Human Trafficking in [Guatemala Street Children in [Guatemala] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Guatemala] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery Republic
of Guatemala [ Country-by-Country
Reports ] The Republic of
Guatemala [map], located in Central America, is bounded by Mexico (N &
W), by Belize and the Caribbean Sea (E), by Honduras and El Salvador (SE),
and by the Pacific Ocean (SW). The
capital and largest city is Guatemala is a source, transit, and
destination country for Guatemalans and Central Americans trafficked for the
purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. Human
trafficking is a significant and growing problem in the country. A nascent
child sex tourism problem in certain tourist areas has been reported by NGOs.
Guatemalan women and children are trafficked within the country, and
primarily to Mexico and the United States, for commercial sexual
exploitation. Guatemalan men, women, and children are trafficked within the
country, as well as to Mexico and the United States, for forced labor. In the
Mexican border area, Guatemalan children are exploited for forced labor and
begging; Guatemalan men and women are exploited for labor in agriculture.
Border areas with Mexico and Belize remain a top concern due to the heavy
flow of undocumented migrants, many of whom fall victim to traffickers.
Guatemala is a destination country for victims from El Salvador, Honduras,
and Nicaragua, who are subject to commercial sexual exploitation, and a
transit point for Central Americans trafficked to Mexico and the United
States.
- U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2008 [full country report] |
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CAUTION: The following links have been
culled from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** Legal Program Advisor for Casa Alianza, Guatemela, Murdered [scroll down to 6 September 2005] The wave of violence and impunity
that plagues Guatemala has taken yet another victim. Last Friday, September
2, at approximately 9:30 in the morning, an unidentified man shot and killed
the fifty six-year old lawyer Harold Rafael Perez Gallardo, who had been
serving as the Adviser to the Legal Program of Casa Alianza Guatemala for the
past six years. Perez Gallardo was
advising Casa Alianza on several pending cases regarding irregular adoptions,
murders, sexual exploitations and trafficking, and other instances of human
rights violations against children. ***
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 TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS –
Trafficking was particularly a problem in the capital and in towns along the
borders with Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2001 [34] The Committee notes with deep
concern that there was no follow-up to its recommendations to introduce
measures to monitor and supervise the system of adoption effectively and to
consider ratifying the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and
Cooperation in Respect of Inter-country Adoption of 1993. Concern is
expressed at the extremely high rates of inter-country adoptions, at adoption
procedures not requiring authorization by competent authorities, at the
absence of follow-up and, in particular, at reported information on sale and
trafficking in children for inter-country adoptions. It is also noted that
several drafts of adoption laws have been pending in Congress but never
adopted. [50] With regard to its
recommendation on child labor, the Committee takes note of the measures taken
by the State party such as the signing in 1996 of a memorandum of
understanding with ILO for the adoption of the International Program on the
Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC). However, it expresses its deep concern at
the large number of children who are still exploited economically, in
particular those under 14 years of age. Child
Trafficking Soar in Guatemala Maria Eugenia Villareal, member of
the NGO, said girls aged eight to fourteen are sold as sex slaves or used in
risky sectors like garbage collection and classification, peddling and
construction. Most victims -from Guatemala,
Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador- are misled with promises to travel to
the US yet they are taken to different Mexican cities, including the capital.
Attorney Alex Colop calls serious
problem the absence of laws with severe sanctions for such practices since
the perpetrators walk free on bail or pay a fine. In addition, the children do not press
charges fearing threats from the exploiters or to loose their income source. Rotary hears account of human trafficking horrors "When we were in Guatemala, a
woman tried to sell her baby to my wife for $1," said Rotarian Marly
Rydson. "We were in port on a cruise there, and when my wife got back to
the ship she was very shaken."
"That's because they are so desperate," said the
founder/president of Miracle in Action, Penny Rambacher. Mission
woman found guilty of human trafficking Prosecutors say Ellilian Ramos
paid a smuggler $250 to bring the two women across the Rio Grande in November
2004. The women, cousins Maria de Jesus Batres and Floridalma Sales Flores,
were forced to work at Ramos' home without pay, authorities said. Batres and Sales say the couple
promised to pay them $125 a week after smuggling costs were worked off.
