Human Trafficking News and Updates Feed

IOM reports child trafficking and labor trafficking cases are rising

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 19:05:00 GMT

Child victims of human trafficking helped by IOM increased to 2,040 in 2011, up 27 per cent from 1,565 in 2008, according to new IOM data.

It shows that the number of adult victims referred to 89 IOM missions in 91 countries during the same period rose 13 per cent to 3,404 from 3,012.

While the number of female victims remained stable at 3,415, compared to 3,404 in 2008, the number of male victims rose 27 per cent to 2,040 from 1,656, reflecting growing public recognition of the trafficking of men for the purpose of labour exploitation.

Labour trafficking cases rose 43 per cent to 2,906, up from 2,031 in 2008. In contrast, cases of trafficking for sexual exploitation dropped 19 per cent to 1,507 from 1,866 four years earlier.

International trafficking cases fell 13 per cent to 3,531 in 2011, down from 4,066 in 2008. But domestic cases shot up 140 per cent from 713 in 2008 to 1,708 last year.

The fall in international cases may reflect more efficient immigration and border controls, while the increase in the number of domestic cases may reflect greater public awareness of trafficking and improved domestic law enforcement, according to IOM Head of Counter Trafficking Laurence Hart.

Out of a total of 5,498 victims helped by IOM in 2011, 1,606 were in Europe, 1,049 in South and Central Asia, 984 in the Western Hemisphere, 860 in East Asia and the Pacific, 696 in the Middle East and 303 in Africa, according to IOM 2012 Case Data on Human Trafficking: Global Figures and Trends.

Roughly a third (36 per cent) of cases involved children under the age of 18. Nearly two thirds (62 per cent) of the total were women and a little over a third (37 per cent ) were men.

In Europe, Asia and the Pacific, Central and Southern Asia, women outnumbered men by roughly two to one. In the Middle East, the Western Hemisphere and Africa, the gender gap was less pronounced.

The top ten countries of destination for human trafficking victims helped by IOM in 2011 were the Russian Federation (837), Haiti (658), Yemen (552), Thailand (449), Kazakhstan (265), Afghanistan (170), Indonesia (148), Poland (122), Egypt (103) and Turkey (101).

The top ten countries of origin for victims were Ukraine (835), Haiti (709), Yemen (378), Laos (359), Uzbekistan (292), Cambodia (258), Kyrgyzstan (213), Afghanistan (179), Belarus (141) and Ethiopia (122).

In Europe, IOM Ukraine recorded the most victims assisted with 814 of the total. Belarus recorded 142, Moldova 98 and Germany 69.

In Central and South, Asia Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan topped the totals, accounting for 202, 204 and 199 cases respectively.

In the Western Hemisphere, IOM helped 656 victims in Haiti, 65 in the United States and 49 in the Dominican Republic.

In Asia and the Pacific, Thailand accounted for 260 cases, Laos for 195, Cambodia for 122 and Vietnam for 102.

In the Middle East, IOM offices recorded 513 cases in Yemen and 100 in Egypt. In Africa IOM handled 47 cases in Tanzania, 45 in Uganda, 44 in Ethiopia and 32 in Mali.

IOM provides a wide range of services to help victims of human trafficking, including shelter, medical and legal assistance, vocational training, assisted voluntary return to the country of origin, and reintegration assistance once they return home.

Click here to read the full International Organization for Migration 2011 Case Data on Human Trafficking: Global Figures & Trends.

Adapted from “Child Trafficking and Labor Trafficking Cases Rising: IOM,” International Organization for Migration, 3 April 2012.

UN General Assembly President calls for redoubled efforts to end human trafficking

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 13:12:00 GMT

The President of the 66th United Nations General Assembly His Excellency Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser today called on Member States, civil society, the private sector and the media to step up efforts to bring an end to human trafficking, calling it "an appalling form of human rights abuse".

"Human trafficking denies individuals their dignity, reducing them to mere objects by shamelessly exploiting them," he said.

His Excellency Al-Nasser was speaking at the United Nations Headquarters in New York during an interactive dialogue on human trafficking organized by UNODC and the Group of Friends United Against Human Trafficking (which comprises 21 Member States) as a follow up to the 2007 Conference on Trafficking in Women and Girls.

The forum, which brought together senior United Nations officials, Member States representatives and anti-human trafficking activists discussed partnerships and innovation in protecting victims of human trafficking; and the role of governments, international organizations, the private sector and civil society in providing assistance to victims of human trafficking. Participants identified existing challenges in implementing the 2010 United Nations Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons, and looked at ways of improving the international community's coordinated efforts to end human trafficking.

His Excellency Al-Nasser said the fund set up to support victims of human trafficking as a result of the Global Plan of Action is already making a crucial difference in the lives of victims all over the world, but more needs to be done.

"I thank those Member States who have generously contributed to the United Nations Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Human Trafficking, however the funds received to date are not enough. The Trust Fund needs strong and continued support if it is to succeed as an engine for the delivery of assistance to victims," he said. The Trust Fund, created in 2011 and managed by UNODC, provides critical on-the-ground humanitarian, legal and financial aid to victims of trafficking.

Mr. Yury Fedotov, UNODC Executive Director reported that since the Trust Fund was created, around $1 million has been pledged, with around $470,000 contributed. In the first tranche, awards of up to US$25,000 were given to 11 NGOs.

Mr. Fedotov added that funds received so far have supported the provision of educational, medical and psycho social assistance to child victims of trafficking in Cambodia; assisted victims in Albania through a reintegration program, and supported a Nepalese NGO almost entirely staffed by the survivors of human trafficking.

Mr. Fedotov called for a coordinated and meaningful response to human trafficking, noting that due to the multifaceted nature of human trafficking, and its close connections with other transnational issues, no country is capable of combating this transnational threat on its own.

He added that tackling human trafficking needs to balance progressive and proactive law enforcement with activities that combat the market forces driving human trafficking in many destination countries.

"We have the partnerships, we have the necessary innovation, we must now bring this shameful crime to an end," said Mr. Fedotov.

One of the most lucrative forms of organized crime, human trafficking generates $32 billion annually, rivalling the profits reaped by the illicit trade in arms and drugs. According to UNODC data, women comprise two thirds of trafficking victims. At any given time, an estimated 2.4 million people are trapped in human trafficking.

The outcome of the interactive dialogue will be a President's Summary which will provide substantive contribution to the 57th Commission on the Status of Women in 2013.

Adapted from “UN General Assembly President calls for redoubled efforts to end human trafficking,” UNDOC, 3 April 2012.

U.N.: 2.4 Million Human Trafficking Victims

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 13:11:00 GMT

The UN crime-fighting office announced that 2.4 million people across the globe are victims of human trafficking at any one time, and 80 percent of them are being exploited as sexual slaves.

Yuri Fedotov, the head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, told a daylong General Assembly meeting on trafficking that 17 percent are trafficked to perform forced labor, including in homes and sweat shops.

He said $32 billion is being earned every year by unscrupulous criminals running human trafficking networks, and two out of every three victims are women.

Fighting these criminals "is a challenge of extraordinary proportions," Fedotov said.

"At any one time, 2.4 million people suffer the misery of this humiliating and degrading crime," he said.

According to Fedotov's Vienna-based office, only one out of 100 victims of trafficking is ever rescued.

Fedotov called for coordinated local, regional and international responses that balance "progressive and proactive law enforcement" with actions that combat "the market forces driving human trafficking in many destination countries."

Michelle Bachelet, who heads the new U.N. agency promoting women's rights and gender equality called UN Women, said "it's difficult to think of a crime more hideous and shocking than human trafficking. Yet, it is one of the fastest growing and lucrative crimes."

Actress Mira Sorvino, the U.N. goodwill ambassador against human trafficking, told the meeting that "modern day slavery is bested only by the illegal drug trade for profitability," but very little money and political will is being spent to combat trafficking.

"Transnational organized crime groups are adding humans to their product lists," she said. "Satellites reveal the same routes moving them as arms and drugs."

Sorvino said there is a lack of strong legislation and police training to combat trafficking. Even in the United States "only 10 percent of police stations have any protocol to deal with trafficking," she said.

M. Cherif Bassiouni, an emeritus law professor at DePaul University in Chicago, said to applause that "there is no human rights subject on which governments have said so much but done so little."

Laws in most of the world criminalize prostitutes and other victims of trafficking but almost never criminalize the perpetrators "without whom that crime could not be performed," he said.

Bassiouni said the figure of 2.4 million people trafficked at any time is not reflective of the overall problem because "at the end of 10 years you will have a significantly larger number who have gone through the experience."

He urged a global reassessment of "who is a victim and who is a criminal" and called for criminalizing not only those on the demand side using trafficked women, children and men, but all those in the chain of supplying trafficking victims.

