special Prosecutor for Crimes of
Violence Against Women and Trafficking in Persons
(FEVIMTRA) within the PGR will, finally, take
action and prosecute those believed to be
responsible for the sexual assaults of 26 of the 47
women arrested at the May 3rd and 4th, 2006 protest
march in San Salvador de Atenco. That is good news,
on its face.
The above story, appearing on Sep. 2, 2009 in
Mexico's
Excélsior
newspaper, leaves the reader with the impression
that the upcoming prosecutions of 30 state police
agents in the case is the result of three years of
continuous diligent investigation by the PGR and
FEVIMTRA.
We note with interest that this announcement was
published three days after the August 31st
resignation of Guadalupe Morfin Otero as the special
prosecutor in charge of FEVIMTRA.
In reality, numerous women's rights groups have
repeatedly criticized FEVIMTRA for having dropped
the ball by not having investigated the case of
Atenco. Other cases, such as that against Puebla
state police agents for the torture of anti-child
sex trafficking activist and journalist Lydia Cacho,
were also ignored, and the extensive investigatory
work on Cacho's case performed by FEVIM, the
predecessor office to FEVIMTRA, just happened to
'disappear' once Morfin Otero took charge from
special
prosecutor
Alicia Elena
Pérez Duarte
in January of 2008.
The following account communicates well the sense of
frustration that the women victims of rape at Atenco
and their advocates felt during the long period when
Morfin Otero's FEVIMTRA refused to engage them and
seek justice on their behalf.
Note: Eleven of the original 26 victims of sexual
violence filed criminal complaints seeking justice
against their aggressors.
|
Petition of 11
Women from Atenco, Victims of Torture
...On
April 29
[2008], female ex-prisoners of Atenco
protested outside the Special
Prosecutor's Office for Crimes Related
to Violence Against Women
[FEVIMTRA]
to
announce their petition before the
Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights (IACHR) regarding the sexual
torture they suffered while detained.
The IACHR is considered an option of
last resort, when citizens are unable to
obtain justice through their own
countries' legal systems.
The
women and their supporters protested
outside the Special Prosecutor's Office
for Crimes Related to Violence Against
Women to make clear that they were
forced to seek justice in an
international body because of the
Special Prosecutor's failure to act on
their cases. Sufficient evidence exists
to indict the police who tortured them,
but the state has failed to do so.
The
women report having tried "many, many
times" to schedule a meeting with the
Special Prosecutor.
Mariana de las Selvas has been out of
prison for three months. In that time,
she's tried on three separate occasions
to meet with the Special Prosecutor, but
the office always ignored her requests.
It wasn't until the women filed their
petition with the IACHR and held a
protest and press conference outside the
Special Prosecutor's office to denounce
its inaction did the Special Prosecutor
insist on meeting with the ex-prisoners.
The
women agreed to the meeting, and entered
with a single question for the Special
Prosecutor: What has the Special
Prosecutor's Office for Crimes Related
to Violence Against Women done in the
past two years to punish the police
responsible for torture in Atenco?
Representatives from the Special
Prosecutor's office spoke for thirty
minutes in response to the question,
effectively saying that they had done
nothing. Selvas reports that they gave
"every excuse under the sun" for why
they hadn't met with the ex-prisoners or
prosecuted the police for torture,
sexual abuse, and rape...
Kristin Bricker
May 6, 2008 |
We can only surmise that the administration of
National Action Party (PAN) President Felipe
Calderón is receiving substantial pressure
internationally and within Mexico to repair this
most glaring blot on the moral reputation of the
nation. Whatever the cause of the PGR's major policy
shift on this case, President Calderón's
adminis-tration must be closely monitored to assure
that justice is actually done for the victims of the
violence at Atenco.
Based on past experience, we have little reason to
trust that those responsible for rapes and other
serious crimes against women will actually face
impartial judicial proceedings in relation to their
cases, resulting in the punishment that those who
are guilty deserve.
The whole world is watching!
End impunity now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
Sep. 04, 2009
See also:
LibertadLatina
Special Section
Mexican Police Rape and
Physically Assault 26 of the 47 Women Arrested
During Street Protests in San Salvador Atenco in May
of 2006
Human Trafficking Bill Passes
Assembly
Sacramento
– The State Assembly yesterday unanimously approved
legislation that would allow courts to seize any
property, such as house or automobile, used in the
commission of human trafficking. In addition to the
courts seizing property, SB 557 would add civil
penalties of up to $25,000.
