Posted on 12/30/2005 7:04:29 PM PST by SwinneySwitch
Authorities want to rein in the prostitution that's rampant in resort areas
ACAPULCO, MEXICO - On a sweltering afternoon in this glitzy tourist resort, Alex Fernandez laughed and joked with a group of his fellow homeless teenagers until the subject of prostitution came up. Then his smile disappeared, and the face of the skinny 14-year-old turned to a cold, unblinking stare as he described how grown men, sometimes Mexicans and sometimes foreign tourists, regularly take him to hotels and pay to have sex with him.
"Yes, they buy me. The business gets me food. It gets me clothes," said Fernandez, sitting in the shade of a basketball stand to escape the blazing sun. "No one else helps me. What do you want me to do?"
Despite a concerted effort to crack down on pedophiles in both Mexico and the United States, child prostitution continues unabated in Mexican tourist resorts such as Acapulco and Cancun as well as border cities such as Ciudad Juarez. Investigators estimate the number of Mexican children who are victims of commercial sexual exploitation — including prostitution, pornography and human trafficking — has increased to 20,000 from 16,000 in the past five years. Many of those who pay for sex with the boys and girls are American, Canadian and European tourists.
Mexican authorities and child-protection advocates say a weak justice system, police corruption and a lack of facilities to help homeless children have hindered attempts in Mexico to curb the problem.
The United Nations Children's Fund, or UNICEF, has urged Mexican authorities to strive for more concrete results in the fight against the trade.
"Mexican authorities used to be in denial about the problem. Now they are starting to address it," said Teresa Kilbane, the fund's Mexico projects director. "But the authorities still fail to give out solid figures on things like the number of pedophiles actually arrested or convicted."
A sensitive subject
To be sure, pedophilia remains a sensitive topic in Mexico.
Lydia Cacho Ribeiro, a journalist and children's rights advocate, found that out after publishing Demons of Eden, a book that claimed links between a child-sex ring and certain government officials, politicians, drug traffickers and businessmen.
A Puebla-based businessman sued her for criminal libel and on Dec. 16, Cacho was arrested in Cancun, accused of ignoring repeated summonses from a judge.
Cacho, whose plight has won the support of Reporters Without Borders and other groups, could get four years in prison if convicted.
Now free on bond, she denies breaking any laws.
Meanwhile, child sexual exploitation continues throughout Mexico. Investigators say some of the worst abuses occur in the famous seaside resort of Acapulco. In strip clubs, cantinas, hotels and private houses around the beautiful bay, about 1,000 children are victims of the illicit trade, according to UNICEF.
Hundreds of homeless youths such as Fernandez hang out on the beaches, outside the discos and in the central plaza in the heart of the resort where they are picked up by pedophiles. Men pay between $10 and $50 for intercourse or oral sex with the children, said Elizabeth Moreno, who heads a city government program to combat child prostitution.
In many cases the children are sold by pimps, who are often older homeless people with histories of being sexually exploited themselves, Moreno said.
Barriers to prosecution
Attempts to prosecute the pedophiles in Acapulco have had limited success.
Under the law, Mexican prosecutors need someone to file a detailed accusation against a specific suspect before they can take action. "Even if we see suspects we can't act. We just pass the information on" to prosecutors, Moreno said. "Sometimes, nothing seems to be done with it."
In April 2003, federal police arrested 13 Canadians and Americans, including one Texan, who they say formed a network that organized sex tourism and child pornography in Acapulco. In August 2004, two of the suspects committed suicide in the city's prison. Soon after, the other 11 were released when a federal judge said there was insufficient evidence against them.
Miguel Lopez, head of child protection for the Guerrero state government in Acapulco, said the defense attorneys allegedly bribed key child witnesses so they wouldn't testify.
The suspects should have been sent to the United States for trial, he said. "They would have nailed them there," Lopez said.
The U.S. government has stepped up its efforts to catch sex offenders, with President Bush signing the landmark Protect Act in 2003.
