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Indigenous and 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 /
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Updated: June 28, 2011
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Últimas Noticias
Latest
News
Mexico, Honduras
|
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HERO: Patricia Villamil - Consul for
Honduras in Chiapas state, on Mexico's southern border, has been
removed from her post in retaliation for her criticism of Mexican officials'
failure to respond to the mass sex trafficking of Central American
women and girls. |
Sale por presiones Cónsul hondureña en Chiapas
Villamil asumió como Cónsul de Honduras en Tapachula en noviembre de 2010 y en marzo de 2011 lanzó una denuncia contra autoridades mexicanas.
Ciudad de México.- El Gobierno de Honduras removió del cargo de Cónsul de ese país en Tapachula, Chiapas, a Patricia Villamil, quien se destacó en los últimos meses por sus denuncias de abusos contra migrantes en tránsito por México y de trata de personas tolerada por las autoridades.
De acuerdo con Villamil, su remoción respondió a presiones de funcionarios de la Secretaría para el Desarrollo de la Frontera Sur del Gobierno de Chiapas, a quienes molestó que denunciara la explotación laboral y sexual de que son objeto mujeres migrantes en la entidad.
Relató que el jueves pasado, cerca de las 20:00 horas, recibió un oficio firmado por el Embajador José Mariano Castillo Mercado en el que se le informó del término de su misión a partir del día siguiente.
"Me despidieron de mi cargo y todo por las denuncias que hice y porque funcionarios de (la Secretaría para el Desarrollo de la) Frontera Sur (de Chiapas) fueron a la Embajada a manifestar su disgusto por mi trabajo, por la labor que he hecho en contra de la trata de personas", indicó en entrevista.
Villamil asumió el cargo de Cónsul de Honduras en Tapachula en noviembre de 2010 y en marzo de 2011 decidió lanzar una denuncia pública ante la falta de atención por parte de las autoridades mexicanas.
"En Chiapas hay clara evidencia de la explotación laboral y sexual de mujeres hondureñas. Hay testimonios desgarradores de niñas esclavizadas en prostíbulos de Frontera Comalapa, así como de abusos por parte de policías ministeriales y agentes del Instituto Nacional de Migración (INM). Por ello exigimos la intervención del Gobierno", señaló durante un foro en en la Universidad Autónoma de Chiapas.
Ayer sostuvo que las autoridades chiapanecas se quejaron de ella por no seguir los protocolos al hacer sus denuncias.
"Creo que lo que les molestó es que nosotros diéramos a conocer todo lo que está pasando en Ciudad Hidalgo, en todo Chiapas, porque ellos siempre dan la impresión de tener la casa limpia y viene una persona nueva a sacar las cosas, eso no les gustó, no les pareció", insistió.
Durante su gestión en el Consulado, destacó, fue posible rescatar a 10 mujeres hondureñas, 8 de ellas menores de edad, que eran explotadas laboral y sexualmente en antros de la entidad...
Chiapas state officials pressure
Honduras to remove Consul
(and anti-trafficking activist) Patricia Villamil
Patricia Villamil took over as Honduran consul in Tapachula in November 2010 and in March 2011 launched a complaint against Mexican authorities.
Mexico City - The Government of Honduras has removed Patricia Villamil, her nation's
consul in [Mexico's southern border region city of] Tapachula in Chiapas state,
from office. Consul Villamil raised attention in recent months as a result of
her allegations of abuses against migrants in transit through Mexico, and the
tolerance that Mexican authorities have shown in response to [the region's
widespread problem of] human trafficking.
According to Villamil, her removal came as a result of pressure exerted by officials of the Secretariat for the Development of the Southern Border of the Government of Chiapas
state, who
were angered by Consul Villamil's complaints about the labor and sexual exploitation that migrant women are subjected-to
in Chiapas.
Consul Villamil said that last Thursday at about 8:00 pm she received a letter signed by
Honduran Ambassador
to Mexico José Mariano Castillo Mercado in which she was informed that her assignment
was to end effective as of the following day.
"I was fired from my job because of the allegations that I
have made, and because officials (of the Secretary for Development) for the
southern frontier (Chiapas state) went to the [Honduran] embassy to express
their displeasure with my work, the work that I've done against human trafficking,
said "Consul Villamil during an interview.
Villamil took office in Tapachula as Honduran Consul in November of 2010. During March
of 2011 she decided to issue a public complaint about the lack of attention that
was being paid by Mexican authorities [to the exploitation of migrant women].
"In Chiapas there is clear evidence of the labor and sexual exploitation of Honduran women. There are harrowing accounts of girls enslaved in brothels in
the town of Frontera Comalapa, as well as abuses by the judicial police and agents of the National Migration Institute (INM
- Mexico's immigration agency). I therefore demand government intervention,"
Villamil said during a forum at the Autonomous University of Chiapas.
Yesterday Villamil noted that state authorities in Chiapas complained about her
because she did not follow the proper protocols in making her complaints.
"I think what bothers them is the fact that I exposed everything that is happening in
[the city of] Ciudad Hidalgo, and all across Chiapas state. They always want to give the impression
that they are running a clean house. Here comes a new person [and starts to make the truth public].
They didn't like that," said Villamil.
During her tenure at the Honduran consulate in Tapachula, Consul Villamil made possible the rescue
of 10 Honduran women and girls, including 8 children who were being subjected to
sexual and labor exploitation in Chiapas.
"They are now in shelters, and are just awaiting completion of the proper forms before they are repatriated to Honduras," Villamil explained.
After receiving several threats, Villamil filed a complaint with the Mexico's
federal Attorney General's Office (PGR).
Mexico's general director for Latin America and the Caribbean in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE), Norma
Pensado, asked Consul Villamil to avoid talking publicly about the threats.
Honduran Vice Chancellor Alden Rivera stated that the complaint was not
submitted through the correct channels.
Villamil will be returning to her country in the coming days, and then plans to file a lawsuit against
Vice Chancellor Rivera for libel.
Officials
cite security concerns
According to Honduran Consul General for Mexico Carolina Pineda, the removal of Patricia Villamil
from her post came about as a response to security concerns and did not result
from pressures by state authorities in Chiapas.
Consul General Pineda added that
Villamil was removed because of repeated threats against her.
"She will probably be transferred to another location, above all to protect her. I guess at the Foreign Ministry (in Honduras)
will make the decision," said Consul General Pineda in an interview.
She reemphasized that Honduran diplomatic representatives had not been pressured by authorities in Chiapas.
"To the contrary, the government (of Chiapas) has
cooperated on migrant issues, and in regard to the issue that Consul Villamil
specializes in, human trafficking," said Consul General Pineda.
Ariadna García and Martín Morita
Terra.com
June 19, 2011
See also:
Added: Apr. 24, 2011
Mexico
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Patricia Yamileth Villamil, anteriormente la cónsul de Honduras
en Chiapas
Patricia Yamileth Villamil, former Honduran consul in Mexico's
southern border state of Chiapas.
Foto/Photo: Diario del Sur |
Trafficking, Forced Prostitution
Denounced in Chiapas
While focus continues on the dangers to migrants traveling north in Mexico, a
new phenomenon appeared in the south: forced prostitution of young migrant
women. The culprits, however, may be part of the same Zetas organization that is
perpetrating the atrocities in the north.
The outcry about the problem came from Patricia Villamil, the Honduran consul in
the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, who told Agence France Presse that women
are trafficked from Honduras to be forced into sexual slavery in that state.
"They bring women lured from Honduras, preferably those younger than eighteen,”
the consul said. “The majority are brought from San Pedro Sula [in northwest
Honduras], but many are also from [the central departments of] Comayagua and
Olancho.”
The consul says the victims come in groups of five or six and are distributed
among several dozen bars in Chiapas. One victim told AFP that she was promised a
job in a restaurant in Mexico. When she arrived, she was forced to prostitute
herself without any pay.
Although her office has become flooded with cases of Honduran migrants who have
been forced to work without pay against their will, Villamil says Mexican
authorities have been slow to react.
"I'm not going to shut up until they do their job," she said.
Mexican authorities disagree with Villamil's assessment. Enrique Mendez, the
official prosecutor in charge of crimes against immigrants in Chiapas, says
individual cases of extortion and forced prostitution are not widespread in the
area.
"Yes, there is people trafficking, but not in an alarming manner," Mendez told
the AFP.
He added that many of the women come on their own and are not coerced.
The phenomenon of young Central American women being trafficked for sex is not
new. As InSight reported, traffickers are luring women from increasingly more
urban and middle-class backgrounds. In some of these cases, the traffickers
operate phony dance schools and talent agencies in order to disguise their
illegitimate activities.
In the case of Chiapas, however, the victims appear to be more lower class and
could be part of the pockets of migrants making their way north through that
large border state...
Geoffrey Ramsey
InSight - Organized Crime in the Americas
April 21, 2011
See also:
Added: Apr. 04, 2011
Mexico, Honduras
Operativos para combatir la trata de
personas deben ser permanentes
Tapachula, Chiapas - Ante la tardanza con la que actúa la Fiscalía Especial para
los Delitos de Violencia contra las Mujeres y Trata de Personas (FEVIMTRA), de
la Procuraduría General de la República para combatir este fenómeno social en la
frontera sur de México, la cónsul de Honduras en Tapachula, Patricia Villamil
Perdomo, exigió se tomen cartas en el asunto al mismo tiempo de señalar que esta
instancia se tarda tres meses en armar sus investigaciones para posterior
realizar los operativos pertinentes.
Reconoció que existen redes de trata de personas desde Honduras y Centroamérica
hasta México, gente que va a traer a las jóvenes para prostituirlas y
explotarlas laboralmente, por lo que instó a las autoridades para que los
operativos de combate a este tema que se efectúan de vez en cuando, sean
permanentes...
Operations to combat trafficking should be made permanent:
Honduran consul in Chiapas
The city of Tapachula in Chiapas state, [on Mexico's southern border with
Guatemala] – Reacting to the repeated delays that the Special Prosecutor for
Crimes of Violence against Women and Trafficking in Persons (FEVIMTRA) [an
office in the Attorney General of the Republic] - demonstrates in reponse to
[the ongoing crisis of] gender violence on the southern border of Mexico, the
Honduran consul in the city of Tapachula [in Chiapas state], Patricia Perdomo
Villamil, has demanded that FEVIMTRA step up and take action on cases in a
timely manner. Currently, FEVIMTRA takes three months to set-up their
investigations, activity that is carried-out prior to conducting enforcement
operations.
Consul Perdomo Villamil declared that there are human trafficking networks that
move [victims] from Honduras and Central America to Mexico. Those who are
trafficked are girls and young women who will be subjected to prostitution and
labor exploitation. She urged the Mexican authorities to conduct their
anti-trafficking operations on a permanent basis.
The Consul charged that currently, federal authorities are taking more than
three months to investigate allegations, when their response should be
immediate. At the same time, Consul Perdomo Villamil recognized that the Chiapas
state Special Prosecutor for Crimes Committed Against Immigrants was doing good
work.
The diplomat said that a statement issued [by state officials] in Tuxtla
Gutierrez [capital of Chiapas state] to be strange, given that it announced that
the she had failed to attend a workshop on human trafficking. Consul Perdomo
Villamil responded by emphasizing that she is the only Consul to have addressed
this problem, and that it was she who had worked with the state Special
Prosecutor for Crimes Committed Against Immigrants to prepare an operation that
led to the rescue of [a number of] exploited Central American women and the
arrest of two suspects. Those arrested included that of "Mother Meche" in the
city of Frontera Comalapa. The Consul added that perhaps her error was that she
had not known the date that the raids had been planned for, and was in Honduras
at the time.
Consul Perdomo Villamil exclaimed that in regard to the issue of human
trafficking, she has made public statements warning fellow Central Americas
that, from the moment they leave their homes to cross into another country, they
are at risk of being subjected to human trafficking and prostitution. "We have
made complaints, but the process for the victims is tedious and long. We have
waited for up to three months before these operations are carried out. The
response should be immediate," she said.
"In Chiapas, when there is human trafficking, you can not fool anyone. The
rights of migrants continue to be violated. There are cases of sex trafficking
in [the cities and towns of] Comalapa, Huixtla, Motozintla, Tapachula and many
of the municipalities the region and across the country” she said...
César Solís
Diario del Sur, Organización Editorial Mexicana
March 23, 2011
See Also:
Mexico,
Central America
Migrantes
centroamericanas
padecen explotación
sexual en Chiapas
Adolescentes son
obligadas a
prostituirse en
municipios
chiapanecos que
hacen frontera con
Guatemala
Central American
migrants in Chiapas
suffer from sexual
exploitation
Teens are forced
into prostitution in
the cities and towns
of the Mexican
border state of
Chiapas
...During
the International
Congress on Gender
and Migration held
in the city of
Tapachula, Chiapas
on March 9th,
2011, the Honduran
consul in Chiapas
Patricia Perdomo
Villamil explained
the workings of the
international human
trafficking networks
that operate in
Chiapas.
Consul
Perdomo Villamil
said that men and
women participate in
human trafficking as
'procurers' of adult
women and underage
girls. An unknown
number of the
victims are forced
into prostitution in
the towns of Comitan,
Huixtla, Chicomuselo,
Motozitla and
Frontera Comalapa.
All of these Chiapan
towns border
Guatemala.
Consul Villamil
Perdomo
said there is not
enough will on the
part of the
authorities to clear
out these
trafficking
networks, even when
they have identified
the places where
they operate and the
centers where
victims are taken.
