7 News Belize

Resort Owner Fined for Trafficking 14 Year Old Girl
posted (August 17, 2012)
There is a human trafficking conviction to report tonight - and it involves a 14-year-old Guatemalan girl who was forced into prostitution.

The case started all the way back in January and ended this evening in San Ignacio Magistrate's Court. 35 year old Estella Pinelo was convicted of trafficking in persons for harboring a 14 year old girl for 5 months and forcing her to work at her establishment, the Riverside Resort in San Ignacio.

But the word work is really not appropriate for what this teenager was made to endure. The child was never paid, forced to prostitute herself, beaten, awakened at dawn to do menial chores, and locked in a room with the owner's special needs child.

The maximum sentence for such a conviction is five years in jail, but Chief Magistrate Anne Marie Smith showed leniency because Pinelo is nursing a four month old child: so instead of sentencing her to even the minimum of a year in jail, she imposed a ten thousand dollar fine.

DPP Cheryl Lyn Vidal prosecuted the case and had indicated she will file for an appeal of the sentence.

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