Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation Between Venezuela and Ecuador.

Over half of all women in Latin America have suffered some form of violent act.33% of these women have been victims of sexual exploitation between the ages of 16 and 49. 45% of these women have been insulted and harassed.Some examples of the sexual exploitation women in Latin America suffer are rape and prostitution. Both rape and prostitution occur in trafficking networks between Ecuador and Venezuela.

"Venezuela is a country of destination for women for commercial sexual exploitation." Victims are recruited through job advertisements in major newspapers.Once gathered, these victims are trafficked abroad, "where their passports are taken away and they are prostituted in massage parlors and brothels."

Women and children are also trafficked into Venezuela. Children from Ecuador are trafficked into Venezuela to serve as prostitutes and work as street vendors and housemaids.The victims are usually children who are kidnapped, sold by their parents, or deceived by false employment opportunities. These children are first exploited through prostitution at the average age of 12. Children as young as 7 years old have been found to be sexually exploited. Of the 40,000 sexually exploited children in Venezuela, 78% are girls between the ages of 8 and 17.

Some 2,000 Girls Working as Prostitutes in Quito

Some 2,000 girls ranging in age from 11 to 16 work as prostitutes in Quito and a similar number are selling sex in the port city of Guayaquil, the Quito daily La Hora reported Monday. Poverty and a lack of employment opportunities are among the principal reasons why a growing number of minors are turning to prostitution in Ecuador, La Hora said.

The girls work in bars, cabarets, massage parlors, discotheques, brothels, strip-tease clubs and on the street, the newspaper said.

The precise number of underage girls working as prostitutes is impossible to calculate because many of the places employing underage prostitutes deny having minors working for them or hide juvenile workers, the newspaper said.

La Hora said the prostitution of minors also fuels other social problems including unwanted pregnancy, venereal disease, AIDS, drug and alcohol addition and crime.

Underage sex, driven by poverty, lures paedophile gringos to a place in the sun.

This city, on the north-east of Ecuador, is rich in indigenous culture, and rife with underage sex. Driven by poverty and lured by the prospect of wealthy gringo customers, girls as young as 12 prostitute themselves for as little as $2. "But I am already too old," says Adrianna, a pretty 17-year-old who has been working since she was 12. "Gringos prefer girls between 10 and 14."

Ecuador Suffers "Alarming" Levels of AIDS: Health Ministry

QUITO, Ecuador now has an "alarming" level of AIDS infections, with 18 of the country's 22 provinces reporting infections of the disease, the country's Health Ministry said on Tuesday.

The country reported nearly 76,000 cases of the deadly disease nationwide in 2004, although AIDS organizations say the true figure is much much higher.

The country's Health Ministry Spokesman Washington Aleman said the region of Guayas has the largest number of HIV infections and its capital Guayquil has the largest number of AIDS cases.

Aleman also said Ecuador had passed a law to help expectant mothers who have AIDS, saying attention should be paid to prevent their children from contracting the disease.

The disease was first detected in Ecuador in 1984, with eight people tested HIV-positive and six of them developing into full- blown AIDS.

U.N. Says Ecuador at "Appropriate Moment" to Act Against HIV/AIDS

Washington -- It is the right time for Ecuador to act to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS within its borders, says an official with the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF).

In an October 20 statement, UNICEF's Paul Martin said that although the incidence of AIDS in Ecuador -- a country of about 13 million people -- is low compared to sub-Saharan Africa, the disease is spreading at an "alarming rate," especially among women and children. Because of this, Martin said, "preventive action and education are needed so that the evolving history" of HIV/AIDS, "which has resulted in the current dramatic situation in several countries of sub-Saharan Africa, does not repeat itself" in Ecuador.

Martin said HIV/AIDS is affecting women and children in Ecuador at rates higher than ever before. Since 1984, there have been 5,630 officially recorded cases of HIV/AIDS in Ecuador, with 1,546 cases resulting in deaths, Martin said. In 1994, men had much higher rates of HIV/AIDS infection than women, with approximately seven men infected for every one infected woman, but in 2004 that ratio had been reduced to 2-to-1.

Of the 1800 cases of HIV/AIDS reported in Ecuador in 2003, more than 80 percent of the cases were in Ecuador's coastal region, with the majority of those cases in Guayas Province, whose capital is Guayaquil. The country's Sierra highlands region had 17 percent of the cases reported nationally, Martin said.

Overall in Latin America, Martin said, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the adult population of the region stands between 1.5 percent and 1.7 percent, as compared to sub-Saharan Africa's rate of 7.5 percent to 8.5 percent, the highest rate in the world.

Ecuador Suffers "Alarming" Levels of AIDS: Health Ministry

Ecuador now has an "alarming" level of AIDS infections, with 18 of the country's 22 provinces reporting infections of the disease, the country's Health Ministry said on Tuesday.
The country reported nearly 60,000 cases of the deadly disease nationwide in 2004, although AIDS organizations say the true figure could be much higher.

The country's Health Ministry Spokesman Washington Aleman said the region of Guayas has the largest number of HIV infections and its capital Guayquil has the largest number of AIDS cases.

Aleman also said Ecuador had passed a law to help expectant mothers who have AIDS, saying attention should be paid to prevent their children from contracting the disease.

The disease was first detected in Ecuador in 1984, with 180 people tested HIV-positive and 90 of them developing into full- blown AIDS.