U.S. May Be Open to Asylum for Spouse Abuse

Posted on October 30, 2009 by MIA

By JULIA PRESTON

In an unusually protracted and closely watched case, the Obama administration has recommended political asylum for a Guatemalan woman fleeing horrific abuse by her husband, the strongest signal yet that the administration is open to a variety of asylum claims from foreign women facing domestic abuse.

Jim Wilson/The New York Times. Rody Alvarado is shown at a lawyer's offices in San Francisco. The Obama Administration has recommended a granting her asylum.

The government’s assent, lawyers said, virtually ensures that the woman, Rody Alvarado Peña, will be allowed to remain in the United States after battling in immigration court since 1995.

Immigration lawyers said the administration had taken a major step toward clarifying a murky area of asylum law and defining the legal grounds on which battered and sexually abused women in foreign countries could seek protection here.

After 14 years of legal indecision, during which several immigration courts and three attorneys general considered Ms. Alvarado’s case, the Department of Homeland Security cleared the way for her in a one-paragraph document filed late Wednesday in immigration court in San Francisco. Ms. Alvarado, the department found, “is eligible for asylum and merits a grant of asylum as a matter of discretion.”

An immigration judge’s order granting the asylum is still required, but Ms. Alvarado’s lawyer, Karen Musalo, said that since the government had raised no new opposition, it was highly likely that the judge would approve her claim.

Ms. Musalo, director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at Hastings College of the Law at the University of California, said Ms. Alvarado’s “has been the iconic case of domestic abuse as a basis for asylum.”

Jayne Fleming, a lawyer specializing in asylum at the San Francisco office of the law firm Reed Smith, called the recommendation “a giant step forward.” Advocates and immigration judges, Ms Fleming said, “now have some pretty solid guidelines from D.H.S.”

In a phone interview Thursday, Ms. Alvarado, who has not been detained and lives in California, where she is a housekeeper at a home for elderly nuns, said she was pleased but also a little dazed and disbelieving.

“I thank God it came out well,” she said, speaking in Spanish. “But it wasn’t easy to wait this long for immigration to make a decision.”

She said she hoped the outcome in her case would mean that other abused women would receive quicker decisions from the courts.

Homeland Security Department officials were cautious in assessing the implications of the administration’s recommendation. The department “continues to view domestic violence as a possible basis for asylum,” a department spokesman, Matthew Chandler, said. But such cases, Mr. Chandler said, continue to depend on the specific abuse. The department is writing regulations to govern claims based on domestic violence, he said.

After enduring a decade of violence by her husband, Francisco Osorio, a former soldier in Guatemala, Ms. Alvarado came to the United States in 1995. Over the years, immigration judges have not questioned the credibility of her story. According to court documents, she married when she was 16, and became pregnant soon afterward. In a beating that he apparently hoped would induce an abortion, Mr. Osorio dislocated her jaw and kicked her repeatedly. He also “pistol-whipped Ms. Alvarado, broke windows and mirrors with her head, punched and slapped her, threatened her with his machete and dragged her down the street by her hair,” a court filing states.

In 1996, an immigration judge in San Francisco granted Ms. Alvarado’s asylum petition, but an immigration appeals court overturned that decision in 1999. In 2001, Attorney General Janet Reno threw out the appeals court decision, but did not grant Ms. Alvarado asylum. (Because the immigration courts are part of the executive branch, not the judiciary, the attorney general is the highest legal authority.)

In 2004, the Department of Homeland Security, which represents the government in immigration cases, argued for the first time in favor of asylum for Ms. Alvarado. Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered a new review but did not reach a decision. In September 2008, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey sent the case back to the immigration appeals court, encouraging the court to issue a precedent-setting ruling. Such a ruling can come only from an immigration appeals court or a federal court.

The large legal question in the case is whether women who suffer domestic abuse are part of a “particular social group” that has faced persecution, one criteria for asylum claims. In a separate asylum case in April, the Department of Homeland Security pointed to some specific ways that battered women could meet this standard.

In a recent filing, Ms. Alvarado’s lawyers argued that her circumstances met the requirements that the department had outlined in April. Now the department has agreed, in practice making the case a model for other asylum claims.

In a declaration filed recently to bolster Ms. Alvarado’s argument that she was part of a persecuted group in Guatemala, an expert witness, Claudia Paz y Paz Bailey, reported that more than 4,000 women had been killed in domestic violence there in the last decade. These killings, only 2 percent of which have been solved, were so frequent that they earned their own legal term, “femicide,” said Ms. Paz y Paz Bailey, a Guatemalan lawyer. In 2004 Guatemala enacted a law establishing special sanctions for the crime.

“Many times,” she said, violence against Guatemalan women “is not even identified as violence, is not perceived as strange or unusual.”

The resolution of her case is coming too late for Ms. Alvarado to be able to raise her two children, whom she has not seen since she left them in Guatemala. The children, now 22 and 17, were raised by their paternal grandparents, whom they call Mama and Papa.

