Human Trafficking in [Colombia Street Children in [Colombia] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Colombia] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery In the first ten years of the 21st
Century - 2000 to 2009
Colombia is a major source country for women and girls
trafficked to Latin America, the Caribbean, Western Europe, Asia, and North
America, including the United States, for purposes of commercial sexual
exploitation and involuntary servitude. Within Colombia, some men are
trafficked for forced labor, but trafficking of women and children from rural
to urban areas for commercial sexual exploitation remains a larger
problem. - U.S. State Dept
Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2009 [full country report] CAUTION: The following links have been culled from the web to
illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** Colombian Hailed as Hero in Fight Against Trafficking in Persons www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2004/June/20040616130952MBrepaK0.8762171.html Francisco Sierra, Colombia's ambassador
to Japan, has made it his personal goal to stop this trafficking in persons
that has taken so many women into forced prostitution. For his efforts,
Sierra was recognized by Secretary of State Colin Powell on June 14 as one of
six heroes in the fight against an illicit industry that preys upon society's
most vulnerable members. Sierra said the women are told
they will find a better life by working in other countries such as Holland,
Japan, and Spain, but they most often find themselves trapped into working in
brothels to pay off their so-called "transportation" fees; such
fees may total as much as $50,000 to $80,000. Sierra said that the women are
expected to pay their captors roughly $2,000 every ten days or they will be
severely punished. Colombia: Newfangled Human Trafficking www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7BF048200B-8872-4382-9DA5-E794A6D11AE8%7D&language=EN Colombia harbors new ways of human trafficking involving young children, body parts, labor exploitation and recruitment for the domestic armed conflict. Adriana Ruiz, coordinator of the UN anti-Trafficking Project, added that human trafficking now joins traditional trafficking of women for sex slavery in Europe and Asia. Although she lacked precise numbers, Ms. Ruiz denounced theft of babies and a worrying traffic of organs like ovaries and ovules, as well as labor exploitation via domestic service. U.N.
Official Says Indigenous Face Extinction [Regarding Conditions in Colombia] www.libertadlatina.org/Lat_Colombia_Indigenous_Face_Extiction_03-22-2004.htm Colombian indigenous communities
are in danger of extinction as paramilitaries and guerrillas target them for
massacre, torture, displacement, rape and forced recruitment, a U.N. official
said March 16. One group, the Kankuamos
of northern Colombia's Sierra Nevada Mountains, has lost more than 200
members to killings since 1986, said Stavenhagen, a
Mexican. Ten Kankuamos have been murdered since an
October demand by the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights that the
Colombian government adopt measures to prevent the group's genocide, he
added. While indigenous peoples
constitute only 2 percent of Colombia's 44 million inhabitants, their
traditional territories cover 30 percent of the country.
Paramilitaries, guerrilla groups and government forces fight to control rural
land and people for a variety of reasons, including drug cultivation, forced
conscription and land grabs. ***
ARCHIVES *** U.S.
Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 CHILDREN
– Although the law
prohibits service in the public security forces before age 18, both
paramilitaries and guerrillas forcibly recruited and used children as
soldiers. The IOM estimated that since 1999 it assisted 2,426 children in the
country who had been members of illegal armed groups. The Ministry of Defense
estimated that 20 percent of FARC members were minors and that most guerrilla
fighters had joined the FARC ranks as children. TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS – Many
traffickers disclosed the sexual nature of the work they offered but
concealed information about working conditions, clientele, freedom of
movement, and compensation. Others disguised their intent by portraying
themselves as modeling agents, offering marriage brokerage services, or operating
lottery or bingo scams with free trips as prizes. Recruiters reportedly
loitered outside high schools, shopping malls, and parks to lure adolescents
into accepting nonexistent jobs abroad. Most traffickers were well-organized
and linked to narcotics or other criminal organizations. The armed conflict
created situations of vulnerability for a large number of internal
trafficking victims. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2000 [69] While the Committee takes
note of the State party's efforts to combat the trafficking and sale of
children, it remains concerned about the lack of adequate preventive measures
in this area. RIGHTS-COLOMBIA:
Trafficking Victims’ Ordeal Never Over www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47163 According to the available data,
some 70,000 people fall victim to human trafficking every year in Colombia,
which ranks third in the number of victims in Latin America, behind the
Dominican Republic and Brazil. MARÍA AND HER NEVER-ENDING FEAR - But people do fall for the
bogus offers because they are in dire need of an opportunity for a better
life. That was what happened to María, a 40-year
old woman originally from the central province of Tolima,
who was living on the outskirts of Bogotá when she was captured by members of
a trafficking mafia. She admitted to
IPS that she’s still scared her captors will find her or come after her kids.
