RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Minors Exploited in Sweat Shops, Brothels

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Jul 6 2000 (IPS) - Argentina’s justice system discovered some 200 adolescent girls — mainly Paraguayan immigrants — sexually exploited in brothels in the province of Buenos Aires, just 10 days after 40 Bolivian minors were found working in virtual slavery conditions in a clandestine textile factory.

The girls were discovered in raids of four different locales, where police arrested six adults presumably involved in the trafficking and sexual exploitation of the young women, who were brought in by truck from neighbouring Paraguay.

The police operation, carried out in the early hours of Tuesday morning, was one of the few that has ended in arrests, even though it is an open secret that networks involving the sexual exploitation of minors operate in Argentina.

The success of the raids was widely attributed to an investigation by a team of Channel 13 TV reporters, who filmed illicit activities with a hidden camera.

Before broadcasting its report, “Slaves”, the “Telenoche Investigates” programme filed an official complaint with the police and handed over copies of the videos, in which one of the procurers boasted that he was one of the pioneers in bringing girls in from Paraguay.

A report released by the United Nations children’s fund (UNICEF) in May pointed to the existence of an organised system of sexual exploitation of minors in Argentina.

The report stated that the activity had not been curbed due to the ineffectiveness of police and court interventions, and their limitations and complicities.

Silvia Chejter, the author of the UNICEF report, said the harsh reality was denied and made invisible by society. She pointed out that the demand came exclusively from men, including students, professionals, legislators, judges and even government ministers.

The study was based on 326 interviews with people involved in the question, including 83 minors sexually exploited in different provinces of this Southern Cone country, half of them 15 or younger.

The rates charged depended on where they worked and on how their services were marketed — by taxi-drivers working on their own directly with tourists, by means of classified ads in the papers, or through discos and bars.

But the organised rings were found to operate through discos and other centres of night-time entertainment, often with the complicity of authorities.

Chejter said most of the girls came from families of undocumented immigrants, although some were runaways from middle- or upper-income families fleeing abuse or other problems, who had fallen into the grip of organised prostitution rings.

A procurer brought to court faces rape charges if the minor is 14 or younger and charges of “indecent abuse” if she is 15 to 18.

But it is the customers who are much more likely to be sanctioned than those involved in the trade.

In the latest raids, whether of sweat shops or prostitution rings, the common denominator was that the youngsters came from neighbouring countries, drawn by the relative strength of the Argentine economy and currency.

Many of the minors were drawn in by promises of jobs in homes or factories, while others, especially girls, are “traded” by their families in exchange for 150 to 300 dollars in cash, according to the TV station’s investigative journalism report.

The Bolivian minors discovered in the clandestine factory in late June were forced to work up to 19 hours a day. They were locked in, beaten, spit on and verbally abused, poorly-fed, and slept piled up in squalid conditions at the back of the sweat shop, which was owned by other Bolivian immigrants.

The police and courts are investigating the possible existence of a network dedicated to trafficking child workers from Bolivia, since it has not yet been determined how the undocumented youngsters slipped past the border controls.

The children were flown into Argentina, with the promise that they would receive wages of 200 dollars a month. But once they arrived, they found they had to work off the cost of their plane tickets and other expenses.

Some of them spent a year and a half without receiving any pay whatsoever, instead falling into debt because of “fines” they owed for failing to clean up, or for working badly. A complaint was finally filed when three minors escaped and asked a neighbour for help.

With respect to the case of the sexually exploited girls, there were indications that police were aware of what was going on.

The head of the Council of Minors in the province of Buenos Aires, former judge of juveniles Irma Lima, said she never notified the police before ordering a raid.

“The justice system does not crack down on the procurers, who sexually exploit the minors,” said Lima, who charged that “there is complicity among sectors of the police,” who tip the pimps off before staging a raid.