The Untold Stories of Female Migrants

By Amanda Tello
Witness for Peace Delegations Assistant

Every year, thousands of migrants risk their lives on a treacherous journey toward el norte, facing violence, extortion, kidnapping and discrimination. However, female migrants face a heightened risk of exploitation in the form of sexual violence and trafficking at the hands of many groups: criminal gangs, corrupt officials, law enforcement, immigration or security forces and other migrants. Despite the enormous risks, thousands of women continue to make the harrowing journey northward. According to Katharine Donato, an associate professor of Sociology at Rice University who studies Mexican migration to the United States, as many as 35-45% of those crossing the border are women. While other experts have estimated the number of female migrants crossing the border to be closer to 15-25%, it remains a significant portion of the migrant population.




Although it is commonly thought that most female migrants are following their male counterparts to the United States, an increasing number of women are migrating independently to find work and support their families. Impelled by unemployment or underemployment in their home countries, frequently a consequence of free trade agreements like CAFTA and NAFTA that have “eroded” local economies, migrants are forced to look beyond their own borders for a means of supporting their families. Additionally, a press release from a Mexican women’s advocacy group, REDGE, reported that more and more women are migrating as a means to escape intra-familial and drug-war related violence.

The Perilous Journey

Mexico is commonly referred to as both a point of origin and destination for migrants throughout Latin America. The complex flow of people, many traveling without legal documentation, between Mexico’s northern and the “forgotten” southern border gives criminal gangs and corrupt officials an opportunity to exploit the masses of vulnerable migrants, particularly women and children. Those crossing the southern border are primarily Central Americans who are viewed as “easy” targets because their transitory status makes them unlikely to report abuses out of fear of deportation or repatriation.


Local and international NGOs report that 6 in every 10 women are raped and as many as 80% of female Central American migrants are sexually assaulted during the volatile journey. A study conducted in 2006 with 90 migrant women at the Iztapalapa Detention Centre revealed that: “Twenty-three women reported experiencing some kind of violence, including sexual violence. Of these, 13 stated the person responsible was a state official.” Nevertheless, researchers believe that sexual violence is often underreported out of fear, lack of resources or assistance and the victims’ desire to continue their journey.

Sexual assault is such a frequent occurrence that many women tragically consider rape the price they must pay to migrate, according to Fermina Rodriguez of the Fray Matias de Cordova Human Rights Center. In fact, rape is often viewed as a form of currency that perpetrators exact upon women to earn their passage. To take precaution, many women inject themselves with contraceptives prior to migrating, oftentimes at the behest of their smugglers.

In addition to rape and sexual assault, women are targets for traffickers who kidnap them along the migrant path or lure them from home with romantic promises and the possibility of employment. Many credit the government’s militarized strategy of combating the drug war with inadvertently pushing drug traffickers and criminal gangs toward “alternative revenue sources,” namely human trafficking and forced prostitution. Sex trafficking not only involves less risk, as undocumented migrants are less likely to be reported as missing or to file reports of abuse, but it also provides criminal gangs with an additional source of “reusable” revenue.


Southern Mexico in particular has become a hot spot for forced prostitution and human trafficking in recent years. According to Patricia Villamil, the Honduran consul in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, the now infamous criminal organization known as the Zetas is primarily responsible for luring and kidnapping young girls from Honduras and forcing them to work as prostitutes upon their arrival in Chiapas. Despite the influx of reports Villamil is receiving, she claims that the Mexican authorities have been “slow to react.” In fact, while Enrique Mendez, the official prosecutor in charge of crimes against immigrants in Chiapas, admitted that trafficking is occurring, he insisted it was “not widespread.”

Policy

In response to the growing problem of sexual exploitation and violence along the migrant path, the Mexican state has taken the formal step of passing human rights treaties, including the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (UN Migrant Workers’ Convention). Moreover, the Mexican Congress passed a law known as, “la Ley para Prevenir y Sancionar la Trata de Personas,” in order to assist victims and “prevent and penalize human trafficking.” Although the passage of these laws and treaties are positive developments, there have been very few convictions and the government continues to focus its efforts on the drug war.

