“We work towards building a society capable of negotiate all differences without the use of violence or submission. Our philosophy is based on the need for accountability of the aggressors or criminals, not as a form of revenge or with the desire of torture or punishment, or even death penalty in which we do not believe. On the contrary we believe in the possibility of teaching social empathy, of empowerment of women and children as a way to build a safe and healthy world for all. We believe that restoring the soul and dignity of human beings is probably the only way to renovate a broken and violent country as Mexico. Violence, impunity, and the lack of trust in our government, breaks the souls of girls, boys, women and men so trained for decades to servile behavior towards the powerful and the rich. We are here… women and men of CIAM CANCUN to restore our own souls while walking the path with survivors of violence. Our dream is to build a safe country for all. To recall our dignity”

THE WORK	INVESTIGATION
CHILDREN SCHOOL	SECURITY
THE KITCHEN	GENDER AND VIOLENCE
WHAT IS TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS	CHILD PORNOGRAPHY

CIAM CANCUN Shelter for Battered Women and children believes that violence against women is rooted deep within our culture. It originates from within the same social fabric of institutional oppression, which spawns racism, ageism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, religious bigotry, all forms of slavery, and discrimination. We started working in the community twenty years ago as a group of feminist women, specialized in civil and women´s rights workshops. In 1999 we decided to create a Crisis Center and a Shelter to provide protection for women and their children in a country where battering, sexual violence and trafficking of persons where –and in some cases still are- not considered crimes, therefore had no punishment. We immediately experienced immense resistance from local and state government agents.


CIAM CANCUN seeks to strike a balance between offering professional and caring services to diverse victims while working toward a social change and the accountability of the cultural facilitators of gender violence. We are committed to providing shelter, safety and advocacy for all the individual victims of battering, sexual violence, and trafficking of people.  At the same time, we understand the necessity of action to move toward the elimination of social oppression and all form of violence and discrimination.

Culture, corruption and impunity

Because violence against women is so deeply rooted in our culture, we recognize the need for a multi-faceted approach to the issue, including development of an effective response to the criminal justice, medical, religious, and social systems. We believe it is necessary to raise community awareness through publicizing the issue and through education in our schools and community organizations including tourism specialists.
We believe in the need to expose those who protect criminals and with the use and abuse of public power, feed the impunity system, because in doing so they breach public trust and strengthen corruption networks as a form of government.
Particularly in Quintana Roo, Mexico we at CIAM CANCUN work daily in exposing corruption and impunity of local and federal authorities. Transparency international issued a report of the inefficacy of the justice system. As a result we know that 82% of all crimes reported by citizens are never investigated and that leaves the victims of crimes in a more vulnerable state, even worst than that in which they were before the crime was committed against them. In Cancun and Acapulco, both touristy and high migration centers, 93% of all crimes go unpunished.
Finally, we recognize that every person carries the cultural seed out of which oppression rises and violence begins. We believe that each of us, as individuals, must take responsibility to look within ourselves to identify our own attachment to beliefs and values which justify another’s violence. We believe that change must start there, within ourselves. And so we work at it with dedication, great respect of the victims and of ourselves the workers, and with transparency and professional efficiency.

Our Intervention Model is based on the above principles. It is Holistic in every sense of the word. The core of our institution is the Victim, and she or he (if he is a minor with his mother) develops personal tools to become a survivor and work trough Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and all related disabilities. Every day we see women and children that safely and securely rebuild their lives, becoming teachers of peace.

