Traffickers of Babies Are Passing as Missionaries to Trap the Unwary

This was in June 18, 2010's La Prensa. Following is my rough translation of it. 

Guatemalan authorities break up a Nicaraguan crime network; now they follow the trail of Columbians.

The business of trafficking in adolescents and children is increasing. This practice is lucrative for criminal gangs that yearly gain 11,900 millions of dollars, says the UNICEF documentary "The End of the Exploitation of Children."

Recently, information from the Procaduria General de Republica de Mexico (PGR) indicates that they are following an investigation about the stealing of children after this past year, when they broke into a nursery in this country and they located various children they suppose to be Guatemalan.

The investigations reveal that the trafficking networks use false evangelical churches to capture the minors with apparent programs to help, whose final purpose is adoption.

Mexico asked for information about a supposed nursery under the denomination of Mi Casita [My Small House] which may be collaborating with the transfer of the children in this country.

Alex Colop, public prosecutor against the Trafficking of Persons and Legal Adoptions in Guatemala, confirmed the information from Mexico and assured that they already have embarked on the corresponding investigation."We don't know if the name of the persons, churches, and institutions are correct, if they really exist in this country," he said.

The zones of Peten, Quetzaltenango, and Izabal are the identification points for the authorities, where the criminals pass as evangelical missionaries, visit communities during various weeks to win the confidence of the inhabitants, choose some families, and then offer them economic help for their children or supposed scholarships.

There are about 20 kinds that definitely use this method to steal the minors and assemble the alleged attacks.

The limitations for the investigation is that the little ones are apparently not registered migrants because they have left at blind points, but there are reports that one of these areas used is the border of El Carmen, between Mexico and Guatemala.

At the beginning of 2010, in an operation en the Cow Boy Bar in Guatemala, they went to break up a Nicaraguan trafficking network that had Hondureans, Nicaraguans, and El Salvadorians captive. In this operation, they arrested 10 women, finding more than 25 certificates of identification of children whose whereabouts they did not know.

[This criminal network was working] tunder the deception of being part of a modeling program recruiting youth to exploit them in prostitution.

All this they know, but yet there are few actions that are realized to end this inhuman, illicit activity.

"There is cynicism [until officials arrive] at the hostel with the intention to take them out." "The people that integrate the trafficking networks are astute people. They do what they can to get the youth. It is foolish the cynicism that they have until ….officials penetrate and rescue the minors that the authorities sent us to take custody of. We have come to the extremes of chasing the masterminds of this case, offering 1,500 quetzales for help to catch the girl of the hostel. They do not have fear, they have a lot of cynicism to act and this must make us leave our beards to soak… because if they have this cynicism to act, I want to say that there exists certain complications of the system, they have contacts in the institutions. In the case of the Honduranean woman who was rescued, it appears that two lawyers [were involved] and when it was asked of them who was sending them they told us that an aunt of the minor. When we investigate, we find that the minor does not have relatives…they were lawyers, but they were paid by the trafficking networks" recounted Leonel Dubon, who worked in the rescue of minors from Guatemala.

"The criminal networks find always alternatives to sell children." "The trafficking networks always find alternatives to sell children, and we have proof in different cases, for example, en the case of 18th of May, that it is a sale of infants by the internet; they were selling two little ones to Spain. We are investigating a case about the sale of children in the bars. When the raid was made, we found in a bar a recent newborn, children of the women that are objects of sexual exploitation. We believe that these women were pregnant as teenagers that arrived to work in this bar; the son of the proprietor impregnated these women and then sold them. But we need to reaffirm [these women's] first declaration because if these women do not declare, if they don't repeat it to us, the case falls through for us…." assures Mynor Pinto, public prosecutor of the Unidad de Trata del Ministerio Publico de Guatemala.

"Constantly reports of child abuse." Plan Honduras, as part of their programs to attend to minors, has established an agreement with the Public Ministry for the payment for special orientations to the children in those zones where there are not special funds…and that people are reporting high incidences of child abuse. "Constantly our facilities in the area of influence in the country report a grand quantity of cases of child victims of abuse and sexual exploitation. Part of our work we realize is coordinating with the Public Ministry and in actually helping thier labor en the zones such as Copan, Olancho, and other regions. We are worried for what happens in the country and for this we form part of the Comision Interinstituticional de Justicia. In our work we are enabling children and youth [to prevent their being] victims of sexual and labor exploitation" declares Guadelupe Reudas, manager of the Plan Honduras programs.

"122 trafficking victims have been detected." In March of this year, CHF International, a financer of the Department of State de EUA, presented the results of a study of base line about trafficking in persons in Honduras that identified 122 cases in six departments of the country. One of these cases revealed that a central region reported a minor that was a victim of organ and tissue trafficking. "Honduras is a country of origin, destination, and transit for trafficking in persons. There is a strong flow of sexual exploitation of 61% according to the study, 11% of the minors were in dangerous forced labor, 20% in labor exploitation, 4% victims of infant pornography, 3% in servitude, and 1% in organ and tissue trafficking," declared Gabriel Perdomo, manager of CHF. In 6 departments they obtained the data: Atlantida, Cortes, Ocotepeque, Francisco Morazon, Choluteca, and Valle. Casa Alianza [an organization] helps this effort of CHF offering shelter to the minors that are rescued, as part of the attention that various organizations offer to the victims of trafficking. 


PRAYER: 
- Pray for churches and missionaries here in Honduras, that their name will be protected as well and that people continue to trust them. 
- Pray for the children who have been rescued--there are little integration programs to help these children heal. 
- Pray for justice, that God will frustrate the plans of the wicked (Ps. 140:8).