“It has been tremendously painful for me to know that they do not see me as their mother,” Ms. Alvarado said in court papers.

Gender Savagery in Guatemala by Michael Parenti and Lucia Muñoz

Posted on October 20, 2009 by MIA

By Michael Parenti and Lucia Muñoz

First Publish July 14, 2007

On the outskirts of Guatemala City the body of an 18-year-old woman of indigenous ethnicity was recently discovered by her frantic parents who had been searching long and hard. Forensic evidence showed that she had been repeatedly raped and tortured and that her head had been severed from her body with a blunt knife while she was still alive.

This killing was more than just a passing aberration. Nightmarish crimes against women have been occurring with horrifying frequency in Guatemala. In the last seven years, over 3,200 Guatemalan women have been abducted and murdered, with many of them raped, tortured, and mutilated in the doing. The number of victims has shown a striking increase in the last few years with some six hundred murdered in 2006 alone.

The victims often are from low-income families deracinated from their rural homesteads during the civil war and forced to crowd into Guatemala City and other urban areas in search of work.

We might recall Guatemala’s horrid history of violence. From 1962 to 1996, a popular insurgency was defeated by that deranged murder machine known as the Guatemalan Army, trained, advised, financed, and equipped by the United States. A United Nations-sponsored Truth Commission in 1999 characterized much of the counterinsurgency as a genocide against the Mayan people, a holocaust that left 626 villages destroyed, approximately 200,000 people dead or disappeared, including many labor union leaders, student leaders, journalists, and clergy. Hundreds of thousands more were either displaced internally or forced to flee the country.

Those years of untrammeled massacres provide some context for the current wave of femicide sweeping the country. The 1996 peace accords officially declared an end to the butchery but the war against women continues albeit in more piecemeal fashion. Guatemalan women are enduring the whiplash of decades of dehumanizing violence—boosted by the same kind of deep-seated sexism and gender-specific crimes (rape) that are perpetrated in many societies around the world.

Independent investigators charge that the vast majority of present-day atrocities against women have been committed by current or former members of the Guatemalan intelligence services. Having escaped prosecution for human rights violations during the internal war, these trained killers are now members of private security forces or police and paramilitary units that have been strongly implicated in the crimes of the last seven years.

For the most part, authorities show little inclination to bring the perpetrators to justice. Some officials blame the victims for their own deaths, implying that the women bring it on themselves because of their supposed involvement in gang activities or drugs, or because in some way or another they refuse to lead properly conforming lives within the safe confines of a traditional family and community

Some of the victims indeed may have been entangled in shady operations. But many more have been working women, including those of indigenous stock, trapped in poverty. They are the prime victims of a broader “social cleansing” that reactionary hoodlums are conducting against a variety of groups including street children, teenagers, gays, and homeless indigents, a campaign that has claimed thousands of additional victims.

Guatemala is known as the country of “eternal spring.” Some analysts have called it the land of “eternal impunity,” given how right-wing thugs continue to get away with rape, torture, and murder. Statistics reveal that hardly one percent of the perpetrators are ever tried and convicted and the sentences are outrageously light.

Even those rare cases that make it all the way to a prosecutor’s desk have little chance of resulting in a conviction due to the lack of reliable evidence. Recent reports reveal the continuing failure of investigators to collect and preserve essential evidence from crime scenes. More than ordinary incompetence is operative here. Guatemalan authorities manifest little interest in training skilled cadres who might unearth really damaging information about who is behind the crimes.

Anonymous death threats have been sent to the volunteer exhumation teams that locate and examine the bodies of the murdered women and who try to publicize the evidence they discover. In May 2007 the leader of one such team was informed that his sister would be “raped and dismembered into pieces” if he continued to investigate the crimes.

While these murders may seem like little more than random thrill killings to some observers, in fact they serve a function of social control much as would any form of state terrorism. The violence perpetrated against individuals creates a pervasive climate of fear and horror within the victimized families and communities, thereby discouraging social protest and popular resistance. Instead of organizing around any number of crucial politico-economic issues, many of the demoralized and traumatized families cower in stunned silence.

In time people grow numb to the violence. Feeling helpless they almost routinely check the news each day to see how many additional victims have been reported. The effects on children can be especially telling. Growing up in a climate of fear, they learn that their parents and community cannot keep them safe and that homicidal fury might strike anyone at any time.

Family members of murdered women report that authorities show hostility towards them when they request government intervention.

Guatemala’s legal system is rife with provisions that minimize the seriousness of violence against women, a system codified and enforced by men who have seldom displayed any concern for the safety of women. The Guatemalan Penal Code long reflected this bias, treating domestic abuse as a minor offence and generally offering scant protection from gender-based violence.

Guatemalan president Oscar Berger voices a commitment to confronting the crisis but has done next to nothing. Rather than devoting the necessary resources to investigation and enforcement, Berger appeared on national television in 2005 to announce that, for their own safety, women would do best to stay at home.