"SB
557 will bring much-needed resources to help fight
human trafficking, while also ensuring victims
receive the services they need to recover from this
horrific crime," said the bill´s author, Senator
Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo). "Between
14,500 and 17,500 victims are trafficked into the
United States each year and enslaved for purposes of
sexual or labor exploitation, and unfortunately many
of the cases occur here in California. Our state has
led the way in combating human trafficking and
exploitation, but we should not stop our efforts
until all women, men, and children are free and safe
from such an appalling offense." ...
The
US Department of Justice recently announced that in
the first 21 months of operation, the Human
Trafficking Reporting System (HTRS) recorded
information on more than 1,200 alleged incidents of
human trafficking.
According to the Justice Department, nearly 90
percent of victims in human trafficking cases were
female and almost all (99%) victims in sex
trafficking cases were female.
Hispanic victims comprised the largest share (37
percent) of alleged sex trafficking victims and more
than half (56 percent) of alleged labor trafficking
victims. Asians made up 10 percent of alleged sex
trafficking victims, compared to 31 percent of labor
trafficking victims. Approximately two-thirds of
victims in alleged human trafficking incidents were
age 17 or younger (27 percent) or age 18 to 24 (38
percent). Sex trafficking victims tended to be
younger (71 percent were under age 25) and labor
trafficking victims tended to be older (almost 70
percent were age 25 or older).
Nearly eight in 10 human trafficking suspects were
male. US citizens accounted for 66 percent of
suspects in alleged incidents.
SB
557 will receive a procedural concurrence vote in
the Senate before heading to the Governor's desk.
California Chronicle
Sep. 02, 2009
Added:
Sep. 04, 2009
Oregon, USA
 |
|
Store security camera image of
suspect |
Police seek help identifying
Clackamas sex abuse suspect
Clackamas - Sheriff's deputies are asking for the
public's help in identifying a man who sexually
abused a 6-year-old girl shopping in a
Clackamas-area store Tuesday.
The girl suffered no physical injuries in the
incident.
Detective Jim Strovink, sheriff's spokesman, said a
woman was shopping at the Nordstrom Rack store on
Southeast Sunnyside Road shortly after 7:30 p.m.
Tuesday, accompanied by her son and daughter. The
woman noticed a man who seemed to be near her
children when they visited different areas of the
store, but didn't say anything.
When they reached the shoe aisle, around 7:50 p.m.,
a man followed. He then began masturbating and
rubbing against the girl.
Strovink said store surveillance cameras showed that
the man had contact with the girl about a half-dozen
times. Each time, he faced away from the girl's
mother and carried a piece of clothing to conceal
his abdomen.
After leaving the store, the girl told her mother
what had happened, saying the man kept winking at
her during contact. The woman then reported the
incident to the store's security staff.
The man is described as 40- to 50-years-old, about
5-foot-6, 200 pounds, with short black hair. He was
last seen wearing a blue-and-white striped
short-sleeved shirt, a dark blue baseball cap with
the letter "B" in front and a pair of shoes with an
alligator logo -- possibly Izod brand...
Rick Bella
The Oregonian
Sep. 03, 2009
Added:
Sep. 04, 2009
Georgia, USA
 |
|
Jose
Hernandez-Ruiz |
Teen's Text Message Helps Halt
Attack
Gwinnett County
- A Gwinnett County man was in jail
Thursday without bond, accused of attacking a
teenage girl. Authorities said the attack could have
been much worse had the girl not sent a text message
to one of her friends asking for help.
Jose
Hernandez-Ruiz was charged with sexual battery,
kidnapping. The victim in the case is 16-years-old.
Investigators said during the attack, the victim was
able to send a text message to a friend asking for
help. The victim said her friends responded and were
able to put a stop to the attack.
Hernandez-Ruiz was arrested and taken to the
Gwinnett County jail. Hernandez-Ruiz was also held
for federal immigration purposes.
Edited by Leigha Baugham
Fox News Atlanta
Sep. 03, 2009
Added:
Sep. 04, 2009
Connecticut, USA
 |
|
Police artist's rendering of
abduction suspect |
Police: Man Tried To Pull Girl
Into Car
14-Year-Old Was Walking To Bus Stop, Police Say
Stamford, Conn. -- A man
attempted to abduct a 14-year-old girl who was
walking to her bus stop Thursday morning, police
said.