This past Monday the
local consuls of the
Central American
nations were
scheduled to meet
with state
prosecutors and the
President of the
Court of Justice for
the State of
Chiapas, to agree on
preventive measures
to help reduce the
trafficking of
persons for sexual
and labor
exploitation.
On March 4th,
the state Attorney
General, Raciel
López Salazar
explained that
during the past four
years state
authorities have
dismantled 23 human
trafficking gangs.
Without specifying
numbers, the
official said that
during these actions
state and municipal
public servants
involved in
trafficking have
been arrested.
The Mexican Index of
Vulnerability to
Human Trafficking,
prepared by Center
for Studies and
Research in
Development and
Social Welfare, has
identified the fact
that Chiapas is
among the five
Mexican states with
the highest numbers
of victims of human
trafficking and
other forms of
exploitation.
The other states are
Michoacán, Oaxaca,
Zacatecas and
Guanajuato. There
are no precise
figures on the
number of people
affected...
CNN Mexico
March 23, 2011
See Also:
Mexico, Central
America
Comunicado Denuncia
De Red De Trata De
Personas En Chiapas
Press Release
denounces human
trafficking network
in Chiapas state
Mayan indigenous
activists in Chiapas
state, Mexico,
support
Honduran consul in
Chiapas Patricia
Yamileth Villamil's
complaint that
Mexican officials
are taking
inadequate steps to
curb human
trafficking in the
region. The
signatories to this
letter call upon the
authorities to
step-up their
anti-trafficking
enforcement
activities.
A Los Gobiernos
de Centroamerica
A Las
Organanizaciones
Nacionales e
Internacionales
A La Comision
Nacional de Los
Derechos Humanos
A La Organizacion
de Las Naciones
Unidas
A La Sociedad en
General
Al Gobierno de
Mexico
Al Gobierno del
Estado de Chiapas
El Viernes 11 de
marzo de 2011 la
cónsul de Honduras,
Patricia Yamileth
Villamil denunció
que grupos de
tratantes de
personas llegan
hasta las
comunidades pobres
como Puerto Cortés,
Comayagua y San
Pedro Sula a sacar
con engaños a
jovencitas
hondureñas
ofreciéndoles
trabajos bien
pagados como
empleadas del hogar
o meseras de
restaurantes, pero
al llegar a Chiapas
son obligadas a
prostituirse en
bares y centros
nocturnos de
poblados fronterizos
con Guatemala como
Frontera Comalapa,
Comitán, San
Cristóbal, San
Gregorio Chamic y
Tapachula. Las
jovencitas, por
temor no denuncian
los hechos porque
vienen dominadas por
sus enganchadores
que son también sus
acreedores de deudas
que van de tres mil
a cinco mil pesos
por costos de
traslado. Señaló que
esta situación se
vive día a día en
los municipios
fronterizos y la
realidad es que en
bares de Chiapas hay
muchas hondureñas,
tanto menores que
van desde los 14 y
los 17 años de edad,
como jóvenes adultas
que están siendo
explotadas ya sea
víctimas de trata o
prostitución...
La cónsul Patricia
Yamileth Villamil
lamentó “la lentitud
con que las
autoridades actuaron
para detener a los
responsables de la
explotación sexual
en contra de jóvenes
centroamericanas, y
advirtió que exigirá
a todas las
autoridades competes
que asuman su
responsabilidad y
que ejerzan acción
penal contra quienes
resulten
responsables, porque
“Tenemos
conocimiento que se
encuentran
inmiscuidos agentes
del ministerio
público, policías,
elementos de
migración y otras
autoridades. Vamos a
llegar hasta las
últimas
consecuencias...”
Movimiento Migrante
Mesoamericano /
Mesoamerican Migrant
Movement
March 15, 2011
See Also:
Mexico, El Salvador
|
 |
|
Nelson
Miguel
Cuéllar,
cónsul
de la
república
de El
Salvador
en
Chiapas.
Nelson
Miguel
Cuéllar,
El
Salvador's
consul
in
Mexico's
southern
border
state of
Chiapas.
Foto
Diario
del Sur.
|
Alerta Cónsul de El
Salvador sobre
aumento de migración
a Chiapas
Salvadoran Consul
warns about the
dangers of migration
through Mexico's
Chiapas state
Nelson Miguel
Cuéllar, El
Salvador's consul in
Mexico's southern
border state of
Chiapas, warns that
due to severe
economic conditions
in the region, the
out-migration of
Salvadorans and
other Central
Americans towards
the United States
will continue to
increase. He also
warns that all such
migrants risk being
victimized by human
traffickers...
Tapachula, Chiapas -
El consulado de El
Salvador en Chiapas,
dio a conocer que en
Chiapas la
regularización de
salvadoreños podría
incrementar durante
2011, por la dura
crisis económica del
país
centroamericano,
aunque se esté
buscando mejorías,
indicando que en
promedio de años
atrás a la fecha han
regularizado a casi
mil ciudadanos en la
frontera sur...
Rubén Zúñiga
Diario del Sur/Organización
Editorial Mexicana
March 24, 2011 |
Mexico
|
 |
|
Dilcya Samantha García Espinoza was recently named as Mexico's Assistant Attorney
General for
Regional Control, Criminal Procedure and Protection
after a successful stint as Mexico City's highly effective prosecutor for sex
trafficking cases. |
Jueces se resisten a castigar trata: PGR
En México hace falta sensibilizar a los jueces para que castiguen conforme está tipificado el delito de trata de personas.
La subprocuradora de Control Regional, Procedimientos Penales y Amparo, Dilcya Samantha García Espinoza de los Monteros, reconoce que en México hace falta sensibilizar a los jueces para que castiguen conforme está tipificado el delito de trata de personas, debido a que en algunos casos lo han reclasificado como corrupción de menores o lenocinio.
La funcionaria de la Procuraduría General de la República (PGR) dice que a nivel nacional el Poder Judicial ha dictado menos de 15 sentencias por trata de personas, quizá por desconocimiento o porque no sabe identificar la falta.
“Con todo el respeto al Poder Judicial, la verdad es que ahí todavía tenemos un problema, yo quiero pensar que es una cuestión de tiempo, de carácter cultural o en ocasiones es falta de conocimiento...”.
García Espinoza de los Monteros será reconocida este lunes en Estados Unidos con el premio “Heroína contra la Esclavitud Moderna”, por su trayectoria y sus logros en el DF en el combate al delito de trata de personas.
Comenta que será galardonada por el desmantelamiento de la red internacional de traficantes de personas que operaba en la casa hogar Casitas del Sur, donde lograron liberar a 11 menores.
García Espinoza de los Monteros dice que este caso es uno de sus mayores logros, aunque no puede ocultar su frustración por lo que sigue ocurriendo en el barrio de La Merced, en la ciudad de México, que históricamente ha sido un polo de tráfico de personas, prostitución de menores y explotación infantil.
La funcionaria apunta que en México en materia de atención a víctimas falta mucho por hacer, pero reconoce el trabajo de las organizaciones de la sociedad civil en el tema.
Al preguntarle cómo se ve nuestro país en el ámbito internacional en este delito, la funcionaria acepta que somos una nación que consume, permite el tránsito y expulsa a las víctimas de trata de personas.
Deputy Attorney General:
Judges are resisting handing-down punishment for human trafficking crimes
Amparo Garcia Dilcya Samantha Espinoza de los Monteros, who is Mexico's
Deputy Attorney General for
Regional Control, Criminal Procedure and Protection, has announced that Mexico needs to sensitize judges
the need to punish human trafficking as a crime. She notes that in some cases
judges have reclassified the charges brought against suspects from human
trafficking to corruption of minors and procuring.
Espinoza de los Monteros says that nationally, the judiciary has
handed down fewer than 15 convictions for human trafficking, perhaps because of ignorance or because
[the crime could not be clearly identified as trafficking].
"With all due respect to the judiciary, the truth is that we have a problem here. I want to think
that it's a matter of time, cultural or that sometimes it is a lack of knowledge..."
Espinoza de los Monteros will be recognized in the U.S. on Monday with the award "Hero against Modern Slavery," for her career and his achievements in Mexico City in fighting the crime of trafficking.
He says that will be honored by the dismantling of the international network of smugglers operating in the group home Casitas del Sur, where they managed to release 11 children.
Garcia Espinoza de los Monteros said that this case is one of his greatest achievements, but can not hide his frustration at what continues to happen in the neighborhood of La Merced, Mexico City, which has historically been a center for trafficking , child prostitution and child exploitation.
The official pointed out that in Mexico in providing care to victims needs to be done, but recognizes the work of civil society organizations on the subject.
Asked how he sees our country internationally in this offense, the officer accepts that we are a nation that consumes and drives traffic allowed to victims of trafficking.
El Universal
June 26, 2011
See also:
Mexico
Funcionaria deja PGJDF por PGR
Dilcya Samantha García Espinoza de los Monteros fue nombrada por la Procuraduría General de la República (PGR) como la nueva subprocuradora de Control Regional, Procedimientos Penales y Amparo de la dependencia federal.
Fátima Salvador. Ciudad de México.- Cabe destacar que hasta el lunes, la funcionaria se desempeñó como subprocuradora de Atención a Víctimas del Delito y Servicios a la Comunidad dependiente de la Procuraduría General de Justicia del Distrito Federal, cargo que ocupó desde 2008 por encomienda del procurador capitalino, Miguel Ángel Mancera.
Entre los casos representativos en los que colaboró durante su estadía en la PGJDF destacan la desarticulación de bandas de lenones y la trata de menores, además contribuyó a realizar reformas en esta materia.
Uno de los últimos trabajos que realizó el despacho a su cargo fue la protección de integrantes de la familia Reyes Salazar, quienes dejaron Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, luego de sufrir amenazas y el asesinato de cinco de sus miembros.
Dilcya Samanta Espinosa de los Monteros encabezó la investigación del caso “Casitas del Sur” por la desaparición de 11 niños en dicho albergue.
La procuraduría capitalina informó que por el momento habrá un encargado de despacho en la Subprocuraduría de Atención a Víctimas del Delito.
Mexico City assistant attorney general moves to federal position
Dilcya Samantha García Espinoza de los Monteros has been named to a position in the federal Attorney General's Office (PGR) after having previously served since 2008 as Assistant Attorney General for Victims of Crime and Community Services under Mexico City Attorney General Miguel Ángel Mancera.
[García Espinoza de los Monteros has focused her efforts in Mexico City on pursuing human traffickers. Mexico City has the highest conviction rate against traffickers of any federated entity in Mexico. - LL]
Among the activities that García Espinoza de los Monteros engaged in at the Mexico City prosecutor's office involved the break-up of sex trafficking rings and assisting in the passage of tougher anti-trafficking laws.
One of her most recent cases involved the disappearance of 11 children from an orphanage called Casitas del Sur [those
responsible for the disappearances are believed to have sold these children to sex traffickers]...
Edited by Leyda Martínez
May 3, 2011
|
About Child Labor
and the Risk of
Criminal
Exploitation in
Mexico
Mexico
|
 |
|
Children labor in Mexico |
Trabajan 200 mil niños en campos de Chiapas
Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas.- Cerca del 14 por ciento de los residentes de Chiapas que tienen entre cinco y 17 años están ocupados económicamente, sobre todo en el sector primario y terciario. Los apuros financieros de sus tutores y la cultura influyen en la situación. Incrementó su participación en actividades peligrosas, ante su mayor necesidad por conseguir sustento, especialmente los migrantes, informó ayer la secretaria del Trabajo del estado, Esther Almazán Torres.
Dijo que el objetivo es tener erradicada parte de la situación en 2015, a más tardar, según los tratados signados por el gobierno federal. Sin embargo, la meta es lejana, porque muchos servidores públicos desconocen el hecho, incluso no saben que existe una Ley contra la Trata de Personas, por lo que ven el tema como algo normal.
México cuenta con 28.2 millones de menores, de los cuales el 10 por ciento está empleado, de los cuales 199 mil 966 viven en la entidad, es decir, uno de cada diez niños chiapanecos forman parte de su campo productivo, según organismos internacionales y el INEGI.
Reconoció que los casos con más violaciones a sus derechos son registrados en las fincas, sobre todo en salud y educación, aunque destacó que el índice bajó en los últimos años.
La funcionaria estatal aseveró que la cultura también contribuye al problema, porque sus responsables enseñan a sus hijos a ganar dinero con alguna actividad familiar, para perpetuar la tradición. Ello no disminuye su vulnerabilidad.
200,000 children are working in the fields of Chiapas
state
Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas state - About 14 percent of the residents of Chiapas who are between
5 and 17 years are work... Both the financial troubles of their parents and culture influence the situation.
These children engage in Increasingly dangerous activities to earn money to
survive. This is especially true of migrants, Chiapas state labor
secretary Esther Almazán Torres stated yesterday.
Secretary Almazán Torres added that the state's goal is to eradicate child
labor by 2015 at the latest, in accordance with the according to treaties signed by the federal government
[see:
United Nations Millennium Development Goals]. However, the goal is
distant because many public servants are unaware of the issue, and don't
even know that there is a law against trafficking in persons, so see [child
exploitation] as normal.
Mexico has 28.2 million children, of whom 10 percent are employed. Some 199,000
child laborers live in the state, amounting to one in ten children in Chiapas
who are working in the field, according to international organizations and
Mexico's National Institute for Statistics and Geography.