In 2005 Guatemala appointed its first female Supreme Court President, Beatriz De Leon, and two years later a female police chief. But there is little indication that high-placed female officeholders are going to buck the Old Boys network. Until the government makes some significant efforts towards implementing the recommendations outlined by human rights organizations (such as Guatemala Peace and Development Network, MIA, NISGUA, GHRC-USA, Rights Action, and Center for Gender Studies), the lives of Guatemala’s women will hang in the balance.

There are some encouraging signs. The Human Rights Committee of the Guatemalan Congress is giving serious consideration to a bill that purports to guarantee life, liberty, dignity, and equality for women along with stiffer penalties for those who physically and mentally abuse women and otherwise violate their rights.

Meanwhile a growing number of Guatemalan women are moving into nontraditional careers. In the upcoming election, at least one hundred women will be running for Congress. Some parties have designed campaign strategies intended to promote electoral victories for more women. At present of a total of 158 seats in the Guatemalan Congress only fourteen are occupied by women.

There also are efforts by human rights organizations to create a central, unified database of femicide victims, as well as an emergency response system for missing girls and women that would include utilization of state-of-the-art internet capabilities, DNA testing, and the like.

Awareness of the atrocities has been reaching other countries and gaining international attention. There is a growing demand from abroad that Guatemalan law enforcement agencies get serious about responding to the gender-based atrocities. The U.S. Congress is being pressured to get into the act. A House resolution condemns the murders and expresses condolences and support to the families of victims. The resolution urges the government of Guatemala to recognize domestic violence as a crime, and to investigate the killings and prosecute those responsible.

The U.S. Senate passed a resolution calling on the Guatemalan Congress to approve the actions of the U.N.-sponsored International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala. The commission intends to investigate the clandestine groups that use violence to advance their illicit political and financial interests.

Meanwhile innocent and unoffending women continue to suffer nightmarish fates at the hands of misogynistic maniacs who, some years ago, developed a taste for inflicting rape, torture, and death “in service to their country.”

— Michael Parenti is a noted author and social commentator. His recent books include Contrary Notions: The Michael Parenti Reader (City Lights); The Culture Struggle (Seven Stories); Democracy for the Few 8th ed. (Wadsworth/Thomson) and The Assassination of Julius Caesar (New Press). See www.michaelparenti.org

— Lucia Muñoz is founder and executive director of MIA, Mujeres Iniciando en las Américas, and founder member of Guatemala Peace and Development Network. She has lectured across the United States and Guatemala on the struggles facing Guatemalan women.

Estados Unidos: Condenan a cinco personas por prostituir a guatemaltecas

Posted on August 18, 2009 by MIA

Redacción La Hora | lahora@lahora.com.gt

Una corte de Los Ángeles, California, en Estados Unidos, condenó a cinco personas por haber obligado a la prostitución a varias mujeres, entre las que sobresalen algunas guatemaltecas.

Gladys Vásquez Valenzuela fue señalada de liderar una banda de traficantes de personas y trata de mujeres. Ella recibió la condena de 40 años de cárcel. Su hermana y sus dos sobrinas, recibieron también 30 años de prisión, así como el novio de una de éstas, quien purgará 35 inviernos, por su vinculación a esta banda.

Según la resolución, esta banda tenía la estrategia de atraer con engaños a guatemaltecas, quienes recibían el ofrecimiento de trabajo y cumplir el sueño americano en los Estados Unidos. Sin embargo, lejos de posicionarlas en un empleo, las obligaban a prostituirse.

La condena fue la sumatoria de delitos, como la asociación delictuosa y tráfico de personas por medios violentos y fraude. Según el testimonio de las guatemaltecas afectadas, eran obligadas a prostituirse; algunas llegaron al extremo de tener sexo hasta con 30 hombres al día.

En febrero pasado habían sido encontradas culpables, pero tras el tiempo de las apelaciones, se dictaminó ayer la condena de más de tres décadas, al menos. Según testigos del juicio, ninguno de los hoy sentenciados mostraron señales de arrepentimiento.

http://www.lahora.com.gt/notas.php?key=53953&fch=2009-08-18

Guatemala Write-Up: Aug. 14, 2009

Posted on August 14, 2009 by MIA

Marina Wood

Though I have had Guatemalan friends in the past, it wasn’t until I befriended my coworker Farah that I became interested in going there. She spoke of her country with such fondness and at the same time criticized our activism and our social movements here in the U.S. as compared to in Guatemala. According to her, it was life and death, and people were fighting for human rights every day. Here in the U.S. she said that people might go to a protest every once in a while, but it wasn’t direct. I was intrigued. I couldn’t imagine what she was saying and just kept impressing upon her that she just needed to get more involved, that the immigrant’s rights movements were strong. At this time we were in the midst of the walk-outs and attended the Great American Boycott together on May 1, 2006 and a counter protest of the Minute Men in Hollywood. She was unimpressed. Then I took her to see one of my favorite political scientists at a KPFK event in LA and we got to meet Michael Parenti!! I was incredibly excited. When I found her outside afterward she said she met a woman from Guatemala who is working to end femicide there.

