Human Trafficking in [Mexico Street Children in [Mexico] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Mexico] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery United Mexican States (Mexico) [ Country-by-Country
Reports ] The United
Mexican States [map] is a North American republic bordered by the United States
(N), by the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea (E), by Mexico is a
large source, transit, and destination country for persons trafficked for the
purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. A significant
number of Mexican women, girls, and boys are trafficked within the country for
sexual exploitation, often lured from poor rural regions to urban, border,
and tourist areas through false offers of employment; upon arrival, many are
beaten, threatened, and forced into prostitution. According to the Mexican
government, up to 20,000 children are victimized in commercial sexual
exploitation in Mexico every year, especially in tourist and border areas.
Sex tourism, including child sex tourism, is a growing trend, especially in
tourist areas such as Acapulco and Cancun, and northern border cities like
Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez. Foreign child sex tourists arrive most often from
the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. The vast majority of foreign
victims trafficked into the country for sexual exploitation come from Central
America, particularly Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador; many transit
Mexico en route to the United States and, to a lesser extent, Canada and
Western Europe. Some Central American minors, traveling alone through Mexico
to meet family members in the United States, fall victim to traffickers,
particularly near the Guatemalan border. Victims from South America, the
Caribbean, Eastern Europe, and Asia also are trafficked into Mexico for
sexual or labor exploitation, or transit the country en route to the United
States. Organized criminal networks traffic women and girls from Mexico into
the United States for commercial sexual exploitation. Mexican men and boys
are trafficked from southern to northern Mexico for forced labor. Central
Americans, especially Guatemalans, have been subjected to agricultural
servitude and labor exploitation in southern Mexico. Mexican men, women, and
boys are trafficked into the United States for forced labor, particularly in
agriculture. -
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 *** 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. 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 Florencia Molina's sewing teacher
in Puebla, Mexico, unwittingly wrote Molina and herself one-way tickets into
slavery. Good jobs, food and housing
awaited them in the United States, the teacher said. Molina had three days to
decide. Both women learned after
arriving in Los Angeles that the jobs were sewing dresses for 17 hours a day
with three 10-minute breaks for beans and rice. Mexican
national pleads guilty to bringing sex slaves to Houston-area bars Salvador Fernando Molina Garcia,
37, an illegal immigrant, has pleaded guilty to smuggling girls and young
women from Mexico into Houston and forcing them to work as prostitutes in
local bars, according to federal officials. 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 Some 320 women were the victims of
unsolved murders in 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 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. 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 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 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 The human rights situation in
Mexico continues to deteriorate. Different United Nations’ bodies specialized
in the protection of human rights , as well as the Inter-American Commission
on Human Rights of the Organization of American States , have confirmed this
worrisome trend. Mexico occupies first place for reports of deaths during
detention received by the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or
Arbitrary Executions and third place for cases of disappearances presented
before the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, according
to their most recent reports. Similarly, the 1998 report issued by the
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) stated that the practice of
illegal detention in Mexico constitutes a serious situation of human rights
violations due to its systematic character. Likewise, the Committee Against
Torture concluded in 1997, that torture is systematically practiced in
Mexico, especially by judicial police, and more recently, by members of the
Armed Forces under the pretext of combating subversive groups and
drug-trafficking. The Special Rapporteur on Torture confirmed that torture is
frequent throughout much of the country. 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 [Mexico Street Children in [Mexico] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Mexico] [other countries]