Human Trafficking in [Mexico] [other countries]Street Children in [Mexico] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Mexico |
Child Prostitution The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of
Children In the
early years of the 21st Century - 2000 to 2010 gvnet.com/childprostitution/Mexico.htm
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FEATURED ARTICLES *** Mexican Journalist Risks Life to Expose Child Sex Rings R.M. Arrieta, news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=08890242c9c628bf15caca9bf2b5329d [accessed 19 September 2011] Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho is exposing the players in these Cancun-based sex
rings, and risking her life for it. Her awareness led her to a life of
activism and journalism. She started a high-security shelter for abused women
in Cancun where children opened up to her about the dark underworld of child
porn rings and prostitution. As a result, she says, “I’ve been taken to
jail for telling other people’s stories. No one imagines that The underage sex rings she has
exposed include Child Prostitution: A Growing Scourge W. E. Gutman, The www.thepanamanews.com/pn/v_10/issue_07/travel_01.html [accessed 20 June 2011] A REGION OUT OF CONTROL - Mexico - More than 16,000 children
are sexually exploited through networks involving foreigners and military,
police, government and business officials. In Juarez alone, nearly
1,000 children are being sexually exploited, and in Guadalajara, officials
report 750 cases of child prostitution. The US-Mexican border is one of
the main centers for child sex tourism. Sterile at Age 12 ... Abortion at 13 ... AIDS at 14 Diego Cevallos, Inter Press
Service News Agency www.aegis.com/news/ips/1998/IP980202.html [accessed 20 June 2011] Thousands of children in ***
ARCHIVES *** Human Rights Reports » 2005
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/62736.htm [accessed 20 February 2011] CHILDREN - Trafficking in children for the
purpose of sexual exploitation was a problem. TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS - Although
there were no reliable statistics on the extent of trafficking, the
government estimated that 20 thousand children were sexually exploited each
year. Sexual tourism and sexual exploitation of minors were significant
problems in the northern border area and in resort areas. Undocumented
migrants from Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of
the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, , 8 October 1999 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/mexico1999.html [accessed 20 February 2011] [31] In view of the assessment and
recommendations made by the Special Rapporteur on
the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography regarding the
situation of the sexual exploitation of children in Mexico, the Committee
welcomes the measures taken by the State party to combat this phenomenon, in
particular, the establishment of the Inter-institutional Commission to
Eradicate the Sexual Exploitation of Children. [32] While the Committee is aware
of the measures taken by the State party on the situation of repatriated
children (menores fronterizos),
it remains particularly concerned that a great number of these children are
victims of trafficking networks, which use them for sexual or economic
exploitation. Concern is also expressed about the increasing number of cases
of trafficking and sale of children from neighboring countries who are
brought into the State party to work in prostitution. Agencia de Informacao
de Mocambique, allafrica.com/stories/200805050033.html [partially accessed 20 June 2011 - access restricted] Of the 11 winners of the prize to
date, three of them were unable to attend the prize-giving ceremonies because
they were in jail, and one (last year's winner, the
Russian Anna Politkovskaya) because she had been
murdered. Lidia Cacho was
more fortunate - she was in A freelance reporter based in
Cancun, Cacho has contributed regularly to the
daily newspaper "La Voz del Caribe", denouncing organised
rings of child prostitution and paedophilia, and
other instances of organised crime. She wrote a
book, "Demons of Eden", which named prominent politicians involved
in child prostitution rackets. "This award", Cacho said, "may not protect me from death threats
or from death itself. But it certainly helps to protect my written work and
to enable a broader audience to know and understand the Mexican reality and
the impact of the global crimes of trafficking in persons and of child
pornography" Gateways to exploitation Globe and Mail Update, Nov. 10, 2007 www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/article796077.ece [accessed 20 June 2011] Diego Cevallos, Inter Press
Service News Agency www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39160 [accessed 20 June 2011] A 2004 study by researcher Elena Azaola estimated that some 17,000 children under the age
of 18 are victims of the sex trade in RIGHTS-MEXICO: 16,000 Victims of Child Sexual Exploitation Emilio Godoy, Inter Press
Service News Agency www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38872 [accessed 20 February 2011] International organisations
fighting child sex tourism say Another chilling statistic is that
95 percent of Mexico City’s 13,000 street children have already had at least
one sexual encounter with an adult. Many girls and boys are lured to
Mexico City from small towns or rural areas by criminal networks, through
false promises of domestic work or other jobs. – htsccp Child Pornography and Human Trafficking: Heather Gehlert, AlterNet, May
