This one woman shows us the way forward. Sex slavery exists
everywhere and is a profoundly criminal activity in its operation and
organization. It is one thing for the willing to participate and for
them legalization is necessary to avoid direct exploitation. That is
still insufficient to satisfy supply so long as it is criminalized.
Yet long before the laws are ever rationalized, here is the way. One
women has gone out and rescued nine hundred with no help. Now
suppose this activity became church sponsored and suppose brothels
were confronted with a group of women demanding access and the time
to interview the victims. A dozen women on your doorstep soon
changes the political dynamic with the authorities. If one woman can
accomplish this much, how much can be accomplished by a volunteer
female swat team.
The publicity alone will end most of the worst abuse quickly.
Argentine mom
rescues hundreds of sex slaves during long, failed hunt for kidnapped
daughter
By Emily Schmall,
LA PLATA, Argentina -
Susana Trimarco was a housewife who fussed over her family and paid
scant attention to the news until her daughter left for a doctor's
appointment and never came back.
After getting little
help from police, Trimarco launched her own investigation into a tip
that the 23-year-old was abducted and forced into sex slavery. Soon,
Trimarco was visiting brothels seeking clues about her daughter and
the search took an additional goal: rescuing sex slaves and helping
them start new lives.
What began as a
one-woman campaign a decade ago developed into a movement and
Trimarco today is a hero to hundreds of women she's rescued from
Argentine prostitution rings. She's been honoured with the "Women
of Courage" award by the U.S. State Department and was nominated
for the Nobel Peace Prize on Nov. 28. Sunday night, President
Cristina Fernandez gave her a human rights award before hundreds of
thousands of people in the Plaza de Mayo.
But years of exploring
the decadent criminal underground haven't led Trimarco to her
daughter, Maria de los Angeles "Marita" Veron, who was 23
in 2002 when she disappeared from their hometown in provincial
Tucuman, leaving behind her own 3-year-old daughter Micaela.
"I live for
this," the 58-year-old Trimarco told The Associated Press of her
ongoing quest. "I have no other life, and the truth is, it is a
very sad, very grim life that I wouldn't wish on anyone."
Her painful journey
has now reached a milestone.
Publicity over
Trimarco's efforts prompted Argentine authorities to make a
high-profile example of her daughter's case by putting 13 people on
trial for allegedly kidnapping Veron and holding her as a sex slave
in a family-run operation of illegal brothels. Prostitution is not
illegal in Argentina, but the exploitation of women for sex is.
A verdict is expected
Tuesday after a nearly yearlong trial.
The seven men and six
women have pleaded innocent and their lawyers have said there's no
physical proof supporting the charges against them. The alleged
ringleaders denied knowing Veron and said that women who work in
their brothels do so willingly. Prosecutors have asked for up to 25
years imprisonment for those convicted.
Trimarco was the
primary witness during the trial, testifying for six straight days
about her search for her daughter.
The road to trial was
a long one.
Frustrated by seeming
indifference to her daughter's disappearance, Trimarco began her own
probe and found a taxi driver who told of delivering Veron to a
brothel where she was beaten and forced into prostitution. The driver
is among the defendants.
With her husband and
granddaughter in tow, Trimarco disguised herself as a recruiter of
prostitutes and entered brothel after brothel searching for clues.
She soon found herself immersed in the dangerous and grim world of
organized crime, gathering evidence against police, politicians and
gangsters.
"For the first
time, I really understood what was happening to my daughter,"
she said. "I was with my husband and with Micaela, asleep in the
backseat of the car because she was still very small and I had no one
to leave her with."
The very first woman
Trimarco rescued taught her to be strong, she said.
"It stuck with me
forever: She told me not to let them see me cry, because these
shameless people who had my daughter would laugh at me, and at my
pain," Trimarco said. "Since then I don't cry anymore. I've
made myself strong, and when I feel that a tear might drop, I
remember these words and I keep my composure."
Micaela, now 13, has
been by her grandmother's side throughout, contributing to publicity
campaigns against human trafficking and keeping her mother's memory
alive.
More than 150
witnesses testified in the trial, including a dozen former sex slaves
who described brutal conditions in the brothels.
Veron may have been
kidnapped twice, with the complicity of the very authorities who
should have protected her, according to Julio Fernandez, who now runs
a Tucuman police department devoted to investigating human
trafficking. He testified that witnesses reported seeing Veron at a
bus station three days after she initially disappeared, and that a
police officer from La Rioja, Domingo Pascual Andrada, delivered her
to a brothel there. Andrada, now among the defendants, denied knowing
any of the other defendants, let alone Veron.
Other Tucuman police
testified that when they sought permission in 2002 to search La Rioja
brothels, a judge made them wait for hours, enabling Veron's captors
to move her. That version was supported by a woman who had been a
prostitute at the brothel: She testified that Veron was moved just
before police arrived. The judge, Daniel Moreno, is not on trial. He
denied delaying the raid or having anything to do with the
defendants.
Some of the former
prostitutes said they had seen Veron drugged and haggard. One
testified Veron felt trapped and missed her daughter. Another said
she spotted Veron with dyed-blonde hair and an infant boy she was
forced to conceive in a rape by a ringleader. A third thought Veron
had been sold to a brothel in Spain — a lead reported to Interpol.
Trimarco's campaign to
find her daughter led the State Department to provide seed money for
a foundation in Veron's name. To date, it has rescued more than 900
women and girls from sex trafficking. The foundation also provides
housing, medical and psychological aid, and it helps victims sue
former captors.
Argentina outlawed
human trafficking in 2008, thanks in large part to the foundation's
work. A new force dedicated to combating human trafficking has
liberated nearly 3,000 more victims in two years, said Security
Minister Nilda Garre, who wrote a newspaper commentary saying the
trial's verdict should set an example.
Whatever the verdict,
Trimarco's lawyer, Carlos Garmendia, says the case has already made a
difference.
"Human
trafficking was an invisible problem until the Marita (Veron) case,"
Garmendia said. "The case has put it on the national agenda."
But Trimarco wants
more. "I had hoped they would break down and say what they'd
done with Marita," she said.
"I feel here in
my breast that she is alive and I'm not going to stop until I find
her," Trimarco said. "If she's no longer in this world, I
want her body."
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