TRAFFICKING OF PERSONS IN BELIZE - OAS

Once on the coast, the connections with the main highways of Belize are easy
to reach. Illegal migrants can then circulate freely toward north, with the
exception of some road controls. In many of the coast towns that this
researcher visited during the study, stories of ships coming from Honduras that
land illegally are very frequent.
However, it is probable that some of them have the only purpose of transporting
those people that want to pay a lower fee than the required at a regular
speedboat service and that are heading back to their plantation jobs. But, it is
also true that this route can also be used by human traffickers. Different sources
said that every week small boats arrive from Honduras and land on desolated
beaches or small bays near Hopkins, Seebite and Placencia.
C) The north, Corozal District and Orange Walk District.
Orange Walk grew a decade ago due to the sugar cane boom. It was in that
context that it attracted immigrants, night clubs and, hence, became one of the
cities with more brothels in the country, there were around forty of them. Today,
less than half of these “pubs”, “clubs” and “lounges” survive.
In the north, bordering Mexico, there is a migration post in Santa Elena, a
Belizean town next to a Free Zone protected by a wire fence. It offers very good
facilities and procedures are very strict. Anyhow, as in other places of the
country, migration officers pointed out that the territory has multiple vulnerable
points that can be taken advantage of by those who wish to avoid controls.
Some sources mentioned the route that goes through Belize, Chetumal (in
Mexico), Calderitas, Casa Cualcos, Soto La Marina, Tampico, Matamoros and
arrives to Raymondville in the United States; a route that avoids several
controls in Mexican land.
It is easy to enter illegally from Belize to Mexico in this area. On one hand, the
controls of land posts located near and in the Free Zone to reach the Mexican
city of Chetumal, are scarce. But if people don’t want to risk their transit by
46