Secretary Almazán Torres acknowledged that cases with most child rights violations are
found in farm labor, especially in regard to health and education, but noted that the
the number of complaints has declined recent years.
Culture contributes to the problem because parents teach their children to earn money with
some form of family activity, to perpetuate their traditions. Such labor is
not exempt from risk for these child laborers.
El Heraldo de Chiapas
June 21, 2011
See also:
Mexico
Niños trabajadores, en riesgo ante el crimen organizado: Victoria Cruz
Niños trabajadores, en riesgo ante el crimen organizado
Las niñas y los niños que trabajan están en riesgo ante el crimen organizado, que los utiliza para transportar droga, para ser explotados sexualmente o para cometer delitos en general, aseveró en Morelia la coordinadora del Programa Internacional para la Erradicación del Trabajo Infantil de la Organización Internacional del Trabajo (OI), Victoria Cruz López.
En el marco del Foro: “La participación de los congresos locales en la prevención y erradicación del trabajo infantil y la protección del adolescente trabajador”, y ante diputados, autoridades y especialistas, la experta abogada aseguró que esa situación es cada vez más visible, por lo que urgió a buscar acciones para frenar la inclusión de menores de edad en actividades laborales.
Victoria Cruz señaló que es necesario perseguir a quienes utilizan a los menores para actividades ilícitas, por lo que entidades gubernamentales y sociedad civil deben prestar atención a esa problemática, ya que la alternativa para los adolescentes no debe ser la delincuencia organizada.
En presencia del presidente de la Junta de Coordinación Política del Congreso del Estado, Wilfrido Lázaro Medina, quien es además coordinador del grupo parlamentario del Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), la representante de la OIT consideró urgente desarrollar políticas públicas para reducir la vulnerabilidad de las niñas, los niños y los adolescentes, porque el hecho de que estén en la escuela y ésta sea una opción de calidad puede ser un punto de partida fundamental.
Acompañada también por la presidenta de la Comisión de Grupos Vulnerables, Equidad y Género, Gabriela Molina Aguilar, del Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD), y por la presidenta de la Comisión de Derechos Humanos, Guadalupe Calderón Medina, del PRI, Cruz López argumentó que se calcula que en el país hay 3 millones de infantes, de entre los 5 y los 17 años de edad, que se encuentran laborando, la mayoría en trabajos del sector agrícola, la construcción y la minería, trabajos considerados de alta peligrosidad.
Dicha cantidad, agregó la investigadora del tema, equivale al 10.7 por ciento de la población de niñas, niños y adolescentes que existen en México, lo que equivale a hipotecar el futuro del país, sobre todo cuando 900 mil de esos menores de edad, que son los que tienen entre 5 y 13 años, ni siquiera deberían estar en el trabajo.
En ese sentido, aseveró Victoria Cruz, el trabajo infantil constituye una violación severa a los derechos de las niñas, los niños y los adolescentes, porque se atenta contra muchos de sus derechos, como el derecho al sano crecimiento, a la educación, a la cultura y al derecho a estar protegidos contra la explotación económica, que tiene que empezar a verse como un incumplimiento a las garantías en el cual todos son responsables y todos deben dar respuesta.
Victoria Cruz: Child workers are at-risk from organized
crime:
Victoria Cruz López, the International Labor Organization's international
program to end child labor spoke in Morelia state.
Cruz López:
Child laborers are at high risk from
organized criminals who exploit them to transport drugs, to be sold in
prostitution and to commit crimes in general.
In a Forum called "The Participation of State Legislatures in the Prevention and
Eradication of Child Labor and the Protection of Young Workers," which was
presented to a group of state legislative deputies,
authorities and experts, veteran attorney and International Labor Organization
(ILO) representative Victoria Cruz López [organized crime's exploitation of
minors] constitutes a situation that is becoming
more visible by-the-day. She therefore urged state legislatures to take action to curb the inclusion of children
in work activities.
Cruz
López
added that the prosecution of those who use children for
illicit activities is a must. Government agencies and civil society must
therefore pay attention
to this problem, given that all agree that the [preferred] alternative [to
unemployment] for adolescents should not be organized
crime.
Cruz
López
declared that the development of public policies to reduce the vulnerability of
girls, children and adolescents must be made an urgent priority. Cruz noted that
schools can be used as the perfect forum for communicating with children and
youth about this issue.
Cruz
López
argued that the country is estimated that there are 3 million
children, between 5 and 17 years of age, who are now working, the majority work
in agriculture, construction and mining work that is considered highly
dangerous.
Some 10.7 percent of Mexico's children and underage youth work, added
Cruz López. That fact amounts to mortgaging the nation's future, especially in
regard to the 900,000 of these children who are
those between 5 and 13 years, who should not be working at all.
Child labor constitutes a severe violation
of the rights of girls, boys and adolescents, because it goes against many of
their rights, including the right to healthy growth, education, culture and the
right to be protected from economic exploitation, which must begin to be seen as
a breach of the guarantees to which everyone must be held accountable.
Among the Morelia state congressional deputies attending the event were: Wilfrido Medina Lazaro,
Morelia state's president of the Political Coordination Board of the State
Congress and parliamentary coordinator of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)
delegation; Gabriela Aguilar Molina, president of the Commission on Vulnerable Groups and Gender
Equity, of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD); and Guadalupe Medina
Calderon, of the PRI, who is president of the Human Rights Commission.
Quadratin.com
June 17, 2011
See also:
Mexico
La OIT presenta en México su campaña internacional contra el trabajo infantil
La Organización Internacional del Trabajo (OIT) presentó hoy en México su campaña internacional contra el trabajo infantil apoyada por varios artistas locales, informaron hoy fuentes de la agencia de Naciones Unidas (ONU).
En un acto celebrado en un hotel de la capital mexicana, el director adjunto de la OIT para México y Cuba, Thomas Wissing, dijo que era necesario "actuar con urgencia" para eliminar las formas más peligrosas de este tipo de actividad laboral que afecta a menores.
En un comunicado, la OIT señaló que en el planeta existen 115 millones de niñas, niños y adolescentes en actividades laborales peligrosas, de los cuales el 64 % son varones y el 36 %, mujeres y niñas.
Por actividad, el 59 % de los trabajos peligrosos se concentra en la agricultura, un 30 % en el sector servicios y un 11 % en la industria.
La tendencia es a un ascenso en la cifra de adolescentes varones de entre 15 y 17 años en el mundo, apuntó la organización, al recordar que el próximo 12 de junio se celebrará el Día Mundial contra el Trabajo Infantil.
En México, añadió, hay aproximadamente 3 millones de menores de edad que trabajan dentro de un grueso de población de 112 millones de personas.
En el acto de hoy, la OIT presentó un vídeo y el vocalista de la banda de rock DLD, Paco Familiar, leyó un mensaje a nombre de una decena de artistas que se han sumado en México a la campaña, que lleva por título "¡Atención! Niños, niñas y adolescentes en trabajos peligrosos. ¡Alto al trabajo infantil!".
En su mensaje, Familiar dijo que "existe una confusión entre lo que sí es y lo que no es trabajo infantil", que permite que haya altos niveles de tolerancia social frente a este problema.
La situación en este país es "insostenible", ya que "más del 10 % de su población infantil tiene que trabajar", lo que va en contra de la educación de ese colectivo y representa un problema que hipoteca "nuestro presente y nuestro futuro", afirmó.
EFE
June 06, 2011
See also:
Mexico
ILO Launches Campaign Against Child Labor
The International Labor Organization (Organización Internacional del Trabajo, ILO) launched its newest campaign against child labor in Mexico today. Various artists attended the event, many of which were vocal about their stances against child labor as it interferes with important activities, such as education and recreation. ILO member Victoria Cruz reported that 59.2% of minors employed throughout the world work in agriculture, 30% in the services sector and 11% in industry. In Mexico, there are approximately 3 million minors who are employed and about 700,000 of those minors engage in “high risk” labor, which includes mining, agriculture, and construction. Mexico is also one of the only countries to date that has not ratified the ILO’s Convention 182, otherwise known as the “Worst Forms of Child Labor Convention.”
The ILO addressed other negative effects of child labor, such as physical injuries and illness that in some cases cannot be cured. Particularly in Mexico, it is easy for minors to become involved in more dangerous work, such as narco-trafficking, due to high poverty levels in many areas and lack of better opportunities. In response to this problem, the ILO urged that the laws in Mexico should be amended to include harsher punishments for those who employ minors. According to El Universal, the assistant ILO director of Mexico and Cuba, Thomas Wissing, stated that these laws should be changed with the purpose of reducing child labor and to generate more jobs and more rewarding salaries for parents.
The organization also made sure to note that National Day Against Child Labor will be celebrated this Sunday, June 12.
Justice in Mexico
June 6, 2011
See
also:
Mexico
Más de 3 millones de niños mexicanos tienen que trabajar
Distrito Federal - En México, más de tres millones de menores de edad laboran y de ellos más de 700 mil lo hacen en empleos de alto riesgo como la minería, la agricultura o la construcción, situación que se agrava por la tolerancia de la sociedad y las autoridades, indicó la Organización Internacional del Trabajo (OIT).
Además, México es el único país que aún no ratifica el Convenio 182 de la OIT, que se refiere a la edad mínima para desempeñar actividades económicas, explicó el organismo en un taller donde se habló de este tema.
Con motivo del Día Mundial contra el Trabajo Infantil, que se celebrará el próximo 12 de junio, funcionarios de la organización y la subsecretaria de Inclusión Laboral de la Secretaría del Trabajo y Previsión Social (STPS) reconocieron que las sanciones económicas para empleadores de menores de edad son mínimas, pues la actual legislación establece un pago de 250 días de salario mínimo...
More than
3 million Mexican children must work
Mexico City - In Mexico, more than 3 million minors work. Around 700,000 children and youth work in high-risk jobs such as mining, agriculture and construction. According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), the situation has been aggravated by the tolerance of society and the authorities.
During an ILO workshop on child
labor. officials noted that Mexico is the only nation that has not signed the
ILO's Convention 182
on ending child labor, which defines minimum ages for engaging in work
activities.
Mariana Otero
Milenio
June 06, 2011
See also:
Mexico
En trabajos peligrosos, 600 mil niños mexicanos
En México hay mucha confusión y tolerancia respecto al trabajo peligroso en niños y niñas, particularmente en los que tienen entre 15 y 17 años de edad, lo cual trae graves consecuencias para la integridad física, pues deriva en lesiones, enfermedades irreversibles, abandono escolar y bajo rendimiento, señaló la Organización Internacional del Trabajo (OIT), que coincidió con la Secretaría del Trabajo en que se debe endurecer la ley para castigar a quien emplee a menores.
En el país, son 600 mil los que realizan labores peligrosas, de un total de 3 millones de menores de 18 años de edad que trabajan, paralelamente a los que son utilizados en tareas vinculadas con el narcotráfico -de los cuales no hay cifras-, quienes por la falta de oportunidades y la situación de pobreza que son explotados en esas actividades ilegales....
Some 600,000 underage Mexican children and youth work in dangerous jobs - International Labor Organization
According to the International Labor Organization, much confusion and tolerance exists in Mexico in regard to dangerous jobs that children and underage youth work-in across Mexico, and especially those who are between 15- and 18-years-of-age. These forms of employment cause grave consequences for a child worker's physical integrity - including exposure to diseases an
irreversible illnesses. In addition, child workers perform poorly in school and [often] abandon school altogether.
Across Mexico some 600,000 minors engage in dangerous work. They are part of a total underage workforce of 3 million. In parallel, a
phenomenon also exists in which minors work for narco-trafficking organizations. No statistics exist to define the size of this population of child laborers...
El Universal
June 6, 2011
|
Argentina
Trata de personas, un flagelo que avanza día a día
La trata de personas es una suerte de esclavitud moderna, que no distingue región, edad, ni clase social. Según las informaciones la zona norte de Argentina es el lugar predilecto para aquellos mafiosos que venden la vida de una persona, en lo que para ellos significa una simple transacción monetaria. Quienes se encuentran luchando contra este flagelo advierten que por cada persona que encuentran, desaparecen otras siete, aunque aseguran que no claudicaran en la batalla.
Un dato que asusta es que durante los últimos años Argentina dejó de ser un país de sólo circulación de personas, para dar lugar a la comercialización y la exportación de éstas, ya sea con fines sexuales o de esclavitud. Asimismo aumentó la trata de niños, especialmente para servidumbre por deudas y prostitución forzosa. Desde mediados del 2008 la trata se convirtió en la actividad delictiva más reditual, después del tráfico de armas y drogas. Se trata de redes de delincuentes muy bien organizadas, bajo las cuales más de 4 millones de personas en el mundo resultaron víctimas.
En relación a este tema, Germán Díaz, abogado de la Fundación María de los Ángeles, alertó a la sociedad sobre la necesidad de extremar las medidas de precaución para evitar un posible secuestro. Aunque sin ánimos de generar miedo, simplemente mayos conciencia.
“Nosotros desde acá tratamos de no crear ningún tipo de psicosis en la sociedad, solamente decimos que tomen las medidas del caso. Generalmente las denuncias que recibimos fueron de menores estudiantes, entonces desde acá les decimos que cambien la rutina del trayecto al colegio y que no vaya solas”, destacó Díaz.
Del mismo modo, destacó la importancia sobre le papel que los medios de comunicación cumplen en relación a este tema, sobre en cuestión de las redes sociales: “La información que se da por internet muchas veces entra en detalles, de los cuales estas redes mafiosas se nutren para captar a sus víctimas”.
