New Haven Independent

It’s OK, they are not from here.

Our discussions about the organic nature of human rights, that is to say arising from the fabric of the community rather than from “higher” levels of society, like government, prompted many thoughts for me. What if there is a stranger, a foreigner in our midst? Are they accorded the same human rights that are valued in the community in which they find themselves? (I was reminded by Dr. Winter that human rights and civil rights are not always equal. His study of human rights seeks to go much deeper than rights bestowed by law.)

Part of the presentation at the Center of Human Rights in Tlaxcala included a discussion of increased exploitation of women and girls — a very dangerous topic, as there is a large quantity of money associated with the sex trade. Exposing the sex trade has led to death threats against members of the Center of Human Rights. Influences of “machismo” in the culture, that is to say the domination of women by men, feed the tacit approval of this exploitation. Corruption has caused authorities to look the other way. Because the traffickers are not preying supposedly on local women and girls, there exists the attitude “It’s OK” because the victims are not from the area.

This “It’s OK” attitude caused me to reflect on our unconscious consumption of undocumented immigrant labor. Because the undocumented immigrant is not from here, not from my family, that opens them to exploitation and confines them to a lower level of existence, and thereby making it easier to deny their human rights to a just wage, to a united family, and freedom of travel. A distinguished labor attorney remarked that the broken immigration system in this country is akin to the sweat shops of the past that exploited workers. But I digress……

Brothels in New York and Connecticut: How does it happen?

Immigrants from Central and some parts of South America often do not have the resources to pay for a “reliable coyote.” A “coyote” is a person who, for pay, helps immigrants make their way north. Typically, a person will pay $5,000 to $14,000 depending on their country of origin for passage. Some of those who travel alone without a “coyote” will find the trip too arduous. Turning back is not an option. As the Central and Southern American immigrants pass through Mexico, women and girls are deceived by false promises of a safe passage by unscrupulous people, posing as coyotes. The women and girls quickly find themselves enslaved in the sex trade, held prisoner in brothels in the north, supposedly until they pay off their passage. Exploitation of the weak, desperate, and marginalized is a profitable enterprise.

Traveling through a small town in Tlaxcala that is the notorious center for those involved in the trafficking of women and girls for the sex trade, one can see huge houses being erected in the middle of very humble neighborhoods. Such ostentatious expenditures signal those who are benefiting from the misery and enslavement of young women and girls. The traffickers and their families enjoy luxury cars and one purportedly has even begun purchasing buses to start a “legitimate” transportation company.

Those directly and indirectly involved in the trafficking of these women and girls have found it quite lucrative. The “dirty money” is plentiful. And I dare say, with the major disruption of the other source of “dirty money,” the Mexican drug trade, the exploitation of the immigrant women and girls, will sadly continue to increase.