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Indigenous & Latina Women & Children's Human
Rights News from the Americas |
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Indigenous & Latina Women & Children's Human
Rights News from the Americas |
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Indigenous & Latina Women & Children's Human
Rights News from the Americas |
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Latin American
Women, Children at Risk |
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Sexual Exploitation in the Workplace
Across the Americas
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Last Updated July 26,
2009 |
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"Traditions" of Workplace Rape Across the United
States and Latin America |
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A crisis of rape with impunity in the workplace
severely impacts the lives of Latin American
immigrant women and girls across the United States |
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Plaintiffs & EEOC staff attorneys involved in a
$1,855,000 voluntary settlement resulting from a
class action suit brought on behalf of lettuce
giant Tanimura & Antle
female employees subjected to sexual harassment and
retaliation in California & Arizona.
Full story. |
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EEOC Reveals Rise in Cases Involving Blue-Collar
Women
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Two years after the U.S. Supreme Court clarified
employer liability in sexual harassment cases,
experts say the problem remains persistent even
while the nature of complaints shifts.
An examination of the caseload at the U.S. Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission reveals that
companies are facing a changing and growing roster
of complaints. The EEOC, under its first Latina
chair, Ida Castro, cites an " alarming" rise in
cases involving the most vulnerable women in the
workplace: those filling blue-collar and factory
jobs, especially immigrants. |
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NEWS
Willamette Tree Wholesale Sued By EEOC For Severe Sexual Harassment,
Retaliation
Latina Workers at Oregon Nursery Sexually Harassed, Threatened, and One Woman
Repeatedly Raped, Federal Agency Charges
Seattle - A
Molalla, Oregon nursery violated federal law when it allowed female
employees to be severely sexually harassed and retaliated against
the women and male co-workers after they reported the harassment,
the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a
lawsuit it filed today. This is the agency’s third such case against
Oregon agricultural employers. Last October, the EEOC filed lawsuits
against Scheimer Farms of Nyassa, Ore., and against Wilcox Farms,
Inc., and Wilcox Dairy Farms Group in Aurora, Ore.
The EEOC’s suit
charges that sexual harassment and retaliation occurred at the
Molalla, Ore., facility of Willamette Tree Wholesale, which operates
140 acres of retail nursery farmland, including a garden supply
store and business office. According to the federal agency’s
investigation, one worker, a 38-year-old Latina, was taken to remote
areas of the farm by the company foreman and raped repeatedly over
several months. In addition to threatening her with termination and
loss of needed income, the harasser physically coerced her with
pruning shears, and made threats against her life as well as against
her family. Ultimately, when she refused to be sexually assaulted
yet again, she was fired.
Another Latina
co-worker, age 35, faced daily sexual innuendos and propositions for
sex as well as grabbing and touching. When she and her husband, who
also worked there, reported sexual harassment by a crew leader,
Willamette Tree failed to investigate or respond to their complaint.
The EEOC alleges that the couple and her brother were terminated in
retaliation for having reported and opposed sexual harassment.
“All sexual
harassment is unacceptable, but what happened here is unspeakable,”
said EEOC Acting Chairman Stuart J. Ishimaru. “This shows how
dangerous a situation can become when employers are hostile to
workers' rights and sexual harassment goes unchecked. There simply
is no excuse for any employer tolerating this sort of worker abuse,
and enough is enough. The EEOC is going to be focusing more and more
on finding new and better ways to reach the most vulnerable of
discrimination victims, like these farm workers, and to halt this
kind of horrific mistreatment." ...
EEOC Regional
Attorney William R. Tamayo said, “From California, where the fields
were called ‘field de calzon’ [campo de calzones] (or ‘field of panties’) because so
many supervisors raped women there, to Florida, where female farm
workers call them ‘The Green Motel,’ and throughout the country, we
have found women working in agriculture are often particularly
vulnerable to sexual harassment. We hope this third Oregon lawsuit
will send notice to employers in this industry to stop predatory
sexual behavior and abuses of supervisor power.”
EEOC District
Director Michael Baldonado noted, “Our investigation found that
sexual harassment at Willamette Tree was widespread, tolerated,
expected, and a condition of employment...
Workers who suffered sexual harassment at Willamette Tree Wholesale
should contact the EEOC to determine if they qualify to be part of
the class: contact Carmen Flores at (206) 220-6853.
In 2008, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed
the judgment on a jury verdict of over $1,000,000 in favor of the
EEOC and farm worker Olivia Tamayo (no relation to William Tamayo)
in a sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit against Coalinga,
Calif.-based Harris Farms, one of the largest integrated farming
operations in the Central San Joaquin Valley.
The EEOC enforces
federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. Further
information about the EEOC is available on its web site at
www.eeoc.gov.
U.S. EEOC
Press Release
June 18, 2009
See also:
Added:
July 19, 2009
LibertadLatina
Commentary
Latina immigrant women and girls in
the U.S. low wage workplace need and deserve our help to confront
and end sexual harassment and rape with impunity
Much of the impunity surrounding the
sexual harassment of Latina women and underage girl workers in the
U.S. comes about from the application of 'traditional' Latin
American behaviors that adhere to the code of machismo. Under
machismo, "a supervisor has rights to sexual privileges from his
female workers," as an acquaintance from Colombia said to me with
great seriousness, after I explained to him the circumstances
involved in three egregious cases of workplace exploitation in
Montgomery County, Maryland (see below).
The types of gross impunity that
EEOC Acting Chairman Stuart J. Ishimaru
finds so outrageous in the low wage agricultural workplace, are, in fact,
'standard
operating procedure' across all low-wage industries where Latino immigrant men
supervise Latina immigrant women.
Men in these
positions literally expect U.S. society and its law enforcement and
regulatory institutions to simply 'butt out of it' - and let them
violently rape and exploit women and underage girls, even those who
are pregnant, in the agricultural, fast food restaurant, hotel
service, office cleaning, and low wage factory industries.
It is literally the
case that if
EEOC Acting Chairman Stuart J. Ishimaru
simply interviewed the Latina office cleaners in any commercial
office building within one block of his EEOC headquarters building
(which I am familiar with), they would all have stories to tell
about rape, and quid-pro-quo demands that require them to give sex
unwillingly to their bosses under threat of being fired.
The reality in the
Washington, DC region is that these conditions exist, or at some
time in the recent past have existed in every commercial office
building, as well as
in some federal office buildings in the region.
We are encouraged by
EEOC Acting Chairman Stuart J. Ishimaru's
expression of outrage about these abuses.
Starting in 1995 I began
to make federal officials, local government officials, local Latin
newspapers, local Latin community advocacy agencies and even the
annual Low Wage Worker's conference sponsored by the U.S. Department
of Labor Women's Bureau ... aware of this crisis.
Yet a deaf ear was
turned in all of these venues.
So it
is about time that someone in authority responded seriously to these
outrageous criminal and civil violations of the basic
human rights of women and girls by waking up and smelling the coffee. Over
time, this crisis is getting worse, not better.
In my local region, the Montgomery Country, Maryland
Human Relations Commission, which acts as the federal EEOC's local
intake office and processor for EEOC discrimination cases. In one of
the three egregious workplace sexual harassment cases listed below,
involving Latina victims, the Montgomery Country, Maryland Human
Relations Commission simply dragged its feet, and then made the
casework 'disappear.' In another of these cases, an investigator for
the commission told Latina victims of severe sexual harassment and
rape that they should just put up with it, and maybe call the
Commission back later if it got worse. The law enforcement community
in Montgomery County, Maryland has also given the cold shoulder to
Latina victims in our community.
In one particular case (see Case # 2, below), that I
was involved in as an independent advocate, regarding a case of
physical assault against a Latina cleaning worker by her supervisor
in a U.S. federal office building community, no victim services were
provided, and the assistant to the State's Attorney's office
repeatedly called me at work begging me to convince the victim not
to pursue the criminal complaint against her boss, who has grabbed
her up out of a chair in his office, slapped her hard across her
chest, and then pushed her so hard out of his office that she fell
onto the floor of the hallway.
If
EEOC
Acting Chairman Stuart J. Ishimaru is sincere about wanting to
improve services for this class of severely
oppressed and exploited victims, he will first have to see to it
that state and local governments clean-up their act in regard to
assisting Latina victims of workplace sexual harassment and physical
and sexual assault. They, first and foremost, must not participate
in the environment of impunity that some immigrant men have brought
into the United States and converted into the 'lawless
low-wage workplace!'
Until a successful formula is found for addressing
this crisis, these human rights violations will continue to be
epidemic across low wage U.S. workplaces.
Those
at risk, and those who are victims need our assistance today!
End impunity now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
July 26, 2009
The United States
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Farm worker women wear bandanas in the fields
for protection and to help ward off sexual attention
Southern Poverty Law Center |
Campaña nacional contra el
acoso sexual a mujeres, en EU
Promovida por OSC 40
ciudades de EU
Nueva York, EU,- Organizaciones de derechos civiles
iniciaron la “Campaña Nacional en contra del Acoso
Sexual que sufren las Mujeres” en 40 ciudades de
este país. Las más afectadas, aseguran, son las
trabajadoras del campo.
Tocante al acoso sexual que sufren las mujeres, el
mes pasado, el programa ‘Now’ que proyecta la
televisora pública del canal 13, informó que por lo
menos 200 mil jóvenes anualmente son molestadas
sexualmente en sus centros de trabajo.
En tanto, la televisora en español Univisión informa
que el alto porcentaje se registra en las mujeres
del campo.
La iniciativa, denominada "Bandana Project", que
hace alusión a los pañuelos (bandana en inglés) con
los que las campesinas cubren su rostro mientras
trabajan en el campo y es impulsada por el "Southern
Poverty Law Center" (SPLC, por sus siglas en inglés)
en Atlanta, Los Ángeles, Nueva York, Boston y
Chicago, entre otras ciudades, informa la agencia de
noticias EFE...
Leticia Puente Beresford
CIMAC Noticias
April 07, 2009
Bandana Project to Spotlight
Sexual Exploitation of Farmworker Women
Residents of 25 states and three other countries
will take a stand against the sexual exploitation of
farmworker women and other low-wage female immigrant
workers in April as part of the "Bandana Project," a
partnership between the Southern Poverty Law Center
(SPLC) and community groups, universities and other
advocacy organizations to raise awareness and
educate these women about their rights.
The Bandana Project is a national campaign, launched
in 2007, that adopted the bandana as a symbol of
solidarity to end sexual violence against farmworker
women because many use bandanas on the job to cover
their faces and bodies in an attempt to ward off
unwanted sexual attention that often leads to
rape...
Sexual exploitation has received little public
attention but is well-known to farmworker women,
many of whom remain silent about sexual harassment
on the job. William R. Tamayo, regional attorney for
the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in San
Francisco, wrote in a 2000 report that "the sexual
harassment of farmworker women is a widespread
problem..."
Southern Poverty Law Center
April 02, 2009
LibertadLatina
Commentary
We applaud the Southern Poverty Law Center's decision to promote a
campaign bringing attention to the problem of sexual harassment and
rape in farmworker communities, which is an epidemic problem.
As someone who started his activism advocating for the basic human
and legal rights of low wage working Latina women and teens in the
greater Washington, DC region over 20 years ago, I have seen
close-up the impunity with which men in supervisory positions within
Latin immigrant workplaces demand sexual favors from all women and
underage teen girls, even those who are pregnant, as a basic condition of being hired, and
then of
being able to continue employment.
If you as a working Latina female do not comply with these illegal demands,
you will be demoted and ultimately fired, and government
institutions will typically not respond or assist you unless you
know the U.S. legal system well, and are persistent over a period of
years in demanding justice. Few immigrant women face those unique
circumstances.
Here on
LibertadLatina
we have documented farmworker sexual exploitation cases for several
years. We are glad to see the Southern Poverty Law Center take up
the banner of this cause and carry it forward with a level of public
awareness that will be felt nationwide.
Within the farmworker community, the tens of thousands of immigrant
indigenous women workers from Mexico and elsewhere are especially
vulnerable to sexual exploitation, given their limited know-ledge of
Spanish, and the carry-over of patterns of race-based sexual abuse
from their home countries.
Not to be forgotten in relation to this issue is the undisputable
fact that sex trafficking networks in Mexico systematically kidnap,
rape, and sell into forced, unpaid sexual slavery thousands of
Mexican and Central American girls whose sole purpose as slaves is
to provide sex to immigrant farmworker men. The victims include
many, many girls in the 12 to 14-years-of-age range, and some as
young as age 7.
In the past an analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote an
article critical of the idea that migrant men living in Pensaquitos
Canyon (located in San Diego County, California) a men's farm labor camp built
on wild lands adjoining suburban housing tracts, were using
enslaved underage girls brought to them on a regular basis by child
sex traffickers. Such child sex trafficking in that region is an
undeniable fact that has been well documented.
We encourage the Southern Poverty Law Center, and all other
defenders of human rights to take up the banner of these enslaved
girls, who are forced to live out their now-shortened lives
providing sex against their will to up-to 30 men per hour, 7 days a
week, until they die or are killed for rebelling against a life of
torture.
Focusing attention on the crisis of sexual exploitation facing farm
worker women is very important.
An equally important goal is to keep up the
pressure to end the enslavement and sale into prostitution of little girls and teens
who were kidnapped and forced to sell their bodies under the threat
that the pimps would kill them, and/or kidnap and kill their family members back in
Mexico and Central America.
One issue does not exist without the other!
End impunity now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
April 09, 2009
See also:
LibertadLatina
Latina Child Sex Slavery in
San Diego, California
Hundreds of
children and youth are forced into 'child rape camps' by
traffickers.
Florida, USA
Tampa -
More than anything, the young mother wanted
her children in a permanent home so they
could succeed in elementary school. They
must not end up like her and their father,
hunched over rows of crops all day...
When the owner
of the farm began sexually assaulting her,
she kept it a secret. If her hot-headed
husband learned of it, he might take matters
into his own hands. If he went to prison,
she and her children would be destitute...
...Lourdes
Villanueva... with the Redlands Christian
Migrant Association in Plant City tried to
help. But the woman was ashamed and
terrified - of immigration officials, of
deportation, of her husband's wrath, of the
boss, of getting her family blackballed from
working again. No, she would handle it. No
policia, no. When Villanueva visited her
trailer this month, the family was gone...
Mary Bauer,
director of the Immigrant Justice Project at
the SPLC, testified April 15 about
farmworker exploitation before the Senate
Committee on Health, Education, Labor and
Pensions... Bauer told the senators that of
the estimated 70,000 female farmworkers in
Florida, hundreds if not thousands face
chronic sexual harassment on the job. They
often are forced to have sex with
supervisors to get or keep jobs, she said,
and they put up with a "constant barrage of
grabbing, touching and propositions for sex
by their supervisors."
...Ramirez says
the few studies that have been done on
sexual exploitation reveal a pattern.
"It's like a
Catch-22," she says. "The women know the
abusers won't get in trouble, and the
abusers know it, too. They'll use threats
against the woman's family or say, 'I'll
have your husband and children deported.'
"If they're
undocumented, they are certain no one will
believe them..."
- Donna Koehn
The Tampa
Tribune
April 27,
2008
LibertadLatina
note:
The above tragic story of severe sexual
harassment and 'legalized' (because nobody
gets prosecuted) serial rape is repeated in
thousands of farmworker communities, and in
tens of thousands of low-wage jobs in
restaurants, office cleaning jobs and
hotels, for example, across the United
States. In my 25+ years of advocacy
work for this population in the Washington,
DC region, I have seen little improvement in
conditions for women and underage girl
immigrants who came to the U.S. largely to
escape the impunity of 'legalized' sexual
assault across all of Latin America.
Latin American community leaders within the
U.S. have a responsibility to change course
from the past pattern of ignoring this
issue, and stand-up to fight for the dignity
and basic human rights of women and
children.
Silence is also
violence!
End impunity now!
-
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
April 19,
2008
See also:
LibertadLatina
The sexual Exploitation of Women and Children in
the Washington, DC Region
LibertadLatina
The Workplace Rape
of Latina and Indigneous Women in the U.S. and
Latin America
Added
Jan.
24,
2006
Mexico
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Deputy
Angélica
de
la
Peña
Photo:
La Cronica
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99% Of
Domestic
Workers In
Mexico Are
Adolescents
And Girls -
40,000 Are
Under Age
14.
El 99 por
ciento de
las
trabajadoras
domésticas
del país son
adolescentes
y niñas; 40
mil tienen
menos de 14
años.
Mexico City
- Deputy
Angélica de
la Peña of
the
Democratic
Revolutionary
Party (PRD),
president of
the Special
Commission
on
Childhood,
Adolescents
and Families
in the
Chamber of
Deputies
(Lower
House),
indicated in
a press
conference
that
99% Of all
domestic
workers In
Mexico are
adolescents
and girls
who do not
study in
school, and
who are
vulnerable
to sexual
abuse in
their
work-places.
Deputy de la
Peña stated
that 40,000
of these
workers are
under
14-years-of-age,
children who
depend upon
their
employers
for shelter
and food.
They have no
set list of
work tasks,
and no work
schedule.
Domestic
work is
considered
to be the
least
respected,
the most
poorly paid
and the
least
regulated
form of
work.
Although the
Mexican
Constitution
states that
children
must be
provided
with food,
healthcare,
education
and
recreation
for their
integral
development,
and
prohibits
youth under
age 14 from
working, the
reality is
that Mexican
society is
violating
that sacred
concept.
Mexico is
also a
signatory to
the
International
Labor
Organization's
Convention
182,
prohibiting
the worst
forms of
child labor.
Faced with
these
realities,
Deputy de la
Peña is
proposing
that the
Mexican
Congress
modify
Article 175
of Mexico's
employment
Law, to
completely
eliminate
child
domestic
work.
In addition,
the Deputy
would like
to add an
Article 21
to the Law
for Child
and
Adolescent
Protection,
to
specifically
defend
children
from forms
of work that
subject them
to sexual,
physical or
psycho-logical
harm.
- La Cronica
de Hoy
Jan. 22,
2006
See Also:
Web
Site / Sitio
Web -
Diputado
Angélica
de la Peña
Added
Dec. 10,
2005
México
Minimizan
violencia hacia mujeres en el ámbito
laboral.
Women labor leaders in Mexico held a press
conference to announce that, despite the
fact that violence against women in the
workplace is a constant reality, official
action against these aggressions are few,
and that employers and government
institutions still see workplace sexual
violence as ‘natural.’
Organizers of
the event are promoting their Women’s
Political Agenda in Relation to Political
Power, which emphasizes the importance
of creating environments free of workplace
violence, particularly sexual harassment and
assault.
Daisy Hernandez, member of National Union of
Education Workers (SNTE)…
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“Violence against women in the
workplace has not been seriously
investigated, and when there are
investigations, it is apparent that
money corrupts the companies and
government agencies involved, since
there are never any results.”
