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Indigenous & Latina Women & Children's Human
Rights News from the Americas |
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Latin America |
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Women & Children at Risk |
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Title: |
Spanish Police Arrest 14 in
Crackdown on Immigrant Prostitution Ring |
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(c) 2005 The
Associated Press |
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Publish Date: |
2005-06-06 |
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MADRID, Spain - Spanish police have arrested
14 people suspected of running a prostitution ring and human
trafficking, authorities said Saturday.
The group recruited hundreds of women coming mainly from Brazil. Gang
members arranged passports and air tickets to Spain, where the women
were persuaded and forced to work illegally as prostitutes in clubs in
the southern regions of Andalusia and Extremadura and then to hand over
their earnings, a police statement said.
The arrested include eleven Spaniards and three Brazilians, the
statement added. Some 54 women were also turned to immigration officials
and are awaiting deportation.
The suspects are also accused of extortion and abduction.
<<Associated Press WorldStream >>
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LibertadLatina
News /
Noticias |
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Updated:
May 20, 2010
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Peru
90%
de niñas madres fueron ultrajadas
Alarmante estadística. El 90 % de niñas peruanas
que dieron a luz, entre los 12 y 16 años, fueron
embarazadas producto de violación,
frecuentemente por incesto.
Estos datos brindados por la Organización
Panamericana de la Salud (OPS) fueron analizados
en el Congreso de la República por la Comisión
Especial Revisora de la Ley de Protección Frente
a la Violencia Familiar a fin de abordar las
causas y los efectos de esta realidad.
La congresista Olga Cribilleros (PAP),
coordinadora de la citada comisión, señaló que
si no se toma en cuenta el aspecto presupuestal,
no será posible realizar un real cambio de los
problemas de violencia familiar que se vive en
el país. Mencionó que la falta de personal
idóneo, jueces especializados así como recursos
para capacitación a docentes que desarrollen el
tema con contenidos adecuados dificultan la
lucha contra la violencia familiar. Sobre las
sanciones a los violadores, en Costa Rica, Perú
y Uruguay, bajo el Código Penal, se prevé que un
violador puede quedar libre si propone casarse
con su víctima y ella consiente. Al respecto, la
comisión estudia la legislación comparada de
otros países para elaborar el anteproyecto de la
nueva ley de protección frente a la violencia
familiar...
Ninety percent of young
adolescent mothers became pregnant due to rape
Some 90% of Peruvian girls who became pregnant
between the ages of 12 and 16 became pregnant
due to rape, often in situations of incest.
These statistics, provided by the Pan American
Health Organization (PAHO), have been analyzed
in the Congress of the Republic by the Special
Commission to Revise the Law of Protection
Against Family Violence. Their goal is to
understand the causes and effects of this
reality.
Congresswoman Olga Cribilleros, of the Partido
Aprista Peruano (PAP - Peruvian APRA Party), who
is the coordinator of the commission,
said that without [congressional] funding, it
would be impossible to bring about real changes
in the problem of family violence that exists in
the country.
She
added that
the lack of qualified personnel, specialized
judges and resources for training teachers to
develop relevant content for students all hinder
the fight against domestic violence.
In
regard to punishing rapists, the commission is
examining the laws of others nations. Commission
members note that under the penal codes of
Peru, Costa Rica, and Uruguay [not to mention
Mexico and other Latin American nations], a
rapist [even if the victim is age 12] can go
free if he proposes to marry his victim and she
consents.
To Gina Yañez, director of the Manuela Ramos
Movimient,
these statistics demonstrate that work should
begin immediately on this issue, especially in
school and family settings, so that victims know
what to do if they are raped.
According to
PAHO's study, 33% of women between 16 and 49
have been victims of sexual harassment, and at
least 45% have been threatened, insulted or have
had their personal property destroyed.
Diario la Primera
Peru
May 19, 2010
See also:
Young adolescent mothers
learn to love and care for their children at the
Chuka Chuka center.
In Peru it is not
uncommon for women to raise 5 or more children.,
each with a different biological father. What is
also common is for the mother’s latest companion
to rape the eldest daughters, often resulting in
pregnancy.
One expects a
reaction from the mother, but not the sort of
reaction that is so evident here in Peru. As a
result of the rape the mother feels shamed and
jealous and abandons her own daughter who is
often without the comfort of additional family
members for support and understanding.
These abandoned,
pregnant, adolescent rape victims
(‘adolescents’), often only thirteen or fourteen
years old face a dull future. They are without
money; support; homes and job prospects. Most
worrying of all, they are carrying an unborn
baby, who will enter a world where education
will not be available to them and their options
for a self-sustainable life non-existent.
It is not uncommon
for such desperate girls to drift into the sex
trade and drugs; further blighting their lives
and potential to contribute to society
Our mission: To
save as many of these girls and their unborn
children as we can, to prepare them for and
steer them into a richer more productive life
than they could have known without this project.
Chuka Chuka
See also:
Adolescent prostitution in
Lima, Peru
Video news report from Peru showing underage
prostitution in the capital city of Lima. Young
sex workers are shown sniffing glue, caring for
their toddlers in the prostitution zone late at
night, and negotiating with johns for the going
price of 20 Soles (US$7.00).
(In Spanish)
ATV
Posted on YouTube
Texas, USA
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Slain Houston Police Officer Rodney Johnson |
Businessman sentenced for harboring illegal alien cop-killer
A Houston, Texas landscaping business owner was sentenced to three months in prison and three months home confinement for harboring the illegal alien who molested a child and ultimately killed a Houston police officer in 2006, according to a report obtained yesterday by the National Association of Chiefs of Police.
The investigation was conducted by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Houston Police Department.
Robert Lane Camp, 47, the owner of Camp Landscaping in Deer Park, Texas, and now a convicted felon, was also sentenced to a five-year probationary term with special conditions by U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore. Camp pleaded guilty on Oct. 5, 2009, admitting that he knowingly harbored Juan Leonardo Quintero-Perez (Quintero), an illegal alien, by employing him and leasing a residence to him.
According to court documents, Camp employed Quintero in his landscape business. When Quintero was arrested and charged by the State of Texas with indecency with a child in 1998, Camp bonded Quintero out of jail and continued to employ him. Quintero was sentenced to a term of deferred adjudication for the state offense.
Quintero was deported in 1999, but illegally reentered the United States in Arizona, then flew to Houston. When Quintero returned to Houston, he resumed his employment with Camp. Camp also rented Quintero a home and listed Quintero's wife, a U.S. citizen, in government records as an employee instead of Quintero.
On Sept. 22, 2006, Quintero was arrested while driving a Camp company vehicle by Houston Police Officer Rodney Johnson. While sitting in the back seat of Officer Johnson's patrol car, Quintero retrieved a pistol hidden on his person, and shot and killed Officer Johnson. Quintero was convicted of capital murder in the 248th District Court of Harris County, Texas, and has been sentenced to life in prison.
Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police
The Examiner
May 12, 2010
LibertadLatina
Commentary
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Chuck Goolsby |
Issues that may not
(but should) be discussed during
Mexican President Felipe Calderón's May
19-20, 2010 visit
to Washington, DC
The May 19-20, 2010 visit of Mexico's
President Felipe Calderón
to the White House is being closely watched
in regard to how the U.S. will react to
Calderón's
speech before Congress. We know that the war
against drug cartels and immigration are top
on the agenda.
The issue of mass gender atrocities facilitated by state corruption,
complacency and criminal impunity are also critical issues in U.S. /
Mexican relations. While these topics are rarely discussed in the
mainstream English-language press, holding Mexico's federal
government accountable for defending the lives, integrity and
dignity of women and girls is just as important as addressing the
drug war and immigration. In fact, we believe that the U.S. press
needs to step up to the plate and ask both President Calderón
and President Obama about their commitment to saving women and girls
from mass kidnapping, mass rape and wholesale enslavement, which are
crimes that impact tens of thousands of women and children each year
in the Aztec Nation.
President Calderón
took a major positive step on April 14, 2010 by launching the
world's first nationally sponsored instance of the United Nations
Blue Heart Campaign Against Human Trafficking. Yet a day later,
Calderón's diplomats derided, in front of
the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the rape complaint of
indigenous victim
Inés
Fernández Ortega, who had been
gang raped by soldiers in 2002, with no effective response from the
Mexican civilian and military criminal justice systems.
We repeat here below our list of some of the most critical gender
rights issues that are not being addressed by the Calderón
administration.
**
During the past several years
LibertadLatina
has dedicated its efforts to bringing world
attention to the mass rapes, kidnappings and
enslavement of women, children and men that
occurs with almost total impunity in Mexico.
According to the Southern
Cone (southern South American) office of the
United Nations-affiliated International
Organization for Migration (IOM), an
estimated $16 billion of the $32 million in
annual profits created by the human slavery
industry globally are generated in Latin
America. That 50% 'share' of the criminal
marketplace for worldwide slavery victims
has never been responded to by the
engagement of 50% of the global
anti-trafficking movement's energy,
resources or focus.
That lack of attention,
together with the willingness of past U.S.
administrations to effectively ignore Latin
America's crisis in human slavery, allowed a
drug-profit fueled criminal industry to grow
exponentially in the region while the world
effectively looked the other way in apathy.
Mexico is home base for the
largest problems in Latin American human
trafficking.
We have decided to focus on
the crisis in Mexico because solving that
one single national emergency will have the
most positive impact on the entire regional
crisis.
In the United States, 60% of
U.S. trafficking victims are Latin American.
Most of them have been trafficked across the
Mexican border into the U.S.
The population
of Mexico (and especially its poor and
vulnerable Indigenous peoples), also suffer
immensely from modern slavery. In addition,
Central American migrants are kidnapped,
raped and trafficked by the many thousands
as they cross Mexico. Some are also
murdered.
Southern Mexico's narrow
border with Guatemala and Belize is the one
'bottleneck' where literally millions of
South and Central American migrants who seek
to travel to the United States must cross
into Mexico. Human traffickers and also
rapist thugs and robbers await these
innocent migrants like trolls under a
bridge. They rape an estimated 450 to 600
women and girls among these migrants every
single day of the year with complete
impunity on the Mexican side of its southern
border, with no discernable response from
Mexican officials and authorities. In fact,
police and military forces have harassed
migrants and their NGO caregivers. Many of
these victims are kidnapped (10,000 during a
6 month period, according to a study by
Mexico's National Human Rights Commission).
A number of those victims are sold into
slavery, often to be trafficked to brothels
in Mexico, the U.S. and Europe.
The NGO Save the Children has
described the southern border of Mexico as
being the largest region in the entire world
for the commercial sexual exploitation of
children. The city of Tapachula, for
example, has 20,000 persons engaging in
prostitution in its 1,500 bars and brothels.
Half of that number are children and
underage youth at any given time. Local
police don't interfere with this 'business,'
they focus on keeping child prostitutes away
from schools and upscale residential
neighborhoods.
Across Mexico, women, and
especially those from Mexico's traditionally
discriminated against Indigenous peoples,
who are 30% of the population, are also
raped with impunity. The perpetrators are
not only criminal thugs, but also military
soldiers engaged in the drug war. President
Calderón has steadfastly denied that any
problem exists with military rapes of
civilians, and he has refused to allow
accused soldiers to be tried in civilian
courts.
On April 15, 2010, one day
after the launch of the Blue Heart campaign,
President Calderón sent his federal lawyers
to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
to fight against
Inés
Fernández Ortega,
an Indigenous woman who was gang-raped by
soldiers in her home in 2002. The government
lawyers denied that any rape took place, and
blamed the victim for the lack of justice
(an assertion that women's rights activists
in Mexico are repulsed by).
Fernández Ortega, her family
and her lawyers have faced intimidation and
death threats. Her brother, a witness in her
case, was murdered shortly after she began
her now 8 year effort to find justice in her
case.
For Inés Fernández Ortega and
many other women victims of criminal
impunity in Mexico, the Inter-American Court
of Human Rights has become the venue of last
resort after having faced institutional
injustice, impunity, and a corrupt and
uncaring government response to their
plight.
During the 500 year period
since the Spanish conquest of Mexico,
Indigenous women have been easy target for
rapists and human traffickers. We who are
Indigenous know this history inside out, no
matter what corner of the Americas we hail
from.
What is an abomination in today's
world is the fact that in Mexico and across
much of Latin America, Indigenous women and
girls continue to be enslaved and brutalized
with the implied consent of national
governments. By extension, none of these
women can count on the protection of their
national governments and local police forces
in the face of such gender atrocities.
In Mexico, an estimated 3,000
to 4,000 Indigenous children and underage
youth have been kidnapped and then sold to
the Japanese Yakuza mafias, who then
transport the victims to Japan, where they
are enslaved as 'Geisha' prostitutes.
Despite the existence of this story during
the past several years, there are no visible
signs that either Mexico or Japan have ever
lifted a finger to rescue the victims.
In a
similar case, a reporter in Spain posed as a
pimp, and was offered 6 Mayan Indigenous
girls for sale. They were all 13-years-old.
The sale price was $25,000 each, because
Indigenous girl children were considered to
be "exotic" merchandise.
All of these issues are emergencies that
demand your immediate attention, President
Calderón. We call upon U.S. President
Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to raise
these important issues with Mexico.
The victims, and those at risk, await our
serious and effective efforts to defend and
rescue them now!
End impunity now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
May 20, 2010
California, USA
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Jacobo
Reyes |
Cops: Man Fondled Little Girl While She Slept
Police say the
suspect confessed to fondling five other girls
and women.
Santa Ana .-- Police have arrested a 47-year-old
man on suspicion of molesting an 11-year-old
girl in her bedroom in Santa Ana.
Jacobo Reyes was arrested Monday and is being
held without bail, according to Cpl. Anthony
Bertanga.
Santa Ana investigators linked him to the crime
with DNA evidence, Bertagna said.
Investigators asked Reyes to come in for
questioning about the Feb. 11 attack in the 300
block of South Newhope Street.
They arrested him after he confessed to fondling
up to five other girls and women ages 11 to 22
as they slept, Bertagna said.
In the Feb. 11 attack, police say Reyes climbed
into the girl's bedroom, gaining entry by
removing a screen in an unlocked window.
The girl could not describe her attacker because
it was too dark, but he left behind genetic
material that matched Reyes' DNA, Bertagna said.
Reyes was booked on suspicion of felony assault
to commit rape and burglary.
Prosecutors are reviewing the case and have not
yet charged him.
KTLA News
May 19, 2010
See also:
California, USA
Previously deported illegal alien admits to being serial molester
On Tuesday, police in Santa Ana arrested Roberto Jacobo Reyes, after DNA evidence linked him to the sexual assault of an 11-year-old girl in February. According to police, Reyes entered the girl’s bedroom through an unlocked window.
Under questioning for that crime, Reyes has reportedly admitted to having assaulted at least four other victims, ages 11-22, in the same manner.
Santa Ana Police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna told the LA Times: “His M.O. was to break into unsecured windows or unsecured doors.“
Reyes is currently being held in the Santa Ana City Jail on suspicion of felony assault to commit rape and burglary, while the Orange County district attorney prepares more charges.
In 2007, Reyes was deported back to Mexico after serving three years in prison for burglary. While in prison, his fingerprints linked him to a sexual assault.
In 1998, Reyes was arrested for DUI and driving without a license, he pleaded guilty and was ordered to pay a fine.
Past arrests also include charges for peeping and possession of stolen property.
Though an illegal alien with a criminal record, Reyes was working for a landscaping business in Santa Ana at the time of his latest arrest.
Dave Gibson
The Examiner
May 19, 2010
New York, USA
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Detective Oscar Sandino |
NYPD
Detective Oscar Sandino charged with demanding
sex from women he arrested
A New York Police Department (NYPD) narcotics
detective was charged Tuesday with preying on
women he arrested - on police property.
The alleged attacks by Detective Oscar Sandino
date to 2006 and could land the 13-year veteran
behind bars for three years if he's convicted on
federal charges.
His lawyer dismissed the accusations as "old
news" and questioned the credibility of the
women, one of whom has filed a lawsuit.
But federal prosecutors Pamela Chen and Licha
Nyiendo said the evidence that Sandino is more
perp than protector is "substantial and
irrefutable."
"The persistent and repetitive nature of the
defendant's misconduct demonstrates that he is a
sexual predator," they wrote in court papers.
They say that in August 2006, when he was
assigned to the Queens North Narcotics Bureau,
he coerced a woman into having sex with him in
exchange for help with her cousin's criminal
case.
In February 2008, while arresting a woman and
her boyfriend on drug charges, he took the woman
into a bedroom and forced her to undress, the
feds charge.
When he brought the woman to the 110th Precinct
stationhouse for booking, Sandino warned she
would lose her children unless she had sex with
him, prosecutors say.
Sandino allegedly took the woman into the
bathroom, ordered her to pull down her pants and
molested her.
"Wow, you have an earring down there," Sandino
said to the woman, according to a lawsuit she
filed.
The victim reported Sandino to the Internal
Affairs Bureau, and investigators gathered text
messages, phone records and secretly taped
conversations to corroborate the allegations.
In a third attack in September, Sandino
allegedly took a handcuffed woman arrested for
disorderly conduct into a room at Brooklyn
Central Booking and made her bare her breasts.
Sandino, 37, was charged with civil rights
violations and released on a $250,000 bond to be
co-signed by his estranged wife, who lives in
Arizona.
Defense lawyer Peter Brill claimed the Queens
district attorney had passed on prosecuting
Sandino because the second victim was not
credible.
John Marzulli
New York Daily
News
May 18, 2010
New Mexico, USA
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Juan Gonzalez |
Children, Youth and Families Department will report immigrant status of criminals
The state’s Children, Youth and Families Department will start reporting violent juvenile criminals who are foreign nationals to immigration authorities.
Governor Bill Richardson ordered the change after Juan Gonzalez, an illegal immigrant, was accused of molesting a 6-year-old girl at an Albuquerque fitness club earlier in May.
Gonzales has been in trouble for sex crimes twice in the past, before he turned 18. In both those cases, CYFD never told authorities Gonzales was in the country illegally.
Taryn Bianchin
KOB.com
May 18, 2010
See also:
New Mexico, USA
Man accused of molesting girl at gym faces judge
The man accused of molesting a young girl at a Midtown Albuquerque fitness club was in court on Thursday.
Twenty-year-old Juan Gonzalez, an illegal immigrant, appeared before a judge on sex assault charges.
Police say Gonzalez pinned a six-year-old girl against a wall at the Midtown Sports and Wellness near Carlisle and Menaul and began touching her sexually.
Police say Gonzalez told them he knew what he was doing was wrong, but said he has a problem.
Charlie Pabst
KOB.com
May 06, 2010
Pennsylvania, USA
Man accused of molesting 14-year-old girl is illegal alien
Bethlehem police said a 23-year-old man who allegedly had sex with a then 14-year-old girl is from Guatemala and illegally in the country.
Ivan Antonio Alvarez-Lopez, who last lived in New Jersey, met the girl, who is now pregnant with his child, according to police, through a mutual friend in September. The two talked on the phone until allegedly meeting in December at the Comfort Suites in South Side Bethlehem.
Police allege the two met there four times and had unprotected sex. Alvarez-Lopez knew the girl was 14, police said, and she knew he was from Guatemala.
Alvarez-Lopez was charged with sex crimes and referred to Immigration Customs Enforcement agents. He was sent to Northampton County Prison in lieu of $150,000 bail.
JD Malone
Lehigh Valley Live
May 13, 2010
California, USA
Border Patrol Agents Capture Three Sex Offenders in One Day
Calexico – U.S. Border Patrol agents assigned to the El Centro Sector apprehended three illegal aliens Wednesday who are convicted sex offenders.
One of the men was apprehended in the morning by agents from the El Centro station. Record checks revealed the man had previously been convicted of assault to commit rape and sex with a minor.
