Human Trafficking in [Mexico Street Children in [Mexico] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Mexico] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery In the first
ten years of the 21st Century
- 2000 to 2009
Mexico is a large source, transit, and destination country
for persons trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and
forced labor. Groups considered most vulnerable to human trafficking in
Mexico include women and children, indigenous persons, and undocumented
migrants. A significant number of Mexican women, girls, and boys are
trafficked within the country for commercial sexual exploitation, lured by
false job offers from poor rural regions to urban, border, and tourist areas.
According to the government, more than 20,000 Mexican children are victims of
sex trafficking every year, especially in tourist and border areas. - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in
Persons Report, June, 2009 [full country report] |
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CAUTION: The
following links have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** Details
emerge in human trafficking case in San Antonio How's $600 to buy what you'd like
simply for accompanying men on trips? We can make it happen, al otro lado — on the other
side. That pitch allegedly made by a
trio of women sounded like gold to some impressionable teens and a young
woman not making much in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Three girls agreed to be smuggled to the
United States in mid-May and once they were in or near San Antonio, they were
primped, new clothes were bought for them and they were given English
lessons. Their understanding was that they did not have to have sex with the
men. But rather than the glitz they
were promised, they were sold in an underground world for prostitution,
according to prosecutors and documents filed in federal court Friday. The girls were delivered to a man in San Antonio
referred to in court records as the "boss," who had them strip,
inspected their bodies and told them they were going to be having sex with
men for up to five years to pay off their smuggling debt. The "boss" said he had paid
$3,000 apiece for two of the girls and said he would pay even more to get
them ready for other men, witnesses told investigators, according to their
statements. Anyone who fled would die, and their families would also suffer
the same fate, the statements said. - HTUSAMX ***
ARCHIVES *** Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS – CISEN
reported that trafficking is usually only one element of organized criminal
gang activities. Transnational and domestic organized criminal networks and
gangs were the primary perpetrators of trafficking in persons. Many illegal
immigrants fell prey to traffickers along the Guatemalan border, where the
growing presence of gangs such as Mara Salvatruchas
and Barrio 18 made the area especially dangerous for unaccompanied women and
children migrating north, whose numbers continued to increase. Most victims of trafficking were
poor and uneducated. Trafficking victims often related that they were
promised a good job, but once isolated from family and home, were forced into
prostitution or to work in a factory or the agriculture sector. Other young
female migrants recounted being robbed, beaten, and raped by members of
criminal gangs and then forced to work in table dance bars or as prostitutes
under threat of further harm to them or their families. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 1999 [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. Three
people charged with human trafficking abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=6848327
The bright lights of Houston are
where a Mexican teenager saw hope in helping her mother. Smuggled into Texas,
the 15-year-old says XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX promised her restaurant work. She hoped to send money back to her ailing
mother in Mexico, but the game changed when she reached Houston four months
ago. "They forced her into
prostitution when she got over here, telling her that her family would be
injured or harmed if she did not comply," said Harris County Asst.
District Attorney Donna Hawkins. The
DA's office says when she failed to reach her nightly quota at local bars and
cantinas, things turned violent.
"If she didn't make enough money by prostituting herself at the
cantinas, they would beat her," said Hawkins. “Rape
Trees” Frame Arizona-Mexico Border: Grim Reminders of Human Trafficking chattahbox.com/us/2009/03/15/%E2%80%9Crape-trees%E2%80%9D-frame-arizona-mexico-border-grim-reminders-of-human-trafficking/
A recent report from the Cronkite
News Service, a student-run news service of Arizona State University, shed
the national spotlight on a new immigration problem plaguing the desert
border towns of Arizona: so called “rape trees,” trees on the U.S. side of
the border littered with women’s undergarments. Mexican drug cartel members
and the coyotes, who smuggle immigrants across the border, are believed to
rape the women as soon as they enter These “rape trees” are becoming
more common along the Arizona border counties of Pima and Cochise, as coyotes
and drug cartel members find human trafficking more lucrative than drug
smuggling. Selling
Brides: Native Mexican Custom or Crime? www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1876102,00.html
The case centers on an alleged
marriage arrangement that went sour involving Marcelino
de Jesus Martinez, his 14-year-old daughter and her suitor, Margarito de Jesus Galindo, 18. Galindo had agreed to pay
Martinez for his daughter's hand in marriage, according to Greenfield police.