The law clarifies and strengthens cases against American citizens who have sex with a minor outside the United States or have planned to go abroad to have sex with a minor, said Los Angeles Assistant Attorney Richard Lee.
"The law means we can arrest these people even before they get on the plane and do the damage," Lee said.
The 2003 act also increased the maximum sentence for child-sex tourism to 30 years from 10 for first-time offenders and to a life sentence for those with previous convictions.
The same year, the Department of Homeland Security launched so-called Operation Predator, an initiative to investigate and arrest all types of sex offenders in the U.S. So far, the operation has netted 6,500 people, including 13 men who planned to have sex with children abroad, said department spokesperson Jamie Zuieback.
"We are sending out a loud and clear message to predators that if you commit a sex crime here or anywhere else you will be caught and convicted," Zuieback said.
FBI operations
The FBI also has been increasingly aggressive in going after pedophiles.
In a sting operation in February 2005, agents in California nabbed seven men who had signed up to go on a holiday to the Baja California town of Ensenada, where they were promised sex with boys as young as 9. The supposed vacation was set up by an FBI undercover agent who had infiltrated a pro-pedophilia group called the North American Man/Boy Love Association.
"We need to be tough in getting these guys off the street, so they are not out hurting children," said FBI Special Agent John Caruthers.
One of those arrested, Gregory Nusca of Dania Beach, Fla., pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Criminal cases are proceeding against the other six, who are incarcerated in San Diego and Los Angeles. South of the Rio Grande, Mexican lawmakers are battling to draft their own Protect-style act to overhaul their criminal code on sex offenders.
Under President Vicente Fox, Mexico's divided Congress has been gridlocked over major economic and judicial reforms. However, federal deputy Angelica de la Peña is confident that Congress can pass a reform law on sex offenders.
"This is not a politically divisive issue," said de la Peña, who is in the left-wing Democratic Revolution Party. "We all agree that abusing children should be stopped."
The bill proposes doubling maximum sentences for sex offenders to 18 years, making it easier for police to investigate and arrest pedophiles, and giving authorities the power to shut down brothels that have underage prostitutes. Under current law, the maximum penalty a brothel faces for employing children is a $3,000 fine.
Educating the victims
Acapulco officials say they struggle to persuade children to stay away from prostitution.
Moreno, of the Acapulco city government, has helped remove 22 child prostitutes from strip clubs and brothels in the past year. They were taken to a refuge on the outskirts of the city, but all left within a few days, she said.
"A lot of them can't stand the discipline and they can't get their drugs in the refuge," Moreno said. "We can't put them under lock and key because that would be a violation of their human rights."
Gustavo Lopez, director of a government-funded Acapulco homeless hostel, estimates that 80 percent of the city's street kids are addicted to drugs, most commonly industrial solvents and crack cocaine. About half of them become victims of prostitution, he said.
The majority of the homeless children come from families where they were physically and often sexually abused, he said.
Many do not see themselves as being victims when they are paid for sex, he said.
"A lot of them see the business as a good way to make money," Lopez said. "They are used to being at the bottom of society and their self-confidence is already shattered."
Mexico's social services system is failing the children, said anthropologist Elena Azaola, who has written several books about child sex tourism.
"We have no institutions teaching these kids what rights they have," Azaola said. "The key to solving this tragic problem is to rehabilitate the children and give them some hope and opportunity in their lives."
ibgrillo@yahoo.com
I am so in favor of execution for child molesters. First of all, it'll clear the decks. Second, it'll put fear into their hearts (so to speak, they don't really have hearts).
Anything else I could say is not allowed to be promoted on FR.
You appear to misunderstand.
They're not laughing with you.
They're laughing at you.
Cheers!
Sigh.
You have dragged the posting history into two threads, one about two barely pubescent kids making a baby, into a serios one about cracking down on pedophilia.
And your venom looks like you are trying to disrupt the thread.