3, 2007 -- A conversation with human rights activist Lydia Cacho Ribeiro on the coastal
city's violence and abuses -- and her lifelong mission to combat them www.alternet.org/rights/51326/?page=1 [accessed 20 June 2011] Cacho, one of Mexican Journalist Risks Life to Expose Child Sex Rings R.M. Arrieta, news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=08890242c9c628bf15caca9bf2b5329d [accessed 19 September 2011] Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho is exposing the players in these Cancun-based sex
rings, and risking her life for it. Her awareness led her to a life of
activism and journalism. She started a high-security shelter for abused women
in Cancun where children opened up to her about the dark underworld of child
porn rings and prostitution. As a
result, she says, “I’ve been taken to jail for telling other people’s
stories. No one imagines that Cancun has this dark side.” The underage sex rings she has
exposed include Mexico’s rich and powerful. Mexico is a country that doesn’t
take kindly to exposure of corruption and greed. Currently the country is in the crosshairs
of a violent drug war and some 17 journalists have been killed in the past
five years for attempting to expose the corruption. Cacho,
herself, is a target. Child Sex Abuse - Everybody Knows, Nobody Says Diego Cevallos, Inter Press
Service News Agency www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=36857 [accessed 20 June 2011] Casa Alianza,
which works with homeless children in several Central American countries,
estimates that between 35,000 and 50,000 children are forced into
prostitution in the region, and says that one of the driving forces behind
the abuses is, in fact, tourism. As for Mexico, the End Child
Prostitution, Pornography, and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes
(ECPAT) network said it has become the major sex tourism destination in the
Americas. The number of children subjected to this form of exploitation is
estimated here at between 16,000 and 20,000. 16,000 Mexican children suffer sexual abuse Xinhua News Agency, October 26, 2006 www.india-forums.com/news/america/7061-16-000-mexican-children-suffer-sexual-abuse.htm [accessed 20 June 2011] According to the official, 10 per
cent of child prostitution took place in working-class areas like La Merced,
Garibaldi and Centro Historico, where adult
prostitution is an established tradition.
The DIF president said in La Merced -- a sprawling market surrounded
by slums -- there are more than 2,000 prostitutes, of whom half are underage. Payán: Thousands abused each year Wire services, El Universal, April 26, 2006 At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 20 June 2011] More than 20,000 minors were
victims of child prostitution in DIF President Ana Rosa Payán said in the news conference that child abuse has
increased considerably in the country since 2000 when there were 16,000 cases
of these violations reported. Five Years After ECPAT: Fifth Report on
implementation of the Agenda for Action ECPAT International, November 2001 www.no-trafficking.org/content/web/05reading_rooms/five_years_after_stockholm.pdf [accessed 13 September 2011] [B]
COUNTRY UPDATES – Child prostitution on rise in
border town United Press International UPI, www.upi.com/Top_News/2005/04/04/Child-prostitution-on-rise-in-border-town/UPI-68091112646689/ [accessed 20 June 2011] Child prostitution in the
U.S.-Mexico border city of Threats Against Sinaloa
Journalist Who Investigated Child Prostitution Reporters-sans-frontieres
(Reporters Without Borders), 3 February 2004 arabia.reporters-sans-frontieres.org/article.php3?id_article=9163 [accessed 20 June 2011] Reporters Without Borders today
called on the state prosecutor of the northern state of Sinaloa
to do everything possible to identify those responsible for the threats of the past few
months against Irene Medrano Villanueva, who has been investigating child
prostitution for some time. In a
report published on 6 December, she suggested that education department
employees were involved in the corruption of minors and a presumed
prostitution network. Child Prostitution: A Growing Scourge W. E. Gutman, The www.thepanamanews.com/pn/v_10/issue_07/travel_01.html [accessed 20 June 2011] A REGION
OUT OF CONTROL - Mexico - More than 16,000 children are sexually
exploited through networks involving foreigners and military, police,
government and business officials. In
Juarez alone, nearly 1,000 children are being sexually exploited, and in Underage Sex Workers in The www.illegaleconomy.com/prostitution/prostitution_in_mexico.php [accessed 20 June 2011] Boy and Girl Victims of Sexual
Exploitation in Elena Azaola, United Nations
Children's Fund UNICEF and The National System for Integral Family
Development DIF, June 2000 www.sp2.upenn.edu/restes/Mexico_Final_Report_001015.pdf [accessed 20 June 2011] The principal objectives behind
the study are: 1) to identify the
nature, extension and causes of the commercial sexual exploitation of girls
and boys in the towns chosen; 2) to
identify the ways in which they are recruited, the modes of operating and
movement of the children from one region to another by the persons who
exploit them and, 3) to collaborate
closely with the local and national authorities in order to collect the
information that is needed and use it to design policies that will make it
possible to confront the phenomenon and offer greater protection to the
children. Sterile at Age 12 ... Abortion at 13 ... AIDS at 14 Diego Cevallos, Inter Press