“What? What’s going on in Guatemala?”

“Well they’re killing people, but not just women. But she wanted me to work with her, she’s in Orange County and she’s the only one doing this kind of thing here.”

I was overjoyed. Finally Farah had found something she could be involved in! But then she lost her information and was all depressed over it. That November Farah and I visited her country for the Day of the Dead and as we left the airport with her uncle and cousin, my first impression was complicated. Farah was describing “el reloj de flores,” a grass & flower clock on an island in the street we were taking to leave the city. She said it is the only thing like it in Central America. But simultaneously I was noticing that all the cars were old, and that thick black smoke was emitting from them. I asked Farah’s uncle if there were emissions regulations and he said that there aren’t anymore because there were too many cars that didn’t meet them so it wasn’t an economically sound idea. My brain grew a little as I listened to his answer and contemplated how environmental regulations affect the poor so differently.

We went to Farah’s friend’s house and dropped off our luggage so we could backpack in Sampango for El Dia de los Muertos since it is up a very steep hill. Once there, I saw the most beautiful cemetery. As a lover and frequenter of cemeteries, I was pleased to see that this cemetery was incredibly colorful. The locals were placing food, alcohol and flowers on the graves; they were large crosses with the deceased’s name and year of birth/death and a person-size pile of dirt sticking out of the ground. All over, people were flying roundish paper kites and there were also huge ones that were stationary and you could walk up and see the pictures on them. It was beautiful. The women were wearing vibrant huipiles tucked into long skirts and the men were colorful too, but in pants. The women had ribbon-cloth braided into their hair and pinned atop their heads. When we left, Farah used the “sanitario” on the street. It cost money and had a sign that said “pee only” because there wasn’t water. Now, a lot more happened, but suffice it to say that we saw the beautiful lake Atitlan, went shopping, partied in Antigua, pre-screened a documentary on reformed gang members-turned activist clowns/street performers and spent a day in the jungle before returning home.

A few months later I come across an article about the Guatemalan femicide co-written by a Guatemalan woman named Lucia Munoz and Michael Parenti! I knew it had to be her and contacted her to meet us. Since I was taking a Women and Violence class at Long Beach State I decided I might as well hook up and interview her as well for a project I was working on and we went to her house. Once there, Lucia showed us a BBC documentary called Killers Paradise and I was horrified at the amount of impunity in Guatemala and the high rate of incredibly torturous rape-murder-dismemberment cases. Lucia then described how her non-profit, Mujeres Iniciando en las Americas (MIA) helps by funding and supporting non-profits in Guatemala, described her delegations, the first of which she just returned from, and her baby project, what she called the “men’s movement” that she would soon be implementing in a private school there. I was hooked. After the meeting I asked Farah if she was so excited and she said she didn’t have much time, but that it was a good cause and she would help translate. But I knew that I needed to work with Lucia more and from then on found ways to incorporate her cause into my school papers and eventually brought her to school a few times, and went on the summer delegation that next July.

The delegation was like nothing I had ever experienced before. Afterward, I came home traumatized but also longed for what we had there. Farah was right about the movement being different-I was amazed at its vitality and size. Lucia was connected to the most cutting-edge and also the most historically revered leaders and groups that were working for social change and I felt so privileged to meet them and hear what they had to say. We met with between 3 and 5 groups or individuals every day. Some people provided historical accounts of pre-war, wartime, and post-war conditions, some people invited us into their homes and spoke to us about the daughters they lost, many showed us what they are working on which ranged from documentaries about the social movements there and the hidden genocide of indigenous people during the 36 year civil war to news articles for a feminist newspaper to skill-sharing workshops for sex workers. Almost every group we met with used activism as tactics to make change: some used hunger strikes, kiss-ins (the lesbian group), graffiti art, and marches. We also went to the US Embassy and met with a Congresswoman and some leaders of the leftist party that grew out of the movement during the war and had a chance to bring the messages from the people to the decision-makers. This process was a bit tedious and frustrating but incredibly important.

During the delegation we also had a chance to bond with some of the college students at Guatemala’s only public university and with our translator, a veteran activist named Julio who also was the facilitator for the “men’s movement” Lucia had told me about previously. He ran workshops in a couple of private schools on gender equity. The program was called “Hombres Contra Feminicidio.” Along the way we were able to see the poor living conditions of the people, and since our hotel was in a zone where you don’t want to go outside after dark, we saw what the streets felt like in the day and at night for the people of Guatemala City. There were sex workers on the corners, drunks in the alleys and excrement and urine on the streets. The plumbing there is a nightmare: you can’t flush toilet paper and in many places, you can’t flush anything. It’s no wonder that many people don’t bother looking for an indoor restroom. Also, like I noticed on my first trip, the cars and buses emit heavy black smoke which would make my eyes tear up since I wear contacts. But at the same time, when we would go to the mountains, the air would be fresher, and there was more plant life, and animals, and the indigenous people weren’t only the maids and tortilla makers but fulfilled every role because the mountains are where their communities are. And that was nice. Except that on every corner there were churches blaring protestant sermons, competing for members, and the public schools were too far to send the children to so they either didn’t go or had to pay for books, tuition, and uniforms plus transportation to a private one. It seemed like everywhere you looked, life was bitter-sweet.