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Marcelina Bautista, founder of the Center of
Support and Training for Domestic Employees…
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Without legislation to protect them,
domestics, who are typically
children, are subject to violence by
homeowners who force them to work up
to 16 hours a day and who subject
them to sexual harass-ment.
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Maria Salazar, also of the SNTE…
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This is violence that really is a
form of terrorism, although it is
not viewed as such [by society].
"We have all lived through workplace
violence in flesh and blood, or
through assisting our sisters who
have been." |
- CIMAC Noticias
Dec. 09, 2005
Added
Oct.
29,
2005
Nicaragua
Domésticas en mira de patrones abusivos.
According to a legal
investigation done by the International
Labor Organization (ILO) domestic work done
by adolescent girls between the ages of 12
and 16 is an open door to the sexual
exploitation.
The majority of male
homeowners sexually abuse these workers.
In addition to being subjected to workplace
rape, these girl workers are often denied
pay for their work.
-
ElNuevoDiario.com.ni
Oct. 28,
2005
LibertadLatina
Note:
The sexual and economic
exploitation of girls, youth and women in
the workplace is common across Latina
America and also affects many thousands of
low- wage workers in the U.S. Our work
started out in advocacy for this abused
population.
Added July 03 2005
Selected U.S.
Equal Employment Opportunities Commission
(EEOC) actions in the first half of 2005:
United States
EEOC
Launches Spanish-language Youth@work Web
Site.
06/29/2005
Rivera
Vineyards in California to Pay 1.05 Million
to Latina Women Subjected to Severe Sexual
Harassment, Rape, Retaliatory Firings & Job
Segregation.
06/15/2005
Aerospace
Leader
Hamilton
Sundstrand to Pay 1.25 Million to Latino
Workers in olorado Subjected to Hostile Work
Environment.
05/20/2005
Las Vegas Hotel/Casino
Caesars Palace is Sued Alleging that for
Years, Five Managers in Kitchen Forced Oral
Sex Acts, Bodily Touching, Unfavorable
Treatment for Resisting and
Retaliation on Women Workers, Including a
Pregnant Employee.
04/04/2005
McDonalds
in New Mexico & Arizona Sued for Managerial
Sex Harassment of Young Workers.
02/24/2005
California's
Agriculture Giant Harris Farms Ordered
by Jury to Pay $994,000 to a Married Mother
of 5, Repeatedly Raped at Work by Her Boss,
Who Threatened Her and Other Women, Bragged
of His Impunity, and Carried a Gun and
Knife.
01/21/2005
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1 - Sexual Exploitation of Latin American Women
& Girls in the Workplace - Montgomery
County, MD |
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Working To Make
a Difference
The work of
LibertadLatina.org
grew out of 2 decades of effort focused on
providing Latina and Latina Indigenous women and girls in
Montgomery County, Maryland (a suburb just north of
Washington, DC)... with advocacy against rape and
retaliatory firings (for not giving in to rape) that were
and are the daily reality in the low-wage workplace.
The abuses commonly encountered include those described
outrages in the Laurel, MD EEOC case (see below), and
included actual cases of rape and coerced sexual
exploitation. Latina and Indigenous women and girls in
the U.S. face an epidemic of rape in their workplaces and
communities. The legal system does not now
effectively protect these women and children from criminal
sexual assault.
LibertadLatina.org's
work within the Washington, DC region has
documented the fact that the dynamics of historic patterns of
anti-female exploitation with impunity that target Latina and
Indigenous women and girls are merging with other, existing
forms of local criminal sexual predation in the U.S.,
subjecting immigrant women and children to open sexual assault
with impunity in low-wage workplaces and on the streets of their
communities.
The below employment abuse
cases document the sexual assault, coercion and severe
sexual harassment events that the author has witnessed
firsthand, second-hand and through third-hand stories from
dozens of immigrant women and girls since the 1980's.
Convincing abused
victims to come forward and pursue long-term
legal actions (cases typically take two years to
resolve) is difficult. Case duration
combines with justified immigrant women's
fear of the judicial system's possible
prejudices and fear of the known terror tactics
of their supervisors to often convince victims
to either keep quiet and submit to rape in the
workplace, or to face retaliatory reprimands,
demotions, shift changes and firings for not
submitting to the sexual demands of their
supervisors and managers. These events
occur every day in the U.S.
Latina immigrant women and
girl workers are typically unaware of the laws against
sexual harassment and sexual coercion on the books.
When the author distributed the translated version of the
Montgomery County Women's Commission's Sexual Harassment
brochure to Latina women workers in the mid 1990's, for
example, it was read with astonished surprise that such laws
existed in the United States. When the author noted to
the Montgomery County Women's Commission during a May, 1994
presentation to them on these issues that... more brochures
needed to be printed, and that I could effectively
distribute them (I did Latin event promotions at the time),
several commission members shook their heads in disbelief
and my request was denied. That simple action still,
nine years later in 2003, needs to be taken in Montgomery
County, MD and across the U.S.
The effective communication
by advocates to Latina victims of their rights and abilities
to pursue criminal, civil and EEOC legal cases will be a
critical part of the education process needed to break the
code of silence surrounding these acts of blatant impunity
in the U.S. workplace.
Presentation to
the Commission for Women
A Letter from the Montgomery County, MD Women's
Commission
responds positively to Charles Goolsby, Jr.'s May
27, 1994 presentation before the Commission that
detailed many of of the abuse cases listed on
the
LibertadLatina.org
web
site and specifically on this page).
Despite over a decade of effort, both the abuse
with impunity faced by working Latina women and
girls and the apathy and inaction of police and
judicial authorities continue to be an ongoing
horror in this county.
True Cases from
the Frontlines of Impunity
The below three
workplace sexual and physical abuse cases are
all 100% factual. The case narratives
speak for the victims, and they document the
voiceless cries of tens if not hundreds of
thousands of working women and girls across the
United States who face rape and coercion with
impunity largely because anti-immigrant
hostility and apathy from government
agencies allows it to happen,
That must change!
Only public awareness and public expressions of
outrage to elected officials, police
administrators and local prosecutors will lead
to improvement. Nothing else seems to
motivate change.
Deliberate
Inaction was the official government and
corporate response in all of
these cases. |
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Using the Pen to Fight Back Against
Impunity
In response to repeated failures to get
the legal and press establishment of
Montgomery County and the greater
Washington, DC area to respond
positively to the urgent needs of Latina
victims of workplace and community
sexual assault, the author wrote the
below report and has distributed it to
many local police, press and advocacy
organizations during the past 9 years.
The organizations that have received
this report in-person from the author
have included the Montgomery County
Police Department, the U.S. Department
of Labor, Women's Bureau staff and
attendees at their 1995 Low Wage Workers
Conference, and the Montgomery County
Commission for Women (1994). The
report was sent by mail to the U.S.
Department of Justice, Worker
Exploitation Task Force in 1999.
LibertadLatina.org
is the evolution of that 1994 report
over time. The issues remain the
same, and the severity of this crisis is
now worse than it was in 1994.
Public pressure is still needed to
change the environment of sexual
exploitation with impunity facing U.S.
immigrant women and girls every day.
-
Chuck Goolsby - September, 2003
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Montgomery County, MD
-- 1994
Charles M. Goolsby, Jr.'s
1994 Report on the Sexual Exploitation
of Latina immigrant Women and Girls in
Montgomery County, Maryland
EXCERPT
...All of
my work in Latin-American immigrant
victim-advocacy has resulted from
victims having approached me seeking
help. Repeatedly, the official reaction
of cleaning contract companies working
within Montgomery County to my polite
raising of these issues has been to do
the following: 1) silence any discussion
of these issues by the use of gross
intimidation against the victims and
myself, 2) fire or force the victims
out, and 3) back-up the actions of the
perpetrators, protecting them from legal
trouble.
Latin-American immigrant women have thus
gotten the message loud and clear on
many occasions that they have become a
cheap, disposable resource in the
American work-place, underpaid,
overworked, and often forced into sexual
submission while government and commerce
knowingly turn their backs.
At this
time I have found it necessary to write
this report. Since 1988 I have formally
presented this information to many
persons-in-authority. Time after time,
these well-educated, well-paid officials
of public and commercial organizations
have said "SO WHAT!" This report is a
substitute for the muffled CRY OF
RAPE from victims who are tired of
having become the sexual 'cannon-fodder'
of America...
- Charles M. Goolsby, Jr. - February,
1994
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Additional Cases
Laurel, Maryland
-- June, 2002
The below case from
Laurel, Maryland, a city on the Route !-95
corridor in Prince Georges County, just East of
Montgomery County, has defined in a formal legal
setting exactly the types of sexual coercion and
severe sexual harassment that the author has
fought against in neighboring Montgomery County,
Maryland since the 1980s. Even pregnant
Latina women and girls are routinely pressured
for sexual favors by their managers and
supervisors in the low-wage workplace.
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"One of the complainants, having been fired
after putting up with daily unwanted
fondling, was, at the time, pregnant. She
was told to come back after the pregnancy
(when she could be exploited sexually)."
Workplace Rape:
Rockville, Maryland - Case 3
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The U.S. Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission (EEOC) today
announced a $1 million settlement of a class
action lawsuit against Grace Culinary Systems,
Inc. and Townsend Culinary, Inc. alleging
egregious sexual harassment of 22 Hispanic women
at a food processing plant in Laurel, Maryland.
The suit charged the companies with routinely
subjecting the female workers, all recent
immigrants from Central America who spoke
limited English, to unwanted groping and
explicit requests for sexual favors by male
managers and co-workers over several years.
...The sexual harassment was
widespread with managers routinely subjecting women to groping and
crude and explicit requests for sexual favors over a period of
years. The harassers were managers and male co-workers...
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...One woman was locked in a freezer by her
supervisor after she turned down his sexual
request. Two other women who were pregnant
at the time were pressured for sex and
subsequently demoted and fired following
their refusal to comply with the advances.
Other women at the plant were
given menial or difficult work
assignments for rejecting requests for
sexual favors by plant managers.
- U.S.
EEOC, Laurel Maryland Case |
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2 - Sexual Exploitation of Latin American Women
& Girls in the Workplace - Across the
United States |
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The advocacy work done in Montgomery County,
Maryland defines a problem of sexual assault, sexual
coercion and severe sexual harassment that exists
across the United States within Latino immigrant
communities and within the low-wage workplaces where
Latin women and girl workers predominate.
Conditions in Montgomery County, Maryland are equal
to conditions for Latinas in New York, Boston,
Detroit, Atlanta, Miami, San Antonio, Los Angeles,
San Diego, San Francisco or Seattle.
Thanks
to the efforts of the United States Equal
Employment Opportunities Commission, which
processes workplace discrimination complaints,
some Latina victims of workplace sexual
exploitation are finally beginning to receive
recognition and some for of compensation for
having been subjected to rape as a condition of
work.
The
U.S. EEOC is playing a critical role in
documenting the reality of this crisis, forcing
the corporate employers involved to stand up to
their responsibilities to provide safe
workplaces for women and girls, and the results
of these cases educate Latina women about their
rights and validate the efforts of grassroots
advocates who can only do so much to affect
change locally.
Still,
the U.S. EEOC case victories for Latinas listed
below represent a tiny fraction of the actual
sexual exploitation cases going on in the U.S.
workplace. Thus much more work remains to
be done.
- Chuck Goolsby
The Voices of
Other Advocates
"Many
women and youth from both sides of the
[Mexican-U.S.] border suffer sexual harassment on a
daily basis (from vulgar sexual propositions to
frottage) and find that oftentimes their work
schedule and salary are dependent on sexual
availability."
"YET WE DON’T HEAR THE CRIES OF INDIGNATION!!"
From
Toxic Silence, by Laura Zárate, Executive Director of
Arte Sana (Art Heals) -
www.Arte-Sana.com
- Texas
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he below
articles were added on 12/11/2004
From
Human Rights Watch:
Migrant Domestic Workers Face Abuse in
the U.S. -
Press Release
Reform of Visa System, Monitoring Are
Needed
The special visas granted to foreigners who
work as household domestics in the U.S.
leave them vulnerable to serious abuse,
Human Rights Watch charged in Hidden in the
Home: Abuse of Domestic Workers with Special
Visas in the United States.
June 14, 2001.
Hidden In The Home: Abuse of Domestic
Workers with Special Visas in the United
States
The special visas granted to
foreigners who work as household domestics
in the U.S. leave them vulnerable to serious
abuse, Human Rights Watch charged in a
report released today. Thousands of these
workers, typically women, enter the United
States every year to work for diplomats,
officials of international organizations,
foreign businesspeople, and U.S. citizens
temporarily back in the U.S. from their
homes abroad. In the fifty-six-page report,
Human Rights Watch documents the cases of
dozens of workers but believes that many
more are exposed to some form of abuse.
The
most effective recourse for workers in
abusive employment relationships is to
change jobs. But under U.S. law, these
workers' visas are tied to their employers
and in most cases they cannot legally change
employers. If they leave, they lose
immigration status and can be deported. In
about ten percent of the cases that Human
Rights Watch reviewed, workers were
trafficking victims. Employers lured the
workers to the United States with false
promises about their employment conditions
and then held them in servitude. These women
worked long hours, up to nineteen per day,
and were often paid less than 0 per month.
They were rarely allowed outside and were
prohibited from speaking to strangers. Some
were physically or sexually abused.
HRW Index No.: G1302
June 1, 2001 Report
Download PDF |
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Sexual Exploitation Cases:
United States
Iowa
- November 20, 2002
Egg firm settles rape suit for $1.5 M
Associated Press
DES MOINES, Iowa - DeCoster Farms, a major U.S. producer of
eggs, agreed yesterday to pay nearly $1.5 million to 11
Mexican women who claimed they were raped by supervisors at
company plants in northern Iowa.
The deal announced by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission settles a discrimination lawsuit filed in August
2001.
The suit claimed the women, who worked as egg packers at four
plants in Wright County, were raped and abused by
supervisors, who threatened to have them fired or
killed if they did not submit.
"We regret that any worker ever felt abused or harassed in the
workplace and would never have tolerated such a
situation had it been known," said Peter DeCoster, who
oversees the company's operations in Iowa.
DeCoster Farms is owned by A.J. "Jack" DeCoster, who reached a
$6 million settlement in May 2001 with hundreds of Mexican
laborers at his operations in Maine who accused him of
discrimination.
Copyright, Associated Press, 2002
Camarillo, California
U.S. EEOC Latina Harassment
Case
Augt 14, 2002 -- LOS ANGELES - The U.S. Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission (EEOC) today announced an $875,000 settlement
of an employment discrimination lawsuit against Technicolor
Videocassette, Inc. at its Camarillo, Calif., video/DVD processing
plant, on behalf of a class of women who alleged they were subjected
to serious, mostly verbal, sexual harassment and to retaliation. TVI
is the leading global supplier and distributor of DVDs, CDs, and
video cassettes.
[The settlement provides
monetary relief for] 18 current and former female employees - half
of whom are Hispanic with limited English proficiency...
California, Arizona
--
U.S. EEOC Case -
California & Arizona
February 23, 1999
Plaintiffs & EEOC staff
attorneys involved in a $1,855,000 voluntary settlement
resulting from a class action suit brought on behalf of
lettuce giant Tanimura & Antle female employees subjected to
sexual harassment and retaliation in California & Arizona.
Arizona
U.S. EEOC Case -
Arizona
June
21, 2000
The U.S. Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced today that it
filed a class lawsuit against Gilbert, Arizona-based Quality Art LLC
and Palestra Capital alleging widespread sexual harassment and
national origin discrimination against 27 female and Hispanic
employees. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District
of Arizona, also claims that Quality Art retaliated against
employees who complained about the discriminatory treatment by
firing them or forcing them to resign, as well as by reporting
several undocumented workers to the Immigration and Naturalization
Service (INS) in an effort to have them arrested and deported.
"This case exemplifies
the type of egregious discrimination and exploitation of low-wage
workers that is still perpetrated against the most vulnerable in our
workforce," said EEOC Chairwoman Ida L. Castro. "Workers cannot be
singled out for discrimination and harassment based on their
national origin and gender, regardless of their immigration status,
much less be retaliated against for trying to protect their civil
rights. The Commission's anti-discrimination mandate is clear and it
applies to everyone in the American workplace."
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3 - Sexual Exploitation of Latin American Women
& Girls in the Workplace - Latin America |
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Human Rights Watch Index on
Women Workers in Mexico
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Added
Oct. 29,
2005
Nicaragua
Domésticas en mira de patrones abusivos.
According to a legal investigation
done by the International Labor Organization (ILO)
domestic work done by adolescent girls between the
ages of 12 and 16 is an open door to the sexual
exploitation.
The majority of male homeowners
sexually abuse these workers. In addition to
being subjected to workplace rape, these girl
workers are often denied pay for their work.
-
ElNuevoDiario.com.ni
Oct. 28, 2005
LibertadLatina
Note:
The
sexual and economic exploitation of girls, youth and
women in the workplace is common across Latina
America and also affects many thousands of low- wage
workers in the U.S. Our work started out in
advocacy for this abused population. |
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From
Human
Rights Watch:
The
below paragraph as added on 01/18/2006
Voices of El Salvador Girl Domestic Workers
Former
official, Attorney General’s Office, San
Salvador
“I have known
various cases of patrones (male homeowners)
and sons who sexually abuse domestic
workers, including cases in which the
domestics became pregnant, and then [the
families] throw the girls out. We followed
at least three cases of this, and at least
one was underage [under eighteen]. . . . The
rate is huge. It’s the norm, whether it’s
the patrón or his sons. It’s normal for
her—she accepts it. She goes to work in a
house, and she has no friends or relatives
there, and she is afraid that she will be
fired. If she says what is happening, they
will fire her and say that she has provoked
it. There is no fear of the complaint
[process].”
The
below articles were added on 12/11/2004
Women and Children's Rights Articles
from Human Rights Watch's
Central America Page.
"Over 60
percent of girls reported physical or
psychological mistreatment—including sexual
harassment—from their employers, according
to a 2002 study of El Salvador by the
International Labor Organization’s
International Program on the Elimination of
Child Labor." - Human Rights Watch
El Salvador: Girls Working as Domestics Face
Abuses
Tens of thousands of girls in El
Salvador work as domestics, a form of labor
that makes them particularly vulnerable to
physical abuse and sexual harassment, Human
Rights Watch charged in a report released
today.
January 15,
2004 Press Release
Also available in
Printer friendly version
Voices of El Salvador Girl Domestic Workers
Testimonies from "No Rest: Abuses
Against Child Domestics in El Salvador"
“When I was ten, I went to work in the first
house. I would wash the dishes, make the
beds . . . . I slept there. This was in San
Salvador. They didn’t pay me because they
left and went to their mother’s house and
didn’t give me the address. I worked there
for four months without being paid. I worked
from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. In the morning I would
do the cleaning and then make lunch. I took
care of the three-year-old child. I would
cook [and] wash clothes.”