According to the cops, the total cost was $16,000, one hundred cases of beer
and several cases of meat. In the neighboring market town of Juxtlahuaca, Maria Bautista sees the practice as coercive
and barbaric. "It's like a form of slavery. They buy their women and
then treat them like their property," says Bautista, a single mother
with her own business. Bautista has a Triqui father
and Mixtec Indian mother, but she speaks only
Spanish and follows few of the old traditions. She cites the cases of many
older men who came back minted from working in the U.S. and who bought
themselves several young wives. Down in the state capital of
Oaxaca, state human rights commissioner Heriberto
Garcia also chastised the custom. "Buying and selling a woman is a clear
violation of her rights," he says in his office decorated with
leather-bound law books. "And a young teenage girl does not have the
experience to make these decisions." Oaxaca state law permits marriage
of women at 14 and men at 16. Mexican officials have long
tolerated arranged marriages, Garcia concedes, adding that he doesn't know of
any cases of prosecutions. But he says he will also propose to amend a
"Treatment of People" law to include an article that makes bride-selling
a criminal act. Such action is opposed by many who see indigenous traditions
as a virtue of Mexico's cultural diversity. The female victims were as young
as 14-years old. They expected a better life in America only to learn when
they got here that they were sex slaves. An indictment says three of the
men -- 31-year old Juan Cortez-Meza, 34-year old Amador Cortez-Meza and
25-year old Francisco Cortez-Meza -- travelled to
Mexico to seduce and befriend the females with promises of a better life in
America. "Once they started
dating them in Mexico they would get them to come to the US promising them
jobs in restaurants or cleaning houses and then when they got here they were
forced into prostitution," said Assistant United States Attorney Susan Coppedge. The indictment says "The
victims were beaten, threatened, or their families back in Mexico were
threatened in order to force the victims to work as prostitutes against their
will." Human
smuggling ring with Fort Pierce ties is back in court The girl was 14 years old when she
was approached by a couple in her hometown of Veracruz
with an offer to work in their restaurant in America. After paying about $2,000 to cross the
Mexican border, she learned she'd be paying off the debt another way — by
becoming a prostitute. From their home in Veracruz, three brothers, their uncle and other Cadena-Sosa family members recruited women from nearby
small towns, often promising them $400 a week (10 times the local salary) in
jobs picking fruit, house cleaning or working in restaurants. In a few cases,
they even were up front about the prostitution. After crossing into the United States, the
women were told the truth about their work, and those who resisted were raped
or beaten, according to court records and interviews with the victims conducted
by FSU. Most of the money they earned
went to the family or to pay off smuggling debts. The women also were charged
for food, lingerie and forced abortions, making it hard for them to ever
completely clear their debts. Details emerge in human trafficking case in San Antonio How's $600 to buy what you'd like simply for accompanying men on trips? We can make it happen, al otro lado — on the other side. That pitch allegedly made by a trio of women sounded like gold to some impressionable teens and a young woman not making much in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Three girls agreed to be smuggled to the United States in mid-May and once they were in or near San Antonio, they were primped, new clothes were bought for them and they were given English lessons. Their understanding was that they did not have to have sex with the men. But rather than the glitz they were promised, they were sold in an underground world for prostitution, according to prosecutors and documents filed in federal court Friday. The girls were delivered to a man in San Antonio referred to in court records as the "boss," who had them strip, inspected their bodies and told them they were going to be having sex with men for up to five years to pay off their smuggling debt. The "boss" said he had paid $3,000 apiece for two of the girls and said he would pay even more to get them ready for other men, witnesses told investigators, according to their statements. Anyone who fled would die, and their families would also suffer the same fate, the statements said. - HTUSAMX RIGHTS-MEXICO:
