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SPECIAL REPORTS |
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GUATEMALA:
Only 10 Agents
to Fight Human Trafficking Nationwide
By Danilo Valladares
GUATEMALA CITY (IPS) - In spite of a new law
against human trafficking in effect since
March, little has been done in Guatemala to
fight the trafficking of children, and child
sex tourism has begun to flourish, experts
warn.
"The office of the public prosecutor has
only 10 agents (to fight human trafficking)
throughout the entire country, and they have
no telephone and just three or four
computers," and "the police do not have the
capacity to tackle the problem at a national
level," said Sandra Gularte, an official
with the ombudsman's office.
Activist Leonel Dubón, director of the
Asociación El Refugio de la Niñez, which
provides shelter for rescued children, told
IPS that "they brought two girls from El
Salvador to work in a cafeteria, and the day
after the girls got here they were
prostituted. Young girls are preferred,
because they bring the biggest profits in
the sexual exploitation market."
Dubón said trafficking of children occurs
mainly in border areas, although he said it
also exists in the capital, where underage
girls are brought in by means of false job
offers.
In this Central American country where
corruption is so notorious that a
U.N.-sponsored commission was set up to
strengthen and purge the country's justice
system and help identify and dismantle
clandestine armed security groups, the
impunity enjoyed by traffickers is so great
that their business has diversified.
"We know tourists come to have sex with
street kids and that a network of taxi
drivers is involved," said Dubón.
After drug and arms dealing, human
trafficking is the third largest organised
crime industry in the world, according to
the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
At least 15,000 children under 18 are the
victims of child sex trafficking networks in
Guatemala, estimates Casa Alianza, the Latin
American branch of the New York-based
Covenant House, which stopped operating in
Guatemala in January due to lack of funds.
In the capital alone, Casa Alianza
identified more than 2,000 children sexually
exploited in bars and massage parlours, most
of whom came from Central American
countries.
One of the biggest achievements in the fight
against such crimes was the new Law against
Sexual Violence, Exploitation and
Trafficking in Persons, which entered into
force in March.
The new law classified crimes related to
sexual exploitation, created a Secretariat
Against Sexual Violence, Exploitation and
Trafficking in Persons, and put in place
procedures for the repatriation of
trafficking victims who have been taken out
of the country.
But "the Secretariat has not been assigned
the necessary resources for it to function,
there is no training for the judges
responsible for applying the law, and there
has been no real interest in implementing
the necessary actions on the part of state
institutions," Dubón complained.
In the meantime, trafficking continues apace
in border areas.
"In Malacatán and Tecún Umán (municipalities
in the southwestern province of San Marcos,
on the border with Mexico), owners of child
care centres, and even parents and other
relatives, are involved in the trafficking
of children," José Maldonado, an official in
the ombudsman's office in Coatepeque, in the
neighbouring province of Quetzaltenango,
told IPS.
The trafficking industry feeds on the
vulnerability and desperate economic
situation of the Central American migrants
who pass through the area in large numbers
on their way to the United States, and the
sexual exploitation of mainly Guatemalan,
Honduran and Salvadoran girls in that area
is commonplace, the ombudsman's office
reports.
"Because there are so many people involved
in this illegal trade that undermines the
integrity of girls and boys, it has been
impossible to curb it," said Maldonado.
According to the World Bank, in Guatemala,
one of the poorest countries in Latin
America, around 75 percent of the population
lives below the poverty line, defined as an
income that is insufficient to purchase a
basic basket of goods and services, while
nearly 58 percent have incomes below the
extreme poverty line, defined as the amount
needed to purchase a basic basket of food.
Guatemalan girls, and to a lesser extent
boys, are the victims of trafficking in
border cities in southeastern Mexico,
Guatemalan vice consul Estuardo Figueroa in
the city of Tapachula, in the Mexican state
of Chiapas, denounced last month.
At a meeting of the human rights department
of the Tapachula city government, aimed at
finding ways to rescue child victims of
trafficking, the Guatemalan diplomat said
the children are purchased in border areas
of the two countries and subjected to labour
or sexual exploitation in Chiapas.
Figueroa described how children can be seen
in the streets of Tapachula and Tuxtla
Gutiérrez hawking sweets, shining shoes,
cleaning windshields or dressed up as
clowns.
The ninth annual Trafficking in Persons
Report on Guatemala, published by the U.S.
State Department in June, put this country
on the Tier 2 Watch List "for failing to
show increasing efforts to combat human
trafficking, particularly in terms of
providing adequate assistance to victims and
ensuring that trafficking offenders,
including corrupt public officials, are
appropriately prosecuted, convicted, and
sentenced for their crimes."
The State Department trafficking in persons
report places nations in one of four
categories based on their efforts to curb
human trafficking, prosecute those involved
and support and assist victims. Countries
doing the best job are in Tier 1; Tier 2
includes countries that are demonstrating a
commitment to addressing the problem but
have not yet met international standards;
and the Tier 2 "Watch List" includes
countries that show signs of digressing to
Tier 3, the lowest level.
In Latin America, Costa Rica, El Salvador,
Honduras and Panama were put in Tier 2,
while Nicaragua, Argentina, the Dominican
Republic and Venezuela are on the Tier 2
Watch List, along with Guatemala, due to the
large number of victims of trafficking,
despite the efforts made.
The report mentions the "nascent child sex
tourism" in certain areas such as Antigua
and Guatemala City, and points out that
young Guatemalan girls are often subject to
forced labour within the country as domestic
servants.
In addition, it says, "Guatemalan men,
women, and children are trafficked within
the country, as well as to Mexico and the
United States, for forced labour,
particularly in agriculture.
And "In the Mexican border area, Guatemalan
children are exploited for forced begging on
streets and forced labour in municipal dumps
(and) Guatemalan men, women, and children
are trafficked for forced agricultural work,
particularly on coffee plantations," the
State Department report adds.
It recommends that Guatemala "Implement and
enforce the new anti-trafficking law;
increase efforts to investigate and
prosecute trafficking offenses, and convict
and punish trafficking offenders, including
public officials complicit with trafficking
activity."
María Eugenia Villarreal, director of ECPAT
International in Guatemala told IPS that the
main concerns of her organisation – whose
name stands for End Child Prostitution,
Child Pornography and the Trafficking of
Children – are the protection of children
and adolescents and the prosecution of
traffickers.
"There are many problems in terms of
enforcing the law," she said. "Although the
law is new, we should have had many more
sentences. We have also observed an enormous
weakness in investigations by prosecutors
and in the failure of judges to classify
crimes as trafficking."
Sandra Gularte, coordinator of trafficking
issues in the ombudsman's office, told IPS
that Guatemala's law is the most advanced of
its kind in Latin America.
This year, the ombudsman's office received
41 complaints of trafficking from January to
September, compared to 23 in 2008, which she
said does not represent an increase in cases
as much as a growing willingness to report
trafficking-related crimes and seek
assistance.
Nevertheless, she said "there is a greater
vulnerability due to the economic crisis,
which will prompt more Guatemalans to try to
make the journey to other countries and to
fall prey to organised crime networks."
Greater information and awareness-raising
are essential, she said, because many people
are unaware of what trafficking is and thus
do not report it, and due to a long history
of exploitation of poor, indigenous people
in this country.
But in Gularte's view, the essential thing
is to continue strengthening the office of
the public prosecutor and the police.
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