Instead, Ellilian Ramos didn't pay them and threatened to call immigration
authorities if they tried to leave. The women said they also worked
for the Ramos' family members and at Papacito's Day Care, which is owned by
Ellilian Ramos' sister. Both women escaped through a window on Jan. 11, 2005,
with help from two women they met at the business. Guatemalan
Attorney Uses Tricks and Deceit to Take Children from Mothers In spite of the fact that Casa
Alianza has filed numerous complaints over the past years regarding illicit
international adoptions, and despite its efforts to put national and
international pressure on the Guatemalan government to institute laws that
properly regulate adoptions, the illicit adoption trade continues to thrive.
Unscrupulous attorneys are the central players in this trade, and they have
converted what should be a noble institution, into a dirty business. Legal Program Advisor for Casa Alianza, Guatemela, Murdered [scroll down to 6 September 2005] The wave of violence and impunity
that plagues Guatemala has taken yet another victim. Last Friday, September
2, at approximately 9:30 in the morning, an unidentified man shot and killed
the fifty six-year old lawyer Harold Rafael Perez Gallardo, who had been
serving as the Adviser to the Legal Program of Casa Alianza Guatemala for the
past six years. Perez Gallardo was
advising Casa Alianza on several pending cases regarding irregular adoptions,
murders, sexual exploitations and trafficking, and other instances of human
rights violations against children. Freedom
House Country Report - Political Rights: 3 Civil Liberties: 4 Status: Partly Free Human Rights Overview by Human
Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide Around 3000 Guatemalan children
are adopted by families from overseas every year. Almost all go the US and
Canada. In 2002, the last year for which there are figures available, 15 came
to the UK. With no firm legislation governing adoption, prospective parents
have to find their way through a murky system of agents and lawyers, who
charge an average of between £11,000 and £22,000 per child. Conservative
estimates value the Guatemalan baby business at around £32 million per
year. The courts use poverty as a
reason not to return children to their biological parents but just because a
mother or father is poor it doesn’t mean they love their children any the
less, Harris told the Sunday Herald between court appearances. Protect
Guatemalan Human Rights Defenders from Attacks and Threats In recent weeks, the offices of
two Guatemalan nongovernmental organizations were broken into, and files
containing sensitive case information were stolen. Oftentimes, Guatemalan
human rights organizations that document violations and implicate those
responsible for such violations fall victim themselves to acts of
intimidation and violence such as burglaries, robberies, kidnappings, death
threats, and even murder. Factbook
on Global Sexual Exploitation - Guatemala CASE - A yearlong legal battle has been won by a
Guatemalan woman whose baby was a victim of illegal trafficking in infants.
The mother, named Elivia, was tricked into signing all of the documents
necessary, under lax Guatemalan laws, for a private adoption. In order to
control her during her pregnancy, the lawyer handling the illegal adoption
held back Elivia’s furniture and belongings and gave her 100 Quetzales ($15)
a week for expenses. Elivia was even taken, against her will, to a house in
San Pedro Epocapa, Chimaltenango. After the birth Elivia was prevented from
seeing her baby by nurses, who had been informed that Pablo had been adopted.