The other two men were apprehended in the afternoon, along with four other illegal aliens, near the downtown Calexico port of entry. Record checks revealed that one of the men had a conviction for unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor and that the other man had been convicted of sexual assault of a child.
All three men will be held at the Imperial County Jail pending prosecution proceedings.
Tribune Weekly Chronicle
May 05, 2010
Virginia, USA
One
man may be behind two recent Arlington attacks,
police say
One man may be behind two recent Arlington
attacks, police say Arlington police are looking
for a man they say sexually assaulted a woman
behind a restaurant on May 14.
A woman was walking behind a restaurant in the
2000 block of Wilson Boulevard around 10:50 pm
when a man grabbed her from behind, police said
in a Tuesday press release. He held her arm and
sexually assaulted her with his other hand,
according to police, then fled on foot after the
woman fought back.
The suspect was described as a "white Hispanic
male" who was about 5 ft. 7 in. tall with a
medium build, police said. He was wearing a
white chef's style jacket and dark pants.
The attack was similar to another one that took
place on May 8 in the 1800 block of N. Scott
St., police said.
Police ask anyone with information about these
attacks to call Detective Robert Icolari at
(703) 228-4240 or e-mail him. They can also call
the county's tip line at (703) 228-4242 or
Arlington County Crime Solvers at 866-411-TIPS
(8477).
David P.
Marino-Nachison
The Washington
Post
May 19, 2010
Mexico / The United States
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Mexican President Felipe Calderón will
address the Congress of the United States on Thursday,
May 20, 2010 |
Mexico's Calderon Needs to Listen, Not Just Lecture U.S.
Nine years have passed since a Mexican President last addressed the U.S. Congress. That was Vicente Fox, just days before 9/11, after which Al Qaeda's horrors all but erased Mexico from Washington's foreign policy radar. But, surprise, our southern neighbor's problems refused to go away. While we were fighting off an Iraqi insurgency, Mexico's drug war morphed into a ghastly narco-insurgency that threatens to spill over the Rio Grande. While we were dropping the ball on immigration reform, Mexico kept pouring undocumented workers into the U.S...
What's still missing is a real sense that Calderon takes seriously enough the only real long-term solution to Mexico's drug war: police reform. "Calderon has taken some positive steps to improve federal police," says Alberto Diaz-Cayeros, director of the U.S.-Mexico Studies Center at the University of California-San Diego. "But Mexico still doesn't have real investigative police forces." And in Mexico, where most cops moonlight for the cartels, the narcos seem more spooked by the prospect of more professional police than by the presence of more soldiers. Last month I interviewed the police director of Calderon's home state of Michoacan, who had just announced stricter recruitment criteria for cops. A week later her SUV was attacked by narco-hitmen with assault rifles and grenades. Miraculously, she survived, but her two bodyguards - who had watched the door during our interview - were killed.
Calderon also needs to prioritize another longer-lasting weapon: anti-poverty programs that give younger and poorer Mexicans economic opportunities beyond joining drug gangs. Mexicans in hard hit areas like Juarez are giving him an earful in that regard these days, and so should the U.S. - not just because it might blunt narco-recruiting, but because more social development efforts south of the border also mean fewer indocumentados crossing north of it. Immigration is as much foreign policy as it is domestic policy, and the U.S. has got to push both itself and Mexico's political class to do more to stanch the flow of illegals at the source, inside Mexico, instead of only at the border...
Given how feckless U.S. immigration reform efforts usually turn out to be, it seems all the more urgent that both sides do more to promote ways to keep Mexican workers in Mexico, like expanding microcredit programs. Those have proven a boon for small entrepreneurs in impoverished rural states like Oaxaca that are a major source of illegal migrants - and they'd be even more effective, Obama should remind Calderon, if Mexico didn't allow microlenders to charge interest rates that top an outrageous 70%, twice the world microfinance average...
That lack of meaningful competition, as well as an overreliance on the U.S market, is one reason the recession has hit Mexico's economy (which shrank about 7% last year) perhaps harder than any other in Latin America. And that doesn't bode well for the wars against drug traffickers and migrant smugglers. The most salient point Calderon will make to Congress is that the U.S. and Mexico are in this together. That means Washington needs to drop its insensitive disregard for problems south of the border - and Mexico City needs to drop its hypersensitive obsession with tossing blame for those headaches north of the border. If they do, they'll have something genuinely worthy to toast at the White House.
Tim Padgett
Time Magazine
May. 18, 2010
Texas, USA
|
 |
|
Eugenio Alejandro |
Man arrested for sexually assaulting 12-year-old in his home
A 51-year-old man was arrested Monday after police say he sexually assaulted a 12-year-old girl at his home. According to an arrest affidavit, the girl slept over at Eugenio Alejandro's house on the 200 block of E. Huebinger in Marion for a slumber party, when she woke up to him "penetrating her" with his hands.
"Oh sick!," exclaimed neighbor Gordon Dambow. "She's an innocent child, what could they do? A grown man, my goodness, picking on the innocent."
"A couple of nights in a row, there were a bunch of kids over," explained Cody Bodeau, who lives just across the street from Alejandro. "Every other night there were a bunch of kids and we were wondering why they were all there, and he'd be outside talking to them and hanging out with them."
Alejandro worked closely with children as a volunteer of the Marion Softball Pony League as an assistant coach. The League didn't want to talk to News 4 WOAI since they say they did not organize the slumber party, but say the allegations are a "complete shock".
"No one should ever harm a child," says resident Kathleen Beierly.
Marion is a town of a little more than a thousand residents, where many people know each other by name.
"It's bad because we're good people, and we love our children," added Beierly.
News 4 WOAI also did a background check of Eugenio Alejandro. Three years ago, he was arrested for domestic violence, and has also served time for a DUI, a DWI, and theft dating back almost 20 years.
He bonded out Tuesday, and still faces one count of aggravated sexual assault on a child, a first degree felony.
Janet Kwak
WOAI - San Antonio
April 15, 2010
Indiana, USA
Suspect sought in sex assault on 11-year-old
Indianapolis - An 11-year-old girl is recovering after a man assaulted her in a west side apartment building. It happened in the 3300 block of Heather Ridge Drive.
"My daughter will not be out," said one resident after hearing the news.
There's fear among parents living at Heather Ridge Apartments on the city's west side.
"There's no safe place anywhere, anymore," said Adam Bennett, a visitor.
Parents say this place seems even less safe after police say a man sexually assaulted an 11-year-old girl in an apartment building Thursday around 6:30 pm.
"Pretty scary situation, especially an 11-year-old, and this individual has a hand gun and basically points it to her head and sexually assaults her," said Lt. Jeff Duhamell, IMPD.
It happened inside a common area of the building where anyone could have come through.
"I heard about it on the radio and I immediately called my daughter and told her to be careful at the bus stop, to stand with the other girls. To not stand alone," said a worried mother.
Police say they're concerned, and that this is the type of crime where the suspect could strike again.
"He's probably done this before," said Lt. Duhamell. "We need to get this guy off the street right away."
Police say the man spoke in Spanish during the attack. Police describe their suspect as Hispanic, between the ages of 20 and 30, 5 feet, 8 inches tall and weighing about 160 pounds...
Police say a sketch of the suspect may be available in the next few days.
Anyone with information about this incident is urged to contact IMPD or Crime Stoppers at 262-TIPS.
WTHR
May 13, 20100
Florida, USA
Woman Escapes Attempted Kidnapping
Orlando police are searching for the man who tried to kidnap an 18-year-old woman while she was walking on a trail near the Mall at Millenia.
The woman told police she was walking along the trail near 4850 Millenia Blvd. around 8 p.m. Sunday when a Hispanic man grabbed her from behind and pulled her toward some bushes.
The victim was able to escape and suffered only minor scratches, police said...
Meanwhile, police are still searching for a man who raped a woman in front of Lake Eola in downtown Orlando early Friday morning.
WKMG
May 17, 2010
Southwest USA
U.S. Border Patrol Weekly Blotter: May 6 - 12, 2010
Excerpt
May 6, 2010 - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Sheffield, Texas. Records checks revealed the subject had a prior conviction for aggravated sexual assault of a child in the state of Tennessee, indecent liberties with a child in the state of North Carolina, and had been previously removed from the United States.
May 6, 2010 - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Honduras near Gila Bend, Arizona. Records checks revealed the subject had a prior conviction for aggravated sexual assault of a child and had been previously removed from the United States.
U.S. Border Patrol
May 12, 2010
Arizona, USA
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Karley Saucedo |
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Suspects: Jose Luna Valenzuela (left),
Oscar Grijalva and Sergio Castaneda |
Police rescue Phoenix woman kidnapped during home invasion
A 22-year-old Phoenix woman who was kidnapped during a home invasion has been freed from her captors.
Police said the suspects were armed with handguns and demanded drugs and money when they forced their way into a home near 59th Avenue and Indian School Road on May 5. When they didn't get what they wanted, they took Karley Saucedo and an SUV and left.
Following a week of negotiations and surveillance, Phoenix police officers and detectives were able to free Saucedo from a home near Baseline Road and 47th Avenue.
Saucedo, who has the mental capacity of an 11- or 12-year-old, is back with her family. She reportedly was not injured.
Six people have been arrested on charges including kidnapping, extortion, armed robbery, aggravated assault and vehicle theft. They have been identified as Oscar Grijalva, 18; Sergio Castaneda, 17; Jose Luna-Valenzuela, 22; Hilda Gutierrez, 29; Carlos Aguilar, 28; and a 17-year-old boy, who was booked into Juvenile Corrections.
"This was a sophisticated group of naturalized citizens and illegal aliens who chose to prey on vulnerable victims for monetary gain," Phoenix police Detective James Holmes said.
Jennifer Thomas
Fox 11
May 14, 2010
Arizona, USA
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Mayor Phil Gordon of Phoenix, Arizona speaks at Harvard
University - Feb, 5, 2010
Photo:
Matthew W. Hutchins |
Phoenix mayor paints disturbing picture of immigrant experience
[Latino]
Mayor Phil Gordon of Phoenix, speaking at Harvard Law School on February 5th, said that the steady flow of illegal immigrants into his city has created a crisis situation that is extremely dangerous for local law enforcement and a devastating drain on the city's budget. Although by statistical measures Phoenix is one of the safest cities in the United States, it has experienced a wave of kidnapping and violent crimes that have challenged its law enforcement capacity.
The problem, said Mayor Gordon, is the violent behavior of the "coyotes" involved in human trafficking operations across the nearby Mexican border and who regularly kidnap, torture, rape and kill those who do not comply with their extortion, sometimes forcing captives to dig their own graves while awaiting either freedom or death.
According to Gordon, over 20,000 people, including women and children, have been rescued by Phoenix police over the last three years from "drop houses" where dozens or even hundreds are held captive or even tortured, sometimes in the midst of ordinary suburban neighborhoods…
Gordon said that the fight against the coyotes' organized crime has forced the city to hire over 600 additional police officers, many to replace the 100 full-time officers assigned to federal task forces investigating violent criminals and 50 officers embedded undercover in federal operations. The cost to Phoenix of employing these 150 officers, over $15 million dollars a year, is not reimbursed by the federal government and threatens to force reductions in city services like libraries and after school programs…
Gordon expressed urgent concern about the state of immigration law in the United States. He believes that immediate action is necessary to reform immigration policy and assist burdened local police. "I couldn't and wouldn't stay silent any longer, not only because of the economic costs, but also because of the cost in human suffering."
Matthew W. Hutchins
The Harvard Law Record
Feb. 12, 2010
Indiana, USA
Neighbors offer clues in sexual assault of girl, 11
Indianapolis Metro Police are searching for a predator who sexually assaulted an 11-year-old girl at gunpoint . It happened around 6:30 Thursday night at a west side apartment complex.
The little girl was treated at Riley Hospital for Children and released. Her father told 24-Hour News 8 she was able to give police a detailed description of the attack.
The little girl lives at the Heather Ridge Apartments located in the 3300 block of Heather Ridge Drive. The complex is filled with families with young children...
Police believe the attacker, driving a late-model, red, extended-cab Nissan pickup, asked the girl for directions. Police believe he then followed her inside the building's common area and attacked her.
Police have provided a picture of a truck like the one suspect was driving.
Neighbor Michelle Wells said she had seen the truck before, as had her sister.
A male resident named Nate nodded, saying he'd seen it too...
"They usually will do drive-bys and look around. And then when they see the opportunity, they'll act on it," said IMPD spokesman, Lt. Jeff Duhamell.
Police believe the suspect is a 20 to 30 year old Hispanic man who is 5'6" to 5'9" and 160 pounds. He was last seen wearing a red shirt with a white stripe, blue jeans, and work boots. He spoke to the little girl only in Spanish.
Police urge residents or anyone with any information to call Crime Stoppers at 262-TIPS.
Deanna Dewberry
WISH
May 14, 2010
Texas, USA
Accused sexual assault suspect arrested in Temple park
Temple - A man wanted by authorities for an alleged sexual assault was arrested early Friday morning after he was located violating a park curfew.
Rufino Hernandez-Ramirez, 23, of Temple, was stopped by officers around 1 a.m. at Miller Park, located at 1919 North 1st Street, for reportedly violating the park curfew.
The suspect reportedly provided a false name, however, after the officer properly identified Hernandez-Ramirez, it was discovered he had an outstanding warrant for Aggravated Sexual Assault of a Child.
The alleged assault occurred in June 2008 in Temple.
Hernandez-Ramirez was arrested and transported to the Bell County Jail.
He is charged with Failure to Identify Fugitive Intent Give False Information and Motion to Revoke Probation, along with his initial charge of Aggravated Sexual Assault of a Child.
KXXV
May 14, 2010
California, USA
Kidnapping, Attempted Assault Reported In Woodland
The Woodland Police Department is searching for a suspect who allegedly kidnapped and attempted to rape a woman in Yolo County.
Authorities said the alleged victim said she was walking on West Street near Buckeye Street on Saturday morning when a man drove up in a newer-model black SUV and asked her for directions. As she spoke with him, he pulled out a gun and ordered the woman into the car, authorities said.
The victim said he drove her into a wooded area near Interstate 5 and County Road 98 and ordered her to remove her clothes. When she resisted, the man attempted to drag her from the car, authorities said, but the victim was able to break free and run to Interstate 5, where she flagged down a car and asked for help.
The victim was not seriously injured in the incident.
The suspect is described as a Hispanic male in his late 20s or early 30s. He is 5'4" to 5'6", weighs about 160 to 180 pounds, with short black hair and a thin mustache. He also reportedly had two silver caps on his front teeth.
Anyone with information about the crime is asked to call the Woodland Police Department at (530) 661-7800.
CBS 13
May 15, 2010
Pennsylvania, USA
Men harass girls going to school in York City
York City Police are asking for the public’s help in identifying two men who have been harassing girls on their way to school.
Lt. Tim Utley, who supervises the detective bureau, said there have been three such incidents reported in the past several weeks. The girls were on their way to William Penn Senior High School and were in the area of the 500 block of South Duke Street when they were harassed, he said.
The two men are in a newer-model gray sedan, Utley said; they are Hispanic, in their 30s and, in the latest incident, were wearing black T-shirts and black hats.
Anyone with information on their identities is urged to call city police at 846-1234, or the department’s anonymous crime tip line, 849-2204.
Elizabeth Evans
York Dispatch
May 14, 2010
The United States / The World
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U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder
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Attorney General Eric Holder Speaks at the National Conference on Human Trafficking
Arlington, Virginia -
...For today’s Justice Department, our work to pursue human trafficking investigations and prosecutions and to support those who serve and assist victims is not simply a top priority. It’s also a source of great pride. Much of this work is being led by our Civil Rights Division and its specialized Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit. Three years ago, this unit was established to consolidate expertise and to improve coordination between the many critical partners needed to bring traffickers to justice and to protect and empower victims.
In a short time, this unit has achieved remarkable success in increasing both the number and impact of human trafficking prosecutions. It has dismantled organized human trafficking networks operating in multiple jurisdictions and across international borders. And it has achieved justice for many, including undocumented migrants who’ve seen their hopes of a better life destroyed; documented guest workers who’ve been deceived, threatened and frightened into captivity; women and children who’ve been forced into prostitution; and young Americans who’ve been exploited in their own county by traffickers preying on their vulnerabilities. These are extraordinary accomplishments.
But our Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit isn’t working alone. It is supported and strengthened by our Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, our Office of International Affairs, our Organized Crime and Racketeering Section, our Office of Justice Programs and its Office for Victims of Crime, as well as the FBI. In addition, the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys and U.S. Attorneys’ Offices across the country are providing critical leadership in bringing human traffickers to justice. Later in this conference, you’ll be hearing from some of the Assistant U.S. Attorneys who were on the front lines of major human trafficking prosecutions...
Today, some of our most critical partnerships have been established beyond our nation’s borders. We’re working closely with authorities in other countries to extradite fugitive defendants, protect victims’ families, obtain evidence of criminal activity, and combat trafficking networks that operate across international lines. A leading example of this is our recent work with Mexico. The Departments of Justice and Homeland Security have collaborated closely with our Mexican counterparts on a bilateral enforcement initiative aimed at dismantling the trafficking networks that operate across our Southwest border. Although this initiative is in its early stages, it has already produced promising results for both countries – including measurable increases in the number of defendants apprehended, cases prosecuted and victims rescued.
The benefits of such international partnerships are clear. By working with our foreign allies, we’ve succeeded in liberating Jamaican tree-cutters from shacks in New Hampshire; Filipino workers from chain motels in South Dakota; Eastern European women from strip clubs in Detroit; Vietnamese garment workers from American Samoa; Peruvian factory workers – including children – from traffickers on Long Island; and young girls from Togo and Ghana – some just 10 years old – from toiling around the clock without pay in hair salons in New Jersey.
But despite these achievements, there is much more work to be done. Meeting the civil rights challenges of the 21st century will require us to identify new enforcement strategies, to forge new partnerships, and to provide more support for victim service providers. But we should all be encouraged that the global movement to end human trafficking has received unprecedented attention and resources, as well as unprecedented political support...
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder
U.S. Department of Justice
2010 National Conference on Human Trafficking
May 3, 2010
See also:
The United States
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U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis
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2010 DOJ National Conference on Human Trafficking - Remarks of Hilda Solis, U.S. Secretary of Labor
The TVPA Decade: Progress and Promise
...Thank you for the invitation to speak at this national conference on human trafficking - an issue I care deeply about.
I also want to thank Attorney General Eric Holder for his leadership on this issue.
Ten years after the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, we are even more committed to the conference's goal of disseminating best practices for prosecuting human trafficking and assisting victims.
The Department of Labor's commitment to fighting human trafficking comes from its long history of working to protect and assist vulnerable workers, some of whom may have been trafficked into forced labor.
As one of my priorities, the Department of Labor is engaged both domestically and internationally to better serve and protect vulnerable workers.
Labor trafficking puts women, children, and men in the most extreme forms of workplace exploitation.
It leads to situations where people are denied not only their wages, but their human rights.
Our efforts to ensure that workers are afforded all of their rights under the law include initiatives that help to combat human trafficking in all of its forms…
Trafficking victims are the most vulnerable workers in this country.
As a state senator in California, I learned first-hand how 72 Thai workers in my own district, worked for seven years in virtual slavery in a sweatshop with boarded up windows and fences covered with razor wire making garments until they were freed by law enforcement - and several hundred Latinos were not paid minimum wage or over-time.
As a member of Congress, I was involved in passing House Resolution condemning the murders of victims of human trafficking and labor abuse in Cuidad Juarez, Mexico.
These women worked in slave-like conditions and then brutally killed through no fault of their own.
These are the individuals whom we all have a duty to help and protect.
This focus on protecting the most vulnerable workers in today's economy is why I have bolstered the enforcement staff in all of my agencies.
I have already added 250 investigators in the Wage and Hour Division alone.
And I'm not done yet!...