When I came home, my brain was filled with experiences and memories and stories, and my life suddenly seemed so small and my activism so trivial in comparison. I brooded for awhile and wrote to my new friends and debriefed with my friend from college that came with me and finally decided that I wanted to go again. Needed to. My friend agreed to go again as well, partially to understand better because so much happened so fast and neither of us were quite fluent in Spanish, and partially because we were hooked on the movement and the urgency of it all. So we did it all again and this time I was certain I would come back feeling like that was my last trip and I saw everything and learned everything and experienced everything as well I wanted and could go home fulfilled. This trip was different in many ways, we saw different people and we even got to participate in a huge march against violence against women to the Presidential Palace, but the feeling was the same: we were there as learners not as teachers and we were plugged into the movement, same as before. When I came home again however, I again felt pulled back to Guatemala. I longed to be there, to see more, hear more, write more. In the simplest terms, I missed it.

The next summer I was invited to Ecuador for a medical mission as a translator for a gynecologist and I leapt at the chance. It was also a 10 day trip but so very different it is hard to describe. We spent every day at the hospital, helping people, but never did we get a chance to meet with them as equals. There was an enormous power dynamic: we were rich American doctors coming to reach down and help the Ecuadorian people. In Guatemala, we were Americans, but we were coming to learn. We were humble and modest and ate and drank with the people. In Ecuador, we never entered the house of an Ecuadorian-we ate every meal at the hotel or at a restaurant. We weren’t there as activists, we were there as volunteers, and trust me there is an enormous difference. Also, there were huge differences in the general feeling there. It felt incredibly safer and you could even flush your toilet paper. I loved Ecuador and I felt good when I was in the hospital room, but being there only made it clear to me that I needed to go back to Guatemala, where there was more poverty and likewise more activism. When I returned, I met with Lucia and we made a plan: I would be an intern for MIA and re-instate “Hombres Contra Feminicidio” and co-facilitate with an amazing poet-activist named Simon Pedroza. This time I am going for 10 weeks and I finally get to be involved and work directly with the people. And I couldn’t be happier.

DC Crime Bill May Hurt Victims of Sex Trafficking – Please Take Action

Posted on August 7, 2009 by MIA

Washington DC: Take Action on the DC Crime BIll

Sex trafficking is horrific crime whereby a person is forced or coerced to take part in sexual acts in exchange for something of value. In Washington D.C. such abuse of women and children is not uncommon. Unfortunately, in many cases a person who is sex trafficked is treated as a criminal rather than a victim who is unable to escape the physical abuse and psychological coercion to which she is subjected. Now, the D.C. Council is poised to vote on legislation, entitled the Omnibus Crime Bill 18-151, which includes a provision that will make a third arrest of a prostituted person a felony level crime. These penalties are far too stiff for the prostituted person, will do little to address the instances of prostitution or sex trafficking in D.C., and may cause further damage to trafficking victims.

Polaris Project serves clients throughout the D.C. metro area, as well as in NJ, who have been forced or coerced into prostitution. In many of these cases the victim, even at the age of just 18, will have a litany of arrests or convictions for prostitution both in DC and other jurisdictions. This demonstrates the transient nature of the pimps’ operations. Arresting the prostituted person does little to deter the trafficker/pimp or provide relief or rescue for the prostituted person. In fact, if enacted, this provision may cause further victimization as well as present increased obstacles as a woman with a felony conviction attempts to rebuild her shattered life.

Sex traffickers and pimps are motivated only by money, and the people they prostitute are easily movable, disposable and replaceable. Therefore we urge you to join with us and ask the D.C. Council to oppose the overreaching penalties for prostituted persons, and consider focusing their attention on the pimps and purchasers of sex or “johns”.

Polaris Project strongly supports the increased penalties for johns proposed in this bill. Johns exercise meaningful choice when they engage in commercial sex transactions, so efforts to deter their activity will have a greater impact in reducing prostitution and sex trafficking, which are inextricably intertwined.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

The crime bill was passed by the DC Council on July 30th and the bill now moves to the Mayor. Your quick action is imperative to helping victims of sex trafficking in DC!

1. Please take a moment to call AND email Mayor Fenty and urge him to send the DC Crime bill back to the Council and recommending that they remove the increased penalties for prostituted persons. Contact Mayor Fenty here. In your call you can simply say:   ”My name is …. And I live at…. I am calling to urge Mayor Fenty to send the DC Crime Bill (18-151) back to the Council to remove the increased penalties for prostituted persons.”