16,000 Victims of Child Sexual Exploitation International organisations
fighting child sex tourism say Mexico is one of the leading hotspots of child
sexual exploitation, along with Thailand, Cambodia, India, and Brazil. 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 Mask project
combats human trafficking A number of U.S. companies built
plants there to take advantage of low-cost Mexican labor after the 1993
passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Since then, more than 400
women and girls have been raped and murdered in and around the city of 1.4
million people. Countless more have disappeared, presumably into the
underworld of global human trafficking, where they are forced into
prostitution or other forms of modern-day slavery. A new bid to halt toll of human trafficking dwb.sacbee.com/content/news/story/14258029p-15072572c.html At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
Florencia Molina's sewing teacher in Mexican national pleads guilty to bringing sex slaves to
Houston-area bars www.khou.com/news/local/crime/stories/khou060117_gj_mexicannational.11a093cb.html At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
Salvador Fernando Molina Garcia,
37, an illegal immigrant, has pleaded guilty to smuggling girls and young
women from The single count superseding
indictment re-alleges that Gerardo Salazar, 40, is the leader of a group of
men who smuggled minor girls and young women from Mexico into the United
States. Using deception, threats of harm, physical force and psychological
coercion, Salazar compelled their service for prostitution in Houston area
bars. After the coyotes get the women
across the border, safely on U.S. soil, they gang rape them to show they have
total control over them. They hang their panties in the trees as signs of the
conquest. If the women are young and
pretty, they are kept in houses of prostitution where they have to have their
families buy them out or work their way out. Of course, none will testify to
this because the coyotes know where they are from and can seek revenge on
their families in Under Secretary Gutierrez noted that “these programs are directed towards providing comprehensive attention for victims on our common border, as well as in southern Mexico; fighting sexual tourism involving minors; creating awareness about the risks of trafficking in persons and related crimes; and deepening the exchange of information and intelligence that will allow us dismantle, apprehend and prosecute criminal organizations, while strictly applying the laws of each country.” UN panel sees grave women's rights abuse in Mexico www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N27704484.htm At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] Some 320 women were the victims of
unsolved murders in Ciudad Juarez between January 1993 and July 2003.
Suggested motives have included drug trafficking, trafficking in organs,
trafficking of women for sexual exploitation, domestic violence, sexual
violence and the production of violent videotapes. News
Investigation Into The Plight Of Young Women Forced Into Horror Of
Prostitution Before the night is over, the
girls of "Zona Rosa" - a notorious
red-light district just a few blocks from the main tourist drag in this
Mexican border town - will make as much as $250 each by selling sex. It's cold-blooded sexual slavery - forced
prostitution that began when they were kidnapped from their small towns in Task
force to prosecute sex-trade, slavery cases Many of the girls and young women
had been promised work as maids and were smuggled into During the plea allocutions this
morning, the defendants Josue Flores Carreto, Geraldo Flores Carreto,
and Daniel Perez Alonso, acknowledged that they recruited young, uneducated
Mexican women from impoverished backgrounds, smuggled them from Mexico to the
United States, and forced them to engage in prostitution. All three
defendants admitted to physically assaulting their victims on multiple
occasions and causing serious bodily injuries to them. They also admitted to
using threats of serious harm and physical restraint against the young
Mexican women to force them to commit acts of prostitution, and beating them
for hiding money, disobeying their orders, and failing to earn more money.
