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Indigenous & Latina Women & Children's Human
Rights News from the Americas |
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Latin America - Sexual Exploitation
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Nightmare in a City of Dreams |
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Part 1: Epidemic of Murder in a Free-Trade Haven |
| http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/onassignment/juarez/index.htm |
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Part 2: Justice Elusive for Slain Women |
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http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/onassignment/juarez/part2.htm |
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Washington Post - Special Features |
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(c) 2000 The Washington Post |
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Excerpt from Part II: |
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See also the August 14th, 2002 item: "Demand
Justice for the Women and Families of Ciudad Juarez" about
onging efforts to organize in defense of girl-children and women facing
victimization in Juarez. |
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CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico
Only hours after Irma Angelica Rosales [age 12] left work, a boy playing
in a garbage-strewn lot spotted something in a dry drainage ditch,
barely poking from beneath a pile of dead brush next to some rotting
tires. A little hand.
Within
the hour, the television news reported that another young woman had been
killed in Ciudad Juarez. She was the sixth since the start of 1999
six weeks earlier, and by official count, the 209th woman or girl to be
slain in the border city in the previous six years.
Her
description fit the pattern of many of the slayings: young, thin, long
black hair, dark complexion - and an assembly-plant worker. Raped,
smothered to death with plastic bags, dumped in an abandoned lot, this
time just behind one of the big modern maquiladoras, factories that
produce consumer goods for American companies. Like so many victims,
this one was anonymous.
Suly Ponce, the special prosecutor for women's killings in Ciudad
Juarez, grimaced at the latest report. Two days earlier, on Feb. 14,
1999, the bones of another woman had been found on the desert fringe of
this modern manufacturing city that shares a border with El Paso, Tex.
Ramon Angiano, a gravedigger in the San Rafael cemetery outside Ciudad
Juarez, stands in front of one of the 300 unmarked graves containing the
city's unidentified murder victims.
The killer or killers were preying largely on the young, female work
force created by the rise of maquiladoras [U.S. cheap labor border
factories], symbols of Mexico's integration into the global economy. The
majority of workers were women, including thousands of migrants who had
left poorer, more traditional rural towns and villages for a new life in
Juarez.
Now, in addition to churning out exports, Cuidad Juarez was producing
corpses. The vacant lots that pock the city and the open deserts on its
edges had become dumping grounds for raped, slashed, strangled, crushed
and dismembered bodies. As Esther Chavez, a pioneering women's rights
advocate in Juarez, put it: "They were murdering women and throwing them
out like garbage."
Ponce, 35, had been appointed special prosecutor by a new state governor
who had campaigned promising to end the killings terrorizing Ciudad
Juarez. After three months on the job, she had no substantive arrests to
her credit - only more bodies. And now a new one.
(End of exceprt.)
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Últimas Noticias
Latest
News
May 2008 News
Mexico
Soldados nos agreden:
mujeres Me’phaa de La Montaña, Guerrero
Soldiers Subject Indigenous Women & Communities
to Terror in Guerrero State
Fortina Cruz Ortega, of
the Me`phaa ethnic group (members of the larger
indigenous Tlapaneca tribe of the region called
La Montaña in Guerrero state), joined with four
other indigenous women... to denounce human
rights abuses occurring in La Montaña... The
group... gave testimony before the Indigenous
Affairs Committee of the Chamber of Deputies...
Cruz Ortega: "We,
the women of the Me`phaa, live in everyday fear
of leaving our homes, because military soldiers
harass us... Many of our women have been raped
by these soldiers, but they remain silent
because if their husbands found out, they would
get angry and leave them."
Cruz Ortega, the
wife of Orlando Manzanares Lorenzo, also
denounced the fact that her husband, as well as
the husbands of the other four women present,
had been falsely accused in the homicide of
Alejandro Feliciano García, a police and
military informant. Those detained include:
Manuel Cruz Victoriano... who denounced having
been forcibly sterilized by workers of the
Secretary of Health; ... and Natalio Ortega Cruz
and Romualdo Santiago Enedina, both... cousins
of a woman named Inés, who... was raped by
soldiers in 2002...
The wives of these
prisoners declared that the only 'crime' their
husbands are guilty of is that of having
organized and protected their communities...
After the women
concluded their statements at the press
conference, Deputy Marcos Matías Alonso
announced that the following day, the issue of
the
Me`phaa leadership's unjust
arrest would be presented to the Senate of the
Republic by Senator Cuauhte-moc Sandoval, a member of the
Permanent Commission...
- Sandra Torres
Pastrana
CIMAC Noticias
Mexico City
May 8, 2008
See also:
Lorenzo Fernández Ortega,
a leading member of the Me Phaa Indigenous
People’s Organization (Organización del Pueblo
Indígena Me Phaa - OPIM) and brother of Inés
Fernández Ortega, was kidnapped on 9 February
and found dead the following day, in Ayutla de
los Libres, Guerrero State.
