The national-anti trafficking law required judges in criminal cases at both the state and federal levels to order traffickers to pay restitution to victims. The National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) held 63 virtual and in-person training events for 11,800 government officials across sectors including health and child services, tourism, state and municipal government, state human rights commissions, state police, and other first responders. Consular officials followed a protocol for identifying and providing assistance to Mexican victims abroad, and some other agencies followed informal victim referral procedures. Parents are sometimes complicit in exploiting their children in child sex tourism, and children experiencing homelessness are believed to be at high risk. The law defined trafficking broadly to include illegal adoption without the purpose of exploitation. Observers reported potential trafficking cases in substance abuse rehabilitation centers, womens shelters, and government institutions for people with disabilities, including by organized criminal groups and facility employees. Medical and psychological support often did not extend beyond cursory evaluations; shelters at both the state and local levels typically housed victims only for the duration of a criminal trial; and longterm reintegration services were very limited, leaving victims highly vulnerable to reexploitation. The law prohibited recruiters and labor agents from charging fees to workers and employers from passing agency fees to workers in the form of wage deductions; however, the law did not establish penalties for these practices and recruiters and employers continued to commit them with impunity. Human trafficking amounts to 6.6 billion dollars annually each year for the State of Texas, and human traffickers make 600 million dollars in profit from their illegal slave trade. However, trafficking victims from South America, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa are also found in Mexico, and some transit the country en route to the United States. On the state issue we have not received support, and there is a general law that requires that the government, if it does not have shelters, must support civil society that does have them, said Mariana Wenzel, Anthus' director and co-founder. NGOs reported the government provided insufficient funding for critical victim services and victims in most states did not receive sufficient government assistance. [14], Mexico is characterized by persistent and extreme income inequality and high rates of poverty. Local experts reported the commission was effective in promoting participation of stakeholders from academia, NGOs, and international organizations, and it encouraged transparency at its regular meetings and in its five permanent working groups. NGOs reported the governments lack of follow-up and enforcement efforts limited the effectiveness of the code of conduct. These cases, in what are supposed to be resort paradises, highlight Mexico's not-so-secret human trafficking issue. We go into the field to interview, report and investigate. NGOs reported child sex tourism remains a problem and continues to expand, especially in tourist areas and in northern border cities. Observers also expressed concern over recruitment of recently deported Mexican nationals and foreign migrants by organized criminal groups for the purpose of forced criminality. Most shelters offered medical, psychological, and legal assistance for victims, but the level of care and quality of services varied widely. Human Trafficking and Smuggling. Some government officials collude with traffickers or participate in trafficking crimes. [8], The vast majority of foreign victims in forced labor and sexual servitude in Mexico are 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. The law provided victims with protection from punishment for unlawful acts traffickers compelled them to commit. Groups considered most vulnerable to human trafficking in Mexico include women, children, indigenous . In the first six months of 2022, 12 human rights defenders were killed, according to the human rights . The most extensive database on organized crime in the Americas. We want to sustain Latin Americas largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources. Does US Policy Exacerbate Migrant Kidnappings on the US-Mexico Border? No woman should go through what I went through, no girl or adolescent, a teen who was able to escape her situation said, speaking from a shelter in Mexico. You're a foreigner and alone, and you suffer mistreatment and discrimination," said the woman, who has sought legal help from CATW-LAC. [27], A third of the people annually trafficked into the United States are from Latin America, and the vast majority of these people enter the US through the MexicoUnited States border. [28] Texas is a particularly important transit site for domestic trafficking; around twenty percent of domestic trafficking victims pass through the state at some point on their journeys. Eva was among the thousands of human trafficking victims targeted and exploited in the US every year, of whom only 10% are ever identified. It was hell," she said. January 16, 2013. Authorities initiated at least 35 federal investigations and 621 state investigations in 2021, compared with 55 federal investigations and 550 state investigations in 2020, and 133 federal investigations and at least 544 state investigations in 2019. [22], The effect of conflict and ensuing assault on the development of the sex trade is domestic to Mexico as well as foreign. Migrants and asylum