Violence in the workplace or trafficking for the sake of monetary gain is unconscionable.
No nation does or should get ahead at the peril of its workers.
U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis
2010 DOJ National Conference on Human Trafficking
May 3, 2010
See also:
LibertadLatina
Commentary
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Chuck Goolsby |
Giving Latin America its
rightful place at the table in U.S. anti-trafficking efforts
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has come a long way from 1995, when I first
toured the DOL Women's Bureau, passed out my 1994 report (see below) and
discussed the rampant workplace sexual exploitation of Latin American immigrant
women with staff. No Spanish language staff was available for their recently
opened hotline at that time.
Approximately 5 years ago, a DOL analyst told me that she used
LibertadLatina
as a source for her research into Latina workplace exploitation issues.
Around 7 years ago, I gave then Represen-tative
Hilda Solis a
LibertadLatina
business card at a Congressional luncheon on
human trafficking, where I also gave around 200 congressional staffers copies of
the
LibertadLatina
newsletter.
At the May 3, 2010 session of the annual federal government Human
Trafficking Conference, Attorney General Eric Holder and U.S. Labor Secretary
Hilda Solis made some of the first official public pronouncements
by U.S. Government officials
acknowledging that
a Latin American component to the global human trafficking crisis exists.
Although prosecutions, and work by State Department Trafficking in Persons
director Ambassador Luis CdeBaca prior to his assuming his current post have
touched upon the issue of Latin American victims, the U.S. Federal Government
has yet to state a clear response to the fact that, as Ambassador CdeBaca noted
in a December 2009 interview, some 60% of U.S. human trafficking victims come to
the U.S. from Latin America. Most of those enslaved persons were trafficked over
the U.S./ Mexican border.
In addition, the United Nations affiliated International organization for
Migration (IOM) in the Southern Cone region of South America estimates that
Latin American human trafficking alone generates $16 billion dollars in annual
revenues, amounting to an estimated 50% of global trafficking profits.
However we look at the situation, Latin America's
crisis of
modern day slavery cannot be minimized,
nor can it be ignored.
We at
LibertadLatina have
persistently requested that the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama
speak out publicly on this issue, especially to demand that Mexico apply the
rule of law to the current nationwide environment of lawless impunity that allows mass gender
atrocities to occur on an ongoing basis. That is a violent crime wave that has
impacts throughout the
United States.
The pronouncements by Ambassador CdeBaca in December of 2009, and the May 3,
2010
statements by Secretary Solis and Attorney General Holder represent a start
towards achieving full federal accountability for U.S. responses to the human trafficking crisis that
today damages Latin American women, children and men both in Latin America and across
the U.S. and the rest of the world.
Keep up the good work!
We will proceed to view progress on this issue from the perspective of "trust,
but verify."
The victims, and those at risk, await our serious and effective efforts to
rescue and protect them today!
End impunity now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
May 12/13, 2010
See also:
Chuck Goolsby’s Case File # 1: The Sexual Exploitation of
Latina Women and Girls at Computer Data Systems, Inc.
1992-1994.
* Your tax dollars at work supporting a
sexist federal contractor.
* Sexual harassment, quid-pro-quo sexual demands and sexual assault with
impunity in the low-wage American workplace.
...The below case relation is completely factual. The events may seem startling
for the average reader, but this case account tells a story that is happening
every night in America in many office cleaning jobs, hotel jobs, restaurant and
fast-food jobs, retail stores and other low-wage work places.
During… 1995, I presented detailed information about this… case and several
equally serious episodes of the severe sexual harassment of Latina workers to… the…
U.S. Department of Labor Women's Bureau's "Low Wage Worker's Conference" in
Washington, DC, where the author passed out his 1994 report to Women's Bureau
officials and conference participants...
While the U.S. Department of Labor Women's Bureau never responded to the author
in regard to his 1994 report, the director of Women's Bureau who followed the
1994 incumbent, Ms. Ida Castro, did make public statements to the press in the
late 1990's referring to DOL's recognition of the issue of the exploitation of
immigrant women in low wage jobs.
Chuck Goolsby
1995
See also:
Chuck Goolsby’s 1994 report: The Sexual and Economic
Exploitation of Latin American Immigrant Women in Montgomery County, Maryland
Chuck Goolsby
March, 1994
See also:
Added: May 13, 2010
USA / The World
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A girl sits in a windowless garage where
she was kept for two years. Purchased at the age of 10,
she worked as much as 20 hours per day as domestic help.
Photo: U.S. State Department |
Working To End Human Trafficking
"Modern slavery exists in communities and cultures spanning the globe."
"Human trafficking has become big business – generating billions of dollars each year through the entrapment and exploitation of millions," said U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on May 3rd, at the National Conference on Human Trafficking. "Almost every country in the world is affected, either as a source or destination for victims."
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, human trafficking is the fastest-growing crime in the world, and is second in financial scope only to the sale of illegal drugs. It occurs in every state in the U.S. and every country in the world. It is a global problem, and as such, it demands a global solution.
That is why the U.S. is "partnering with authorities in other countries to extradite fugitive defendants, protect victims' families, obtain evidence of criminal activity, and combat trafficking networks that operate across international lines," said Attorney General Holder.
"By working with our foreign allies, we've succeeded in liberating Jamaican tree-cutters from shacks in New Hampshire; Filipino workers from chain motels in South Dakota; Eastern European women from strip clubs in Detroit; Vietnamese garment workers from American Samoa; Peruvian factory workers – including children – from traffickers on Long Island; and young girls from Togo and Ghana from toiling around the clock without pay in hair salons in New Jersey," said Attorney General Holder.
" We . . . . know that modern slavery exists in communities and cultures spanning the globe," said Ambassador-at-large Luis CdeBaca director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. "It is a fluid phenomenon, responding to market demands, vulnerabilities in laws, weak penalties, natural disasters, and economic instability.
"No country, including the United States, has attained a sophisticated or truly comprehensive response to this massive, ever-increasing, ever-changing crime. . . . Every country is still learning what trafficking is and what works in response to it . . . . The vast majority of people enslaved today around the world have yet to see any progress.
"We must devote ourselves to never again letting a generation go by without forward progress," said Ambassador CdeBaca. "Working toward a world without modern slavery is no doubt a bold proposition, but it is one that we must work toward."
Voice of America
May 13, 2010
Mexico
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Margaret Sekaggya, UN Special Rapporteur on the
situation of human rights defenders (right), with Bety Cariño
- February 2010. |
Llama ONU a gobierno mexicano a garantizar labor de las y los defensores de DH
“Deteriorada su situación”, condena asesinato de activistas en Oaxaca
La Organización de Naciones Unidas (ONU), a través de cuatro de sus Relatorías,
expresó su preocupación por la deteriorada situación de las y los defensores de
derechos humanos en México y condenó firmemente los recientes asesinatos de la
defensora Beatriz Alberta Cariño Trujillo y del observador internacional Jyri
Antero Jaakkola.
En un comunicado de prensa, difundido por la Oficina del Alto Comisionado de las
Naciones Unidas para los Derechos Humanos, el organismo internacional advirtió
que las y los defensores de derechos humanos “enfrentan graves amenazas contra
sus vidas a consecuencia de su trabajo”.
El grupo de expertos y experta de la ONU hizo un llamado al gobierno mexicano
para “tomar las medidas que sean necesarias para proteger el derecho a la vida y
la seguridad de las y los defensores de los derechos humanos en el país contra
todo tipo de violencia y acción arbitraria que se produzca como consecuencia del
ejercicio legítimo de sus actividades.”
Exigen Investigación Pronto e Imparcial
Margaret Sekaggya, Relatora Especial sobre la situación de los Defensores de los
Derechos Humanos, manifestó su “profunda preocupación” por el deterioro de la
situación de las y los defensores de los derechos humanos en México, en especial
las mujeres y las personas defensoras que trabajan en temas relacionados con las
comunidades indígenas.
Además condenó los hechos ocurridos el 27 de abril en la zona triqui de San Juan
Copala, en Oaxaca, cuando una misión de observación de los derechos humanos
sufrió una emboscada por parte de paramilitares, lugar donde fue asesinada,
Beatriz Alberta Cariño Trujillo, defensora y directora del Centro de Apoyo
Comunitario Trabajando Unidos (CACTUS) y donde también murió Jyri Antero
Jaakkola...
CIMAC Women's News Agency
May 12, 2010
See also:
Mexico
Human rights defenders continue to pay with their lives in Mexico, warn UN experts
Geneva - A group of United Nations independent experts* warned about the deteriorating situation for human rights defenders in Mexico, strongly condemning the recent killing of human rights defender Ms. Beatriz Alberta (Bety) Cariño Trujillo and the international observer Mr. Tyri Antero Jaakkola in Oaxaca, south east Mexico.
“Defenders continue to face significant threats to their lives in Mexico as a result of their work,” said Margaret Sekaggya, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders. “We are deeply concerned about the deteriorating situation for human rights defenders in the country, including women and human rights defenders working on issues related to indigenous communities.”
On 27 April 2010, Bety Cariño and Tyri Antero Jaakkola were part of a mission to monitor human rights in Oaxaca when they were ambushed by paramilitaries and killed. Several other human rights defenders and journalists suffered injuries. Four other members of the mission, including two journalists of the magazine Contralínea, spent two days in a forest following the attack, before being rescued by the police on 30 April.
“The situation in Mexico is extremely complex and no-one could doubt the gravity of the challenges confronting the Government in its fight against the drug cartels” added Philip Alston, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. “But there is no justification for failing to take strong steps when human rights defenders, journalists and others are killed. Human rights must not be permitted to be a casualty in the fight against drugs and crime.” ...
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
May 12, 2010
Mexico
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Puebla state legislators work on drafting
human trafficking law |
Detallan legisladores apartados de la Ley de Trata de Personas
[Puebla -]
Los representantes populares afinaron detalles y pactaron reunirse el próximo 18 de mayo para aportar mayores elementos en el sentido de los criterios de sanciones penales para la construcción de la Ley de Trata de Personas.
Dicha reunión contó con la asistencia de Diputados y personal de la Dirección Jurídica del órgano colegiado, quienes acordaron mantener 14 verbos en la iniciativa, como son: inducir, procurar, promover, reclutar, captar, conseguir, transportar, trasladar, recibir, entregar, entre los que destaca solicitar, facilitar, ofrecer y mantener...
Legislators
Develop Details of New Human Trafficking Bill
[Puebla state -]
Members of Congress have met to work out details of a new
legislative proposal to address the problem of human trafficking.
The working group has agreed to reconvene on May 18th to
further elaborate the criteria for criminal penalties.
The meeting
which was attended by members of the Congressional Chamber of
Deputies including specialists in criminal law. The group agreed to
maintain language that address 14 terms are pertinent to the bill:
induce, procure, promote, recruit, capture, obtain, transport,
traffic, receive, deliver, solicit, facilitate, offer and maintain.
The forms used
to commit human trafficking crimes were also discussed, and will be
expressed as sections of the law related to: deprivation of the
freedom, physical violence, moral violence, deceit, abuse authority,
taking advantage of a situation of vulnerability, concession, and
receipt of payments or benefits.
Puebla Hoy
May 12, 2010
Arizona, USA
ICE: Salvadoran kids held in Phoenix
Phoenix - Federal authorities say they have rescued three Salvadoran children who were being held hostage by suspected human smugglers in the Phoenix metropolitan area.
Authorities believe the children's parents live in Washington, D.C., and paid $13,000 to have the children smuggled into the country.
They say the children - who range in age from 11 to 15 - arrived in Phoenix in late April and the smugglers refused to release them unless the parents paid an additional $6,500. Once that extra fee was paid, the smugglers then demanded another $7,000 and the parents called authorities.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents say the children were left at a business in west Phoenix and appeared to be in good health when they were rescued Tuesday. They say an investigation into the smuggling scheme is continuing.
The Associated Press
May 11th, 2010
Costa Rica / Nicaragua
Couple Charged With Slavery Of Their Nicaraguan Domestic Employee
She was sixteen when she came to Costa Rica from her native Nicaragua with the promise of work. Yesterday, at the age of 22, the girl, now a woman, was rescued from being a domestic slave for the last six years.
The woman was identified by her last names Centeno Barrera, was brought to Costa Rica from her hometown of Matagalpa by a Nicaraguan couple living in Santo Domingo de Heredia, Costa Rica.
The couple, identified as Portobanco Torres (wife) and Medina Kraudy (husband) would keep their domestic employee/slave locked up in the house when they went out, work, shopping, etc.
The young woman didn't have any way of communication with the outside world until she was able to contact
neighbors through the window of the house where she was kept in slavery.
The [Judicial Investigations Agency] (OIJ) took the call from neighbors seriously and began an investigation that resulted in a raid of the home on Monday.
Jorge Rojas, director of the OIJ, said the couple have been charged with "trata de personas" ([human] slavery).
"We raided the home and the young woman told us she had been held captive for the last six years", Rojas told the press.
Apparently, the young woman told authorities that she was never received pay for her services.
The couple have denied the accusations against them, saying it is all a lie made up by the young woman.
"The neighbors made a spectacle of the situation, we brought her here by land from Nicaragua to give her a better future. We paid half her salary to her, the other half sent to her mother in Nicaragua, here she has no family or documents, she is alone", said the employer.
"Several times we took her to the Parque de Diversiones [amusement park] so that she could play with my daughter, she never left the house alone because she didn't want to, the doors were always open to her. Many times when I came home from work I would find her sleeping, leaving her keys on the door, she was never locked up", the woman said.
The couple, after the arrest, were released on bail having to sign in at the local courthouse every two weeks and had to surrender their passport and not have any contact with the victim or her family.
This case is typical of many situations where Nicaraguans come to Costa Rica in search for work and find themselves in slave like conditions, though not to such extremes.
Many young Nicaraguan girls, some under age, make their way to Costa Rica with the consent and blessings of their families back home, in the hopes of better their (the family's) economic condition, as salaries and job opportunities in Costa Rica are much better than up north...
In past year Costa Rica has passed legislation giving domestic employees - both foreign and national - rights that include a decent workplace, work hours and pay.
Inside Costa Rica
May 11, 2010
Louisiana, USA
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Jose Moreno and Luis Nava,Gonzalo Cortes, Esdras Garcia
(Left top to right bottom) |
Four Mexican nationals charged with rape, murder of Louisiana woman
On Sunday, less than 24 hours after the lifeless body of Angela Laudun, 33, was discovered in a remote area, Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Deputies arrested and charged four Mexican nationals with her rape and murder.
According to the sheriff’s office, around 2:00 a.m., Saturday, the woman voluntarily left a Galliano bar with the men, at which time they drove her to a nearby house. Apparently, Laudin became concerned for her safety and tried to leave, but the men held her down and took turns raping her.
At some point, during the ordeal, she was strangled to death.
The men, then allegedly placed the woman’s body in their SUV, eventually dumping her in a heavily wooded area. A few hours later, the body was discovered by a man doing some work on his property.
Gonzalo Portillo Cortes, 20; Esdras Sanchez Garcia, 21; Louis Nava, 28; and Jose Castille Mareno, 23, have all been charged with aggravated rape and first-degree murder.
All four suspects work for Quality Shipyard in Houma, La., and while their employer claims that the men presented valid documents prior to their employment, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has placed a hold on them.
The alleged assailants are Mexican nationals and their interrogations had to be conducted in Spanish. They are currently being held in the Lafourche Parish Detention Center.
Dave Gibson
The Examiner
May 11, 2010
Maryland and Florida, USA
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Jose Alexander Menjivar |
DNA helps uncover suspected serial rapist
Evidence from 2003 city cold case led to four others
He almost disregarded the DNA evidence.
The elderly victim of the 2003 home invasion and sexual assault in Annapolis died three years ago.
Without her testimony at trial, David Cordle, chief investigator for the Anne Arundel County State's Attorney's Office, knew prosecutors could never secure a conviction.
But still, Cordle recalled, he knew the suspect's name; he had an un-served warrant in a file and a full DNA profile ready to be submitted to the FBI's Combined DNA Data Index System.
Maybe - just maybe, he thought - the evidence would help solve another rape case.
"I was this close to not entering the evidence," Cordle said last week, holding his right thumb and forefinger together. "I am sure glad I did."
Because he did, cold case investigators are now asking for the public's help in locating a suspected illegal immigrant they believe was behind five sexual assaults between February 2002 and December 2005 in Maryland and Florida.
With the evidence from the 2003 assault of an 81-year-old woman inside her Annapolis home, Cordle explained, police were able to crack another case in Annapolis as well as one in West Palm Beach, Fla., and another two in Orlando, Fla.
Jose Alexander "Alex" Menjivar, 37, formerly of 1033 Martha Court in Annapolis and 1649 Fairhill Drive in Edgewater, is charged by name in two of the assaults and wanted for questioning in the others, police said. Detectives with the Orange County Sheriff's Office in Florida also have a warrant for a "John Doe" with Menjivar's DNA.
William Johns, a civilian investigator with city police and the other half of the city's cold case squad, explained DNA linked Menjivar to four of the attacks - including both of those reported in Annapolis. A fifth rape in Orlando was committed in such a similar fashion that detectives believe the same man must be behind it as well.
"It's just simply amazing we got so many matches," Johns said last week after outlining some of the details behind the five rapes and illustrating Menjivar's alleged progression down the East Coast. He noted that without the DNA evidence police would never have been able to connect the crimes.
"You wonder how many more cases are sitting on shelves waiting to be solved," Johns said.
"It shows you in cold cases you can't assume or presume anything," Cordle said.
The five cases
According to cold case investigators, police believe Menjivar is behind five violent sexual assaults. The attacks occurred on:
Feb. 16, 2002: A 22-year-old woman was assaulted inside her home on Copley Court in Annapolis...
March 23, 2003: An 81-year-old woman was assaulted inside her home on Tiburon Court in Annapolis...
Nov. 27, 2004: A 29-year-old female cab driver was assaulted in Orlando...
Jan. 30, 2005: A female cab driver was assaulted in Orlando...
Dec. 16, 2005: A 30-year-old woman was assaulted outside a West Palm Beach nightclub...
Detective Nichole Addazio with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office said they have known the same man was behind their assault and at least one of the ones in Orange County since 2005, but they were surprised to hear their attacker had assaulted two more women in Annapolis. She said she had mixed emotions when she got the notification.
"I was horrified to learn there was another case, but I was elated to know we had a suspect," she said...
Menjivar is Hispanic, about 5 feet 8 inches tall and 150 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. While in Maryland, he worked as a landscaper. Anyone with information about Menjivar, these attacks or any other attacks that may be related should contact Cordle or Johns at the Anne Arundel State's Attorney's Office at 410-222-1740.
Scott Daugherty
Hometown Annapolis
May 09, 2010
Colorado, USA
Denver Police Search For Child Enticement Suspect
Denver police would like the help locating a suspect in a possible child enticement that happened on Tuesday.
Sonny Jackson with Denver police said a 14-year old girl was walking in the 1400 block of Ivy Street when she noticed a vehicle that she described as a dirty white van without windows. It had what appeared to be decorative ladders on the back.
"The driver called out to the victim, possibly trying to get her into the vehicle. She continued to walk and the suspect parked the van and continued attempting to contact her," Jackson said in a prepared statement.
The driver of the van was described as a clean-shaven Hispanic male about 5-foot-7 with a thin build wearing a white t-shirt and burgundy and black pants with black boots.
Anyone with information is asked to call Denver police at (720) 913-2000. Remain anonymous and call Crime Stoppers at (720) 913-STOP (7867).
CBS
May 11, 2010
Nevada, USA
Reno Police Search for Attempted Abduction Suspect
Police need your help finding a man they say tried to abduct a teen girl near a Reno school Tuesday morning.