Stamford police said the
girl was walking to her bus stop on Atlantic Street
near Woodland Avenue at about 6:30 a.m.
The girl told police
that a small blue car pulled up to the curb and the
driver leaned across the passenger seat and asked
for directions to Interstate 95. When the girl
approached the car, police said the man opened the
passenger door and grabbed her by the shirt and back
pack and tried to pull her into the car.
Police said the girl
slid out of the backpack and ran into a nearby deli.
The man is described as
being Hispanic, possibly from Columbia based on his
accent. He appears to be in his mid 20s with a slim
build and short, spikey hair. Police said he was
wearing a white shirt and black shorts. The shorts
were splattered with paint and painting equipment
was in the car.
WFSB News
Sep. 03 / 04, 2009
Added:
Sep. 03, 2009
Mexico
 |
|
Mexico's Special
Prosecutor for
Crimes of
Violence Against
Women and
Trafficking in
Persons - Maria
Guadalupe Morfin
Photo:
ElLaMira.net |
Guadalupe Morfín Otero… ¡¿Quiere
Pasarse De La PGR A La CNDH?!
La titular de la Fiscalía Especial
para los Delitos de Violencia contra
las Mujeres y Trata de Personas
(FEVIMTRA) de la Procuraduría
General de la República (PGR), María
Guadalupe Morfín, renunció a su
cargo, debido a que buscará presidir
la Comisión Nacional de Derechos
Humanos…
Maria Guadalupe Morfin… Now She
Wants to Transfer from Her Role as
Special Prosecutor for Crimes of
Violence Against Women and
Trafficking in Persons, to become
head of the National Human Rights
Commission
Maria Guadalupe Morfin, Special
Prosecutor for Crimes of Violence
Against Women and Trafficking in
Persons (FEVIMTRA), in the Attorney
General's Office (PGR), has resigned
her position in that office to seek
to become the head of the National
Human Rights Commission (CNDH).
To some analysts, there is clear
intent by the current
administration, headed by the
National Action Party (PAN)
President Felipe Calderón, to place
a chairperson in the human rights
commission who is loyal to his
administration and to his party.
According to this logic, the
president can then provide cover for
his administration from the one
agency that gives [a highly visible]
voice to complaints about the
federal government’s human rights
abuses.
That is to say, the change in
leadership will lead to fewer
political embarrass-ments
[for Calderón].
Note that Morfin assumed the
leadership of FEVIMTRA on January
31, 2008, following the resignation
of special prosecutor
Alicia Elena Pérez Duarte,
who was investigated by the attorney
general’s office, and who in her
official capacity appeared to
advocate for activist/journalist
Lydia Cacho, who was arrested in
2005, an advocacy that [Pérez
Duarte] was barred from…
Armando Sanchez
www.ElLaMira.net
Sep. 01, 2009
LibertadLatina
note:
The
above Sep. 1, 2009 news article from
En la Mira (In Focus) alleges
that former special prosecutor
Alicia Elena Pérez Duarte
left her post in late 2007 due to an
investigation by the Attorney
General's office into her support
for anti-child trafficking activist
and journalist Lydia Cacho. This is
the first allegation of this type
that we have seen in regard to
Pérez Duarte.
It is clear to
us, from a review of the timeline of
events and from
Pérez Duarte's
statements at the time,
that
she
resigned from FEVIM (the predecessor
to FEVIMTRA) in reaction to the
brazen ruling by Mexico's Supreme
Court that declared that Lydia
Cacho's basic rights were not
violated when Puebla state governor
Mario Marin, in conspiracy with
millionaire and alleged child sex
trafficker Kamel Nacif, had Lydia
Cacho arrested, tortured and
threatened with rape in retaliation
for Cacho's use of Kamel's name in
her exposé, Demons of Eden.
This new
allegation appears to be an attempt
to diminish the powerful charges
that
Pérez Duarte
has leveled against the Attorney
General's office, that [consistent
with the misogynist policies of the
ruling National Action Party (PAN)
administration] they
actively
suppressed FEVIM from prosecuting
several high-profile cases of the
use of official impunity to violate
women's basic human rights.
End impunity now!
