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Victor R. Caivano / AP
A protester hurls a stone at police officers during a protest against the acquittal of 13 people accused in the disappearance of a young woman in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Dec. 12, 2012.
Victor R. Caivano / AP
Demonstrators and police officers clash during a protest against the acquittal of 13 people accused in the disappearance of a young woman in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2012.
The Associated Press reports — The acquittal on Tuesday of 13 people accused in the disappearance of Marita Veron, 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.
Susana Trimarco via AP
Susana Trimarco, right, poses with her daughter Marita Veron and her granddaughter Micaela, daughter of Marita, in 2002.
Trimarco was a housewife who paid scant attention to the news until her daughter, Marita, disappeared. After getting little help from police, Trimarco launched her own investigation after receiving a tip that Marita may have been abducted and forced into sex slavery. Trimarco visited brothels seeking clues and the search took an additional goal: rescuing sex slaves and helping them start new lives. But years of searching haven't led Trimarco to Marita. Read the full story.
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I wonder if these Judges have daughters or granddaughters?
Maybe these young ladies should enjoy an extended stay at some nameless Argentine bordello.
From a cold-hearted business perspective, I don't see the business sense in kidnapping girls at gunpoint to be forced in to prostitution for upscale VIP clientele. And the court / jury didn't find them guilty from a preponderance of evidence. There are ample young women who are happy to engage in prostitution and porn for the money and swag lifestyle of VIP johns. Pulling off armed kidnappings and then exposing VIP clients to the situation is just bad business. Why would they do it? The one brief witness account described a blonde haired blue-eyed girl as the victim in this case, whereas the victim is brown-haired and brown-eyed. It is stretching credulity to think this rather average girl is worth kidnapping at gunpoint, going to the trouble of disguising her identity in perpetuity, and hoping she doesn't go to the police or threaten a VIP client. There is too much risk for these lazy pimp losers to go through all that versus simply working with willing party girls. She probably befell a more common and dire fate at some point since she has never surfaced in all this time. Sad.
You whole argument is quite invalid, maybe YOU don't see the business sense in it, but the peoples perpetuating it do see it otherwise it would not happen in such a large scale.
http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/sexslaves.html
The business perspective is quite easy to grasp, more $ into the pockets of the trafficker and absolutely no $ for the woman.
You don't see the business sense in forcing women into prostitution against their will? You must lack common sense or you are morally corrupt. Forced prostitution and human trafficking are old and very common around the world. These judges are corrupted and cannot possibly be objective. Perhaps you can explain why each of the former "sex slaves" who have filed cases against their captors has lost? Mere coincidence or are they all liars, every one of them? Widespread corruption is far more likely. You need to do a little more reading on the subject because it happens everywhere...
Not very bright, Mike, are you? If you have a slave, you keep all the money and she works where, when, and how often at YOUR discretion. Doesn't work that way with free-lancers.
They want virgins ..not whores!
The pimps make all the money. I feel so sorry for the girls. They're life is a life of nothing but getting raped over and over and over again. They're better off dead.
Mike. Being a slave in South American brothels is a whole different experience from working summers as a high class hooker in the US, to put yourself through Engineering Scnool. The girls in the brothels get none of the money at all, their kidnappers keep it, that's their buiness model. Insted the girls are beaten regularly, own nothing, not even their little clothing, hardly get fed, have no life except the next crib, or the next creep, and never have a choice, then they die.
The college student gets all the money, picks her dates, takes a night off whenever she wants to, buys her own clothes and as many as she wants, eats well, lives in a nice apartment, owns a nice car, and doesn't have to pay off student loans. Then she gets a really good job, and probably raises a family. The two situations couldn't be more different.
Actually the witness described Marita as having been forced to dye her hair blonde and to wear blue contacts.
Mike, I don't want to sound nasty or snarky, but having done some research into trafficking in humans --58% of the victims are women and girls -- I can tell you that you're wrong: forcing women into prostitution is a highly profitable venture for those who lack a conscience. It's big business because the slavers don't have to pay the women, they don't have to ensure that they're not pimping minors, they don't have to worry about what the woman may or may not put up with: she has no choice, so anything the client wants, is available if he has the money. These women are treated like animals, and if they get sick, of if they end up with a violent client and wind up dead -- so what? There are no repercussions for the slavers, or the clients.