Police say around 8:20am, a 15-year-old girl was walking between buildings at the Coral Academy of Science on East Ninth Street when she was approached by a man. They spoke briefly before he grabbed her arm. Officers say the suspect then tried to pull her away but she screamed and eventually ran away.
The man ran west from the area.
The school was placed on lockdown for about two hours.
The suspect is described as Hispanic, about 21 years old, 5'10" with a thin build, shaved head and clean shaven face. He was wearing a black ‘hoodie' sweatshirt, brown Dickie pants and white shoes.
Police say the man has been seen in the general area before so he may live in the area.
The girl was not hurt.
If you have any information, you're asked to call Secret Witness at 322-4900. Your call will remain anonymous.
Channel 2 News
May 11, 2010
Added: May 11, 2010
Impunity!
Oaxaca, Mexico
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Bety Cariño |
Letter from the family of Bety Cariño, murdered by paramilitaries in Oaxaca
To our friends and brothers and sisters
To those who share the pain and anguish
To the public opinion, saddened and full of rage
The the indigenous peoples of Mexico and the world
To those whose solidarity envelops us with their deepest condolences
To all of you who, with you warmth, solidarity, presence, denouncements, you tell us and dictate the path that we have to and need to follow. To those whose hearts have suffered the pain of having a loved one taken from you, we want to tell you that the words don't exist to be able to express to you the rage that we feel, the impotence, the anguish, and the desperation of not being able to be with the person who was the compañera, the mother of two children, the leader, the friend, the sister, THE LOVE OF OUR LIFE when hate, brutality, and anger took her life because of the struggle that we undertook for fourteen years. To all of you and in the name of my children, thank you.
Once again, just like in 2006, [Oaxacan Governor] Ulises Ruiz Ortiz's terrorist, murderous, repressive State seeks to demonstrate its strength, impose its policies, and demonstrate its hatred of that which doesn't agree with it, that which can't be subordinated, that which doesn't give in, and that which is incorruptible, because it is born from below and full of life, because it is built with the brotherhood of those of us who have decided to work towards the construction of a different world, a more human world, where the Earth and the dreams we sow flower every day. Bety, or Beto as her father called her, or, as she was really called, Alberta Cariño Trujillo, has not died! Her word grows and gives voice to those who did not have one, and in being a sister to the women of Copala, of the Mixteca, and of the world, in being a woman, your determination as a sister in this autonomist struggle resists against the hatred, anger, and distain of the UBISORT paramilitaries who are lead by Rufino Juarez and Antonio Cruz...
Because you are the flower, and your seed is the fruit of the dignified path we must follow. We won't forget you. Omar, Ita, and I say to you, "Until the victory."
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Prison for Ulises Ruiz, Evencio Martinez, Rufino Juarez, Anastasio Juarez,
Antonio Cruz, and the authorities in La Sabana!
Death to Ulises' bad, repressive and murderous government!
We must break the siege in San Juan Copala!
Bety will never be silenced, not in death, nor with machine guns!
Land, Freedom, or Death! |
With all our love,
Omarcito, Itandewi, and Omar Esparza
The Family of Bety Cariño
May 03, 2010
North Carolina, USA
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Reyna Isabel-Reyes Caballero
makes his first court appearance |
Man Suspected of Human Trafficking Appears in Court
Greensboro - Detectives are investigating whether a human trafficking arrest is a small part of a larger prostitution and trafficking ring.
Guilford County sheriff's deputies and Immigration and Customers Enforcement officers were shot at Friday while searching a home at 700 N. English St. where they believe a human trafficking victim was being held. Deputies charged
Reyna Isabel-Reyes Caballero, 37, with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill.
Caballero, from Honduras, had his first court appearance Monday and said he fired because he though the people at the door were thieves.
"I was afraid," he said through an interpreter. "I thought they were thieves, burglars at the door. I have a family in Honduras with five children."
Caballero said he wants to be deported to Honduras, but he must first face the assault charge and possibly some human trafficking charges at the state level.
Betty Cauthen, who lives three houses down from the home raided on Friday night, said she thought the house was empty.
"That's just it. We never saw anything. Nobody come in, nobody come out. No groceries in. No mail being checked. No company," she said.
While searching the residence and conducting multiple interviews, deputies found a juvenile in the house they say was a victim of human trafficking. Deputies say she was removed from the home and is working with ICE through the investigation.
Sheeka Strickland
FOX8 News
May 10, 2010
Added: May 10, 2010
Impunity!
Mexico
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On April 27, 2010,
Mixtec Indigenous human rights leader
Bety Cariño and
a Finnish international observer,
Jyri Antero Jaakkola,
were murdered in Oaxaca state by paramilitary soldiers affiliated with the
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), one of Mexico's three top
political parties.
Members of the European Parliament, the Finnish Embassy, and the
United Nations Human Rights Commissioner have demanded a full
investigation.
Photo: Bety Cariño tragically killed in violent paramilitary attack in Oaxaca
Frontline - Protection of Human Rights Defenders
April 29, 2010
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Beatriz Alberta Cariño Trujillo
México, DF - Trabajar por la paz y el respeto a los derechos humanos, ha colocado en riesgo a las defensoras y defensores de estos derechos, un caso extremo ocurrió el pasado 27 de abril cuando una caravana por la paz fue emboscada en el estado de Oaxaca, México y dos de sus integrantes fueron asesinados: Tyti Antero Jaakkola , observador internacional originario de Finlandia y Beatriz Alberta Cariño Trujillo, integrante de Centro de Apoyo Comunitario Trabajando Unidos (Cactus).
Beatriz Alberta fue una luchadora social que hizo de la defensa de la autonomía de los pueblos indígenas su motor en la vida, alentó a las comunidades mixtecas a luchar por su patrimonio cultural, por su identidad, sin sumisión y con dignidad.
Ese fue su andar por la sierra mixteca, al convocar a las mujeres triquis a tomar su papel protagónico en la historia de su pueblo, a mirar de frente y defender sus recursos naturales del saqueo de las grandes trasnacionales...
Erika Cervantes
CIMAC Women's News Agency
May 10, 2010
See also:
Mexico's State Of Impunity
When international human rights observers rounded a curve on a remote road in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, they found the way blocked by boulders. They decided going forward would be dangerous. But they didn’t know that going back would be deadly.
As the vans began to turn around, masked gunmen came down from the hills and opened fire on the vehicles. Some of the people scattered into the brush. Others got lucky and were freed by the assailants. Two were murdered, shot in the head — Bety Cariño of the Mexican rights group CACTUS (Center for Community Support Working Together) and Finnish human rights observer Jyri Jaakola.
The activists were traveling to the village of San Juan Copala in the Triqui indigenous region of Oaxaca. Local paramilitaries from a group called UBISORT, which is reportedly founded by Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), had surrounded and cut off the village. The caravan of journalists, state activists, and international human rights observers wanted to investigate the worsening situation in the village. They knew the risks but decided to undertake the mission because the lives of villagers were at stake, and they saw a dangerous precedent in standing by as
an illegal armed group took an entire village hostage.
Killings are a common occurrence in the Triqui region for those who defend indigenous rights and resources. Scores of people have been assassinated, including two women from San Juan Copala's community radio station in 2008.
The leaders advised the state government of its intentions, but the state government provided no guarantees. Gabriela Jimenez, a member of the caravan who escaped, stated that
the paramilitary captors bragged of having the governor's backing...
Human Rights and U.S. Indifference
The April 27 ambush shocked even a nation accustomed to violence in the news. Drug war tolls of 30 or more victims a day are standard fare in Mexico. But the calculated assault on a human rights mission crossed some invisible line. Members of the European Parliament, the Finnish Embassy, and the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner have demanded a full investigation. Demonstrating the arrogance characteristic of his rule, Governor Ruiz announced he would carry out an investigation — of the migration papers of the foreigners on the caravan.
Human rights violations in Mexico have been on the rise in the last few years, with a sixfold increase in complaints against the armed forces since it launched the drug war. Civilian deaths have increased in the context of drug war militarization. The nation faces a crisis of confidence in the government’s ability — or willingness — to provide even the most basic human security.
The U.S. State Department has ignored this crisis to justify its support for the failed drug war of President Felipe Calderón. Security aid to Mexico under the Merida Initiative required that a human rights report be presented to Congress showing progress in ending impunity for crimes committed by the armed forces, an end to torture, and progress in the Brad Will murder. The State Department delayed presenting the report until last year. When it finally submitted the report, it showed no progress.
Security aid to police and armed forces that violate human rights consistently empowers a system of violations. Human rights training by U.S. forces will make no difference whatsoever in that equation. The problem is obviously not a lack of training, but a lack of political will. As long as the same political forces that commit violations receive support and aid, they are encouraged to continue practices that damage society and destroy lives...
Laura Carlsen
Huffington Post
May 08, 2010
See also:
Mexico
Oaxaca Caravan Attack: The Militarization And Para-militarization Of Mexico
On April 27, gunmen opened fire on an international aid caravan that was bringing food, clothing, medicine, and teachers to the autonomous municipality of San Juan Copala, Oaxaca. The attack left two dead: Oaxacan indigenous leader and media organizer Alberta "Bety" Cariño and a Finnish observer, Jyri Antero Jaakkola. Gunfire injured three other Oaxacans during the attack.
The attack was the latest in a series of assassinations in a region where shootouts are a frequent occurrence. While the attack on the caravan attracted international media attention, the other murders (at least 23 since 2007) were lost in the wave of violence that has gripped Mexico. Ever since President Felipe Calderon deployed 40,000 soldiers to fight the US-funded war on drugs, all violent murders in Mexico are automatically chalked up to the drug war in the media and in the government's official numbers. Drug war violence provides a too-convenient cover for the political violence that also pervades Mexico.
The violence in the Triqui region is the direct result of government machinations aimed at dividing the indigenous people who live there. “The political organizations are dividing us,” says San Juan Copala spokesman Jorge Albino. “When we form organizations, the political parties come and they offer to make one of us a leader, or they offer us a position. And some of us wind up identifying with a political party and we kill each other as a result.”
The government has good reason to want to weaken the Triquis through division: the Triquis have historically put up some of the fiercest resistance to the colonial (and later neo-colonial) project in Mexico. For this reason, their territory is particularly rich in natural resources. John Gibler writes in his book Mexico Unconquered: "As a result of their armed defense, the Triqui region today is a green oasis in the midst of the eroded Mixteca region where centuries of clear-cutting and goat herding have decimated the land."
...
The Oaxacan government has denied all responsibility for the attack. Instead, it is attempting to blame the caravan organizers. "Whoever organized this caravan will have to answer for it, whoever invited these people ... without taking precautions, because I think these people did not know what the situation and problems in the area were," Oaxaca state Interior Secretary Evencio Martinez told the AP. "They (the caravan members) will have to answer, too, for having accepted the invitation."
However, sociologist Victor Raul Martinez Vasquez argues, "I believe that it was a deliberate act on the part of the government, with the idea to teach them a lesson and to dissuade those foreigners who want to help this town that is under siege, where they've closed the road to the community, they've cut the electricity. [The town] is running out of food."
...
Kristin Bricker
My Word Is My Weapon
May 6, 2010
Mexico
Keegan Smith: My friend Bety Cariño was killed by Mexican Paramilitaries in Oaxaca
A good friend of mine Bety Cariño... who I lived and worked with in Mexico was killed in southern Mexico by paramilitaries. The paramilitaries acted with the support of the State and National government to eliminate opposition to their plans and their way of thinking. Bety was one of the most charismatic and caring people I have come across in my 27 years. She has 2 young children and hundreds of friends who have been touched by her passion and courage. She was the leader of the
organization CATCUS which supported local indigenous communities and in securing projects for small business and agriculture initiatives. Together with the
organization she informed about women and children's rights to basic services. She also informed about the dangers of transgenic crops and pesticides and the damage caused by massive mining and damming projects which are proposed for Oaxaca.
Bety participated in various movements and forums in Mexico and Central America and traveled to Europe to increase awareness about the situation in Mexico and particularly the situation Oaxaca. Bety went to every length to make people feel welcome and had amazing power in her spirit to overcome personal loss and illness for the sake of her beliefs. This infectious passion will outlive her many lifetimes over.
This is one of many horrible crimes committed everyday in order to maintain the flow of capital, and the power it holds, in the hands of the few. While I am no longer inclined say eye for an eye and I don't want
vengeance for the pain this act has caused. The world needs very profound changes. This is not a call to arms but to reflect and change our minds. Our physical world is a reflection of our thoughts...
Keegan Smith
My Word Is My Weapon
April 28, 2010
See also - Video:
Discurso de Bety Cariño
en la conferencia de la organización Frontline - dedicados a defender a los y
las Defensores de los derechos humanos
Speech by
Bety Cariño during the 2010 annual conference
of the organization
Frontline - Protection of Human Rights Defenders in Dublin, Ireland.
(In Spanish)
Frontline - Dublin Conference 2010
On YouTube.com
Dec. 03, 2009
See also - Video:
Discurso de Bety Cariño. Kolectivo Azul. Embajada de
Canadá.
Speech by Bety Cariño during a protest against multinational
mining company exploitation of Indigenous lands in Oaxaca state. Held at the
Canadian Embassy in Mexico City - 2009.
(In Spanish)
Tecuán News
On YouTube.com
Dec. 03, 2009
See also - Video:
Declaración de una de los sobrevivientesdel ataque a la
carvana San Juan Copala.
News conference by Gabriela, a survivor of the ambush and murder
of Bety Cariño and
Jyri Jaakola.
(In Spanish)
Camaradaappo
On YouTube.com
April 28, 2010
See also:
Texas, USA
Children Kidnapped for Sex Trafficking
Rio Grande Valley - Four young children could have ended up as sex trafficking victims. Instead they're now back with their families in Mexico.
They were kidnapped. Suspected smugglers tried to bring them to the Valley.
The children were all under six.
San Juan Police Chief Juan Gonzalez says... human traffickers want children under 10.
"These children have been raped repeatedly more than 30 times a day. The more use they get out of a child, the more profit," he tells us. "They are using these children. The younger the better for the human trafficker."
Gonzalez trains officers around the country to recognize signs of sex trafficking.
Two women from San Juan and Edinburg tried to bring four children across the bridge illegally.
A customs officer suspected the women were going to sell the kids. The children ranged in age from less than a year to six years old. The women told officers the kids belonged to them.
They even had fake U.S. birth certificates.
An alert customs officer didn't believe their story.
“Officers are being trained to recognize force, fraud and coercion," the San Juan police chief says.
Gonzalez says if the suspected smugglers [had gotten] away with their crime, the children would
[have lived] through unimaginable horror.
"They’re utilizing them in bars and nightclubs, [and] even for individuals who are requesting them, to abuse them," he tells us.
Or traffickers might sell the children to pornographers.
"Traffickers seek young children, because they can abuse them for a longer period of time," Gonzalez explains. "This kind of crime is a money maker."
He adds, "Human trafficking [has become] more profitable [than drug smuggling, human smuggling
and arms] trafficking."
Human trafficking is hard to detect and harder to prosecute.
Gonzalez says children trafficked into this country are often taken to brothels. He says there are probably brothels around the Valley
[that] investigators haven't found yet.
...Officers will usually find human trafficking when they respond to a [noise violation or
a runaway case].
Farrah Fazal
KRGV
May 8, 2010
Added: May.10, 2010
Kidnapped
Arizona, USA
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Karley Rivera Saucedo |
Woman kidnapped during home invasion earlier this week still missing
Phoenix - Police are asking for the public's to help find a woman who was kidnapped during a home invasion earlier this week.
According to Detective James Holmes of the Phoenix Police Department, Karley Rivera Saucedo was taken after four suspects broke into her home at about 3 a.m. on Wednesday, May 5.
Saucedo, 22, has the mental capacity of an 11- or 12-year-old.
Holmes said the suspects, Hispanic males who range in from 17 to 30, forced their way into the home near 59th Avenue and Indian School Road, which Saucedo shares with her 17-year-old sister and a baby.
The suspects were armed with handguns, police said, and demanded drugs and money. When they didn't get what they wanted, the four men took Saucedo and left.
They also stole a gray 2007 Chevy HHR. That vehicle was later recovered, but there's been no sign of Saucedo or the four suspects.
The descriptions of the suspects are limited.
The first is a 17-year-old Hispanic male who is 5 feet 6 inches tall. He has black spiked hair.
The second is an 18- or 19-year old Hispanic male. He's also 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighs about 140 pounds and has short black hair.
The third is an Hispanic male between 25 and 30 years old. He is 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighs 150 pounds and has acne scars.
The fourth is an Hispanic male who is 6 feet tall, weighing about 200 pounds. He has light skin, a skinny face and a chubby body.
Anyone with information about Saucedo or what happened the morning of May 5 is asked to call the Phoenix Police Department at 602-261-6151 or Silent Witness at either 480-WITNESS or 480-TESTIGO.
Catherine Holland
azfamily.com
May 7, 2010
Texas, USA
- Mexico
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Angel Rojas |
Texas Girl Who Was Focus Of Amber Alert May Be In Mexico
Austin - Karen Anastacio, 13, for whom Austin police issued an Amber Alert last week, is probably in Mexico with the 25-year-old man who abducted her from her middle school, authorities say.
The Amber Alert was canceled over the weekend.
Anastacio was last seen at around 8 a.m. Thursday getting into either a brown 1997 GMC Jimmy SUV with Texas license 84TFL4 at Bedichek Middle School in Austin.
She had told a teacher's aide she didn't feel well and would likely be going home.
Police think Angel Rojas Ambrocio was driving the brown and silver SUV.
They said they believe he previously committed a violent felony against the girl.
Anastacio is 5-foot-2, weights about 115 pounds and has black hair and brown eyes.
When she was last seen she was wearing a black shirt, black pants and carrying a pink backpack.
Ambrocio is 5-foot-3, weighs 135 pounds and has black hair and brown eyes.
Police are asking anyone with information about the missing girl to call 911.
KWTX
May 10, 2010
See also:
Runaway suspect charged with sex crime
Amber Alert suspect fled with 13-year-old
Austin - The 25-year-old man accused of abducting a 13-year-old Austin girl Thursday morning is now charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child, a first-degree felony.
Officials issued the Amber Alert Thursday morning after police said Karen Anastacio was last seen at 8:07 a.m. Thursday with suspect Angel Rojas, 25. Police said they fear he may be headed to the border to leave the country, and court documents indicate information pointed to Cuernavaca, Mexico.
The two were in a relationship police said was illegal, and authorities filed charges Friday against Rojas - a family acquaintance. In those documents, police said they developed information Rojas was going to be taking the victim to Mexico.
"We have reason to believe that she is in immediate danger," said Austin Police Department Cmdr. Julie O'Brien Thursday. "We're asking for the public's help in locating Karen."
Austin police said a teacher's aide saw Karen getting into a brown 1997 GMC Jimmy SUV across the street from Bedichek Middle School in South Austin with Rojas at the wheel. License plate number: 84TFL4
School Principal Dan Diehl said the incident happened just before the start of the school day across the street from the campus near the intersection of Bill Hughes Road and Thelma Drive.
Karen was walking to school with a group of other students when she said she felt ill, Diehl said. He said shortly after, the suspect arrived at that location, where Karen got in his car.
Karen is a 5-foot-2-inch tall Hispanic female and weighs approximately 115 pounds. She has black hair and brown eyes and was last seen wearing a black shirt and black pants, carrying a pink backpack.
Angel Rojas is described as a Hispanic male, weighing approximately 135 pounds. He is 5 feet 3 inches tall and has black hair and brown eyes. Rojas may also use the following names: Juan Alberto Espinoza-Ambrocio and/or Eduardo Lopez.
Anyone with information on the whereabouts of the victim or suspect is urged to call 911 immediately.
Police said Thursday Karen's family was taking action in filing a criminal charge against Rojas for allegedly committing a violent felony offense against Karen, something officials said may be the motivator for Rojas to flee not only the area but also the country.
