Four Mexicans were arrested under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (2000) on 25 March, for trafficking girls into the United States and forcing them into prostitution. Under the Act they face a maximum of five years in jail with a US$250,000 fine. This is the first time the Act has been used in New Jersey.

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which came into force in the US in October 2000, created a new category of forced labour. It enables prosecution for 'sophisticated forms' of non-physical coercion used by traffickers against their victims.

The girls were trafficked from Mexico to the US. Lured by Delfino and Luis Jimenez-Calderon with promises of marriage and work in the US, they said they could get them to the US illegally and arrange work for them. Instead, the girls were delivered to Antonia Jimenez-Calderon and her sister Librada Jimenez-Calderon, who ran brothels in New Jersey.

The girls were forced to have sex with up to eight men a day and were beaten if they refused. They were also beaten if they spoke to each other, reports said. The brothel owners took all of the girls' earnings and sent them to the Jimenez-Calderons, who remain free, in Mexico.

Police uncovered the trafficking ring when they raided two houses, which they believed were being used as brothels. Initially they arrested three under-age girls for prostitution. After interviewing them however, they arrested the Jimenez-Calderon sisters and two other suspects, Maritzana Diaz Lopez and Angel Ruiz on the same charges.

The girls are now in custody in the state's child welfare agencies and are receiving help from the Federal Office of Refugee Assistance, which can provide visas to remain in the US or help them return to Mexico.

Under the Act, traffickers pay full restitution to victims as well as forfeit certain assets. In March last year, a landlord in Berkeley, California, Lakireddy Bali Reddy, was made to pay $2 million for trafficking girls from India whom he sexually abused and used as cheap labour.

 

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