Según explicó el letrado, el lugar de captación por excelencia es el norte de nuestro país y la frontera con Paraguay y Bolivia, pues las redes mafiosas consideran a esa zona como “económicamente pobres” y propicias para su delictivo accionar. Mientras que “la zona de explotación es la zona del sur de nuestro país”, debido a que en ese sector hay una concentración de gran poder adquisitivo.
Human trafficking, a scourge that grows from day-to-day
Human trafficking is a kind of modern slavery, which does not distinguish
between regions, ages or social class. Reportedly the north of Argentina is the favorite
location for organized criminals who live by selling the lives of people. Those who are fighting this scourge warn that for every person they
rescue, seven others disappear.
They say that they are not giving up the fight.
[Full translation to follow]
Tucuman Noticias
June 25, 2011
The World
|
 |
|
U.S.
Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham
Clinton announces
the release of the
2011 Trafficking in
Persons Report |
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton releases the 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report 2011
Secretary Clinton: "Every year, we come together to release this report, to take stock of our progress, to make suggestions, and to refine our methods. Today, we are releasing a new report that ranks 184 countries, including our own. One of the innovations when I became Secretary was we were going to also analyze and rank ourselves, because I don’t think it’s fair for us to rank others if we don’t look hard at who we are and what we’re doing. This report is the product of a collaborative process that involves ambassadors and embassies and NGOs as well as our team here in Washington. And it really does give us a snapshot about what’s happening. It shows us where political will and political leadership are making a difference..."
U.S. Department of State
June 27, 2011
Latin America
|
 |
|
Pop
star and
anti-trafficking
activist Ricky
Martin |
Ricky Martin expandirá centros de ayuda a niños a toda Latinoamérica
Río Grande (Puerto Rico), - El cantante puertorriqueño Ricky Martin anunció hoy que expandirá la construcción de instituciones como El Centro Integral de Desarrollo de la Niñez, que se espera esté terminado en Loíza en 2012, a la República Dominicana, México y el resto de Latinoamérica.
Martin y su Fundación celebraron hoy la tercera edición de un torneo de golf para recaudar fondos para la construcción del Centro Integral de Desarrollo que se convertirá en un espacio para combatir en Puerto Rico la trata de personas.
"Esto es solo el comienzo, para continuar por el resto de la isla y en la República Dominicana, México y Latinoamérica", dijo Martin tras concluir el evento celebrado en el Trump International Golf Resort en Río Grande, localidad de la costa este de Puerto Rico.
El Centro Integral de Desarrollo de la Niñez, con un presupuesto de cuatro millones de dólares, comenzará a construirse este año y se espera sea inaugurado en 2012 o a principios del 2013.
El centro constará de diez salones de clases, una biblioteca y un área recreativa.
La institución atenderá desde infantes hasta jóvenes en escuela superior y operará en alianza con la organización filantrópica SER de Puerto Rico, Nuestra Escuela e Iniciativa Comunitaria.
Martin enfatizó que el centro promoverá las artes, la música, la meditación, el yoga, los deportes, las artes marciales, la salud, la educación personalizada, la cultura y los valores éticos.
"Necesitamos y queremos marcar la diferencia en los niños y jóvenes de Loíza. Nosotros estaremos ahí para apoyarlos y darles herramientas que les garanticen un futuro mejor", dijo Martin.
El modelo de construcción estuvo a cargo de la Fundación Ricky Martin (FRM) y el director del Taller Diseño Comunitario de la Escuela de Arquitectura de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, Elio Martínez Joffre.
Ricky Martin will expand child support centers throughout Latin America
Ricky Martin to Expand Children’s Aid Centers Across All Latin America
The Puerto Rican singer took up the fight against this scourge after his 2002 trip to India, where he saw at first hand the immensity of the trafficking and exploitation of minors in the Asian country.
Rio Grande, Puerto Rico - Puerto Rican pop star Ricky Martin announced that he will expand construction of institutions like his foundation’s Child Development and Prevention Center, expected to be completed in Loiza, Puerto Rico, in 2012, to the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and the rest of Latin America.
Martin and his foundation held Friday the third edition of a golf tournament aimed at collecting funds for the children’s center that will combat the exploitation and trafficking of children in Puerto Rico.
“This is just the start of a project that is going to spread across the rest of the island and on to the Domican Republic, Mexico and Latin America,” Martin said after winding up the event held at the Trump International Golf Resort in Rio Grande, a town on the east coast of Puerto Rico.
The Ricky Martin Foundation Child Development and Prevention Center, with a budget of $4 million, will begin construction this year and its inauguration is expected for 2012 or early 2013.
The center will consist of 10 classrooms, a library and a recreation area.
The institution will care for children from infancy to high-school age and will operate, in alliance with the philanthropic organization SER of Puerto Rico, the Our School and Community Initiative.
Martin said that the center will promote the arts, music, meditation, yoga, sports, martial arts, health, personalized education, culture and ethical values.
“We need to and we want to make a difference for the children and young people of Loiza. We will be there to give them support and the tools they need to guarantee them a better future,” Martin said.
The center’s design was entrusted by the Ricky Martin Foundation to the director of the Community Design Workshop of the University of Puerto Rico’s School of Architecture, Elio Martinez Joffre...
EFE (Spanish version)
June 03, 2011
E FE America
(English version)
June 06, 2011
Nepal
|
 |
|
Veteran
anti-trafficking
activist Anuradha Koirala
(left), and actress
Demi Moore (right)
meet with the Prime
Minister Jhala Nath
Khanal of Nepal
during the filming
of CNN's
anti-trafficking
documentary |
Demi Moore estrena documental sobre la trata de personas en Nepal en CNN
Demi Moore se une a CNN Freedom Project (Proyecto Libertad de CNN) para promover la lucha contra la trata humana a través del documental Nepal’s Stolen Children: A CNN Freedom Project Documentary (Los Niños Robados de Nepal: Un documental del Proyecto Libertad de CNN), que se estrena el domingo 26 de junio a las 7:00 p.m. por CNN International y CNN en Español.
Como colaboradora especial de CNN Freedom Project, Moore se dirige a Nepal para unirse a la ganadora del Premio Héroe CNN de 2010, Anuradha Koirala, y a su organización, Maiti Nepal, que desde su fundación en 1993 ha rescatado a más de 12.000 los niños de Nepal robados por tráfico sexual. Moore es una apasionada defensora de las víctimas de tráfico humano y a través de ADN, la organización que ella cofundó con su esposo, cuya labor se enfoca en la necesidad de atacar la demanda de tráfico sexual mediante leyes en contra de los infractores, la educación y la rehabilitación de las jóvenes víctimas atrapadas por estas prácticas abusivas.
“En el burdel yo fui forzada a tener sexo con hombres y si yo me resistía, ellos podían quemar cigarrillos en mi cuerpo, pegarme con un palo o lanzarme agua caliente. Yo fui con mi pequeño hijo, pero fuimos separados y cuando él lloró ellos quemaron su lengua con un cigarrillo”, dijo Radika, una de las niñas rescatadas en su encuentro con Moore en Maiti Nepal.
Cada año, miles de niñas nepalesas son secuestradas obligadas o forzadas a la brutal vida de la prostitución. Los Niños Robados de Nepal sigue a Moore, quien habla con docenas de niñas (algunas de apenas 11 años) que han sido víctimas del tráfico sexual. Las niñas comparten desgarradoras historias de electrocución y otras formas de tortura, y algunas incluso describen que fueron forzadas a alimentarse con hormonas para que sus cuerpos de niñas tengan el parecido del de una mujer adulta...
Elespectador.com
June 23, 2011
See also:
Nepal
Nepal's Stolen Children: A CNN Freedom Project Documentary
Actress Demi Moore partners with CNN Freedom Project for a compelling documentary.
A passionate advocate for victims of human trafficking herself, Moore travels to Nepal to meet 2010 CNN Hero of the Year Anuradha Koirala and some of the thousands of women and girls Koirala’s organization has rescued from forced prostitution. How were they taken and where were they sent?
Hear the emotional, first-hand experiences of these young survivors. And follow along with Moore as she searches for answers in the fight to end this form of modern-day slavery.
Along the way she hears horror stories from former sex slaves, plays games with their children, and joins one woman making the daunting trip home.
The group also has a hospice for women with HIV-AIDS, a learning center for women hoping to make a new life and a band of border guards trying to stop women being smuggled in the first place.
CNN
June 17, 2011
Mexico, Latin America, Europe
Seminario internacional lucha contra la trata de personas
La Embajada de Francia en México, ha tenido a bien elegir a nuestro estado como la sede para la realización del Seminario Internacional denominado “Lucha contra la trata de personas”, los días 28, 29 y 30 de junio del presente año, siendo esta una problemática mundial de la cual Oaxaca no está exenta, sino por el contrario, somos una entidad de origen, tránsito y destino de la Trata en sus modalidades laboral y sexual, por ello, el Gobierno del Estado a través de la Procuraduría General de Justicia realiza conjuntamente con la Embajada de Francia dicho evento.
Los participantes del Seminario provienen de Francia, Canadá España, Alemania, Panamá, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Belice, República Dominicana, Haití, Chile, Colombia y Ecuador, siendo en total 52 Comisionados, Fiscales especializados, Jefes de Unidades, Agregados de seguridad, Inspectores de policías de los diversos países.
Este seminario tiene como objetivo principal compartir experiencias de investigación y protección a víctimas de la trata de personas, que permitirán a todas y todos los participantes realizar de manera más eficiente nuestra labor, así como establecer redes de coordinación y colaboración, siendo la trata de personas un problema mundial.
Upcoming international seminar on human trafficking to be
held in Oaxaca state
The French Embassy in Mexico has selected Oaxaca state as the venue for the International Seminar entitled "Combating trafficking in persons",
to be held on June 28th, 29th and 30th of 2011. Human trafficking is a problem
that affects Oaxaca. The state is place of origin, transit and destination for labor and sex
trafficking victims. The Oaxaca Attorney General is coordinating in holding the
event.
Seminar participants from France, Canada, Spain, Germany, Panama, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Belize, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Chile, Colombia and Ecuador
will be attending. A total of 52 commissioners, specialized prosecutors and law
enforcement officials will be present.
This seminar's main objective is to share research and experiences in regard to protecting victims of
human trafficking, to allow the participants perform their work more efficiently
and establish coordination and collaboration networks.
NSS Oaxaca
June 25, 2011
New York City
|
 |
|
Prabhu Dayal |
Consul General of India accused of keeping a mother of four as virtual slave in posh Upper
East Side digs
Prabhu Dayal, the Consul General of India, is accused of treating a woman like a virtual slave. The Consul General of India and his family kept a mother of four as a virtual slave on the Upper East Side, according to a lawsuit the woman filed Monday.
Santosh Bhardwaj, 45, says she was required to work more than 12 hours a day, every day, for little pay.
She said she had to escape through a back door with a security guard's help earlier this year because her boss kept her passport and wouldn't let her leave.
Prabhu Dayal, 58, who has been the Indian Consul General in New York since 2008, kept Bhardwaj in a storage room in the E. 64th Street Consulate General building and paid her $300 a month to be at his family's beck and call, the lawsuit claims.
"The Dayals did not treat me fairly," said Bhardwaj, who says she was lured from India to New York to be a maid with promises of good working conditions and decent pay.
"I filed the complaint because I want to be paid for all the labor I provided."
The suit names Dayal, his wife and daughter and seeks an unspecified amount of damages.
Emails and phone calls to the consul general's office were not returned.
Dayal took her Bhardwaj's passport and "subjected her to approximately a year of forced labor and psychological coercion in their household, culminating in an incident of sexual harassment," the lawsuit says.
"The Dayals kept Ms. Bhardwaj isolated and led her to believe they had complete control over her," said her lawyer, Legal Aid attorney Hollis Pfitsch.
"Unfortunately, Ms. Bhardwaj is not alone. Human trafficking through psychological coercion like this, designed to keep immigrant workers laboring virtually for free, is shockingly common."
In January, Bhardwaj repeated implored Dayal for money her husband needed for an operation back in India, according to the lawsuit filed in Manhattan Federal Court.
Dayal finally relented, saying he'd give her the money - but only if she'd massage his legs, the lawsuit says.
That turned out to be the last straw.
"In her culture, it was shocking and offensive for a married man to request any type of physical contact from a married woman," according to the lawsuit.
The New York Daily News
June 20, 2011
Mexico
|
 |
|
Seven
sex trafficking suspects are shown to the press by the Mexico City
prosecutor's office |
Arraigan a 7 personas por lenocinio
Giraron orden de aprehensión por el ilícito de lenocinio y delincuencia organizada a Óscar Jesús Rivera Zúñiga, alias "El Güero'' o "Bugs Bunny''.
Ciudad de México.- Con pruebas reunidas y asentadas en el pliego consignatorio, siete personas que presuntamente obligaban a sus víctimas a ejercer el sexoservicio en el lugar conocido como La Pasarela, localizado en el segundo callejón de Manzanares, colonia Centro, quedaron a disposición de un juez penal, como probables responsables de los delitos de trata de personas agravada; lenocinio y delincuencia organizada; y por corrupción de menores, por lo que cinco hombres fueron ingresados al Reclusorio Preventivo Oriente, y dos mujeres al Centro Femenil de Readaptación Social de Santa Martha Acatitla.