Police said they are working with various law enforcement agencies throughout the state and with border agents as well, but they are also asking for all eyes to be on the lookout.
KXAN
May 07, 2010
The Dominican Republic
Desmantelan en Dominicana red de pornografía infantil
Un estadounidense y tres dominicanas que tenían organizado una red de pornografía infantil fueron detenido por las autoridades que confiscaron equipos de filmación y una pequeña cantidad de droga.
Las pesquisas permitieron conocer que el estadounidense Williams Bonaparte tenía contratadas a las tres mujeres para que reclutaran adolescentes y a cambio de sumas de dinero filmarlas en actos sexuales, dice la información circuladas por la policía.
El grupo operaba desde hacía meses en la provincia de Puerto Plata (Norte) y las filmaciones se centraban en menores y adolescentes del sexo femenino, según los detalles del parte.
Las actividades fueron interrumpidas por una redada policial en el apartamento en el que residía el extranjero, en el cual se ocuparon cámaras de filmación y fotográficas, un reproductor de casetes, equipos de iluminación, decenas de discos compactos con material pornográfico y una pequeña cantidad de marihuana.
El año pasado la policía dominicana desmanteló una organización similar que se especializaba en filmaciones pornográficas a adolescentes y jóvenes haitianas, anexa a una red de prostitución que operaba desde un apartamento en una céntrica calle de esta capital.
Authorities break-up child pornography ring
A U.S. citizen and three Dominicans have been arrested in the Dominican Republic
for having organized a child pornography ring. The suspects were caught with
film equipment, still cameras, film reproducing equipment, and drugs.
According to police, American citizen Williams Bonaparte had contracted with
three women to recruit adolescent girls, who were offered money to be filmed
performing sexual acts.
Previously, police has dismantled a similar child pornography ring that had
targeted Haitian girls.
Prensa Latina
May 07, 2010
Washington, DC - USA
|
 |
|
Luis CdeBaca -
Ambassador-at-Large, Office To Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons
-
U.S. State Department |
Trafficking Victims Protection Act: Progress and Promise
...In the mid-1990s, then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton became interested and focused on this issue through her work with women and children. At the time, the most visible form of trafficking was women and girls from the former Soviet Union. There were duped by false advertisements for work in Western Europe only to find themselves trapped in brothels and strip clubs. The image of the blonde, beautiful, and vulnerable victim, reminiscent of anachronistic approaches to this problem back in the 1800s, garnered worldwide attention, but also demonstrated the weaknesses of that old legal regime. In the meantime, cases in the United States still involved men, women, and children--United States citizens and foreigners alike--in both sex and labor trafficking.
It became clear that a holistic approach was needed, one that focused more on the exploitation than merely on the movement of people for immoral purposes. Then-First Lady Clinton, along with Attorney General Janet Reno and Secretary of State Madeline Albright, were instrumental in bringing this issue to the attention of policymakers in Washington. Out of it was borne the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA).
The TVPA emboldened states to pursue and enact legislation to combat trafficking at the state level. In fact, the successes of the TVPA and effectiveness of state law is clearly shown in a recent case, Ramos v. Texas where the legal pitfalls exemplified in the Shackney case were bridged. In fact, the Ramos case recognized that the threat of deportation is indeed coercion and a factor in determining a victim of trafficking in persons, even if the victim walked out through the front door rather than escaping through the window or in the middle of the night. The Ramos case is a prime example of what we can achieve through solid legislation and implementation of federal and state-level laws...
The TVPA helps us... with important new tools that stands for the proposition that ignorance is not an excuse. The strip club owner who looks the other way as so-called talent agents enslave women: that’s not a bystander; that’s an accomplice. The landlord who turns a blind eye and collects rent from "massage parlors" where foreign women are held for forced prostitution: that’s not rent; that’s complicity. So too for the grower who is comfortable with farm labor contractors using force and threats to harvest the crops as long as they get picked on time. To those who have turned a willfully blind eye to the exploitation in front of them, the updated law puts down a marker: whether you partake or profit, you're accountable. Period...
The promise we seek to fulfill will be bolstered by what has now been coined as the fourth "p" – partnerships. We must strive toward better coordination with our interagency partners within our "whole of government" approach, but also partners from unlikely or untapped resources...
Through partnership, we must secure the safe place of refuge the President referred to; we must "lead by example" as we are known and expected to do; and we must allow every victim to realize his or her God-given potential. The United States has made historic progress on this issue, still in its modern infancy. We must devote ourselves to never again letting a generation go by without forward progress. Bursts of activity, and successes, in the early 1900s, the 1930s, and the early 1980s were allowed to fall dormant. We must not allow that to happen again. We can, and we must, get it right this time. Working toward a world without modern slavery is no doubt a bold proposition, but it is one that we must work toward. Thank you again for having me here this morning and for all you do to fulfill the promise of freedom in America.
Luis CdeBaca
Ambassador-at-Large, Office To Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons
May 3, 2010
Mexico
Group of People Rescued from Mexican Stash House
Matmoros, Tamaulipas state, Mexico - A tip to police in Matamoros led to the rescue of 17 people from two different stash houses this week.
Human traffickers took the people hostage. Officials say the traffickers extort money out of families. Border security analysts tell us it's big money.
"The human trafficking business is extremely lucrative. People can fetch up to $10,000 a person to transfer them to across the border," says one analyst.
Experts say due to the proximity to the border, there are probably a high number of stash houses here in the Valley.
Mexican military arrested Juan Ponce Ramirez in the raid on the Matamoros stash houses.
Soldiers also found just over 10 pounds of marijuana and a rifle in the raid.
Farrah Fazal
May 06, 2010
Note: Matamoros is located on Mexico's border with the
U.S., opposite the city of Brownsville, Texas. -LL
North Carolina, USA
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Reyna Isabel Reyes Caballero fired on officers. |
Officers fired upon during human trafficking investigation
Greensboro — Five people were taken into custody Friday night after officers raided a home during a human trafficking investigation.
One suspect is accused of firing at a Guilford County Sheriff deputy during the incident. Reyna Isabel Reyes Caballero, 37, was charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill.
Caballero is being held at the Guilford County Jail. His bail was set at $250,000.
Caballero and four other people were also taken into custody at the scene and are being detained by the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.
The other people being held are Jose Martinez-Cruz, 26, of Reidsville; Herculano Lopez-Garcia, 24, of Greensboro; Costanzio Aguileras Palmas, 25, of Reidsville; and Vinicio Arrazate Calderon, 31, of Greensboro.
Caballero has not been charged with human trafficking. The incident, which involves alleged prostitution, is still being investigated, according to law enforcement officials.
Officers conducting an undercover operation believed a female human trafficking victim was being held at a home at 700 N. English Street in Greensboro, according to the sheriff’s department.
Shortly before 11 p.m. Friday night, sheriff department vice officers, agents from U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, and Greensboro Police entered the home. Caballero allegedly fired at a deputy with a semi-automatic handgun, according to law enforcement officials.
A deputy fired back. No one was injured in the shooting.
Officers discovered a woman they say is a human trafficking victim in the home.
“She is not being charged. We have moved her to a safe place,” Powers said.
For her safety, law enforcement officials would not give any information about the woman.
His arrest records say Caballero was “running a brothel,” although he has not been charged with crimes other than the assualt charge.
Caballero, who is a native of Honduras and was living in the English Street home, the victim and four other people were at the home at the time of the search.
Two of the men were believed to be customers, Powers said.
Caballero and the other four men are all being held in the Guilford County Jail because they are undocumented U.S. residents. ICE officials are handling that portion of the investigation.
“We’ve lodged detainers against them because they are in the country illegally,” said Barbara Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for ICE...
Amanda Lehmert
The News-Record
May 8, 2010
Louisiana, USA
4 arrested in Lafourche Parish murder
Thibodaux - Four men have been arrested in the death of a woman, whose partially-clothed body was found in the woods in Galliano.
The Lafourche Parish Sheriff's Office said Sunday that 20-year-old Gonzalo Portillo Cortes, 21-year-old Esdras Sanchez Garcia, 23-year-old Jose Castillo Moreno and 28-year-old Luis Nava were booked with killing Angela Laudun less than 24 hours after her body was found. Each was booked with aggravated rape and first-degree murder.
A sheriff's spokeswoman says it's the parish's first homicide case this year.
Associated Press
May 9, 2010
New Mexico, USA
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Juan Gonzalez |
Accused child rapist on ICE hold
Police said Juan Gonzalez raped 6-year-old girl
Albuquerque - An illegal immigrant accused of raping a 6-year-old girl at Midtown Sports and Wellness Club Tuesday night is on an immigration hold.
Juan Gonzalez, 20, allegedly assaulted the child while she was alone in a play room at the club. The girl’s mother was working out at the gym at the time.
Gonzalez is accused of criminal sexual penetration of a minor, kidnapping and tampering with evidence. Judge Benjamin Chavez raised his bond at $200,000 cash only.
Despite being under the federal hold by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Gonzalez will not be sent back to his home country of Mexico until he goes through New Mexico’s judicial system.
Police said Gonzalez was a member of Midtown because his mother is an employee.
As for the health club’s child care center, it is solely responsible for managing it. The Children, Youth and Families Division regulates traditional day cares.
“Drop-in programs for children specifically that are for children whose parents stay on the same premises are exempt from the regulations,” Dan Haggard with CYFD said Thursday.
The playroom where the victim was attacked is unsupervised, and there is a sign that says so. Workers at the club said the playroom is for kids who are 7 and older. The reported victim in this case is 6.
There is also a child care center at Midtown for younger kids where there is always supervision and they are never left alone. Parents have to pay $3 an hour to drop their child off there while they work out.
“I believe regardless of the setting for parents to be as involved and as knowledgeable as possible about the program where they're leaving their children,” Haggard said.
In a statement, Sports and Wellness said its staff acted immediately after being told about the incident. It also said it has stringent hiring practices and complies with all federal and state laws.
Kaitlin McCarthy
KRQE
May 06, 2010
California, USA
Former Menlo Park Preschool Chief Charged For Pestering Girl
Menlo Park - The former supervisor of a San Francisco Bay area preschool is facing a misdemeanor charge for allegedly pestering a 13-year-old girl with unwanted gifts and letters.
Fifty-five-year-old Jose Adalberto Lopez was charged with one count of annoying or harassing a child under the age of 18 on Friday.
Prosecutors say the former supervisor at Belle Haven Child Development Center in Menlo Park gave the girl intimate clothing on her 13th birthday, a bracelet as a Valentine's Day gift and wrote her letters describing how pretty she was.
The girl was the daughter of another preschool employee.
Lopez resigned from his job shortly after his arrest on April 13.
He faces up to a year in county jail if convicted. He is scheduled to be arraigned on May 18.
The Associated Press
May -08, 2010
Southwest USA
U.S. Border Patrol Weekly Blotter: April 29 - May 5
Excerpt
May 5, 2010 - Yuma Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Blythe, California. Records checks revealed the subject had a prior conviction for lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 and had been previously removed from the United States.
May 4, 2010 - El Centro Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Ocotillo, California. Records checks revealed the subject was a convicted sex offender and had been previously removed from the United States.
May 4, 2010 - Tucson Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Nogales, Arizona. Records checks revealed the subject had a prior conviction for sexual intercourse with a minor under 18 in the state of California, and had been previously removed from the United States.
May 3, 2010 - Tucson Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Three Points, Arizona. Records checks revealed the subject had a prior conviction for sexual assault/sexual battery in the state of Indiana, and had been previously removed from the United States.
May 3, 2010 - Yuma Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near San Luis, Arizona. Records checks revealed the subject had a prior conviction for sexual assault of a minor in the state of Washington, and had been previously removed from the United States.
May 2, 2010 - El Centro Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested a national of Mexico in Cathedral City, California. Records checks revealed the subject had a prior conviction for molesting a child under the age of 14 in the state of California, and was a registered sex offender.
May 2, 2010 - El Centro Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested a national of Mexico in Indio, California. Records checks revealed the subject had a prior conviction for lewd and lascivious acts with a child in the state of California, and was a registered sex offender.
April 30, 2010 - Marfa Sector - An off-duty Border Patrol agent observed a 2005 Toyota Camry with a single male occupant watching children for an extended period of time at several locations near Midland, Texas. The agent notified local law enforcement officers, who responded and made contact with the subject. Officers found two loaded handguns, a stun gun, duct tape, a pipe, flex-cuffs, gloves, ropes, and maps of city parks in Midland in the vehicle. The subject, a USC, was arrested by local law enforcement officers and charged with unlawful carrying of a weapon.
April 29, 2010 - El Centro Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Calexico, California. Records checks revealed the subject had a prior felony conviction for rape of a child in the state of Washington and had been previously removed from the United States.
April 29, 2010 - El Centro Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Calexico, California. Records checks revealed the subject had a prior felony conviction for assault to commit rape and sex with a minor. The subject had also been previously removed from the United States.
April 29, 2010 - El Paso Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Lordsburg, New Mexico. Records checks revealed the subject had prior convictions for lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 and burglary in the state of California. He had also been previously removed from the United States.
U.S. Border Patrol
May 5, 2010
Texas, USA
Amber Alert
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Karen Anastacio |
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Angel Rojas Ambrocio |
Amber Alert Issued for 13 Year Old Texas Girl
The State of Texas issued the Amber Alert Thursday afternoon (May 5, 2010) after the girl was apparently abducted from her school in Austin earlier in the day. Police believe the suspect may try to take the girl to Mexico. According to Police felony charges are pending against the suspect resulting from a violent act he committed against the girl.
Karen Anastacio, an Hispanic female, 13 years old, 5' 2", 115 pounds with black hair and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing a black shirt and black pants and carrying a pink backpack
The suspect is Angel Rojas Ambrocio, an Hispanic male, 25 years old, 5' 3", 135 pounds with black hair and brown eyes.
The suspect vehicle is a brown Ford Expedition or Explorer..
Anyone with information is asked to call the Austin Police Department at 512-974-0911 or dial 911.
CodeAmber.org
May 06, 2010
About 'Rapto'
In Mexico, an Unpunished Crime
Rape Victims Face
Widespread Cultural Bias in Pursuit of Justice
...A "machismo culture," instilled
through what is learned in the home, school and church, has
allowed many men to "believe they are superior and dominant, and
that women are an object." ...That mind-set has contributed to
making many men-including policemen,
prosecutors, judges and others in positions of authority-believe
that sexual violence against women is no big deal.
...A review of criminal laws in all
31 Mexican states showed that many states require that if a
12-year-old girl wants to accuse an adult man of statutory rape,
she must first prove she is "chaste and pure." Nineteen of the
states require that statutory rape charges be dropped if the
rapist agrees to marry his victim...
In the southern state of Oaxaca last
summer, the one-year-old, government-funded Oaxacan Women's
Institute persuaded the legislature to pass heavy criminal
penalties against a practice known as "rapto."
Laws in most
Mexican states define rapto as a case where a man kidnaps a
woman not for ransom, but with the intent of marrying her or to
satisfy his "erotic sexual desire."
The new law championed by the women's group established
penalties of at least 10 years in prison.
But in March, the state legislature
reversed itself and again made the practice a minor infraction.
A key legislator -a man- argued for the reduction, calling the
practice harmless and "romantic."
Human rights groups disagree. They
say it is not charming for a man to spot a woman he fancies
sitting in a park, pick her up and carry her away to have sex
with her. Yet to this day, that is still how some women meet
their husbands. The attorney general's office said there have
been 137 criminal complaints of rapto in the state of Puebla
since January 2000...
Mary Jordan
The Washington Post
June 30, 2002
California, USA
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Jose Perez
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Fast Food Chef Arrested in Series of Attacks on Women
Other possible victims are urged to come forward
Los Angeles - Police have arrested a 23 year old fast food chef suspected in a
string of attacks on young women in the western
San Fernando Valley dating back over a year.
Jose Perez was arrested April 28 in connection with five crimes over the past 13
months, including two attacks last week, police said.
Police say Perez targeted petite teenage girls who appeared to be defenseless,
sneaking up during daylight hours and trying to assault them or drag them into
his vehicle.
According to police:
The first crime in which Perez is suspected occurred March 19, 2009.
A 15-year-old girl reported being abducted from
behind a Sherman Oaks school where she was a student.
The girl was dragged into the bushes, but she fought back as the man groped her,
and he eventually fled.
On May 8, 2009, a 15-year-old girl reported being
grabbed from behind outside her apartment building. Both fell to the ground, and
the suspect fled in a silver four-door Volkswagen.
On Nov. 11, 2009, a 13-year-old girl reported being
grabbed by a man who got out of a white GMC Yukon. But she also fought off the
man, and he fled in the SUV.
Perez is suspected in at least two other similar crimes in April.
On April 26, a 13-year-old girl was in front of a
Van Nuys school when a man drove up in a gray Volkswagen Jetta, got out and
started asking her questions. He then fondled the girl, who pushed him away. The
girl jotted down the license number as he drove away.
Two days later, an 18-year-old woman was walking
home when she noticed a white SUV rolling alongside her. The driver pulled over,
got out, grabbed her from behind and hustled her into the vehicle.
But the young woman's uncle, who happened to be nearby, heard the commotion and
ran off the man, while the woman got out of the vehicle, which was last seen
headed north on Lindley Avenue.
The license plate on the SUV in that case also pointed to Perez.
Detectives believe other possible victims may not have reported similar
encounters and urged them to come forward.
Anyone with more information was asked to call Lt. Edward Pape or Detective John
Doerbecker at (818) 374-7730.
KTLA News
May 4, 2010
California, USA
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Cesar Ysidro Fernandez |
Coach Accused of Having Sex with Student
Los Angeles - A basketball and volleyball coach for the Los Angeles Unified
School District has been arrested on suspicion of carrying on a sexual
relationship with a female student.
Cesar Ysidro Fernandez, 39, was arrested at his home, locked up in lieu of
$100,000 bail after being charged Friday with four counts of unlawful sex with a
minor, police said.
The investigation began in January when investigators learned that the sexual
relationship appeared to have started during the school summer break of 2009.
The student was 17 years old at the time of the relationship and is now 18,
according to police.
Fernandez, a teacher at 32nd Street USC Math, Science and
Technology High School, reportedly purchased expensive gifts for
the teen and allegedly brought her to hotel rooms and an
apartment to have sex.
According to police, Fernandez will not be put back in a Los Angeles Unified
School District classroom if he bails out before the case is resolved.
Fernandez also taught summer school at Carson High School.
He has been a teacher since 1993, and has been at the 32nd Street school since
1996. It's believed he has been placed on leave pending the outcome of the
case...
KTLA News
May 6, 2010
Mexico
Sentencian a 9 años a un hombre por trata de personas en Chiapas
Un juez federal sentenció a nueve años de prisión a un hombre que sometía a trabajos forzados a un grupo de mujeres centroamericanas en Tapachula.
El Juzgado Tercero de Distrito condenó a Calixto Celestino Plata, por los delitos de trata de personas y violencia contra las mujeres.
El sentenciado obligaba a nueve jóvenes guatemaltecas, de 14 y 16 años de edad, a realizar jornadas de trabajo de más de 10 horas diarias.
Calixto Celestino fue asegurado durante un cateo por policías federales, en una vivienda de la colonia centro de Tapachula, a principios del año pasado...
Man is sentenced to 9 years in prison for human trafficking in Chiapas state
Federal judge sentences the convict for forcing Central American women into
labore slavery in the city of Tapachula
The federal Third District Court has sentenced
Calixto Celestino Plata to prison fore engaging in human trafficking and
violence against women.
Celestino Plata forced nine Guatemalan girls between the ages of 14 and 16 to
work for more than ten hours per day in conditions of forced labor...
Rotativo.com
May 05, 2010
Mexico
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Street scene from Mexico City's 'La
Merced' red light district - from
Youtube.com |
67% de las prostitutas, explotadas desde niñas
En la zona, 20 por ciento de las trabajadoras tiene entre 12 y 18 años. Provienen de Oaxaca, Chiapas y Tlaxcala; además son analfabetas, detallan.
