Human trafficking in Argentina is the illegal trade in persons for purposes of reproductive slavery, sexual exploitation, forced labor, organ removal, or any form of modern slavery.
It is an international crime against humanity and violates human rights. It is considered a modern form of slavery.Esclavos en Europa, Ignacio Ramonet, Le Monde diplomatique, Nº: 189 Julio 2011 Worldwide it is ranked third among felony crimes, behind arms and drugs trafficking. It accounts for the movement of more than $32 billion worldwide. A United Nations international protocol against human trafficking has been signed by 117 different countries, among them Argentina. This treaty obligates the countries that are party to it to prevent and combat human trafficking and to assist and protect the victims of it. It also encourages countries to cooperate among themselves to achieve these objectives.
In Argentina this crime is punishable by law. There are many laws that cover this problem, but the crime continues to occur. An important legal development in this area was the enactment of law number 26.364, which tries to achieve what this international protocol seeks and provides penalties of 3 to 15 years in prison.
Despite being a serious felony, in Argentina there are no official statistics on this crime, only for cases prosecuted. But it is known that the country is a source, transit and destination for trafficking. As a means of preventing trafficking, in July 2011 the government issued an order that banned the publication of explicit advertisements of sexual solicitation in the newspapers.
A study from 2012 showed that trafficking for sexual exploitation is changing to evade the law, by allowing exploited women to keep their identification documents or allowing them to leave the location of exploitation, to make the trafficking more difficult to prove.
U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons placed the country in "Tier 1" in 2018 and 2023. US Government website, Trafficking in Persons Report 2023
In 2023, the Organised Crime Index gave the country a score of 5 out of 10 for human trafficking. Organised Crime Index website, Argentina: 2023
Basic elements of trafficking "Recruitment"; this can be by deception or by force, and involves a recruiter. "Transport"; from here to the site of exploitation, the victim is subjected to coercion. Transfer may be between regions or other countries. Colluding in this process are transporters, corrupt officials, and intermediaries to the trafficking. The "operation"; here the victim is subjected to exploitation by the pimp or the operator, who takes a totally illegal right of property over the victim.
Federal legislation There are many laws that touch on the theme of trafficking; historically the Ley Palacios of 1913 was the first law in the protection to protect victims of sexual exploitation and slavery, as well as to punish those responsible. It was the first legislation in the entire American continent and signified a great advance in human rights in the country. The International Day Against Human Trafficking commemorates the enactment of this law.Día Internacional contra la Trata de Personas [Argentina.com.ar], AEN. 25 de Septiembre de 2009
Argentina, as a signatory to the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, on April 29, 2008 passed Law 26.364 for the Prevention and Punishment of Trafficking in Persons and Assistance to its Victims. According to the dictates of international protocol and emphasizing care and rights of victims and differentiating between adults and minors. It is in accordance with the codes of international protocol and places emphasis on assistance and rights of victims and their differentiation between adults and minors.
Law 26.364 defines trafficking as:
Victims can not be punished for committing any offense that is a direct result of being trafficked. In the case of foreigners, no sanctions are applied nor can their contracts be voided because of infractions of immigration legislation if the violations are due trafficking. This law sets criminal and procedural rules, with penalties of 3–6 years in the case of trafficking of adults and 4 to 10 years if there are aggravating circumstances such as: The person who commits the crime is parent or grandparent, spouse, related in a direct line, brother, guardian, person living, tutor, in charge of education or a caretaker, minister of any religion recognized or not, or public official; The act was committed by three or more people in an organized manner; There were three or more victims.
Victims Trafficking generates victims who in the majority of cases live under inhuman conditions; to be a victim of trafficking involves slavery, in which the trafficker gains a totally illegal right of property right over the victim or reduces her to the level of indentured servitude for the purpose of economic exploitation. In Argentina the most common victims of forced labor are in underground sweatshops are textile or as farm laborers and in other cases domestic workers. As for sexual exploitation that principally affects women, adolescents, and children, they are mostly found in the country's brothels.
Forced labor Forced labor includes a variety of trades, but the sectors most affected are rural and textile labor.
Textile industry According to the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INDEC – Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos), unregistered labor in the apparel industry approaches 75%. According to Gustavo Vera, president of the cooperative La Alameda (which represents and defends textile workers), "We know that there are about 3,000 underground sweatshops in the Capital Federal" and he adds "There are also some 15,000 underground sweatshops in the first tier of the Buenos Aires suburbs and several thousand more in Greater Buenos Aires, Rosario, Mendoza and Córdoba. These workshops include a population of about 200,000 people who are reduced to forced labor or slave labor, which is the same as forced labor but worse, because the will of the workers is controlled 24 hours a day by the employer."