Her fear will not leave her, even though she knows she’s protected by Fundación Esperanza and that her case is being
prosecuted. "I wanted to go back to being me, but I can’t anymore,"
she said. She’s also filled with
rage. In November 2008 she and her family carefully examined the work
contract before she decided to accept a job as a domestic in the home of a
wealthy Colombian family in the United States. It provided at least a
short-term solution to the unemployment and lack of income that were causing
her such anxiety. In the 39 days she worked as a
modern-day slave, María’s weight plunged from 58 to
41 kilos, and she was forced to spend hours on her knees cleaning, constantly
watched and threatened, until she was collapsing from exhaustion. Worst of all, she was prevented from
contacting her family, María told IPS, speaking
very softly, as if trying to exorcise the horrible experience. A Salvadoran
woman working as a domestic in a neighbouring house
noticed María’s rapid weight loss and the frightened
look on her face, and decided to approach her when her captors were not
watching. The woman from El Salvador
told María that what her "employers" were
doing was illegal, explained how to unblock the telephone, and gave her an
emergency number to phone the police for help. But the police merely forced her captors
to give back her passport and admonished them for how they were treating
her. That night, María’s
kidnappers scared her with all sorts of threats against her and her family
back in Colombia. They warned her that if she didn’t sign a paper exonerating
them from all responsibility, they would report her to the police and accuse
her of several offences, and she would be thrown in jail for years. Colombia: Newfangled Human Trafficking www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7BF048200B-8872-4382-9DA5-E794A6D11AE8%7D&language=EN Colombia harbors new ways of human
trafficking involving young children, body parts, labor exploitation and
recruitment for the domestic armed conflict.
Adriana Ruiz, coordinator of the UN anti-Trafficking Project, added
that human trafficking now joins traditional trafficking of women for sex
slavery in Europe and Asia. Although
she lacked precise numbers, Ms. Ruiz denounced theft of babies and a worrying
traffic of organs like ovaries and ovules, as well as labor exploitation via
domestic service. Report: Japan Sex Industry Ensnares Latin Women When she arrived she was raped by all three men and sold to a Yakuza organized crime boss, who branded her across the chest with a 6-inch (15-centimeter) rose tattoo. He forced her to provide sexual services to up to 40 clients a day, she said. The Protection Project - Colombia [DOC] FORMS OF TRAFFICKING - As of November 2003, more than
70 Colombian women claiming to be victims of trafficking had sought refuge at
the Colombian embassy in Japan. The embassy started receiving calls from
trafficked women in 1997. Many Colombian women from the countryside seek jobs
in cities, where they are then solicited to go to Japan. One Colombian woman
was assured by her potential manager at a nightclub in Japan that she would
not be forced to work in prostitution. Instead, she was sold to a strip club
in Nishi-Kawaguchi, where she worked 12 hours a day. Some 567,000 minors from 6 to 18
years of age work in Colombia, 323,000 of them in the domestic service
industry. Of these children, 87 percent are girls. Young women from rural
areas leave for provincial capitals with offers of good jobs as domestic
workers. Often, actual working conditions are much worse than those promised
to them. They are subjected to sexual, physical, and psychological abuse and
receive only a portion of the wages promised them. Freedom
House Country Report - Political Rights: 3 Civil Liberties: 4 Status: Partly Free Human Rights Overview by Human
Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide U.S. Library of Congress
- Country Study Colombia,
Japan to tackle trafficking The Japanese and Colombian
governments have agreed on a series of steps aimed at preventing human
trafficking and providing support to sex-trade victims. The officials explained to their
Colombian counterparts about Japan's new policy of treating women duped into
exploitation as victims to protect. The women will be allowed to stay in
shelters for an extended period of time rather than be subject to immediate
deportation. In turn, the Colombian government
has promised to step up control on passport forgeries, according to the
officials. Colombia will also make
efforts to publicize that victims of human trafficking in Japan, if they seek
help from police, will be placed under protection. Colombia will also take measures to improve
mental care provided to victims when they return to Colombia, according to
the officials. Japan
urged to stamp put trafficking in women "I was told there was a job
at a beauty salon. But when I arrived in Japan, I was taken to a strip joint
and confined in a second-floor room," said the woman in a vivid
description of her treatment.