Moreover, NGOs insist that state officials remain complicit actors in the problem either by inaction or direct involvement. For instance, many migrants report that state officials allow buses full of kidnapped migrants to pass freely through government checkpoints after receiving bribes. Other public officials and members of security forces assume more active roles, either by directly assisting criminal organizations with the kidnapping and trafficking of migrants or by raping female migrants as a means of payment.

As UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants Jorge Bustamante described, “transnational migration continues to be a business in Mexico, largely operated by transnational gang networks involved in smuggling and trafficking in persons and drugs, with the collaboration of the local, municipal, state and federal authorities…With the pervasiveness of corruption at all levels of government and the close relationship that many authorities have with gang networks, incidences of extortion, rape and assault of migrants continue.”


Testimonies

Excerpt from “On the Mexico-Guatemala Border, Migrants Demand End to the Violence” by Kristin Bricker from the Center for International Policy Americas Program:
Honduran migrant Daniela Melendez, mother of five, recounted how her coyote, the man she paid to help her cross Mexico and enter the United States, tried to rape her as she traveled through Chiapas. In an attempt to pressure her to have sex with him, he told her, “Here, I’m just one man. But I work with the Zetas, and if I turn you over to them, it’ll be fifteen or twenty men raping you.” Melendez managed to reach the migrant shelter in Ixtepec, Oaxaca, run by Father Alejandro Solalinde. “Father Solalinde’s team in the shelter rescued me,” she recounts.
Salvadoran woman quoted in the 2009 CNDH special report on kidnapping:

“All the time they swore at us, slapped us, pushed and kicked us all over and hit us with a whip, they covered our eyes and mouths... they killed my friend because she didn’t have any [relatives] to help her and she couldn’t given them [phone] numbers, so they shot her twice in the head and they left her bleeding in front of me for three hours to intimidate me... The place they held me captive is a big, dark, dirty house that smelled bad. The two days I was there I slept on the ground with no blanket. They only gave me something to eat once and a little water. The men who kidnapped me also stripped me naked and raped me. In that place, I heard the whole time the moans, cries and groans of other people”.

From the Washington Office on Latin America’s report entitled, “A Dangerous Journey Through Mexico,” By Maureen Meyer, with contributions from Stephanie Brewer:

My name is Nancy, I am Salvadoran and I was kidnapped from April 13 to June 22, 2009. I was in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, staying in the supposed shelter of a woman nicknamed “the mother” who tried to pass for a nun so we that we would trust her and fall into her trap. Some large trucks arrived there that were like moving vans and they grabbed me and 83 others…They took us up to Reynosa, on the state of Tamaulipas, and on the road we passed checkpoints of the National Migration Institute and Federal Police who saw how we were traveling and even so they did nothing, they merely took the money that was given to them as a bribe to keep silent. The kidnappers told us to pay attention so that we would see that they had paid for everything. One of the men began to bother us women and sexually abuse us. Then, one of our male companions got angry and tried to defend us, but he couldn’t because they raped him too and then they beat him to death…”

Click here to watch a clip from CNN about “Claudia’s” traumatic story of being trafficked to a brothel in New York.

Fleeing an unsecure world, only to come to one that you still feel unsafe in!

By Emmy Andersson
Intern, Witness for Peace

Have you ever thought, “I am glad I was born here, I am glad I was born in a family that could give me food, safety and opportunity in life?” If you have, you are lucky. Unfortunately, not everyone can say that.

I think that every mother wants their children to have that safe childhood or at least that when they grow up, a chance in life that they never had themselves. How far a mother would go to ensure her child’s safety is probably as far as is needed, since more and more women now choose to migrate from Mexico to the U.S. to be able to support their children. Not only is it extremely dangerous for a woman to make that route, but in most cases they have to leave their children behind.

With more attention drawn to the drug trafficking in Mexico, drug cartels have found another way to bring in money: sex trafficking. As InSight Crime has highlighted, drug traffickers increasingly turning to this trade has resulted in an increased number of women and girls disappearing. Women are easy targets both for sex traffickers and for sex abuse.

In Ciudad Juarez, located on the U.S.-border, hundreds or even thousands of women have been found dead in the last 20 years. Femicide, gender based killing, is getting more common in Mexico. It seems to accompany the more generalized drug violence. REDGE, a women’s advocacy group, in their recent press release said that most female migrants from Mexico to the U.S. are escaping violence and insecurity. To just be a woman in Mexico is now very dangerous. To try to make it to the U.S. is even worse.