In addition, Bassiouni said, "we must change attitudes of male-dominated police departments throughout the world who place this type of a crime at the lowest level of their law enforcement priorities."

General Assembly President Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged donors to contribute to a new trust fund aimed at helping victims of human trafficking.

At the start of the meeting, Fedotov said the U.N. Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Trafficking had pledges of around $1 million but just $47,000 in contributions, and he urged those who offered money to send their checks.

At the end of the meeting, Al-Nasser announced three new pledges — $200,000 from Australia, $30,000 from Russia, and 30,000 Euros from Luxembourg — and encouraged other U.N. member states to follow their example.

See here for the UNODC statement.

Adapted from “U.N.: 2.4 Million Human Trafficking Victims,” Associated Press, 3 April 2012.

Washington first US state to pass law tightening oversight of escort sites

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 18:18:00 GMT

The Washington Legislature has passed, and Governor Gregoire has signed into law, a bill that would require websites within the state to obtain documentation that escorts advertised there are at least 18.

SEATTLE — For more than three months, she was sold online for sex. She had run away at 15, gone back home, then run away again. Finally, an undercover police officer caught her, and her pimp. This time she went home and stayed, but she was not the same.

“She was a different child after that,” her father said. “It was like she was programmed. She spoke different. She looked different. They cut her hair, they dyed her hair, they bought her new clothes.”

Now 17, the girl is in counseling and in college, “on her way,” her father said.

She is also evidence. When one of the men who raped her was sentenced in February, one of the exhibits that prosecutors used was an advertisement selling her services as an escort on backpage.com. The ad said she was 18.

That same month, the Washington Legislature was debating a bill that would require sites within the state to obtain documentation that escorts advertised there are at least 18. On Thursday, Gov. Christine Gregoire signed that bill into law, the first of its kind in the country.

“It’s a start, and it’s a precedent,” the girl’s father said, “and it will make a difference.”

The Washington law was praised last week by groups working to stop child sex trafficking. Other states, including Connecticut, are considering similar legislation. Yet even some supporters of the law question how effective it will be — paperwork can be easy to fake, after all. And will shutting down one Web site simply prompt another to open? Some also wonder how it will fare against potential legal challenges that it limits free speech.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” said Andrea Powell, the executive director of FAIR Girls, which seeks out and helps girls who have been sexually exploited. “But I don’t think it’s going to be the solution they’re looking for. It might reduce the volume of ads, but the ultimate goal is to shut that section down. There’s no way with an escort section that pimps aren’t going to post there. They’re not going to just stop posting on backpage.”

After public and political pressure led Craigslist to remove its escort sections in 2010, experts say backpage became the biggest mainstream platform for similar ads. Yet unlike Craigslist, backpage, which is owned by Village Voice Media Holdings, says it has no plan to remove its escort sections and it has not ruled out challenging Washington State’s law. The company says that the role it plays is vastly overstated by critics and that it screens and reports ads to try to prevent exploitation of children.

“There’s going to have to be a challenge to it,” said Liz McDougall, general counsel for Village Voice Media Holdings. “Otherwise it would effectively shut down an enormous portion of the Internet that currently permits third-party content.”

Ms. McDougall said the law could potentially affect Web site forums and chat rooms that are unrelated to escort sites, but where illicit content might be reposted. She also made arguments that even some law enforcement investigators make, that some sites that promote child sex trafficking can lead investigators and advocates to victims and their abusers.

That argument falls flat for many advocates.

“That just doesn’t work because, of course, they’re causing far more harm than they’re helping prevent,” said Washington State’s attorney general, Rob McKenna, a Republican who is running for governor. “There’s no excuse for being part of the problem.”

Human trafficking has been a prominent issue in Washington State for at least a decade. Following a series of high-profile trafficking-related episodes beginning in the 1990s, Washington passed the first state law, in 2003, to criminalize human trafficking. In 2010 it significantly increased prison sentences for child sex-trafficking. Last year, Mayor Mike McGinn of Seattle pulled city advertising from The Seattle Weekly, which is owned by Village Voice (but requires age verification for escort ads that run in print). Mr. McKenna, the current president of the National Association of Attorneys General, made the issue the centerpiece of the group’s meeting here last week.

He and others say they want Congress to amend the federal Communications Decency Act. The act, passed in 1996, provides broad free-speech protections for Internet sites that opponents of trafficking say did not anticipate the way the Web is now used — but that could make the Washington law vulnerable in court.

State Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles, the sponsor of the new law, said she and others spent more than a year working on language that the American Civil Liberties Union and some newspaper groups eventually supported.

“We provide the means for them to have an affirmative defense,” Ms. Kohl-Welles said of the escort sites. “That is, if they can document they verified the age of the individual being portrayed. We think that’ll do it.”

Ms. McDougall, of Village Voice Media Holdings, said it “took some convincing” before she recently agreed to take her job, because she also had questions about backpage. But she also questioned the need for the new Washington law.

“If we’re not already the industry leaders based on what we’re doing, we are going to be the industry leaders in fighting trafficking online,” Ms. McDougall said. “My goal is to get us there.”

Adapted from “Washington is First State to Take on Escort Sites,” The New York Times, 1 April 2012.

For more on recent coverage of Backpage.com.

Estonia Makes Human Trafficking Illegal

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 18:12:00 GMT

Estonia's Parliament has passed legislation banning human trafficking, making the Baltic nation the last EU country to enact such laws.

The lawmakers voted 91-0 in favor, with 10 members absent. President Toomas Hendrik Ilves is expected to make the bill law by approving it in the coming weeks.

Estonia had been under pressure from the United States to adopt such legislation and thereby avoid being kept on a watchlist the U.S. State Department keeps of countries it regards as lax in fighting human trafficking. The list has included Belarus and Russia and EU members Cyprus and Malta.

Such criticism embarrassed Estonia, a small country that considers the U.S. a key ally and has long been sensitive to its image overseas.

Andres Anvelt, of Estonia's opposition Social Democratic Party, called the bill passed Wednesday "a breakthrough" for the nation of 1.3 million people. "This is the first step forward in fighting human trafficking," Anvelt said in Parliament as lawmakers prepared to vote.

The U.S. Embassy in Tallinn also praised Estonia's government.

The new law "is a testament to the commitment both of Estonian lawmakers and of the NGOs who have worked tirelessly to secure justice for the victims of human trafficking and ensure substantial punishment" for perpetrators of the crime, embassy spokeswoman Michelle Schohn said in an email to The Associated Press.

The measure, fast-tracked by Estonia's Justice Ministry, makes human trafficking punishable by a maximum 15-year prison sentence. It also criminalizes sexual exploitation, including forcing minors to work as prostitutes or to appear in pornographic films and erotic performances.

Existing laws had ignored human trafficking issues such as the recruiting, transporting and exploiting victims, and allowed perpetrators to get away with short jail sentences or fines.

The last U.S. watchlist report said Estonia was not sufficiently fighting forced labor and forced prostitution.

"Estonia is a source, transit, and destination country for women subjected to forced prostitution" that report had said, noting that women, particularly from rural areas, were at risk of being forced into prostitution in the capital, Tallinn. They also risked being taken abroad to work as prostitutes in countries such as Finland, Britain, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands, the report said.

Estonian support groups for victims say typical cases involved women who were lured to work in striptease clubs as dancers but ended up being forced to offer sexual services to club clients.

Adapted from “Estonia Makes Human Trafficking Illegal,” Associate Press, 21 March 2012.

Visayan Sugar District Vows an End to Child Labor Practice

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 13:17:00 GMT

ORMOC CITY, Leyte, Philippines — Planters in the Ormoc-Kananga Sugar District have expressed a commitment to end the practice of hiring child labor in the sugar industry.

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) in Region 8 officer-in-charge Exequiel Sarcauga and Virgilio Doroja Jr., information officer designate of DOLE-8 said that in a resolution passed by members of the Ormoc–Kananga Mill District Development Council Foundation, Inc. (MDDCFI), it was resolved to provide assistance to sugar workers in the implementation of Republic Act No. 9231 or the Anti-Child Labor Law.

The MDDCFI is a grass root level organization in Ormoc-Kananga milling district created in response to Sugar Regulatory Administration Order No. 3-91. Composed of representatives from sugarcane planters associations or cooperatives, sugar mills, and the SRA, the council serves as a channel in addressing all issues pertaining to sugarcane production.

MDDCF chairman, Atty. Roy Bernard C. Fiel, said that since the sugar industry is perceived to be a possible area where children may be employed, the MDDCFI would like to assist in the implementation of the law by imposing sanctions on erring sugarcane farmers within the district.

He added that the MDCCI has also resolved to suspend its services and assistance to sugarcane farmers in the Ormoc-Kananga Mill District found guilty of violating RA 9231.