The victims were forced to perform acts of prostitution at a rate of $25 to
$35 per "John." Of that amount, the owners and managers of the
brothels took half, and the other half was taken by the defendants and other
members of the Carreto criminal organization. Report: Japan sex industry ensnares Latin women www.poorbuthappy.com/colombia/node/9199 At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
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. MEXICO - The Anti-Human Trafficking
Workshop for Media and the Entertainment Industry Seminar was held in Mexico
in December 2005. This event helped professionals in the entertainment
industry focus on the subject of human trafficking and, in particular, the
situation of trafficking victims, in order to assist writers and editors in
this field to incorporate realistic depictions of this scourge in their story
lines. The result of this undertaking was heightened public awareness about
the topic and increased prevention. As the entertainment industry more fully
comprehends human trafficking and portrays its real nature, the general
public will be better informed and persons potentially vulnerable to the
crime will be forewarned about the phenomenon. The meeting “Trafficking of
Persons and the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Minors,” organized by the
executive committee the Inter-American Network of Parliamentarian Women, was
held in the Mexican city of Puebla on March 1,
2006. The OAS Anti-Trafficking in Persons Section was represented by its
Projects Director, Fernando García Robles, with his
keynote address on “Trafficking in Persons: A Transnational Problem.” The
conference brought together parliamentarians of both sexes, national and
international nongovernmental organizations, the international community, and
civil society in general. The OAS’s presence at this event was of great
importance, since the draft Decree Law to Prevent and Punish Trafficking in
Persons was then being studied by the Joint Congressional Committees on
Justice, Human Rights, and Legislative Studies. Freedom House Country Report - Political Rights: 2 Civil Liberties: 3 Status: Free Human Rights Overview by Human
Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide U.S. Library of Congress
- Country Study Olga got on the plane with four
other Russian girls. In that instant, they became the personal property of an
international slave trader. Olga's plane, however, was headed to Mexico. Rashkovsky was planning to smuggle the women across the
notoriously unsupervised border between Mexico and the United States. He
brought the women to a hotel in Tijuana. Olga, a consultant to 48 Hours on this report, returned to
Mexico to retrace her steps. "It’s just old memories," she says.
"The older I get, the more scarier it is to think about, what could
happen to me." Girls like Olga are sometimes put
to work in Mexican strip clubs before heading north. But Mexico is more than
just a transit country and training ground for Eastern Europeans. In its own
right, Mexico is the No. 1 country providing slaves to the United States,
accounting for the majority of federal trafficking cases. Malevolent
Bargains: Slavery Continues in the Form of Forced Prostitution 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 U.S. for the purpose of
illicit sexual encounters. 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 San Diego 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 US only to be forced into
prostitution, says Venustiano, a farmworker that has befriended some of the women.
He says that the women do not protest how they are treated because they fear
deportation or retaliation against their families. Most of the ten women at the farm in Del
Mar are minors although the women vary in age from 14 to 22. Lead
defendant in prostitution ring pleads guilty The lead defendant in a forced
prostitution case pleaded guilty today to charges that he and fifteen others
lured women from Mexico and Florida with promises of good jobs and better
lives, only to force them into prostitution and hold them as sexual slaves in
brothel houses in Florida and the Carolinas. Globalization www.law.berkeley.edu/clinics/ihrlc/globalization.html At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] U.S.-MEXICO ANTI-TRAFFICKING
WORKING GROUP - In
April 2004, the Clinic and the Human Rights Center convened a conference of
international anti-trafficking experts to strengthen protections for Mexican
victims of human trafficking. Clinic research on forced labor in the United
States indicates that hundreds and possibly thousands of Mexican men, women,
and children are trafficked into this country each year and forced to work in
brothels, agriculture, and sweatshops as modern day slaves. Yet even when
victims manage to escape or are rescued, their ordeal is not over. Family
members of survivors who prosecute their perpetrators have been intimidated
or attacked in home countries. Fear of reprisal against family members in the
survivors' home country once perpetrators are released from prison in the
United States is an on-going concern to survivors and delays their
rehabilitation. Similarly, fear that law enforcement will be unable to
