On Thursday, April 7, a federal grand jury indicted four people on charges that they smuggled young undocumented Mexican women into the US and forced them to work in a south-central Los Angeles brothel.
At least 12 females --- including two girls ages 14 and 15 --- had been forced into sexual bondage in return for being smuggled into the United States.
Among those charged were Jenny Valle-Maldonado, the 26-year-old Mexican madam and three accomplices, all Mexican nationals. According to the indictment, unnamed co-conspirators who operate in Mexico and Central America recruited the young women, and Valle-Maldonado arranged to have them transported across the border. The victims had been promised "well-paying jobs" and "a bright future."
Deception and intimidation
Despair subverts good judgment. Worse, it stimulates false hopes. Myth, for lack of a more reliable enticement, takes on the appearance of reality. One such myth is that the streets of America are lined with silver and that every rainbow leads to a pot of gold. This fiction, magnified by misery and discontent, and further stoked by false promises of a better life, is less the product of ignorance than a skewed and often fatal assessment of reality. It is this flawed perception of the future, coupled with an overreaching survival instinct, that draws thousands of Mexicans and Central Americans to the US every year.
But this exodus is not always voluntary. Every day, newspapers and police logs report the disappearance, abduction and kidnapping of young children and youths. Sought for a variety of illicit purposes, bought or lured away from their families, they are often transported across international borders and sold.
"Deception is the traffickers' tool of choice," says Bruce Harris, director of Casa Alianza, an advocacy group that works with street children in parts of Central America and Mexico. "And when that doesn't work, they resort to ruthless forms of intimidation to force minors and young adults into situations of extreme exploitation."
Gaining their confidence, traffickers often seduce poor families into believing that their children will be taught a useful skill or trade. Some even promise parents that they will marry their daughters. As a last resort, they kidnap their victims who end up enslaved in sweatshops, on farms, in domestic servitude or in brothels.
Trafficking in minors is a crime that is increasing in scope and complexity as criminal networks and racketeers recognize the profit to be derived from this activity. Perhaps the most widespread, or at least the most recognized, form of trafficking is that which involves the commercial and/or sexual exploitation of minors and youths. As with other forms of trafficking, poverty stokes this commerce and a growing number of children surrender to or are sold or traded into debt bondage to sweatshops or brothels.
Human trafficking is the modern practice of slavery. It is the world's third largest criminal industry --- after gun-running, and narcotrafficking. Generating more than $10 billion a year, it is also the fastest growing. According to the Central Intelligence Agency, every year, millions of young women and children are consigned to a Diaspora of no return. Between 45,000 and 50,000 are trafficked into the US by small crime rings and loosely connected cartels.
Victims of human trafficking are forced into labor and sexual exploitation, including prostitution and pornography. Approximately 50 percent of the victims are children. Traffickers operate with almost total impunity.
Global in scope, this problem has reached alarming dimensions in Central America. According to INTERPOL, the isthmus is serving as a conduit for the "irregular movement" of people, notably young women and minors of both sexes. Significant numbers of Central Americans contribute to migrant trafficking flows headed for the US through Mexico. Central America is also increasingly being used as a transit zone for migrants from beyond the region, a phenomenon that has US authorities on edge, as terrorists are known to be attempting entry into the US from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
Such journeys are often facilitated by traffickers who supply --- for a fee --- transportation, guided border crossings, fake documents, and temporary shelter. Powerful smuggling rings, and hundreds of "freelance" traffickers and "travel agents," are now operating throughout Central America.
Honduras has been cited as a source and transit point for the trafficking of youths and minors, many of whom are smuggled into the US and sold into prostitution. Strapped by inadequate resources, half-hearted law enforcement efforts and lax judicial standards, the government of Honduras does not fully comply with the protocols governing human trafficking. Although aware of the problem, the Maduro administration has made no effort to educate the public. Nor does the country have stiff anti-trafficking laws but relies on an assortment of loose penal statutes that are very rarely enforced.
As a result, many Honduran women and children are trafficked into the international sex trade and into forced labor situations. Women are lured by promises of employment as shopkeepers, maids, seamstresses, nannies and waitresses only to find themselves forced into prostitution. Victims are unaware that their travel documents will be seized, that they will have to repay an enormous debt or that they will be subject to brutal beatings if they balk or if their earnings do not meet their handlers' expectations.
According to the Ministry of the Interior, nearly 30,000 minors fled Honduras in 2003. Fewer than 400 were repatriated.
Requiem for a dream cut short
Thousands of children and young adults embark on their trek "up north" with little more than a longing to escape poverty and hunger. For some, the American dream ends with abrupt finality. So it was for Edgar Chocoy Guzmán, a 16-year-old Guatemalan deported on March 10 by the US Immigration and Naturalization Service. Ten days later, Guzmán was summarily executed by members of the gang to which he had once belonged. He was buried as "XX" [unknown] in a cemetery for the homeless.
"When Edgar pleaded with INS agents that he was going to be killed if sent home, he wasn't joking. Instead, he was handed a death sentence," said Bruce Harris.
Representing Guzmán at his asylum hearing, pro-bono lawyer Kim Salinas said, "from my point of view, Edgar was sent to his death by our immigration system. It condemned him for his past and failed him in every possible way."
Mexican immigration officials report that more than 10,000 minors trying to cross into the US were repatriated.
"Most were not old enough to cross the street on their own," said Harris, "let alone a border where hundreds die from dehydration, heat exhaustion and starvation."
Every year, scores of young migrants share Guzmán's fate, some at the hand of trigger-happy law enforcement agents. Caught in an ever-tightening vise of exploitation, many are never seen again.
"Human trafficking is likely to spread," says Bruce Harris. Citing "weak economies, dwindling job opportunities and growing discontent in the countries of origin," he also blames a slothful and inept constabulary, and the enormous profit potential that emboldens traffickers.
"We must do a better job to protect the young. We must also encourage them to keep dreaming --- but with their eyes wide open."
W. E. Gutman is a veteran journalist. He has been on regular assignment in Central America since 1991. He lives in southern California.
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