seekers in or transiting Mexico are vulnerable to sex trafficking and forced labor, including by organized criminal groups; this risk is particularly high for migrants who rely on smugglers. Sometimes they kill you, kidnap you, rape you. Among other things, the State Department report states that,in 2021, the prosecution and sentencing of traffickers in Mexico didn't increase. NGOs operated the majority of shelters that served trafficking victims. Federal investigations included 23 sex trafficking cases, five labor trafficking cases, and seven cases involving unspecified exploitation. A Mexican woman, 33, is trying to rebuild her life at the Anthus shelter in Puebla. The ring would kidnap children and take . Coordination across state and federal levels continued to be slow. The government did not provide complete data for victims receiving services. Increase efforts to investigate and prosecute trafficking crimes, including forced labor and those involving complicit officials, at both the federal and state levels. Federal officials had jurisdiction over all international trafficking cases, all cases that took place on federally administered territory involving organized crime, and all cases involving allegations against government officials. There were no government or NGO trafficking shelters available for male victims older than 13, and 12 states lacked any shelters that accepted trafficking victims. Some immigration officials allegedly accept payment from traffickers to facilitate the irregular entry of foreign trafficking victims into Mexico. The authors also noted that the growing presence of organized crime groups, ties between officials and criminal actors, rampant impunity and a lack of government attention have all created greater conditions for human trafficking to increase.. Inspectors in the country have a limited mandate to monitor working conditions in informal businesses and farms, which employ more than half of the Mexican workforce. Enact, implement, and allocate sufficient resources toward a new national action plan (NAP) that is coordinated across federal, state, and local authorities. Experts expressed concern prosecutors coerced some victims to testify during judicial proceedings. And if the cases recorded through the first four months of this year continue apace, Mexico will log more than 650 victims in 2021, more than any of the last six years, according to the report. Government officials provided services such as security or transportation to some NGO shelters. Testimonies from some of the victims show that they had been kidnapped for nearly three weeks. Michoacan state Public Safety Secretary Carlos Castellanos Becerra alleged that Manuel Plancarte Gaspar was part of the cartel's organ-trafficking ring. [12] Victims are often migrants who engage smugglers voluntarily and are then forced into labor arrangements against their will. Mexican authorities identified at least 550 victims of human trafficking in 2020, a 43 percent increase from the 383 victims recorded in 2016, according to data from the Executive Secretariat for Public Security (Secretariado Ejecutivo del Sistema Nacional de Seguridad Pblica - SESNSP) and cited in a report by Hispanics in Philanthropy (HIP), a. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. The government anti-trafficking commission continued funding an international organization to develop a national information system to track the number of victims identified, referred, and assisted across the country, but the pandemic delayed the systems implementation. Groups say labor exploitation and trafficking impacts many Indigenous people who are recruited from the south of Mexico, especially in states such as Chiapas and Oaxaca, with a promise of attractive jobs. Her aunt, who lives in Florida, had paid a "coyote" $4,000 to cross her into U.S. territory. NGOs reported officials often re-traumatized victims through a lack of sensitivity, victim shaming, and the lack of adequate protection for victims during criminal proceedings. Fraudulent recruitment practices continued to be widespread, but the government did not take steps to hold recruiters or labor agents accountable. Mexican authorities identified at least 550 victims of human trafficking in 2020, a 43 percent increase from the 383 victims recorded in 2016, according to data from the Executive Secretariat for Public Security (Secretariado Ejecutivo del Sistema Nacional de Seguridad Pblica - SESNSP) and cited in a report by Hispanics in Philanthropy (HIP), a non-governmental group working in Latin America and the Caribbean. The government demonstrated overall increasing efforts compared to the previous reporting period, considering the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its anti-trafficking capacity; therefore Mexico remained on Tier 2. Trafficking in persons is a major human rights violation that leads to exploitation of vulnerable persons. The government made efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts by prosecuting and convicting individuals who purchased commercial sex acts from child trafficking victims. In comparison, authorities abroad identified and assisted 313 Mexican victims of human trafficking in the first six months of 2020. Non-governmental organizations reported that authorities at all levels lacked the necessary knowledge of trafficking laws and failed to effectively identify and refer potential victims, contributing to the low numbers officially recorded. [16] With increased trade of foreign goods to rural areas, import competition in the rural markets has also forced people in poor areas to migrate to