January 15,
2004 Testimony
No Rest
Abuses Against Child Domestics in
El Salvador
Tens of thousands of girls in El Salvador work
as domestics, a form of labor that makes
them particularly vulnerable to physical
abuse and sexual harassment. This 35-page
report calls on the Salvadoran government to
include domestic workers, who are almost
exclusively girls and young women, in its
program to address hazardous child labor.
Girls as young as nine work as domestics in
El Salvador and may labor 12 hours or more,
up to six days a week, for wages of $40 to
$100 a month. They are particularly
vulnerable to physical abuse and sexual
harassment from members of the household in
which they work.
HRW Index No.: B1601
January 15, 2004 Report
Also available in
Download PDF, 558 KB, 38 pgs
Purchase online
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Mexico
Maids, Mostly
Indigenous, Target of Racism, Abuse
At age 12, Raquel
Guadarrama left the home of her poor, widowed mother
to clean the houses of middle- and upper-class
Mexican families. For 34 years, she scrubbed floors,
washed dishes, hung laundry, and baby-sat toddlers -
all the while cowering as employers called her
stupid and sexually harassed her. When she was just
14, Guadarrama was forced to fend off the advances
of her 70-year-old employer, who exposed his
genitals from behind a newspaper when his wife
wasn't looking and offered her expensive jewelry for
sex. "Many times I had to leave my jobs because of
the sexual harassment," Guadarrama said. "I always
had to eat after my employers did, on separate
plates, as if I were their pet. In fact, I think
pets have more privileges." Guadarrama, now 55, has
little more than a bruised ego and tired bones to
show for her more than three decades of backbreaking
labor. She has no pension plan, no social security,
no health insurance.
Added 10/24/2004
See also
Maltreated Mexican Indigenous Women and Girl
Domestics Organizing in Mexico. |
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Peru
...On Tuesday, May 22, 2001, Laura en
America show [from Peru] covered the issue of
the sexual exploitation of young, poor women who
work in office jobs in Peru. In two separate
cases, multiple victims of bosses who demanded sex,
and then raped the women workers, were confronted by
the victims in the presence of the accused men's
surprised spouses. One victim appeared on the
show at 4 months into her pregnancy. She
became pregnant after her boss gave her a date rape
drug, and she woke up in a hotel room with him,
having been raped against her will. The other
man featured had also raped his female workers with
the use of force.
From
LibertadLatina.org's
page on
Dr. Laura Bozzo of Peru
Peru, Ecuador
...Two
personal friends from South America have related to
me stories of their being subjected to attempted
rape by potential employers during their first job
interviews as 16 year old teenagers. A friend from
Peru stated that she had to break a lot of furniture
to get out of that situation. She also stated that
denouncing the assailant to the police would have
been impossible, as he was a wealthy member of the
community, capable of buying-off the judicial
entities involved. A friend from Ecuador also made a
super-human effort to escape her first job
interview/attempted rape. She did not report this
violent assault to anyone.
I have had casual
conversations with several Latin-American men
regarding this topic. Conversing with an Ecuadorian
accountant and businessman during a visit to Quito,
Ecuador, he stated to me that "well, of course, any
woman who applies for an office job must also 'like'
the boss." Literally translated, a female applicant
for office employment is expected to sleep with the
boss.
From Charles M. Goolsby, Jr.'s 1994 report:The
Sexual and Economic Exploitation of Latina immigrant
Women and Girls in Montgomery County, MD
Indigenous Guatemala
2002 --
Tens of thousands of women and girls, many of them
indigenous Mayans, face persistent discrimination
and other abuses working in Guatemala's export
sector and as maids and servants in private homes,
according to a report released... by Human Rights
Watch (HRW).
[They] often suffer sexual harassment and even
assaults, said the report, which cites the cases of
29 domestic workers, of whom one third said they had
been harassed sexually during their work.
Mayan girls and women are particularly susceptible
to verbal and emotional abuse, even from children,
as a result of the racism that pervades much of
Guatemala's non-Indian, or ladino, population,
according to the report.
Guatemalan Women Face
Discrimination and Abuse in Job Market
Feb 12,
2002 - Jim Lobe,OneWorld US
Added
December 26, 2003
Indigenous Guatemala
Sexual harassment of domestic workers,
especially indigenous workers, has been identified as a
"widespread phenomenon" throughout Latin America.
..."The men of the
house appropriated the bodies of these women, and this continues
in the present day," according to Amanda Pop Bol, a psychologist
and researcher.
[Note: This
exploitation also targets Latina and especially indigenous
Latina domestics across the United States.]
...None of the women
Human Rights Watch spoke with had ever tried to
lodge a legal complaint against their aggressors.
Sabas summed up the feeling of most domestic
workers, saying "I never reported anything, because
I knew no one would believe me." Had she done so,
her claim would have had scant chance of proceeding
successfully. Olimpia Romero Pérez, an organizer
with CENTRACAP, explained, "It's unlikely that women
want to file for sexual harassment, because they
don't want to expose themselves, because they lack
the resources, because there's no law." Indeed,
Guatemala does not yet have a law against sexual
harassment.
Guatemala
In December, 1993 I
asked a Guatemalan friend of mine to describe any
incidents known to him of the sexual-economic
coercion of working women within his home country.
My friend proceeded to explain to me how a major
retailer, which he described as being like a Sears
and a supermarket combined, traditionally advertised
during the winter holidays for temporary help (as is
done here, of course). According to my friend, this
large retailer systematically accepted job
applications only from women, and then only from the
young women whom they regarded as being the
prettiest. The male managers would make it known to
these high school girls that permanent employment
was available to them in the company after their
graduation. The only requirement was accepting a
sexual relationship with those managers now! My
friend noted that these managers could buy
everyone's silence if needed.
From Charles M. Goolsby, Jr.'s 1994 report:The
Sexual and Economic Exploitation of Latina immigrant
Women and Girls in Montgomery County, MD |
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LibertadLatina
News /
Noticias |
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Updated:
June 24, 2010
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Últimas Noticias
Latest News
Texas, USA
Texas Supreme Court: Kids in Prostitution Are Victims, Not Criminals
The case of a 13-year-old girl who was prosecuted for prostitution (while her 32-year-old pimp got away) in Texas was decided by the Texas supreme court this week. And they've said categorically that children in the commercial sex industry aren't criminals, they're victims of child sex trafficking. This decision is significant not only for the children of Texas, but for kids around the country as more and more states may begin to see child prostitution for what it is: a crime against children.
On the one hand, declaring that children in prostitution are victims as opposed to criminals sounds like a no-brainer. Every state has an age of sexual consent that prohibits children of a certain age from consenting to sex. Why should the fact that a financial transaction is involved suddenly make children and young teens able to consent to sex? But Texas, like almost all states, never provided an age limit on the crime of prostitution. So it was legally possible for a 13-year-old to be a victim of the crime of statutory rape, but a perpetrator of the crime of prostitution -- both for the same act!
The Texas Supreme Court decision is poised to change that -- not just in Texas, but across the country. The ruling sets an important precedent by stating that children in the commercial sex industry are victims of a crime and should be treated as such. Will other states take this ruling and use it in their own cases, aiming to protect children from sexual exploitation? Will this lead a new movement to decriminalize minors in prostitution while placing the onus for their abuse on their pimps and the men who buy them? Only time will tell.
If this does mark the beginning of a new trend, then one thing is abundantly clear: we need some place to put these girls. One of the major reasons the Texas 13-year-old was prosecuted in the first place was the D.A. argued that jail was safer than the streets, and in juvenile detention she'd have access to social services she couldn't get elsewhere. And the sad thing is in many areas, the only safe place off the streets is juvenile detention. But locking up victims (aside from being wrong) can traumatize them even more. So if we as a country follow Texas's lead and say teens in prostitution are victims, then we need to build them shelters and safe houses, not jails...
Amanda Kloer
Change.org
June 24, 2010
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Texas, USA
Loophole closed for illegal immigrants accused of serious crimes
They are accused child rapists, drug dealers and thieves. And because of major reforms in the justice system
- spurred by a News 8 investigation - those people now face prosecution.
As recently as November, because of a loophole in the law, many would have simply been set free without ever going to trial.
Until it was fixed, the loophole allowed for the deportation of accused criminals
- and a breakdown in the justice system.
We introduced you to "Sylvia" back in November. While she is an American citizen, her husband, Jose Salvador Tinajero, is Mexican.
He had just been deported instead of prosecuted for molesting her two children.
"There is no justice," Sylvia said last year, "especially for my girls, my family. There is none."
Today, she is simply overwhelmed at the progress that's been made.
News 8 first broke the story that more than 1,000 illegal immigrants who were charged with serious crimes like murder had been deported before their cases ever went to trial.
Many were bused back to Mexico and simply set free across the border.
In November, we spoke to Sgt. Ernesto Fierro, an investigator for the Dallas County District Attorney's office. At the time, little was being done to fix the problem, and Fierro said he was "furious" about it.
Buena Valentin is a Mexican citizen charged with raping his girlfriend's seven-year-old daughter. After the attack on the girl
- and her sister - they immediately ran to church for help.
"She looked really bad. Very bad," said Eleuterio Cabrera of Templo de Dios. "She was crying. The girls were very, very, very bad. It was horrible."
What was the problem?
After an arrest, the district attorney's office was usually not notified until a case had been in the system for several weeks. In that gap of time, the accused paid his bond.
Then - because the suspect was in the U.S. illegally - he was turned over to ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The job of that agency is to deport, regardless of pending charges.
Now, however, because of News 8 reports, those holes in the system are all plugged, and Sgt. Ernesto Fierro has a new, full-time assignment: Keeping people like Buena Valentin in jail.
"I feel great; I feel really good," Fierro said. "I feel like I've really done something here."
And the 90 crime suspects in Fierro's book will remain incarcerated in the Dallas County jail until their cases are settled.
"Many of them would've been on the bus back to their home country," Fierro said, without the changes to the system.
Two big fixes are:
* A mandatory $100,000 bond for anyone who is a flight risk due to possible deportation. In some cases, that's a 20-fold increase.
* Improved communication and cooperation between Dallas County and ICE.
"I appreciate you guys highlighting," said Nuria Prendes, the top ICE agent in Dallas. "If we're not made aware of things, there's no way we can fix them." ...
Federal officials say one in four felony defendants are in the U.S. illegally. News 8 has attempted to find out how many are deported before trial, but no government agency tracks the issue, and privacy rules have impeded our efforts to learn more.
Still, there is strong evidence the loophole does exists nationwide. We found cases in Florida, Massachusetts and New York...
Davis Schechter
WFAA
June 23, 2010
See also:
Texas, USA
Hundreds in Dallas County
Deported Before Their Trials
Hundreds of defendants awaiting trial for violent
crimes in Dallas County have been deported by
federal immigration officials and then set free in
their home countries.
The practice goes back to at least 1991 and includes
the release of murder, kidnapping and child rape
suspects. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
officials say they're required to deport illegal
immigrants quickly but are now in talks with local
agencies who are trying to resolve the problem...
One survey of prosecutors shows that since 1991 in
Dallas County, nearly 1,000 illegal immigrants have
not stood trial after being accused of felonies.
That number also counts cases in which a wanted
person fled before being arrested, but does not
include all Dallas County cases - just ones that
prosecutors judged to be of the highest priority.
Those who post bail and agree to then be sent home
are taking advantage of the system to escape
justice, said Terri Moore, top assistant to District
Attorney Craig Watkins...
Officials from the DA's office, the Dallas County
Sheriff's Department and ICE met this week to
discuss the problem. No quick fixes were found, but
they plan to meet again, officials said...
The agency's policies led to
the deportation of one defendant, Jose Rico, who
returned to Mexico before he could stand trial in
the rape of two girls in separate incidents. DNA
connected him to both sexual assaults, court records
show.
Both girls, ages 12 and 14,
were bound with clear duct tape. The attacker told
one of the girls: "I have a gun. I will kill you."
Rico, 34, posted his $125,000
bond and was deported in August...
In Dallas County, judges this week took a step
toward decreasing the chances that someone in the
country illegally will post bond and be deported
before trial. Judges began setting the bail at
$100,000 per charge if a defendant is in the country
illegally.
Under the new system, the bail for Rico, the child
rape suspect, probably would have been $200,000...
Jennifer Emily
Dallas News
Nov. 14, 2009
See also:
Dallas Police Identify Suspect
in 2 Child Rapes
Dallas police today released the identity of the man
believed to be responsible for raping two children
in northeast Dallas.
He
was identified as Jose Rico, 33, an illegal
immigrant, police said.
Rico
was being held in the Dallas County jail on charges
of aggravated sexual assault and burglary of a
habitation.
He
is also under an immigration hold...
In
both assaults, the victims -- girls between 12 and
14 -- were home alone when a man entered through an
unlocked doors. Both girls were bound before they
were raped.
[During] the
Oct. 16 assault the attacker... entered the home
while the girl and an 11-month-old baby were alone.
The
man confronted the girl as she was coming out of a
bathroom, pushed her back in and turned off the
lights. He threatened to hurt the baby if she
screamed.
[During] the
Jan. 30 attack... a man with a similar description
bound and raped a girl while she was home alone.
Dan X. McGraw
The Dallas Morning News
March 26, 2009 |
Connecticut, USA
|
 |
|
Kimberly Revolorio and Celetino Aguilar |
New Haven Police Ask For Help Finding Missing Teen
Police are asking for the public's help locating a missing 15-year-old girl.
Kimberly Revolorio was last seen on May 29 at 903 Congress Ave.
Police said they believe she left willingly and may be with Celetino Aguilar, 35.
Revolorio is described as a 5-foot-tall, 103-pound Hispanic female with long black hair and a light brown complexion, police said.
Aguilar is a 6-foot-tall, 175-pound Hispanic male with short black hair. He may be clean shaven but is known to have a mustache and goatee, police said.
Anyone with information on their whereabouts is asked to call the New Haven Police Department at 203-946-6316 or the Special Investigations Unit at 203-946-6290.
Julie Stagis
The Hartford Courant
June 24, 2010
New Jersey, USA
Pennsylvania halfway house escapee is caught in Newark, charged with sex assault
A man who escaped from a Pennsylvania Department of Corrections halfway house and was captured Wednesday in Newark has been charged with raping a 12-year-old child while he was on the loose.
Daniel Rosario, 33, was captured by the U.S. Marshals Service in Newark.
U.S. Marshal Michael Regan says Rosario failed to return March 25 to a halfway house in Scranton where he had been serving time on burglary charges. Authorities allege that Rosario raped a child in Dickson City earlier this month.
U.S. Marshals caught up with Rosario at an apartment building in Newark. Regan says Rosario fled on foot and scaled a razor-wire fence before being captured...
The Associated Press
June 24, 2010
The World, Latin America
|
 |
|
Latin America in the global crime big
picture
* Latin America exports $38 billion
annually in cocaine to the U.S., while exporting $34
billion to Europe
* The region generates $6.6 billion
by smuggling 3 million migrants annually into the
U.S. and Canada
Note that much of Latin America's
drug trade profits are used to finance human
trafficking operations.
By comparison, the world's second
largest organized criminal enterprise - heroin
trafficking from Afghanistan, generates $33 billion
in annual sales to Europe and Asia.
In other words, the impunity of human
trafficking is not ending any time soon in Latin
America. - LL |
UN warns of gangs’ global muscle
International crime networks now enjoy such an extensive reach that the gangs behind them must be regarded as a significant economic power, says a United Nations report.
In one of the most comprehensive analyses undertaken of transnational criminal activity, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime has calculated that the illicit trade in a range of commodities – including drugs, people, arms, fake goods and stolen natural resources – has an annual value of roughly $130
billion.
The report shows how transnational crime continues to be dominated by the trade in cocaine and heroin, a business whose product is worth about $105
billion
a year...
Cocaine trafficking from the Andean region to North America, a business with an annual value of $38
billion
at destination, is the biggest sector in the illegal narcotics trade. The export of cocaine from the Andean region to Europe is worth about $34
billion
a year.
However, the UNODC believes that the North American cocaine market is shrinking because of lower demand and greater law enforcement. It says this has generated a turf war among trafficking gangs, particularly in Mexico, and prompted them to forge new drug routes...
The second-biggest sector in international organized crime is people-trafficking.
The trade in women for sexual exploitation is now worth about $3
billion a year. Much of the trade involves trafficking people from Africa and the Balkans to other parts of Europe, where about 140,000 women are being manipulated by gangs at any one time.
The illegal smuggling of economic migrants is worth about $6.6
billion
a year to those who run the trade, according to the report.
The dominant illegal migrant flow is across the southern border of the US, with about
3 million Latin Americans illegally moving to North America each year. Flows from Africa to Europe are far smaller, with about 55,000 migrants smuggled into Europe in 2008...
James Blitz
The Financial Times Limited
June 17, 2010
See also:
"La delincuencia organizada se ha globalizado
convirtiéndose
en una amenaza para la seguridad"
En un nuevo informe de la UNODC se expone cómo, mediante la
violencia y los sobornos,
los mercados internacionales de la delincuencia han pasado a ser grandes centros
de poder
"Organized Crime Has Globalized and Turned
into a Security Threat"
A new UNODC report shows how, using violence and
bribes, international criminal markets have become major centres
of power
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)
June 17, 2010
Mexico
Delitos impunes, a pesar de que la CIDH pidió enviarlos a la vía civil
Suma justicia militar 5 casos de violación a mujeres indígenas
México, D.F. - Desde hace nueve años, la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (CIDH) recomendó al Estado mexicano que fuera la justicia civil quien investigara la violación sexual ejercida por militares en perjuicio de tres mujeres indígenas, no obstante, hoy dicha recomendación no se ha cumplido y a ella se han sumado dos casos similares en la jurisprudencia militar.
El 4 de abril de 2001, fue la primera vez que la CIDH exhortó al gobierno mexicano trasladar a la Procuraduría General de la República (PGR) un caso de violación sexual ejercida por soldados, esto con el objetivo de juzgar con mayor efectividad a los miembros de las fuerzas armadas que incurrieran en violaciones contra los derechos humanos.
Dicha recomendación del organismo internacional fue por el caso de Ana, Beatriz y Celia González Pérez (nombres ficticios), de tres indígenas tzeltales, que el 4 de junio de 1994 fueron detenidas en un retén militar, instalado tras el levantamiento del Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN) en Chiapas.
Cabe recordar que las hermanas González Pérez y su madre, Delia Pérez de González fueron interrogadas y privadas de su libertad durante dos horas. En tanto, las tres hermanas fueron golpeadas y violadas en reiteradas ocasiones por los militares. Después de lo ocurrido, el 30 de junio de 1994, las jóvenes agredidas -de 20, 18 y 16 años de edad- presentaron una denuncia ante el Ministerio Público Federal.
