Prostitution and Migrant Smuggling Networks Operating between Central America, Mexico, and the United States

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (6) ◽  
pp. 31-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simón Pedro Izcara Palacios

During the past five years, a process of specialization has taken place in migrant smuggling networks that has led to the strengthening of those focused on transporting women. The reasons are that migrant women have been less affected than men by the violence in Mexico and that the adult entertainment industry pays the highest prices for irregular migrants. In-depth interviews with procurers, smugglers, and women from Central America describe the operation of the networks for the smuggling of women for prostitution operating between Central America, Mexico, and the United States and indicate that the recruitment of women is usually not coercive and that the employment of minors is more frequent in the United States than in Mexico. En los últimos cinco años se ha producido un proceso de especialización de las redes de tráfico de migrantes que ha conducido a un fortalecimiento de aquellas que transportan mujeres. Esto se debe a dos motivos: Las mujeres migrantes se han visto menos afectadas que los hombres por la violencia en México, y la industria del entretenimiento adulto es la que más paga por los migrantes irregulares. Entrevistas en profundidad con proxenetas, traficantes de mujeres y mujeres de Centroamérica describen el funcionamiento de las redes de tráfico de mujeres empleadas en el sector de la prostitución que operan entre Centroamérica, México y Estados Unidos y concluyen que el reclutamiento de mujeres no se produce de modo coercitivo y el empleo de menores es mayor en Estados Unidos que en México.

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (6) ◽  
pp. 16-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simón Pedro Izcara Palacios

Migrant flows crossing Mexican territory into the United States along the Gulf route are mainly driven by a demand for cheap labor. The decrease in the number of migrants wishing to cross the border to escape the violence in Mexico has turned undocumented migrants into a rare and valuable commodity. The increasing costs of migrant smuggling as a result of organized crime and the activities of the immigration authorities have prompted employers to finance this activity to ensure that they receive enough workers. In-depth interviews with 70 migrant smugglers shed light on the function and participation of the different actors involved in migrant smuggling. El flujo migratorio que atraviesa el territorio mexicano a través de la ruta del golfo para llegar a los Estados Unidos aparece impulsado principalmente por la demanda de mano de obra barata. El descenso del número de personas dispuestas a cruzar la frontera debido a la violencia que ha afectado a México ha convertido a los indocumentados en una mercancía escasa y valiosa. El incremento de los costes de esta actividad debido a la incursión de los grupos delictivos y las autoridades migratorias ha hecho que los empleadores hayan tenido que financiar el tráfico de migrantes para abastecerse de mano de obra. Entrevistas en profundidad a setenta polleros arrojan luz sobre la función y participación de los diferentes actores involucrados en el tráfico de migrantes.


2011 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 540-557
Author(s):  
Patricia L. East ◽  
Ashley Slonim ◽  
Emily J. Horn ◽  
Barbara T. Reyes

Latinos have had the highest teenage birthrate of any racial or ethnic group in the United States for the past 15 years, yet little is known about how Latino families are affected by a teenage daughter’s childbearing. In-depth interviews were conducted with 32 Mexican American younger siblings of parenting teens to discern how their sister’s childbearing had affected them and their families. The most commonly reported negative effects were increased family stress and conflict, more arguments with the parenting older sister, and less time spent with family members. Regarding benefits, all youth described a loving bond with their sister’s baby, two thirds described their family becoming closer, and 81% felt closer to their older sister. The implications of these effects for Mexican American families are discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 669-679
Author(s):  
Simón Pedro Izcara Palacios

This article, based on a qualitative methodology that includes in-depth interviews with 43 Mexican sex traffickers, analyses the strategies used by sex traffickers to recruit women from Mexico and Central America demanded by the US illegal sex industry. We conclude that trafficking is a demand-led industry. Traffickers recruit vulnerable women from Mexico and Central America who fit with US procurers’ requirements. Foreign girls smuggled into the United States should be young (in many cases underage girls), beautiful, slim and healthy. Mexican sex traffickers’ job is to entice with salaries in US dollars impoverished Latin American girls who do not want to migrate or enter prostitution. Maintaining trafficked women captive against their will is more time consuming and less profitable than wining women’s will with a salary


Subject Implications of US immigration policy for relations between Mexico and Central American countries. Significance The rhetoric of US President Donald Trump and his government's initial moves to deal with illegal immigration have caused great concern in Central America and Mexico. Central American migration through Mexico to the United States in recent years has been viewed as a humanitarian crisis. There is a significant risk that Trump administration policy could undermine international relations within the region, potentially exacerbating problems of violence and insecurity. Impacts There is a risk of increased collusion between Mexican authorities and trafficking cartels to abuse Central American migrants. Despite improvements over the past year, the Mexican asylum system would struggle to cope with a large increase in claims. The challenges of migrating to the United States and Mexico could make Costa Rica increasingly attractive for Northern Triangle citizens.