"Then they demanded I return 5 million yen in travel expenses and
I was forced to work as a prostitute.
"A Japanese broker took pictures of me naked and said he would
kill my family if I ran away. He kept punching me until I was left covered in
bruises," the woman went on to say.
This woman ran into the Colombian Embassy in May last year, seeking
protection after running away from her captors. According to the embassy, more than 70 such
women have sought refuge at the embassy. Japan, the
Mecca for Trafficking in Colombian Women [PDF] "A dangerous network of
trafficking in women is captured. A dangerous network dedicated to
trafficking in women, at the service of the Japanese Mafia, was
disarticulated this weekend by units belonging to the DAS – the
Administrative Security Department. The DAS had known of the existence of the
actions by the Japanese Mafia for two years now, which, through Colombian
contacts, sought beautiful young women to engage them in prostitution." Trafficking in Colombian women to
the Asian continent has become “a true threat for thousands of Colombian
women who end up as slaves in Japan and other countries." Trafficking in
Colombian women to Japan began in the 80s, when the Japa
nese Mafia began to make incursions in Colombian
territory and decided to set up their center of operations in certain regions
of the country. Sex
slavery racket a growing concern in Latin America Viviana was one of what the Interpol
estimates are 35,000 women trafficked out of Colombia every year, with
estimated profits of $500 million, making it second only to the Dominican
Republic in the West. "It began
when a neighbor told me I was pretty, and could work in a casino in Spain and
make good money," recalls Viviana. "She
said I could earn $1,000 a week. It seemed like the only way I could ever buy
a house for my son. So I said yes." The offer seemed like a good deal,
until she got to Asturias, Spain, where a man began explaining about
"towels, sheets, condoms, and percentages." He also said she owed
them $4,000. She then realized - "this was not a casino, it was a bordello."
She spent that night crying, convinced she had "fallen into the jaws of
a beast." Colombian Hailed as Hero in Fight Against Trafficking in Persons www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2004/June/20040616130952MBrepaK0.8762171.html Francisco Sierra, Colombia's
ambassador to Japan, has made it his personal goal to stop this trafficking
in persons that has taken so many women into forced prostitution. For his
efforts, Sierra was recognized by Secretary of State Colin Powell on June 14
as one of six heroes in the fight against an illicit industry that preys upon
society's most vulnerable members. Sierra said the women are told
they will find a better life by working in other countries such as Holland,
Japan, and Spain, but they most often find themselves trapped into working in
brothels to pay off their so-called "transportation" fees; such
fees may total as much as $50,000 to $80,000. Sierra said that the women are
expected to pay their captors roughly $2,000 every ten days or they will be
severely punished. Colombia This
Week -- November 22, 2004 THURS 18- 14,000 CHILDREN IN
COLOMBIAN ARMED GROUPS; COLOMBIA'S ROLE IN PLAN PUEBLA-PANAMA - UK-based NGOs Save the Children
and Amnesty International report that more than 14,000 child soldiers are
fighting in the Colombian conflict, denouncing that the illegal armed groups
(FARC, ELN and AUC) are systemically recruiting children under 15 years old
from indigenous and rural communities, putting their lives at extreme risk
and sending them to the front line of battle. U.N.
Official Says Indigenous Face Extinction [Regarding Conditions in Colombia] www.libertadlatina.org/Lat_Colombia_Indigenous_Face_Extiction_03-22-2004.htm Colombian indigenous communities are
in danger of extinction as paramilitaries and guerrillas target them for
massacre, torture, displacement, rape and forced recruitment, a U.N. official
said March 16. One group, the Kankuamos
of northern Colombia's Sierra Nevada Mountains, has lost more than 200
members to killings since 1986, said Stavenhagen, a
Mexican. Ten Kankuamos have been murdered since an
October demand by the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights that the
Colombian government adopt measures to prevent the group's genocide, he
added. While indigenous peoples
constitute only 2 percent of Colombia's 44 million inhabitants, their
traditional territories cover 30 percent of the country.