The victims come from every country in every corner of the globe, and they can be found in every country and every corner of the globe. Some are sold by their parents, some are kidnapped and shipped into an unfamiliar area so they don't know the language, the geography, have no friends, no one to rely on and nowhere to run. There are thousands of tales of women who are lured with promises of good jobs but who instead wind up as sex slaves. In a recent case that took place in Northern Spain, hundreds of East European women who came for legitimate jobs found themselves prostituting in brothels along the main cross-border routes between Spain and France. Their "owners" even tattooed a "barcode" on each woman's wrist, along with a dollar amount that they figured she owed them before they would let her go. Which would be never, of course.
If you'd like to learn more, the US State Department issues an annual report on trafficking in persons, or TIP. www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/2012/index.htm It's exhaustive, and frightening. It examines the slavery situation--not just for prostitution, but for any reason-- in every country, including the US, and measures the each government takes to address the problem.
Actually the witness described Marita as having been forced to dye her hair blonde and to wear blue contacts.
Mike, I don't want to sound nasty or snarky, but having done some research into trafficking in humans --58% of the victims are women and girls -- I can tell you that you're wrong: forcing women into prostitution is a highly profitable venture for those who lack a conscience. It's big business because the slavers don't have to pay the women, they don't have to ensure that they're not pimping minors, they don't have to worry about what the woman may or may not put up with: she has no choice, so anything the client wants, is available if he has the money. These women are treated like animals, and if they get sick, of if they end up with a violent client and wind up dead -- so what? There are no repercussions for the slavers, or the clients.
The victims come from every country in every corner of the globe, and they can be found in every country and every corner of the globe. Some are sold by their parents, some are kidnapped and shipped into an unfamiliar area so they don't know the language, the geography, have no friends, no one to rely on and nowhere to run. There are thousands of tales of women who are lured with promises of good jobs but who instead wind up as sex slaves. In a recent case that took place in Northern Spain, hundreds of East European women who came for legitimate jobs found themselves prostituting in brothels along the main cross-border routes between Spain and France. Their "owners" even tattooed a "barcode" on each woman's wrist, along with a dollar amount that they figured she owed them before they would let her go. Which would be never, of course.
If you'd like to learn more, the US State Department issues an annual report on trafficking in persons, or TIP. www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/2012/index.htm It's exhaustive, and frightening. It examines the slavery situation--not just for prostitution, but for any reason-- in every country, including the US, and measures the measures each government takes to address the problem.
The judges are apparently either customers of the prostitution ring, or are in on the take.
Both!
Anyone with a modicum of intelligence, which excludes 80% of the posters here and who has read the evidence, which excludes 19% more, would be aware that there wasn't enough evidence to convict despite the probability that they were guilty. It just wasn't enough. Anyone who thinks whether or not the judges have daughters should have an impact on this should never be allowed to breed and should be stoned. No not the good kind.
Unless you have access to information other than what was presented in this article -- which is next to none -- how do you know?
I'm thinking multiple eye witnesses should have sufficed, for most US courts.
Yes it is sad, and yes the sex trade is horrific in every sense of the word. But the second we give up the judicial process just because we don't like the person then we ourselves are all slaves who will be no better off then those girls.
If anyone can accuse you of horrific crimes and you are sentenced without any significant evidence against you, then any government official can force you to do anything they want or they will just accuse you of "sex crimes". People get so blinded by hate and anger that they don't see the horrible effects that will occur if they get what they want.
As for the sex trade itself it will not stop until it ceases to be profitable. "sex tourism" is a major revenue stream for many countries. Not every country has a lot of options as to how to make money. While the well paid out of touch government officials will say that they are doing everything they can to stop these crimes, some of these girls own mothers are helping to make sure these kind of things continue because it is their only source of money. Locking away the perverts who pay for this sort of thing and educating these girls so they can sustain themselves without having to cross borders seeking highly suspicious employment is the best way to end this.
I hear you fair but it is easy to feel the need to go outside the lines when it seems so futile!
fairisfair,I believe in the justice system bu Argentina has a corrupt one.Sometimes ours isn't any better.
And too many corporations have reduced what were the existing income streams for some of these countries.
Prostitution is legal in Argentina so one would assume that there are plenty of willing young women eager to earn big bucks. How is it that VIPs choose slaves instead? It must be that for many men, it's about power and degradation of women and "unusual" or painful acts, wanting to have sex with children, etc.
Despite the legalization in Argentina, this still goes on and the danger is still there for women and girls. And the crime is bad. A powerful argument against legalization in the US, no matter what the free-lance whores say. When a free-lancer (though many really aren't) goes off with a stranger, she's in danger and so is society.
hope the uproar doesn't get Marita killed
If I were her, death would be preferred.
She may still be hoping for escape or rescue and may not want to die. Especially the way they might plan it.