Who would have the greatest interest in disrupting a thread on the child/teen sex trade (as opposed to disrupting the trade)?
I didn't realize you would make me spell it out.
Cheers!
LOL! Spot on!
Just shameful! Thanks for the ping, LJ.
While I haven't followed her story close at all, is there a reasonable chance that this is the kind of thing that Natalee Holloway may have gotten herself into by cavorting with those Dutch Aruban boys? Maybe she has been taken in by a slave sex trade in Aruba, and the authorities want to keep that hush-hush so that tourism doesn't suffer. Just a thought.
I'm taking the practical approach here that executing all adults who have sexual relationships with minors is not ever going to be put into place/practice.
That is, it's undoubtedly, yes, the most effective solution to the problem of sexual predators but it's never going to occur (executing them all after first offense, or after all offenses, point is the executions won't ever be possible), but because it's not realistic, it seems reasonable to consider the problem from other perspectives and most of those are cultural.
The article only includes mention of people as offenders who are from the U.S. and other northern nations, but you never know...it's only what's mentioned here.
I venture to guess that there is some percentage AMONG ALL OF HUMANITY that are sexual predators and engage in sexualizing and sexual contact with children and minors, and that the problem isn't inhernet to victims only in Mexico, nor predators/offendors only in the North, is my point, but that ACROSS HUMANITY, in all countries, there exists a percentage of humans who inhabit this problem.
As to Mexico, I do know that they have a very primitive standard as to when, at what age, a human becomes available and permissable sexually and that age is about twelve. And that it's a notoriously offensive characteristic as to a cultural definition and acceptance of who and what is "macho" to aggress upon pubescent girls for starters, and to impregnate them. Often without consent because it's an assumed privilege by "macho" standard culturally to aggress sexually upon available females.
I conclude that that, then, becomes the also-standard of acceptability, as sick as it is to most the rest of us, as to what male predators do and 'can do' within their perceptions of reasonableness (not mine, not yours, not the average person's) to THEIR sexual targets...and that is to aggress upon the very young because it's "good" and not "bad" as to their perceptions by their "peers." Same standard works in relationship to males upon females as to the "macho" factor...which isn't limited to heterosexual contact, nor to adult contact either, given what groups are considered.
There isn't effective cultural punishment and stigma for these vile behaviors, and even encouragement, is the point, and unless that changes, the problem becomes more familiar and more familiar to more in the population until te shock factor is diminished. Which is why I earlier described it as "primitive" and that's because there seems to be a far lower degree of cultural reprimand for senseless and offensive behaviors.
Same thing in parts of Southeast Asia and Africa, by the way. And Brazil, and other parts of South America.
On the other thread he's referencing, he made the comment insinuating that I'm a troll trying to make conservatives look bad by my extremism. I think he outed himself.
MANY people would like to see a death penalty exacted upon any and all who are sexual predators. From what I've read and heard about sub-humans such as that, they are not going to change and their problems are not going to be modified. Thus, they pose a permanent problem to society to contend with and unless predators are removed from general circulation in society, they continue to predate and thus, create more like themselves in some who they victimize.
Yes, put predators to death. But it won't ever happen, is my point, not realistically. I think they need to be permanently incarcertated, however. and the worst, yes, executed. I know it's an effective punishment in some Asian societies, but that's only effective for those they identify and capture, it does nothing to reduce or conclude the predatory behavior itself.
If I recall correctly, the psychologists call it "projection."
From some of his other postings, he seems to be a Saganite, e.g. in some other thread, he quoted from "Broca's Brain". Thus his near-frenzied reaction to piety, apparently.
Cheers!
Your points are reasonable and well considered. In that case, cataclysm is the only thing that will remedy the situation.
IOW, people need to change from within, en masse. And that has to be voluntary, but can be helped or hindered from without. And the culture (and I use that term loosely) being what it is, there's no help from outside, and much hindrance.
I don't know, eventually I think executions are going to become more acceptable as the sane section of the popluation gets beyond disgusted with this type of vileness. At least I hope so.