Chuck
Goolsby
LibertadLatina
Sep. 03,
2009
Two
critiques of FEVIMTRA under the
leadership of PAN party activist
Guadalupe Morfin
Mujeres de Atenco, Tortura Sexual e
Impunidad
México
DF - El Estado mexicano violó sus
garantías individuales. Fueron
agredidas con golpes en todo el
cuerpo, despojadas de su ropa,
violentadas sexualmente, mordidas,
pellizcadas… les cubrieron el
rostro, les introdujeron dedos y
objetos anal y vaginalmente, las
violaron, las humillaron, las
insultaron, las amenazaron de muerte
y finalmente se les negó la
asistencia ginecológica para que no
pudieran demostrar la tortura
sexual…
Women of
Atenco, sexual torture and Impunity
Mexico City - The Mexican government
violated their individual rights.
They were beaten and stripped of
their clothing. They were sexually
violated, bitten and pinched. Their
faces were covered while police
officers inserted their fingers and
foreign objects into them anally and
vaginally. They were raped,
humiliated, insulted and subjected
to death threats. At the end of it
all, they were refused gynecological
assistance, to make it impossible to
prove that these sexual tortures
took place...
Can the
democratic Mexican state ever find
itself guilty? Never. There are no
legal instruments, nor protocols,
and much less a political will to do
justice for women victims of the
sexual torture that occurred in
Atenco.
In
Mexico, torture carried out by the
state is not a crime. It is a
constant presence that is not
punished.
Unfortunately, in this case the
government has used a woman to
perpetuate impunity: Guadalupe
Morfin. Morfin is the head of the
Special Prosecutor’s office for
Violent Crimes against Women and
Trafficking in Persons (FEVIMTRA).
Morfin has been unwilling to take on
the Atenco case to ensure the
necessary impartiality. The Atenco
prosecutions are taking place in the
State of Mexico, which is an
anomaly.
FEVIMTRA
has been the entity which has
hampered the search for justice for
victims in the Atenco case, and has
itself perpetrated acts of
re-victimization.
FEVIMTRA
has applied strict standards to
define torture without complying
with the Istanbul Protocol.
The
women of Atenco, in the meantime,
continue to resist. They offer us an
invaluable lesson on integrity and
social commitment.
CIMAC Noticias
May 11,
2009
and...
Mexico
Lydia Cacho: tres años de lucha
contra la impunidad
Su
caso, en la Corte Interamericana de
Derechos Humanos
Lydia Cacho:
three years of combating impunity
Excerpt:
First Anniversary of the Resignation
of Alicia Elena Perez Duarte
December, 2008 marks the one year
anniversary of the resignation in
protest of Alicia Elena Pérez
Duarte, the federal Attorney
General's Special Prosecutor for
Crimes of Violence Against Women
(FEVIM). Pérez Duarte left her post
after the Supreme Court of Justice
of the Nation voted against
recognizing the persecution of Lydia
Cacho as having constituted an act
that violated her 'fundamental
guarantees' [of freedom].
Although Cacho filed a formal
complaint of torture [while in state
police detention] before a FEVIM
panel chaired by Pérez Duarte, at
this point in time, three years
later [after FEVIM was transformed
into FEVIMTRA under the leadership
of special prosecutor Guadalupe
Morfin], the case has disappeared...
nobody knows what happened to the
investigatory materials that were
developed by FEVIM, that could have
helped in the prosecution of the
police agents from Puebla state who
tortured Cacho...
Lourdes Godínez Leal
CIMAC
Noticias
Dec.
18, 2008 |
Added:
Sep. 03, 2009
Operan sobre todo en el DF, Guerrero
y otros 15 estados
México, DF -
En México existen 47 grupos de
delincuencia organizada dedicados a
la explotación sexual y laboral de
personas, según el Informe de la
Iniciativa para el Estado de Derecho
de la Asociación de la Barra de
Estados Unidos, que incluyen datos
hasta marzo del 2009...
Forty
Seven Human Trafficking Networks Identified
in Mexico
They operate mainly in Mexico City,
Guerrero and 15 other states
Mexico City - In Mexico there are 47
organized criminal groups engaged in sexual
and labor exploitation of people, according
to the Report of the Initiative for the rule
of law of the American Bar Association
(ABA), which include data through March of
2009.
According to the report of the "Tool for the
Study of the Conditions of Human Trafficking
in Mexico 2009", these groups operate mostly
in the Federal District and 17 other
entities of the Republic, including the
states of Baja California, Chiapas,
Chihuahua, Guerrero , Oaxaca, Tlaxcala,
Quintana Roo, Tamaulipas and Jalisco. The
United States and countries in Central
America are also bases of operation for this
networks.