Service News Agency www.aegis.com/news/ips/1998/IP980202.html [accessed 20 June 2011] Thousands of children in The Factbook on Global Sexual
Exploitation, Donna M. Hughes, Laura Joy Sporcic,
Nadine Z. Mendelsohn, Vanessa Chirgwin,
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, 1999 www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/mexico.htm [accessed 20 June 2011] The United Nations now lists Fact Sheet: Commercial Sexual Exploitation [PDF] United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF, 22 July 2004 At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 14 June 2011] FACTS AND
FIGURES - An
estimated 2 million children, the majority of them girls, are sexually
exploited in the multi-billion dollar commercial sex industry. An estimated
16,000 children in Women and Children -- Labor Base
of Mexican, North American Economy Dan La Botz, Mexican Labor News
and Analysis, March 2nd, 1999 www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=799 [accessed 20 June 2011] Prostitution and Child
Prostitution - The most degrading and often dangerous work of women and
children can be found in prostitution. Tens of thousands of Mexican women and
girls (as well as men and boys) work as prostitutes in all of the major
cities of the country. A recent study by the Mexico City government Youth
Commission headed by Angeles Correa found that Mexico City had 50,000
prostitutes of whom 2,500 were minors. Elena Azaola
of the Center of Higher Research and Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS)
found that there were 5,000 child prostitutes in all of Mexico (90 percent
female). But Rosa Marta Cortina de Brown of the
Female Association of Tourist Enterprise Executive estimates that 250,000
children between 10 and 16 have been the victims of "sexual
tourism" in cities like Guadalajara, Cancun, Acapulco, Puerto Vallarta
and Tijuana. Recently there have also been reports on child prostitution in Veracruz, Queretaro, and Ciudad
Juarez. Girls in prostitution face constant problems of possible pregnancy,
immature childbirth, violence, alcohol and drug addiction, sexual transmitted
diseases including HIV-AIDS. Malevolent Bargains: Slavery Continues in the Form of
Forced Prostitution Ed Vitagliano, News Editor,
American Family Association AFA Journal, April 2004 At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 15 September 2011] AMERICAN TASTE FOR TRAFFICKED GIRLS - Virtual sex is not the only
decadent delicacy for some Americans; the simple fact is that thousands of
trafficked women and girls are ferried into the In an article for The Weekly
Standard, Hughes wrote about the extent of the sex trafficking industry that
shuttles girls through Mexico to brothels outside San Diego, California.
"Over a 10-year period, hundreds of girls, 12 to 18 years old,"
were brought into the U.S. by Mexican nationals. "The girls were sold to farm workers
-- between 100 and 300 at a time -- in small 'caves' made of reeds in the
fields. Many of the girls had babies, who were used as hostages with death
threats against them, so their mothers would not try to escape," Hughes
said. Mexican Minors Prostituted To Farmworkers
Near La Frontera News, Click [here]
to access the article. Its URL is not
displayed because of its length [accessed 15 September 2011] Told that they were going to work
in US factories or restaurants, these women and others like them from poor
Mexican communities were smuggled into the Lawmakers Want Registry For Tourists Tim Weiner, The New York Times, February 12, 2004 [accessed 20 June 2011] Members of Congress are calling
for a registry of foreign tourists as a way of combating a perceived growth
in the sexual abuse of children in Bringing street kids to the light;
New center in Kenneth D. MacHarg, Latin
America Mission LAM News Service, across.co.nz/StreetKids-Mexico.htm [accessed 20 June 2011] In addition, they have very little
self-esteem. "A lot of kids don't believe that you can love them just
for who they are and they can't love themselves. They don't see themselves as worthy of
having something good happen in their lives," Sue observes. "The addiction that is
hardest for the kids is mistaking sex for love," she observes.
"They're involved in prostitution. They go through a feeling of being
unloved and uncared for. Many have
such a low self-esteem that they eventually go back to prostitution because
it is the only place they feel valued." Ashoka Fellow Profile - Claudia Colimoro Sarellano Ashoka, 1998 [accessed 20 June 2011] Claudia, concerned about the rise
in child prostitution in Mexico, and conscious that the principal victims are
children of the streets, has created the Casa de las
Mercedes, a home for young women with no place to turn. 79% of the women in Casa de las Mercedes began working as prostitutes between the
ages of 12 and 18, and a few even earlier. Since the appearance of AIDS, many
clients of prostitutes have tried to avoid the risk of this and other
sexually transmitted diseases by seeking sexual relations with younger women
or girls who have little or no sexual experience. Because of this, the demand
for child prostitution has risen, and it is not difficult to find prostitutes
due to the miserable conditions in which many children live. All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial,
nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE
RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT ARTICLES.
Cite this webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin, "Child Prostitution - |
Human Trafficking in [Mexico] [other countries]Street Children in [Mexico] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Mexico