GUATEMALA WOMENS ISSUES

Eight El Salvadoran girls were rescued in a raid on a nightclub in Guatemala City. They had been trafficked under false pretenses and sexually exploited. Three pimps were arrested. ("Capture Accused of Corrupting Children," Prensa Libre, 24 February 1998)

Mario Aguilar, owner of the Palace brothel in Guatemala City, was to pay 150 quetzales (US$ 25) for each girl delivered to him by a trafficker. ("Guatemalan Child Prostitute Trafficker Recieves 2-Plus Year Prison Sentence," El Heraldo, 3 December 1997)........

In a September 1997 investigation undertaken by the Guatemala Solicitor General's Office and the Legal Aid Office of Casa Alianza, found evidence of Mexican babies being stolen in Chiapas, moved across the border, into Guatemala, where they were illegally given birth certificates and sent for international adoptions. Some 60 percent of the adoptions from Guatemala go to the US. The balance of the babies go principally to Europe and Israel and a few to Australia (Padraig O’Morain, Social Affairs Correspondent," "Child trafficking and DNA testing," Irish Times, August 11,1998)

Women in brothels are sometimes the source for babies for adoption trafficking. More than 900 Guatemalan babies were put up for international adoption in 1996, up more than 30 percent from 1995. About half of the adopted children go to families in the United States, though Canada and European nations also adopt many Guatemalan babies. (Carmela Curup head of the Guatemalan Solicitor General’s Children’s Protection Office, Edward Hegstrom, "Black market in adoptions described in Guatemala," Boston Globe, 14 September 1997)

The majority of the street girls attended by Casa Alianza in their programs in Guatemala are victims of prostitution. ("The Situation of Street Children in Latin America," Bruce Harris, Executive Director, Latin American Programmes, Casa Alianza/Covenant House Latin America, 9 October 1997)

The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II

Sex Trafficking: The Global Market in Women and Children (Contemporary Social Issues)

Paralumun New Age Village