WUNRN
Ecuador - Female Prisoners Rise from Drug Charges - "Mulas" |
Date:
03/03/09 |
By
Dominique Soguel |
Most of the women in a |
QUITO,
Ecuador (WOMENSENEWS)--Charmaine Graham said that in her other life, outside
this Quito jail for women, she owns a market stall and sells clothes in Saint
Catherine, Jamaica. But now the 45-year-old single mother faces criminal charges for "muling," the street term for individuals who transport drugs with little-to-no involvement in the business side of the trade. Graham says she traveled in January to On her last night in "The corset was black and was heavy," Graham said. "I had an idea. But they tailed my taxi to the airport. I was very scared." The corset carried 1.6 kilograms of alkaloids, a chemical molecule used in the production of cocaine. Two other non-Ecuadorean women were also arrested in January at the
international airport and are also now in One of them, Renata Ferencova, got caught at the airport on Feb. 8 with a backpack concealing two kilos of cocaine. She says she found the backpack abandoned under her table at a restaurant and that she picked it up because she liked it for her daughter. The third, Espinola Britez Mercedes Olinda, says she was tricked into carrying shampoo containers filled with cocaine base. Many Ways to Get Caught
After studying women's involvement in the illicit Andean drug trade for
years, Andreina Torres, a social scientist based in Delivery techniques, meanwhile, are being refined all the time. "Mulas on commercial flights typically ingest one to two kilos of
cocaine or heroine in capsules," said Torres, a researcher at For women who ingest the drugs, a punctured capsule could mean death by poisoning. Despite ongoing international crackdown pacts on coca cultivation in the
Andean countries of With While that deal may have contributed towards the latest spur in arrests of women as drug couriers, Torres sees a multi-decade trend that has changed the face of the female prison population in the region. Jailed Women Change Profile
"You see a growing presence of mulas in the jails," said Torres.
"In The overall female prisoner population of In this women's jail of Torres' research suggests that the spike in female muling could be an unintended side-effect of international antiterrorist measures following Sept. 11. Because those efforts focused on men, they may have driven up demand for female couriers, who are more likely to evade notice by immigration officials. Drug Industry Changed Shape
Even before 2001, Torres' research found that shifts in the illegal drug business were driving up women's active involvement. In the 1980s and 1990s the dismantling of major drug cartels was followed by a rise in smaller drug-dealing networks. In turn, these organizations created the conditions for multiple, relatively minor transactions in which women could play the part of couriers, displaceable and replaceable. Women with low-education and income, stay-at-home moms, could take on small roles, with large risks, and see quick returns, Torres research finds. The majority of the women she interviewed became involved as a result of romantic relationships with male drug dealers and traffickers. While women are most visible for their work as mules--one of the lowest status and most vulnerable positions in drug trafficking--women have also attained high-ranking status in the region's cartels. In 2008, a U.S. Treasury Department listing showed women holding a quarter to a third of positions of responsibility in the leadership of Colombian drug, money laundering and small arms cartels. |
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