Sin Justicia Expedita
Sin embargo, el 2 de septiembre de 1994, el expediente de dicha denuncia fue trasladado a la Procuraduría General de Justicia Militar, quién dos años después, en febrero de 1996, decidió archivar el expediente con el argumento de: “la falta de comparecencia de las víctimas a declarar nuevamente y a someterse a pericias ginecológicas”.
Cabe mencionar que el 17 de septiembre de ese año, la defensa de las víctimas presentó un amparo para evitar que la justicia militar investigara el caso, pero éste fue negado.
Este hecho permitió que el caso permaneciera en la impunidad, ya que a decir de la defensa de las tres indígenas, era inaceptable la pretensión de que estas mujeres, que fueron torturadas por miembros de la institución castrense, se sintieran seguras declarando (por tercera vez) ante este organismo...
A pesar de estas declaraciones y de que han transcurrido 16 años, la investigación permanece en la justicia militar y en la impunidad.
Rapes of civilian indigenous women remain in impunity
despite the demands of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission that Mexico
move the cases to civilian courts
The case of the 1994 beatings and rapes of three Tzeltal Mayan indigenous
sisters, who were then ages 16, 18 and 20, and are known by their pseudonyms of Ana, Beatriz y Celia González Pérez, remains
in impunity 16 years after the fact. Mexican President Felipe Calderón's policies
have never allowed civilian jurisdiction in this case, nor in the cases of two other
indigenous rape victims, who have also faced impunity (and ongoing intimidation
for having sought to bring criminal complaints against soldiers).
Despite the fact that the Inter-American Human Rights Commission has, since
2001, called upon Mexico to allow its civilian criminal justice system to take
over cases involving soldiers attacking Mexican civilians, President Calderón
has ignored these pleas.
Anayeli García Martínez
CIMAC Noticias Women's News Agency
June 14, 2010
See also:
|
 |
|
CIMAC Noticias' collection
of over 300 news articles on the rape of (mostly
indigenous) women with impunity by soldiers in
Mexico
(in Spanish) |
Cuba
Cuba denounces US criticism on human trafficking
Havana - Cuba reacted angrily... to its inclusion on a U.S. list of countries that could be sanctioned for failing to fight human and child trafficking, calling it a "shameful slander" and part of Washington's efforts to justify its trade embargo.
Cuba is one of 13 countries put on notice... that they are not complying with the minimum international standards to eliminate the trade in human beings and sexual slavery, and could face U.S. penalties.
Compiled by President Barack Obama's administration, the list also includes Iran, North Korea, and Myanmar. Another 58 countries were placed on a "watch list" that could lead to sanctions unless their records improve.
Cuba was singled out for allegedly not doing enough to prevent the trafficking of children who work as prostitutes on the island, mostly serving foreign tourists. It also said some Cuban doctors have complained that the government leases out their services to foreign countries as a way of canceling Cuba's debt.
"Cuba categorically rejects these allegations as false and disrespectful," Josefina Vidal Ferreiro, director of the Cuban Foreign Ministry's North American affairs office, said in a statement sent to the foreign news media Tuesday.
She said the allegations are all the more offensive because the communist government has concentrated its limited resources on protecting women and the young, providing far more for the most vulnerable members of society than most nations in the region.
While Cubans receive low wages, the island offers free education through college, free health care and heavily subsidized housing and transportation. Crime rates and drug usage are extremely low in a country where the state maintains near total control.
"These shameful slanders profoundly hurt the Cuban people. In Cuba, there is no
sexual abuse against minors
[well, that certainly is an exaggeration -
LL],
but rather an exemplary effort to protect children, young people and women,"
Vidal Ferreiro said. She said Cuban laws "put us among the countries in the
region with the most advanced norms and mechanisms for the prevention of abuse."
...
The latest report notes that Cuban laws against trafficking appear stringent, but that the country has not provided enough evidence to show they are being enforced.
Interestingly, the report does not concentrate on Cubans seeking to emigrate to the United States, a diaspora
which has meant vast profits for traffickers, who can charge thousands of
dollars for illicit transportation to the U.S., often through Mexico...
Vidal Ferreiro said Cuba's inclusion on the trafficking list is political.
"It can only be explained by the desperate need that the U.S. government has to justify, under whatever pretext, the persistence of its cruel blockade, which has been overwhelmingly rejected by the international community."
Cuba was not the only country in the region to react strongly to the report.
Guyana, which received slightly better marks than Cuba, said the report hurts its friendship with the United States. The Dominican Republic is also included on the list
[and richly deserved to be there -
LL]. The country's official in charge of monitoring human trafficking, Frank Soto, called the list "a lie with no merit."
Paul haven
The Associated Press
June 15, 2010
Colorado, USA
Woman molested at 7-11 in Colorado Springs
Colorado Springs police are warning residents about a sexual assault that happened this weekend at the 7-11 store at 3306 E. Fountain Blvd.
A 17-year-old girl was standing with some friends while filling their car at about 4:40 p.m. Saturday when a large green van pulled up behind the car.
The victim said a Hispanic man, age 30-40, made some small talk with her and then molested her.
The man was described as 5-feet-7-inches tall, heavy and wearing black Dickies shorts and a gray or white tanktop shirt.
The van was large and had red "For Sale" signs on the side and the rear windows.
James Amos
KOAA
June 22, 2010
The World
|
 |
|
2010 report from
the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) |
UN: Organized crime spans planet, involves big economies - Summary
New York/Vienna - International mafias with their enormous power in money and weapons have sent and marketed illicit goods across and in all continents, affecting the world's biggest economies, the first UN report on transnational crime said Thursday.
Europe has become one of the destinations, with an estimated 140,000 victims of sexual exploitation generating gross annual income of 3 billion dollars to human traffickers, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime
(UNODC) said in the report The Globalization of Crime.
Major human trafficking routes flow from Africa to Europe and from Latin America to the United States.
"Worldwide there are millions of modern slaves traded at a price not higher in real terms than centuries ago," said UNODC executive director Antonia Maria Costa who presented the report in New York.
"Transnational crime has become a threat to peace and development, even to the sovereignty of nations," Costa said. "Criminals use weapons and violence, but also money and bribes to buy elections, politicians and power."
...
UNODC warned that transnational crime threatens to derail security especially in poor countries that already suffer from conflicts.
"Crime is fuelling corruption, infiltrating business and politics, and hindering development," Costa said.
He pointed to drug cartels that spread violence in Central America, the Caribbean and West Africa, as well as to cooperation between insurgents and criminals in Southeast Asia and Northern and Central Africa.
The UNODC said governments should try fighting criminal markets rather than crime syndicates, by stopping money laundering and informal transfer systems...
Two main routes for smuggling migrants are from Africa to Europe and from Latin American to the US. Up to 3 million migrants are smuggled from Latin America to the US every year, providing more than 6 billion dollars to smugglers.
The heroin market in North America has declined because of lower demand and more effective law enforcement. But it triggered a turf war among gangs, particularly in Mexico, for new drugs trafficking routes.
Afghanistan produces opium and Colombia coca, but the drug profits are made at their destination rich countries. Afghan heroin is sold for an estimated 55 billion dollars around the world, but Afghan farmers, traders and insurgents probably receive only about 2.3 billion dollars...
Earth Times
June 17, 2010
See also:
International criminal markets have become major centres
of power, UNODC report shows
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime
June 17, 2010
Guyana
The US human trafficking report is defective
US human trafficking policy is a product of religious leaders,
neo-conservatives, and abolitionist feminists. It was Michael Horowitz from the
Hudson Institute who set up a coalition of evangelicals to advocate for the
legislation that became the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA); the
legislation received approval from the US House of Representatives by a 371-1
vote, and by the US Senate by 95-0 vote, and was signed into law by President
Clinton on October 28, 2000.
The TVPA’s aims are to prevent human trafficking overseas, protecting the
victims of traffickers, and prosecuting traffickers. A singular dimension of
TVPA has to do with the US’s demands on overseas countries to enact preventive
measures against sex trafficking.
This TVPA as a matter of policy requires the State Department to
effect an annual assessment of other countries’ anti-trafficking efforts, and to
evaluate each country on the basis of its procedures undertaken to combat
trafficking. For this reason, the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in
Persons with the State Department executes its work through a mandate from
Congress to produce annual Trafficking in Persons (TIPS) reports that ranks each
country’s progress to end trafficking.
The US keeps awarding itself a Tier 1 status, meaning it is
making sufficient efforts to end trafficking; countries that do not do well in
US judgment are labeled Tier 2 or Tier 3.Tier 3 countries could receive
sanctions from the US.
If you look carefully, you will see that Tier 3 countries are
countries that may be more concerned about paying no mind to this US program,
rather than their efforts to end trafficking. Some recent Tier 3 countries are
Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, Indonesia, India, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain,
Lebanon, Sudan, Qatar, Turkey, etc. These are countries not comfortable with US
imperialism, where Enloe (2000) argued that the US sets itself up as “a model to
be emulated” and [performs] the role of “global policeman.”
Trends in Organized Crime (2006) noted that the US State
Department’s justifications for its ranking awards to countries that do not
satisfy minimum standards to end human trafficking, are deficient, and the State
Department’s report is applied patchily to establish government-wide
anti-trafficking programs and projects.
Some of the minimum standards are subjective, and the report
fails to delineate how these standards were applied, reducing the report’s
integrity. For instance, country narratives for Tier 1 countries do not make
clear compliance with the second minimum standard pertaining to approved
penalties for sex-trafficking crimes.
The US itself has to address domestically the problem of about
200,000 children at risk for human trafficking each year, and it would serve
that country well to effect some house cleaning there, as that problem has begun
to fester. And instead of sitting in judgment over other countries’ issues on
trafficking, there may be better outcomes if all the affected countries worked
in unison to stamp out this evil trade.
Yours
faithfully,
Prem Misir
Letter to the editor
Stabroek News
June 17, 2010
Added: Jun. 22, 2010
Cuba,
The Americas
We present a continuing dialog on the
perennial inclusion of Cuba in the worst rating categories in
the annual U.S. Trafficking in Persons Report
Cuba,
The Americas
Added: Jun. 22, 2010
Response to the 2007 TIP Report
 |
|
Rosa Miriam Elizalde
|
Crime or Punishment in Cuba
Myths about the sex trade
[A Cuban activist's analysis in
response to the
2007
U.S. Trafficking in Persons report's
allegations of child sex trafficking in Cuba]
"...The... report... avoids to mention that
before the 1959 triumph of Revolution, Cuba had a population of
about 6 million and was known as the "North American brothel in
the Caribbean." Some 100,000 women worked either directly or
indirectly on prostitution due to poverty, discrimi-nation or the
absence of jobs. The Revolution educated them and offered them
employment."
In... the “2007 Trafficking in Persons Report," Cuba and
Venezuela head-up the U.S. State Department’s black list. The
annual verdict - it has been issued now since 2001 - repeats
practically the same arguments already used for seven years. It
reiterates that both women and children are "internally
trafficked" for sexual exploitation and that the country,
[is] an
important destination...
In the Cuban case, it is not in the social or the individual
levels where this myth “woman = prostitute” reveals itself more
clearly, but in the international news media. Cuba has lived the
unusual experience of a political manipulation of the drama of
prostitution that has become the center of an international
campaign presenting Cubans, all of them, as potential saleable
objects. “You will feel watched by hundreds of approachable
women,” starts an article in Man magazine...
By linking the reemergence of prostitution in Cuba with the
measures enacted to strengthen [the] economy they are actually trying
to demonstrate the unfeasibility of the Cuban social project.
...It [the existence of prostitution] is offered-up as
the highest evidence of the political disintegration of the
Cuban system, the return to a type of trade that had disappeared
in the initial decades of the Revolution. “This campaign intends
to present the increasing number of tourists in the country as a
wave of sex-starved males that will find their desires fulfilled
in an island plunged into poverty, with women selling their
bodies for their daily bread," as a Spanish journalist who
took part in a debate on the topic in the magazine Cambio 16
stated.
The attempt at [highlighting this part of the economy continues
to grow] thanks to the sex
market... There have even been those who have
rashly awarded Cuba the credential of “erotic imperialist” when
trying to explain the signs of economic recovery in a blockaded
country. In this type of analysis, of course, the image of Cuban
prostitutes is presented out of context. Since, as a rule, the
phenomenon is seen superficially and tendentious information is
offered, foreigners imagine that these prostitutes are not
essentially different from those who sell themselves in
bordellos and streets in their cities and that form part of a
highly organized and lucrative business, all this quite far from
Cuban reality.
"Whether directly or indirectly, what is being sold as an image
is the possibility of subduing the Cuban nation."
As a mathematical formula [that runs in an endless loop], the equation
“woman = prostitute = Cuba” has ended up as a new version of the
myth maintaining that all women are whores: it is the
stigmatized identity of a country and the tropical version of
the failure of socialism.
Whether directly or indirectly, what is
being sold as an image is the possibility of subduing the Cuban
nation. That “all women are approachable” does not only mean
that you can buy sexuality and power over another human being –
and, by extension, take control of a country for a period of
time established beforehand – but that you can avail yourself of
their intimacy, [that place] in human beings, no matter where
they are from, where the link with shame and taboo runs deep. ..
Rosa Miriam Elizalde
Translated by María Teresa Ortega
July 27, 2007
See also:
Cuba
Response to the 2010 TIP Report
Reconoce UNICEF ejemplo de Cuba en protección a la infancia
Es el cuento de nunca acabar. Autoridades estadounidenses ya no
saben de cuál gajo colgarse en su enfermizo empeño contra Cuba.
La mala nueva es ahora la aparición de la lsla entre los peores
países del globo en cuanto al tráfico de personas, según informe
elaborado por el Departamento de Estado en relación con el tema…
Paradojas: hace apenas cinco días, en La Habana, Juan José
Ortiz, representante del Fondo de Naciones Unidas para la
Infancia (UNICEF) ofreció declaraciones en las cuales resaltó:
"En el planeta, millones de menores sufren la falta de
escolarización y de vacunación contra enfermedades prevenibles,
además de ser víctimas de explotación laboral y sexual en las
redes internacionales de prostitución, ninguno es cubano"...
UNICEF recognizes Cuba as a leader in
childhood protection
The story never ends. U.S. authorities no longer know from which
hook to hang in the ongoing campaign against Cuba.
The newest story to come out is that Cuba appears as one of the
worst nations on earth in regard to human trafficking, according
the [2010 Trafficking in Persons report of the] U.S. Department
of State.
Cuba did not hesitate to respond. Josefina Vidal,
director for North America for the Cuban Chancellery responded
to the 2010 TIP report by declaring the allegations to be “false
and disrespectful.”
Paradoxically, five days ago, Juan Jose Ortiz, a representative
of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), made the
following statement: “Across the world, millions of minors
suffer from a lack of access to education and vaccines to
protect against preventable diseases, in addition to being
victims of international sexual and labor exploitation networks.
None of these children are Cuban."
During recent years Cuba has achieved important, positive
progress in regard to protecting children, a fact which has
transformed Cuba into the Latin American nation with the highest
quality of life for girls and boys.
An age-old saying in Cuba goes: “Tell me what you accuse me of,
and I will show you what you, yourself are lacking.” This fits
like a ring on a finger in the case of the allegations made
against Cuba.
The U.S. leads in statistics regarding all forms of trafficking,
immigration. Drug use, murders, mafias, wars, etcetera…
The [allegations of child trafficking made against Cuba] show
the blindness of certain authorities in the Obama
Administration. They have never visited Cuba, and they have
apparently never read UNICEF’s reports in regard to conditions
for children here.
Continuing with the statement of conditions in Cuba by UNICEF’s
Juan Jose Ortiz, he says: “quantitatively and qualitatively, we
can say that the
Convention on the Rights of the Child is applied very well
in Cuba."
In Ortiz’ opinion, this state of affairs has come about through
the collaboration between the Cuban Government and UNICEF,
making Cuba a shining example for children rights for the rest
of Latin America.
Everything is not perfect. Nothing exists in simple, black and
white tones. Shades of grey do exist. As one poet stated it:
“none of use live in a perfect society.” But to say that
children in Cuba are subjected to the degrading business of
human trafficking and child prostitution is a repugnant form of
political aggression.
Cuba is not a rich country, but it does not interfere in
the “persistent effort to guarantee protections for children,”
which is, according to UNICEF, a state of affairs made possible by
[the actions of] Cuba’s
government.”
Children in
Cuba may lack financial resources, but there is no lack of love
and good will to support them…
Marcos Alfonso
Radio Guantanamo
June 16, 2010
See also:
Added: Jun. 21, 2010
Cuba,
The Americas
LibertadLatina
Commentary
Response to the 2010 TIP Report
|
 |
|
Chuck Goolsby |
We do not take a position on the political situation in Cuba, beyond
acknowledging that Democracy must come, some day, to that island nation. In
addition, we are not communists, socialists or any other 'ist' that can be
negatively labeled.
As a musician specializing in, among other things, Afro-Cuban folkloric music
(Rumba) for the past 32 years, I have had many Cuban friends, of all ages, races and political
leanings. As one of Cuba's best African folklorist's, a man named Hector, told
me when he came to Washington, DC after the
1980 Mariel Boatlift exodus of
refugees: "The lack of political freedom in Cuba was terrible, but the fact
that all of your needs were met - education, food, housing and
healthcare - was a good thing."
In regard to the rights of children and human trafficking, we find that the
recent report from Cuba's
Radio Guantanamo (see the above article), and also UNICEF official
Juan Jose Ortiz's recent comments on Cuba's treatment of children, ring much closer to the truth than the
allegations contained in the 2010
U.S. State Department's assessment, which declares that Cuba deserves a "Tier 3" (the
lowest) rating for supposedly
refusing to address the issue of human trafficking.
Before the Cuban revolution in 1958, Cuba was literally the top sex
tourism destination for U.S. citizens in the Americas. After the revolution, prostitution was
banned and former prostitutes were given job training, an approach that would
have been considered unthinkable in any other Latin American nation at the time,
despite the continent-wide epidemic of prostitution that then plagued (and still
plagues) the region.
After the victory of Castro's forces in 1958, one of his first acts was to allow
Afro-Cubans to attend public beaches (a practice banned under the dictator
Batista). We note with horror that Mexican police had been known to clear
Acapulco's beaches of
Afro-Mexican children and adults - also with
the goal of 'pleasing' U.S. tourists, as recently as
a decade ago.
In
1975, I recall seeing a mainstream television news story about Fidel Castro
declaring that women would be given equal rights in Cuba.
At the time, this policy change caused enraged men to flock to Cuba's streets en-mass to protest.
Yet equality became official policy. By contrast, women did not even win the
right to vote in Mexico until 1953.
In 1991, a very high level official in the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services (the director of an HHS region) had a very long conversation with me about the human rights of children in
Latin America. What this official said to me was that Cuba was the only nation in
Latin America that properly cared for all of its children. He added that hunger,
lack of access to medical care, lack of access to education and other maladies
that plague all other Latin American nations are non-existent in Cuba. This
official's assessment from 1991 is compatible with UNICEF's recent (2010)
comments on the positive, pro-children efforts that are clearly visible
throughout Cuba.