Other members of OPIM have also
suffered threats and intimidation since the day
of the kidnapping. Amnesty International is
gravely concerned for their safety.
- Amnesty International
Feb. 22, 2008
Mexico's Indians Target of
Sterilization 'Sweep'
Ayutla de los Libres - Jose
Toribio, a Mixtec Indian from the Sierra Madre
mountains... attributes the pain [in his leg] to
a vasec-tomy he had two years ago after visits
to his remote village by No. 3 Brigade, a state
medical team...
Toribio now says he had the
operation because of threats made to him by No.
3 Brigade.
His claims are supported by the
official Guerrero Human Rights Commission...
- Linda Diebel
Toronto Star (Canada)
March 26, 2000
LibertadLatina
The crisis of forced
sterilization facing indigenous and Latin
communities in the Americas
Mexico
A view from the
frontlines of grass-roots action to rescue
children in sexual slavery in Mexico
About the Breaking Chains
Mission, based in Tijuana, Mexico
Steven Cass: "Our ministry actually works street
level to identify and then rescue victims of
child prostitution and trafficking. We have
over 150 rescues so far from 7-22 years old and
are in the midst of an extended trip in Southern
Mexico where we have identified 100's in this
situation. Over the next month we pray to bring
them to freedom."
[The front page of the
above web site contains a moving video of
testimonies from teen girls rescued from the
street by the Breaking Chains Mission.]
Breaking Chains Mission
Report
For 5-11-2008
Report Excerpt:
Mexico's Southern Pacific Coastal Tourist
Areas
...In terms of what’s happening here on this
mission…there is much. I am seeing numerous
children involved in prostitution with tourists,
many as young as 5-7 years old. As I walk the
areas where this is prevalent it is clear that
the locals are very aware of what’s happening
between their children and the tourists who
flock here...
North Americans and those from other countries
as well are known here for one thing…looking for
drugs and underage boys and girls...
Last night as I walked through one of the main
party zones I was approached by a hustler who in
perfect English asked me if I wanted “underage
girls.” I asked him “what about the laws?” His
reply made me want to vomit…he said with a grin
that had satan written all over it: “we have a
great government here.”
I do believe the local authorities are trying to
stop it but like the war on drugs they have
turned a cheek for so long that the problem is
almost beyond hope...
- Steven Cass
Breaking Chains Mission
May 11, 2008
LibertadLatina
note:
Dear Steven Cass,
Thanks for your letter.
Keep up the great work. We know that it is tough
and lonely on the frontlines!
Many of the most effective acts against impunity
are those taken by individuals and small groups
of volunteers who have the fortitude to walk
into the jaws of evil and dare to rescue victims
from impunity. We salute your efforts to
rescue our children and youth in peril.
End
impunity now!
-
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
May 14, 2008
Mexico
Exigen frenar explotación
laboral de menores indígenas
Congress Demands an End to the Labor
Exploitation of Indigenous Children
Approximately three
million mostly indigenous children and
adolescents face labor exploitation in Mexico
due the economic problems facing 80% of the
population, and due to the customs of families
who use the labor of their children to survive.
According to a
report by Mexico's Chamber of Deputies, the
majority of these children abandon school or are
about to do so, as their families migrate to
cities and agricultural export farm regions.
Deputy César Flores
Maldonado, coordinator for the Revolutionary
Democratic Party (PRD) stated: "The child labor
force can be seen in workshops, farm fields,
ware-houses, markets, long-haul trucking and
high-risk activities such as sexual
exploitation. It is a well-established reality
in our nation. Little-or-nothing is done to
eradicate it."
Some 15.7% of
underage Mexicans engage in some type of work.
An estimated 54.7% of child laborers are
domestic workers [many of whom are sexually
exploited].
About 5,000 children
work as 'carriers' in Mexico City's warehouse
industry. The government does nothing to control
this exploitation, which causes accidents and
deformities for these working children.
Nine in ten indigenous
child laborers receive no pay for their work.
The states with the
highest rates of child labor are Chiapas,
Campeche, Puebla and Veracruz, where 22% of
minors work.
In Mexico City,
15,000 minors live and work on the city's
streets,
- La Cronica
Mexico
May 2, 2008
LibertadLatina
note:
The
feudal Spanish system of slave labor that was
imposed on indigenous peoples in Mexico and
across Latin America during the European
colonial period (1400's-1800's) has continued to
operate with impunity in Mexico and many other
Latin American countries unchanged.
For
500 years, indigenous women and children have
remained the primary target of opportunity for
sexual predators, and sex traffickers,
across the Americas.
(Yes, our peoples were sex-trafficked even 500
years ago.)
End
impunity now!
