“Rape Trees” Frame Arizona-Mexico Border: Grim Reminders o...

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A recent report from the Cronkite News Service, a student-run news service of Arizona State University, shed the national spotlight on a new immigration problem plaguing the desert border towns of Arizona: so called “rape trees,” trees on the U.S. side of the border littered with women’s undergarments. Mexican drug cartel members and the coyotes, who smuggle immigrants across the border, are believed to rape the women as soon as they enter U.S. territory to instill fear, intimidate and control them. When the coyote-rapists are finished, they hang the women’s panties from the trees as trophies to mark their brutal conquests. These “rape trees” are becoming more common along the Arizona border counties of Pima and Cochise, as coyotes and drug cartel members find human trafficking more lucrative than drug smuggling. With the shrinking U.S. economy and high un-employment rate, fewer and fewer Mexican immigrants are crossing the borders for work. As the Mexican authorities push back against the drug cartels, it’s getting harder to smuggle drugs across the border. The result is the increased smuggling of young women, who are immediately forced into prostitution and slavery.

source: http://chattahbox.com/us/2009/03/15/%E2%80%9Crape-trees%E2%80%9D-frame-arizona-mexico-border-grim-reminders-of-human-trafficking/