Such concrete action by said sugar planters came after the Department of Labor and Employment in the region conducted an Advocacy/Orientation on the anti-child labor law with members of the District Tripartite Council, and the MDDCFI during the latter’s 9th MDDCFI Seminar last December 2011.

Sarcauga welcomed this development and expressed optimism that with the strong partnership among the planters group, child labor in the sugar industry would be eliminated thus, achieving the government’s vision of a child labor-free Philippines.

“We would like to commend the MDDCFI for taking a bold step to address child labor in the sugar industry, but our work does not stop as we need stronger action and shared commitment if we want to remove children from hazardous forms of employment.

Sarcauga explained that the DOLE has been vigorously implementing the anti-child labor law through sustained advocacy, surveillance and rescue operations, and livelihood interventions, all of which are aimed at preventing and eliminating child labor.

Adapted from “Visayan Sugar District Vows An End To Child Labor Practice,” Manila Bulletin Publishing Corporation, 14 February 2012.

Now available: International Framework for Action to Implement the Smuggling of Migrants Protocol

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 13:38:00 GMT

While 129 States, to date, have ratified the United Nations Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, giving effect to the Protocol remains a challenge in all regions. Most countries do not have dedicated action plans or strategies.

To address this, UNDOC, through a wide consultative process, developed the International Framework for Action to Implement the Smuggling of Migrants Protocol, which is now available online. The Framework for Action is a technical assistance tool that aims to support effective implementation of the Smuggling of Migrants Protocol and to harmonize and coordinate a holistic and global response to the phenomenon in countries of origin, transit and destination.

The tool will assist Member States and non-state actors in identifying and addressing gaps in their response to migrant smuggling in accordance with international standards. The Framework for Action unpacks provisions of the Smuggling of Migrants Protocol, drawing upon international instruments, political commitments, guidelines and best practices to enable the implementation of a comprehensive response to migrant smuggling.

The Framework for Action consists of a narrative section and a set of tables. The Narrative describes the key challenges in the implementation of the Migrant Smuggling Protocol and elaborates guiding principles in responding to them. The set of tables details practical measures that can be taken in response to four key pillars:

Prosecution of migrant smugglers;
Protection of smuggled migrants and their rights;
Prevention of migrant smuggling; and
Cooperation to address migrant smuggling.

For each of the four pillars, the Framework for Action is divided into:

Protocol Objectives, which reflect the provisions of the Smuggling of Migrants Protocol.
Specific Objectives, which explain the intent of the provisions.
Framework Requirements, setting out minimum standards for action.
Implementation Measures, which offer best practices to achieve effective implementation.
Operational Indicators, to measure implementation and help monitor change over time.

Adapted from “International Framework for Action to Implement the Smuggling of Migrants Protocol available online,” UNODC, 13 February 2012.

US President Obama vows to fight human trafficking

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 14:15:00 GMT

WASHINGTON, DC - US President Obama vowed Thursday to fight human trafficking in the "dark corners of our world, and hidden in plain sight."

The White House issued the president's statement at a meeting of the Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.

After citing President Lincoln's efforts on behalf of freedom, "We remain steadfast in our resolve to see that all men, women, and children have the opportunity to realize this greatest of gifts," Obama said. "Yet millions around the world -- including here in the United States -- toil under the boot of modern slavery.

Mothers and fathers are forced to work in fields and factories against their will or in service to debts that can never be repaid. Sons and daughters are sold for sex, abducted as child soldiers, or coerced into involuntary labor. In dark corners of our world, and hidden in plain sight in our own communities, human beings are exploited for financial gain and subjected to unspeakable cruelty. "

The president said slavery "remains the affront to human dignity and stain on our collective conscience that it has always been. That is why members of my Cabinet and senior advisers gathered at the White House today, at a meeting chaired by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to lay out their plans for meeting this challenge. The United States is committed to eradicating trafficking in persons, and we will draw on tools ranging from law enforcement and victim service provision, to public awareness building and diplomatic pressure. Because we know that government efforts are not enough, we are also increasing our partnerships with a broad coalition of local communities, faith-based and non-governmental organizations, schools, and businesses."

Obama said he was directing his Cabinet "to expand on partnerships with civil society and the private sector, so that we can bring more resources to bear in fighting this horrific injustice."

Visit the White House Press Release for President Obama’s full remarks.

Adapted from “Obama targets human trafficking,” UPI.com, 15 March 2012.

USAID Releases New Policy to Combat Trafficking in Persons

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 13:32:00 GMT

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, at a White House event, Dr Rajiv Shah, Administrator for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), launched the Agency's new 2012 Counter-Trafficking in Persons (C-TIP) Policy to reinvigorate and focus USAID's efforts to combat human trafficking around the world.

In the policy's preface, Administrator Shah writes, “In line with President Obama's Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development and under the leadership of Secretary Clinton, USAID has crafted a new Agency-wide policy to combat trafficking in persons. Drawing on best practices from the last decade, the new policy provides guidance on pursuing more effective, efficient and evidence-based approaches in counter-trafficking.”

The launch event included Samantha Power, Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs, White House National Security Council; Ambassador Donald Steinberg, Deputy Administrator for USAID; and Ambassador Luis CdeBaca from the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.

Trafficking victimizes millions of people worldwide and is a lucrative crime, grossing an estimated $32 billion a year through forced labor, commercial sexual exploitation and debt bondage, among other forms. Although precise numbers are unknown, the scale of human trafficking is vast, and recent estimates of the number of people enslaved in sex or labor exploitation range from 12 to 27 million. USAID is among the largest donors combating trafficking—in any given year, the Agency is investing in counter trafficking activities and programs in over two dozen countries.

The C-TIP Policy will enable the Agency to be a catalytic partner in the counter-trafficking community by outlining concrete, measurable principles and objectives. These include integrating counter-trafficking activities across the development sectors, improving program design to capture lessons learned and best practices in counter-trafficking activities, and enhancing institutional accountability within USAID to address trafficking through training of staff and coordination with partners.

The policy outlines seven guiding principles: employing USAID's comparative advantage, measuring impact and bringing to scale, applying selectivity and focus; developing regional approaches; promoting partnerships; investing in innovation and technology; and promoting high ethical standards.

USAID's Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance (DCHA) will lead the implementation of the Agency's C-TIP Policy, in partnership with the Bureau for Policy, Planning, and Learning (PPL). These Bureaus will work in collaboration with USAID Missions and operating units in Washington that currently have or plan to program funds to combat trafficking to translate the policy into meaningful action for millions of men, women, and children worldwide.

Visit USAID’s Trafficking in Persons site for more information.

Adapted from “USAID Releases New Policy To Combat Trafficking In Persons,” USAID Press Releases, 23 February 2012.

Human Trafficking Rampant in Thailand’s Deep-Sea Fishing Industry

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 13:27:00 GMT

While a lucrative deep-sea fishing industry places Thailand among the world’s leading exporters of sea products, a grim specter of human rights abuse lurks below the surface of an industry whose contribution to the national economy is estimated to exceed $4 billion a year.

A combination of factors – including a shortage of labor in this dangerous and physically demanding industry and pressures on marginalized populations – create opportunities for unscrupulous employment brokers and traffickers to prey on those desperate for work. Trafficking of migrant men and boys from Burma, Cambodia, Laos, and within Thailand itself into the deep-sea fishing industry (DSFI) is an issue of growing concern to the governments of Thailand and neighboring countries, civil society organizations (CSOs), and the international community. A combination of economic pressures, language constraints, and lack of information on the risk of trafficking puts migrant populations at especially high risk of labor exploitation and trafficking. Human Rights Watch estimates that at least 250,000 migrants from Burma alone work in sea and land-based sectors of Thai fishing industry. Many of them are trafficked or subject to labor exploitation, while many more are at risk.

The 2011 U.S. Department of State’s global Trafficking in Persons Report placed Thailand on the Tier 2 Watch List for a second year in a row, underscoring the persistent challenges posed by various forms of human trafficking in Thailand. Concerns about trafficking in the DSFI feature prominently in the State Department report’s Thailand country analysis, which notes that “investigations of alleged human trafficking on Thai fishing boats, as well as inspections of these boats, were practically nonexistent.” The report urges the Thai government to take further action to bring traffickers to justice.

Growing evidence drawn from the testimonies of escaped fishermen affirms that DSFI trafficking victims routinely spend a year or more at sea on fishing vessels that operate in the far reaches of the South China Sea and Indian Ocean, beyond the territorial jurisdiction of Thailand. Boats rarely return to port to offload their catch, leaving little scope for regulatory oversight or inspection by Thai authorities. While working conditions vary from vessel to vessel, research conducted by the International Labor Organization (ILO), the Mirror Foundation, and other organizations suggests that a significant percentage of the men and boys trafficked to Thai ships are subject to round-the-clock working hours, cramped quarters, poor nutrition, low wages, debt bondage, physical abuse and intimidation, and other hardships that amount to virtual enslavement. Some trafficking victims reportedly meet violent deaths if they become too ill to work or demand to be released. For example, a 2009 United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking study reported that half the members of a group of Cambodian DSFI trafficking victims surveyed had personally witnessed the execution of fellow crew members. Problems persist for many of those who manage to escape by jumping overboard. Many of those who manage to avoid being captured and returned to their ships are detained by foreign governments or face other repatriation challenges.