In addition, African descendents, who are 60% of Cuba's current population, are
given access to equal education and, even if poor, can look forward to attending
excellent medical schools if they qualify academically and so desire. You
will not find that state of affairs anywhere else in the Americas.
The
Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) in Havana, has graduated more than
7,000 doctors from Latin America and nations around the world, often via
scholarships. One family friend, who's son's medical practice partner in Colombia is
Afro-Colombian, noted that Colombia's racist medical schools refuse to admit even ONE
Afro-Colombian student. This perfectly qualified physician therefore received
his training in Cuba.
In Cuba, the social drivers that create the conditions necessary to expose
children to mass human trafficking simply do not exist.
By contrast, millions of indigenous children in Mexico are forced to work for a
living while facing unspeakable racial hatred focused against them by the
nation's Spanish descendents. It is well documented that indigenous and African
descendant children in Mexico are forced to go to schools with dirt floors and
often without bathroom facilities (a public health factor that was widely
discussed in the context of the 2009 Swine Flu outbreak). Tens of thousands of
poor indigenous girls in the 12 to 14-years-of-age range must work, with no
access to schooling, as domestic servants for middle and upper class Mexican
households. Only a few of these children are actually paid, and many of them are
routinely raped with impunity by the homeowner and/or his sons.
In addition, some 3,000 to 4,000 indigenous children and youth
have been kidnapped with complete impunity by Japanese Yakuza mafias and their
accomplices in Mexico, and have been sent to Japan to be enslaved as Geisha prostitutes,
while neither Mexico nor Japan have ever lifted even one little finger to help these innocent victims
of serial rape until death.
Activists in Mexico admit that the federal government does little to stop human
trafficking, and police agents are complicit in a large number of trafficking crimes.
None of these critical human rights issues are visibly active on Mexico's national agenda, even
now that the United Nations Blue Heart Campaign against human trafficking has
begun a ground breaking effort to combat human slavery in that nation.
It has been a concern of ours for years that the U.S. State Department
Trafficking in Persons Report has
repeatedly rated Cuba as the worst location in the Americas for human
trafficking (which is a stretch, at best), while virtually ignoring the easily
demonstrable pandemic of mass enslavement of poor women and
children in Mexico, Argentina, the Dominican Republic and other major source
countries for victims.
Does prostitution and adult sex tourism exist in Cuba? Yes. Is Cuba's problem
with human trafficking anywhere near as bad as it is in Mexico? No. Not by a long
shot.
Cuba was always targeted for low ratings in the TIP report when President George
W. Bush was in office. It was understood by many that this was political payback.
If Cuba deserves a Tier 3 rating, then Mexico and Argentina deserve a Tier 4
rating (of course, tier 4 does not actually exist).
If Mexico is a gleaming example of a nation that is doing good work, and better
work than Cuba to stop child sex trafficking, then our nation's assessment techniques
are flawed and inaccurate, and are therefore in BIG trouble.
...Just keeping the discussion honest.
End impunity now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
June 21/22/23, 2010
See also:
UNICEF's background report on conditions
Cuba
See also:
Press response to the 2010 TIP Report
Ambassador CdeBaca on 10th Annual
Trafficking in Persons Report
CdeBaca answers questions on modern
slavery, sex and labor trafficking
Question [from a reporter]: Thank
you.
Ambassador CdeBaca: Yes.
Question: Yes. Back on the case of
Cuba, I’m wondering what actually is the justification for the -
I mean, I read a little bit, but it sounds - it seems like the
U.S. might be open to charges of political ranking. I’m just
trying to get why Cuba is on Tier 3.
Ambassador CdeBaca: Well, I think
that one of the things that we see for Cuba is that there is no
law against this practice. There’s some other laws that could be
cobbled together perhaps in order to prosecute a trafficker, but
there’s no evidence that that has actually been done. I think
one of the things that we also look at there is, again, the age
of legal prostitution. Again, children are – can legally be in
prostitution at ages 16 and 17.
[We note that the age of sexual consent in
Mexico continues to be age 12 in the majority of states, a fact
the fuels a massive child sex trafficking industry who's
regulation is not even hinted at by Mexico's government. Police
do not enforce any laws against 12-year-olds being involved in
prostitution in Mexico because these girls and boys are of legal
age to consent to sex.
Yet
that fact did not place Mexico in a Tier 3 ranking,
contradicting Ambassador CdeBaca's rationale for singling out
Cuba (where he states that 16 and 17-year-olds, who are of the
age of consent in Cuba, engage in prostitution).
Most Latin
American nations have ages of consent in the 12 to 15-years-of-age
range, and their prostitution 'industries' reflect that fact. -
LL]
Ambassador CdeBaca: We also see the lack of human trafficking protections and no
training for the police, prosecutors, or social workers on what
to do if one sees a human trafficking situation. So in a country
where not only do you have a – such a large tourist industry,
other countries in the region that draw tourists from the same
places as Cuba, have large child sex tourism problems, and are
working to address those, we don’t see the same activity in
Cuba. So it’s a multifaceted approach as far as why they would
end up on Tier 3.
U.S. Department of State
June 14, 2010
[We note that Latin American
and Caribbean nations other than Cuba, where child sex tourism is rampant,
have few if any of the extensive protections that are available in Cuba that guarantee
children shelter, food and a good education.
The result is that young
people in these other nations easily fall victim to sexual exploitation. Cuba
maintains a high level of support for children despite the fact that, as the UNICEF web page
on Cuba
notes, the U.S. trade embargo has had the effect of raising infant
mortality rates. -
LL]
Cuba
Another view of the Cuban reality
Havana Has The Air of a Brothel...
...Havana has the air of a brothel at times, particularly if you pass through Monte Street where it meets Cienfuegos. Young women in their flashy - if a little faded - clothes offer their "merchandise," especially after night falls and the spandex doesn't look quite as baggy nor the circles under their eyes quite as dark. These are the ones who can't compete with those who can snag a manager or a tourist to take them to a hotel and offer them, the next morning, a breakfast that comes with milk. These are the ones who don't wear perfume and who finish their work in the cramped quarters of a solar or even on the landing under the stairs. They traffic in groans, exchanging spasms for money.
These men and women - merchants of desire - avoid tripping over the uniformed police who guard the area. Falling into their hands can mean a night in a cell or, for those in the city illegally, deportation to your home province. Everything can be "resolved" if the officer accepts the hint of a probing thigh and agrees to withhold an official warning in exchange for a few minutes of privacy. Some officers return regularly to take their cut, in money or in services, that allows these nocturnal beings to continue taking up their positions on the corner. A woman who refuses the exchange can find herself in a prostitute reeducation camp, while the men might be charged with the crime of pre-criminal dangerousness.
And so the cycle of sex for money comes full circle, in a city where honest work is a museum relic and the needs bring many to position their bodies and swing their hips in hopes of an offer.
Yoani Sanchez - Award-Winning Cuban Blogger
The Huffington Post
April 26, 2010
See also:
Cuba
Response to the 2008 TIP Report
Cuba Rejects Its Inclusion on US List of Countries Not Fighting Human Trafficking
Cuba on Sunday rejected U.S. claims that it does not do enough to combat human trafficking, saying that Washington "has a lot to learn" about life on the island.
U.S. authorities "are unfamiliar with and distort" Cuban reality, the Foreign Relations Ministry said in a written response to the U.S. State Department's annual "Trafficking in Persons Report," released Wednesday. The report tracks human trafficking for the sex trade, coerced labor and the recruitment of child soldiers, outlining efforts to fight it, including prosecution, sentencing and programs to help victims.
Listing Cuba among the world's worst offenders, the report said poor women and
children on the island are often forced into prostitution by family members. But
it also noted that human trafficking cannot be properly measured in Cuba, given
the government's refusal to cooperate with independent observers. Cuba said it
maintains a "firm" policy against human trafficking and prostitution and noted
that its communist system provides for the basic needs of all citizens...
"Cuba does not see any value in the State Department's report," the Foreign Ministry's statement said. "The government of the United States has a lot to do in its own country to combat the rampant phenomenon there of prostitution, sexual exploitation, forced labor and the trafficking of people."
"The government of the United States has a lot to learn about Cuba and is not in a position to judge anyone," it said.
The International Herald Tribune
June 13, 2008
See also:
Cuba, The World
Sixty-second General Assembly - Thematic Debate on Human Trafficking
The representative of Cuba said that, since industrialized countries were the main destination for human trafficking, and their actions increased the demand for women and child sex workers, a credible United Nations anti-trafficking strategy should advance a more just international economic order that would put a stop to inequalities.
The United Nations General Assembly
June 03, 2008
See also:
Venezuela
Response to the 2006 TIP Report
Venezuela's Record in Combating Human Trafficking
Since 2000 the U.S. State Department has issued a yearly report on the status of trafficking in persons (TIP) throughout the world. In June 2006 the Office to Combat and Monitor the Trafficking of Persons, the State Department body responsible for studying TIP and issuing the report, characterized Venezuela as an egregious human trafficker and designated it a Tier 3 nation, subject to economic sanctions. The TIP Report claims that Venezuela “does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so.”[1] This ruling, for the second year in a row, sits in stark contrast to the facts surrounding Venezuela’s human trafficking record.
Is Venezuela's tier 3 designation politically motivated?
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) many countries with many more human trafficking violations than Venezuela have been assigned Tier 1 or Tier 2 status while others with less serious records receive Tier 3. Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue notes in an opinion piece published in the New York Times that “in the State Department’s 2003 Human Trafficking report Venezuela did not even appear among the five worst offenders in the Western Hemisphere” and that “the Bush administration has not provided compelling and persuasive evidence that warrants singling out one country.”
Mexico serves as a case in point.
In the 2006 TIP Report Mexico is described in far worse terms than Venezuela and even noted as “a source, transit, and destination country for persons trafficked for sexual exploitation and labor.” In contrast to Venezuela’s record, the government of Mexico has repeatedly refused to gather official data on human trafficking within its borders and keeps no law enforcement statistics on trafficking investigations, arrests, prosecutions, or convictions. Even more disturbing, “there are no shelters or related services that specifically aid trafficking victims” in Mexico. Despite these dismal results, Mexico was assigned a Tier 2 designation for the third consecutive year. Washington justifies this designation in the Report by noting a “future commitment” from the Mexican government to undertake efforts in prosecution, protection, and prevention. Venezuela on the other hand has pro-actively addressed all of these areas.
In a statement regarding the State Department’s Human Rights Report issued in early 2005 the Deputy Director of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) Kimberly Stanton noted “political considerations are evident in some of the findings… The credibility of the reports depends on consistent, objective analysis. This year the U.S. government policy priorities are affecting the evaluation of the data in some cases.”
VenInfo.org
2006
See Also:
The reality is that
Mexico fares much worse than Cuba or
Venezuela in regard to the treatment of its
self-created mega-crisis of child and adult trafficking
Mexico
Víctimas del tráfico
de personas, 5 millones de mujeres y niñas
en América Latina
De esa
cifra, más de 500 mil casos ocurren en
México, señalan especialistas.
Five million victims
of Human Trafficking Exist in Latin America
Saltillo, Coahuila state -
Teresa Ulloa Ziaurriz, the director of the
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women's
Latin American / Caribbean regional office,
announced this past Monday that more than
five million women and girls are currently
victims of human trafficking in Latin
America and the Caribbean.
During a forum on successful
treatment approaches for trafficking victims
held by the Women's Institute of Coahuila,
Ulloa Ziaurriz stated that
500,000 of these
cases exist in Mexico, where women and girls
are trafficked for sexual exploitation,
pornography and the illegal harvesting of
human organs...
Mexico is a country of
origin, transit and also destination for
trafficked persons. Of 500,000 victims in
Mexico, 87% are subjected to commercial
sexual exploitation.
Ulloa Ziaurriz pointed out
that locally in Coahuila state, the nation's
human trafficking problem shows up in the
form of child prostitution in cities such as
Ciudad Acuña as well as other population
centers along Mexico's border with the
United States.
- Notimex /
La Jornada Online
Mexico City
Dec. 12, 2007
See also:
Added March 23, 2008
Mexico
Un millón de menores
latinoamericanos atrapados por redes de prostitución
Former 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 businessmen
and politicians. |
Full story (in
English)
See also:
Added Oct. 28, 2007
Central America and Mexico
Trata de blancas
en Centroamérica
For
non-governmental organizations, the child kidnapping
and sex trafficking case of 11-year-old Jackeline
Jirón Silva fom Nicaragua is emblematic, as it
shows clearly how the third most profitable criminal
enterprise in the world operates.
...Jackeline has been forced to work in brothels all
over Central America. Her pimps now have her in
Tapachula, in Chiapas state [near Mexico's southern
border with Guatemala].
María de Jesús Silva [Jackeline's mother, who
searched all over Central America and southern
Mexico for her daughter]: "I saw things that I never
imagined existed... The brothels are full of
children, sold by traffickers and abandoned by their
parents. I saw them prostitute themselves and wished
that any one of them would have been my daughter. I
settled for caressing the hair of these girls, and I
imagined that in the 'next' brothel, I was going to
find my daughter. Everything that I have suffered
through is nothing compared to what my girl is going
through."
...According to Ana Salvadó, executive director for
Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean for
Save the Children:
"the panorama for childhood in Latin America is
growing more bleak over time, and child trafficking
is growing rapidly in each of these countries..."
…Save the Children has
identified the border region between Guatemala and
Mexico as being the largest hot spot for the
commercial sexual exploitation of children in the
entire world. Ana Salvadó: "It is a
bottleneck, because many children attempt to migrate
from Central [and South] America to the United
States, and they never get past [southern] Mexico…
…A study by the international organization
ECPAT…
made public three weeks ago in Guatemala City,
reveals that over 21,000
Central Americans, mostly children, are prostituted
in 1,552 bars and brothels in Tapachula, Mexico…
Traffickers sell these child victims to Tapachula's
pimps for $200 each.
More that 50% of these children are from
[indigenous] Guatemala. The rest are Salvadorans,
Hondurans and Nicaraguans.
They range in age from eight to fourteen-years-old.
...In 2006, the
International
Labor Organization conducted a survey of
adult attitudes in Mexico, Central America and South
America, where it is quite easy [for men] to engage
in sexual relations with children.
|
Some 65% of
respondents stated that they don't see any
problem, and they don't feel any sort of
conflict or fear in regard to having sex
with boy and girl children, and "they don't
feel that there is anything wrong with doing
it." |
...Mexico has been converted into a paradise for
pimps and a living hell for thousands of Central
American girl children like Jackeline Jirón Silva,
whose captors have prostituted her during the past
32 months. It is known that during half of that
time, Jackeline has been held in the southern
Mexican state of Chiapas.
-
Ana Lilia Pérez
Revista Contralínea
Oct. 22, 2007
See also:
Mexico: Más de un
millón de menores se prostituyen en el
centro del país: especialista
Expert: More than one
million minors are sexually exploited in
Central Mexico
Tlaxcala city, in Tlaxcala
state - Around 1.5 million people in the
central region of Mexico are engaged in
prostitution, and some 75% of them are
between 12 and 13 years of age, reported
Teresa Ulloa, director of the Regional
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women and
Girls in Latin America and the Caribbean...
La Jornada de Oriente
Sep. 26, 200
[Note: The figure of 75% of 1.5 million
indicates that 1.1 million girls between the
ages of 12 and 13 at any given time engage
in prostitution in central Mexico alone. -
LL]
See also:
Blacks in Mexico: A
Forgotten Minority
...The [estimated one million] Afro-Mexicans
face considerable hurdles. ...The all-black
shantytowns near
Yanga [in
Veracruz state] lack schools, and eager
young migrants who move to bigger cities for
work complain of blatant discrimination.
A report released... by Mexico's Congress
said that roughly 200,000 black Mexicans who
reside in the rural areas of Veracruz and
Oaxaca and in tourist cities like Acapulco
are out of the reach of social programs like
employment support, health coverage, public
education and food assistance. ..
LibertadLatina
We truly appreciate the wonderful work of the
Office To Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons
(TIP) in the U.S. Department of
State, but it
is absolutely ridiculous to point the finger
at Cuba on the issue of child sex trafficking, when,
by comparison, Mexico's
'pampered' government has not even pretended to bring the
crisis of mass gender atrocities
affecting Mexican and migrant Central American children in its territory under the control
of the rule of law.
The TIP office cannot employ a double standard that
uses their annual report to advance geopolitical
goals that are not tied directly to the issue of
human trafficking.
The whole world is watching!
End impunity now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
June 22/23, 2010
|
North Carolina, USA
|
 |
|
Pedro Ventura Chavez |
Cary man charged with sexually abusing child
A [city of] Cary man has been accused of sexually abusing a 10-year-old girl, according an arrest warrant.
Pedro Ventura Chavez, 33, had been abusing the girl for over a year, sources told WRAL News.
Chavez, of 304 Middleton Ave., was charged Sunday with one count of felony taking indecent liberties with a child.
He was being held Sunday in the Wake County jail under a $150,000 bond. His first court appearance was set for Monday afternoon.
Chavez has also been placed under a retainer by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
North Carolina Most Wanted
June 20, 2010
Delaware, USA
|
 |
|
Sketch of suspect |
Camera Captures Images of 9-Year-Old’s Rapist
Child rape suspect's Chevy Tahoe caught on surveillance camera
A surveillance camera captured images of what police believe to be the car of the man who abducted and raped a 9-year-old Alban Park, Del. girl June 9.
The 9-year-old girl accepted a ride from a stranger when she was accidentally locked out of her home. The man drove her to the 200-block of Liberty Street in Wilmington and raped her before she could get out of the car, police say.
The young girl was dropped off at her 500-block of Homestead Road address by a family friend. She walked into her building but when she was unable to get inside her door, she walked back outside to look for her sister and parents, police say.
While walking along Alban Drive near the Canby Park Shopping Center, a man described as an Asian or Hispanic male with short black hair, round eyes, “chubby cheeks” and a “chubby build” offered her a ride. After some conversation the child accepted the ride, police say.
The suspect’s SUV is a 1995-2005 Chevrolet Tahoe with a registration containing a “2” in the middle of the tag.
If you have any information on the suspect, please contact the New Castle County Police Department at 395-8110, attention Detective Timothy Argoe. Or text tip at: 847411 (TIP411) and begin your message with NCCPD and then type your message. Tipsters may also call Crime Stoppers at (800) TIP-3333.
Teresa Masterson
NBC Philadelphia
June 21, 2010
Texas, USA
Body Found in Field - Woman Strangled
Houston - An autopsy has revealed that a woman whose body was found in a southeast Houston field was strangled.
Investigators found the body of Raquel Mundy at approximately 4 p.m. Friday in the 300 block of North St. Charles Street.