protect them or their families discourages many victims from assisting in
prosecution of their traffickers. ACLU
Sues Manhattan Hotel Under 'Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection
Act' The plaintiffs
seeking legal relief and damages include: Juana Sierra Trejo, Gabriela
Flores Viegas, Ines Bello Castillo, Carmen Calixto
Rodriquez and Lucero Santes Vazquez, all
of whom are originally from Mexico. During their employment at the
hotel, the women were forced to work seven days per week, for up to 15
continuous hours a day, without breaks. They were denied permission to eat,
drink or use the restroom. They were never paid overtime compensation
for their work. Trafficking Alert - U.S. Edition, March 2004 www.vitalvoices.org/desktopdefault.aspx?page_id=114 At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
RECENT NOTABLE PROSECUTIONS BY THE
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE INCLUDE - Sentencing of Florida Man on Human Trafficking Charges: On March 2,
2004, Ramiro Ramos was sentenced to 15 years in prison for conspiring to hold
migrant farm laborers in involuntary servitude. Ramos was also ordered to
forfeit property valued at more than $3 million, and was ordered deported to
Mexico. His brother, Juan Ramos, was also convicted on charges of involuntary
servitude, and will be sentenced on May 3. The brothers reportedly transported Mexican men and women to
Florida and forced them to work until they paid off "transportation
debts," and subjected them to threats and beatings. Commercial Sexual
Exploitation of Children (CSEC) and Child Trafficking WHERE
CSEC IS OCCURRING TODAY? - Child sexual exploitation of children occurs on every continent,
except Antarctica, and is most prevalent in countries stricken by poverty,
political turmoil, and corruption. In Cambodia , a nation still recovering
from the war, famine, and brutal dictatorship of the 1970s and ‘80s, sex
tourism thrives. The prostitution of girls as young as 5 years old is
prevalent, particularly with many tourists visiting Cambodia with the
specific purpose of having sex with prepubescent girls.[5] However, the
practice is not limited to developing countries. For example, girls and young
women from many countries are trafficked into the United States, often
through Mexico, to become sex slaves. Abducted, sold or abandoned by family,
or lured by hollow promises of jobs, school, and a better life, girls and
women find themselves trapped, earning no money, and living in highly
restrictive settings with no personal freedoms. State ripe for racket in human trafficking www.thebta.org/syndicate/news/archives/2004_04.html#000040 At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] In the past six years, the federal
government has prosecuted five slavery rings involving a total of 1,500
immigrants from Mexico and Guatemala, many of whom were recruited in Chandler
and Marana, to work in slavelike conditions picking
tomatoes and citrus on farms in south Florida, according to Lucas Benitez,
co-founder of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers based in Immokalee, Fla. In some cases, the workers were
held against their will by armed guards and paid $40 to $50 a week after
their wages were garnisheed for housing, food and transportation from Arizona
to Florida, Benitez said. Some
foreign household workers enslaved AMONG RECENT CASES - • In a middle-class subdivision
of Laredo, Texas, known for brick homes and manicured yards, a 12-year-old
Mexican girl sent by her family to clean and provide childcare in exchange
for schooling was found shackled in a backyard, according to prosecutors.
Police were summoned after a neighbor doing roof work looked down, saw the
girl and called 911. The girl had been chained after
finishing her work, starved until she became so hungry she ate dirt and
tortured by having pepper spray blasted into her eyes when she dozed off,
prosecutors say. She was so weak, she had to be carried on a stretcher,
prosecutors say, and her skin had been seared red from days in the sun. U.S.,
Canadian and Mexican Representatives Meet to Combat Sexual Exploitation New information from the study
reveals that more than 16,000 children in Mexico are engaged in prostitution
in just seven Mexican cities. Many of these children are victims of national
and intra-regional trafficking from poorer countries located in Central and
south America, including Costa Rica, Honduras and Guatemala. "In many cases the intended
destination of these children is the U.S.," Estes said, "but, owing
to the more relaxed law enforcement practices toward sexual predators in
Mexico, many traffickers find they can make substantial profit by exploiting
the children through pornography or prostitution in Mexico City or in Mexican
resort communities frequented by Mexicans and foreigners." UN Commission on Human Rights - Fifty-fifth session www.franciscansinternational.org/docs/statement.php?id=60 At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
The human rights situation in All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial,
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Human Trafficking in [Mexico Street Children in [Mexico] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Mexico] [other countries]