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 labor and commercial sexual exploitation.
Human trafficking is a significant and growing problem in the country.
Guatemalans and women and children trafficked through Guatemala from El
Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua are subject to commercial sexual
exploitation in Mexico, Belize, and the United States. In the Mexican border
area, Guatemalan children are exploited for forced labor and begging;
Guatemalan men and women are exploited for labor in commercial 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. - U.S. State
Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2007 [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: 4 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]