Police say Mundy, 24, was seen at 1:30 a.m. Thursday driving her mother and two children to the Greyhound Lines bus station in downtown Houston. Mundy had apparently parked the vehicle in a McDonald's restaurant parking lot where it had been towed from.
After Mundy had obtained her mother's debit card to pay for the tow bill, she tried to contact other relatives to get a ride but was not able to reach anyone, according to a statement released by the Houston Police Department on Monday.
Witnesses told investigators that Mundy was seen entering a gray car with a male. Mundy sent a text message to her mother that said she thought she was in danger and was with a Hispanic male.
Police ask anyone with information about Mundy's death to contact the HPD Homicide Division at 713-308-3600 or Crime Stoppers of Houston at 713-222-8477 (TIPS).
Alexander Supgul
Fox Houston
June 21, 2010
New York, USA
|
 |
|
Christian Inga |
Undocumented immigrant held in Cortlandt home invasion
Cortlandt - A Peekskill man faces felony charges in the home invasion of an ex-girlfriend's apartment where police say he struggled with a 15-year-old girl who was inside with a 2-year-old at the time.
Christian Inga, who state police said is an undocumented immigrant from Ecuador, has been charged with first-degree burglary and second degree attempted kidnapping, felonies. Additional charges are expected as an investigation continues.
The break-in was reported by a neighbor who heard screams around 6:40 p.m. Friday and called 911. Arriving troopers say they found Inga attempting to flee out of a rear window. Police did not disclose the location of the home invasion.
Inga was said to be wearing all black at the time, including a black bandana over his face, a black hat and black gloves.
He was to be remanded to the Westchester County Jail in Valhalla following arraignment. Police filed an Immigration and Customs detainer.
The arrest was made by Trooper Peter A. Zerrle and investigators Sean J. Morgan and Paul M. Schneeloch of the Cortlandt barracks.
Brian J. Howard
Lower Hudson dot com
June 19, 2010
Colombia
Explotación sexual infantil, amenaza a los menores del Valle
Ana María* solo tiene 16 años y un bebé de trece meses de edad, vive en una humilde vivienda en el oriente de la ciudad junto a su padre y a su madre. Los progenitores de esta menor la obligan a que ejerza la prostitución en un bar todas las noches.
El papá y la mamá de Ana María la explotan sexualmente con la condición de echarla de la casa sino accede. Lo peor de este caso, el dueño del prostíbulo entrega el dinero directamente a los progenitores de Ana María. Este es sólo un caso de los muchos que atiende la línea infantil 106.
En lo que va corrido del año el Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar, Icbf, ha recibido 223 denuncias de abuso sexual en el Valle del Cauca, en esta categoría entran los casos de explotación sexual comercial infantil, pornografía infantil, turismo sexual infantil y acto sexual abusivo.
"En Cali y el Valle del Cauca la prostitución es un problema social que está tocando todas las esferas en los menores", dice Lucy Mancilla Marulanda, aboga especializada en derechos humanos del Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad, DAS...
Child sexual exploitation threatens the lives of minors in
the Cauca Valley and the city of Cali
[English translation to follow.]
Diario Occidente
June 20, 2010
Louisiana, USA
61-year-old Gretna man sentenced to life in prison for raping boy
A 61-year-old Gretna man received a mandatory life sentence in prison Thursday for his conviction of raping a boy under his care.
Carlos Hernandez was convicted June 4 of the aggravated rape of a boy who said he was 5 or 6 years old when the crimes occurred.
In handing down the sentence, Judge Henry Sullivan of the 24th Judicial District Court said he found that Hernandez was a risk to society. Hernandez's attorney Marquita Naquin objected to the sentence and said the conviction will be appealed.
Assistant District Attorneys Amanda Calogero and Jennifer Rosenbach prosecuted the case.
The boy was 11 years old in January 2008 when he told his mother that Hernandez had abused him. The claim came to light after Hernandez was arrested amid allegations that he sexually abused girls, when the boy's mother began asking whether Hernandez had abused anyone else.
Hernandez is awaiting trial on a charge of aggravated incest involving a 7-year-old girl and sexual battery, for allegedly touching two 7-year-old girls in December 2007, according to the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office.
The Times-Picayune
June 17, 2010
Canada
|
 |
|
An undated picture from a Canadian
religious boarding school for indigenous children
Canadian and U.S. Indigenous children
by the tens of thousands were forcibly taken from
their parents and were then sent to either
government-run or religious boarding schools, where
they were forbidden from speaking their languages,
and were raped and sometimes sold to local
pedophiles.
Some girls who became pregnant from
the rapes perpetrated by their teachers in Canadian
schools were murdered and buried in secret
graveyards.
We continue to scream BLOODY MURDER!
- LL |
Residential school survivors speak at historic hearings
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada said it's counting on people to share their stories of living in residential schools.
Hundreds of aboriginals gathered in Winnipeg Wednesday to share their stories of abuse suffered during years of living in Canada's disgraced residential school system.
The hearing was the first in a series of seven national events being run by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which aims to document the physical and sexual abuse and other horrors endured by children at residential schools across Canada.
"You will not be questioned. You will not be asked to prove anything. You do not have to share anything that you do not wish to share," commission chair Justice Murray Sinclair told those in attendance.
The Winnipeg hearing runs until Friday.
About 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Metis children were taken from their homes and forced to attend the government- and church-sponsored residential schools over a period of more than 100 years, beginning in the 19th century.
The last school, in Regina, closed in 1996. There are about 85,000 former residential school students still alive across Canada.
Most children were forbidden from speaking their native languages and many were physically and sexually abused.
Manitoba's deputy premier, Eric Robinson, has said he never got to know his mother and was sexually abused in the residential system.
Survivor Robert Joseph, B.C. hereditary chief of the Kwagiulth nation on Vancouver Island, told CTV Winnipeg he hopes the event starts the healing process.
"Us survivors are going to benefit by being able to tell our stories and release the anger and the resentment," he said.
Joseph told the crowd it took him nearly all of his 70 years to share the "dark, ugly, painful, degrading, dehumanizing secrets" of his residential school experience.
Joseph said the sexual abuse he endured, as well as the loss of his culture, left him angry, ashamed and an alcoholic.
"I didn't know how to raise my family. I was just so angry ... I don't want to pass my anger on any more," he said.
Survivor Gerald McIvor said he appreciates the opportunity to speak out about what happened to him, telling CTV Winnipeg that "disclosure here is great to heal the victims. (But) what about rehabilitating the perpetrators? Nobody is addressing that."
...
The Winnipeg event is the first of seven national commission events to be held over the next four years.
The official program started Wednesday with the lighting of a sacred fire and a pipe ceremony.
CTV.ca
June 16 2010
See also:
LibertadLatina
About the sexual exploitation with
impunity of indigenous children and women in Canada
Canada
Canada still has much to do when it comes to human trafficking
We need a national strategy to investigate traffickers and to find and help victims
It's an indication of how grim things are elsewhere that Canada -- by meeting only the minimum standards for legislation and enforcement -- is once again ranked among the best countries in the world in the U.S. state department's 2009 human trafficking report.
Once again, Canada was singled out as a source, destination and transit country for people being trafficked into prostitution and forced labor, in the report released earlier this week.
Aboriginal women and girls are the most frequent targets here, while it's mostly Asians and Eastern Europeans who either end up in Canada or passing through en route to other countries.
The majority of victims are women, who wind up in massage parlors and brothels. Forced labor is acknowledged as a problem here, with the highest incidence reported in Alberta and Ontario, in agriculture, sweat shops and processing plants, and as domestic servants.
It's a mug's game trying to put numbers on the extent of the illegal trade. The only Royal
Canadian Mounted Police estimate, made a few years ago, is that there are 600 to 800 people trafficked into Canada each year. Victims' and immigrants' services agencies say that figure is far too low...
The U.S. report notes that Canada is "also a significant source country for child sex tourists, who travel abroad to engage in sex acts with children." As of late February, there were 32 cases before Canadian courts involving 40 alleged traffickers and 46 victims. Not one of those is in British Columbia even though the U.S. report has, in the past years, fingered Vancouver as a port of major concern.
It's also in spite of the British Columbia government's claim to be "leading the way nationally in responding to human trafficking situations."
Canada does have adequate anti-trafficking laws. What it lacks is a national strategy for investigating traffickers and identifying victims, even though Parliament unanimously approved one three years ago.
Victim support services are a provincial patchwork, which also makes it difficult to both identify victims and to help them once they are found...
Daphne Bramham
The Vancouver Sun
June 19, 2010
Mexico
|
 |
|
Impunity!
Father Alejandro Solalinde,
director of the shelter "Hermanos en el Camino de la
Esperanza " [Shelter
for Migrant Brothers on the Road of Hope]
and the
coordinator of the Southern Zone of the Pastoral
Dimension of Human Mobility of the Mexican Episcopal
Conference - is thrown into the back of a pickup
truck and taken away by corrupt police forces in
Oaxaca state.
Amnesty International:
"Father
Alejandro
Solalinde has been repeatedly arrested, threatened
and intimidated by local authorities and criminal
gangs [for his work assisting migrants]..."
How is the Blue Heart
Campaign going to end the madness of corrupt police
action against migrants, others at risk of human
exploitation and those who help them,
President Calderón? - LL |
Gangs, corrupt officials make illegal migrants' trip through Mexico dangerous
Ixtepec, Mexico - As the Mexican government condemns a new immigration law in Arizona as cruel and xenophobic, illegal migrants passing through Mexico are routinely robbed, raped and kidnapped by criminal gangs that often work alongside corrupt police, according to human rights advocates.
Immigration experts and Catholic priests who shelter the travelers say that Mexico's strict laws to protect the rights of illegal migrants are often ignored and that undocumented migrants from Central America face a brutal passage through the country. They are stoned by angry villagers, who fear that the Central Americans will bring crime or disease, and are fleeced by hustlers. Mexican police and authorities often demand bribes.
Mexico detained and deported more than 64,000 illegal migrants last year, according to the National Migration Institute. A few years ago, Mexico detained 200,000 undocumented migrants. The lower numbers are the result of tougher enforcement on the U.S. border, the global economic slowdown and, say some experts, the robbery and assaults migrants face in Mexico.
The National Commission on Human Rights, a government agency, estimates that 20,000 migrants are kidnapped each year in Mexico.
While held for ransom, increasingly at the hands of Mexico's powerful drug cartels, many migrants are tortured - threatened with execution, beaten with bats and submerged in buckets of water or excrement.
"They put a plastic bag over your head and you can't breathe. They tell you if you don't give them the phone numbers" of family members the kidnappers can call to demand payment for a migrant's release, "they say the next time we'll just let you die," said Jose Alirio Luna Moreno, a broad-shouldered young man from El Salvador, interviewed at a shelter in the southern state of Oaxaca.
Luna said he was held for three days this month in Veracruz by the Zeta drug trafficking organization, which demanded $1,000 to set him free. He said he was abducted by men in police uniforms and taken to a safe house with 26 others.
'Epidemic' in kidnappings
Of the 64,000 migrants detained and expelled by Mexico last year, the Mexican government granted only 20 humanitarian visas, which would have allowed them to stay in Mexico while they testified and pressed charges against their assailants.
"We have a government in Mexico that emphatically criticizes the new immigration law - which is perfectly valid, to criticize a law with widespread consequences - but at the same time doesn't have the desire to address the same problem within its own borders," said Alberto Herrera, executive director of Amnesty International in Mexico.
"The violations in human rights that migrants from Central America face in Mexico are far worse than Mexicans receive in the United States," said Jorge Bustamante of the University of Notre Dame and the College of the Border in Tijuana, who has reported on immigration in Mexico for the United Nations.
U.N. officials describe the kidnapping of illegal migrants in Mexico as "epidemic" in scope...
Amnesty International says that as many as six in 10 women experience sexual violence during the journey...
At a meeting Wednesday, Interior Minister Fernando Gomez Mont, the U.S. ambassador and the governors of the southern Mexican states pledged to work harder to protect migrants.
Like 'merchandise'
The small city of Ixtepec in the humid hills of Oaxaca is a crossroads for illegal migrants moving north on trains. At the edge of town, along the tracks at a shelter for migrants run by the Catholic church, 100 migrants slept on cardboard in the shade, waiting for an afternoon meal, before they move on.
Sergio Alejandro Barillas Perez, a Guatemalan at the shelter, said he was kidnapped in the gulf state of Veracruz this month and held for three days by men who said they worked for the Zetas.
He said his kidnappers demanded $10,000 for him and his girlfriend. "They told me if you don't give us the phone numbers, we'll kill your girlfriend," said Barillas, whose face was still bruised. "We were all in a house, a normal house. When they beat us, they would put a rag in our mouths and they turned on the music, loud, like they're having a party."
He said the kidnappers knocked out his girlfriend's teeth and dragged her away. He and others escaped. He said he does not know what happened to his girlfriend.
"These migrants aren't people -- they are merchandise to the mafias, who traffic drugs, weapons, sex and migrants," said Alejandro Solalinde, the Catholic priest who runs the Brothers of the Road shelter in Ixtepec. "They suck everything out of them."
The priest said that federal authorities do not protect the migrants and that local officials also look the other way, or take their cut from the robbers and traffickers.
Solalinde has battled local authorities who want to shut down his shelter, which feeds as many as 66,000 passing migrants in a year. More than 100 were at the shelter last week.
The priest said many Mexicans are distrustful of the outsiders. In 2008, townspeople became enraged when a Nicaraguan man who was living in Ixtepec was accused of raping a young girl. As police and the mayor were outside the gates at the shelter, Solalinde said, 100 angry protesters got inside.
"They had stones and sticks and gasoline," the priest said. "They wanted to burn us down."
William Booth
The Washington Post
June 18, 2010
Mexico
Urge ley contra trata de personas, dice Rosi Orozco
Ciudad de México.- El tráfico de personas en México, que registra entre 16 y 20 mil niñas y niños, cifra actualizada hasta el 2005, no podrá combatirse mientras no se apruebe la Ley General contra la Trata de Personas, que se encuentra en comisiones de la Cámara de Diputados y que obliga a los tres órdenes de gobierno a combatir el delito, aseguró la panista Rosi Orozco.
La presidenta de la Comisión Especial de Lucha contra la Trata de Personas de la Cámara de Diputados dijo que sólo cuatro estados de la república:
Tlaxcala, Chiapas, Distrito Federal y Tabasco tienen leyes en la materia.
Congressional anti-trafficking leader Rosi Oroszco urges
the passage of new federal bill held-up in committee
Mexico City - Human trafficking in Mexico, which includes 16,000
to 20,000 girls and boys, according to statistics developed in
2005, cannot be effectively fought until Congress approves the
new General Law Against Trafficking in Persons, according to
congressional deputy Rosi Orozco.
Orozco, who is president of the Special Commission to Fight
Human Trafficking in the Chamber of Deputies, added that only
four of Mexico's [31] federated entities,
Tlaxcala, Chiapas and Tabasco states, as well as the Federal
District [Mexico City], currently have anti-trafficking laws.
Gabriel Xantomila
El Sol de México
June 16, 2010
Note: Press reports from Mexico have
commonly stated that 21 of
Mexico's 32 federated entities have passed
anti-trafficking legislation. The context of Deputy Orozco's figure of four
states having anti-trafficking laws represents a discrepancy that will require
some investigation to resolve.
The Dominican Republic
Migración califica de injusto informe sobre trata de personas
En cuanto al punto del informe que se refiere a la parte fronteriza, el director de Migración, señaló que todos los países del mundo tienen un nivel de trata de personas
Santo Domingo - El director de Migración, Sigfrido Pared Pérez, también se pronunció en contra del informe del Departamento de Estado de los Estados Unidos que degrada a República Dominicana a la categoría tres en el combate a la trata de personas.
Pared Pérez calificó el informe de injusto y explicó que uno de los puntos a mejorar que señala el documento, el de la explotación de dominicanas en el exterior, no es responsabilidad de República Dominicana, sino del país de destino.
"Esas dominicanas que son explotadas en el exterior algunas son engañadas, eso tiene que ver con las autoridades del país de destino, no de origen", indicó.
En cuanto al punto del informe que se refiere a la parte fronteriza, el director de Migración, señaló que todos los países del mundo tienen un nivel de trata de personas.
"Ahora bien, decir que República Dominicana no está haciendo esfuerzos para tratar de desarticular eso es una cosa que escapa al juicio valedero", agregó.
Al ser entrevistado a su salida del programa Diario Libre AM, el funcionario destacó que en el país hay una ley (Ley 173-03) sobre Trata de Personas y en adición a esa ley un decreto (575-07) que creó una comisión para la aplicación de esa ley.
"Hay dos factores importantes a tomar en cuenta para un informe, y ese informe de este año fue peor que el de 2003, 2004 y 2005", indicó.
The government of the the Dominican
Republic calls the U.S. State Department's 2010 Trafficking in
Persons (TIP) report unjust
[English translation to follow.]
Paolah Soto
Diario Libre
June 17, 2010
Mexico, Latin America
Informe anual en Washington del Departamento de Estado: Más de 12 millones de personas, víctimas de trata en el mundo
México, tránsito y destino para prostitución y trabajo forzado, afirma
Washington, DC - Unos 12 millones 300 mil personas fueron víctimas de la trata de personas en el mundo entre 2009 y 2010, según un informe anual sobre la materia, publicado hoy por el Departamento de Estado estadunidense, que mantuvo a Cuba en su lista negra de países donde se trafican personas y colocó bajo "observación" a Venezuela, Nicaragua, Guatemala y Panamá.
Éste es el décimo año consecutivo que el Departamento de Estado publica el informe, el cual por primera vez incluyó a Estados Unidos, del que dijo tiene políticas "a la altura de nuestros ideales".
Washington utiliza tres categorías para evaluar la acción de 177 países en esta materia. La primera comprende a aquellos que cumplen totalmente con el Acta de Protección de las Víctimas de Tráfico Humano e incluye a Estados Unidos, varios países europeos y Colombia, la única nación latinoamericana en este grupo.
En el segundo nivel se ubican los estados que no cumplen con los estándares mínimos del acta, pero hacen "esfuerzos significativos" para alcanzarlos. Aquí se encuentran México y la mayoría de los países de la región, incluido Argentina en este año, que se reincorporó después de haber permanecido un tiempo en una llamada "lista de observación".
La tercera categoría abarca a los que no tomaron medidas adecuadas para detener el tráfico humano ni adoptaron "medidas significativas" para cambiar la tendencia. En este peldaño la República Dominicana se puso al lado de Cuba, de cuyo gobierno el reporte indica que por primera vez compartió información.
Con referencia a México, el reporte señaló que este país es fuente, tránsito y destino de hombres, mujeres y niños sujetos a la trata, especialmente en lo relacionado con la prostitución y el trabajo forzado. Los extranjeros más afectados son de Guatemala, Honduras y El Salvador.
Annual U.S. State Department Trafficking in Persons
(TIP) report states that 12 million people are victims of human trafficking
across the world
[English translation to follow.]