México.- Un estudio efectuado por el Sistema Nacional para el Desarrollo Integral de la Familia (DIF), la UNICEF y el Centro de Investigación y Estudios Superiores reporta que “67 por ciento de las mujeres que trabajan en La Merced, se dedican a la prostitución desde niñas.
Indica que 95 por ciento de las personas, hombres y mujeres, que son explotados sexualmente, tienen antecedentes de haber sido agredidas física, sexual y mentalmente.
67% of women working in Mexico City's La Merced prostitution
district started in 'the business' as children
In La Merced, 20% of sex workers are between the ages of 12 and
18, They came from the [heavily Indigenous] states of Oaxaca,
Chiapas, and also Tlaxcala. Most are illiterate.
Mexico – A study conducted by the Nation System fore Integral
Family Development (DIF – Mexico’s main social services agency),
UNICEF and the Center for Investigation and Studies – reports
that 67% of women sex workers in Mexico City’s La Merced
prostitution tolerance zone started working when they were
children.
The study reports that 95% of female and male sex workers in the
zone experienced past sexual, physical or psychological abuse.
In Mexico, more than 20,000 children and adolescents are victims
of commercial sexual exploitation. [We assert that the number
run much higher – LL.] In Mexico City and specifically at La
Merced, child sex trafficking mafias control the prostitution of
Indigenous and other rural children and youth who were either
kidnapped or who were sold by their own parents.
The estimates vary in regard to the number of minors who are
prostituted in La Merced. Some statistics indicate that 20% of
sex workers are between 12 and 18 years-of age.
These are usually cases in which a girl has run away from an
abusive home, or their parents were tricked into believing that
their child was being taken to work in a legitimate job in
Mexico City that would provide her with food and shelter.
The girl children who are prostituted in the bars, clandestine
flop houses, street markets and alleyways [of La Merced] are most often found
to have originated in the states of Oaxaca, Chiapas
and Tlaxcala.
The Latin American and Caribbean branch of the Coalition Against
Trafficking in Women (CATW-LAC) reports that in La Merced, 56%
of sexually exploited women had faced aggression within their
families. Some 66% of them were abused by their spouses.
Ninety percent of the minors prostituted in La Merced have not
completed primary school. Eighty eight percent of these minors
become mothers to an average of three children each.
According to the report: “During the past
several decades the age of initiation into prostitution has
dropped from 15 to 11.
The daughters of prostituted women in La Merced
are obliged, without exception, to live a life of prostitution. Their
mothers typically sell their virginity for an average price of
10,000 Mexican pesos (US$760).”
Prostituted minors typically sell sex for 50 pesos ($3.85).
Child prostitution is visible to everyone [in Mexico City]. It
is irresponsible and undignified to fail to recognize it and
work to change the situation for the better.
Milenio
May 05, 2010
Virginia, USA
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Leonel Torres-Lopez |
[Man] sentenced to five years for molesting two local girls
...Leonel Torres-Lopez, 24, was sentenced by York-Poquoson Circuit Court, substitute Judge Thomas Nance to five years in prison on two counts of aggravated sexual battery. His victims were two York County girls, ages 7 and 9.
Judge Nance actually sentenced Torres-Lopez to 20 years in prison on each count, only to suspend 15 years of each sentence. The sentences will run concurrently.
In 2007, Torres-Lopez molested the two girls, while they were sleeping. At the time of the assault, the children were being watched by a babysitter.
The girl’s parents were in court and stated that both young victims are now afraid to sleep, and have “persistent nightmares.”
To no avail, Torres-Lopez’ attorney Nora Misenti asked that he client only be sentenced to time served. For the last year, the Mexican national has been in the Virginia Peninsula Regional Jail on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer.
York-Poquoson Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Barbara Cooke told the courtroom that Torres-Lopez had a "history of freely moving across the border."
Dave Gibson
The Examiner
May 05, 2010
Mexico
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Tlaxcala state, located just east of
Mexico City, is a major source and 'distribution'
area for kidnapped sex trafficking victims. The
victims who are 'assembled' in Tlaxcala are first
taken to Mexico to be broken-in to a life of forced
prostitution. Many are then taken to brothels in
Mexico's border regions, the United States, Europe
and Japan. |
Prostitución Infantil en México
México.- Él, es líder de una red de trata de personas. Es miembro de una industria familiar dedicada a la explotación sexual que tejió sus lazos incluso en los Estados Unidos. Una cadena que apunta, invariablemente a Tlaxcala.
Tenía varias niñas en la merced y una de ellas en el 2005 se atrevió a denunciarlo por lenocinio. Él se entera, hace una reunión y delante de todas las demás la mata a golpes. Él dice que para ejemplo de todas las demás y que cuidado y otra se atreva a denunciarlo.
La fiscal de Delitos Sexuales de la Procuraduría de Justicia del Distrito Federal, Juana Camila Bautista Rebollar, narra así, los detalles de una investigación contra Alejo Guzmán, que sigue abierta...
Child prostitution in Mexico
He is a leader of a human trafficking network. He forms part of
a family-based criminal industry dedicated to sexual
exploitation. Their network extends its tentacles as far as the
United States. The network, like so many others, is based in
Tlaxcala state in central Mexico.
The child trafficking gang had a number of girls in the La
Merced area in 2005, when one of them dared to denounce the
network to police. The leader of the group found out, and calls
a meeting. In front of the other girls, he beats the girl who
went to the police to death. He said that he was giving the
other girls a lesson as to what they would face if they did the
same thing.
Juana Camila Bautista Rebollar, the prosecutor for sex crimes
for Mexico City, narrated these details to the press in regard
to her ongoing investigation of Alejo Guzmán.
Bautista Rebollar: “He killed this girl by beating her. He
later doused her with gasoline and burned her body under the
Congress of the Union bridge.”
Unfortunately, their was no way to discover who she was, to
notify next of kin, given that her body was burned to cinders.
Two other girl victims testified about the homicide. The
network’s victims were all young girls who had been entrapped by
the traffickers in
rural communities in Puebla, Morelos, Tlaxcala and
Veracruz states.
Bautista Rebollar: “We could only find one of the victims
[murdered by Alejo Guzmán]. The other has not been found. . These
are cases that we continue to investigate. Lamentably, there are
many [similarly] frightening cases.” ...
Guzmán
Flores, age 36, who is originally from the city of Tenancingo, in
Tlaxcala, was arrested in March of 2009 in Puebla state.
Investigators say that he has been involved in the
above-mentioned sex
trafficking network for 10 years. He has been charged with
aggravated promotion of prostitution (pimping) and homicide.
W Radio
April 27, 2010
Mexico
Migrantes michoacanos, víctimas de prostitución infantil, extorsión y trata
Una proporción importante de los migrantes, sufren violaciones a sus derechos ya sea en el tránsito por el estado u otras entidades
Morelia, Michoacán.- La prostitución infantil, la trata de personas y la extorsión son los principales delitos de que son víctimas los migrantes michoacanos, declaró Arnulfo Sandoval Cervantes, director regional (Michoacán, Colima y Guanajuato) del Centro de Atención a Víctimas de la Procuraduría General de la República (PGR).
Sin embargo, hace falta una cultura de la denuncia puesto que la mayor parte de los casos no son del conocimiento de las autoridades, de ahí que en el año 2009 sólo se dio atención a seis casos de connacionales, uno donde el agraviado de doce años de edad fue víctima de prostitución infantil, dos mujeres menores de 30 años de trata y tres más fueron extorsionados.
Migrants from Michoacán state are the
victims of child prostitution and extortion
A large number of state residents are subjected to human rights
violations as they cross Mexico in route to the U.S.
Morelia, Michoacán state - Child prostitution, other forms of
human trafficking and extortion are the most common crimes
faced by migrants who leave
Michoacán, declared Arnulfo Sandoval
Cervantes, regional director of the federal Attorney General’s
office for the tri-state Michoacán, Colima y Guanajuato area. A
lack of willingness to report these crimes on the part of
society contributes to their continuing impunity...
Ivonne Monreal Vázquez
Cambio de Michoacan
April 22, 2010
California, USA
Convicted Mexican Sex Offender Arrested At Indio Bus Stop - Border Patrol
Indio - A convicted sex offender from Mexico, with reputed ties to a Northern California gang, was found at an Indio bus station and
was arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol, agents said today.
The 37-year-old man, whose name was not released, was arrested Tuesday at the Greyhound Bus station on Oasis Street in Indio during a check by Border Patrol agents, said spokesman Victor Brabble.
Border Patrol agents determined that the man was a citizen of Mexico with no U.S. immigration documents.
He was taken to the Indio Border Patrol Station, Brabble said, where a records check revealed that the man was an aggravated felon convicted of carjacking with a firearm and unlawful sex with a minor.
The man also had tattoos identifying him as a member of the Border Brothers, a Northern California street and prison gang that began in Mexico in the 1980s.
The alleged gangster was being held pending prosecution for entering the United States after deportation, Brabble said.
KESQ
April 28, 2010
See also:
Added: May 5, 2010
Southwest USA
U.S. Border Patrol Weekly Blotter - April 22-28, 2010
Excerpt
April 28, 2010 - El Centro Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Indio, California. Records checks revealed the subject was a Border Brothers gang member, and had prior convictions for carjacking with a firearm and unlawful sexual contact with a minor in the state of California. The subject had also been previously removed from the United States.
April 28, 2010 - Tucson Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near San Miguel, Arizona. Records checks revealed the subject had a prior conviction for involuntary manslaughter and indecency with a child in the state of Texas. The subject had also been previously removed from the United States.
April 27, 2010 - El Paso Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested a USC who illegally entered the United States near El Paso, Texas, avoiding the port of entry. During the investigation to determine the subject's citizenship, records checks revealed he was a registered sex offender with two active arrest warrants for burglary and theft issued in the state of California.
April 26, 2010 - El Paso Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Santa Teresa, New Mexico. Records checks revealed the subject had a prior conviction for criminal sexual penetration of a minor and kidnapping in the state of New Mexico, and had been previously removed from the United States.
April 26, 2010 - El Paso Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Sunland Park, New Mexico. Records checks revealed the subject was a convicted sex offender and had been previously removed from the United States.
April 26, 2010 - Tucson Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Douglas, Arizona. Records checks revealed the subject had a prior felony conviction for homicide in the state of Arizona and had been previously removed from the United States.
April 26, 2010 - Tucson Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Nogales, Arizona. Records checks revealed the subject had prior convictions for theft and a sexual offense against a child in the state of Washington. The subject had also been previously removed from the United States.
April 24, 2010 - El Centro Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Indio, California. Records checks revealed the subject had a prior felony conviction for attempted sexual assault on a child in the state of Colorado and had previously been removed from the United States.
April 24, 2010 - El Paso Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Las Cruces, New Mexico. The subject had an active arrest warrant for criminal sexual contact with a child under 13 issued in the state of New Mexico.
April 24, 2010 - Miami Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Guatemala near Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Records checks revealed the subject had an active arrest warrant for forcible rape of a child with the use of a weapon issued in the state of Massachusetts. The subject had also previously been removed from the United States.
April 24, 2010 - Tucson Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Nolia, Arizona. Records checks revealed the subject had an active arrest warrant for two counts of rape issued in the state of Oregon. The subject had also been previously removed from the United States.
April 23, 2010- Tucson Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Douglas, Arizona. Record checks revealed the subject had a prior conviction for statutory rape in the state of California and had been previously removed from the United States.
April 22, 2010 - Tucson Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Guatemala near Tucson, Arizona. Records checks revealed the subject had an active arrest warrant for molestation of a minor in the state of Florida, and had previously been removed from the United States.
April 22, 2010 - Tucson Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Tucson, Arizona. Records checks revealed the subject had a prior conviction for a sex offense against a child in the state of Indiana, and had previously been removed from the United States.
Office of Field Operations - U.S. Border Patrol
April 28, 2010
Alabama, USA
Huntsville police investigating rape of 14-year-old
Huntsville - A rape investigation is underway in Huntsville...
The victim is an underage girl.
The disturbing attack was unsettling for many women in the neighborhood, who said they're going to be extra cautious from now on...
...Police said early Sunday morning, a 14-year-old girl reported being raped by a Hispanic male while she was asleep in her bed.
Investigators said the man ran off after the victim woke up and began screaming.
Police are not sure how the man got into the house...
News of the rape put other neighbors on edge.
"I wouldn't expect it around here, that, that kind of blows my mind," said Shannon Stadler, who moved to the area just a few months ago...
Police said the suspect got away in a red Ford Mustang.
If you have any information that might help investigators, give Huntsville Police a call at (256) 722-7100.
Trang Do
WAFF
May 03, 2010
New York, USA
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Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn at Cornell |
Nicholas Kristof Talks of Oppression of Women Worldwide
Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof told a story yesterday afternoon to a packed audience in Statler Hall about two 15-year-old Cambodian girls trapped in the despairing shackles of prostitution. He had spoken to both of them for an article he was working on as a reporter and was struck by the fact that after his article ran, they would return to their lives of physical and emotional abuse.
“I had a great front page story and these girls were going to stay behind and die of AIDS,” he said.
So he made a call to the legal counsel at The New York Times and asked if the newspaper had a policy on purchasing human beings. “It turns out they didn’t!” he said to warm laughter from the audience. He bought the girls’ freedom for a total of $350.
“When you get a receipt for buying a human being, it’s a disgrace on our century,” he said.
Kristof, who was joined on stage by his wife, and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Cornell Board of Trustees member Sheryl WuDunn ’81, continually walked a narrow line between journalist and activist.
While telling the stories of young women who have endured widespread abuse in third-world nations, they made a heart-tugging plea to end the violence. Their claim that their work to save young girls was “unusual” for journalists was one of many similar statements that defined the unique nature of their jobs.
Kristof and WuDunn’s appearance, part of the the 20th anniversary celebration of the President’s Council for Cornell Women, focused on what they called the century’s most pressing problem — the worldwide oppression of women. This is also the subject of Half the Sky, their bestselling book released last year...
Ben Eisen and Emily Cohn
The Cornell Daily Sun
April 30, 2010
See also:
The World
LibertadLatina
Commentary
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Chuck Goolsby |
The Latin American Gender Crisis Also Deserves Mainstream Coverage
Pulitzer Prize winning journalists and authors Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn are doing important work spreading the word about human trafficking and the oppression of women and girls around the world.
During the fall of 2009, I spoke with both of the authors during a public radio discussion of their book
on third world gender oppression, Half the Sky, on WAMU, public radio at the American University in Washington, DC.
I mentioned to Kristof, WuDunn and talk show host Frank Sesno that Asia and
Africa were not the only hot spots for gender oppression in the developing world. I said that Latin America also has a major gender rights emergency that rivals that found in India. I mentioned that southern Mexico has been identified by Save the Children as the largest region in the world for the crime of commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC - child sex trafficking). I added that the United Nations-affiliated International Organization for Migration (IOM) office in southern Mexico has reported that an estimated 450 to 600 women and girls migrants, mostly from Central America, are systematically raped each and every day on the Mexican side of the narrow border with Guatemala and Belize, while Mexico's government intentionally refuses to police that zone of complete criminal impunity.
Kristof and WuDunn responded that they had not studied Latin America when
writing the book Half the Sky, and said that they considered India to be the largest and most critical gender rights emergency globally, and that therefore it should be tackled first.
In following their interviews on the subject, I see that Kristof and WuDunn continue to discuss India
as the global priority. They rarely mention Latin America in their discussions
about the subject of third world gender oppression.
Each and every journalist and author has the freedom to choose any subject matter to focus on. A person can only do so much in the fight against global gender oppression. We call out the inconsistencies in Kristof and WuDunn's presentation of the issue of gender oppression because, as both are Pulitzer Prize winning journalists
and best selling authors, their views are used as a reference point for those
interested in gender oppression issues globally.
Kristof and WuDunn's views also represent the status quo among anti-trafficking organizations in that they, like most workers and volunteers in the anti-trafficking movement, are
of European and Asian descent, and they therefore tend to focus on gender rights and human trafficking issues that involve Europe and Asia (and to some extend the U.S. and Africa).
Our project,
Libertad-Latina, has for the past 9 years addressed the task of speaking out with documented facts to make the case that Latin America is home to one of the most severely critical gender oppression crises on planet earth.
We assert that the crisis of gender oppression and especially human trafficking
is just as severe in Latin America as it is in Asia. The fact that the Japanese Yakuza
mafias have been kidnapping and exporting women and girl children (and
especially Indigenous girl children) to Japan and other Asian nations from
Colombia (since the 1980s) and also from Mexico and other nations in the region, is
one clear indicator of the importance of Latin American victims as an
economically valuable cohort of slaves used to populate the world's brothels.
The International Organization for Migration has stated that Latin America generates $16 billion per year from sex trafficking. That number is around 50% of the best estimates of the illicit revenues derived from human trafficking globally.
Given that Latin America represents roughly 50% of the global human trafficking
marketplace, it deserves the focused attention of the world's women and
children's human rights defenders.
Veteran Mexican women' rights lawyer Teresa Ulloa, director of the Latin American and Caribbean branch of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW-LAC) has
reported that 17% of the gross domestic product (GDP) of Latin America is generated from prostitution, most of which involves sex trafficking.
Ulloa also reports that Mexico alone has 500,000 victims of human trafficking.
In recent months, U.S. Ambassador Luis CdeBaca, director of the U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP), has acknowled-ged that an estimated 60% of U.S. trafficking victims are
from Latin America. Most of them have been trafficked across the Mexican border with the U.S. Yet most public pronouncements by Ambassador CdeBaca and his two predecessors failed to mention Latin America, even in passing.
We encourage everyone who works to end human trafficking: individuals, activists, non governmental organizations, government agencies and inter-governmental bodies to take a stand against gender oppression in Latin America. We also ask that the journalists and authors who cover gender oppression and human trafficking speak-up and join the tireless efforts of activists in the region and their supporters, who work day and night to end the mass gender atrocities that today plague Mexico and most of the other nations of Latin America.
End impunity now!
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
May 03, 2010
Massachusetts, USA
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Ismael Rivera (right) appears in court |
Springfield man arrested for vicious assault on 10-year-old girl
Sringfield - A 10-year-old girl is recovering after allegedly being viciously attacked inside of a Chestnut Street apartment building around midnight Wednesday, according to police, who have announced a suspect is in custody.
Ismael Rivera, 26, of 10 Chestnut St., is facing charges of assault and battery on a child with injury, unarmed robbery, kidnapping of a child, intimidating a witness and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon in connection with the assault on the girl after allegedly punching her in the mouth, burning her with a cigarette and attempting to drag her toward the building's garage before she was able to escape and run for help, according to Springfield Police Department Sgt. John Delaney.
The girl had been sent from her home on the 12th floor of 10 Chestnut St., to the 8th floor to an apartment belonging to the her mother's friend to get some cereal and milk, according to Delaney. As the girl was walking down the stairwell, Rivera allegedly grabbed her by the arm, spun her toward him and then punched her in the mouth. According to Delaney, Rivera then allegedly ripped the girl's cell phone from her hand as she pulled it out in an attempt to call for help and then grabbed her by the throat and threatened to break her neck if she didn't stay quiet before burning her neck with his cigarette.
Rivera then allegedly attempted to bring the girl to down the stairs to the building's garage, according to Delaney, when she was able to free herself and run to a security guard in the lobby for him to call 911.
Police were able to obtain a description of the attacker from the girl and went through the building to speak with residents, according to Delaney, and were able to identify Rivera as a suspect. Rivera was later found allegedly attempting to get back into the building while hiding his face with a hooded sweatshirt, according to Delaney, who added Rivera had the young girl's blood on his clothing.
