Human tragedies - Human trafficking

Prostitution is not ilegal in Honduras but still sex tourism is not as obvious as in the Dominican Republic or Costa Rica. In these countries there are dosens of websites advertising sex-tour packages. The prefered victims in Honduras are children, and in 2006 a 58 year old man from Florida was arrested by the FBI for arranging trips to Honduras for men interested in having sex with underaged girls. The man was a navy commander in the US Navy Children`s program. He was teacheing young people the navy values of honor, courage and commitment. In 2004 a pediatrician from Brooklyn was sentenced to 21 years of jail for having tricked chilrdren in Honduras and Mexico into sex. It has been reported that between 8 000 and 10 000 children are involved in sex work in Honduras alone, as Honduran teenagers are among the most frequently trafficked children in Central America. Most of them are going to brothels and resorts in Guatemala, Mexico and El Salvador, where the patrons are American, European and Australian men. Groups like Casa Alianza have worked to raise awareness of the problem, which in their opinion has grown in the wake of of crack downs in Thailand and other Asian countries that have been known for a long time for their pedophilia rings and prostitution. The Casa Alianza had to fire their own director in Tegucigalpa in 2004 when it was known that he himself had paid a 19-year old to stay in a group shelter for youth to have sex. The director was a British citizen, well known as a children`s advocate. He had even won a medal of honor for his work with homeless children. The Order of the British Empire Medal. That was in year 2000.  In year 2000, also, the USA was pressured to pas a law against human trafficking. The law has been particularily effective in Asia where trafficking rings have been broken up, and the victims returned to their homes. Latin America has been slower to respond, but Honduras has now trained 7 000 police, prosecutors and judges, and 10 000 students have been trained on Human trafficking. Due to corruption the law can be hard to enforce.


http://www.blog.polarisproject.org/2011/07/21/graphic-meth-ads-and-their-similarities-to-human-trafficking/

blog on Meth ads and their similarity to human trafficking

http://www.polarisproject.org/what-we-do/client-services/survivor-stories

More about sex and labour trafficking in USA.