2. Be sure to follow up with a quick email.

Additional Talking Points:

• The proposed penalties are far too stiff for the prostituted person – up to 2-5 years in prison and or up to $4,000 to $10,000 in fines. These fines will simply result in the re-victimization of the prostituted person or trafficking victim, and there’s no evidence that this approach will decrease prostitution in the District.

• Victims of prostitution and sex trafficking commonly have many arrests or convictions for prostitution because pimps and traffickers are constantly moving them around to different areas to profit off of them [we never call this work]. Increasing penalties for the victim will do little to deter the trafficker/pimp or provide relief or rescue to the prostituted person.

• Greater penalties for prostituted persons may cause further victimization as well as present increased obstacles as a woman with a felony conviction attempts to rebuild her shattered life.

• The vast majority of states retain the misdemeanor penalty for subsequent convictions of the prostituted person. In the handful of states which make subsequent convictions a felony for the prostituted person, there is no correlation between these higher penalties and a decrease in prostitution and the closely related activity of sex trafficking. This is likely due to the fact that traffickers and pimps are motivated only by money, and the people they prostitute are easily movable, disposable and replaceable.

• Studies have shown that focusing criminal prosecution on the purchasers of commercial sex will have an immediate and long-term effect in curbing the demand for prostitution.

http://actioncenter.polarisproject.org/component/content/article/35-action/618-crime-bill-proposes-third-time-arrest-be-a-felony

Inmigración con rostro de mujer

Posted on July 26, 2009 by MIA

Jefas de familia llegan en mayor número

: El flujo migratorio ha cambiado. Las mujeres se han enfrentado a riesgos por buscar mejores oportunidades en EU. — Notimex

EFE | CHICAGO – La cara del flujo migratorio ha cambiado y ahora son las mujeres las que enfrentan riesgos y obstáculos y encabezan las familias que llegan a Estados Unidos en busca de mejores oportunidades.

Jefas de familia

Según el estudio “Mujeres inmigrantes: Guardianas de la familia del Siglo 21”, debatido en Chicago, la historia de la migración dejó de ser una épica masculina y las mujeres se mudan ahora tanto como los hombres.  Al presentar su estudio, el encargado Sergio Bendixen dijo que las mujeres no emigran como individuos solitarios, sino como “líderes decididas a mantener los lazos familiares intactos”.

En la actualidad, más de la mitad de los inmigrantes que ingresan a Estados Unidos son mujeres, y en el mundo las mujeres también suponen más de la mitad de toda la población migratoria, afirma el estudio.  Resultados de sondeo  Los datos presentados fueron recogidos entre agosto y septiembre de 2008, en una encuesta a 1,002 mujeres inmigrantes que nacieron en América Latina, Asia, África y países árabes.

En la presentación del estudio, patrocinada por la Coalición de Illinois para los Derechos de Inmigrantes y Refugiados, estuvieron presentes mujeres inmigrantes latinas, africanas, chinas, árabes y coreanas que compartieron sus experiencias.  Bendixen dijo que los datos presentados podrían ser útiles en el debate migratorio, porque “suavizan la imagen del inmigrante”.  Cada vez más las mujeres deciden “cruzar océanos y fronteras”, ya sea para unirse a sus esposos una vez que se han asentado, o para “preservar la familia”.

“Cuando las mujeres vienen a América, vienen como madres y esposas”, agregó.  En 2007 había 18,9 millones de mujeres inmigrantes en Estados Unidos, de las cuales 53 por ciento tenía origen latinoamericano y un promedio de edad de 35 a 49 años.  El estudio señala además que el 65 por ciento de las inmigrantes latinas nacieron en México, 12 por ciento en Centroamérica y 10 por ciento en Cuba.

Unidad familiar

Según el estudio, un 90 por ciento de las mujeres inmigrantes encuestadas (de las cuales 30 por ciento son indocumentadas) dijeron que la unidad de sus familias sigue intacta y sus hijos nacieron en Estados Unidos o se unieron a ellas aquí.  Para ello, las mujeres inmigrantes superan la barrera del idioma que más del 60 por ciento de las latinas, vietnamitas, coreanas y chinas no dominan.

Asimismo, la discriminación, falta de seguro médico y salarios bajos, muy lejos de los puestos profesionales que muchas ocupaban en sus países de origen, agrega.  Cambio de roles  El estudio señala que las mujeres inmigrantes cambian radicalmente sus roles, asumiendo el liderazgo en las responsabilidades del hogar y compartiendo con sus maridos la toma de decisiones económicas y de planificación familiar.

“En su nueva ciudad, son las mujeres las que mantienen a la familia intacta, actuando como la voz y rostro de la familia, garantizando la salud y educación de los hijos, y su entrada en la nueva sociedad”, dice el estudio.  Agrega que en un momento en que más de un tercio de las familias en los Estados Unidos son mono-parentales, el 90 por ciento de las familias inmigrantes tienen matrimonios intactos.

