Reuters photo
By
Ricardo Swire
Modern data has shown that child victims of trafficking are recruited, transferred, harbored and received by underground commercial elements for the sole purpose of exploitation. Six years ago the American monitoring entity “Ark of Hope for Children” tabulated 20.9 million victims worldwide. Criminal organizations force smuggled children to work in sweatshops, on construction sites, in homes as domestic servants, on streets as beggars, in war zones as child soldiers, laborers on farms or in restaurants and hotels.
Within human trafficking’s Pandora’s Box eleven and fourteen year olds are forced to work in sex industry brothels, others repressed by owners of strip club, escort and massage services. In 2016 Peru recorded three hundred human trafficking victims. The following year one thousand four hundred cases were documented. Prevalence and sophistication are dramatized in the Wednesday November 7, 2018 arrests of a former Peruvian National Police Director and his businesswoman companion.
The investigation found that the “Los Desalmados” fourteen member human trafficking syndicate masterminded a baby smuggling network from Arequipa Region, southern Peru. Physical evidence and surveillance digital recordings framed the businesswoman as Boss of this baby trafficking racket. Her partner the ex National Police Director facilitated unofficial housing of smuggled babies before their sales. One local Gynaecologist and one Paediatrician are among detained conspirators.
In addition to child trafficking Los Desalmados syndicate operated seventeen properties, commercial centers, homes and clinics. Marginalized Arequipa women, in the late stages of pregnancy, were targeted and convinced by participating clinic employees to sell their babies for US$1,200 each. America’s State Department data noted that despite Peru’s improved 2017 efforts to combat human trafficking, the western South American country has still failed to measure up to international requirements. Coordination between police and prosecutors, plus poorly distributed resources cited as deficiencies.
Ricardo Swire
Ricardo Swire is the Principal Consultant at R-L-H Security Consultants & Business Support Services and writes on a number of important issues.
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