It was then that she realized she had been fooled and began to fight to get
her baby back. Guatemalan law permits a mother to stop the process at any
time during a private adoption, but very often the lawyers involved do not
inform the mothers, many of whom are illiterate, of this. ‘My name is Elivia and I am 32
years old. It was a very painful time for me. I wasn’t looking to give up my
baby. I just wanted work and a Guatemalan couple offered me a job in their
house. I was kidnapped. They kept me locked up in the house until I was ready
to give birth. I was given drugs to make the birth quicker and then the baby
was pulled out of my stomach. I didn’t see it, I didn’t know whether it was a
boy or a girl. Then the couple told me I was too poor to be a mother and they
were going to put my baby up for adoption.’ Guatemala
Open For Adoptions By Americans RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN GUATEMALA - Guatemala closed to
international adoption in September 2001, following reports of child
trafficking. Guatemala needed to enact legislation implementing the Hague
Convention on Intercountry Adoption before adoptions could resume November 2003. At its recently
concluded Congressional session the Guatemalan Congress considered
legislation to implement the Hague Convention but did not pass it. Adoptions
under fire in Guatemala But the day after Mendoza
delivered Luís Enrique in May, she said,
the couple locked her inside a Guatemala City clinic, wrenched her
newborn son from her arms, and forced her to sign papers giving him up for
adoption. Child
Trafficking in Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua [PDF] CHILD TRAFFICKING AND MISSING
CHILDREN OR YOUNG PERSONS IN THE PUBLIC CONSCIOUSNESS - Trafficking in children and the
problem of missing children and young persons impresses itself on the public
consciousness only to a very limited extent in these three Central American
states. The entire theme complex is not perceived as a problem either in
public administration nor in Government institutions or among the populace.
On the contrary it is either suppressed or ignored. And this in spite of the
fact that the existence of child trafficking is basically very well known. Three years ago, 19-year-old Maria
Choz began a terrifying ordeal. Jose Tecum kidnaped Maria from her parents'
home in Guatemala, smuggled her to his house in Florida, and imprisoned her
in a spare bedroom. By night, Maria was forced into sexual servitude. By day,
she was forced to labor with a tomato picking crew, bringing her wages to
Tecum at the end of her grueling shifts. Maria was robbed of her dignity and
imprisoned by a man who put his greed and obsession ahead of her most basic
human right to freedom. The worst kind of child
exploitation is sexual. Maria, a 12-year-old Honduran girl, was kidnapped in
her country, sold in Guatemala and
taken from there to Mexico, where she was bought by the owner of a bar who
forced her to become a prostitute, servicing 20 men a day. Anti-Trafficking
Successes in the Southern District of Texas [PDF] [page 4] OPERATION FALLEN ANGEL - In June 2000, a thirty-one year
old Chinese woman fell from a second story hotel room in Houston and broke
her back. Local authorities sought assistance from the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). The
federal agents soon discovered that the woman was a victim of human
trafficking. The woman fell while attempting to escape from her captors, one
of whom was sexually assaulting her. Before arriving in Houston, the woman
spent over a year in Guatemala where she was held as a sexual slave before
being moved to Houston where her captors planned to sell her to other
traffickers. Migrant
Center Reports Increase In Trafficking Of Children Mario Verzeletti, Coordinator of
the Center for Attention to Migrants, reported that in the last few months,
there has been an increase in the trafficking of Guatemalan children sold in
Europe and the United States. According to reports cited by the center,
"coyotes" (people who smuggle others across the border for a fee)
sell children for more than U.S. $25,000. He added that women are trafficked
in Guatemala as well. Many women are subjected to slave-like living
conditions where they are held in order to have babies that will then be sold
for adoption abroad. UN
Special Rapporteur visits Guatemala Casa Alianza has been involved in
the fight against the trafficking of children in Guatemala through
international adoptions for the past three years. To date the organization
has helped five mothers recuperate their babies. In September 1997, the
Attorney General's Office and Casa Alianza exposed the illegal trafficking of
babies in Guatemala and presented 15 criminal accusations against lawyers
involved. Guatemala
[PDF] CHILD TRAFFICKING - The sale of children is of particular
concern in Guatemala. The sale and/or trafficking of children mainly occurs
for the purpose of intercountry adoption, but there are also reports of the
trafficking of children into Guatemala for the purpose of prostitution. TRAFFICKING - Eight El Salvadoran girls were
rescued in a raid on a nightclub in Guatemala City. They had been trafficked
under false pretenses and sexually exploited. Three pimps were arrested. All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial,
nonprofit, and educational use |
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Human Trafficking in [Guatemala Street Children in [Guatemala] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Guatemala] [other countries]