Funding and transparency
As a nonprofit organization Ciam Cancun is registered under Mexican  federal law (Secretaria de Hacienda y Credito Publico) obtaining the Tax Incentive for donors permit of Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores No.3100797 file # 0131000794  folio 1159 of April  6th  year 2001. Under the name: “Centro Integral de Atención a las Mujeres  CIAM Cancún A.C”. It was registered with  Notary public No. 20 Lic. Benjamín de la Peña Mora in Cancún, Quintana Roo and was legally constituted under Public Property Registry on March 19th  del 2002 as public document number 15572. Establishing CIAM Cancun A.C as a non profit organization able to receive tax deductible donations, from Mexico and other countries, under SAT authorization No.00043/2003. It was published in the official Congress newspaper (Diario Oficial de la Federación) on Wednesday November 26th 2002 first section page 303. CIAM Cancun A.C is also registered at the Federal Registry of Social development Secretariat (Secretaría de Desarrollo Social SEDESOL) under the national Transparency Laws of Non Profit organizations code (CLUNI) No. CIA02031923017. Mexican IRS number (Registro Federal de Contribuyentes) (RFC) CIA0203199C7.

Governance
CIAM Cancun is governed by the Board of Directors constituted by seventeen highly representative members of society that have a common and collective responsibility and social morals for good business practice. The board is responsible of looking after the good operation of our institution, taking the decisions that favor and promote the organizational development and to maintain the spirit for which it was founded. To establish and to modify the statutes that will govern the work of the institution, to assure transparency and accountability. Every year the Board votes within its members on the appointment of three eminent persons as the board of trustees who review the results of internal statistics and of financial auditing.
The Board and the Executive Director share the decision making and good governance of private and public funds. The Board is also actively engaged in the process of reviewing the annual budget and of decision making in high risk situation regarding special cases (as child pornography or slavery and trafficking of girls and women and strategies on how to cope with state corruption).
In terms of transparency CIAM Cancun has two annual audits (one internal and one external). Members of our organization worked as lobbyists to develop Public Policies in Federal government in order to change laws and to label public funding for Shelters. It is also responsible for reviewing -in our quarterly meetings- the ethical governance practices, accountability, transparency, good governance, and respect for cultural values and Human Rights. The Board and CIAM team coordinators are responsible to set standards for the investment of donor funding and the development of guidelines on the ethical code, as well as of the creation of a monitoring and evaluation mechanism for the code of conduct.

CIAM Cancun and Trafficking In Persons (TIP)

Since the first victims of exploitation sexual or labor, came to our center   years ago, we understood we where facing another form of violence related with the slavery of women and children. In some cases the victims had been sold by their families from impoverished areas in Yucatan, Oaxaca, Campeche, Chiapas in Mexico. We also attended victims from Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and even from Venezuela, and Argentina. They survived the unthinkable and ended up asking for help or being saved by others in Cancun. Most of these victims, asked for services at CIAM not because of the trafficking related crimes, but because they where living some sort of violent relationship with a third party, and it wasn’t until we did a proper assessment of their pattern of violence when we discovered TIP issues. Some victims were, in fact, rescued by others and taken to the center for protection.

TIP
Before the issue of TIP was in the media, we understood Quintana Roo was a paradise for traffickers, due to its tourism centered economy and the lack of efficient mechanisms to control the immigration unsteadiness. Trafficked victims reported their arrival to Cancun, Chetumal, and Playa del Carmen by land, air or by sea. Corruption of immigration officials, border police and the Military plays a key role in the efficiency and growth of TIP in the southern border of Mexico, increasing exponentially the risk for victims and those who protect them. The link between drug and gun trafficking -and TIP- is quite fine, as in many cases we have discovered the use of women and kids for drug trafficking, and selling them afterwards for extra money to other dealers.