Afp, Dpa y Notimex
June 15, 2010
Argentina
Avanza proyecto legislativo sobre trata de personas
Buenos Aires - Legisladores del oficialismo y la oposición de Argentina se comprometieron hoy a impulsar una nueva legislación contra la trata de personas, a la que definieron como "una forma de esclavitud".
Oscar Aguad, presidente del bloque opositor UCR, resaltó que "la trata de personas es una forma de esclavitud, igual que la droga. Y si hay droga y si hay trata es porque hay complicidad de la Policía fundamentalmente". Los legisladores coincidieron, durante una conferencia de prensa, que "tenemos que darle a la Justicia y a los jueces las herramientas para que puedan combatir estos delitos".
Legislative initiative against human trafficking
advances
Buenos Aires - Legislators from Argentina's ruling and opposition parties today
committed themselves to push for new legislation to control human
trafficking, which they defined as a form of modern-day slavery.
Oscar Aguad, president of the UCR opposition block, emphasized that human
trafficking is a form of slavery, equal to drug addition. Congressman Aguad:
"If drugs and human trafficking exist, that condition is made possible
because of police complicity." During a press conference on the subject, the
legislators agreed that "we must give prosecutors and judges the tools that
they need to allow them to combat these crimes."
Legislator
María Luisa Storani, one of the authors of the bill, noted that:
"This is a plague that will require the collaboration of legislators and
civil society to fight, given that the majority of victims are women,
children and the poor."
ANSA
June 18, 2010
Mexico
Refrenda gobierno federal compromiso para prevenir trata de personas
El gobierno federal refrenda su irrestricto compromiso de consolidar políticas públicas transversales para prevenir y sancionar la trata de personas, así como dar atención integral a las víctimas de este delito, afirmó el titular de la Segob, Fernando Gómez Mont.
En un comunicado, la Secretaría de Gobernación (Segob) informó que lo anterior se patentó al realizarse la segunda sesión ordinaria de la Comisión Intersecretarial para Prevenir y Sancionar la Trata de Personas, presidida por el funcionario federal.
Puntualizó que en cumplimiento de la Ley para Prevenir y Sancionar la Trata de Personas, en la sesión se presentaron informes de los trabajos de la Subcomisión Consultiva, órgano encargado de la elaboración del Programa Nacional para Prevenir y Sancionar la Trata de Personas.
Además se dieron a conocer las actividades del lanzamiento, el pasado 14 de abril, de la Campaña Corazón Azul y todas las demás acciones encaminadas a informar a la población sobre el delito de trata de personas, como foros académicos, diálogos con la comunidad, la próxima carrera deportiva y conciertos...
Informó que como representantes de las organizaciones de la sociedad civil con actividades preponderantes en la prevención o asistencia a las víctimas de trata, se seleccionó a la Fundación Camino a Casa, A.C.
También a la Coalición Regional contra el Tráfico de Mujeres y Niñas en América Latina y El Caribe, A.C., y a la Alianza por la Seguridad en Internet, A.C.
,,,
The government of Mexico re-dedicates itself to
the fight against human trafficking
[English translation to follow.]
Notimex
May 24, 2010
New York, USA
Albany Moves to Let Sex Trafficking Victims Clear Criminal Records
New York - Sex trafficking victims may soon be able to have prostitution convictions against them vacated, thanks to new legislation approved in Albany.
Young women are often lured to the New York area with promises of jobs and then find themselves coerced into prostitution. Many of these young women get arrested and charged with a crime even though they were forced to do the work against their will.
Sienna Baskin, a staff attorney for the Sex Workers Program at the Urban Justice Center, says treating trafficking victims like criminals simply pushes them back into the hands of their abusers.
"They end up with a conviction on their record and they go right back into the hands of their trafficker, so we have clients who were arrested up to ten times before escaping their trafficking situation, usually on their own," Baskin says.
Baskin adds that those convictions can make it harder for women to get jobs or legal residency. The landmark legislation--New York's law is the first in the country--will allow trafficking survivors to start their lives over with a clean slate. As it stands, women who've been abused for years are then forced to disclose their criminal convictions to potential employers.
"Even after [the victims] escape from trafficking, that criminal record blocks them from decent jobs and a chance to rebuild their lives," says Democratic Assemblyman Richard Gottfried of Manhattan, the author of the bill. "This bill will give them a desperately needed second chance they deserve.”
The New York State Senate passed the bill on Tuesday and the Assembly passed the same bill in May. The governor still has to sign the bill into law, but advocates believe he will. The governor's office says he will review the bill when it is delivered to him by the legislature.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released a State Department report earlier this week that acknowledged for the first time the modern "slave trade" is going on in this country.
WNYC
June 17, 2010
California, USA
|
 |
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Phillip Michael Dominguez and Racquel Martinez |
San Jose Pair Arrested In Child Sex Assault
A man and woman were arrested Wednesday in connection with the kidnapping and sexual assault of a 5-year-old girl in San Jose on Tuesday, police said.
The child was playing on the front lawn of her home in the 600 block of Balfour Drive on Tuesday afternoon when a man grabbed her and took her to a house nearby, where he sexually assaulted her, according to police.
Dominguez later let the child go and fled before officers arrived.
Investigators identified San Jose resident Phillip Michael Dominguez, 34, as the suspect and issued a warrant for his arrest. He was taken into custody on Wednesday morning.
Dominguez's girlfriend, 29-year-old San Jose resident Racquel Martinez, was also arrested on suspicion of aiding and abetting in the kidnapping and sexual assault. Both were booked into Santa Clara County jail.
Anyone with information on the case is asked to call Detectives Martin or Ichige, or Sgt. Robb of the Police Department's child exploitation detail, at (408) 277-4102. Those wishing to remain anonymous can call Crime Stoppers at (408) 947-STOP.
CBS 5
June 17, 2010
California, USA
2 Accused Of Sex Assault At Menlo Park Restaurant
Two employees of the British Bankers Club in Menlo Park were arrested Tuesday for allegedly groping two women at the restaurant, police said Wednesday.
The suspects, 26-year-old Moises Rojas and 29-year-old Juan Gustavo Robles-Alejo, allegedly groped the women while they were inebriated and unable to stop the advances, according to police.
The alleged incident was caught on surveillance video, and Rojas and Robles-Alejo were taken into custody Tuesday and booked into San Mateo County jail, police said.
Anyone who may have experienced similar incidents or who has information on this incident is asked to call Detective Ed Soares at (650) 799-9459.
CBS
June 17, 2010
Florida, USA
Attempted rapist captured on surveillance camera
Orlando - Police say a man who attempted to rape a woman at the Fountains of Millenia apartments may be a resident, or a regular visitor. Detectives released surveillance video of the attack which happened at one o'clock in the afternoon on June 13.
In the video, the surveillance camera captured the attacker walking away from the pool restroom and across the pool deck. After the suspect changes, he reappears in the surveillance video where he's seen lounging in the pool. Ten minutes later, the victim, a 34-year-old female enters the side of the screen and walks towards the restroom. The suspect takes notice, and thirty seconds later, he gets out to go show the victim how to get into the restroom through an open vent. Police say she went into the bathroom stall.
But when the victim came out, she saw the attacker right in front of her. A struggle began, and she told police he was trying to sexually attack her, so she fought back.
Fortunately, she scared off her would-be rapist, and the last shot of him is as he's running with his stuff towards the pool exit.
The suspect is described as a Hispanic male in his early 20s, thin to muscular build, with short hair and possibly a thin beard. He has tattoos on this chest, shoulder, and calf. he also had a beach towel designed like the flag of the Dominican republic.
WOFL FOX 35
June 19 2010
Oregon, USA
North Coast's Most Wanted: Elias Ramirez
North Coast law enforcement agencies are on the lookout for a man on the "Most Wanted" list.
Elias Arriaga Ramirez is wanted for the rape of an 11-year-old girl that occurred in Astoria in 2009. Arriaga Ramirez is a 25-year-old Hispanic man who is about 5-foot, 8-inches tall and weighs about 145 pounds. He has black hair and brown eyes.
There is an outstanding felony warrant for Arriaga Ramirez with a bail of $250,000.
If you have any information about the whereabouts of Elias Arriaga Ramirez, contact Detective Andrew Randall of the Astoria Police Department at (503) 325-4411, ext. 24 or dial 9-1-1.
The North Coast's "Most Wanted" is brought to readers by The Daily Astorian with cooperation from all the region's law enforcement agencies.
The Daily Astorian
June 17, 2010
Arizona, USA
Victim, suspect turn themselves in to Avondale police
Avondale - Avondale police are looking for a woman possible kidnapped by her abusive husband.
According to a witness, the victim, Italia Figueroa, and the witness were driving to court to obtain an order of protection for Italia when they were forced to stop in the roadway.
The witness said the suspect, Leonardo Rodriguez, drove his car and blocked them from continuing and then took Figueroa against her will.
Figueroa was forced by Rodriguez into his 2002 silver Honda Civic that was last seen driving northbound on Fairway Drive towards Van Buren Street.
The 2002 silver Honda Civic four door has Arizona license plate HPG-060.
Figueroa has told the witness she had been the victim of domestic violence as recent as two days ago, sustaining numerous bruises on her arms after Rodriguez assaulted her.
Update: Just before 9 p.m. Friday evening [June 18, 2010] Rodriguez showed up at the Avondale Police Department.
Figueroa, his wife, was with him when they showed up to the police station. She was unharmed.
They were cooperating with police interviews.
No word of if any charges will be filed.
Natalie Rivers
azfamily.com
June 18, 2010
Southwest USA
U.S. Border Patrol Weekly Blotter
Excerpt
June 15, 2010 - Buffalo Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico at the Greyhound bus station in Rochester, New York. Records checks revealed the subject had a prior conviction for child molestation and had previously been removed from the United States.
June 15, 2010 - Tucson Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Douglas, Arizona. Records checks revealed the subject had a prior conviction for attempted unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor in the state of California, and had previously been removed from the United States.
June 15, 2010 - Tucson Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Honduras near Sierra Vista, Arizona. Record checks revealed the subject had a prior conviction for indecent liberties with a child and had previously been removed from the United States.
June 13, 2010 - Laredo Sector - Border Patrol agents seized a tractor-trailer and arrested a USC and 47 illegal aliens at the traffic checkpoint near Laredo, Texas. The USC subject presented himself for inspection, and a Border Patrol canine alerted to the trailer. A search by agents revealed the 47 illegal aliens inside the locked trailer. Record checks revealed that the USC was a registered sex offender and had an extensive criminal history.
June 13, 2010 - Tucson Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Coolidge, Arizona. Records checks revealed the subject had a prior conviction for rape of a child in the state of Washington, and had previously been removed from the United States.
June 11, 2010 - Tucson Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Guatemala near Tucson, Arizona. Records checks revealed the subject had a prior conviction for lewd or lascivious battery upon a minor in the state of Florida and had previously been removed from the United States.
U.S. Border Patrol
June 16, 2010
Kansas, USA
How should the media cover the human-trafficking story?
Last year, The Star did a big
series on human trafficking that got a lot of positive attention. One of the reporters who worked on that project, Mike McGraw, was on a panel yesterday at the United Nations... The big takeaway: The media needs to do a better job on the issue. (I was shocked by this critique, as I'd assumed the mainstream media was without flaw. How wrong I was.)
But I do think they made good points about coverage of human trafficking. When it does get covered, the stories tend to focus on the sex angle. That might have something to do with the fact that a lot of human-trafficking victims are forced into the sex trade. Not all of them are, though, as demonstrated by Mark, Mike and Laura Bauer's reporting. Case in point:
Sebastian Pereria told a friend last year about his life in America. How he wanted to see his wife and children in India, but his boss kept his identification papers and wouldn’t let him go.
Other waiters who worked with him at a Topeka restaurant told of how they were forced to work 13-hour days, six days a week. They talked of how the boss underpaid them and pocketed their tips. In the end, Pereria, 46, got his wish. He finally arrived home last year. In a coffin.
I have my own theory about why human trafficking hasn't caught fire as a cause among the U.S. public. I think a lot of Americans view human-trafficking victims not as someone who's being hurt, but as people who chose to illegally immigrate to the United States. That dries up the sympathy among a lot of Americans - even to the point where they overlook the terrible conditions that human-trafficking victims live in.
The Kansas City Star
June 17, 2010
See also:
The Americas
LibertadLatina
Commentary
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Chuck Goolsby |
Great job, Kansas City Star
Responding to the Kansas City Star's opinion piece: How should the media cover the human-trafficking story?
The Kansas City Star did a great job in its award-winning series on human trafficking published in December of 2009.
I have been an anti-trafficking activist since the late 1990s, focusing on the Latin American, and Latin U.S. immigrant aspects of the issue. I developed a web site:
Libertad Latina, which today contains 1,300 factual news articles, papers, abstracts and essays about the emergency of human trafficking.
I applaud the Star for having focused on the Latin American aspects of the issue.
I agree with this article's author in viewing at-least part of the public apathy in regard to human trafficking issues as being associated with anti-immigrant bias.
At the same time, many parties 'conflate' voluntary migrant smuggling with forced human trafficking. Federal authorities at-times report progress in the fight against cross-border (Mexican - U.S.) human trafficking, when they are really including arrests related to human smuggling operations.
As the Star series pointed out, many migrants who are smuggled voluntarily are later kidnapped, raped, tortured and sometimes murdered by 'coyotes' (smugglers), who decide to extort victim's families for an exaggerated smuggling fee.
[These cases often start as voluntary smuggling, and end-up as human
trafficking.]
According to veteran Mexican women's rights lawyer Teresa Ulloa, who is now the head of the Latin American and Caribbean branch of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW-LAC), 17% of the gross national product across Latin American nations in derived from prostitution. Ulloa identifies 500,000 victims of human trafficking as existing in Mexico (compared to perhaps 200,000 cumulative victims in the U.S.). Child sex tourism from U.S. perpetrators are among the outrageous crimes that are rampant in Mexico's border regions and resort towns. An estimated 3,000 to 4,000 indigenous girl children have been kidnapped by the Japanese Yakuza mafias, and have been sold in Japan as 'geisha' prostitutes. Neither Mexico nor Japan have lifted a finger to save those children.
Although labor trafficking exists, sexist and racist machismo in Mexico and Latin America's other nations create special conditions where criminal men who act with impunity can literally get away with kidnapping, rape, murder and
[sexual]slavery with impunity. The U.S. public has very, very little visibility into these realities. U.S. federal anti-trafficking efforts, and the work of most NGOs have not provided the Latin American crisis, and especially its severely impacted indigenous people's component, a place at the table of decision making and public discourse on this emergency.
My efforts with
LibertadLatina
have focused on filling the gap in mainstream news coverage in regard to human trafficking's Latin American crisis. For the past 9+ years I have documented as much of the crisis as possible, so that the general public, legislators, law enforcement and criminal justice folks and advocates have access to the truth. Much of that truth, in regard to Latin America's crisis exists as Spanish language reporting by passionate and dedicated reporters and activists. Many of them, especially in Mexico, risk being jailed or killed by corrupt officials and mafias for speaking these truths. I translate as many critical stories as possible, and believe that the effort has had a positive impact on the crisis. In recent months, Mexico has been forced by global public outrage to finally begin to take action to address its huge human trafficking crisis.
So yes, the mainstream press needs to address human trafficking in more detail. The Kansas City Star has made a good start at setting an example for others in professional journalism.
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
June 18, 2010
Mexico
2010 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report - Mexico
Excerpt
Mexico is a large source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced prostitution and forced labor. Government and NGO statistics suggest that the magnitude of forced labor surpasses that of forced prostitution in Mexico. Groups considered most vulnerable to human trafficking in Mexico include women, children, indigenous persons, and undocumented migrants. Mexican women, girls, and boys are subjected to sexual servitude within the United States and Mexico, lured by false job offers from poor rural regions to urban, border, and tourist areas…
The vast majority of foreign victims in forced labor and sexual servitude in Mexico are from Central America, particularly Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador; many transit Mexico en route to the United States and, to a lesser extent, Canada and Western Europe…
The Government of Mexico does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. Mexican authorities increased anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts and achieved the first convictions under the 2007 anti-trafficking law, in addition to opening a government-funded shelter dedicated to sex trafficking victims. The Secretariat of Government assumed more active leadership of the interagency trafficking commission and the Mexican Congress created its own trafficking commission. Given the magnitude of the trafficking problem, however, the number of human trafficking investigations and convictions remained low. While Mexican officials recognize human trafficking as a serious problem, NGOs and government representatives report that some local officials tolerate and are sometimes complicit in trafficking, impeding implementation of anti-trafficking statues…
NGOs, members of the government, and other observers continued to report that corruption among public officials, especially local law enforcement and judicial and immigration officials, was a significant concern. Some officials reportedly accepted or extorted bribes or sexual services, falsified identity documents, discouraged trafficking victims from reporting their crimes, or tolerated child prostitution and other human trafficking activity in commercial sex sites…
NGOs noted that many public officials in Mexico, including state and local officials, did not adequately distinguish between alien smuggling and human trafficking offenses and that many judges and police officers are not familiar with anti-trafficking laws. In order to address this problem, both government and outside sources provided some law enforcement officials, prosecutors, and social workers with anti-trafficking training.
…According to NGOs, victim services were lacking in some parts of the country and remained inadequate in light of the significant number of trafficking victims… Foreign victims who declined to assist law enforcement personnel… were repatriated to their home countries and were not eligible for victim aid or services in Mexico. Although authorities encouraged victims to assist in trafficking investigations and prosecutions, many victims in Mexico were afraid to identify themselves or push for legal remedies due to their fears of retribution from trafficking offenders. Furthermore, victims had little incentive to participate due to a culture of impunity, reflected by official complicity, the limited number of trafficking prosecutions and convictions, and the fact that no trafficking victim has been awarded compensation for damages. The law establishes legal protections for trafficking victims, though in practice, according to NGOs, witnesses were not offered sufficient protection…
U.S. Department of State
June 14, 2010
Arizona, USA
Who's coming to Arizona from Mexico?
Phoenix - Arizona's border with Mexico is the busiest crossing for illegal immigrants, and a number of them are criminals, according to the Border Patrol.
Last year, the Tucson sector of the Border Patrol caught 240,000 people trying to sneak into the United States illegally.
"Right about now, we're apprehending between 400 and 600 people a day," said Colleen Agle with the Border Patrol. She said this is the slow time of year; the number of illegal crossers peaks at around 1,000 a day in cooler weather.
Several criminals are among the illegal immigrants, Agle said.
"Rapists, child molesters, a lot of violent gang members."
She said it's tough to determine just what percentage of illegal immigrants have criminal backgrounds, but agents encounter them on a daily basis.
In the past few days, agents at Douglas have arrested an illegal immigrant who had been convicted of rape and another who had been convicted of having sex with a child under 3 years old. A child molester was arrested at a Nogales border crossing and an illegal who had been convicted of manslaughter was arrested in Casa Grande.
