Archive : Central-South America

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has started a series of refresher trainings on the prosecution of human trafficking cases for some 600 Guatemalan judges. The trainings, organized in coordination with the Judicial Branch and the Secretariat against Sexual Violence, Exploitation and Trafficking in Persons of the Vice President’s Office are funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the US Department of State Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM).

Mexico's lower house unanimously passed an anti-human-trafficking bill that establishes preventative and punitive measures and provides aid to victims of that crime. The bill includes prison sentences of up to 40 years for those convicted of sexual exploitation and abuse and creates a fund to offer care to victims, the Chamber of Deputies said Friday in a statement.

On Tuesday March 27th, 53-year-old Jose Alfaro appeared in Magistrate’s Court in Belize City where he was charged with two counts of attempting to traffic in persons. Alfaro appeared before Chief Magistrate, Anne Marie Smith where he was read the charges.

The Chamber of Deputies passed yesterday a general law against human trafficking. This new law will prescribe sentences of up to 40 years in prison and 30,000 days of minimum wage to whoever profit in any way from forcing a person to participate or support any sexual activity.

At least 47 sex-trafficking rings are operating in Mexico and the number of victims is more than 800,000 a year, including 20,000 children, lawmaker Rosi Orozco said. She cited data from the National Shelter Network in comments following Congress' receipt of a report on sex trafficking from the Attorney General's Office. The AG's office produced the document in response to Orozco's Feb 2 resolution calling on authorities to compile statistics as a first step toward a comprehensive approach to the problem.

Bahamian law enforcement and national security officials are continuing to put the necessary mechanisms in place to ensure that human smuggling operations do not go unpunished and/or unnoticed in The Bahamas, Minister of National Security the Hon. O.A.T. “Tommy” Turnquest said Friday. Mr. Turnquest said women and girls are “disproportionately represented” among the millions of persons estimated to be victims of international human smuggling operations – an industry that continues to expand around the world and is estimated to generate profits in the “billions of dollars.”

Dominican and Haiti nongovernment and religious groups today demanded that authorities of both countries halt the trafficking of Haitian men, women and children through the border crossings of the Dominican Northwest, EFE reports, citing the Jesuit Service for Migrants and Refugees (SJR) and Border Solidarity. The entities told local media of the Haitian city Ouanaminthe, near the Dominican border that 3,353 Haitians, 1,032 women and 345 children among them, were trafficked across the Dominican Republic border zone in February.

Mexican police have arrested two suspected members of an international sex-trafficking ring that operates in Mexico and the United States, officials said. The two detainees are 26-year-old Jaime Granados Rendon, who is wanted for extradition by the United States, and 32-year-old Raul Granados, the federal Public Safety Secretariat said in a statement.

Barbados is taking all necessary precautions to effectively deal with issues of human trafficking. To this end, the government has established a National Task Force for the Prevention of Trafficking in Persons. The 13-member body is chaired by Attorney-general, Mr. Adriel Brathwaite, and will include representatives from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Social Care, Constituency Empowerment, and Community Development, and Family, Culture Sports and Youth.

Mexican federal agents have arrested a former manager of an orphanage on organized crime and child-trafficking charges, the Attorney General’s Office said. The female suspect, who has not been identified, had been on the lam since 2009 after coming under suspicion as an “alleged child trafficker linked to the ‘Casitas del Sur’ case,” a reference to the Mexico City orphanage where 126 children were rescued following the disappearance of 14 other minors. A 10-million-peso ($787,000) reward had been offered for information leading to the woman’s capture. The detainee is suspected of involvement in the disappearance of a female minor from Casitas del Sur, the AG’s office said on Thursday, noting that in her “role as caregiver she did not report when (the girl) was removed” from the facility.