Reflecting statistics developed by
international and national bodies working on
human trafficking issues, the report states
that in Mexico the number of victims of this
crime could reach 500,000 people.
The report notes just in the state of
Guerrero, the Attorney-General for Special
Investigations into Organized Crime (SIEDO)
has detected 14 organized crime gangs that
engage in child prostitution and
trafficking.
"Public officials estimate that there are 47
Mexican organized crime groups involved in
human trafficking in the country," says the
report.
Maria Guadalupe Morfin Otero, who until
August 31st, 2009 was the Special
Prosecutor for Crimes of Violence Against
Women and Trafficking in Persons (FEVIMTRA),
refused to comment [on the report], because
she considered that the subject was outside
of the scope of the responsibilities of
FEVIMTRA…
CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
Mexico City
Sept. 2, 2009
Added:
Sep. 01, 2009
California, USA
 |
|
Allison Jacobs,
left, and Lisa Campbell of the
University of California
Berkeley Police Department
Photo: CNN |
Officers Who Cracked Missing
Girl Case: Something Wasn't Right
Call it mother's
intuition. Call it a police officer's intuition. But
Allison Jacobs knew something was wrong.
The University of California, Berkeley, police
officer was sitting in on a meeting with a man named
Phillip Garrido, who wanted to hold an event on
campus, and Lisa Campbell, special events manager
for the university police. Garrido brought along two
young girls, introducing them as his daughters.
Jacobs' and Campbell's intuition, authorities said,
led to the arrest of Garrido, a registered sex
offender who along with his wife, Nancy, now faces
29 felony charges in connection with the 1991
kidnapping of Jaycee Dugard, who was then 11. Both
have pleaded not guilty...
"He was clearly animated, he was very passionate, he
was full of life about the things he wanted to talk
about," Campbell said. "The girls sort of were
recessed in the background. And they were young. It
was one o'clock in the afternoon. They weren't in
school. They were pretty much unresponsive
emotionally, extremely pale ... there was just
something about the girls that wasn't right."
She thought the encounter was strange enough to run
a background check on Garrido, which revealed that
he was on parole after a rape conviction and was a
registered sex offender...
Jacobs called Garrido's parole officer to tell him
about the meeting. "And he stopped me dead in my
tracks," she said. "And he said, 'He doesn't have
daughters.' And that's when my heart kind of sunk
down into my stomach...
"The parole agent called me on my way home from
work," Jacobs said Friday. "And he was all excited
... and he said that ... he was involved with a
kidnapping case and ... because I called it in, it
helped solve this FBI case that was 18 years old."
"We're never going to forget this day," she said.
"And I'm glad that Jaycee is safe and working on her
road to recovery..."
CNN
Aug. 31, 2009
See also:
Phillip Garrido Has A Troubled
History, His Father Says
The father of Phillip Garrido,
suspected of kidnapping an 11-year-old South Lake
Tahoe girl 18 years ago, said today his son had a
long history of drug use and mental problems.
"They are treating him like he knew what he was
doing, but he didn’t know what he was doing," Manuel
Garrido, 88, said in a telephone interview from his
home in Brentwood in Northern California. "The man
is out of it. He is a sick man. He should be treated
that way. He should be punished but he should be
treated like a crazy person." ...
Los Angeles Times
Aug. 28, 2009
 |
|
¡Feliz Día Internacional de la
Mujer!
Happy International Women's Day!
LibertadLatina
Nuestra
declaración de 2005 Día
Internacional de la Mujer
es pertinente hoy en día, y define
bien la
emergencia hemesferica que
enfrentan las mujeres y en
particular as niñas de todas las
Américas.
Pedimos a todas las personas de
conciencia que siguimos trabajando
duro para inform al público en
general acerca de esta crisis, y que
aumentamos nuestra presión popular
sobre los funcion-arios electos y
otros encarga-dos de tomar
decisiones, que deben cambiar el
statu quo y responder con seriadad,
por fin, a las
atrocidades
de violencia de género -en
masa- que afectan cada vez mas a
las mujeres y las niñas de las
Américas.
¡Basta ya con la impunidad y la
violencia de genero!
LibertadLatina
Our 2005
statement for International Women's
Day is relevant
today, and accurately defines the
hemispheric emergency facing women
and especially girl children in the
Americas.