En cumplimiento a la orden de aprehensión librada por el juez 25 de lo Penal, con sede en el Reclusorio Preventivo Oriente, personal del área de Mandamientos Judiciales de la Procuraduría General de Justicia del Distrito Federal (PGJDF), obtuvo la entrega de los involucrados en los referidos delitos, quienes se encontraban en el Centro de Arraigos de la misma institución judicial...
Seven are arraigned for sex trafficking
They turned a warrant for the crime of pimping and organized crime Oscar Zuniga Jesus Rivera, alias "El Guero''or" Bugs Bunny.'' Photo: El Sol de Mexico
Mexico City - seven people who allegedly forced their victims to exercise their
sex work at a place known as The Gateway, located in the Manzanares district of Colonia Centro,
have been detained on criminal charges as alleged perpetrators of the crimes of aggravated trafficking, pimping
organized crime and the corruption of minors. The five men were admitted to the Detention East
facility. The two women were sent to the Women's Center for Social Rehabilitation Santa Martha Acatitla...
The trial judge held the defendants over for trial after assessing the evidence provided by the
Mexico City Attorney General's Office...
Filiberto Cruz
El Sol de México
June 23, 2011
Mexico
Dan formal prisión a tres por el delito de trata de personas
El Juzgado 6 de Distrito de Procesos Penales Federales en la Ciudad de México dictó auto de formal prisión a tres presuntos responsables del delito de trata de personas con fines de explotación laboral y sexual.
La Procuraduría General de la República (PGR) informó en comunicado que los procesados son Denis Javier Ortiz y Ondina Moreira, ambos de nacionalidad hondureña, y Sergio Alejandro Rodríguez Salmorán.
El pasado 18 de abril el Fiscal adscrito a la Fiscalía Especial para los Delitos de Violencia contra las Mujeres y Trata de Personas (FEVIMTRA) consignó ante el juez
[el expidiente]...
La acción penal se ejerció contra los inculpados por el delito señalado en agravio de dos jóvenes hondureñas a las que explotaban en un table dance denominado “La Tentación”, ubicado en el Estado de México.
De la averiguación previa se desprende que Denis Javier Ortiz y su pareja sentimental Ondina Moreira trasladaron desde Honduras a las dos mujeres, a quienes obligaban a trabajar en el lugar referido y las despojaban de sus ingresos.
Por su parte, Sergio Alejandro Rodríguez Salmorán las trasladaba y les “arreglaba” su supuesta legal estancia en México, por lo cual les cobraba cantidades que constantemente se incrementaban.
Los dos hombres enfrentarán su proceso penal en el Reclusorio Preventivo Oriente, mientras que Ondina Moreira lo hará en el Centro de Readaptación Social de Santa Martha Acatitla.
A formal arrest three on charges of trafficking
The 6th District Court Federal Criminal Proceedings in Mexico City has arrested three suspects
for the crime of trafficking in persons for sexual and labor exploitation.
The Attorney General's Office (PGR) said in a statement that the defendants are Denis Moreira Javier Ortiz and Ondina, both Honduran nationals, and Sergio Alejandro Rodriguez Salmorán.
On April 18 the prosecutor assigned the case to the Special Prosecutor for
Violent Crimes against Women and Trafficking (FEVIMTRA)...
Action was taken against said defendants for crimes committed against two young Honduran
women which exploited in a table dance club called "The Temptation", located in the State of Mexico.
The preliminary investigation shows that when Denis Javier Ortiz and his girlfriend moved
to Mexico from Honduras, the two women, who were forced to work in the place referred to and stripped of their income...
The two men face their criminal trial Detention in the East, while Ondine will Moreira at the Center for Social Rehabilitation Santa Martha Acatitla.
La Crónica
June 24, 2011
Texas, USA
4 sentenced in immigrant kidnapping ring near Peñitas
McAllen - Four men learned their prison sentences Monday after federal authorities busted a human trafficking operation near Peñitas last year.
The prison sentences came Monday after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested a man who shot himself in the leg while attempting to kidnap a group of illegal immigrants in May 2010.
One of the smuggled immigrants told ICE agents their coyote, or smuggler, had loaded him and a dozen others into a truck May 10, 2010. But before they could leave, several armed men assaulted the driver and unloaded the migrants from the vehicle.
The gunmen took the immigrants to a stash house near Peñitas, where a man known as "Comandante" told the victims they each would have to pay $2,000 if they wanted to be smuggled farther north.
When “Comandante” left the property, Mario Leon Villa was left in charge, the immigrant told investigators. When Leon and two other guards were distracted, six immigrants climbed out a window and ran to a nearby store.
Leon found the immigrants at the store, pulled out a gun and told them not to run. The immigrants ran anyway, jumped a fence and Leon accidentally shot himself in the leg.
Several other kidnappers located and rounded up the escaped immigrants and transferred them to a stash house in Edinburg. Agents and Hidalgo County sheriff’s deputies later found the remaining victims at that stash house.
The case resembled that of kidnapped immigrants in Mexico, who are abducted and held for ransom before they are able to cross the Rio Grande.
But because many incidents are charged as immigrant smuggling or assault — as in this case — it’s difficult to track exactly how often they occur on U.S. soil, local authorities have said.
Sentenced Monday by U.S. District Judge Randy Crane were:
Leon, 21, a Mexican national who received a 14-year prison sentence for his role as a stash house guard in the immigrant kidnapping scheme. Leon had faced 13 counts of conspiracy, harboring illegal aliens and hostage taking.
Fredy Bermudez Benito, 28, a Mexican national who made threatening phone calls to the immigrants’ families, demanding the additional $2,000 payments. He faced 27 counts of conspiracy, harboring illegal aliens, hostage taking and unlawfully possessing a firearm. Crane sentenced Bermudez to 20 years in federal prison.
Edinburg resident Juan Alberto Jimenez, 25, a stash house guard who was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison on 13 counts of conspiracy, harboring illegal aliens and hostage taking.
Edinburg resident Jose Rocha Pinon, 25, a stash house guard who was sentenced to nine years in prison on 19 counts of conspiracy, harboring illegal aliens and hostage taking.
Still awaiting sentencing is Mexican national Hugo Oscar Rodriguez Montoya, 27, of Tamaulipas, who was indicted on 16 counts of conspiracy, harboring illegal aliens, hostage taking and transporting illegal aliens within the United States. He faces up to life in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Already sentenced in the case was Jose Israel Leon Villa, who was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison in December 2010.
Jared Taylor
The Monitor
June 27, 2011
California, USA
|
 |
|
Jose
Wilson Rojas Guzman, 30, of Riverside was arrested May 16 in
connection with the kidnapping and sexual assault of a 9-year-old
Riverside girl. |
Riverside: Man accused of abducting, raping girl faces more charges
An illegal immigrant accused of kidnapping his ex-roommate’s 9-year-old daughter from her Riverside home, then sexually assaulting her and trying to kill her, pleaded not guilty Thursday to multiple felonies — including new allegations that he assaulted two other children.
Jose Wilson Rojas Guzman, 30, of Riverside was arrested May 16 in connection with the kidnapping and sexual assault of a 9-year-old Riverside girl.
Jose Wilson Rojas Guzman, 30, could face life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted of attempted murder, kidnapping for rape, two counts of aggravated sexual assault on a child and a sentence-enhancing allegation of inflicting great bodily injury on a child under 14 years old during a felony.
The charges stem from a May 7 abduction in Riverside. Since Guzman’s arrest on May 16, police have been investigating whether he might be responsible for similar crimes in the area.
According to Riverside County Deputy District Attorney Mike Carney, detectives located two girls allegedly attacked by the defendant in the fall of 2008.
None of the victims’ identities have been released. One girl, who was 12 at the time, alleged Guzman held her at gunpoint and molested her, Carney said. The other girl, who was 11, told detectives the defendant choked her and sexually assaulted her, according to the prosecutor.
He said DNA and fingerprint evidence connected Guzman to both crimes, as well as the most recent one.
The Mexican national has been additionally charged with two counts of burglary and one count each of aggravated sexual assault on a child and forced lewd acts on a child under 14.
Guzman appeared today before Superior Court Judge Robert Law, who set a felony settlement conference in the case for June 27. The defendant is being held in lieu of $1 million bail at the Robert Presley Detention Center in Riverside.
According to Riverside police, in the most recent case, Guzman was familiar with the victim after having rented a room from her mother in January and February.
The 9-year-old, whose identity was not released, was asleep with her older brother and younger sister in a second-story apartment in the area of Pike Street and Herman Drive when she was forcibly taken the night of May 7, investigators said.
According to Detective Roberta Hopewell, the child’s mother — a single parent — was working as a server at Leonardo’s Mexican restaurant on Arlington Avenue and had left the boy in charge of watching his sisters.
Guzman allegedly accessed the apartment through an unlocked window in the two-bedroom unit. The other youngsters were not harmed during the kidnapping, which occurred around 11 p.m.
Around two hours later, people living on Giles Court — about 2 ½ miles from where the abduction occurred — were awakened when the child began knocking on doors, asking for help, according to investigators.
The disoriented girl told officers she had been carried out of her residence by a man and was later pushed out of a car. Hopewell said videotape from security cameras at the scene showed a dark-colored pickup truck in the area around the time of the abduction. Guzman owned a black Ford F-150 pickup.
Hopewell said the suspect was a person of interest from the beginning because of his contact with the victim, her siblings and their mother. The girl was seriously injured in the attack and is now recovering at home.
City News Service
June 02, 2011
South Dakota, USA
|
 |
|
Ruben
Garcia |
[Man] raped stepdaughter in front of 7-year-old in South Dakota
On Monday, through an interpreter, Ruben Garcia, 31, pleaded guilty to the first-degree rape of his 9-year-old stepdaughter on February 9, 2011.
Garcia admitted committing the rape to Sioux Falls police when he was captured.
According to police, Garcia raped the girl while a seven-year-old watched the ordeal. The girls reported the attacks to their mother who immediately call the police. Garcia fled, but was soon captured in Omaha.
While the maximum sentence for rape in South Dakota is life in prison, the plea agreement will ensure a somewhat shorter sentence.
Minnehaha County State's Attorney Aaron McGowan said: “There's a mandatory minimum of 15 years and under the plea agreement he's facing up to 40 years actually.”
Garcia has been held in the Minnehaha County Jail on an Immigration and Customs
Enforcement detainer since his arrest since his arrest on February 10. He will
be sentenced on August 15.
The Examiner
June 08, 2011
Pennsylvania, USA
[Man]
Faces Child-Luring Charges
Williamsport police have charged a Hispanic male with luring a 12-year-old girl into his truck while it was parked across from the YMCA yesterday. Officer Marlin Smith II was dispatched to the parking lot across from the building in the 300 block of Elmira Street shortly after 10 p.m. on June 23, where he spoke with Lucinda Campbell and her 12-year-old daughter.
Campbell had observed her daughter in a truck with a Hispanic man in his twenties, Smith said. Campbell’s daughter had seen the man before and knew where he lived, and had waved to him. The man, Adrian Arriaga Castro, of Houston Texas, pulled up to the daughter in his truck and opened the passenger’s side door and gestured for her to get in. The girl entered the vehicle and stated that Castro began to talk to her and called her “pretty,” then began to rub her arm. She exited the truck as her mother arrived and Castro ran in the direction of 345 West Third Street.
Smith arrived at the apartment building to investigate; a Hispanic male approached officers outside of the building. The daughter pointed at Castro and police confirmed his identity via his Mexican identification cards; Castro was taken into custody and faces one misdemeanor charge of luring a child into a motor vehicle and one summary charge of harassment.
Additionally, it was discovered that Castro is a Mexican national and has no papers to prove that he is in this country legally, Smith said.
“Because of this police investigation, 16 illegal immigrants were detained by I.C.E. officers from the Department of Homeland Security,” Williamsport Bureau of Police Captain Raymond O. Kontz III said.
“All of these illegals were rooming at 345 West Third Street and 309 Elmira St and working for GPX Surveyor, a gas company originating from Houston Texas,” Kontz said. Castro was taken to the Lycoming County Prison.
NorthCentralPA.com
June 24, 2011
North Carolina, USA
Suspect... faces rape charge
A 24-year-old man, who police say is an illegal immigrant already deported once, was arrested and charged Thursday with the statutory rape of a minor under age 6.
Mario Alberto Tellez Ordaz faces three counts of statutory rape or sexual offense against a minor under 6 years. He is being held in the Henderson County jail under a $75,000 secured bond.
In a news release issued Friday, Sheriff Rick Davis said Ordaz has previously been deported and will now face federal prosecution as well, due to the nature of the charges.
“This arrest highlights the illegal immigration problem,” Davis said. Ordaz is scheduled to appear in court on Monday.
Blue Ridge Now
June 24, 2011
Idaho, USA
|
 |
|
Vicente Manturano-Soto |
Sex-crime case ends in prison sentence
Man gets 6.5 years for sexual battery of a minor
A 31-year-old Peruvian native was sentenced Monday to six and a half years in prison for sexual involvement in 2010 with a 16-year-old Ketchum girl.
Vicente Manturano-Soto will be required to spend two and half years in prison before parole eligibility. He was given credit for more than seven months already spent behind bars following his arrest in November. Once released, he will likely be deported.
He was also fined $2,000 and will be required to register as a sex offender.
Originally charged with four counts of rape, Manturano-Soto pleaded guilty in March to a single count of sexual battery of a minor child. The plea was in accord with an agreement with the Blaine County Prosecuting Attorney's Office.
A Blaine County grand jury indictment against Manturano-Soto in November alleged that he had an ongoing sexual relationship with the girl from May through June of 2010.