According to the Bureau of International Labor Affairs, Argentina is classified among the 74 countries in which child labor and forced labor is still practiced today. The Bureau's List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor mentions "garments" as one of 11 other products in Argentina. Furthermore, in one of its reports on the worst forms of child labor, The U.S. Department of Labor states that "Argentina has not adopted a list of hazardous occupations that are prohibited to children, and appears to lack programs that target working children in all relevant sectors."
Rural In Argentina, one of the first protections of the farm laborer was born in 1940 with the enactment of the Estatuto del Peón [Statute of farm laborers] which gave wage laborers (jornaleros) all the rights of workers (trabajadores). Later, complementary laws were added. The government of Cristina Kirchner signed the conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO) prohibiting the forced recruitment of manual labor for the rural labor force. However, there still exist recruiting networks that through deception or physical coercion recruit people who are typically in a vulnerable situation. And they are recruited from marginal rural areas of Santiago del Estero, Chaco, Tucumán, Catamarca and Jujuy and from migrant workers from bordering countries such as Chile, Bolivia, and Paraguay. And then they are taken to areas where they do hard labor and live in subhuman conditions. These situations violate the Protocol of San Salvador treaty and International Labour Conference Convention 184.
Sexual abuse
History Sexual exploitation was born in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata before the country was even created. After independence in 1875, a law was made regulating prostitution, preventing prostitution of minors, but allowing it if the children were initiated early into this activity.
In the late nineteenth century, "European slavery" rings were established that provided Jewish women from Central Europe and Russia, who were sold in a sham marriage to a ruffian. They sought to escape poverty and antisemitism that they suffered. And in this country, they were forced into prostitution or sold to another pimp. In the early twentieth century, these trafficking organizations tightened their ties with power. This was in order to be protected by law or to avoid problems in case of breaking laws or deception. Because of their great accumulation of wealth through "kickbacks", they accomplished their mission. Among the customers it is possible to highlight periods of intense European migration that brought primarily single men as main consumers of trafficking, although upper-middle class Argentinians also had a high level use of prostitution. By the early twentieth century, there was one major international trafficking ring: La Migdal, or Zwi Migdal, of Jewish origin, formerly called the Warsaw Jewish Mutual Aid Society. The ring came to an end in 1929 when Raquel Liberman, one of thousands of Polish immigrants enslaved in brothels, reported the organization to the authorities. The complaint was taken by a judge, Manuel Rodríguez Ocampo. Especially since another 150 previous complaints were not successful either because of violence against the accusers or police and judicial corruption. This trial against the organization made it possible to make public the treatment suffered by the victims.
After several periods of closure and opening of brothels, from June 24, 1965, Law 16.666 was put into effect that the practice of prostitution is open and not subject to any form of regulation. This law is in effect to the present day.
In practice, this criminal activity is organized on a grand scale and is frequently associated with the illegal drug trade and with arms trafficking. Much of this crime is organized on a global level.
Current status At present, Argentina is a source, transit, and destination location for trafficking, which means that the victims can be Argentinian or from other countries, that they go through this country, and that some have this as the destination to be illegally exploited.
"Reclutadores" (recruiters) capture the victims through deception or abduction, assisted by "marcadores" (markers) who pick the victims. Then the circle closes with the "proxenetas" (pimps) who get their profit from the sexual exploitation of victims. And finally the "regentes" (managers) or madames of brothels. There are also carriers and secondary dealers concerned with protecting this whole criminal system. In some cases there is some kind of collusion between members of the police, judges, and politicians.
The province of the country in which the most women are recruited is Entre Ríos, followed by Misiones, Corrientes, Chaco, Santa Fe and Tucumán; usually victims are rotated through brothels across the whole country. The list of destinations includes Buenos Aires and Cordoba, at the head of the list of destinations chosen by the rings, along with La Pampa, Chubut, Santa Cruz and Tierra del Fuego. There are also links to international rings, especially the route to Spain, where young Tucuman women were rescued.
Recruitment There are many recruiting methods but all are either "soft", based on fraud and deception, or "hard", based directly on kidnapping the victims.
Kidnapping: in this crime women are identified and marked. Later they are kidnapped from off the street, they are drugged and transported to a place where they are repeatedly violated for the purpose of sexually exploiting them later. Those who offer resistance are threatened with harming or killing her family.