1993 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-232
Author(s):  
Jürgen Buchenau

The United Mexican States are the advance sentinels of Latin America and guard their northern frontier, the plow in one hand and the rifle in the other.Mexican diplomat José Manuel Gutiérrez Zamora, 1909Mexico has long been the principal rival of the United States in Central America. Throughout the past century, the country has, to the measure of its ability, steadfastly resisted U.S. interference in the area. Because of Mexico's geographical location and its experience with U.S. intervention, the strengthening of nationalist forces in Central America has always been a subject of paramount importance for any Mexican regime. Both before and after the Revolution of 1910, Mexico frequently resorted to intervention of its own in attempts to create or maintain a counterweight to U.S. influence. The country has pursued its goals mainly by providing encouragement, diplomatic protection, money, and sometimes arms to Central American governments and factions that have portrayed themselves as opponents of U.S. hegemony.


Author(s):  
Ella Inglebret ◽  
Amy Skinder-Meredith ◽  
Shana Bailey ◽  
Carla Jones ◽  
Ashley France

The authors in this article first identify the extent to which research articles published in three American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) journals included participants, age birth to 18 years, from international backgrounds (i.e., residence outside of the United States), and go on to describe associated publication patterns over the past 12 years. These patterns then provide a context for examining variation in the conceptualization of ethnicity on an international scale. Further, the authors examine terminology and categories used by 11 countries where research participants resided. Each country uses a unique classification system. Thus, it can be expected that descriptions of the ethnic characteristics of international participants involved in research published in ASHA journal articles will widely vary.


Crisis ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Shannon Lange ◽  
Courtney Bagge ◽  
Charlotte Probst ◽  
Jürgen Rehm

Abstract. Background: In recent years, the rate of death by suicide has been increasing disproportionately among females and young adults in the United States. Presumably this trend has been mirrored by the proportion of individuals with suicidal ideation who attempted suicide. Aim: We aimed to investigate whether the proportion of individuals in the United States with suicidal ideation who attempted suicide differed by age and/or sex, and whether this proportion has increased over time. Method: Individual-level data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 2008–2017, were used to estimate the year-, age category-, and sex-specific proportion of individuals with past-year suicidal ideation who attempted suicide. We then determined whether this proportion differed by age category, sex, and across years using random-effects meta-regression. Overall, age category- and sex-specific proportions across survey years were estimated using random-effects meta-analyses. Results: Although the proportion was found to be significantly higher among females and those aged 18–25 years, it had not significantly increased over the past 10 years. Limitations: Data were self-reported and restricted to past-year suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. Conclusion: The increase in the death by suicide rate in the United States over the past 10 years was not mirrored by the proportion of individuals with past-year suicidal ideation who attempted suicide during this period.


2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-124
Author(s):  
Philip L. Martin

Japan and the United States, the world’s largest economies for most of the past half century, have very different immigration policies. Japan is the G7 economy most closed to immigrants, while the United States is the large economy most open to immigrants. Both Japan and the United States are debating how immigrants are and can con-tribute to the competitiveness of their economies in the 21st centuries. The papers in this special issue review the employment of and impacts of immigrants in some of the key sectors of the Japanese and US economies, including agriculture, health care, science and engineering, and construction and manufacturing. For example, in Japanese agriculture migrant trainees are a fixed cost to farmers during the three years they are in Japan, while US farmers who hire mostly unauthorized migrants hire and lay off workers as needed, making labour a variable cost.


Author(s):  
Pierre Rosanvallon

It's a commonplace occurrence that citizens in Western democracies are disaffected with their political leaders and traditional democratic institutions. But this book argues that this crisis of confidence is partly a crisis of understanding. The book makes the case that the sources of democratic legitimacy have shifted and multiplied over the past thirty years and that we need to comprehend and make better use of these new sources of legitimacy in order to strengthen our political self-belief and commitment to democracy. Drawing on examples from France and the United States, the book notes that there has been a major expansion of independent commissions, NGOs, regulatory authorities, and watchdogs in recent decades. At the same time, constitutional courts have become more willing and able to challenge legislatures. These institutional developments, which serve the democratic values of impartiality and reflexivity, have been accompanied by a new attentiveness to what the book calls the value of proximity, as governing structures have sought to find new spaces for minorities, the particular, and the local. To improve our democracies, we need to use these new sources of legitimacy more effectively and we need to incorporate them into our accounts of democratic government. This book is an original contribution to the vigorous international debate about democratic authority and legitimacy.


2009 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo

By identifying two general issues in recent history textbook controversies worldwide (oblivion and inclusion), this article examines understandings of the United States in Mexico's history textbooks (especially those of 1992) as a means to test the limits of historical imagining between U. S. and Mexican historiographies. Drawing lessons from recent European and Indian historiographical debates, the article argues that many of the historical clashes between the nationalist historiographies of Mexico and the United States could be taught as series of unsolved enigmas, ironies, and contradictions in the midst of a central enigma: the persistence of two nationalist historiographies incapable of contemplating their common ground. The article maintains that lo mexicano has been a constant part of the past and present of the US, and lo gringo an intrinsic component of Mexico's history. The di erences in their historical tracks have been made into monumental ontological oppositions, which are in fact two tracks—often overlapping—of the same and shared con ictual and complex experience.


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