El indicador más relevante en su rol de administradora familiar es el hecho de que las mujeres digan que son las líderes en sus familias en el momento de decidir la ciudadanía, según el estudio.  Las encuestadas nombraron “asegurar la estabilidad familiar” como la primera razón por la que persiguen la ciudadanía estadounidense, y la segunda es votar en las elecciones.  ”En el Siglo 21, el rostro del inmigrante es el de una madre”, afirma el trabajo encabezado por Bendixen.

http://www.univision.com/content/content.jhtml?chid=3&schid=278&secid=0&cid=2022404#1

From Arbenz to Zelaya

Posted on July 26, 2009 by MIA

Chiquita in Latin America

By NIKOLAS KOZLOFF

When the Honduran military overthrew the democratically elected government of Manuel Zelaya two weeks ago there might have been a sigh of relief in the corporate board rooms of Chiquita banana. Earlier this year the Cincinnati-based fruit company joined Dole in criticizing the government in Tegucigalpa which had raised the minimum wage by 60%. Chiquita complained that the new regulations would cut into company profits, requiring the firm to spend more on costs than in Costa Rica: 20 cents more to produce a crate of pineapple and ten cents more to produce a crate of bananas to be exact. In all, Chiquita fretted that it would lose millions under Zelaya’s labor reforms since the company produced around 8 million crates of pineapple and 22 million crates of bananas per year.

When the minimum wage decree came down Chiquita sought help and appealed to the Honduran National Business Council, known by its Spanish acronym COHEP. Like Chiquita, COHEP was unhappy about Zelaya’s minimum wage measure. Amílcar Bulnes, the group’s president, argued that if the government went forward with the minimum wage increase employers would be forced to let workers go, thus increasing unemployment in the country. The most important business organization in Honduras, COHEP groups 60 trade associations and chambers of commerce representing every sector of the Honduran economy. According to its own Web site, COHEP is the political and technical arm of the Honduran private sector, supports trade agreements and provides “critical support for the democratic system.”

The international community should not impose economic sanctions against the coup regime in Tegucigalpa, COHEP argues, because this would worsen Honduras’ social problems. In its new role as the mouthpiece for Honduras’ poor, COHEP declares that Honduras has already suffered from earthquakes, torrential rains and the global financial crisis. Before punishing the coup regime with punitive measures, COHEP argues, the United Nations and the Organization of American States should send observer teams to Honduras to investigate how sanctions might affect 70% of Hondurans who live in poverty. Bulnes meanwhile has voiced his support for the coup regime of Roberto Micheletti and argues that the political conditions in Honduras are not propitious for Zelaya’s return from exile.

Chiquita: From Arbenz to Bananagate

It’s not surprising that Chiquita would seek out and ally itself to socially and politically backward forces in Honduras. Colsiba, the coordinating body of banana plantation workers in Latin America, says the fruit company has failed to supply its workers with necessary protective gear and has dragged its feet when it comes to signing collective labor agreements in Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras.

Colsiba compares the infernal labor conditions on Chiquita plantations to concentration camps. It’s an inflammatory comparison yet may contain a degree of truth. Women working on Chiquita’s plantations in Central America work from 6:30 a.m. until 7 at night, their hands burning up inside rubber gloves. Some workers are as young as 14. Central American banana workers have sought damages against Chiquita for exposing them in the field to DBCP, a dangerous pesticide which causes sterility, cancer and birth defects in children.

Chiquita, formerly known as United Fruit Company and United Brands, has had a long and sordid political history in Central America. Led by Sam “The Banana Man” Zemurray, United Fruit got into the banana business at the turn of the twentieth century. Zemurray once remarked famously, “In Honduras, a mule costs more than a member of parliament.” By the 1920s United Fruit controlled 650,000 acres of the best land in Honduras, almost one quarter of all the arable land in the country. What’s more, the company controlled important roads and railways.

In Honduras the fruit companies spread their influence into every area of life including politics and the military. For such tactics they acquired the name los pulpos (the octopuses, from the way they spread their tentacles). Those who did not play ball with the corporations were frequently found face down on the plantations. In 1904 humorist O. Henry coined the term “Banana Republic” to refer to the notorious United Fruit Company and its actions in Honduras.

In Guatemala, United Fruit supported the CIA-backed 1954 military coup against President Jacobo Arbenz, a reformer who had carried out a land reform package. Arbenz’ overthrow led to more than thirty years of unrest and civil war in Guatemala. Later in 1961, United Fruit lent its ships to CIA-backed Cuban exiles who sought to overthrow Fidel Castro at the Bay of Pigs.

In 1972, United Fruit (now renamed United Brands) propelled Honduran General Oswaldo López Arellano to power. The dictator was forced to step down later however after the infamous “Bananagate” scandal which involved United Brands bribes to Arellano. A federal grand jury accused United Brands of bribing Arellano with $1.25 million, with the carrot of another $1.25 million later if the military man agreed to reduce fruit export taxes. During Bananagate, United Brands’ President fell from a New York City skyscraper in an apparent suicide.