Thailand’s government is increasingly conscious of the severity of the problem and has taken preliminary measures to address trafficking in the DSFI, including the development of prevention and prosecution strategies by the police, public prosecutors, and other stakeholders. CSOs have in turn begun to compile statistics, monitor cases, educate vulnerable populations, and counsel victims on reporting options and legal remedies. Despite these welcome initiatives, the severity of the problem persists. Efforts by Thai administrative and law enforcement agencies to combat trafficking are thwarted by a lack of supporting data on the scale of the DSFI. Sound research is constrained by a variety of factors, including the fact that fishing vessels and crews rarely dock in Thai ports. While Thai CSOs have suggested that reported trafficking cases increased by 300 percent between 2008 and 2009, the shortage of data defies greater precision in gauging the scale of the problem. Capacity constraints among government agencies, including limited information sharing and cooperation among public agencies and CSOs, thwart effective monitoring and enforcement of applicable laws and regulations. These constraints exacerbate the gaps and overlaps in the legal and regulatory framework that governs the DSFI. As a result, laws intended to regulate the registration, licensing, inspection, and labor practices of fishing vessels and crews in the DSFI are easily circumvented. In addition, DSFI trafficking victims lack incentive to cooperate in the investigation and prosecution of traffickers, in large part due to the negative repercussions of being identified as a trafficking victim.

In the past year, the number of domestic and international print and broadcast media reports on the plight of trafficking victims in the DSFI seems to be on the increase. Despite hard data constraints, the sheer volume of anecdotal evidence is bound to attract increasing international attention in Europe, the United States, and other countries and regions that import Thai sea products. International concern will add to the pressure on the Thai government to take further measures to combat DSFI trafficking and demonstrate its leadership role in tackling an issue that reaches beyond national borders. With the Thai economy reeling from the 2011 floods and growing trade and export competition from neighboring countries, there is no better time for Thailand to take determined action in partnership with civil society and the international community.

Despite this ripe environment for change, the fishing industry itself and the private sector more broadly have seemed loathe to acknowledge or address the reality of DSFI trafficking. Pressed to comment, some industry spokespersons have abjectly denied that the DSFI is vulnerable to trafficking and human rights violations. Rather than holding fast to this view in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, DSFI companies, sea product processing and export enterprises, restaurant and hotel associations, and other domestic private sector actors have an opportunity to take a principled collective stand, consistent with the mounting pressure on Thai companies to observe corporate social responsibility (CSR) principles and practices.

For the many DSFI enterprises that strictly conform with human rights obligations and extend high standards of care and support for their fishing crews, the stakes are high. The potential for the reckless practices of rogue members to color the reputation of an entire industry makes it doubly critical for responsible enterprises to set a high standard and call on all members of the industry to comply. To this end, there is significant potential for the private sector to work in cooperation with government, civil society, and the domestic and international media to address the problems that allow trafficking in the DSFI to persist. Through cooperation of this kind, the private sector can contribute to the clarification of ambiguities in the existing legal and regulatory framework and the revision of laws and regulations to effect stricter monitoring and enforcement. To deter offenders, cooperative efforts should call on the police and public prosecutors to press charges, secure conviction of traffickers, and apply zero tolerance standards in bringing security personnel and other public officials who are complicit in DSFI trafficking to justice.

The Asia Foundation is currently working with its local partners in Thailand to explore opportunities to bring the fishing industry, the private sector, government, and civil society together to address this longstanding issue. The cooperation of all stakeholders is essential to ensure that the thousands of hardworking fishermen from Thailand and neighboring countries, whose labor supplies a bounty of seafood to the world, go to sea in a safe and secure working environment that respects their fundamental rights and dignity.

Adapted from, “Human Trafficking Rampant in Thailand’s Deep-Sea Fishing Industry,” The Asia Foundation – Notes from the Field, 8 February 2012.

South Pacific Slaves Put Squid on U.S. Tables

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 15:08:00 GMT

On March 25, 2011, Yusril became a slave; that afternoon he went to the East Jakarta offices of Indah Megah Sari (IMS), an agency that hires crews to work on foreign fishing vessels.

He was offered a job on the Melilla 203, a South Korea-flagged ship that trawls in the waters off New Zealand. “Hurry up,” said the agent, holding a pen over a thick stack of contracts in a windowless conference room with water-stained walls. Waving at a pile of green Indonesian passports of other prospective fishermen, he added: “You really can’t waste time reading this. There are a lot of others waiting, and the plane leaves tomorrow.”

Yusril is 28, with brooding looks and a swagger that belies his slight frame. (Yusril asked that his real name not be used out of concern for his safety.) He was desperate for the promised monthly salary of $260, plus bonuses, for unloading fish. His wife was eight months pregnant, and he had put his name on a waiting list for the job nine months earlier. After taking a daylong bus ride to Jakarta, he had given the agent a $225 fee he borrowed from his brother-in-law, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its Feb. 27 edition. The agent rushed him through signing the contracts, at least one of which was in English, which Yusril does not read.

The terms of the first contract, the “real” one, would later haunt him. In it, IMS spelled out terms with no rights. In addition to the agent’s commission, Yusril would surrender 30 percent of his salary, which IMS would hold unless the work was completed. He would be paid nothing for the first three months, and if the job were not finished to the fishing company’s satisfaction, Yusril would be sent home and charged more than $1,000 for the airfare. The meaning of “satisfactory” was left vague. The contract said only that Yusril would have to work whatever hours the boat operators demanded.

Locked In
The last line of the contract, in bold, warned that Yusril’s family would owe nearly $3,500 if he were to run away from the ship. The amount was greater than his net worth, and he had earlier submitted title to his land as collateral for that bond. Additionally, he had provided IMS with the names and addresses of his family members. He was locked in.

What followed, according to Yusril and several shipmates who corroborated his story, was an eight-month ordeal aboard the Melilla 203, during which Indonesian fishermen were subjected to physical and sexual abuse by the ship’s operators. Their overlords told them not to complain or fight back, or they would be sent home, where the agents would take their due. Yusril and 23 others walked off in protest when the trawler docked in Lyttelton, New Zealand. The men have seen little if any of what they say they are owed. Such coerced labor is modern-day slavery, as the United Nations defines the crime. (The South Korean owners of the Melilla ships did not respond to requests for comment.)

Debt Bondage
The experiences of the fishermen on the Melilla 203 were not unique. In a six-month investigation, Bloomberg Businessweek found cases of debt bondage on the Melilla 203 and at least nine other ships that have operated in New Zealand’s waters. As recently as November 2011, fish from the Melilla 203 and other suspect vessels were bought and processed by United Fisheries, New Zealand’s eighth-largest seafood company, which sold the same kinds of fish in that period to distributors operating in the U.S. (The U.S. imports 86 percent of its seafood.) The distributors in turn sold the fish to major U.S. companies. Those companies -- which include some of the country’s biggest retailers and restaurants -- sold the seafood to American consumers.

Yusril’s story and that of nearly two dozen other survivors of abuse reveal how the $85 billion global fishing industry profits from the labor of people forced to work for little or no pay, often under the threat of violence. Although many U.S. seafood companies and retailers claim not to do business with suppliers who exploit their workers, the truth is far murkier.

Musty Quarters
Hours after Yusril arrived in Dunedin, New Zealand, the Melilla 203 officers put him to work unloading squid on the 193- foot, 26-year-old trawler. The ship was in bad shape, and the quarters were musty, as the vessel had no functioning dryer for crew linens or work clothes. Yet the conditions seemed comparatively decent to Yusril.

Two years earlier he had worked on the Dong Won 519, operating under the auspices of Sanford Ltd., a 130-year-old, $383 million New Zealand company. On that boat, Yusril says the officers hit him in the face with fish and the boatswain repeatedly kicked him in the back for using gloves when he was sewing the trawl nets in cold weather. Most unnervingly, the second officer would crawl into the bunk of Yusril’s friend at night and attempt to rape him. When asked for comment, Chief Executive Officer Eric Barratt said Sanford’s observers, which the company placed on all their foreign-chartered vessels (FCVs), reported that the ships “don’t have any issues with labor abuse.”