In court Monday, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Matt Fredback described Manturano-Soto as a "close friend" of the victim's family and said he often drove the girl to school or to counseling for a previous episode of sexual abuse.
"He was aware that she was vulnerable because of her age as well as her previous abuse," Fredback said.
He said Manturano-Soto took advantage of the girl's vulnerability to engage in a sexual relationship with her.
"The victim relayed that this happened about 10 times," Fredback said.
He further noted that the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has filed a charge against Manturano-Soto alleging that he is an illegal immigrant.
"It appears that while he initially came into this country legally, that expired in 2001 and he continued to stay in this country," Fredback said.
Defense attorney Douglas Nelson noted that his client only pleaded guilty to sexual battery of a child.
"We are here because Vicente admitted basically to making out with this girl, and he's denied anything other than that," Nelson said.
He said Manturano-Soto has recognized what he did was wrong and completed a 10-week course while in jail on moral recognition therapy. Further, Nelson said his client has been a "model prisoner" and has served as a jail trusty.
Speaking through a court interpreter, Manturano-Soto apologized for his actions.
"The truth is I feel very bad about this," he said. "What I did was wrong. I know that God loves all his children and I ask you for forgiveness."
Fifth District Judge Robert J. Elgee said he would have given Manturano-Soto more prison time if not for steps the defendant has taken to improve his life.
"I recognize that you have expressed remorse and you have tried to improve yourself while in jail," Elgee said. "But what you did was a bad act, even if you only did what you've admitted to.
"I happen to believe you did more than you've admitted to. She was half your
age. The law is designed to protect young girls who are not adults from older
men like you. I know that what you did was not forcible, but the sentence is
because of her age."
Terry Smith
Idaho Mountain Express and Guide
June 22, 2011
|
Colombia
 |
|
Youth from the
city of Cartegena's impoverished
Boquilla neighborhood
participate in performing
Colombian folkloric music in as
part of cultural activities
organized by the
Renacer
(Rebirth) Foundation
to guide local children and
youth away from the tourist
resort's child sex traffickers. |
 |
|
A
Renacer
(Rebirth) Foundation
information table promotes the
"We are the Wall" campaign,
working to bring the hotel
industry and other tourist
businesses into a campaign to
stop child sex tourism in the
beach resort city of Cartagena |
Prostitutas protegen a niños de redes de proxenetas
Trabajadoras sexuales de Cartagena le declararon la guerra a la prostitución infantil en este turístico balneario del Caribe colombiano y junto a la policía y ONGs buscan estrategias para evitar que los menores caigan en las redes de proxenetas.
Las prostitutas lideran un proyecto para que taxistas, vendedores ambulantes y meseros cooperen frente a mafias que ofrecen a unos 2.000 niños de los barrios marginales.
“Fui prostituta antes que mujer. Comencé a los 10 años y sufrí experiencias que no creerían. Sé que no puedo borrar el pasado, pero sí puedo evitar que otros niños pasen por lo que yo viví y por eso los invito a ayudar”, dijo Damaris a un grupo de taxistas reunidos en un salón público de La Boquilla, un deprimido sector de la ciudad.
La mujer, que aún ejerce en un prostíbulo del centro de la ciudad, forma parte de la campaña ‘La muralla soy yo’ que busca involucrar a quienes viven del turismo en la lucha contra la explotación de niños y adolescentes.
“Desafortunadamente aquí al turista que llega con plata se le permite casi todo. Mi invitación es a ponerle límite. Que cuando pregunten por niños para (tener) sexo, no les pasen información. Piensen que son niños y que ellos, como sus hijos, valen más que cualquier propina”, pidió.
Pero el negocio de la prostitución ha cambiado y con las nuevas tecnologías “ahora es menos frecuente ver el corrillo (grupo) de muchachitos esperando en una esquina la llegada del cliente”, señaló Luis Céspedes, uno de los taxistas que participó en el taller.
“Antes los turistas preguntaban por niñas, pero ahora los contactos se hacen por internet. El turista dice ‘Lléveme a tal hotel’ ahí tiene su cuento con el muchachito o la pelada (niña) le paga y ya. No entiendo cómo vamos a poder ayudar”, cuestionó.
El comandante de Policía local, general Ricardo Restrepo, admitió que este negocio ilegal “se ha sofisticado” y que detrás del abuso sexual a menores en Cartagena se mueven poderosas mafias...
Prostitutes unite to protect children from sex traffickers
Sex workers in the coastal tourist resort city of
Cartagena have declared war on child prostitution. Working in collaboration with
police and non governmental organizations, they are developing strategies to
prevent children from falling into the hands of prostitution networks.
Adult sex workers are leading a project to convince taxi drivers, street vendors and
waiters not to cooperate with the sexual exploitation networks that today sell some
2,000 children from the city's slums in prostitution.
A woman named Damaris, speaking to a gathering of local taxi drivers in a poor
section of Cartagena called La Boquilla said,
"I was a prostitute before I became a woman. I started at the age of 10,
and I went through experiences that you would not believe. I know that I can't
erase the past, but I can prevent other children go through what I lived
through, and I invite you to help."
The woman, who still works in a brothel in the city center, is part of the
campaign "I am the wall,' that seeks to involve those who work in the tourism
industry in the fight against the exploitation of children and adolescents.
Damaris,
"Unfortunately the tourist who comes here with money is allowed to do
almost anything they want. I invite you to help us place limits on them. When these
tourists ask for children to have sex [a question asked of taxi drivers across
Latin America], don't give them information. Remember
that they are children and that they, like your children, are worth more than
any tip."
The business of prostitution has changed with the emergence of new technologies
[the Internet]. "It is now less common to see a circle of boys on a corner
waiting for the arrival of a customer," said Luis Cespedes, one of the drivers
who participated in the workshop.
"Before the tourists asked for girls, but now the contacts are carried out online.
These days, the
tourist says, 'Take me to this hotel.' They engage with a boy or girl, pay them,
and that's it. I do not understand how we can help," exclaimed
Cespedes.
The local police commander, General Ricardo Restrepo admitted that this illegal
business "is sophisticated." He acknowledged that powerful mafias control child
prostitution in Cartagena.
"Last year we conducted operations with U.S. authorities with very good results.
Now we're doing the same with an organization in Spain. These countries know
that they have citizens who come to Cartagena to engage in these types of
crimes. These nations have therefore taken on their responsibilities [to react]," said
the official said.
Mayerlin Vergara, of the non governmental organization Renacer, noted that "ten
years ago, we found the child victims of sexual exploitation in the clubs or on
the streets. They now engage in prostitution in communities and in educational
institutions. They no longer have a reason to come to the city center."
Attorney Freddys del Toro, of the Swiss NGO
Tierra de Hombres, which advocates for victims of child sexual
exploitation, noted that child sex tourism is promoted "through so-called travel agencies that
operate online and that don't have local offices, making it difficult to combat
their activities."
The Cartagena prosecutor's office has registered 400 complaints of child sexual
abuse. Prosecutions of child sexual exploiters have resulted in 19 convictions
to-date.
"We just had a historic decision in Colombia. For the first time, a foreigner
was convicted. Italian Paolo Pravisani, age 72, was [sentenced] in the death of
a young boy, Yesid Torres, whom
Pravisani
was sexually abusing," said
del Toro.
In 2010 Colombian authorities arrested Briton Anthony Paul Brailsford, who has
lived in Cartagena since 2001. Police found photos of naked girls in his
possession. Meanwhile, in March, the Spanish
film
producer Pablo Lapiedra was arrested on accusations that he was filming
pornographic movies with children.
Colombian law provides for penalties of up to eight years in prison for those
who lead, organize or promote tourist activities that include the sexual use of
children and provides that property used for that purpose may be confiscated.
Figures from the government's Colombian Family Welfare Institute estimates that
about 35,000 children are forced into prostitution in the country. Some 2,000 of
those children live in Cartagena.
El Nuevo Heraldo
June 17, 2011
See Also:
A dded
Sep. 14 2005
Colombia
Así se mueve la cadena
del turismo sexual con menores de edad
en
Cartagena.
About child sex
tourism in Cartagena
Cartagena - in Colombia's largest spa and
beach resort city, popular with foreign
tourists, 1,200 underage children and youth
engage in prostitution.
At the city's international airport, 15 year
old girls line up waiting for the arrival of
one of the many weekly flights that bring in
male tourists, especially from Spain and
Italy.
Many of these girls have been contacted from
Europe by phone, and a week of
'companionship' has been set up. Other girls
make deals with newly arrived airline
passengers. In other cases, taxi drivers
and bar owners receive a fee for connecting
tourists with young prostitutes.
The victims are typically young
Afro-Colombian girls and boys.
According to Vittorio Chimienti, director of
a child advocacy project in Cartagena
started by the Italian government following
growing concern about its citizen's flagrant
sex tourism:
|
"Law
enforcement does almost nothing to
control the child sex trade, and
word of impunity travels rapidly
around the world."
|
See Also:
Added
July 18 2005
Cartagena, donde se
ofrecen niñas de entre ocho y 17 años en la
prostitución.
Colombian authorities urged to change the
laws and fight child prostitution in the spa
resort city of Cartagena, where increasing
numbers of girls between 8 and 17 are
prostituted to sex tourists.
See Also:
Added:
Nov. 07, 2004
The sexual
exploitation of 1,600 minors taints
Colombia's Caribbean tourist haven
[of Cartagena]
...Cartagena's history as a Spanish bastion against English invasion, its
cobblestone streets, quaint plazas, colonial churches, art museums and
seafood restaurants attract many visitors. Yet behind the thick, ancient
walls lurks a darker attraction: the sexual exploitation of minors by
foreigners .
The city has become a magnet for men, many of them Europeans, seeking
sex with young girls and sometimes boys, many of them from families
displaced from their rural homes by fighting among leftist rebels,
government forces and right-wing paramilitary groups.
On the main hotel strip, foreigners openly haggle with underage girls
selling their bodies or duck past pink neon lights into what purports to
be a discotheque. Inside, bored-looking teenage girls at tables perk up
only when a man walks by. He can take his pick, pay as little as $15 and
take her to a room across the road.
"Unfortunately, Cartagena has the image of being a place where people
can have whatever kind of sexual relations they want," says Fabian
Cardenas, the local coordinator for Renacer, a private group that helps
victims of sexual exploitation.
"There are many foreigners who come here with the sheer objective of
having sex. And what the tourist wants, the tourist gets."
An estimated 1,500 girls and boys work in Cartagena's sex industry .
Over the last three years, Renacer has learned of girls as young as 7
and boys as young as 9 being sexually exploited, Cardenas says.
Cartagena isn't alone. Many Latin American cities, in countries like
Mexico, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and Brazil, are now being
frequented by "sex tourists" looking for minors, as a result of shift in
the business from Asia following police crackdowns.
Poverty and domestic sexual abuse push many children into the sex
industry...
The Associated Press
April 07, 2004
A sample of
other important news stories
and commentaries
Massachusetts, USA
 |
|
Donna Gavin, commander of the Boston
Police Human Trafficking Unit, at
Wheelock College |
 |
|
Norma Ramos, executive director of
the
Coalition Against Trafficking in
Women, speaks |
 |
|
Wheelock professor and anti
pornography activist
Dr. Gail Dines,
and survivor and activist
Cherie
Jimenez speak at Wheelock |
 |
|
LibertadLatina's
Chuck Goolsby speaks up to represent
the interests of Latin American and
indigenous victims at Wheelock
College |
Wheelock College anti-trafficking event
Stopping the Pimps, Stopping the Johns: Ending the Demand for Sex Trafficking
This event is part of Wheelock's sixth annual "Winter Policy Talks."
Speakers:
•Donna Gavin, commander of the Boston Police Human Trafficking Unit and the Massachusetts Task Force to Combat Human Trafficking. She is a sergeant detective of the Boston Police Department.
•Cherie Jimenez, who used her own experiences in the sex trade to create a Boston-area program for women
•Norma Ramos, executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
•Gail Dines, Wheelock professor of Sociology and Women's Studies and chair of the American Studies Department
Wheelock College
March 30, 2011
See also:
Massachusetts, USA
Wheelock College to discuss Massachusetts sex trafficking
Wheelock College is set to hold a panel discussion on the growing sex trafficking in Massachusetts.
The discussion, titled "Stopping the Pimps, Stopping the Johns: Ending the Demand for Sex Trafficking," is scheduled for Wednesday and will feature area experts and law enforcement officials.
Those scheduled to speak include Donna Gavin, commander of the Boston Police human trafficking unit and the Massachusetts task force to combat human trafficking.
Experts believe around 14,000 to 17,000 people are trafficked into the U.S. every year, including those from Latin America, Asia and Africa.
The panel is part of the Brookline school's sixth annual "Winter Policy Talks."
The Associated Press
March 30, 2011
See also:
LibertadLatina Commentary
|
 |
|
Chuck Goolsby |
On March 30, 2011 Wheelock College in Boston
presented a forum that explored human
trafficking and ways to end demand. Like many
human trafficking gatherings held around the
world, the presenters at this event provided an
empathetic and intelligent window into current
thinking within the different interest
groups that make up this movement. Approximately
40 college students and local anti-trafficking
activists attended the event.
Norma Ramos, executive director of the Coalition
Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) spoke about
current human trafficking conditions around the
world. Pornography abolitionist Dr. Gail Dines
of Wheelock presented a slide show on
pornography and its link to the issue of
prostitution demand. Survivor Cherie Jimenez
told her story of over 20 years facing abuse at
the hands of pimps, and her current efforts to
support underage girls in prostitution.