Go-Go Clinton Years and Colombia

In Colombia United Fruit also set up shop and during its operations in the South American country developed a no less checkered profile. In 1928, 3,000 workers went on strike against the company to demand better pay and working conditions. At first the company refused to negotiate but later gave in on some minor points, declaring the other demands “illegal” or “impossible.” When the strikers refused to disperse the military fired on the banana workers, killing scores.

You might think that Chiquita would have reconsidered its labor policies after that but in the late 1990s the company began to ally itself with insidious forces, specifically right wing paramilitaries. Chiquita paid off the men to the tune of more than a million dollars. In its own defense, the company declared that it was merely paying protection money to the paramilitaries.

In 2007, Chiquita paid $25 million to settle a Justice Department investigation into the payments. Chiquita was the first company in U.S. history to be convicted of financial dealings with a designated terrorist organization.

In a lawsuit launched against Chiquita victims of the paramilitary violence claimed the firm abetted atrocities including terrorism, war crimes and crimes against humanity. A lawyer for the plaintiffs said that Chiquita’s relationship with the paramilitaries “was about acquiring every aspect of banana distribution and sale through a reign of terror.”

Back in Washington, D.C. Charles Lindner, Chiquita’s CEO, was busy courting the White House. Lindner had been a big donor to the GOP but switched sides and began to lavish cash on the Democrats and Bill Clinton. Clinton repaid Linder by becoming a key military backer of the government of Andrés Pastrana which presided over the proliferation of right wing death squads. At the time the U.S. was pursuing its corporately-friendly free trade agenda in Latin America, a strategy carried out by Clinton’s old boyhood friend Thomas “Mack” McLarty. At the White House, McLarty served as Chief of Staff and Special Envoy to Latin America. He’s an intriguing figure who I’ll come back to in a moment.

The Holder-Chiquita Connection

Given Chiquita’s underhanded record in Central America and Colombia it’s not a surprise that the company later sought to ally itself with COHEP in Honduras. In addition to lobbying business associations in Honduras however Chiquita also cultivated relationships with high powered law firms in Washington. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Chiquita has paid out $70,000 in lobbying fees to Covington and Burling over the past three years.

Covington is a powerful law firm which advises multinational corporations. Eric Holder, the current Attorney General, a co-chair of the Obama campaign and former Deputy Attorney General under Bill Clinton was up until recently a partner at the firm. At Covington, Holder defended Chiquita as lead counsel in its case with the Justice Department. From his perch at the elegant new Covington headquarters located near the New York Times building in Manhattan, Holder prepped Fernando Aguirre, Chiquita’s CEO, for an interview with 60 Minutes dealing with Colombian death squads.

Holder had the fruit company plead guilty to one count of “engaging in transactions with a specially designated global terrorist organization.” But the lawyer, who was taking in a hefty salary at Covington to the tune of more than $2 million, brokered a sweetheart deal in which Chiquita only paid a $25 million fine over five years. Outrageously however, not one of the six company officials who approved the payments received any jail time.

The Curious Case of Covington

Look a little deeper and you’ll find that not only does Covington represent Chiquita but also serves as a kind of nexus for the political right intent on pushing a hawkish foreign policy in Latin America. Covington has pursued an important strategic alliance with Kissinger (of Chile, 1973 fame) and McLarty Associates (yes, the same Mack McLarty from Clinton-time), a well known international consulting and strategic advisory firm.

From 1974 to 1981 John Bolton served as an associate at Covington. As U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations under George Bush, Bolton was a fierce critic of leftists in Latin America such as Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. Furthermore, just recently John Negroponte became Covington’s Vice Chairman. Negroponte is a former Deputy Secretary of State, Director of National Intelligence and U.S. Representative to the United Nations.

As U.S. Ambassador to Honduras from 1981-1985, Negroponte played a significant role in assisting the U.S.-backed Contra rebels intent on overthrowing the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. Human rights groups have criticized Negroponte for ignoring human rights abuses committed by Honduran death squads which were funded and partially trained by the Central Intelligence Agency. Indeed, when Negroponte served as ambassador his building in Tegucigalpa became one of the largest nerve centers of the CIA in Latin America with a tenfold increase in personnel.

While there’s no evidence linking Chiquita to the recent coup in Honduras, there’s enough of a confluence of suspicious characters and political heavyweights here to warrant further investigation. From COHEP to Covington to Holder to Negroponte to McLarty, Chiquita has sought out friends in high places, friends who had no love for the progressive labor policies of the Zelaya regime in Tegucigalpa.

Nikolas Kozloff is the author of Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008) Follow his blog at senorchichero.blogspot.com

VIDEO: “From Arbenz to Zelaya: Chiquita in Latin America”

Posted on July 22, 2009 by MIA

HUNGER STRIKE

Posted on July 21, 2009 by MIA

Cover picture in El Periodico, Guatemala, of Norma Cruz during a hunger strike demaning the return of Guatemalan children illegally adopted in Guatemala by U.S. families.

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