Conditions Worsen
When the Melilla 203 set sail for the deep waters of the Southern Ocean, conditions worsened, according to the accounts of Yusril and a dozen other crew members. The ship trawled for up to two months at a time, between 12 and 200 miles offshore. The boatswain would grab crew members’ genitals as they worked or slept. When the captain of the ship drank, he molested some of the crew, kicking those who resisted. As nets hauled in the catch -- squid, ling, hoki, hake, grouper, southern blue whiting, jack mackerel, and barracuda -- the officers shouted orders from the bridge. They often compelled the Indonesians to work without proper safety equipment for up to 30 hours, swearing at them if they so much as asked for coffee or a bathroom break. Even when fishermen were not hauling catches, 16-hour workdays were standard.

Fatigue
The resulting fatigue meant accidents, which could bring dismemberment in the cramped below-deck factory where the fish were headed and gutted by hand, then passed along conveyor belts to be frozen. Over the past decade at least two crew members of the Melilla ships have died, according to local newspaper accounts and reports by Maritime New Zealand, a government regulatory body. Dozens of Melilla crew members suffered injuries, some crippling.

When Ruslan, 36, a friend of Yusril’s on the 203, snapped two bones in his left hand in a winch, it took three weeks before he was allowed to go to a hospital. The morning after his discharge he was ordered back to work but could not carry out his duties. The company removed him before any follow-up medical appointments. “I was a slave, but then I became useless to the Koreans, so they sent me home with nothing,” he says.

Today, back in his home village in Central Java, Ruslan has a deformed hand. While IMS, the recruiting agency, finally paid him $335 for three months of work, it has blacklisted him, according to Ruslan, because he spoke to investigators, and it has refused to help with medical bills.

Ecological Infractions
During the last decade, New Zealand authorities repeatedly fined or seized the Melilla ships for ecological infractions, such as a 2005 oil discharge in Lyttelton (LPC) Harbor, which the country monitored by satellite and occasional inspections by Ministry of Fisheries observers. Crimes against humanity were secondary. Scott Gallacher, a spokesman for New Zealand’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (which merged with the Ministry of Fisheries in July), explained that “observers are not formally tasked” with assisting abused crew, though they may report abuses to the Department of Labour. Yet Yusril said that when he once whispered a plea for help, an observer expressed sympathy but said it was “not my job.”

New Zealand authorities had plenty of prior evidence of deplorable working conditions on foreign vessels like the Melilla. On Aug. 18, 2010, in calm seas, a Korean-flagged trawler called the Oyang 70 sank, killing six. Survivors told the crew of the rescuing vessel their stories of being trafficked. A report by Christina Stringer and Glenn Simmons, two researchers at the University of Auckland Business School, and Daren Coulston, a mariner, uncovered numerous cases of abuse and coercion among the 2,000 fishermen on New Zealand’s 27 FCVs.

New Zealand Inquiry
The report prompted the government to launch a joint inquiry. The researchers gathered testimony from New Zealand observers who saw abuses being committed even after they had boarded ships. “Korean officers are vicious bastards,” one observer said, as quoted in the report. The source said a factory manager “rapped” a 12-kilogram (26 pounds) stainless steel pan over a crew member’s head, splitting the top of it, with blood “pissing out everywhere.” The observer said he gave the Indonesian fisherman 26 stitches.

After eight months on the Melilla 203, Yusril and 23 other crew members protested their treatment and pay to the captain. The move came after a Department of Labour investigator visited the ship in November 2011, when it was docked in Lyttelton. The official gave Yusril a fact sheet stipulating that crew members were entitled to minimum standards of treatment under New Zealand law, including pay of at least $12 per hour. When deductions, agency fees, and a manipulated exchange rate were subtracted, the fishermen were averaging around $1 per hour.

Retribution Threats
The captain dismissed the document and threatened to send them home to face retribution from the recruiting agency. Believing that the New Zealand government would protect them from such a fate, Yusril and all but four of the Indonesian crew walked off the boat and sought refuge in Lyttelton Union Parish Church. Aided by two local pro bono lawyers, they decried months of flagrant human rights abuses and demanded their unpaid wages under New Zealand’s Admiralty Act.

Ten miles from Lyttelton, in neighboring Christchurch, stands the headquarters of United Fisheries, the company that exclusively purchased the fish that Yusril and his mates caught. The building features gleaming Doric columns topped with friezes of chariot races. It was designed to resemble the temples to Aphrodite in Cyprus, the homeland of United founder Kypros Kotzikas.

‘High Standard’
The patriarch started in New Zealand with a small fish-and- chip restaurant. Some 40 years later, his son, Andre, 41, runs a company that had some $66 million in revenue last year. Although three Melilla crew members, citing abuse, had run away nine days before I spoke with Kotzikas, he told me he had heard of no complaints from crew on board the ships, and he had personally boarded the vessels to ensure that the conditions “are of very high standard.”

“I don’t think that claims of slavery or mistreatment can be attached to foreign charter vessels that are operating here in New Zealand,” he said. “Not for responsible operators.”

In an e-mail, Peter Elms, a fraud and compliance manager with Immigration New Zealand, cited a police assessment that found that complaints from crews amounted to nothing more than disputes over work conditions, alleged minor assaults, intimidation, workplace bullying and non-payment of wages. Elms said his department had two auditors who visited each vessel every two or three years, and they had found nothing rising to the level of human trafficking, a crime punishable in New Zealand by up to 20 years in prison.

‘Beautiful Stuff’
Kotzikas said that while New Zealand’s labor laws are “a thousand pages of, you know, beautiful stuff,” he believed they did not necessarily apply beyond New Zealand’s 12-mile territorial radius.

Half of United Fisheries’ annual revenue is generated outside New Zealand, spread across five continents. In the U.S., which imports an estimated $14.7 billion worth of fish annually, regulators are beginning to pay attention to the conditions under which that food is caught.

The California Transparency in Supply Chains Act, as of Jan. 1, requires all retailers with more than $100 million in global sales to publicly disclose their efforts to monitor and combat slavery in their supply chains. The law covers some 3,200 corporations that do business in the state, including several that trade in seafood.

Kotzikas said his company sold ling, a species of fish caught by the Melilla crews, to Costco Wholesale Corp, America’s largest wholesaler and the world’s seventh-largest retailer.

Costco
As is true with many seafood exports from New Zealand, the exact quantity of United’s sales to Costco was untraceable through public shipping records. Costco did not respond to requests for comment about the sales and the abuse allegations.

In New Zealand, there is no independent auditing of catch method once a fish has been landed and processed. Ling caught by longlines is considered to be of higher quality and more environmentally sustainable than ling hauled by trawlers. As a result, longline-caught fish can fetch double the price, providing incentive for fraud and mislabeling.

As recently as 2008 the Melilla ships were fined more than $300,000 for “trucking,” which means misreporting catches from one fishing area to another. New Zealand officials have not, however, accused them or any other vessel of trying to mislabel trawler-caught fish as longline-caught.

‘Well Away’
Dean Stavreff, managing director of Quality Ocean --- the Christchurch-based company that exported the fish and whose largest shareholder is Kotzikas -- said Costco purchases ling processed through the facility at United Fisheries headquarters. While he didn’t oversee that process, Stavreff insisted that all of the ling that Quality Ocean sold Costco had been caught on “longline” vessels operated by Talley’s Group Ltd and Okains Bay, two companies that “stay well away from the alleged slave labor that is associated with the Melilla ships.”

Costco advertises that it offers only chilled, longline- caught ling to U.S. consumers. The retailer, which annually audits United’s processing facility but not its vessels, had issued the company a six-page Supplier Code of Conduct, which laid out minimum labor conditions and specifically prohibited slave labor, human trafficking and physical abuse of employees.

Other large U.S. retailers also do business with United Fisheries. (Thirteen employees at nine seafood companies contacted for this article agreed to speak only on background.) PF Chang’s China Bistro Inc, a Scottsdale, Arizona-based chain with more than 200 restaurants worldwide and more than $1.2 billion in annual revenue, purchased squid exclusively through Turner, a California-based importer.

Squid
According to Import Genius and Urner Barry shipping records, Turner bought at least 568,554 pounds of squid from United since Nov. 2010. Squid was one of the most common seafood species caught by fishermen held on the Melilla boats, according to Yusril and other crew members. Turner did not respond to requests for comment. A representative for PF Chang’s declined to comment on record.

Honolulu-based importer P&E Foods Inc has also bought at least 48,940 pounds of squid from United since November 2010. According to P&E’s president, Stephen Lee, his company sells squid to Sam’s Club, the 47 million-member wholesaler. Lee said he was unaware of allegations of abuse on ships chartered by United, a company with which Lee has done business for “20, 30 years.” He added that he did not know whether any of P&E’s buyers required him or his suppliers to sign a code of conduct for labor practices. Carrie Foster, senior manager for corporate communications at Sam’s Club, said her company does require such signed agreements from their suppliers.

