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Dominican women in Costa Rica, victims of global sex and human trafficking, have reported being married to Costa Ricans to obtain Costa Rican citizenship before being taken to Europe or the United States for exploitation, according to representatives of the Rahab Foundation, a Costa Rican non-profit dedicated to ending human trafficking and aided its victims.
Networks dedicated to human trafficking apparently are using Costa Rica as a bridge for their global sex trafficking, as the women’s Costa Rican nationality facilitates their entry into other countries, explained Rahab Foundation director, Mariliana Morales.
Morales, founder of Rahab Foundation, said her field workers have “identified victims who leave countries such as the Dominican Republic and marry Ticos, and then travel to other parts of the world where they are exploited. They disguise them so that they can enter the United States or Europe.”
This organization is paying close attention to different social media networks, a main method for recruiting victims in the Central American region, added Morales.
“It’s a multi-million dollar business that has grown in recent years. Facebook is one of the favorite weapons of traffickers and pimps. They disguise themselves and start looking for teenagers and trick them into being caught. Many are raped and can not escape, some end up killed,” she said.
Morales says the country’s laws and enforcement related to such crimes are weak. The recent release of alleged sex tourism organizer from the U.S., David Frank Strecker, after he appealed charges brought against him in 2016, was a worrisome occurrence, said Morales, who asked, “What sense do laws have if they are not applied?”
After being sentenced in November 2016 to 5 years in prison for promoting and organizing sex tourism in Costa Rica by offering Costa Rica as a sex destination on social networks and the Internet, he was acquitted this August by the Second Judicial Circuit’s criminal court.
The court said there were not sufficient elements to condemn him, despite the fact that the Special Prosecutor’s Office against Gender Violence and Sexual Offenses presented evidence of how Strecker promoted the country as a destination for sexual and erotic activities on Facebook, YouTube and other websites.
So far in 2017, Costa Rican authorities have rescued about 30 people from trafficking for labor or sexual exploitation.