Detective Donna Gavin discussed the Boston
Police Department’s efforts to assist women and
girls in prostitution, including the fact that
her department’s vice operations helping women
in prostitution avoid criminal prosecution to
the extent possible.
The presentation grew into an intelligent
discussion about a number of issues that the
presenters felt were impacting the effectiveness
of the movement. Among these issues were
perceptions on the part of Dr. Dines that a
number of activists in the human trafficking
movement have expressed pro-pornography points
of view. She added that the great majority of
college students in women’s programs with whom
she talks express a pro-pornography perspective. Panelists
also expressed the view that many men
who lead anti-trafficking organizations also
have a pro-pornography viewpoint.
Cherie Jimenez shared her opinion that U.S. born
victims do not get as much visibility and attention
relative to foreign born
victims. She emphasized that victims from all
backgrounds are the same, and should be treated
as such.
Jimenez emphasized that much of her work as an
activist focuses on helping young women who, at
age 18, leave state supported foster care, and
must then survive on their own. She emphasized
that foster care is a broken system that exposes
underage girls to routine sexual abuse. CATW’s
Ramos, who was a victim of that system herself,
agreed.
Ramos, head of the global Coalition Against
Trafficking in Women and Girls for Sexual
Exploitation (CATW), emphasized that men who
operate in the arena of anti sex trafficking
activism must be accountable to women activists,
because the issue was a gender issue. She also
stated that she approached the human trafficking
issue from an indigenous world view.
In response to a question from a Latina woman
about services for transgender youth, Detective
Gavin of the Boston Police Department stated
that they have not run into sex trafficking
cases involving males. Norma Ramos did note that
sex trafficked male youth did exist in
significant numbers in the New
York City area.
During the question and answer period of the
forum, I spent about 15 minutes discussing
the issue of human trafficking from the Latin
American, Latin Diaspora and indigenous
perspectives.
* I noted that as a male anti-trafficking
activist, I have devoted the past dozen years of
that activism to advocating for the voiceless
women and girls in Latin America, the United
States and in advanced nations of the world in
Europe and Japan where Latina and indigenous
victims are widely exploited.
* I pointed out that within the Boston area as
elsewhere within the United States, the brutal
tactics of traffickers, as well as the
Spanish/English language barrier, the cultural
code of silence and tolerance for exploitation
that are commonplace within Latin immigrant
communities all allow sex trafficking to
flourish in the Latin barrios of Boston such as
East Boston, Chelsea, Everett and Jamaica Plain.
* I also mentioned that during the current climate
of recession and increased immigration law
enforcement operations, Latina women and girls
face a loss of jobs and income, and a loss of
opportunities to survive with dignity, which are
all factors that expose them to the risk of
commercial sexual exploitation.
* I mentioned that the sex trafficking of women
and girls in Latin America focuses on the crisis
in Mexico, which, I stated was the epicenter of
sex trafficking activity in the Americas.
* I stated that the U.S. anti-trafficking
movement cannot make any progress while it
continues to treat the sex trafficking crisis in
Mexico as a secondary issue.
* I mentioned that Teresa Ulloa, director of the
Regional Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
for Latin America and the Caribbean (CATW-LAC),
was a stellar activist who has provided the
vanguard of leadership in anti sex trafficking
activism in the region. I added that Ulloa
recently promoted statistics developed by the
Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, that
state that 25% of the Gross Domestic Product
across all Latin American nations is derived
from human trafficking.
*
I mentioned that a number
of years ago, I called-on my local police
department to enforce the law and arrest an
adult man who was severely sexually harassing an
11-year-old Latina girl.
These two officers
told me in a matter of fact way that they could not respond to what the
county Police Academy had taught them (in cultural sensitivity classes
there) was just a part of Latino culture.
As is the case in most public events that I
attend that address the crisis in human
trafficking, the issue of Latina and indigenous
victims (who are the majority of U.S. victims)
would not have been discussed in detail without
the participation of
LibertadLatina.
The event was an enlightening experience. My
perception is that both the activists and the
audience were made aware of the dynamics of the
crisis of mass gender atrocities that women and
children are facing in Latin America, the
Caribbean and in their migrant communities
across the globe.
End impunity now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
April
17, 2011
Mexico
|
 |
|
This map
shows the number of types of child slavery that occur in the
nations of Latin America and the Caribbean |
Indigenous children are the focal point for underage sex and labor slavery in Mexico
Around 1.5 million children do not attend school at all in Mexico, having or choosing to work instead. Indigenous children are often child laborers. Throughout Central and South America, indigenous people are frequently marginalized, both economically and socially. Many have lost their traditional land rights and they migrate in order to find paid work. This can in turn make indigenous peoples more vulnerable to exploitative and forced labor practices.
According to the web site Products of Slavery.org, child slavery, especially that which exploits indigenous
children, is used to generate profits in the following industries in Mexico:
|
* The production of Child
Pornography
* The production of coffee,
tobacco, beans, chile peppers, cucumbers, eggplants, melons, onions,
sugarcane and tomatoes - much of which is sold for export
|
Key facts about Mexican child sex
and labor exploitation defined on the Product of Slavery:
|
* Many indigenous children in
Mexico aged between seven and 14 work during the green bean harvest
from 7am until 7pm, meaning they cannot attend school.
* Amongst Mexico's indigenous
peoples, 86% of children, aged six years and over, are engaged in
strenuous physical labor in the fields six days a week working to
cultivate agricultural produce such as chile peppers.
* Indigenous child labor keeps
costs of production down for Mexican companies as boys and girls
from indigenous families are frequently denied recognition of their
legal status as workers, charged with the least skilled tasks, such
as harvesting cucumbers, and so receive the lowest pay.
* Child labor is widespread in
Mexico's agricultural sector; in 2000, it was discovered that 11 and
12 year olds were working on the family ranch of the then-President
elect, Vicente Fox, harvesting onions, potatoes, and corn for export
to the United States.
[I know a couple of U.S. ICE agents who can add 'another
paragraph' to the above statement
-
LL.]
* Mexican children who are
exploited by the sex industry and involved in activities such as
pornography and prostitution suffer physical injuries, long-term
psychological damage with the strong possibility of developing
suicidal tendencies and are at high risk of contracting AIDS,
tuberculosis and other life-threatening illnesses.
* There are strong links between
tourism and the sexual exploitation of children in Mexico; tourist
centers such as Acapulco, Cancun and Tijuana are prime locations
where thousands of children are used in the production of
pornographic material and child prostitution is rife.
* Mexican street children are
vulnerable to being lured into producing pornographic material with
promises of toys, food, money, and accommodation; they then find
themselves prisoners, locked for days or weeks on end in hotel rooms
or apartments, hooked on drugs and suffering extreme physical and
sexual violence.
* David Salgado was just eight
years old when he was crushed by a tractor as he went to empty the
bucket of tomatoes he had just collected on the Mexican vegetable
farm where he worked with his family. The company paid his funeral
expenses but refused to pay compensation to his family as David was
not a formal employee.
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The web site explores child enslavement in all of the nations shown in the above
map.
Products of Slavery
North Carolina, USA
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"For
Sale" - A composite from a poster announcing Davidson College's
recent event on Human
Trafficking in
Latin America
See the complete poster |
Chuck Goolsby speaks at Davidson College
On
February 3rd of 2011 I travelled to Davidson College, located in a beautiful
community north of Charlotte, North Carolina, to provide a 90 minute
presentation on the crisis of sexual slavery in Latin America, and in Latin
American immigrant communities across the United States. I thank the members of
Davidson's Organization of Latin American Students (OLAS) and the Vann
Center for Ethics for cosponsoring the
presentation, and for their hospitality and hard work in setting up this event.
During my talk I described many of the dynamics of how sexual slavery works in
the Americas. I summarized the work of
LibertadLatina
as one of the few English
language voices engaging the world in an effort to place Latin American gender
exploitation issues on an equal footing with the rest of the world's struggle
against sex trafficking. I covered the facts that:
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1)
Sexual slavery has long been condoned in Latin America;
2)
Community tolerance of sexual exploitation, and a cultural code of
silence work to hide crimes of violence against women across the
region;
3)
The multi-billion dollar pockets of Latin American drug cartels,
together with the increasing effectiveness of anti-drug trafficking
law enforcement efforts are driving cartel money into major
investments in kidnapping, 'breaking-in' and selling underage girls
and young women into slavery globally, en mass;
4)
Men in poverty who have grown up in [especially rural] cultures
where women's equality does not exist, are prime candidates to
participate in the sex trafficking industry - this is especially
true in locations such as Tlaxcala state, just east of Mexico City,
where an estimated 50% of the adults in the La
Meca neighborhood of the major city of Tenancingo are involved in
sex traffickers;
5)
Male traffickers, often from family organized mafias of adults and
teens [especially in Tlaxcala], either kidnap women and girls
directly, or engage in false romances with potential victims that
result in the victim's beating, gang rape and enslavement, getting
the victim pregnant - and then leaving the infant with the
trafficker's family as a form of bribery [threatening the baby's
death if the victim does not continue to submit to forced sexual
enslavement;
6)
Traffickers typically take their victims from Tlaxcala, to Mexico
City, and to Tijuana on the U.S. border - from which they are
shipped like merchandise to Tokyo, Madrid, Amsterdam, Los Angeles,
Miami, Atlanta, Charlotte, Washington, DC and New York City;
7)
Traffickers also bring victims to farm labor camps large and small
across the rural U.S.;
8)
North Carolina, including the major population centers of
Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte are places where Latina immigrant
sexual slavery is a major problem (given the rapid growth in the
local immigrant population, who see the state as a place with lots
of jobs and a low cost of living);
9)
Mexico's government is reluctant (to be polite) to engage the issue
of ending human trafficking (despite recent presidential rhetoric),
as exemplified by the multi-year delay in setting up the regulations
and inter-agency collaborations needed to actually enforce the
nation's 2007 Law to Prevent and Punish Human Trafficking (note that
only in early 2011 has the final element of the legislation been put
into place to actually activate the law - which some legislators
accurate refer to as a "dead letter.");
10)
heroes such as activist
Lydia Cacho have faced retaliation and death
threats for years for having dared to stand-up against the child sex
trafficking networks whose money and influence corrupts state and
local governments;
11)
it is up to each and every person to decide how to engage in
activism to end all forms of human slavery, wherever they may exist.
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Virtually everyone in the crowd that attended the event had heard about human
trafficking prior to the February 3rd presentation. They left the event knowing important details about the
facts involved in the Latin American crisis and the difficulties that activists
face in their efforts to speak truth to power and the forces of impunity. A number of
attendees thanked me for my presentation, and are now new readers of
LibertadLatina.org.
The below text is from Davidson College's announcement for this event.
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Slavery is (thankfully) illegal
everywhere today. But sadly, it is still practiced secretly in many
parts of the world. One persistent form of it occurs when women and
girls are forced into prostitution or sexual slavery, sometimes by
being kidnapped and trafficked or smuggled across national borders.
Chuck Goolsby has worked tirelessly
for decades to expose and end this horrific, outrageous practice. As
the founder and coordinator of
LibertadLatina, much of his work has
focused on sex-trafficking in the Latin American context. Join us
to hear from him regarding the nature and scope of the current
problem, and what we can do to help stop it. |
We have given similar presentations to groups such as Latinas
United for Justice, a student organization located at the John Jay College
for Criminal Justice in New York City.
We are available for conferences and other speaking engagements
to address the topics of human trafficking in its Latin American, Latin
Diaspora, Afro-Latina and Indigenous dimensions.
Please write to us in regard to your event.
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina.org
Feb. 26, 2011
The United States
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Tiffany Williams of the Break the Chain Campaign |
Highlighting New Issues in Ending Violence Against Women; More Women Afraid To Come Forward And Access Services
Congressional leaders will participate in an ad-hoc hearing examining violence against immigrant women this Thursday on Capitol Hill
Washington, DC—Reps. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) and Gwendolyn Moore (D-WI) will co-chair an ad-hoc hearing this Thursday afternoon, bearing witness to the testimony of immigrant women and advocates who are speaking out about increasing barriers to ending violence against immigrant women and families. Honorable guests Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) and Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-CA) will join the co-chairs.
Maria Bolaños of Maryland will share her personal story. Juana Flores from Mujeres Unidas y Activas (MUA), an immigrant women’s organization in California and the Rev. Linda Olson Peebles from the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington will share the perspective of community groups, and legal advocates Leslye Orloff (Legal Momentum) and Miriam Yeung (NAPAWF) will offer testimony in light of the expected 2011 re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).
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WHAT: Ad-hoc hearing on violence against immigrant women
WHEN: Feb. 10, 2011 - 2 pm-3 pm
WHERE: Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2456
WHO: Rep. Raul Grijalva, Rep. Gwendolyn Moore, Rep. Jared Polis, Rep. Napolitano, members of the press, domestic violence advocates, immigrant rights advocates, and other invited guest
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Co-Sponsoring Organizations: 9to5, AFL-CIO, Family Values @ Work Consortium, Franciscan Action Network, Institute for Policy Studies, Legal Momentum, MomsRising, Ms. Foundation for Women, Mujeres Unidas y Activas, National Domestic Workers Alliance, National Day Laborer Organizing Network, National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, National Immigration Law Center, National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, South Asian Americans Leading Together, United Methodist Women/Civil Rights Initiative, Urgent Action Fund for Women's Human Rights, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations
Contact: Tiffany Williams
Tel. (202) 787-5245; Cell (202) 503-8604; E-mail:
tiffany@ips-dc.org
The Institute for Policy Studies / Break the Chains Campaign
Feb. 9, 2011
See also:
The United States
Silencing human trafficking victims in America
Women should be able to access victim services, regardless of their immigration status.