Risking Punishment
Another New Zealand company with ties to U.S. retailers is Sanford, the country’s second-largest seafood enterprise. On Nov. 3, I interviewed crew members of the Dong Won and Pacinui vessels, charters catching fish for Sanford, near the docks at Lyttelton. These men risked punishment by speaking out: Less than a week earlier three Pacinui crew members who had complained were sent back to Indonesia to face the recruiters.

A Dong Won deckhand said he felt like a slave as he simulated a Korean officer kicking him on the ground. Their contracts, issued by IMS and two other Indonesian agents, were nearly identical to those signed by the Melilla crew. They reported the same pay rates, false contracts, doctored time sheets and similar hours, daily abuse, intimidation, and threats to their families if they walked away.

Audits
After several desertions over the past decade, New Zealand labor audits of the Dong Won ships turned up some of the same complaints. In 2010, Sanford assured the government that it would improve oversight of foreign-chartered vessels and address allegations of abuse or wage exploitation. Barratt, Sanford’s CEO, said observers of his company’s foreign vessels did not find instances of abuse and that three deported Pacinui crew had returned voluntarily.

According to Barratt, his company exports to the U.S. through at least 16 seafood distributors, the majority through Mazzetta Co LLC, a $425 million corporation based in suburban Chicago that is the largest American importer of New Zealand fish. Mazzetta sells the same species caught on the Dong Won and Pacinui ships to outlets across the country. On Feb. 21, after the publication of an online version of this article, CEO Tom Mazzetta sent Barratt a letter demanding an investigation of labor practices on Sanford’s foreign-chartered vessels.

Sanford also sells to the $10 billion supermarket chain Whole Foods Market Inc, Barratt said. Whole Foods spokeswoman Ashley Hawkins said that “for proprietary reasons we cannot reveal who we source from for our exclusive brand products.”

‘In Compliance’
Asked about allegations that FCVs in New Zealand employ slave labor, Hawkins said Whole Foods is “in compliance with the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, New Zealand is not considered high-risk.”

Other buyers of Sanford’s fish include Nova Scotia-based High Liner Foods Inc, which sells products containing the same seafood as that caught by the indentured fishermen on the Dong Won and Pacinui ships. High Liner’s customers include U.S. retailers such as Safeway Inc, America’s second-largest grocery store chain, and Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world’s largest retailer. When alerted by Bloomberg Businessweek, spokespeople for both retailers pledged swift investigations.

“As with all of our suppliers, we have a process under way to obtain documentation” that High Liner complies with human trafficking laws and reviews its supply chain to ensure compliance, said Brian Dowling, Safeway’s vice president of public affairs, on Feb. 17.

‘Following Up’
“We have not yet received certification from High Liner,” Dowling said. “However, we are following up with them immediately and asking that they provide us with certification.”

High Liner CEO Henry Demone said he “abhorred” slavery and labor abuse and that his company “tries very hard to do the right thing.” He said in the case of the FCVs used by Sanford, “we bought from a company whose labor practices in the plant were fine. We audited that. We didn’t audit the fishing vessels. But we relied upon a well-known New Zealand-based company and their assurance of 100 percent observer coverage.”

It is unclear exactly how much seafood caught by indentured fishermen ends up on the plates of American consumers. Public shipping records -- which do not report seafood imported on planes, and only detail some seafood imported to the U.S. by boat -- are sparse, and seafood distributors rarely disclose their specific suppliers. Alastair Macfarlane, a representative of New Zealand’s Seafood Industry Council, declined to comment on which American companies might be buying fish from troubled vessels such as the Melilla 203.

Tainted Fish
However, an analysis of several sources of data --including New Zealand fishery species quota and FCV catch totals made available by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry --suggests roughly 40 percent of squid exported from New Zealand is caught on one of the vessels using coerced labor. Perhaps 15 percent of all New Zealand hoki exports may be slave-caught, and 8 percent of the country’s southern blue whiting catch may be tainted.

Despite the prevalence of foreign-chartered vessels, which in 2010 earned $274.6 million in export revenue and hauled in 62.3 percent of New Zealand’s deepwater catch, some companies have determined they are not worth the risk.

“The reputational damage is immeasurable,” says Andrew Talley, director of Talley’s Group, New Zealand’s third-largest fishing company, which submits to third-party audits on its labor standards, a condition of its contract to supply McDonald’s Corp with hoki for its Filet-O-Fish sandwiches.

‘Hard-Earned’ Reputation
“New Zealand seafood enjoys a hard-earned and world- leading reputation as a responsible fisheries manager, with a product range and quality to match,” says Talley. “There is nothing responsible at all about using apparently exploitative and abusive FCVs.”

The main thoroughfare that bisects Yusril’s Central Java village feeds into a chain of divided tollways that run all the way to Jakarta. Travelers along the road quickly leave the briny air of the fishing kampungs and pass through green rice paddies dotted with water buffalo and trees bearing swollen, spiky jackfruit. Sixty years ago, Yusril’s grandfather worked that land. Today, thousands journey along the highway to seek new lives.

When I found him last December, Yusril was back in his in- laws’ modest home, tucked well off a side road. He was out of work and brainstorming ways to scratch out a living by returning to his father’s trade, farming. IMS, the recruiting agency in Jakarta, had blacklisted him and was refusing to return his birth certificate, his basic safety training credentials, and his family papers. It was also withholding pay, totaling around $1,100. In total, Yusril had been paid an average of 50¢ an hour on the Melilla 203. (An IMS attorney did not respond to repeated e-mails requesting comment. When I showed up at the agency’s offices in Jakarta, a security guard escorted me out.)

Two of the 24 men who walked off the Melilla 203 returned to work on the ship rather than face deportation. The ship’s representatives flew the remaining 22 resisters back to Indonesia. When they returned to Central Java, the resisters say they were coerced by IMS into signing documents waiving their claims to redress for human rights violations in exchange for their originally stipulated payments of $500 to $1,000. Yusril was one of two who held out. On Jan. 21, when I last spoke to him, I asked why he had refused to sign the document.

“Dignity,” said Yusril, pointing to his heart.

Adapted from “Slaves Put Squid on U.S. Dining Tables From South Pacific’s Cruelest Catch,” Bloomberg, 24 February 2012

Millions pushed into child labor in Pakistan

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 13:38:00 GMT

Tears tracing lines of dirt on his face, six-year-old Pakistani boy Nabeel Mukhtar cries while crouching on a pavement to scrub motorbikes, his job for nine hours a day, six days a week.

He is one of millions of children driven into labour by poverty in a country where the unpopular government is seen as too corrupt and ineffective to care for its citizens, even the young and helpless.

"I want to study and become a doctor but we don't have any money," said Mukhtar, who helps his family make ends meet.

Rising food and fuel prices and a struggling economy have forced many families to send their children to search for work instead of to the classroom.

Pakistan needs to take immediate measures to stabilise growing budget pressures and to raise interest rates to contain rising inflation, the International Monetary Fund warned on Monday.

Government Needs To Do More

Up to 10 million children are estimated to be working in Pakistan, says Mannan Rana, child and adolescent protection specialist at the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

The latest government figures, showing three million child labourers, date back to 1996, underscoring how scant attention has been paid to documenting the problem, which is likely to get worse given the makeup of the fast-growing population.

The plight of child labourers in Pakistan came under international scrutiny when it was discovered that children were hand-stitching soccer balls in the town of Sialkot.

Foreign sports equipment companies are wary of any hint of association with child exploitation. One stopped orders in 2006 from a Pakistan-based supplier of hand-stitched soccer balls, saying the factory had failed to correct labour compliance violations.

But the outcry hasn't helped much.

"The problem is that the whole industry has moved into private homes, which has made it a bit difficult to monitor if child labour is being used," said Hussain Naqi, the national co-ordinator of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

"This is not just an issue in Sialkot, child labour is occurring all across Pakistan in very dangerous sectors like glass bangle manufacturing, cleaning of oil tankers, poultry farms, motor workshops, brick kilns and small hotels."

Pakistan spends less than 2 percent of its gross domestic product on education, which translates into a lack of skills amongst the younger population, pushing them onto the street in search of work.

By comparison, just over 17 percent of 2011-12 state spending went to defense, though some experts put the figure at 26 percent.

"The problem is there and we are not in a state of denial," said Shahnaz Wazir Ali, social sector special assistant to the prime minister, adding that about 45 percent of Pakistan's population of almost 180 million is below the age of 22.

But Pakistan's leaders are often too consumed by infighting, or tension with the military, to address child welfare.

In recent months, Pakistan has been gripped by rumours of a possible military coup and the ongoing tussle between the Supreme Court and the government is preoccupying the leadership.

With little government protection, children keep falling into the same vicious circle of exploitation.

