VENEZUELA FACTS ON PROSTITUTION

In January 1998, two Ecuadorean girls, age 14 and 17, escaped and told police of 200 other minors who were enslaved. Police who were able to track down and rescue 15 other children, aged 9 - 17, who were repatriated. Nine Ecuadorean adults were arrested. A Venezuelan police officer who allegedly helped get the children into the country, and sexually abused several of them, is under investigation. The Equadoran and Venezuelan governments are involved in a cover-up. Vladimir Villegas of the congressional Human Rights Commission, Estrella Gutierrez, "Child Traffic in Venezuela Tip of the Iceberg," IPS, 11 January 1998 & "Exploited children going home," Miami Herald, Associated Press, 22 January 1998)........

Children are being trafficked from Ecuador to Venezuela. The children work in virtual slavery conditions as street vendors, domestic workers and prostitutes. They are abducted, sold by parents or lured by false promises. (Vladimir Villegas of the congressional Human Rights Commission, Estrella Gutierrez, "Child Traffic in Venezuela Tip of the Iceberg," IPS, 11 January 1998) ("Exploited children going home," Miami Herald, Associated Press, 22 January 1998)

Women, desperate for work and money, are recruited through advertisements in mainstream newspapers. They are trafficked to Spain, where their passports are taken away and they are prostituted in massage parlors and brothels ("Venezuelan Sex-Slaves Sold in Trade-Offs to Spanish Wayside Brothels," Patrick J. O'Donoghue, Vheadline-Venezuela's Internet News, 18 November 1997

As of 1997, 86% of the prostitutes in Venezuela are citizens, the other 14% being foreigners. This is a reversal of previous statistics that concluded the opposite. There were 350,000 prostitutes registered with the Health Ministry in 1995. (Patrick J. O’Donoghue, "More Venezuelan Women Are Becoming ‘Sex Workers’ Because of the Economic Crisis," VHeadline/VENews, 6 December 1997)

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