Back in the day we used to call them anarchists.
Thanks for noticing! :-P
I feel bad for you that you've started off the New Year with a stick up your hind end. Hope you recover soon! I'm sure you must be a very nice person at other times, so I won't hold it against you.
Alleging that someone is "xenophobic" takes far more substantiation than what that person stated in those few sentences.
I agree that there are "entire villages" in Mexico that are comprised of almost and only the elderly and young children. And that their "values" as a people (those villages amplified outward as a culture) are not those of our nation, the U.S., generally.
BUT, in relationship to this issue of sexual predation upon children, look no farther than poverty in any and all cultures that doesn't also provide good parenting. A lot of cultures are responsible for that, even some in the U.S., but the difference is that within the U.S., we DO have a culture that considers sexual predation particularly of children to be entirely and awfully offensive.
I can't speak for other cultures but it hardly defines someone as being "xenophobic" who reports about and responds to conditions in other cultures that are observable.
Thus, you're making a pejorative as to that allegation.
As to the rest you write, about FR and patriotism and such...we're all guests here, best to keep that in mind.
chronic_loser said: Sometimes the stupidity here is matched ONLY by the prejudice. Are you trying to see how many lies or usupportable assertions you can cram into one post?
One thing has become crystal clear to me, and that is that there are many freepers who use the mess we have on the border and the resultant problems with illegals here to go off on every conceivable type of rant. I would like to see your "villages.. mostly vacant except for children and old people."
Hateful shriveled up xenophobic rants get the contempt they deserve....., except on FR immigration threads. Here they are "patriotic."
Well, happy New year to you, CL. I thought maybe you might make a resolution to check your facts before you make a total fool of yourself. Evidently not. I won't expect an apology from someone like you who only posts insults and lies.
Here's just a couple examples. There are many more. Since there is so much information,I may work up an article about all this and I'll be sure to ping you.
READ on.
http://www.cimacnoticias.com/noticias/03may/03051902.html
translated by: http://www.allanwall.com/
Mujeres y familia, víctimas de la migración masculina
By Allan Wall
[snip] Thousands of Mexican men use emigration to abandon their wives and children.
For them, that’s family values. Our open borders and encouragement of illegal immigration help these Mexican deadbeat dads dump their families.
Emigration to the United States has been in many ways absolutely devastating for family life in Mexico. (See my article “Is Emigration Good For Mexico?”) But you don’t hear much about this, because it doesn’t fit in with the rah-rah immigration stereotypes presented in the U.S. media.
But the devastation hasn’t been totally ignored by the Mexican media. One articulate Mexican woman who has spoken out on this subject is Adriana Cortés, the president of the Fundación Comunitaria de El Bajío (Community Foundation of The Bajío –a region of central Mexico). (Mujeres y familia, víctimas de la migración masculina, El Universal, May 19th, 2003)
According to Cortés: “One of the gravest problems confronting the population of the Bajío is migration, a social phenomenon that has left wives and grandmothers heading thousands of homes.”
She points out that emigration results in these women being forced to bear the burden of raising the children. The children lose their father figure, which in turn helps to create more poverty.
One of the towns in Susuapan is Tremecino:
“In Tremecino 25% of the mothers are left alone with their children, expecting a husband who may return this year, in 2 years or more, if at all.”
By the way, in Tremecino, the average age of marriage or cohabitation is 14!
One of the inhabitants of Tremecino is Rosa:
“...She had 4 children when her husband emigrated to Tucson. She was expecting him to send her money but it never arrived, because the man became an alcoholic and found another woman.”
Eventually, after 3 of her 4 children also emigrated to the U.S., Rosa took up with another man. And that finally provoked her husband’s return after 7 years. Despite the fact that he himself had already taken up with another woman, he returned from Chicago to hit and scold her for shaming him.