Rivera had been arraigned in Springfield District Court Wednesday and ordered held without right to bail. Police had requested he be held on $1 million bail as he had allegedly threatened to flee to Puerto Rico, according to Delaney.
Nate Walsh
WGGB
April 28, 2010
Mexico
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Rupert Knox, de
Amnistía Internacional, recomendó al gobierno mexicano hacer
reformas legislativas para garantizar el acceso a la justicia para
los migrantes.
Rupert Knox of Amnesty International has recommended to the Mexican
government that it pass legislative reforms to guarantee
migrants
access to tMexico's justice system.
Photo: EFE |
AI: México viola DH como Arizona
El gobierno federal admitió la vulnerabilidad de los migrantes en su paso por el
país; actuará en pro de los indocumentados
La organización Amnistía Internacional (AI) demandó al gobierno de México ser
congruente en sus reacciones en temas migratorios y atender el problema de
abusos cometidos en contra de ciudadanos centroamericanos en territorio nacional,
como lo hace en la defensa de sus connacionales en Arizona.
Añadió que nada exime a las autoridades mexicanas para llevar ante la justicia a
los responsables de violaciones cometidas en la frontera sur, ya sean
funcionarios públicos o particulares...
Amnesty International: Mexico
Violates Migrants Human Rights "Same as Arizona"
Mexico’s Federal Government
admits the vulnerability of undocumented migrants; declares that it will work in
favor of immigrant rights
During a press conference and
report release: “Invisible Victims, Migrants in Movement Across Mexico,”
Amnesty International (AI) demanded that the government of Mexico be
consistent in its response to migration issues and abuses – and that it treat
abuses committed against Central American migrants on Mexican soil in the same
fashion as it treats its own complaints about abuses of Mexican citizens in
Arizona, USA.
Rupert
Knox noted that nothing exempts Mexican authorities from
bringing cases of migrant abuse long its southern border, be they committed by
public officials or others, before the justice system.
In response, the federal
government admitted the vulnerability of migrants during their trek across
Mexico, where they encounter dangers such as human trafficking and extortion.
At the conclusion of the press
conference, AI Mexico president Alberto Herrera stated that abuses occur that
are not being correctly addressed by the Mexican authorities.
Herrera: “These are the two
sides of the same coin. They are systematic practices of the Mexican state. On
the one hand, the government is making [pro human rights ] energetic statements
for international consumption [Blue heart campaign, etc.]. On the other hand, a
critical lack of attention to these domestic problems.
Herrera added that Mexico
should investigate both abuses committed by public officials, and those
perpetrated by individuals, including crimes that may be linked to organized
crime.
The AI report indicated that
90% of migrants crossing Mexico are Central Americans, especially from El
Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. 20% of that number of migrants are women
and girl children.
One in 12 of these migrants is
under age 18. Although the majority of those are teenagers, some have not yet
reached age 10.
The AI report also mentions
that in 2009, 64,061 foreign migrants were detained by Mexico’s National
Migration Institute. Some 60,383 of them were originally from Guatemala,
Honduras and Nicaragua.
Miguel Á. Sosa and
Gerardo Mejía
El Universal
April 29, 2010
See also:
Mexico
Mexico acknowledges migrant abuse, pledges changes
Mexico City - Amnesty International called the abuse of migrants in Mexico a major human rights crisis Wednesday, and accused some officials of turning a blind eye or even participating in the kidnapping, rape and murder of migrants.
The group's report comes at a sensitive time for Mexico, which is protesting the passage of a law in Arizona that criminalizes undocumented migrants.
The Interior Department acknowledged in a statement that the mainly Central American migrants who pass through Mexico on their way to the United States suffer abuses, but attributed the problem to criminal gangs branching out into kidnapping and extortion of migrants.
Rupert Knox, Amnesty's Mexico researcher, said in the report that the failure by authorities to tackle abuses against migrants has made their trip through Mexico one of the most dangerous in the world.
"Migrants in Mexico are facing a major human rights crisis leaving them with virtually no access to justice, fearing reprisals and deportation if they complain of abuses," Knox said.
Central American migrants are frequently pulled off trains, kidnapped en masse, held at gang hideouts and forced to call relatives in the U.S. to pay off the kidnappers. Such kidnappings affect thousands of migrants each year in Mexico, the report says.
Many are beaten, raped or killed in the process.
One of the main issues, Amnesty says, is that migrants fear they will be deported if they complain to Mexican authorities about abuses.
At present, Article 67 of Mexico's Population Law says, "Authorities, whether federal, state or municipal ... are required to demand that foreigners prove their legal presence in the country, before attending to any issues."
The Interior Department said the government has taken some steps to combat abuses and Mexico's legislature is working to repeal Article 67 "so that no one can deny or restrict foreigners' access to justice and human rights, whatever their migratory status."
The Amnesty report said one female migrant told researchers that Mexican federal police had forced her group off a train and stolen their belongings. Forced to walk, she said, she was subsequently attacked by a gang and raped.
The Interior Department said it shares Amnesty's concern, and called the report "a valuable contribution."
Mexico has long been offended by mistreatment of its own migrants in the United States...
Mark Stevenson
The Associated Press
April 29, 2010
The United States
Hundreds Of Immigrants With Criminal Records Arrested
Arrests Made In Florida, Puerto Rico
Miami, Florida - Hundreds were arrested this week as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement searched for immigrants with criminal records living in the U.S.
ICE officials announced Friday that a total of 596 foreign nationals with criminal records were arrested during a three-day operation in the Southeast, including Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Puerto Rico.
Of the 596 arrests, officials said 258 were in Florida and Puerto Rico. Five were arrested in Monroe County, 48 in Miami-Dade and 24 in Broward.
ICE officials said investigators targeted immigrants who pose a threat to national security, are members of gangs or who have a history of sex crimes against children, although the immigrants were not necessarily fugitives. Some of those arrested who have serious criminal histories and prior immigration arrest records could face federal prosecution.
Arrestees who have deportation orders outstanding or who have reentered the U.S. illegally will be deported, officials said.
JustNews.com
April 30, 2010
See also:
The United States
596 criminal aliens arrested in targeted ICE operation throughout the southeastern U.S.
Operation Cross Check yields the largest-ever number of arrests
WASHINGTON — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and its law enforcement partners arrested 596 foreign nationals with criminal records during a three-day enforcement surge throughout the southeastern United States, making it the biggest operation targeting at-large criminal aliens ever carried out by ICE in the region...
U.S. ICE
April 30, 2010
New York, USA
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Richard Figueroa |
'Manny' busted for sexually abusing 5-year-old
A Manhattan "manny" has been busted for sexually abusing a 5-year-old boy in his care, police said Friday.
Richard Figueroa, 23, performed lewd acts - which sources said involved oral sex - on a Morningside Heights boy over a period of several years, law enforcement officials said.
The mother called police last Tuesday after the boy asked her why "Richie always wants to kiss me on the lips" and perform sexual acts on him, sources said.
Figueroa, of East Harlem, was taken into custody at 10:30 p.m. Thursday, cops said. He was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court last night on charges of sexual assault on a child and committing a sexual act on a child, and held on $200,000 bail...
Kate Nocera and Joe Kemp
The New York Daily News
May 01, 2010
Ohio, USA
Cops: House guest got girl pregnant
Family took in illegal immigrant after meeting him at church
A 19-year-old illegal immigrant faces charges he impregnated the 13-year-old daughter of a family who helped him by moving him into their home after they met at church.
Estuardo Ruiz of Forest Park was booked into the Hamilton County jail Thursday on one count of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor.
According to court documents, Ruiz met the girl and her family at a church in Lockland that the family runs. The family reached out to Ruiz and moved him into their home.
That’s when he became sexually active with their teenage daughter, say Forest Park police.
The girl is pregnant with his child, which is due in October.
Her parents have made him move out.
Police say Ruiz, who does not speak English and is in the U.S. illegally, wrote a confession with the assistance of an interpreter.
Jennifer Baker
Cincinnati.Com
April 30, 2010
Washington State, USA
No suspects identified in reported rape at playground
Wenatchee - Wenatchee police say they have no suspects, but have asked other police agencies to attempt to locate the man and van described by a 16-year-old girl who reported she was raped at a school playground Saturday evening.
The girl told police she was walking on Orondo Avenue at about 8 p.m. when a man pulled up beside her in a light-colored van with tinted windows and began talking to her through the open passenger window, said Wenatchee Police Sgt. Cherie Smith.
She reported that she ignored the man and continued walking, but he got out and grabbed her, dragged her into the playground at Columbia Elementary School and sexually assaulted her, Smith said.
She told police she did not scream or call for help, and after the assault she walked home and told her mother.
Smith said they have not increased patrols at the school. Wenatchee School Superintendent Brian Flones said he hasn’t talked to his security officer, but doesn’t think the district has done anything specific in response, other than normal patrols around its schools...
The girl described the suspect as a man between 18 and 20 years old, about 130 pounds and 5 feet 8 inches tall, wearing a black tank top, dark blue jeans, and a black bandana. She told police he had a pierced tongue and goatee, tattoos across the knuckles of both hands, and a tattoo of barbed wire around his right elbow.
The girl identified the man as Hispanic...
K.C. Mehaffey
The Wenatchee World
April 27, 2010
Texas, USA
Peñitas man gets five years for molesting young relatives
Edinburg - A 25-year-old Peñitas man has been sentenced to five years in prison for molesting three female relatives.
Marco Antonio Molina Gonzalez pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of aggravated sexual assault of a child as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors.
One of his victims, 8, reported the continuous abuse to a counselor at her elementary school in March 2009. She said that he once had sex with her while she was locked in his room, according to court documents.
Her name as well as those of Gonzalez’s other 4- and 5-year-old victims have been withheld as it is The Monitor’s policy not to identify victims of sexual abuse.
Because he is an illegal immigrant, Gonzalez faces possible deportation after completing his prison term.
Jeremy Roebuck
The Monitor
April 26, 2010
New York, USA
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Victor Hernandez-Perez |
Hernandez-Perez found guilty on 13 counts, including kidnapping
Ballston Spa - Victor Hernandez-Perez has been found guilty of kidnapping a 24-year-old woman last July, assaulting her and forcing her to undress while he threatened to rape and kill her.
After five hours of deliberation, a jury returned the verdict — guilty on 13 of 14 counts — just after 7 p.m. Friday night.
Hernandez-Perez now faces eight to 25 years in state prison for his crimes. He will be sentenced in Saratoga County Court July 6. Hernandez-Perez, who entered the country illegally from his native El Salvador, will be turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials at the end of his prison term.
“We’re going to ask for the maximum sentence,” District Attorney James A. Murphy III said. “This guy is a predator.”
...
The Saratogian
April 30, 2010
Mexico
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Impunity!
Father Alejandro Solalinde, director of the shelter "Hermanos en el Camino de la Esperanza "
[Shelter for
Migrant Brothers on the Road of Hope]
and the coordinator of the Southern Zone of the Pastoral Dimension
of Human Mobility of the Mexican Episcopal Conference - is thrown
into the back of a pickup truck
and taken away by corrupt police forces in Oaxaca state.
Amnesty International: "Father
Alejandro Solalinde has been repeatedly arrested, threatened and
intimidated by local authorities and criminal gangs [for his work
assisting migrants]..."
How is the Blue Heart Campaign going to
end the madness of corrupt police action against migrants, others
at risk of human exploitation and those who help them, President Calderón? -
LL
(From
a 7 minute video documentary
by Amnesty International) |
Los abusos generalizados contra migrantes en México
son una crisis de derechos humanos
(comunicado de prensa - 48 páginas
- en el Formate de PDF)
Amnesty: Widespread abuse of migrants in Mexico is 'human rights crisis'
[Amnesty: Authorities are complicit in crimes against
migrants]
The Mexican authorities must act to halt the continuing abuse of migrants who are preyed on by criminal gangs while public officials turn a blind eye or even play an active part in kidnappings, rapes and murders, Amnesty International said in a new report released on Tuesday.
Invisible Victims: Migrants on the Move in Mexico, documents the alarming levels of abuse faced by the tens of thousands of Central American irregular migrants that every year attempt to reach the US by crossing Mexico.
"Migrants in Mexico are facing a major human rights crisis leaving them with virtually no access to justice, fearing reprisals and deportation if they complain of abuses," said Rupert Knox, Mexico Researcher at Amnesty International.
"Persistent failure by the authorities to tackle abuses carried out against irregular migrants has made their journey through Mexico one of the most dangerous in the world."
Kidnappings of migrants, mainly for ransom, reached new heights in 2009, with the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) reporting that nearly 10,000 were abducted over six months and almost half of interviewed victims saying that public officials were involved in their kidnapping.
An estimated six out of 10 migrant women and girls experience sexual violence, allegedly prompting some people smugglers to demand that women receive contraceptive injections ahead of the journey, to avoid them falling pregnant as a result of rape.
On 23 January 2010, armed police stopped a freight train carrying over 100 migrants in Chiapas State, southern Mexico.
Veronica (not her real name) said that Federal Police forced her and the other migrants to leave the train and lie face down on the ground, before stealing their belongings and threatening to kill them unless they continued their journey by foot along the railway.
After walking for hours, the group was assaulted by armed men who raped Veronica and killed at least one other migrant.
Two suspects were later detained after a local activist helped the migrants file a complaint but no action was taken against the Federal Police, despite migrants identifying two officers allegedly involved.
"Mexico has a responsibility to prevent, punish and remedy abuses whether these are committed by criminal gangs or public officials," said Rupert Knox.
The report calls for immediate action to ensure migrants' access to complaint mechanisms regardless of their status and ensure effective investigations...
Despite some welcome measures in recent years, for example better protection of the rights of unaccompanied children and criminalization of people trafficking, this has often in reality failed to prevent and punish abuses against migrants.
[The above linked page at Amnesty International
includes an excellent 7 minute video report]
The full report in English (48 pages - PDF format)
Amnesty International
April 28, 2010
Mexico
A final end to another stark case of official impunity
targeting Indigenous women
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Mexico's Supreme Court of Justice has freed two wrongly convicted
Otomi indigenous women,
Teresa González Cornelio
(left) and
Alberta Alcántara Juan - two months after
they were sentenced to prison for supposedly kidnapping six AFI
(equivalent to the U.S. FBI) agents - when a group of unarmed women
vendors at a street bazaar protested the confiscation of their
merchandise and surrounded the agents. |
Resuelve SCJN libertad para indígenas otomíes Alberta y Teresa
México, D.F., 28 abr 10 (CIMAC).- Por unanimidad, cinco ministros de la Primera Sala de la Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación (SCJN) resolvieron hoy revocar la sentencia dictada el 19 de febrero del 2010 contra Alberta Alcántara Juan y Teresa González Cornelio, indígenas otomíes acusadas de “secuestrar” a seis elementos de la desaparecida Agencia Federal de Investigación (AFI).
La sesión pública, en la que ambas indígenas fueron absueltas, convocó a una gran cantidad de medios de comunicación, quienes estuvieron pendientes del dictamen de la ministra Olga Sánchez Cordero, quien concluyó que no hay elementos suficientes para acreditar el delito de privación de la libertad en su modalidad de secuestro ni acreditar la responsabilidad de Alberta por delitos contra la salud, es decir, posesión de cocaína.
Por tanto, José de Jesús Gudiño Pelayo, presidente de la Primera Sala de la SCJN resolvió que de inmediato se mandaría un telegrama al juez Cuarto de Distrito en el estado de Querétaro, Rodolfo Pedraza Longi, para que este a su vez gire la orden de liberación.
Caber recordar que Pedraza Longi, impuso a Alberta y Teresa una pena de 21 años de prisión y el pago de una multa de 91 mil pesos, más 70 mil pesos por concepto de “reparación del daño”, luego de responsabilizarlas de haber “secuestrado” a seis elementos de la desaparecida Agencia Federal de Investigaciones (AFI).
Anayeli García Martínez
CIMAC Women's News Agency
April 28, 2010
See also:
Mexico
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Teresa González Cornelio in her prison cell |
Mexico frees 2 Indians after 4 years in prison
Mexico's Supreme Court has overturned the kidnapping convictions and ordered the release of two Indian market vendors whose case received international attention.
Otomi Indians Alberta Alcantara Juan and Teresa Gonzalez Cornelio have spent almost four years in prison on 21-year sentences for the alleged kidnapping of six federal agents.
Prosecutors say the agents were confiscating pirated goods at a market in 2006 when angry vendors overpowered them and held them against their will.
The court ruled Wednesday there was insufficient evidence to convict the women.
Critics, including Amnesty International, contend prosecutors fabricated evidence.
A third woman convicted in the case, Jacinta Francisco Marcial, was freed last year.
The Associated Press
April 28, 2010
See also:
Mexico
Amnesty International Demands Release of 2 Mexican Indigenous Women
Mexico City - Amnesty International of Mexico said two indigenous women jailed since 2006 on charges of kidnapping six police officers are “prisoners of conscience” and called for their immediate release.
Alberta Alcantara Juan and Teresa Gonzalez Cornelio were arrested three-and-a-half years ago during a raid on pirate DVD vendors at a square in the central Mexican state of Queretaro, the home region of both women.
In the same operation, police also arrested another indigenous market stall holder, Jacinta Francisco, who was released last September due to what Mexican prosecutors acknowledged was a lack of evidence during a retrial.
In a joint press conference with the Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center, or Centro Prodh, – which is assisting in the defense of Alcantara and Gonzalez – the director of that latter organization, Luis Arriaga Valenzuela, said the jailing of the two women serves as a dissuasive measure against all marginalized Indian populations.
“In cases like this, they know that if they rise up, they run the risk of getting lost in the labyrinth of Mexico’s deficient justice system,” he said.
For his part, Gabriel Alcantara Juan, Alberta’s brother and Teresa’s husband, said this situation is common among “low-income families” like his and demanded the immediate release of his sister, his wife and their daughter, who was born in prison and is now one year old.
Centro Prodh said Alcantara and Gonzalez had previously been victims of ethnic, gender and class discrimination and were targeted during the police operation because they “demanded to see the identification of the officers taking part” in the raid.
The police arrived at the Santiago Mexquititlan square dressed as civilians and violently dismantled some market stalls and seized merchandise, an operation resisted by the vendors...
The Latin American Herald Tribune
Late
2009
Georgia, USA / Puerto Rico
Army Lt. Colonel Accused Of Making Child Porn
Atlanta - A lieutenant colonel with the U.S. Army has been indicted by a federal grand jury on child pornography production and possession offenses.
Edgar Pagan-Torres, 41, of Peachtree City, made his initial appearance before a U.S. Magistrate judge on April 15, 2009, and was indicted Tuesday afternoon.
"This defendant allegedly sexually abused his own daughter and niece and then produced videos of his crimes, mementos that he carefully organized into home-video-style DVDs," said U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates. "This shocking and tragic conduct has no place in our nation's military, nor anywhere else. I appreciate all the hard work the U.S. Army investigators did to bring this case to the FBI and to ensure that the defendant now faces these very serious charges."
...
WSB-TV
April 27, 2010
Nevada, USA
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19-year-old suspect Juan Rivera |
14-Year-Old Identified as Murder Victim
Las Vegas - The Clark County Coroner's Office has identified the teen found murdered in a daycare parking lot as 14-year-old Diana Soto of Las Vegas.
No cause or manner of death has been determined.
Soto's body was found Sunday morning in the back parking lot of a daycare near Owens Ave. and Marion Dr. Officers were able to identify Soto through a missing persons report that was filed on April 24, 2010.
After interviewing family and friends, detectives arrested 19-year-old Juan Rivera in connection with Soto's murder. He has been booked into the Clark County Detention Center for murder, robbery and sexual assault. He will make his first court appearance on Wednesday.
KLAS
April 27, 2010
Ohio, USA
14-year-old indicted in rape of 64-year-old
Hamilton - A 14-year-old accused of robbing and sexually assaulting a 64-year-old woman has been indicted by a Butler County grand jury.