industrialized economies for better livelihoods. Even when trafficking rings are targeted, the leaders at the top of these networks often go untouched, while low-level members who may also be trafficking victims themselves frequently end up in prison, Correa-Correa said. Criminal cartels that are trafficking families, women, children and single adults over the southern border earned as much as $14 million a day in February, according to a report on Monday. [12], Mexico is one of the global centers of the child prostitution trade and a source and transit country for large numbers of migrants moving northward from Central America. NGOs and the media report victims from the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa have also been identified in Mexico, some en route to the United States. TIJUANA, Mexico (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - State human trafficking investigations in Mexico rose by a third last year, but academics and activists said that many parts of the country. The government provided training on identifying and assisting trafficking victims to officials from several agencies including 800 staff from state attorneys general offices; 487 Department for Family Development (DIF) officers; 2,100 immigration officials; and 1,465 additional government officials. This has made Mexico a destination for sex tourism and one of the world's largest hubs for sex trafficking; It is the largest destination for sex tourism from the United States. Crime groups involved in human trafficking are taking advantage of pandemic conditions in Mexico in two ways. In comparison, the government reported state-level prosecutions in 14 states for a total of 51 suspects prosecuted in 2020. Corruption and official complicity in trafficking crimes remained concerns, inhibiting law enforcement action. Develop and implement standardized operating procedures (SOPs) for front-line officials to proactively identify victims among vulnerable groups in Mexico and overseasincluding individuals in commercial sex, children apprehended for illicit gang-related activities, Cuban medical professionals, and migrants, including migrant workersand refer them to service providers for assistance. Her story highlights the brutal realities of human trafficking in Mexico and the United States, an . Criminals have been smuggling migrants across the Mexico border into the US in everything from oil tankers to refrigeration trucks for years expertly "cloning'' the vehicles to look like . [8][10], While sex work is largely Illegal in Mexico, most cities do have Zonas de Tolerancia, areas where prostitution is allowed. In July 2021, the Supreme Court denied a request for an injunction filed by suspects who argued that the separate charges they faced for sex trafficking and sexual exploitation amounted to being judged twice for the same crime. The government participated in a program with authorities in the United States to limit the entry into Mexico of sex offenders convicted in the United States, but it did not report whether it denied entry to any sex offenders during the year. The labor law lacked provisions criminalizing fraudulent recruitment and contract practices that made many workers vulnerable to trafficking. Authorities failure to employ victim-centered procedures, combined with an overall lack of specialized services and security, disincentivized victims from filing complaints or participating in investigations and prosecutions. The 2012 anti-trafficking law criminalized sex trafficking and labor trafficking, prescribing penalties of five to 30 years' imprisonment and fines for sex trafficking offenses and five to 20 years' imprisonment and fines for labor trafficking; these penalties were sufficiently stringent and, with respect to sex trafficking, commensurate with th. Experts noted prevention campaigns insufficiently reached high-risk groups such as children, rural and Indigenous communities, and non-Spanish speakers. Mexico is a large source, transit, and destination country for victims of human trafficking. We should have the national plan to prevent, punish and eradicate human trafficking, which is from 2019, but we do not have it," said Teresa Ulloa, director of the Coalition Against TraffickinginWomenandGirlsinLatin Americaand theCaribbean (CATW-LAC). The 2012 law obligated states to have a dedicated human trafficking prosecutor; 31 of 32 states had established specialized anti-trafficking prosecutors or units. 18 years after the adoption of the Protocol against Trafficking (Palermo Protocol) and 9 years into the reform against Trafficking in Mexico, it has not yet been reconciled on what charges should someone be punished for human trafficking. The government did not provide updates in the case of the former governor of Puebla, arrested in February 2021 for ordering the 2005 torture and illegal arrest of a journalist who exposed the officials alleged involvement in a child sex trafficking ring. [14] Both policy and army personnel raped and assaulted several thousand poor, generally rural women during the El Salvadorean and Nicaraguan civil wars. One of the main forms of trafficking described was the sexual exploitation of women and girls. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. Mexico has one of the highest rates of human trafficking in the world. Between 2011 and 2017, the NGO registered at least 210 human trafficking lawsuits in Tlaxcala; however, there were only 9 jail sentences. Mexico is also one of the most dangerous countries in the world for human rights defenders. [3][6][7] Mexican trafficking victims were also subjected to conditions of forced labor in domestic servitude, street begging, and construction in both the United States and Mexico. The number of reported human trafficking victims is on the rise in Mexico, as government officials struggle to devise new strategies to enhance victim identification and prevent increased exploitation exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. It is well known for generating a large sum of money for different criminal groups that want to participate (Rietig, V, 2015). Many NGOs continued to alter or limit their operations in response to pandemic-related funding cuts from donors or necessary isolation measures. A man is suing Harvard and a morgue manager, accusing them of mishandling his mother's body. Across the government, victim referral from first responders was largely ad hoc and procedures varied from state to state, with most shelters relying on prosecutors to identify and refer victims. [6] In addition, victims often accept their positions because they feel that this is the only way that they may send some remittances to their family and their present situations may in some cases still be better than their original impoverished and desperate state. Individuals migrate from the poorest states to the agricultural regions to harvest vegetables, coffee, sugar, and tobacco; many receive little or no pay or time off; endure inhumane housing conditions without access to adequate food, clean water, or medical care; and are denied education for children. The lawsuit alleges that up to 400 donated cadavers could have been involved in a black market scheme. Authorities from the four states of Mexico City, State of Mexico, Baja California, and Nuevo Leon conducted more than half of all investigations in 2020, while authorities in Durango, Guanajuato and Colima did not investigate any suspected cases. The government did not allocate sufficient resources or personnel to the Secretariat of Labor and Social Welfare to effectively enforce labor laws, although it significantly increased the budget for labor law enforcement. Traffickers commonly exploit day laborers and their children in forced labor in Mexicos agricultural sector, with most victims coming from economically vulnerable and Indigenous populations. Is Nayib Bukele's 'Iron Fist' in El Salvador Working? [8] Additionally, many of these arrangements take place within the United States rather than within Mexico itself and are thus not necessarily included in Mexican trafficking statistics. [16] Lastly, the technological advances that go hand in hand with globalization have facilitated the ease with which organized crime circles may conduct trafficking operations. The anti-trafficking commission drafted a new NAP and submitted it to the Secretariat of Finance for approval. (The FY 2021 number (599) is a correction to the number cited last year (603).) Shelters reported assisting fewer victims due to limited staffing and to limit the spread of the COVID-19 virus. There were several people who controlled me a lot,the clients even hit me. Since many victims are transported by plane, an alliance was created to include brochures on flights so that passengers have the necessary information to identify and denounce such practices. Government officials and NGOs acknowledged barriers to victims receiving humanitarian visas, including authorities failure to identify eligible foreign trafficking victims, insufficient efforts to make victims aware of the process for obtaining such relief, and the lengthy wait times for processing requests. The law required employers to pay wages weekly, but the government did not effectively enforce this provision against employers who withheld wages to compel workers to meet certain quotas or continue working for a certain length of time. Their desperate positions often make them subject to exploitation and trafficking into different forms of forced labor to support that economy. It is very high, and there are victims who are not being detected, said Mario Cordero Vjar, head of UNODC's Program on Crime and Drugs. The 2012 anti-trafficking law criminalized sex trafficking and labor trafficking, prescribing penalties of five to 30 years' imprisonment and fines for sex trafficking crimes and five to 20 years' imprisonment and fines for labor trafficking. [1], Government and NGO statistics indicate that the magnitude of forced labor surpasses that of forced prostitution in Mexico. In Puebla, a state the government identified as among those with the highest prevalence of trafficking, state authorities referred only three victims to the states only trafficking victim shelter in 2021. The majority of trafficking cases occur among family, intimate partners, acquaintances on social media, or through employment-related traps. Margarita Cruz, director of that organization, said many people migrate from Mexican states such as Chiapas, Guerrero and Oaxaca in the hope of working in agricultural fields harvesting berries managed by international companies that, on occasion, give people paperwork to apply for an H2A visa and work in the U.S. They work more than 12 or 14 hours in the hope that they will get a visa, and they dont complain," Cruz said. Traffickers exploit Mexican adults and children in forced labor in agriculture, domestic service, child care, manufacturing, mining, food processing, construction, tourism, begging, and street vending in Mexico and the United States. On July 30, which marked International Day against Trafficking, the UN launched a campaign with videos to identify and call attention to the issue. Up to 400 cadavers could have been used in the Harvard morgue's