Central America

Central America refers to the region located in the southern part of North America that includes seven countries: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. Central America is known for its rich cultural heritage, natural beauty, and biodiversity. However, the region also faces significant challenges, including poverty, inequality, violence, and political instability. These challenges have contributed to high levels of migration from Central America to other parts of the world, including the United States.

 

Abused in the Search of a Better Life – The Plight of Smuggled Migrants
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Abused in the Search of a Better Life – The Plight of Smuggled Migrants

ByEyes on Trafficking News

Puntarenas, (Costa Rica), 18 February 2022 – Migrants who are smuggled through the dangerous Darien Gap region in Central America are regularly subjected to abuse, violence, and sexual assault, and women and girls are the primary victims. This week in Puntarenas, Costa Rica, experts from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), trained…

UNODC Highlights Lack of Justice for Migrants Abused on Smuggling Routes
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UNODC Highlights Lack of Justice for Migrants Abused on Smuggling Routes

ByEyes on Trafficking News

Vienna (Austria) 28 June 2021 Migrants who use smuggling networks to flee their home countries are often subjected to extreme violence, torture, rape and kidnapping while in transit or captivity. Despite the severity of these offences, little action is taken by national authorities and, in some cases, officials are complicit in these crimes. These are…

FROM THE FIELD: Trafficked teenager advocates for women’s rights in Central America
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FROM THE FIELD: Trafficked teenager advocates for women’s rights in Central America

ByEyes on Trafficking News

Maxwell Matewere, a Malawian crime prevention expert with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), has been active in the anti-human trafficking field for more than two decades. Today, he trains officials throughout Malawi to prevent and combat this crime: this year alone, despite COVID-19 restrictions, his work has led to the rescue of around three hundred human trafficking victims and 31 arrests.  

The impact of COVID-19 on human rights
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The impact of COVID-19 on human rights

ByEyes on Trafficking News

I want to focus on how COVID-19 has changed the structural environment in Latin America and what this means for human rights. Also, what it means for crime and anti-crime policies and consequently on human rights issues. Let me first start with those structural changes. Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic has had an effect so far…

Human trafficking cases hit a 13-year record high, new UN report shows
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Human trafficking cases hit a 13-year record high, new UN report shows

ByEyes on Trafficking News

“The report was undertaken for a simple reason: if we want to succeed in confronting human trafficking in all its manifestations, we must better understand its scope and structure,” said Yury Fedotov, UNODC’s Executive Director as he presented the report in New York. “We need to appreciate where human trafficking is happening, who are its…

Governments need to step up protection for the most vulnerable, from ‘vile crime’ of human trafficking: UN chief
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Governments need to step up protection for the most vulnerable, from ‘vile crime’ of human trafficking: UN chief

ByEyes on Trafficking News

“Trafficking in persons is a vile crime that feeds on inequalities, instability and conflict,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres in a statement, adding that traffickers “profit from peoples’ hopes and despair,” explaining that women and children are particularly vulnerable. According to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Inter-Agency Coordination Group against Trafficking (ICAT), more than…