We ask that all people of conscience
work hard to continue informing the
general public about this crisis,
and that we all ramp-up the pressure
on elected officials and other
decision makers, who must change the
status quo and respond, finally, to
the increasingly severe mass
gender atrocities that are
victimizing women and girls across
the Americas.
End Impunity and violence against
women now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
March 8, 2008 |
|
|
Read our special
section on the crisis in the city of Tapachula
Mexico
The city of Tapachula, near
Mexico's border with Guatemala,
is one of the largest and most lawless child sex
trafficking markets in all of Latin America.
Our new news section
tracks events related to this hell-on-earth,
where over half of the estimated 21,000 sex slaves
and other sex workers are underage, and where
especially migrant women and girls from Central and
South America, who seek to migrate to the United
States, have their freedom taken from them, to
become a money-making commodity for gangs of
violent criminals.
A 2007 study by the international organization
ECPAT
[End Child Prostitution and Trafficking]...
revealed that over 21,000 Central Americans, mostly
children, are prostituted in 1,552 bars and brothels
in Tapachula.
- Chuck Goolsby
Libertad Latina |
|
Added June 15, 2008
Ending Global Slavery: Everyday Heroes
Leading the Way
Humanity United and Change-makers, a project of Ashoka
International, are conducting a global online
competition to identify innovative approaches to exposing,
confronting and ending modern-day human slavery.
View the over 200 entries from 45
nations
See especially:
Teresa Ulloa: Agarra la Onda
Chavo", Masculini-dad, Iniciación Sexual y Consumo de la
Prostitución ('Get It Together Young Man: Masculinity,
Sexual Initiation and Consumption of Prostitution).
Equidad Laboral Y La Mujer
Afro-Colombiana
(Labor
Equality and the Afro-Colombian Woman)
Alianza Por Tus
Derechos, Costa Rica:
Our borders: say
no to traffick-ing of persons, specially children
(APTD's
news feed is a major source of Spanish language news
articles translated and posted on
LibertadLatina).
Prevención de la migración
temprana y fortalecimiento de los lazos familiares en apoyo
a las Trabajadoras del Hogar en Ayacucho
(Preventing early migration and re-enforcing families)...
serving women in Quechua and
Spanish in largely Indigenous
Ayacucho, Peru.
LibertadLatina.org contributor Carla
Conde - Freuden-dorff, on her work assisting Dominican women
trafficked to Argentina
Contribute
your comments and questions about competition entries.
- Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
June 15/21/22,
2008
See also:
Added June 15, 2008
The World
Entrepreneur for Society
Bill Drayton discusses the
founding of Ashoka... "Our job is not to give people fish,
it's not to teach them how to fish, it's to build new and
better fishing industries."
- Ashoka Foundation
See also:
Ashoka Peru |
|
Mexico
 |
|
A woman is paraded
before Johns on Mexico City's San Tomas Street,
where kidnap victims are forced into prostitu-tion
and are 'trained'
(C) NY Times |
The Girls Next
Door
The New York Times'
ground-breaking story on child and youth sex trafficking
from Mexico into the United States
[About Montser-rat, a former
child trafficking victim:]
Her cell of sex traffickers
offered three age ranges of sex partners -- toddler to age
4, 5 to 12 and teens -- as well as what she called a ''damage
group.'' ''In the damage group they can hit you
or do anything they wanted...''
- Peter Landesman
New York Times Magazine
January 25, 2004 |
Latin
American Trafficking News Summary
Hurricane Wilma - 2005
Earthquakes and hurricanes...
The impact of natural disasters
on women and children's human rights in the Americas
Video
Roundtable on Trafficking of Women and
Children in the Americas
- Organization of American States
United States
More than 163,000 Hispanic children... are
reported missing and exploited in the United States every year.
- National Center for Missing &
Exploited Children (NCMEC)
March 22, 2006
Latin America
Beyond Machismo - A Cuban Case Study
"I am a recovering macho, a product of
an oppressive society, a society where gender, race and class
domination do not exist in isolated compart-ments, nor are they
neatly relegated to uniform categories of repression. They are
created in the space where they interact and conflict with each
other, a space I will call machismo."
- Cuban-American
theologian and ethicist
Dr. Miguel de la Torre
|
|
|
|
 |
|
"Familia" by Salvadoran
artist Zelie Lardé. (1901-1974)
|
 |
|
Who will protect them from impunity?
We
Must! |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
/ Welcome
