More than 3,000 Honduran Victims of Human Trafficking

Tegucigalpa, Dec 18. -At least 3,500 Hondurans were victims of human trafficking during 2010, as reported in a meeting on the issue in session in Tegucigalpa on Thursday.

Most cases have been women and children, as they are more vulnerable to sexual and labor exploitation, said Deputy Foreign Minister Alrden Rivera in the meeting "Human Trafficking: Coordinated Responses from the State, and International Cooperation."

According to Rivera, this phenomenon has intensified in Honduras, linked to an increase in the migratory wave, mainly of people who leave the country for the United States.

Nearly 75,000 people have left the country this year, five percent of them allegedly victims of human trafficking, he said.

Parallel to the migration increase there has also been a rise in reports of people missing in the process.

He said that right now, offices of consular affairs of the Foreign Ministry have about 600 files of families who lost contact with their relatives in 2010, including 32 Hondurans victims of the massacre in Tamaulipas, where 72 illegal immigrants of Central and South America were killed. (Prensa Latina)