35-45% of migrants are now women; twenty years ago it was fever than 20%. People do not migrate because they want to; they migrate because they have to. Their feeling of insecurity doesn’t even end when they come here to the U.S., because here they are too scared to go outside, due to harsh immigrant laws. The violence needs to stop in Mexico and we need to stand up against the tactics and laws that the Mexican and the U.S. government use, because apparently they don’t work. I think everyone should have the right to think, “I am glad because I am safe,” don’t you?

Fear and Intimidation of Women

by Rachel Anderson

Micheletti’s decree last weekend stripping Hondurans of their constitutional rights is rapidly shrinking the massive marches and protests that have taken place here over the last three months. With the ever-present threats of violence and jail, many people now fear talking about the resistance in public, walking the streets, or even “looking different”. Leaders have left their homes, fearing for their lives and the lives of their loved ones. Most of our partners have changed their daily routines to avoid being detained by the military or police.

Strong police presence at a peaceful protest

Alba, coordinator of the Committee of the Politically Persecuted, was at the demonstration on September 22. As she was fleeing the tear gas released on the peaceful, joy-filled crowd, she saw a policeman grab a young man randomly from a crowd and start beating him with a baton. She started to take a picture and yelled, "Don’t hit him!" Police then grabbed her, hit her, and stole her camera. She was detained for hours, enduring verbal and physical abuse. Now Alba feels she can no longer go to public demonstrations. She knows she is blacklisted and will be targeted by the police.

Blanca, Celeste, and Gabriela from the Collective of University Feminists (COFEMUN) told us their ongoing experiences of intimidation. Since July 2nd, COFEMUN staff members have noticed an omnipresent vehicle with tinted windows outside their offices and homes watching them. A pre-school opened up across the street this summer, but no children have ever been seen entering or leaving the building. There have only been security guards and other adults filming people entering and leaving COFEMUN’s offices.

Recently, as one woman left the COFEMUN office, she passed an armed soldier. He quickly blocked her way and said, "We are going to get you soon". Overnight on September 30th the power was cut to their offices and their internal security camera damaged, after capturing an image of a dark silhouette.

Finally, the women shared the chilling tale of three staff members being chased after meeting with a Witness for Peace delegation on September 6th. As they left the office at 8:30pm, a private power company vehicle without plates drove onto their bumper, trying to push them into a corner or off the street.

COFEMUN is not aligned with a political party nor is it a registered partner of the resistance. The women we met do not see Zelaya as a hero. They have simply participated in peaceful marches protesting the violation of the Honduran constitution. COFEMUN promotes women’s rights, including educating woman about birth control options and providing support for gay and lesbian groups. Earlier this year, they helped win the battle to make emergency contraception legal, which several members of Micheletti’s coup regime fought.

We continue to hear stories of women singled out by the police and military with verbal abuse, physical abuse on their breasts and backsides, and cases of rape. Another woman speculated on the sudden failure of her car brakes, right after she took it to a private auto-shop for unrelated repairs.

Blanca noted the psychological and emotional damage this intimidation has caused. “Yesterday was the first night they didn’t announce a curfew in weeks and it was the first night I was able to sleep. During the curfew the military could come and do anything they want. They could rape or kill you and no one would know. That sort of systematic intimidation takes away one’s voice and feeling of worth. It kills you on the inside.”

She despairs of the success the de facto regime has had in so quickly stripping the citizens of their rights and voices. "We are a nobody in the grand scheme of things – just a small country, with no power, economically or politically. Now that all of our constitutional rights have been stripped from us, we feel completely impotent.”

But we have not found a powerless citizenry in Honduras. In just under a week, we have met many organized, intelligent, and incredibly strong people. From this crisis, some veteran human rights organizers have noticed an ¨awakening" in a historically poor and repressed country. Over the last three months, Hondurans that have never rallied together before have united in their efforts to protect their democracy. This massive uprising was not for a politician, but for their shared country and constitutional rights.

Many leaders are especially inspired by the huge influx of young people taking an interest in their government for the first time. The older generation, organized since the 1980s, had worried about the lack of youth interested in most human rights causes. Alba noted that her organization "had a small membership made up of mainly people in their forties and fifties. Now we have many youth as young as 13 years old participating in events."