"We definitely see these types of individuals on a weekly basis," said Agle, "and I'd say pretty close to every day, we're apprehending somebody (criminal) -- whether it's a child molester or some sort of sex offender or violent gang member. Those are definitely people who are trying to get into the United States."
Pamela Hughes
KTAR
June 17, 2010
Texas, USA
Lawsuit alleges boy was raped in bathroom connected to CBP office
Brownsville — The office of the city attorney is reviewing The Brownsville Herald’s request to release an incident report regarding an alleged sexual assault of a child at the
Brownwsville and Matamoros International Bridge.
The report contains information on the investigation into the alleged sexual assault of a 7-year-old boy in a bathroom connected to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection office at the port of entry.
The boy and his mother — both residents of Matamoros — had accompanied his grandmother to the facility, where she was interviewed in connection with a criminal investigation regarding then Hidalgo County Commissioner Sylvia Handy.
The Herald on Thursday requested the report from the Brownsville Police Department after the child’s mother filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government, several federal agencies and BPD.
The mother claims federal and local law enforcement agencies mishandled evidence and released a suspect without charging him in connection with the assault, the lawsuit states. The mother is accusing authorities of covering up the crime.
The mother seeks unspecified actual and exemplary damages, the lawsuit states.
City Attorney Mark E. Sossi said Tuesday that he would have a resolution soon to The Herald’s request for public information. The Police Department appears to be the lead agency conducting the inquiry.
CBP spokesman Eddie Perez said Tuesday, “We are not at liberty to discuss any case that is in pending litigation.”
The woman filed the lawsuit May 28 in U.S. District Court...
According to the lawsuit, the boy, his mother, two sisters and grandmother were present at a CBP office because the FBI was to interview the grandmother in connection with a criminal investigation regarding then Hidalgo County Commissioner Sylvia Handy. Handy, who represented Hidalgo County Precinct 1, subsequently pleaded guilty to tax evasion and conspiracy to harbor illegal aliens and then resigned from her elected office.
“The FBI knew that (the grandmother) would necessarily have to bring her family and agreed to safeguard all of them while in the United States for government purposes,” the lawsuit states. “The sole purpose of their visit was to be interviewed at the CBP Office regarding an ongoing FBI investigation.”
On the family’s arrival at the CBP office, the FBI began to interview the boy’s grandmother while the remaining family members waited nearby, the lawsuit states. The boy then went to use the restroom.
The mother alleges that when she went to look for her son, there was a man inside wearing glasses and a striped shirt who raced past her out of the restroom and out the CBP office.
The child was found unconscious on the floor in the restroom, the lawsuit states.
Emma Perez-Treviño
The Brownsville Herald
June 08, 2010
Tennessee, USA
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Valentino Vasquez Miranda |
Illegal immigrant admits raping, killing Alabama woman; will reveal accomplice
The illegal immigrant who confessed to raping and killing an Alabama homecoming queen in a West Knoxville hotel room made a vow Thursday to expose his accomplice.
"That is a promise I make to the family (to) give them some peace," Valentino Vasquez Miranda said via an interpreter in Knox County Criminal Court.
Miranda admitted at a hearing Thursday that he used a master key to get inside a sleeping Jennifer Lee Hampton's hotel room at the Days Inn on Lovell Road and then raped and strangled her in September 2008.
As part of a plea deal approved by Judge Bob McGee, Miranda was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole after a mandatory 51-year prison term.
Hampton, 21, was in Knoxville to help train workers at a new Mama Blue's restaurant set to open here. Miranda and girlfriend Rosa Hernandez were living and working at the Days Inn as housekeepers.
Assistant District Attorney Kevin Allen told McGee that the attack on Hampton was a violent one, with guests in an adjoining room reporting a crash against her wall severe enough to shake items in their room. Hampton fought for her life, he said, evidenced by bits of Miranda's flesh under her fingernails.
"The cause of death was strangulation," he said...
At a hearing earlier this year, Allen signaled that his office might seek the death penalty in the case. But the Mexican consulate, acting on behalf of Miranda and his family, later questioned whether Miranda was 17 at the time of the slaying rather than the age of 20 as suggested by fake Social Security documents. Birth certificates are not issued in Mexico, so there is no way to verify a Mexican citizen's age. Under Tennessee and federal law, juveniles cannot be put to death.
To avoid a battle over the issue, Knox County District Attorney General Randy Nichols declined to authorize what's known as a "death notice" to be filed against Miranda.
Spared death and a lifetime behind bars, Miranda still tarried several hours Thursday before inking his plea deal.
Hampton's mother, Cynthia Senn, said she was told Miranda did not want to face her daughter's loved ones. He relented shortly before a 1:30 p.m. deadline.
Attorney Eddie Daniel already won a civil settlement on behalf of the Hampton family from the Days Inn. The terms have been kept under wraps.
Jamie Satterfield
The Knoxville News Sentinel
June 18, 2010
Pennsylvania, USA
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Louis Alberto Berrios-Rodriguez |
Police ID second suspect in Berks carjacking, rape
State police have identified a second suspect in the 2008 carjacking, beating and rape of a 22-year-old woman in Berks County.
State police at Reading issued an arrest warrant Wednesday night for Louis Alberto Berrios-Rodriguez, 22, formerly of Reading. He has not been captured, and is believed to be living in Puerto Rico.
Police in Puerto Rico and Reading are actively looking for him and anyone with information is asked to call state police at 610-378-4011, or Crime Alert Berks County at 877-373-9913. Callers are eligible for a reward of up to $10,000.
On Wednesday, state police said Raymond Cosme-Gomez, 21, formerly of Reading, was captured in Puerto Rico for the brutal Alsace Township rape on Oct. 18, 2008. He is awaiting extradition.
Police said an intensive investigation, which included the use of DNA evidence, led them to Cosme-Gomez.
Police said Cosme-Gomez and Berrios-Rodriguez were two of the three men who were in an Alsace bar with the victim. The three men followed the woman out of the bar and carjacked her in a parking lot across from the bar, police said.
The men robbed the victim of her money and drove her to a remote area about a quarter-mile away, where she was assaulted and raped, police said.
The attackers left the victim there, taking her car and her cell phone.
About an hour later, police found her car burning in Reading.
The Morning Call
June 17, 2010
Arizona, USA
Report: Man in Sparkletts uniform sexually assaults woman
Phoenix- A Phoenix woman claims she was sexually assaulted in her home this week by a man dressed in a Sparkletts water uniform.
Luis Samudio with the Phoenix Police Department said the woman told authorities she heard a knock on her door in the area of 51st Avenue and Cactus Road around 6 p.m. Tuesday.
The woman reportedly looked through the peep hole and saw a man wearing what appeared to be a Sparkletts uniform.
Samudio said the woman told authorities she opened the door and the suspect forced entry into the home.
The man allegedly sexually assaulted her and struck her several times in the head with a black semi-automatic pistol.
The suspect is described as a Hispanic male between 25 and 30 years old, 5 feet 8 inches tall, 190 pounds, and was wearing a Sparkletts water polo, a matching baseball cap, leather gloves, and tan shorts. Police also said he had a ‘chinstrap’ goatee.
Samudio said this appears to be an isolated incident. Police say the crime in under investigation.
Katrina Schaefer
Scripps Media, Inc.
June 17, 2010
The World, The United States
2010 Trafficking in Persons Report
U.S. State Department
June 15, 2010
Cuba
Cuba Rejects U.S. Allegations About Underage Prostitution
Havana - The Cuban government rejected Tuesday as “false and disrespectful” the U.S. State Department report on human trafficking and denied any trafficking of minors, as stated in the document.
The 2010 Trafficking in Persons Report, presented Monday in Washington, listed Cuba among countries that fail to meet minimum international standards in battling human trafficking, and said that sexual exploitation of minors is common on the communist-ruled island.
“This shameful slander deeply offends the Cuban people. Sexual trafficking of minors does not exist in Cuba, but rather there is an exemplary record of protecting children, young people and women,” according to Josefina Vidal, head of the North America desk in the Cuban Foreign Ministry.
In a statement sent to the media, Vidal said that Cuba does not figure, “either as a country of origin, or of transit, or as a final destination for this scourge.”
She said that the legislation and measures adopted against that crime place Cuba among the countries of the region with the “most progressive” regulations and mechanisms to prevent and combat human trafficking.
The State Department report, she said, “can only be explained by the desperate need the U.S. government has to justify, under any pretext whatsoever, the persistence of its cruel policy of (economic) embargo, rejected overwhelmingly by the international community.”
EFE
June 17,2010
New York, USA
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Victor Orozco |
Rapist sentenced to 25 years
[Albany] Only the quiet sound of shackles could be heard as Victor Orozco, 24, made his way into the courtroom. His fate resting in the hands of Judge Jonathan Nichols.
"The nature and extent of your crime against the victim and her family is probably one of the worst crimes in terms of victim impact that i've had to preside over," said Judge Nichols.
Orozco pled guilty to the rape of a Stockport woman back in January. Even more shocking -- the victim's two young children were forced to watch.
"He duct taped them, told her to make them stop screaming or he would kill her in front of her kids," said Columbia County District Attorney Beth Cozzolino.
The victim, who we couldn't show on camera, spoke to the judge through tears, saying "He destroyed my life and my children's lives."
"They will be forever traumatize by this. They can't go to the bathroom. They're afraid to fall asleep at night. They're afraid to go home," said Cozzolino.
Orozco waived his right to a hearing, and thus a trial. His attorney asked that to be taken into consideration during sentencing.
But the judge's concern was for the victim, handing down 25 years in prison.
"I'm really pleased the judge gave him the maximum sentence," Cozzolino says. "There really is no other sentence you could give an animal like this."
"He didn't know why he did it. He's sorry he did it. He wishes he could take it back," says defense attorney Michael Howard. "But that's obviously after the fact."
Now, Columbia County District attorney Beth Cozzolino says the victim is going to focus on moving forward.
"She's back to work," Cozzolino says. "Her kids are back to school and I'm hoping that they recover from this."
Cait McVey
WXXA
June 15, 2010
Pennsylvania, USA
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Angel C. Solano-Martinez |
Drug ring suspect in prison on several felony sex charges
A 30-year-old Hazleton man is in Luzerne County prison on multiple felony sex charges involving a 15-year-old girl.
Hazleton detectives escorted Angel C. Solano-Martinez, West Hemlock Street, into District Judge Joseph Zola's office Wednesday night to be arraigned on five felony charges including deviate sexual intercourse, statutory sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault, dissemination of explicit sexual material and criminal contact with a minor. He also faces two misdemeanor counts of corruption of minors.
According to the police criminal complaint, the female juvenile's family called Luzerne County Children and Youth after they recognized Solano-Martinez in a photograph on the front page of the June 10 edition of the Standard-Speaker. The photo appeared with a story about drug arrests made by federal agents in Hazleton.
Solano-Martinez was one of more than a dozen alleged drug dealers from Hazleton arrested in the raid. All of the alleged dealers were named in a one-count indictment that said they conspired to sell more than 5 kilograms, or 11 pounds, of cocaine, and 50 grams of crack. They each pleaded not guilty.
Solano-Martinez was free on federal bail Wednesday when city detectives escorted him to district court on the sex crime charges.
According to the criminal complaint, Solano-Martinez met the 15-year-old girl at the Pine Street Playground in November 2009.
From the playground, Solano-Martinez invited the girl to a local motel where he gave her ecstasy pills and marijuana, court papers said. From November to his arrest last week on federal drug charges, Solano-Martinez had a sexual relationship with the girl that included watching pornographic movies at his house and having unprotected sexual intercourse, sometimes multiple times a day, police said.
The girl told police that Solano-Martinez was aware that she was only 15.
According to the criminal complaint, the girl told police that Solano-Martinez also supplied her with crack cocaine, smoked it with her, and often had her deliver drugs to customers when he was "too tired or too busy to deliver himself."
Police said Solano-Martinez "walked into Hazleton City Hall to deliver a message to" the federal Drug Enforcement Agency on Wednesday. The man was questioned by police on the sexual allegations and taken into custody.
Dressed in blue jeans and a gray sweatshirt with shackles on his ankles and wrist cuffs attached to a leather restraint around his waist, Solano-Martinez wore a surgical-type mask over his mouth and nose as he sat quietly before Zola at district court. He answered the judge's questions with single-word answers spoken in a quiet tone of voice.
Zola set bail at $100,000 straight cash, which Solano-Martinez was unable to post. He was remanded to the Luzerne County Correctional Facility in lieu of bail. Zola scheduled a preliminary hearing for 9 a.m. Wednesday.
Mia Light
Standard Speaker
June 17, 2010
Pennsylvania, USA
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Raymond Cosme-Gomez |
Police make arrest in Berks County rape case
ALSACE Township - A man accused of helping to carjack and rape a Berks County woman has been captured in Puerto Rico where he awaits extradition, the state police at the Reading barracks announced Wednesday.
Authorities in the U.S. territory took Raymond Cosme-Gomez, 21, last known address in Reading, Pa., into custody Tuesday, the state police said.
Cosme-Gomez is accussed of participating in the carjacking and rape of a 22-year-old woman at 12:40 a.m. Oct. 18, 2008, on Pricetown Road in Alsace.
According to police, the accused and two other Hispanic men came up to the woman who was in her car and would not allow her to get out of her vehicle in the 2800 block. The men "grabbed her by her hair and demanded that she give them all of her money," police said. The men took $40 from the victim's back pocket and the woman's cell phone, police said.
Keeping the woman in the car, the three men drove it to a secluded area on the same road about two miles from where they first came upon the woman, police said. The men proceeded to beat the woman and rape her, police said.
The assailants left the woman at the rape scene and took off with her car and cell phone, police said.
The stolen vehicle was later found burning in the 900 block of North Sixth Street in Reading about 2 a.m. the same day, police said.
The ensuing investigation, including an examination of DNA, lead police to Cosme-Gomez, who fled the country to Puerto Rico in 2009, police said. With the help of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Puerto Rican officials, a search warrant was issued and Cosme-Gomez was found and investigated before being arrested June 15, 2010, for his alleged part in the crime, police said.
Cosme-Gomez is awaiting extradition to Pennsylvania where he will be tried, police said. Police said expect to have a second suspect under arrest soon.
The Mercury
June 16, 2010
The United States,
The World
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Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks at the presentation
of the 2010 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report
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U.S. State Department: Remarks on the Release of the 10th Annual Trafficking in Persons Report
Hillary Rodham Clinton - Secretary of State
Maria Otero - Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs
Luis CdeBaca - Ambassador-at-Large, Office To Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons
Laura Germino - The Coalition of Immokalee
Workers
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Maria
Otero - Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs, speaking
at the 2010 TIP Report presentation |
Under Secretary Otero: …The announcement of the 2010 TIP Report is not only the result of many months of hard work, from offices - from our embassies and analysts and the Human Rights Trafficking Person - and the Human Trafficking Person, but also the community of NGOs - many of whom who are here - and activists who have dedicated their lives' work to combat this terrible scourge. Today, we come together to recognize over one decade of work…
The TIP report is a fair and transparent diagnosis of the impact of human trafficking, and it offers an assessment of how we can partner to end this human rights abuse, because human trafficking cuts across policies and sectors. We are challenged to gather our resources and increase our capacity to fight this crime together…
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton …I want to thank Under Secretary Maria Otero for her leadership on this and so many other pressing global challenges. I want to thank our own hero, Ambassador Lou CdeBaca, and all the men and women here at the State Department. They are working literally around the clock to shine the brightest of all spotlights on the scourge of modern slavery. Lou and his team work very closely with Melanne Verveer, our first ever ambassador-at-large for Global Women's Issues. Because human trafficking not only exploits and victimizes women and girls; it also fuels the epidemic of gender-based violence around the world. So thank you, one and all…
Human trafficking crosses cultures and continents. I've met survivors of trafficking and their families, along with brave men and women in both the public and the private sector who have stood up against this terrible crime. All of us have a responsibility to bring this practice to an end. Survivors must be supported and their families aided and comforted, but we cannot turn our responsibility for doing that over to nongovernmental organizations or the faith community. Traffickers must be brought to justice. And we can't just blame international organized crime and rely on law enforcement to pursue them. It is everyone's responsibility. Businesses that knowingly profit or exhibit reckless disregard about their supply chains, governments that turn a blind eye or do not devote serious resources to addressing the problem, all of us have to speak out and act forcefully…
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Ambassador Luis CdeBaca, speaking at the
2010 TIP Report presentation |
Ambassador Luis CdeBaca:
…Ten years ago, the law caught up with what so many people in this room knew - what you knew, what you cared about long before this was a hot issue. The injustice, though, was still as great. So we honor your leadership from within government and civil society. On shoestring budgets and with incomparable resolve, you had the courage to identify weaknesses and victims, to build shelters and best practices, and to trust and support survivors. We hope to use the same courage, the same strength, and the same tenacity as we celebrate 10 years of progress, but also 10 years of learning…
Laura Germino is going to give a few remarks on behalf of the heroes [recognized
here] today, but in the introduction of Laura, we talk about a multi-sectoral approach, tapping NGOs, law enforcement, labor inspectors and the survivors, themselves. And the pioneer of that approach here in the United States is Laura Germino. In the early 1990s, Laura began to not just give a voice to escaped slaves, but traveled to Washington on her own dime to hold the federal government accountable to - investigate and prosecute these cases. And when I say federal government, I mean me -and I think Leon Rodriguez…
Laura Germino: …Twenty years ago - we're turning the clock back - there was no State Department TIP Report. There was no Justice Department Anti-Trafficking Unit. There was no Trafficking Victims Protection Act, no freedom network of NGOs. Farm workers like Julia Gabriel and thousands of others had not yet escaped to freedom. Farm bosses like Ron Evans or Sebastian Gomez and a dozen others had not been brought to justice. There was no admission yet by this great nation that the unbroken threat of slavery that has so tragically woven through our history, taking on different patterns, but always weaving the horrendous depravation of liberty - that it was a constant.
But here's the good part: There was nowhere to go but up. What we found is the mills of justice grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine. I have to say at times those mills ground really slowly. But change can and does come. Twenty years later, we see those changes, and you don't have to take my word for it. You can ask Ambassador CdeBaca.
Fifteen years ago, Ambassador CdeBaca was a young prosecutor… sitting in our office in Immokalee… puzzling about how to bring a violent, armed boss who was holding more than 400 farm workers, to justice. Our work together on that case eventually put that employer, Miguel Flores, behind bars for 15 years hard time. And as Ambassador CdeBaca was saying - (applause) - that prosecution helped lay the groundwork for the Trafficking Victims Protection Act…
U.S. Department of State
June 14, 2010
Note: The
U.S. Department of State
web page covering this presentation includes a video of the event.
See also:
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers
See also:
Laura Germino is the first U.S. citizen to be recognized
as a “Trafficking in Persons Hero.”
News-Press.com
June 14, 2010
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