-
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
May 14, 2008
See also:
An undercover
reporter in
Spain
poses as
a buyer
[pimp], and is
Offered six
virgin
Indigenous
'girls
[all of them
age 13] by
a trafficker.
The
'sale' price
in Europe
for young Mayan
girls
kidnapped
from
Chiapas,
Mexico:
$25,000
each.
(In Spanish)
-
Antonio Salas and
Joan Manuel Baliellas
Crónica
Spain
Feb. 29, 2004
Investigará
gobierno de
Chiapas
venta de
indígenas en
Europa
Chiapas
State
Investigates
Sale of
Young Mayan
Girls in
Europe.
(In Spanish)
- CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
Mexico City
March 15, 2004
LibertadLatina
About the Crisis of Sexual Exploitation
Affecting Women and Children in Mexico
Idaho, USA
The use of "illegal
immigrant" in Idaho rapist story creates false
connection
An appalling story
out of St. Anthony, Idaho speeded across the
Internet this morning. According to Idaho Falls
CBS affiliate, KIDK, a 10-year-old girl gave
birth to a 6 lb. baby girl as a result of being
raped.
The news story on
the KIDK site read in part: "…That person is
this man, 37-year old Guadalupe
Gutierrez-Juarez. Juarez is actually an illegal
immigrant, and is now behind bars in the Fremont
County Jail on other rape charges...
If convicted the
illegal immigrant could face life in prison, a
$50,000 fine ,or both. Whether he ever serves
anytime behind bars will be up to the judge who
if he places him on probation, could deport
him."
From the way this
story reads, "If convicted the [undocumented]
immigrant could face life in prison,"
dehumanizes not just the intended target, the
rapist, but ALL undocumented immigrants. Also,
it makes it sound that this was a
stranger-on-stranger crime.
It wasn't.
The rapist was
married to the girl's mother. Latina Lista has
yet to verify if the rapist was the child's
father.
At any rate, it
should go without saying that not all
undocumented immigrants are rapists but this
article definitely plants the connection between
the two terms...
By repeatedly
referring to this rapist as the "illegal
immigrant," this media story does a disservice
to the local community and popular perception of
all undocumented immigrant men who are Latino...
-
Marisa Treviño
Politics in Color
May 9, 2008
LibertadLatina
note:
We
at
LibertadLatina
agree with Marisa Treviño's editorial
view-point that repeatedly calling an accused
rapist "the illegal alien" instead of using his
actual name is indeed a thinly-veiled effort to
identify all undocumented immigrant men with the
crime of rape (be that a conscious or an
unconscious goal of a given reporter).
However, the fact that a rape suspect is
undocumented is in-fact part of the story.
One
researcher (see below) estimates that 93 sex
offenders and 12 serial sexual offenders come
across the U.S. - Mexican border each day.
While the impact of that fact in the United
States is of concern, of equal concern is the
fact that women and children in Mexico face rape
and abuse with impunity in a nation where laws
against sexual predation are almost never
enforced.
The
crisis of severe sexual exploitation that women
and children face in Latin America has migrated
to the United States and other destination
nations for migrants.
The
responsibility to defend the victims remains the
same in any part of the geography of the
Americas.
Therefore, the traditional code of silence in
the Latino community, that has kept quiet the
victims of sexual terror for centuries [and
especially that terror's indigenous victims]...
must be ended.
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"Historically the voices of women,
especially women of color have been
silenced. As we begin to uncover our
past, the oppression we experienced is
being detailed, however embar-rassing it
may be.
To
continue the silence would be a
detrimental step backwards."
-
Puerto Rican women's health rights
advocate Venus Ginés |
While the statistics gathered by research-ers
such as
Dr. Deborah Schurman-Kauflin
of Atlanta's Violent Crimes
Institute (see below) are disturbing, do
pro-Latina activists have an obligation to
silence these facts?
We
don't think so.
Human rights activists and those who report the
news are not advancing women's basic human
rights when they remain silent about the truth.
It may be convenient to protecting the Barrio
during a time of obvious hostility towards
immigrants, but that does not justify leaving
'Maria' abandoned to her fate at the hands
of rapists and sex traffickers.
Arguably, much of the hostility facing the
immigrant community in the U.S. would diminish
if the Latino community were seen as being more
visibly active in stopping the impunity of
rapists who today remain protected by the
Barrio's centuries-old code of silence. We
cannot pretend that non-Latinos in the U.S.
don't see clearly what is happening.
"Illegal alien rapes" is an unfortunate headline
in dozens of news stories across the U.S. every
day.
Today, remaining silent is not an option.
We in El Barrio must face these issues head-on,
an exercise that is also taking place, slowly
but surely, across all of Latin America.
At-risk women and children across the Americas
deserve no less from us.
Now is the time to act.
Silence is also
violence!
End impunity now!
-
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLa | |
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