Paramilitaries, guerrilla groups and government forces fight to control rural
land and people for a variety of reasons, including drug cultivation, forced
conscription and land grabs. Colombia: Violence Against Women -- Scarred Bodies, Hidden Crimes "Paramilitary and guerrilla groups
seek to intrude into even the most intimate aspects of women’s lives in areas
under their control by setting curfews and dress codes, and by humiliating,
flogging, raping and even killing those who dare to transgress," said Ms
Lee. Colombia: Full-flexed war after government breaks off
peace talks www.hrea.org/lists/hr-headlines/markup/msg00209.html At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
Those who will be hardest hit by
the government's offensive are the most marginalized Colombians
? poor, indigenous and Afro-Colombian women and their families.
Already, more than 25% of Colombians have been displaced by fighting between
the FARC and the Colombian government (the latter aided by paramilitaries
that are responsible for 75% of the country's human rights violations,
including 3,500 killings each year). All warring parties stand accused of grave
human rights abuses, including assassinations, torture and kidnapping of
civilians. Crimes against women include forced servitude, sexual slavery,
forced prostitution, forced sterilization and forced pregnancy. IOM
press briefing notes 10 Aug 2004: Sudan, Colombia COLOMBIA - WORKSHOP TO PREVENT THE
FORCED RECRUITMENT OF MINORS - IOM Bogota has carried out the first of a
series of training workshops for government officials, UN agencies such as
UNICEF and UNDP and NGOs staff working with minors at high-risk for
recruitment into illegal armed groups. IOM presented the
"Vulnerability, Risk and Opportunity Map" (Mapa
de Vulnerabilidad, Riesgo
y Oportunidad), a methodology aimed at helping
local governments and civil society to work together to tackle and prevent
forced conscription. Plight
of Colombia's child recruits Some 112 former child combatants
were interviewed for the publication, which describes how children are
recruited into the ranks of the Marxist guerrillas and right-wing
paramilitaries from as young as eight years old and gradually hardened to
violence. Around 25% of guerrilla
ranks are female and the study highlighted the problem of sexual abuse many
young girls are subjected to by their guerrilla superiors. Females as young as 12 are forced to use
contraception and, if they get pregnant, must undergo abortions. “You’ll Learn Not To Cry”: Child Combatants in Colombia www.hrw.org/reports/2003/colombia0903/4.htm#_Toc09 This report provides the first
comprehensive account of child combatants in RECRUITMENT METHODS - The great majority of child recruits to the irregular forces decide to join voluntarily. Yet forcible recruitment occurs in some parts of Colombia. Human Rights Watch interviewed thirteen former combatants, all of whom had belonged to either the FARC-EP or the UC-ELN, who described having been forced to join the ranks of the group unwillingly; they made up slightly more than 10 percent of the children we interviewed. Another two children said that they had been pressured to join a guerrilla group. And even the voluntary decision to join irregular forces is more a reflection of the dismal lack of opportunities open to children from the poorest sector of rural society than a real exercise of free will. 'Street
of the Damned' Loses its Daughters; Colombian Kidnappers Target Poor Children Like a nightmarish fairy tale in
which young girls are spirited away by monsters, five were abducted from this
three-block stretch of 125th Street in Bogota's Miguelito neighborhood from November 1995 to July 1997.
Not one has been found. War
Without Quarter: Colombia And International Humanitarian Law - by Human
Rights Watch 2020ok.com/books/64/war-without-quarter-colombia-and-international-humanitarian-law-11364.htm
II COLOMBIA AND INTERNATIONAL
HUMANITARIAN LAW -
The drama of Guintar is repeated throughout
Colombia, where war is not fought primarily between armed and uniformed
combatants on battlefields, but against the civilian population and in their
homes, farms, and towns. Many of the victims of Colombia’s war wear no
uniform, hold no gun, and profess no allegiance to any armed group. Indeed,
battles between armed opponents are the exception. Instead, combatants
deliberately and implacably target and kill the civilians they believe
support their enemies, whether or not the civilians are even aware that they
are in peril. 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,
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Human Trafficking in [Colombia Street Children in [Colombia] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Colombia] [other countries]