Peruvian Slavery

293 Women and Girls Rescued

Recently, almost 300 women were freed during a three-day sex-trafficking rescue operation coordinated by Peruvian authorities in southeastern Madre de Dios.

During the operation, which took place between Friday, Sept. 30 and Sunday Oct. 2, 450 police officers and 16 prosecutors freed the women from sixty brothels.

According to Luis Alberto Otarola, deputy minister for Interior Order, many of the girls saved were “between 12 and 13 years old.”

The Human Trafficking Project, an online network which aims to raise awareness of modern day slavery, said, “Peru is considered the country of origin, transit and destination of human trafficking, with Peruvian women being sent to other countries for sexual exploitation.”

Ander Raz, Program Officer at Equality Now, an international human rights charity, working with grassroots anti-trafficking women’s organizations throughout the world to end violence and exploitation of women and girls, said: “The recent rescue of nearly 200 women and girls prostituted in the Amazon in Peru highlights a tiny part of the huge commercial sex industry”

Raz added that even “the remotest parts of the world are not immune from those seeking to profit from women’s bodies. Sex trafficking is an enormously lucrative business which is driven by demand and more often than not victims have little recourse to help and justice.”

Equality Now is bringing a civil case to the United States on behalf of several girls from Brazil who were “sexually exploited by clients of a fishing tour company run by a US citizen.”

“In order to address this global form of violence against women, there must be concerted efforts by all governments to tackle the causes of sex trafficking, including poverty, gender inequality, and the demand for prostitution that fuels the trade,” said Raz.

Read more at the Fresh Outlook.