human remains trafficking scheme, lawsuit alleges. Of DOJ's FY 2022 investigations, 613 involved predominantly sex trafficking and 55 involved predominantly labor trafficking, compared with 573 and 26, respectively, in FY . The National Institute of Social Development provides funding to womens shelters, including shelters that accept victims of trafficking; in 2021, three NGOs operating trafficking shelters submitted requests for funding and received approximately 11 million pesos ($535,780) through this program. Human trafficking generates billions in revenue in Mexico and the U.S. LUIS ACOSTA/Getty It is estimated that gangs are generating more than $150 billion per year from human trafficking in. The court deemed that each charge involved separate actions and upheld the governments ability to prosecute suspects for both crimes. There, what she thought was an offer from a man to work at a restaurant as a waitress turned out to be a ruse from a human trafficking network. In the previous reporting period, authorities agreed to modify this protocol to require screening among migrants in detention centers and requested assistance from an international organization in drafting updated guidance; however, authorities did not complete these revisions during the year. One victim received 57,500 Mexican pesos (USD 2,800) in restitution. Moreover, the majority of human trafficking victims . The United States estimated about 70 percent of human trafficking victims in the US come from Mexico, with 50 percent of those individuals being minors. The State Department report also warned of labor exploitation, stating that the Mexican government did not allocate enough funds or staff to the Ministry of Labor to enforce labor laws. FollowNBC LatinoonFacebook,TwitterandInstagram. More than 60% of human trafficking victims in the last 15 years have been women and girls, and most have been trafficked for sexual exploitation, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). According to official data, the Mexican government identified 744 trafficking victims in 2021, compared to 673 in 2020 and 658 in 2019, but experts point out that official numbers don't reflect. Traffickers increasingly use the internet, particularly social media, to target and recruit potential victims. Recruiters frequently employ deceptive recruitment practices and charge unlawful fees to place agricultural workers in Mexico and the United States; many workers are promised decent wages and a good standard of living, then subsequently compelled into forced labor through debt bondage, threats of violence, and non-payment of wages. The government provided only partial disaggregated data on the identified victims: in the first eight months of 2021, identified victims included 392 individuals subjected to sex trafficking, 56 subjected to forced labor, and 66 not specified and at least 15 victims were from other countries. The Secretariat of Finances Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) reported suspicious financial transactions and its intelligence uncovered 201 possible cases of trafficking in 2021, compared with 230 reports of suspicious financial transactions allegedly related to trafficking in 2020. Although federal authorities did not issue any convictions in 2021, state authorities convicted 75 traffickers, including 65 sex traffickers and 10 labor traffickers, two of whom forced children to transport illicit substances. [13] Governmental ineffectiveness and rampant corruption have corroded trust in the Mexican government, which is evident in the declining rate of crime reporting in border regions of Mexico. "But many times there are big consequences, because they get sick and they dont have benefitsAfter they get sick, they're not hired anymore.". Mexican men and boys from Southern Mexico are found in conditions of forced labor in Northern Mexico, and Central Americans, especially Guatemalans, are subjected to forced labor in southern Mexico, particularly in agriculture. Local experts reported insufficient funding for prosecutors in these states led them to charge suspects with crimes they believed easier to prove. A reform to Mexicos Migration and Refugee Law came into effect in January 2021, requiring authorities to issue temporary documents to undocumented migrant children and their adult caregivers, granting legal presence in Mexico while the government conducted a best interest determination for the child. Contralinea, Septiembre, Mexico DF, http://contralinea.info/archivo-revista/index.php/2010/ 09/05/mexico-pasividad-ante-explotacion-sexual-infantil/, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, "Protocol Against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea, and Air, Protocol to Suppress, Prevent, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000, "Vulnerability Factors and Pathways Leading to Underage Entry into Sex Work in Two MexicanUS Border Cities", "Federal Prosecution of Human Trafficking Cases: Striking a Blow Against Modern Day Slavery", "Trafficking in Persons Report 2017: Tier Placements", "Data and Research on Human Trafficking: A Global Survey", "Migration and Father Absence: Shifting Family Structure in Mexico", "Modern Day Slavery in Mexico and the United States", "Agrarian Conflict, Internal Displacement, and Trafficking of Mexican Women: The Case of Chiapas State", "Assessing the U.S.Mexico Fight Against Trafficking and Smuggling: Unintended Results of U.S. Immigration Policy", "New Law, Old Impunity: Mexico has a new Anti-trafficking law, but will it Address the Country's Problems?
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