Thanks to a wave of anti-immigrant proposals in state legislatures across the nation, fear of deportation and family separation has forced many immigrant women to stay silent rather than report workplace abuse and exploitation to authorities. The courts have weakened some of these laws and the most controversial pieces of Arizona's SB 1070 law have been suspended. Unfortunately, America's anti-immigrant fervor continues to boil.
As a social worker, I've counseled both U.S.-born and foreign-born women who have experienced domestic violence, or have been assaulted by either their employers or the people who brought them to the United States. I'm increasingly alarmed by this harsh immigration enforcement climate because of its psychological impact on families and the new challenge to identify survivors of crime who are now too afraid to come forward.
For the past decade, I've helped nannies, housekeepers, caregivers for the elderly, and other domestic workers in the Washington metropolitan area who have survived human trafficking. A majority of these women report their employers use their immigration status to control and exploit them, issuing warnings such as "if you try to leave, the police will find you and deport you." Even women who come to the United States on legal work visas, including those caring for the children of diplomats or World Bank employees, experience these threats.
Though law enforcement is a key partner in responding to human trafficking, service providers continue to struggle with training authorities to identify trafficking and exploitation in immigrant populations, especially when the trafficking is for labor and not sex. While local human trafficking task forces spend meetings developing outreach plans, our own state governments are undermining these efforts with extremely harsh and indiscriminate crackdowns on immigrants...
Regardless of their legal status, these women are human beings working hard to
feed their families. Their home countries' economies have been by shattered by
globalization. Our economic system depends on their cheap labor. Yet much of the
debate about U.S. borders fails to acknowledge immigrants as people, or
appreciate the numerous cultural contributions that ethnic diversity has
provided this country. As a result, humane comprehensive immigration reform
remains out of reach in
Congress.
We're a nation of immigrants and a nation of hard-working families. An economic crisis caused by corporate greed has turned us against each other in desperation and fear. We should band together to uphold our traditional values of family unity, to give law enforcement the tools they need to provide effective victim protection and identification rather than reactionary laws, and ensure that women can access victim services, regardless of immigration status.
Tiffany Williams is the advocacy director for Break The Chain Campaign, a project of the Institute for Policy Studies.
Tiffany Williams
The Huffington Post
Feb. 07, 2011
See also:
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Chuck Goolsby |
LibertadLatina
Commentary:
We at
LibertadLatina
salute the Break the
Chain Campaign and their
advocacy director, Tiffany
Williams, for bringing voice
to the voiceless immigrant
working women and girls
(underage teens) across the
United States. Latin
American and other immigrant
women routinely face
quid-pro-quo sexual demands
of "give me sex or get out"
from male managers and
supervisors across the
low-wage service sector of
the U.S. economy.
My advocacy for victims of
gender violence
began with efforts to
provide direct victim
assistance to Latina women
facing workplace gender
exploitation
in the Washington,
DC region. My work included
rescuing two Colombian women
from the fearful labor
slavery that they faced in
two diplomatic households in
Montgomery County, Maryland,
just north of Washington,
DC. I also assisted six
women in bringing complaints
to police and to our local
Montgomery County human rights commission
(a local processor of U.S.
Equal Employment
Opportunities Commission
cases).
Immigrant women have never
had free and equal access to
the legal system to address
these employer abuses. The
Break the Chain Campaign
rightly identifies the fact
that the social and
political climate in the
U.S. in the year 2011 is
creating conditions in which
immigrant women and girl
victims fear coming forward.
It is encouraging that the
Break the Chains Campaign
openly identifies the sexual
and labor exploitation of
immigrant women and girls in
domestic and other low wage
service jobs as being forms
of human trafficking. Ten
years ago, local
anti-trafficking
organizations in the
Washington, DC region did
not buy into that view of
the world.
Conditions have not changed
for the better for at-risk
immigrant women and girls
since we first wrote about
this issue in the year 1994
(see below).
These community continues to need our
persistent help on this
issue.
End impunity now!
- Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
Feb. 10, 2011
See
also:
LibertadLatina
Our section covering human trafficking, workplace rape and community exploitation facing Latina women and children in the Washington, DC regional area.
See
also:
Latina Workplace Rape
Low wage
workers face managerial threats of 'give me sex or get out!'
across the U.S. and Latin America.
See also:
On the Front Lines of the War Against
Impunity in Gender Exploitation
Government, corporations
and the press ignored
all of these victims
cases in which Chuck
Goolsby intervened
directly
during the 1990s.
Rockville, Maryland
-
Case 1
Workplace Rape with
Impunity
A major
corporation working on defense and civilian
U.S. government contracts permitted
quid-pro-quo sexual demands, sexual coercion
and retaliatory firings targeted at Latina
adult and underage
teen cleaning workers.
Rockville, Maryland -
Case 2
Workplace Assault and Battery
with Impunity
A Nicaraguan
indigenous
woman
cleaning
worker was
slapped across the chest
and knocked to the floor by
her manager in
the Rockville offices
of a federal agency, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA).
The local Maryland
State's Attorney's Office repeatedly
pressured the victim (through calls to Chuck
Goolsby) to drop her insistence
on having her assailant prosecuted.
Rockville, Maryland
- Case 3
About
the One
Central Plaza office complex
Workplace Rape and Forced
Prostitution with
Impunity
Over a dozen
women were illegally fired for not giving in
to the sexual demands of three Latino
cleaning crew managers who forced women and
underage girls into quid-pro-quo sexual
relationships as a condition of retaining
their jobs.
Some women were forced to
commit acts of prostitution in this office
building, that housed Maryland state government
and other offices.
A medical
doctor who leased office space at One
Central Plaza filed a formal complaint with
the building owners
and stated that
he
was finding his
patient examining
tables
dirtied by sexual activity after-hours
(cleaning managers had keys to access these
offices to have them cleaned).
A pregnant woman was
severely sexually harassed, and was fired
and told to come back after her child was
born, when she could be sexually exploited.
The Montgomery County,
Maryland County Human Relations commission
in 1995 literally buried the officially
filed casework of this pregnant woman and
another victim, who had an audio tape of a
20 minute attempt by her manager to rape her.
Both detectives at the Montgomery County
Police Department (where I worked part-time
during those times) and a team of Washington
Post reporters refused to investigate this
crisis of workplace impunity.
A Latina Washington Post reporter, when
explaining to me why she would not cover the
story said, "well, after all, you are trying
to accuse these guys (the perpetrators) of
felonies." The same reporter stated that her
manager would not allow her to cover the
story because it was a "dangerous
situation."
To this day I continue to ask myself,
If it was a
dangerous situation, was it not, then,
news!
See also:
The above three cases
are among those
documented in my below
report from 1994.
Charles M.
Goolsby, Jr.'s
1994 Report on the Sexual Exploitation
of Latina immigrant Women and Girls in
Montgomery County, Maryland (a suburb of
Washington, DC)
The
LibertadLatina
project grew directly
out of these initial
efforts to speak truth
to the official and
criminal impunity in our
society that openly
targets innocent
immigrant women
and girls for sexual
victimization.
India
Human trafficking slur
on Commonwealth Games
The jinxed Commonwealth
Games could have done
without this. After
being troubled by
brittle infrastructure,
CWG 2010 has now been
blamed for a jump in
trafficking of women and
children from the
Northeast. The
accusation has come from
Meghalaya People’s Human
Rights Council (MPHRC)
general secretary Dino
D.G. Dympep. The
platform he chose on
Tuesday was the general
debate discussion on
racism, discrimination,
xenophobia and other
intolerance at the 15th
Human Rights Council
Session at the UN
headquarters in Geneva,
Switzerland.
“The human rights
situation of indigenous
peoples living in
Northeast India is
deteriorating,” Dympep
said, adding New Delhi
has chose to be
indifferent to human
trafficking of and
racial discrimination
toward these indigenous
groups.
“What worries the
indigenous peoples now
apart from racial and
gender-based violence is
the fear of alleged
human trafficking for
flesh trade.” The number
of indigenous women and
children trafficked
particularly for the
upcoming CGW could be
15,000, he said.
The rights activist also
underscored the racial
profiling of people from
the Northeast on the
basis of their
ethnicity, linguistic,
religious, cultural and
geographical
backgrounds.
Dympep also pointed out
86 per cent of
indigenous peoples
studying or working away
from their native places
face racial
discrimination in
various forms such as
sexual abuses, rapes,
physical attacks and
economic exploitation.
“The UN has condemned
India's caste system and
termed it worse than
racism. The racism faced
by indigenous peoples of
the Northeast is
definitely the outcome
of the caste system.
Such negative attitude
as ignoring the region
will only lead to deeper
self-alienation by the
indigenous peoples,
which comes in the way
of integration in
India,” he said.
Rahul Karmakar
Hindustan Times
Sep. 28, 2010
LibertadLatina
Note:
Indigenous peoples
across the world face
the problem of being
marginalized by the
dominant societies that
surround them. They
become the easiest
targets for human
traffickers because the
larger society will not
stand up to defend their
basic human rights.
Exploiting the lives and
the sexuality of
indigenous women is a
key aspect of this
dynamic of oppression.
We at
LibertadLatina
denounce all forms of
exploitation. We call
the world's attention to
the fact that tens of
thousands of indigenous
peoples in the Americas,
and most especially
women and girls in
Guatemala and Mexico,
are routinely being
kidnapped or cajoled
into becoming victims of
human trafficking.
For 5
centuries, the economies
of Latin America have
relied upon the forced
labor and sexual
exploitation of the
region's indigenous
peoples as a cornerstone
of their economic and
social lives. Mexico,
with an indigenous
population that
comprises 30% of the
nation, is a glaring
example of this dynamic
of racial, ethnic and
gender (machismo) based
oppression. In Mexico,
indigenous victims are
not 'visible' to the
authorities, and are on
nobody's list of social
groups who need to be
assisted to defend
themselves against the
criminal impunity of the
sex and labor
trafficking mafias.
For
Mexico to arrive in the
21st Century community
of nations, it must
begin the process of
ending these feudal-era
traditions.
End impunity now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
New York, USA
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 |
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U.S.
Ambassador Luis
CdeBaca (second
from left) and
other presenters
at UN / Brandeis
conference |
Hidden in Plain Sight: The
News Media's Role in
Exposing Human Trafficking
The Schuster Institute for
Investigative Journalism at
Brandeis University
cosponsored a first-ever
United Nations panel
discussion about how the
news media is exposing and
explaining modern slavery
and human trafficking -- and
how to do it better. Below
are the transcript and video
from that conference, held
at the United Nations
headquarters in New York
City on June 16 and
co-sponsored by the United
States Mission to the United
Nations and the United
Nations Office on Drugs and
Crime.
Take a look as some leading
media-makers and
policymakers debate coverage
of human trafficking. What
hinders good reporting on
human trafficking? What do
journalists fear when they
report on slaves and
slavery? Why cover the
subject in the first place?
What are the common
reporting mistakes and
missteps that can do more
harm than good to
trafficking victims, and to
government, NGO, and
individual efforts to end
the traffic of persons for
others' profit and pleasure?
Among the main points:
Panelists urged reporters
and editors to avoid
salacious details and
splashy, "sexy" headlines
that can prevent a more
nuanced examination of
trafficked persons' lives
and experiences.
Journalists lamented the
lack of solid data, noting
that the available
statistics are
contradictory, unreliable,
insufficient, and often
skewed by ideology.
As an example, the two
officials on the panel --
Ambassador Luis CdeBaca,
head of the U.S. Office to
Monitor and Combat
Trafficking in Persons, and
Under-Secretary-General
Antonio Maria Costa,
executive director of the
U.N. Office on Drugs and
Crime -- disagreed on the
number of rescued
trafficking victims. Costa
thought the number was
likely less than half
CdeBaca's estimate (from the
International Labour
Organization) of 50,000
victims rescued worldwide...
Read
the transcript
The
Huffington Post
July 15, 2010
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Chuck Goolsby |
LibertadLatina
Note:
In response to the above
article by the Huffington
Post, on the topic of press
coverage of the issue of
human trafficking, we would
like to point out that the
LibertadLatina
project came into existence
because of a lack of
interest and/or willingness
on the part of many (but not
all) reporters and editors
in the press, and also on
the part of government
agencies and academics, to
acknowledge and target the
rampant sexual violence
faced by Latina and
indigenous women and
children across both Latin
America and the Latin
Diaspora in the Untied
States, Canada, and in other
advanced economies such as
those of western Europe and
Japan.
Ten years after starting
LibertadLatina,
more substantial press
coverage is taking place.
However, the crisis of
ongoing mass gender
atrocities that plague Latin
America, including human
trafficking, community based
sexual violence, a gender
hostile living environment
and government and social
complicity (and especially
in regard to the region's
completely marginalized
indigenous and African
descended victims - who are
especially targeted for
victimization), continue to
be largely ignored or
intentionally untouched by
the press, official
government action, academic
investigation and NGO
effort.
Therefore we persist in
broadcasting the message
that the crisis in Latin
America and its Diaspora
cannot and will not be
ignored.
End impunity now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
July
21, 2010
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