Argentines shocked by verdicts in sex slave trial

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://news.yahoo.com/argentines-shocked-verdicts-sex-slave-trial-191140523.html

By By EMILY SCHMALL and MICHAEL WARREN | Associated Press – 2 hrs 24 mins ago

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — The acquittal of 13 people accused in the disappearance of a young woman who was allegedly kidnapped and forced into prostitution for "VIP clients" spread shock and outrage across Argentina on Wednesday, prompting street protests and calls by political leaders to impeach the three judges who delivered the verdict.

Many called the ruling a setback for Argentina's efforts to combat sex trafficking, which began largely as a result of Susana Trimarco's one-woman, decade-long quest to find her missing daughter, Maria de los Angeles "Marita" Veron. Her attorneys said she would pursue appeals.

Trimarco's search exposed an underworld of organized crime figures who operate brothels with protection from authorities across Argentina.

Security Minister Nilda Garre called the verdict "a tremendous slap in the face for the prospect of justice."

"It's not only a reversal for this particular case of the kidnapping and disappearance of Marita Veron, that made society feel deeply the drama of this kind of 21st century slavery, covered up for decades by the customs of a network of machista culture," she said.

It also "renders invisible the suffering of the victims of human-trafficking networks and sexual exploitation, who gave such courageous testimony during the trial, and consecrates judicial impunity for these crimes," Garre said.

Other officials also rallied around Veron's mother, denouncing the verdicts and praising government efforts to save women from prostitution.

"Today, more than ever, we stand united with Susana and her family in their quest to find Marita and we honor the courageous work she has done to defend the victims and the survivors of human trafficking in Argentina and all over the world," U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Ana Duque-Higgins said.

President Cristina Fernandez personally called her to express her surprise and outrage.

"I thought I would find her destroyed, but I found her more together than ever, more committed to keep fighting," the president said. "I told her, 'Susana you can always count on me,' and she told me 'President don't worry, I'm going to keep fighting."

Fernandez also said that while she can't prove it, she's sure that judicial corruption influenced the verdicts, showing the need to reform how judges are picked and allowed to remain in their jobs. Political rivals have called this campaign an attack on judicial independence.

Trimarco's lawyers said the verdict shows that impunity still reigns, and they said they would pursue appeals.

"The reality is that the police are not investigating Marita's disappearance. It's Susana Trimarco who is investigating and it's been this way from the beginning," attorney Carlos Garmendia told The Associated Press.

"The Marita case is emblematic. As a result, much was learned about trafficking networks, how they move (people), how they operate," he said.

When Veron disappeared a decade ago, sexual exploitation and people-trafficking got much less attention around the world, let alone in northwestern Argentina, where she was allegedly kept as a sex slave by an organized crime ring with close ties to authorities in the provinces of Tucuman and La Rioja.

Much of the case was built years later, as Trimarco's efforts produced witnesses who said they suffered alongside Veron in the brothels. One said she saw Veron being beaten; another said she saw her being held captive to provide sex to VIP clients.

Andrea D., one of these women, testified that she had seen Veron with her hair dyed blonde wearing blue-tinted contacts at a brothel in La Rioja. She said she had been kidnapped at gunpoint and forced into prostitution by the same organized crime ring, and testified that some of the accused said Marita had been sold off to brothels in Spain.

Defense lawyers dismissed the women's testimony as the lies of unreliable witnesses, and the lack of any physical evidence linking the defendants to Veron proved decisive, the judges said in a brief explanation from the bench. A fuller written justification for their verdicts is expected to be made public in several weeks.

"It's obvious that this process made mistakes," Garmendia acknowledged. "Above all, this ruling is a message that the trafficking business will continue as usual."

Some of Wednesday's street protests became violent, with people throwing eggs and trying to vandalize provincial offices in Tucuman and Buenos Aires. Trimarco called on her supporters to keep the peace, even as she expressed her anger at a news conference Wednesday, accusing the judges of taking bribes.

The lead trial judge, Alberto Piedrabuena, didn't respond to the bribery allegations, but he countered in a local radio interview that the evidence failed to resolve reasonable doubts or overcome the principle of being innocent until proven guilty.

Prostitution remains legal in Argentina, but managing brothels and trafficking in people have been federal crimes since 2008, under a law Congress passed after lobbying by Trimarco.

Garre credited her ministry's enforcement of this law with saving 938 people last year from trafficking — 215 people from the sex trade and 723 from other workplace exploitation — and more than 800 so far this year.

Hundreds of women also have been saved by a foundation Trimarco created in her daughter's name in 2008 with seed money from the U.S. State Department's "Women of Courage" award. The foundation also provides legal help, but its lawyers have found that proving sex slavery is difficult without full support from the same police who often get paid to protect prostitution rings.

To date, the foundation has helped 20 former sex-trafficking victims bring cases against their captors, but they have yet to win a single case. Of these, 12 resulted in federal charges, but a handful were bounced back to even more uncertain justice in provincial courts around Argentina.

"They don't investigate. There's a lack of commitment and capability," said Agustin Araoz Teran, one of the foundation's lawyers, who called the Tuesday night's verdicts "an act of cowardice."

Teran joined Trimarco's movement after his father, a juvenile court judge in Tucuman, was shot to death in his home in 2004 after investigating local police officers who were allegedly freeing juvenile delinquents so that they could peddle drugs on their (the police's) behalf.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://news.yahoo.com/argentine-mom-rescues-sex-slaves-not-daughter-201941336.html

Argentine mom rescues sex slaves, but not daughter

By By EMILY SCHMALL | Associated Press – Mon, Dec 10, 2012

LA PLATA, Argentina (AP) — 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 honored 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."

[Darnell 8,478]

can't machista culture be overcome by women wielding boxcutters?

[C-ma'am 684]

Unlike a lot of Latin American countries, Argentina does not have a machista culture, Darnell. Hey! Our president is a bit%h... excuse me, a woman.

All the judges were paid to acquit the suspects. The trial took place at a very corrupt Province and the people involved are in very influential places.

The judges said that there wasn't just enough proof, and that the victims (the ones Marita's mother saved) were just prostitutes... So, basically their testimony wasn't valid.