Human Trafficking in [Honduras] [other countries]
Street Children in [Honduras] [other countries]
Child Prostitution in [Honduras] [other countries]
 

Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery

Republic of Honduras [ Country-by-Country Reports ]

The Republic of Honduras [map] is the second largest of the Central American countries. It is bounded by the Caribbean Sea (N), by Nicaragua (E & S), by El Salvador and the Pacific Ocean (SW), and by Guatemala (W). Tegucigalpa is the capital and chief commercial center. Sixty-eight per cent of Honduran families are poor.

Honduras is principally a source and transit country for women, girls, and boys trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. Honduran children are typically trafficked from rural areas to urban and tourist centers such as San Pedro Sula, the North Caribbean coast, and the Bay Islands. Honduran women and children are trafficked to Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico, and the United States for sexual exploitation. Most foreign victims of commercial sexual exploitation in Honduras are from neighboring countries; some are economic migrants en route to the United States who are victimized by traffickers. Internal child labor and forced child labor for violent criminal gangs are serious concerns. - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2008 [full country report]

CAUTION:  The following links have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Honduras. Some of these links may lead to websites that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false.  No attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content.

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Easy prey for traffickers

NO ONE CAN OR SHOULD SELL OUR CHILDREN - On July 23, 2004, Aguas Ocaña, Honduras’ first lady, announced that the government was preparing a lawsuit against the US organization Orphans Overseas for offering an Internet network selling Honduran children for $11,500 each. "No one can or should sell our children," she added. In an interview with the national HRN radio station, Ocaña affirmed that in 2003 the government had rejected a request from the US organization to operate in the country because it did not meet the legal requirements. "The company is now publicizing itself on the Internet as an adoption agency operating in Honduras and what it is offering is the sale of Honduran children," she stressed.

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U.S. Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs

INCIDENCE AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Honduras serves as a source and transit country for girls trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation.  Honduran girls are trafficked internally and to the United States, Mexico, Guatemala, and other Central American countries for the purpose of prostitution. Children have also been reportedly trafficked to Canada for prostitution and the sale of drugs.

Bur of Democracy, Human Rights & Labor - Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005

TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS – Women and children were trafficked into Guatemala and also internally, most often from rural to urban settings. The commercial sexual exploitation of children was a serious problem. As of October Casa Alianza estimated that there were approximately 10 thousand children who were victims of some form of commercial sexual exploitation. The Office of the Special Prosecutor for Children conducted 30 operations jointly with the police, the Honduran Institute for Children and the Family (IHNFA), judges, and Casa Alianza, to rescue victims and arrest and prosecute those responsible for these victims' exploitation.

Most trafficking victims were young women and girls, who were trafficked to Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Mexico, the United States, and Canada for sexual and labor exploitation. Traffickers were reportedly locals as well as Guatemalan, Mexican, and in some cases Chinese or Taiwanese nationals. In a majority of cases, traffickers posed as coyotes (alien smugglers), claiming to facilitate border crossings and help immigrants enter other countries in Central America, Mexico or the US. In some cases victims were promised lucrative jobs but instead were forced into commercial sexual exploitation, drug trafficking, or debt bondage.

Immigrant sisters admit charges in human trafficking

Two Honduran sisters admitted yesterday that they helped smuggle dozens of illegal female immigrants -- some as young as 14 -- into the United States, then forced them to live together and work at North Jersey bars.

The admissions by Noris Elvira and Ana Luz Rosales-Martinez, during a federal court hearing in Trenton, brought to five the number of guilty pleas in what authorities say was a case of indentured servitude.

Under questioning from prosecutors, the women said they helped oversee dozens of illegal Hondurans who were forced to work six days a week and live in cramped Hudson County apartments until they could repay smuggling fees as high as $20,000.

The immigrants earned $5 an hour, plus tips, by dancing and drinking with male patrons at bars in Union City and Guttenberg. One ring member said the girls were encouraged to prostitute themselves; another said they were beaten if they ignored the house rules.

10 Charged in International Human Smuggling Ring

The women, mostly from rural, poor villages in Honduras – some as young as 14 – were recruited under the false promise of getting legitimate jobs as waitresses in restaurants in New Jersey. Once brought to Hudson County by way of a safe house in Houston, Texas, however, they were put to work at several bars owned by the ringleader and subject to physical and emotional abuse, according to the Indictment.

Smuggled Honduran Women May Be Allowed To Stay In U.S.

But after delivering them to New Jersey, smugglers demanded fees as high as $20,000, then forced them to work off the debt by dancing with men in bars.

ABSTRACT - Nineteen women and girls from Honduras who were smuggled into the United States and forced to work in a bar may be permitted to stay in this country as protected victims of human trafficking, authorities said.

Freedom House Country Report - Political Rights: 3 Civil Liberties: 3 Status: Partly Free

Human Rights Overview by Human Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide

U.S. Library of Congress - Country Study

Easy prey for traffickers

NO ONE CAN OR SHOULD SELL OUR CHILDREN - On July 23, 2004, Aguas Ocaña, Honduras’ first lady, announced that the government was preparing a lawsuit against the US organization Orphans Overseas for offering an Internet network selling Honduran children for $11,500 each. "No one can or should sell our children," she added. In an interview with the national HRN radio station, Ocaña affirmed that in 2003 the government had rejected a request from the US organization to operate in the country because it did not meet the legal requirements. "The company is now publicizing itself on the Internet as an adoption agency operating in Honduras and what it is offering is the sale of Honduran children," she stressed.

Focus on Children - Child Soldiers

"At the age of 13, I joined the student movement. I had a dream to contribute to make things change, so that children would not be hungry….Later I joined the armed struggle. I had all the inexperience and the fears of a little girl. I found out that girls were obliged to have sexual relations to alleviate the sadness of the combatants. And who alleviated our sadness after going with someone we hardly knew?…There is a great pain in my being when I recall all these things….In spite of my commitment, they abused me, they trampled my human dignity. And above all, they did not understand that I was a child and that I had rights." - From a Honduras case study, cited in United Nations, Impact of Armed Conflict on Children: Special Concerns, 1998.

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Human Trafficking in [Honduras] [other countries]
Street Children in [Honduras] [other countries]
Child Prostitution in [Honduras] [other countries]