Adapted from “Millions pushed into child labour in Pakistan,” Reuters, 7 February 2012.

Governor of Indiana, USA Signs Human Trafficking Bill in Time for Football Super Bowl

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:01:00 GMT

A bill to toughen Indiana’s penalties for sex trafficking is now the law in Indiana.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels signed the bill today, just in time for this Sunday’s Super Bowl, which officials fear could become a magnet for prostitution. The law gives greater latitude to prosecute those who force girls, some as young as 12, into the paid sex trade.

“Let’s hope that the law has the deterrent affect that we hope for, and that these criminals will decide to take their awful business somewhere else,” Daniels said from his office Monday morning. “But if they should try it here at least we know our prosecutor will be armed with a tough law much more certain of producing successful prosecutions and long jail sentences.”

As many as 150,000 people are expected to descend upon Indianapolis for this Sunday’s Super Bowl game between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants. Officials anticipate a substantial increase in prostitution, with out-of-town girls brought in to meet the demand.

Abby Kuzma, head of the Consumer Protection Division for the Indiana Attorney General’s office, said it's appropriate for the state to step in. “We need to be protecting our children,” she said.

Kumza spearheaded the office’s push in the Indiana legislature for passage of the bill. She said victims are often abused. Volunteers, including cab drivers, have been trained what to look for in those visiting the city.

“We will be working on the ground and through the Internet. We will have volunteers working very hard to try to identify victims and rescue them,” Kuzman told WBEZ in an interview earlier this month.

The law strengthens current state regulations in several ways:

For Individuals who are arrested for human trafficking those under 16 years of age, prosecutors will no longer have to prove force or threat of force against the victim.
The law amends who can be prosecuted. Indiana’s current statute limits prosecution to parents or guardians who sell their children. The law is expanded to include any individual who sells children.
Sexual conduct such as fondling, arousing or other activity that is otherwise not technically prostitution, will be subject to prosecution.
The bill makes recruiting, transporting or harboring anyone younger than 16 for prostitution a Class A felony punishable by a prison lasting between 20 and 50 years.

The Indiana House voted 93-0 in favor of the bill late last week. It cleared the state senate in a 48-0 vote, just days after the new legislative session began in early January.

Final action in the House was held up by several weeks while Democrats boycotted the House. They were protesting contentious right-to-work legislation proposed by House Republicans.

Adapted from “Indiana Governor signs human trafficking bill,” WEBZ91.5, 27 January 2012.

Child Labor for Fair-Trade Cotton Probed by U.S. Investigators

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 22:19:00 GMT

US investigators are conducting a preliminary inquiry into forced child labor used in an organic and fair-trade cotton program that supplies the American lingerie retailer Victoria’s Secret, a federal law enforcement official confirmed this week.

Victoria’s Secret’s parent company, Limited Brands Inc., said in an e-mailed statement yesterday that it continues “to take this matter very seriously as we do not tolerate child labor.” Those practices were disclosed in a Dec. 15 Bloomberg News report about the program the company buys from in Burkina Faso. Fairtrade International, the Bonn-based organization that certified the cotton, said in a statement last week that it has “prioritised further training on child labour and child protection for its members” beginning in early 2012.

Bloomberg reported last month on the use of child labor in the Burkina Faso program, focusing on the plight of so-called foster children who are kept out of school and forced to work the fields. Their potential vulnerability on fair-trade farms across the country was highlighted in a 2008 unpublished study commissioned by the program’s sponsors in Burkina Faso. Victoria’s Secret has said it never saw the report.

Homeland Security Inquiry

The U.S. government’s preliminary inquiry is being done by the ICE Homeland Security Investigations division, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly on such matters.

The department is responsible for enforcing Section 307 of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, a 1930 law banning the importation of goods manufactured by forced labor. Those powers were strengthened by a 1999 executive order and anti-human trafficking laws passed in 2005 and 2008. The government can seize goods and impose fines.

Fairtrade Chief Resigns

Fairtrade officials declined to say what, if any, specific safeguards the organization had taken regarding child labor in Burkina Faso in light of the serious human-rights abuses cited by the U.S. government in the cotton sector. Fairtrade’s then-chief executive, Rob Cameron, resigned within one week of publication of Bloomberg’s Dec. 15 story. At the time, a spokeswoman said his departure wasn’t related to the article.

Bloomberg’s report was centered on the Burkinabe village of Benvar, where there are fewer than 20 organic producers this season. Since publication, individuals identified by local producers as representatives of the national farmers’ federation, which runs the program and is certified by Fairtrade, visited Benvar. They intimidated the producers and warned children not to speak to outsiders, according to farmers and village elders interviewed in person and by telephone since late December. The representatives also threatened a Bloomberg reporter with arrest and physical harm.

Adapted from “Child Labor for Fair-Trade Cotton Probed by U.S. Investigators,” Bloomberg, 13 January 2012.

US Calls for Burma Military to Account for Human Trafficking

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 22:21:00 GMT

The US ambassador for human trafficking, Luis CdeBaca, is calling for Burmese military officers to be held accountable for any involvement in human trafficking or the recruitment of child soldiers. Human rights advocates say an end to impunity by Burma’s military’s involvement with human trafficking is seen as a key test for the new civilian government.

After the end of an official visit to Burma, U.S. Ambassador for human trafficking Luis CdeBaca says he remains optimistic the civilian government will move to reduce forced labor and child soldier recruitment. But CdeBaca, who travelled to Burma with U.S. special envoy and policy coordinator for Burma Derek Mitchell, said senior military officers need to be held accountable for human-rights abuses such as forced labor.

“One of the things as well is the issue of accountability for the military officers, both the ones who use civilians for forced labor but also the ones who are engaged in recruitment child soldiers," said CdeBaca. "There have been a number of prosecutions for recruitment for recruitment of child soldiers but it’s all the low level guys.”

A 2011 Human Rights Watch report said over several decades the Burmese Army forced civilians to risk their lives in “barbaric conditions” in operations against rebel armed groups. It said military officers and soldiers faced charges of “committing atrocities with impunity.”

The report accused the Burmese military of colluding with Corrections Department officials to use an estimated 700 prisoners from 12 prisons to act as army porters during fighting in southern Karen State. The porters risk death from landmines. The report added ethnic-rebel groups also face accusations of the indiscriminate use of landmines, the use of civilians as forced labor and recruitment of child soldiers. The annual U.S. global report on human trafficking cited Burma for failing to comply with minimum standards or to make serious efforts to curb human trafficking.

CdeBaca said Burmese officials acknowledged the problems, which he said is “encouraging.” He said Burmese steps to address human trafficking issues should also include the cooperation of neighboring countries, such as Malaysia and Thailand.

“I would like to see both legal and policy statements that end this practice of state sponsored labor," said CdeBaca. "That would be a very positive step forward. A more robust victim identification (program) where we see more victims being helped both here in Burma but also through the offices of the Burmese diplomats in Malaysia and Thailand.”

Burma is seeking to improve international relations in a bid to see economic and political sanctions eased to open the way for foreign investment and economic development. But the international community says further reforms are needed, including the release of all political prisoners.

Adapted from “US Calls for Burma Military to Account for Human Trafficking”, Voice of America, 12 January 2012.

Ambassador CdeBaca’s full remarks to the Media at the US Embassy in Rangoon, Burma.

How to End Sex Trafficking and Modern Day Slavery

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 22:17:00 GMT

An interview with Siddharth Kara, fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and one of the world’s foremost experts on human trafficking and modern day slavery, covers the evolution of Kara’s anti-trafficking efforts, and the current landscape of these issues, challenges and opportunities to making progress.

Kara is the author of the award-winning book, “Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery,” the first of three books he is writing on the subjects of human trafficking and contemporary slavery. “Sex Trafficking” was named co-winner of the prestigious 2010 Frederick Douglass Award at Yale University for the best non-fiction book on slavery. Kara also currently advises the United Nations, the U.S. Government, and several other governments on antislavery research, policy and law.

See Siddharth Kara’s full interview.

Adapted from “How to End Sex Trafficking and Modern Day Slavery,” Forbes, 8 January 2012.

Presidential Proclamation - National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:47:00 GMT

United States President, Barack Obama, proclaimed January as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month on January 4th, 2011. January 12th already marks the National Global Human Trafficking Awareness Day in the US.

See the White House's National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month press release for the President’s remarks.

California cracks down on global slave labour - Law forces firms to check supply chains

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 22:23:00 GMT

A new California law will force retailers and manufacturers to disclose how they guard against slavery and human trafficking throughout their supply chains, ratcheting up scrutiny of some of the largest U.S. corporations.

Beginning today, about 3,200 major companies doing business or based in California, a list that includes Apple and Gap Inc., will be required to disclose steps they take, if any, to ensure their suppliers and partners do not use forced labour.