The description of TIP adopted by CIAM Cancun:
Trafficking in human beings is the recruitment, transportation, transfer   harboring or receipt of people for the purpose of exploitation. Trafficking involves a process of using illicit means such as threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability.
Exploitation includes persons forced into prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs. For children exploitation may include also, illicit international adoption, trafficking for early marriage, recruitment as child soldiers, for begging, and in Mexico internal TIP of minors is specially noted from rural areas to city middle and upper class homes for domestic servitude.
VICTIMS RIGHTS
Following on the steps of the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW) that was founded 1994, CIAM Cancun A.C developed certain tools within our program for victims of gender violence, that are useful for all victims but work specially well in victims of TIP. 
-Centering the human rights of trafficked persons and those in vulnerable situations, in all anti-trafficking activities;
-Acknowledging the equality of all persons to exercise, defend and promote their inherent, universal and indivisible human rights
-Non-discrimination on any grounds, including ethnic descent, age, sexual orientation or preference, religion, gender, age, nationality and occupation (including work in the informal sectors such as domestic work, sex work, etc.)
-Primacy of the principles of accountability, participation and inclusivity, non-discrimination in working methodologies, and organizational structures and procedures. In this respect, self-representation and organization of those directly affected by trafficking are strongly encouraged and supported.
INVESTIGATION
AND UNIQUE SPECIAL APROACH OF CIAM CANCUN A.C
Ciam Cancun is a project that evolved from several previous projects, lead by journalist and activist Lydia Cacho Ribeiro, Claudia Fronjosá, Magdalena Medina, Irma Mencarini, Edith Rosales, Fernando Espinosa de los Reyes and a group of other feminists. At present time we are joined by leading social actors of all the community and a magnificent team of 26 staff members. 
These initial projects where centered on human rights, women’s and children rights, civil rights and a need to transform the laws and the justice system of Mexico. Since the very beginning, the media played a special role in the development of our actual model. Journalism demands the ability of serious and formal investigation, and the search for the truth, the need to reconfirm certain information trough several sources, and the ability of the journalist to stay alert and protect him/her self from dangers inherent to the profession. Safety plans are important in this field. So we applied all these principles to our Model.
The initial group named “Estas Mujeres” had a radio show in public state radio for almost 5 years. That allowed us to work with a wide range of population. The program was centered on women’s rights and the right for a life free of violence. Most of them were community leaders in their fields and all looked for a space in the media as a group strategy. By 1993 all 8 members of the group where writing a weekly column on local media and doing grassroots work.
We understood the need for capacity building in the group, so each specialized in a certain area. Lydia Cacho did so in investigative journalism and the justice system. Celina Izquierdo, another member is in 2007 the leader of the Habitat Observatory for Violence in Benito Juarez County where Cancun is. Maria Rosa Ochoa worked in cultural issues, Priscilla Sosa in Ecologic and Gender issues, Bettina Cetto in political and Gender issues and publishing. Miren de Izaurieta in Psychology. Myriam Cacho in psychology and alternative medicine, etc.
Paulette Ribeiro, Lydia Cacho´s Mother was a well know psychologist that trained the group for a long time in several areas of victim protection, workshop instrumentation and the creative development of tools for working and advance in effective ways in a violent and corrupted country. Including the importance of emotional and spiritual health of the team (respectful of any or non religious faith). 
  RULE # 1:
                  Never underestimate the power of corruption.
To develop a model that could be effective in short and long term in Cancun, Mexico, we studied and assessed for years the following areas:

• The legal system and the need for new laws and implementation
• The map or violent crimes and lack of statistics
• Characteristics of victims and aggressors
• The local and State police department  corruption and effectiveness
• Immigration services corruption and effectiveness
• State social services
• Health services for victims of violence
• Media as a source of information and as a network to investigate crimes.
• Number of Youth Gangs and areas where they develop
• Organized crime involvement with government agents and business man
• Danger assessment on filing crimes to different police depts.
• Interpol and Europol as a protection source in case of emergencies
• National and International NGOs as information and protection networks.
• Effective Shelters in Mexico, New York, Texas and Spain. Strengths and weaknesses in different victim protection protocols.
• New and effective approaches to overcome Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in different medical areas, Traditional Medicine, Alternative and  Modern Medicine.
• Chances and strategies to overcome poverty due to violence and inexistent or weak Public Policies regarding gender issues. (Education of victims, studies, capacity building, access to a safe work environment)
• Political protection international asylum for victims of gender violence

• How to rescue and protect victims in case they are threatened by organized crime, state agents, wealthy businessmen, traffickers or foreigners.
• Effective internal capability to profile criminals and execute immediate response for team safety and security-emergency plans.