Rape tree

Rape trees are trees or bushes that mark where sexual assaults have occurred by arranging the victim's undergarments on or around the trees branches or on the ground.^[1] "Rape trees" are commonly and increasingly found along the United States and Mexico borders as illegal immigration grows.^[2][3] Immigrant females are particularly at risk of being assaulted by the typically male "coyotes" that illegally guide them through the border area.^[3][4][5] Violent crimes including rape are rarely reported as the victims fear they may be deported after coming forward. Women often seek out birth control methods to prevent pregnancy from anticipated sexual assaults.^[5] The marked trees serve to intimidate both the illegal immigrants being guided, as well as local citizens, that the human traffickers are willing and able to commit horrific acts of violence to gain compliance from victims and deter potential witnesses or rescuers.^[1][2]

While it is impossible to ignore thoroughly researched reports about the thousand of migrants that are ill-treated, abducted, and raped every year on their journey to the U.S.,^[6] the veracity of "rape trees" stories is questioned on three fronts:^[7]

• With a few notable exceptions, the sources of the reports are blogs, newsletters, and web sites of individuals or groups with an anti-immigrant agenda.
• Reports show images of female undergarments hanging in trees but not one provides any form of proof of rape. Those images alone are not proof of widespread rape. In normal police work, underwear in trees without a victim or witness does not lead to a rape investigation.
• The conjectures without victims, witnesses or other proof make a mockery of the very real subject of rape.

See also

• Illegal immigration to the United States
• Human trafficking

References