Alexis Ramirez of Liberty Township was indicted Wednesday, April 28, on charges of felonious assault, aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, two counts of kidnapping, three counts of rape and tampering with evidence. According to prosecutors, he faces up to 83 years in prison if convicted.
Assistant Prosecutor Brad Burress said the rape charges stem from “three distinct places in the house he forced to have sex with him.”
Ramirez was indicted for tampering with evidence for allegedly ditching the gun used in the attack in the woods behind his residence in a Liberty Twp. trailer park.
According to Butler County sheriff’s detectives, the woman was attacked Jan. 11 after the 14-year-old Monroe student
- armed with a “pellet rifle” - entered her residence at Countryside Mobile Home Community on Ohio 4. Authorities say the teen demanded money, hit the woman in the head and raped her before forcing her to drive to an ATM.
In March, following psychological evaluations and a hearing, Butler County Juvenile Court Judge Ronald Craft transferred the case to adult court...
Dayton Daily News
April 28, 2010
Mexico
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Migrantes
originarias de Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, y de otras
nacionalidades, continúan siendo víctimas de las redes de la
delincuencia organizada.
Migrant
women, hailing from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and
other nations, continue to become the victims of organized crime
networks.
Foto:
Organización Editorial Mexicana (OEM) |
"Zetas" secuestran y venden mujeres en 40 dólares: ONG´s
Ciudad de México.- Organizaciones de derechos humanos que trabajan en temas migratorios sostienen que pese a las campañas de prevención que lleva a cabo el Gobierno federal para radicar la trata de personas, mujeres, hombres, niñas, niños y adolescentes que salen de sus países en busca de una mejor vida tienen que soportar el costo de sufrir todo tipo de agresiones y violaciones a sus derechos humanos a lo largo de su trayecto por territorio mexicano.
Organizaciones como Frontera con Justicia, Humanidad Sin Fronteras, Belén Posada del Migrante y el Centro de Derechos Humanos Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez afirman que de acuerdo a testimonios de mujeres centroamericanas, en nuestro país las mujeres migrantes que viajan en el tren son secuestradas por grupos delictivos como los Zetas y forzadas a ejercer la prostitución en bares, prostíbulos y casas clandestinas en donde las venden hasta por 40 dólares"...
"Zetas" kidnap and then sell [pimp] migrant women for $40
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NGOs
Human rights
organizations who work on migration issues in Mexico say that, despite the
existence of federal initiatives to combat human trafficking, girls, boys,
adolescents, women and men who leave their homes in search of a better life must
face every form of violence and violations of their human rights throughout
their long journey across Mexican territory.
Non-profit
agencies such as Frontera con Justicia [Border with Justice], Humanidad Sin
Fronteras [Humanity Without Borders], Belén Posada del Migrante [the Bethlehem
Migrants Shelter] and the Centro de Derechos Humanos Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez [The
Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center] say that, according to the
testimonies of Central American women, many females who travel through Mexico by
jumping onto trains [the most common form of migration] are then kidnapped by
criminal networks such as the Zetas [a very powerful drug cartel founded by AWOL military men who apply
extreme violence during their criminal activities]. The Zetas and other gangs
force these kidnapped women to exercise prostitution in bars, brothels and safe
houses, where they are sold for up to 40 dollars.
Victims say that
these crimes are committed with complete impunity. “The authorities, instead of
taking action against the bars, actually work against us,” says a Honduran
migrant victim who was interviewed by a Honduran newspaper, and who has been
supported by NGOs in Mexico.
The advocacy
groups denounced the fact that migrants originating from Honduras, Guatemala, El
Salvador, Nicaragua and other nations continue to be victimized by these
crime networks, and by state governments who will not defend and protect their
human rights.
The human rights
advocates went on to add that government officials actually participate in the
commission of crimes against migrants. This is especially true in the many cases
where women have been kidnapped and taken to safe houses and brothels where they
are subjected to sexual exploitation and labor trafficking.
Because of this,
the above-named organizations energetically call upon the government of Mexico
to make good on the commitment and will expressed during the recent [April 14, 2010]
launch of the United Nations Blue Heart Campaign. The NGOs want Mexico’s federal
government to focus especially on the undocumented Central American migrant
population [as human trafficking victims].
At the same time,
the advocates are demanding that the rule of law and the statutes governing
human trafficking, the office of the federal Special Prosecutor for Crimes Against Women and
Human Trafficking (FEVIMTRA), and programs to protect trafficking victims - stop
being, as they are today, a set of inoperable political actions that allow
neither the eradication of the root causes of trafficking nor the elimination of
related crimes.
Within this context, the
NGOs, who previously extended an open invitation for visits on these issues to
the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), are also calling on the Mexican
state to set solid dates for the visits offered, in response, by Felipe González,
the CNDH Special Rapporteur for Workers, Migrants and their Families.
Manrique Gandaria
El Sol de México
(OEM)
April 24, 2010
See also:
(Another report about the same press conference)
Mexico
Piden ONG contener creciente trata de personas en México
Organizaciones No Gubernamentales (ONG) reclamaron hoy al gobierno mexicano hacer efectivo el compromiso de contener la creciente trata de personas, ejercida básicamente contra inmigrantes centroamericanos en condición irregular.
Pese a los esfuerzos del Ejecutivo, el delito resulta frecuente y las políticas aplicadas no conducen a la erradicación de ese grave flagelo, señalaron ONG especializadas en la materia, entre ellas Frontera Con Justicia y los centros de derechos humanos Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez y del Migrante "Beato Juan Bautista Scalabrini"...
Prensa Latina
April 22, 2010
LibertadLatina
Commentary
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Chuck Goolsby |
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Logo of the United
Nations Blue Heart
Campaign Against
Human Trafficking |
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Is Mexico
Finally Willing to Act to End Human Slavery
and Gender Exploitation?
The April 14th launch in Mexico City by
President Calderón of the world's first
national-level (United Nations sponsored)
Blue Heart Campaign
against human trafficking offers the hope
that the Mexican government has finally
turned a corner, and is now willing to act
positively to combat the crisis of modern
human slavery after a very long history of
inaction.
While that is the hope, it is not unfair for
the world to maintain a skeptical eye on the
activities of Mexican officials as they work
to put into effect such a radical change in
national policy.
During the past several years
LibertadLatina
has dedicated its efforts to bringing world
attention to the mass rapes, kidnappings and
enslavement of women, children and men that
occurs with almost total impunity in Mexico.
While the global anti-trafficking movement
-and especially its powerful and pioneering
English-speaking contingent- have focused
almost exclusively on fighting human
trafficking in other regions of the world
(especially in Europe, Asia and the U.S.),
we have worked to close the gap in
English-language and bilingual coverage of
the trafficking crisis in the
Spanish-speaking, Caribbean, Indigenous and
African-descendent communities of the
Americas.
The United Nations is perhaps
the only major entity with the power to
affect positive change - to have taken the
crisis in Latin America seriously during the
past decade. It is not by accident that the
UN had previously developed an
anti-trafficking relationship directly with
Mexico's border state of Chiapas, the only
UN-to-state relationship of its kind, in
response to the mass human atrocities that
occur there. It is also not by accident that
Mexico was chosen as the world's first
nation to adopt the UN Office of Drugs and
Crime's Blue Heart Campaign against human
trafficking.
According to the Southern
Cone (southern South American) office of the
United Nations-affiliated International
Organization for Migration (IOM), an
estimated $16 billion of the $32 million in
annual profits created by the human slavery
industry globally are generated in Latin
America. That 50% 'share' of the criminal
marketplace for worldwide slavery victims
has never been responded to by the
engagement of 50% of the global
anti-trafficking movement's energy,
resources or focus.
That lack of attention,
together with the willingness of past U.S.
administrations to effectively ignore Latin
America's crisis in human slavery, allowed a
drug-profit fueled criminal industry to grow
exponentially in the region while the world
effectively looked the other way in apathy.
Mexico is home base for the
largest problems in Latin American human
trafficking.
We have decided to focus on
the crisis in Mexico because solving that
one single national emergency will have the
most positive impact on the entire regional
crisis.
In the United States, 60% of
U.S. trafficking victims are Latin American.
Most of them have been trafficked across the
Mexican border into the U.S. The population
of Mexico (and especially its poor and
vulnerable Indigenous peoples), also suffer
immensely from modern slavery. In addition,
Central American migrants are kidnapped,
raped and trafficked by the many thousands
as they cross Mexico. Some are also
murdered.
Southern Mexico's narrow
border with Guatemala and Belize is the one
'bottleneck' where literally millions of
South and Central American migrants who seek
to travel to the United States must cross
into Mexico. Human traffickers and also
rapist thugs and robbers await these
innocent migrants like trolls under a
bridge. They rape an estimated 450 to 600
women and girls among these migrants every
single day of the year with complete
impunity on the Mexican side of its southern
border, with no discernable response from
Mexican officials and authorities. In fact,
police and military forces have harassed
migrants and their NGO caregivers. Many of
these victims are kidnapped (10,000 during a
6 month period, according to a study by
Mexico's National Human Rights Commission).
A number of those victims are sold into
slavery, often to be trafficked to brothels
in Mexico, the U.S. and Europe.
The NGO Save the Children has
described the southern border of Mexico as
being the largest region in the entire world
for the commercial sexual exploitation of
children. The city of Tapachula, for
example, has 20,000 persons engaging in
prostitution in its 1,500 bars and brothels.
Half of that number are children and
underage youth at any given time. Local
police don't interfere with this 'business,'
they focus on keeping child prostitutes away
from schools and upscale residential
neighborhoods.
Across Mexico, women, and
especially those from Mexico's traditionally
discriminated against Indigenous peoples,
who are 30% of the population, are also
raped with impunity. The perpetrators are
not only criminal thugs, but also military
soldiers engaged in the drug war. President
Calderón has steadfastly denied that any
problem exists with military rapes of
civilians, and he has refused to allow
accused soldiers to be tried in civilian
courts.
On April 15, 2010, one day
after the launch of the Blue Heart campaign,
President Calderón sent his federal lawyers
to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
to fight against
Inés
Fernández Ortega,
an Indigenous woman who was gang-raped by
soldiers in her home in 2002. The government
lawyers denied that any rape took place, and
blamed the victim for the lack of justice
(an assertion that women's rights activists
in Mexico are repulsed by).
Fernández Ortega, her family
and her lawyers have faced intimidation and
death threats. Her brother, a witness in her
case, was murdered shortly after she began
her now 8 year effort to find justice in her
case.
For Inés Fernández Ortega and
many other women victims of criminal
impunity in Mexico, the Inter-American Court
of Human Rights has become the venue of last
resort after having faced institutional
injustice, impunity, and a corrupt and
uncaring government response to their
plight.
The Mexican government's
actions in the Inés Fernández Ortega case,
just after kicking-off the Blue Heart
Campaign, raise a red flag of concern about
the true nature of President Calderón's
level of commitment to truly changing
Mexico's long tradition of openly exploiting
people for profit while repressing the
rights of those who dare to file a
complaint.
During the 500 year period
since the Spanish conquest of Mexico,
Indigenous women have been easy target for
rapists and human traffickers. We who are
Indigenous know this history inside out, no
matter what corner of the Americas we hail
from. What is an abomination in today's
world is the fact that in Mexico and across
much of Latin America, Indigenous women and
girls continue to be enslaved and brutalized
with the implied consent of national
governments. By extension, none of these
women can count on the protection of their
national governments and local police forces
in the face of such gender atrocities.
In Mexico, an estimated 3,000
to 4,000 Indigenous children and underage
youth have been kidnapped and then sold to
the Japanese Yakuza mafias, who then
transport the victims to Japan, where they
are enslaved as 'Geisha' prostitutes.
Despite the existence of this story during
the past several years, there are no visible
signs that either Mexico or Japan have ever
lifted a finger to rescue the victims. In a
similar case, a reporter in Spain posed as a
pimp, and was offered 6 Mayan Indigenous
girls for sale. They were all 13-years-old.
The sale price was $25,000 each, because
Indigenous girl children were considered to
be "exotic" merchandise.
During the past 9 years,
LibertadLatina
has
related many similar true stories of
impunity to our readers. We have backed-up
our arguments with the 1,300 pages of
factual news articles, research reports and
essays that are available on this web site.
We have
especially focused on translating into
English the many articulate voices for
change in Mexico and Latin America.
They are women and men; journalists,
academics and activists who have dared to
speak the truth about the mass gender
atrocities that plague this region of the
world, a region where exercising your
freedom of expression, especially as a
journalist, can easily get you killed.
We salute them all, and
remain dedicated to presenting the truth to
the public about these institutionalized
forms of gender and ethnic oppression.
The United Nations Blue Heart
Campaign's first national-level effort will
offer Mexico an opportunity to show its
citizens, its indigenous nations, its
undocumented migrants, its children and the
world community that it is really willing to
change.
Change will not come easily.
We will not celebrate any victories over
impunity until we see real, consistent
change on the ground.
To make that change happen,
human rights organizations, activists,
academics and concerned citizens within
Mexico and across the globe will all have to
keep up the pressure on Mexico's government.
Many political and cultural forces in Mexico
will fight hard to block the effective work
of the Blue Heart Campaign and the
imposition of the rule of law in regions
where it does not now exist.
Mexico has relied upon slave
labor (farm labor peonage and unpaid
Indigenous domestic servitude for the middle
and upper classes) for 500 years. In
addition, according to veteran Mexican
women's rights lawyer Teresa Ulloa, director
of the Coalition Against Trafficking in
Women's Latin American and Caribbean branch
(CATW-LAC),
500,000 victims of human slavery exist in
Mexico. The great majority of these victims
are forced into prostitution. That economic
sector generates great wealth for criminals,
corrupt police officers and politicians.
Raping, robbing and murdering migrants who
attempt to cross Mexico also generates
significant illicit 'profits.'
Those who benefit from
exploiting people will not give up without a
fight. It is not unlike asking people in
Afghanistan to give up growing opium poppies
to make heroin. That is simply how money is
made in that part of the world.
The supporters of the lawless
status-quo have included many officials
within the Calderón administration.
The 2007
Law to Prevent,
Combat and Punish Human Trafficking
was effectively derailed by opposition
within the administration, and it is now
referred to accurately as a "dead letter" by
congressional leaders.
Interior Secretary Fernando
Gómez Mont was effectively in charge of
seeing to it that the 2007 law's required
federal regulations were written, and that
the Commission and the Program to Prevent
and Punish Human Trafficking were set up. He
dragged his feet for two years before the
law's regulations were written, and then
delayed setting-up the commission called for
in the law. The National Program, the last
major element called for to actually
implement the law, was never created.
The aspects of the 2007 law
that were put into effect only came into
being because of persistent agitation from
members of Congress. Interior Secretary
Fernando Gómez Mont, for example, only
created the federal regulations required to
implement the law after Congress issued four
stern warnings to President Calderón,
demanding that he act to put the law into
effect.
Congressional members are
still demanding that the 2007 law's required
National Program to Prevent and Punish Human
Trafficking be created, as called for in the
2007 law.
In addition to these
realities, the National Action Party (PAN)
has not had a stellar history in regard to
defending women's rights within many other
venues.
The former mayor of Ciudad
Juarez and later Chihuahua state governor
during the 1990s femicide crisis,
Francisco Javier
Barrio Terrazas, was rewarded by
president Calderón, (over the vocal
objections of anti-femicide activists who
recalled his apathy in addressing the
crisis) with an appointment as Mexico's
ambassador to Canada in 2009.
Arturo Chávez,
who botched the investigations into the
Ciudad Juarez femicides and prosecutions of
suspects, was roundly denounced by
anti-femicide activists when President
Calderón named him to be Attorney General,
also in 2009.
Cecilia Romero, head of the
national immigration service (INM) and a
long-time PAN party official, boasted in a
2009
press interview with
El Universal, a major Mexico City
daily paper, that human trafficking is
"inevitable", and that, "the existence of
the smuggling of migrants, human
trafficking, pedophile networks, and the
kidnappings and violence that affect
thousands of migrants are only
"evils of
mankind" that Mexico cannot eradicate.
The worst legacy of misogyny
within the ruling National Action Party is
represented by El Yunque (the Anvil) - an
ultra-conservative Catholic secret society
that has been reported to be a major, if not
dominating influence within the PAN. As we
have reported previously:
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"El
Yunque holds the
belief that all social
activists, including those who
advocate for improving the lives
of women, indigenous people and
the poor, are literally
the children of Satan. They take
aggressive political action
consistent with those beliefs.
During the 1960s,
El Yunque perpetrated political
assassina-tions and murders
targeting their opponents.
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We are today being asked by
President Calderón to believe that
his administration has made the radical
shift from policies that effectively matched
those of El Yunque, to a now enlightened,
pro-women and pro-victim stance that
aggressively supports the war against human
trafficking.
If President Calderón's lofty words, spoken
at the April 14, 2010 launch of the "Blue
Heart Campaign - Mexico - 2009-2010" (see
below articles), are sincere, we support
those sentiments 100%
PAN congresswoman Rosi Orozco, who has just
presented a new anti-trafficking bill to
replace the 'failed' 2007 law (see below
articles) is proposing a measure that
appears to be a truly groundbreaking piece
of legislation. Her bill, developed with
input from the United Nations (and likely
the United States), appears to repair the
many deficiencies found in the 2007 law that
made its implementation such a political
nightmare for anti-trafficking advocates in
Congress.
We do insist, however,
that the Mexican government dismantle ALL
forms of human exploitation, and that it do
so effectively. We echo the recently
announced demands of NGO
agencies
Frontera con Justicia [Border with Justice],
Humanidad Sin Fronteras [Humanity Without
Borders], Belén Posada del Migrante [the
Bethlehem Migrants Shelter] y el Centro de
Derechos Humanos Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez
[The Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights
Center] (see above article).
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[We all demand that]
the rule of law and the statutes
governing human trafficking, the
federal Special Prosecutor for
Crimes Against Women and Human
Trafficking (FEVIMTRA), and
programs to protect trafficking
victims - stop being, as they
are today, a set of inoperable
political actions that allow
neither the eradication of the
root causes of trafficking nor
the elimination of related
crimes. |
The wonderful words spoken by President
Calderón and Deputy Orozco during the Blue
Heart campaign launch said nothing about the
3,000 to 4,000 Mexican Indigenous children
and youth enslaved in Japan who are awaiting
the president's action and their rescue.
Those words said almost nothing about the
rape with impunity of 450 to 600 women and
girl children by traffickers and thugs each
and every day on the Guatemalan border, an
atrocity that Mexico's Congress has demanded
action to have resolved for years to no
avail. [Although efforts to assist migrant
victims of trafficking were mentioned by
President Calderon on April 14th.]
Those words also said nothing about any
federal action to change conditions in
Tapachula, a southern Mexican
border city where an estimated 10,000
underage children and youth are forced to
prostitute themselves with virtually no
government intervention.
Nothing was said about Save the Children's
observation that Mexico's southern border is
the largest zone for the commercial sexual
exploitation of children in the entire
world.
We expect, at the very least,
that the U.S. State Department's 2010
Trafficking Persons (TIP) report, that
applies a rating to all of the world's
nations, will be honest and acknowledge
these multiple crises. Were it not for the
Blue Heart Campaign and the positive
anti-trafficking leadership and actions of
Deputy Rosi Orozco. the PAN party's new
spokesperson on human trafficking issues,
Mexico would have rightly deserved a
downgrading of its 2009 rating from Level 2
to the Level 2 Watch List in 2010.
No nation wants to be on that
'trouble' list.
We have no doubt that the
U.S. Government, through Ambassador at Large
Luis CdeBaca, played a major role in
bringing about such a major change in
Mexican federal policy on human trafficking.
If that assumption is correct, we salute
Ambassador CdeBaca, Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton, and President Barack Obama
for those important efforts.
Mexico | |
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