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

Child Prostitution

The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children

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.

 

CAUTION:  The following links and accompanying text 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, misleading or even false.   No attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content.

ECPAT – On-line form for reporting child prostitution and other sexual offences against children

Quick Search for Missing Children - Select Gender, Country (Honduras), and Years Missing

National Plan of Action

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

INCIDENCE AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - There is evidence of child prostitution in Honduras, particularly in tourist and border areas. The U.S. Department of State reported that observers have identified over 1,000 victims in 2003. 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.

Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 1999

[34]. While the Committee takes note of the reforms to the Penal Code and of the training given to the municipal children's defenders to prevent and combat sexual abuse and exploitation of children, it expresses concern at the absence of data and of a comprehensive study on the issue of sexual commercial exploitation of children as well as the lack of a national plan of action to tackle this issue.

Concluding Observations of the Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights

[20] The Committee is alarmed about the high number of children who are forced to work to support themselves, and in particular about the serious situation of street children and the existence of street gangs (maras). In this regard, the Committee is also gravely concerned about the high incidence of sexual abuse, exploitation and prostitution of children in the State party, and about the lack of a national plan to address these issues.

[40] The Committee urges the State party to undertake urgent measures to introduce rehabilitation programs for street children. The Committee also urges the State party to address the issue of sexual abuse, exploitation and prostitution of children by adopting a national plan to combat the problem, including collecting relevant data and conducting a thorough study of the issue.

Notes From the Netherworld: Catch a Falling Star

La Ceiba is a hub for child prostitution. Tourists regularly come to Honduras to exploit minors. While there is no organized child prostitution, networks exist that supply children to pedophiles. Many of the girls are well under 16. There is a street for boys, too. Carnivals and other events attract large numbers of visitors who exercise great stealth, pay cash and command the silence of their accomplices. - sccp

GUATEMALA: Where Sexual Exploitation of Minors Is Not a Crime

But hers is not an isolated case. Although no precise figures are available, in 2002 it was estimated that 2,000 minors were sexually exploited in Guatemala City alone, according to a report by Casa Alianza (the Latin American branch of the New York-based Covenant House, a child advocacy organisation) and ECPAT (an international NGO working to end child prostitution, child pornography and the trafficking of children).

Of those 2,000 minors, 1,200 were from El Salvador, 500 from Honduras and 300 from Guatemala itself. Marνa Eugenia Villarreal, ECPAT director for Latin America, says Central America is a hub for trafficking in minors, child pornography and sex tourism.

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.

ECPAT: Fifth Report on implementation of the Agenda for Action [DOC]

[B] COUNTRY UPDATES – HONDURAS – The activities carried out to tackle CSEC in Honduras have been limited. UNICEF Honduras and the Save the Children Fund have carried out two research projects and a capacity building project for the police. One research project looked at the sexual exploitation of street children in Tegucigalpa and the other was a mapping of the sexual exploitation and trafficking of children by both locals and foreigners in Honduras. The capacity building project aimed to teach the police about CSEC. A manual was developed with information on the correct procedures which police should follow when dealing with cases of abuse and sexual exploitation

If You Turn Up Dead, No One Will Wonder Why

These girls, boys and teenagers are offered up as "merchandise" in brothels, photographed nude for Internet websites, or forced to perform in live sex shows. Most are poor, and all are utterly denied their right to a safe and happy childhood. In Honduras alone, between 8,000 and 10,000 girls and boys are the victims of sexual exploitation, according to a still unpublished Casa Alianza study conducted last year in Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

Honduras Gets Tough On Child Prostitution

The abuse has grown so blatant that such willful disregard is no longer possible. Exactly how big the problem is, no one is quite sure, only that over the past couple of decades it has been getting worse and that western visitors are much to blame. In Tela, for instance, as many as 40% of the 120,000 annual visitors to the town could be sex tourists.

Child Prostitution: A Growing Scourge

A REGION OUT OF CONTROL - Promised jobs and scholarships, Honduran girls, some as young as 13, are routinely being trafficked by crime syndicates and sold to brothels in Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico.  Most of the street girls rescued by Casa Alianza are victims of prostitution.

HUGE PROBLEM, SCARCE ASSETS - Honduras Security Minister Oscar Alvarez, who oversees his country's law enforcement apparatus, acknowledges that child prostitution is out of control. He attributes his agency's unexceptional successes to "acute" understaffing.

UN General Assembly -  Promotion And Protection Of The Rights Of Children

[45] In January 2000, a court in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, sentenced three American men to jail terms of between four and nine years for promoting the prostitution of minors and profiting from the prostitution of others.

[46] In April 1999 the Honduran Criminal Investigative Unit and staff from the non-governmental organization Casa Alianza had investigated a night club operating in San Pedro Sula. Hidden cameras documented the participation of underage girls as "exotic dancers" who were also offered to clients for sex. In private rooms, the girls danced naked for less than $5 per song, and above the night club was a hotel where the girls were reportedly taken to be sexually abused. A late night raid was carried out on the premises, at which time the American men were arrested and several firearms were found. Also detained in the raid were 17 of the "dancers", who included at least five minors aged from 14 years old. Several of them had become homeless in the devastation caused by Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

Underage teens are abused in Honduran honky-tonks

The arrests highlight what child advocates say is a growing problem in the dirt-poor countries of Central America. Although abuse of minors is common in the Third World, Americans are increasingly becoming involved in child prostitution rackets.

Honduras: Child Prostitution On The Rise

According to a recent report from UNICEF and the Project for Communication and Life (COMVIDA), over 500 minors are prostituted in the city of San Pedro Sula. Interviews with 100 children reveal that the majority of these children come to the city to escape broken or abusive families. Nearly all reported being raped, and most had been abused sexually and suffer from sexually transmitted diseases.

Child Sex Trade Rises in Central America

While some minors are pushed into prostitution by families that are unable to support themselves, most underage sex workers in Central America are street children, many of whom, studies show, had fled sexual abuse at home. In Honduras, the number of homeless minors has grown sharply in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch last year.

Sex Tourism Plagues Central America

Street children who used to sniff relatively inexpensive glue are now turning to crack, readily available in the region as Central American military officials, no longer living high on the hog from U.S. military assistance, turn to drug trafficking to make money. Since crack is more costly than glue, street kids are more likely to sell their bodies to finance their habit.  In the last two years, governments in the region have begun to crack down. A teacher from Pennsylvania, is serving a 10-year jail sentence in Honduras after being found guilty of sexually abusing two 12 year-old boys in a room at the Parthenon Beach Hotel.   In April of last year, police in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, raided a nightclub offering sex with girls.  Four U.S. men were arrested in the raid. As of November, two of them remained in a Honduran prison.

 

 

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