See "Silence Broken" a documentary about Korean "comfort women," sex slaves of the Japanese forces.
Rachel,
I completely fail to see your powerful argument against legalization.
You are aware that there are sex slaves in countries where prostitution is illegal, but in those countries prostitutes have no legal protection, are ostracized and prosecuted by the law in addition to being persecuted by pimps and clients. You think that's better.
And don't kid yourself, prostitution being illegal wont eradicate it. It just make it a whole lot more dangerous. There is a reason it's sometime referred as "the world's oldest profession". It's not going away.
The prostitution isn't the probem. The slavery and kidnapping and brutality and being forced to do things against ones will, is the problem. I'm pretty sure most of those things are still illegal in Argentina.
Sad to say after a decade I doubt this young woman is alive.
I cannot see a way to combat this issue effectively through legal means. The money, corruption, and perversion of this world make this type of trade very lucrative. Too many countries and cultures place a low value on the rights of women and children.
These people who perpetrate this disgusting trade need to be dealt with in a cruel and unlawful way!
Nobody wants to say that. But we all thought it.
At least there are people who protest corruption in other countries. This week, our country slapped HSBC bankers on the wrist who helped al-Qaeda financially and effectively helped them kill our young soldiers. Helped Iran spread unrest that's killed an American Ambassador and more. And not a single protest anywhere. Doesn't it make you wonder if all the anti-al-Qaeda trillions have been wasted if the bank's efforts on its behalf isn't very important?
This just shows the corruption that exists. The rich own the judges, politicians and police!......similar to the good-ole USA
I know how it can be stopped - implant a substance into females that can't hurt woman but makes men's dicks fall off when they have intercourse. That should do it!
What an idea. LOL Talking about justice that would certainly bring about a moral justice.
South and Central America is riddled with the sex slave problem. Currently American girls have been kidnapped and taken into Mexico for this revolting sex trade. Still American politicians would rather pander to the Spanish vote and people who profit from cheap illegal labor than protect Americans from what is coming over the border.
That is paid by Americans who go to Mexico to get laid. Do you think by sheer chance that the common South or Central American has the means to afford a prostitute? But wealthy Americans will pay with their dollars and do their 'escapades' so no one will question their ethics at home. Get a grip in life before blaming someone else you nitwit.
And you reap what you sow. Your name is fight for freedom? What Freedom? Yours at the expense of whatever happen South of the border? Your type of democracy and then support every corrupt government and coup d'etat South of the border to protect the 'American' interests? Hypocrite!
Absolutely correct. Prostitution makes the most money catering to tourists, moreso than the locals.
I suppose the same is true in Victorian England-best money comes from the upper class, and then all of a sudden you're a streetwalker with syphilis. :/
It isn't unique to Argentina. Happens all the time with Russian girls in Europe. It's revolting that the judges handed down an acquittal. Either they partake in the activity, or are afraid for their jobs, or their lives, or their families.
Argentina is epitome of socialism: out of control government spending, heavily in debted to foreign lenders, economy stuck in perpetual recession, rampant inflation, debased currency, low productivity, high taxes, and a corrupt socialist government.
In socialist Argentina, special privilege is accorded to the well-connected and well 'greased.'The outrageous court decision is a shield for the corrupt politicians, big business executives, and big brass cops who patronized many of Argentina's brothels. In Argentina the 'VIP' catagory includes high ranking politicians, big-name businessmen, and high level police officials. These notorious individuals may even have a financial stake in these well organized criminal syndicate as well as partake in their activities.
Argentina's socialist government is corrupt to the core. The disease has permeated even down to the cop-on-beat. Only Mexico's 'Federales' can give Argentina's cop a run for the money as to who is the most corrupt. In exchange for a bit of social safety net, the Argentinians look away when their leaders commit hideous acts or further erode personal liberties. For too many Argentinians, it is but a small price to pay for generous government handouts and other freebies.
But the day will come when the socialist politicians will have no more money to give, and the Argentinians will then realize that they have sold all their liberties for nothing.
Sold their liberties and their souls.
Prostitution should be made legal and upgraded to a respectable profession in this country. Personal use of pot in some form should also be made legal with some other drugs to follow if the experiment is successful. This would eliminate much of the crime associated with these illegal activities and free up much needed resources that can be redirected toward violent crime. Severe penalties could be used against violators who involve minors etc.
Nothing shocks me when you're talking about a country where dog walkers used to earn 4X what a civil engineer would earn. And that was a time and place before Cristina Kirchner, or her predecessor and late husband Nestor Kirchner, were elected president.