For Central American Women, Sexual Coercion Is Hazard on Route to U.S

[rodeodance]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38095-2004Dec5.html

For Central American Women, Sexual Coercion Is Hazard on Route to U.S

A Harsh Price to Pay in Pursuit of a Dream

By Mary Jordan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, December 6, 2004; Page A01


TECUN UMAN, Guatemala -- "If you come to my office and lie down with me, you can pass." That was the offer, Ileana Figueroa recalled, that taught her sex was the price of passage to the United States.

As she considered the Honduran border official's demand, Figueroa, 20, said she thought about her brother waiting for her in Miami, where he had promised she could earn unimaginable sums as a caretaker for the elderly. She thought, too, of how devastating it would be to return to her Honduran village and tell her family she had handed over their life savings to a smuggler for nothing.

So, the mother of two walked reluctantly into the checkpoint office on the Honduras-Guatemala border and shut the door. It was August 2003. "I didn't want to be a failure. I wanted to go to Miami," said Figueroa, her brown hair tied in a ponytail.

When the official was finished with her, Figueroa continued her journey north. But after just one week, she was caught in Mexico and deported, poorer than when she set out and too ashamed to return home. She ended up in this shabby but fast-paced town near the Mexico-Guatemala border, sleeping in the back of a saloon and selling her body for $6 a customer.......

[Bono71]

1. That's terrible. Man, these guys really want to come here.

[derby378]

2. Honduras could use a Second Amendment real bad...

[Jack_DeLeon]

3. I dont see how paying with sex is any more wrong that paying with money...

if you are going to bribe a government official or any person why is paying with sex anymore wrong than paying with money?

Its a choice. The alternative is not to take the trip at all, but they all always had that choice in the first place.

[Samurai_Writer]

4. Bribing an official??? Did you even read this?

It was the official who DEMANDED that she have sex with him, so she could go across the border. If the official was doing his JOB instead of soliciting poor young women for sex, she most likely would have returned to her village, and not be selling herself for $6 a pop in Mexico now.

[Jack_DeLeon]

5. Admitedly...

bribes are generally illegal, and the official broke the law by even letting the woman in illegally.

That being said why was it more wrong for him to be paid illegally with sex instead of money?

As for the woman's situation, regardless of whether the offical did his job properly or not the woman always had the choice to stay in her village. The article pretty much implied that she could have returned to her village after she was deported from Mexico, however it was her choice not to because she was ashamed.

[On the Road]

7. There's a Huge Difference

A bribe will set you back financially. Coerced sex can ruin your emotional life for years. They're not at all comparable.

[Blue_Tires]

6. very sad