A few statistics are in order about these small towns. In 2002, Tremecino had 180 families, of which 45 male heads of families had emigrated. Of those 45, 3 heads of families had completely abandoned their families.
In El Salitre, in 2002 there were 45 families, of which 25 male heads of families had emigrated. Of those 25, 3 heads of families had completely abandoned their families.
That means that in Tremecino, 1 out of 15 male emigrants with families have abandoned those families. And in El Salitre, 3 out of 25 (12%) of male emigrants with families have abandoned their wives and children.
Tremecino and El Salitre are only two towns, mind you. There are towns all over the length and breadth of Mexico where you could hear similar depressing stories. [snip]
American citizen Allan Wall lives and works legally in Mexico, where he holds an FM-2 residency and work permit, but serves six weeks a year with the Texas Army National Guard, in a unit composed almost entirely of Americans of Mexican ancestry.
______
The exodus is hitting central Mexican states hard, ones like Jalisco, Zacatecas and Michoacán. That state reported that the number of migrants leaving for the United States has increased to some 50,000 people each year. About half of them move permanently to the United States, and more Michoacános currently live in California, Illinois and Texas than in their homeland.
About 30,000 people migrate north each year from Casa Blanca and other towns in the drought-plagued state of Zacatecas, where the phenomenon suffuses politics, music and childhood dreams.
A teacher in Casa Blanca said enrollment had declined from 500 students in 1989 to 100 students this school year. The students who do not move north with their parents often make the journey on their own once they finish sixth grade, he said.
Of the 2,200 people who lived in the Michoacán village of Huacao 10 years ago, only 400 remain — nearly all of them are women, children too young to trek across the border, or elderly people who feel too weary. To them, the United States is a place called "over there." And when they talk about it, their voices drone with abandonment.
"My husband does not want to take us with him because most of our children are too young," said 33- year-old Consuelo Cortés, whose husband, parents and seven siblings have all left Huacao for California. "To keep myself from feeling sad, I devote a lot of time to taking care of the house. I grow a little bit of corn, and I take care of my pigs.
[snip]
http://earthops.org/immigration/17MEXI.html
Please see post #75. And Happy New Year, MillerCreek.
To whom it may concern, and you know who you are, please knock off the personal stuff.
I'm all for building a wall, and doubling or tripling the size of our Border Patrol. The wall has worked at the border below San Diego.
Vincente Fox is a criminal in the mode of Fidel Castro. I do not know why our President gives him the time of day.
Of course, however, looking to poverty as the cause of this ghastly problem within humanity does little to nothing to explain why the very rich are also sexual predators, to include some predating upon children.
Thus, I'm revising my earlier comments about poverty as the cause of this...at least as to victims, it is still an incentive and a large part of the problem as to why some fall victim to predators.
IMMIGRATION
Crossing the Line
Ahuacatlan, the name of a dusty village hidden high in the cloud-covered mountains of the central Mexican state of Queretaro, means "land of avocados" in the Nahuatl tongue. But the quaint name does not describe the village today, where fruit trees are no longer plentiful on the surrounding slopes. Nor, for that matter, is much else.
So each fall, the men of Ahuacatlan travel north to work en el otro lado (on the other side), mainly in Texas, and return the next summer with the money they've earned. Most of them spend their days in Texas picking crops like those that used to grow in Ahuacatlan, harvesting much of the hand-picked fruits and vegetables produced in the U.S.
When the men are away from Ahuacatlan, the village is populated by women, children, and the elderly. The parish priest complains about teenage boys looking forward to their first trips north rather than to jobs in Ahuacatlan or even San Juan del Rio, the nearest city of any size. Crossing the border for a job has become a modern-day rite of passage. And year after year--wives without husbands, sisters without brothers, young children without fathers, old folks without sons--Ahuacatlan has evolved from a patriarchy without patriarchs into a matriarchy.
Ahuacatlan's eerie, half-empty existence highlights one of the most difficult issues facing the Texas-Mexico border: immigration, with or without benefit of documentation.
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