Companies risk getting sued by the state attorney general if they flout that law. But experts say the real pressure will come from the court of public opinion: consumers who care about ethical working conditions and take an interest in how their favourite brands get made.

The heightened scrutiny expected under the law, which applies to retailers and manufacturers in the state with more than $100 million in global sales, is already spurring companies to take a closer look at practices they follow, and in some cases improve them, lawyers say.

A drive to slash costs has quickened in tandem with global trade and industry competition in past decades. Increasingly complex supply chains that criss-cross the world make it harder for executives to scrutinize all the companies that have a hand in producing their products.

Under the new law, companies are required to describe the extent to which they verify risks of human trafficking and conduct independent and surprise audits of their suppliers.

They also have to disclose whether they force suppliers to certify the materials they use comply with laws regarding human trafficking and slavery, and whether employees receive training to reduce the risk of slavery.

Keith Bishop, a partner at law firm Allen Matkins, said he advised companies directly affected by the new law, and then received a second wave of inquiries from many of those companies' suppliers. They wanted to know what measures to take to meet their customers' requirements.

"The act, rather ingeniously, specifically regulates relatively few companies, but impacts a very large number of companies," Bishop said.

Adapted from “California cracks down on global slave labour - Law forces firms to check supply chains,” Calgary Herald, 2 January 2012.

The California State Senate provides the full text of the California Transparency Supply Chain Act.

U.S.Department of State Releases 11th Annual Trafficking in Persons Report

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 13:01:00 GMT

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Announces Release of 11th Annual Trafficking in Persons Report.

The 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report on 184 nations is the most comprehensive worldwide report on the efforts of governments to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons. Its findings will raise global awareness, highlight the progress the international community has made thus far, and identify gaps in action. The annual Trafficking in Persons Report serves as the primary diplomatic tool through which the U.S. Government encourages partnership and increased determination in the fight against forced labor, sexual exploitation, and modern-day slavery.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Ambassador Luis CdeBaca has called this the Decade of Delivery in order to spur countries to take effective actions to counter trafficking in persons.

U.S.Department of State Releases 10th Annual Trafficking in Persons Report

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 04:03:00 GMT

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Announces Release of 10th Annual Trafficking in Persons Report.

The *2010 Trafficking in Persons Report* on 177 nations is the most comprehensive worldwide report on the efforts of governments to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons. Its findings will raise global awareness and spur countries to take effective actions to counter trafficking in persons. The annual Trafficking in Persons Report serves as the primary diplomatic tool through which the U.S. Government encourages partnership and increased determination in the fight against forced labor, sexual exploitation, and modern-day slavery.

The 2010 Trafficking in Persons Report on 177 nations is the most comprehensive worldwide report on the efforts of governments to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons. Its findings will raise global awareness and spur countries to take effective actions to counter trafficking in persons.

The annual Trafficking in Persons Report serves as the primary diplomatic tool through which the U.S. Government encourages partnership and increased determination in the fight against forced labor, sexual exploitation, and modern-day slavery.

US Ranked on Human Trafficking Report for First Time

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 04:05:00 GMT

The United States was ranked for the first time in the 10th annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report documenting human trafficking and modern slavery, released on Monday by the Department of State. The report found that in America men, women, and children were subject to trafficking for “forced labor, debt bondage, and forced prostitution.”

The report represents a “whole decade of work the State Department has pioneered,” said Andrea Bertone, director of Human Trafficking.org, who spoke with the Epoch Times by phone. She said the report is important in her work to prevent human trafficking and each year includes greater detail about trafficking situations in countries around the world.

The report ranks 177 countries based on “the extent of government action to combat trafficking,” with Tier 1 as the highest ranking. A Tier 1 ranking indicates that a state government has recognized the problem of human trafficking, has made efforts to address the issue, and meets the TVPA’s (Torture Victim Protection Act) minimum standards. A country with a Tier 2 rating has not met the standards but has made efforts to do so, while a Tier 3 rating means the country has not met the minimum standards and has not attempted to do so. The United States received a Tier 1 rating.

Andrea Bertone said the rating for the United States is the result of continued requests by NGOs for the United States to rate itself. Bertone said she is not sure how objective the United States could be in rating itself, "Would the U.S. get anything other than a Tier 1 rating?"

Jennifer Bernal Garcia of the Center for a New American Security says including the United States in the report makes sense. Speaking by phone, she said that human trafficking is a transnational phenomenon and the “U.S. is in no way immune.”

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton announced the release of the report in Washington, D.C., urging governments as well as businesses that profit from human trafficking to take “shared responsibility” for these human rights violations. Undersecretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Maria Otero and Ambassador-at-Large Luis CdeBaca also spoke at the press conference.

Important national and international legislation was passed 10 years ago that allowed the report to begin its annual research and assessment of human trafficking across the world. In 2000, the United States passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, establishing the tier ranking system of the report. The United Nations also adopted the Palermo Protocol that year, which provided for “the criminalization of all acts of trafficking—including forced labor, slavery, and slaverylike practices—and that governmental response should incorporate the '3P' paradigm: prevention, criminal prosecution, and victim protection,” according to the report’s website.

Secretary Clinton said that the task of ending modern slavery cannot be simply given to nongovernmental organizations. In order to bring traffickers to justice, “We can’t just blame international organized crime and rely on law enforcement to pursue them. It is everyone’s responsibility. Businesses that knowingly profit or exhibit reckless disregard about their supply chains, governments that turn a blind eye, or do not devote serious resources to addressing the problem, all of us have to speak out and act forcefully,” said Clinton at the press conference.

Ambassador CdeBaca noted that 10 years ago when the report was compiled for the first time, human trafficking was “a little-understood crime that took place in the shadows, cast a darkness over our fundamental rights whether constitutional, international norms, or personal liberties.” Ten years later, it has become a topic of great concern, and there is an even greater need to take bold steps forward, said CdeBaca.

CdeBaca addressed America’s participation in human trafficking. The 2010 report documents the United States not just as a destination or transit country for trafficking, but “we, too, are a source country for people held in servitude.”

Advocates who fought to end slavery and human trafficking in their countries were named heroes and were presented certificates. They came from such diverse countries as Brazil, Jordan, Uzbekistan, and Hungary.

This year marks a year of progress against human trafficking. For example, Argentina made its first conviction under an anti-trafficking law, Clinton said. But there is still much left to do to end slavery once and for all, and Clinton said she hopes “this report galvanizes further action.”

Adapted from: Annie Wu and Nicholas Zifcak. "US Ranked on Human Trafficking for First Time." The Epoch Times. 14 June 2010.

Somalia: Human Trafficking on the Increase

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 20:37:00 GMT

Officials in Somalia's self-declared independent state of Somaliland are concerned over a rise in human trafficking in the region. Children are mainly trafficked from south-central Somalia, because of the lack of government there, says a senior government official.

“Human trafficking is increasing in Somaliland. Before, no one believed that human/child trafficking existed in Somaliland but such kinds of crimes occur here…” Fadumo Sudi, the Minister for Family and Social Affairs, said during a recent ceremony to reunite a girl with her family. She had been trafficked to Hargeisa in February from Qardho, in the autonomous northeast region of Puntland.

“One day, my sister went to school as usual, but she disappeared. We searched for her everywhere but we didn’t find her. Finally, we heard from the media that she had been trafficked to Somaliland and by Allah’s mercy she was saved. We are happy to have her back,” Najib Jama Abdi, the girl’s brother, said.

In January, the Somaliland immigration office in the area of Loyada, along the border with Djibouti, sent home more than 60 minors in the company of about 200 illegal immigrants who were hoping to proceed on to Europe via Eritrea, Sudan and Libya.

Ethiopian Oromian children also travel to Somaliland without their parents in search of work; most end up in petty trade or as street children. Older people, claiming to be the children’s parents, use them to beg.

"The children are used in different ways ... and are exploited for child labour in Somaliland," Lul Hassan Matan, the director of child protection in Somaliland's National Human Rights Commission, told IRIN. "Whenever you see a child in the street crying and ask him or her why, they respond they are not with their parents, but have been brought in to work." (Since speaking to IRIN, Matan has left this position).

Raising awareness
According to Khadar Qorane Yusuf, the victim referral mechanism lead person in the Ministry of Family and Social Affairs, the children are initially enticed with false promises and told not to share the information with anyone, only to be later violated.

"With the collaboration of the International Office for Migration (IOM), we are raising awareness by holding forums to discuss the issue of trafficking, as well as debates and seminars," added Qorane. Information posters have been strategically placed along the borders and airports.

IOM defines trafficking in persons as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the 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 or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.

Exploitation includes the exploitation or the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.

Forced into sex work
According to Mayumi Ueno, the counter-trafficking project manager at IOM’s Somalia Support Office, the scale of human trafficking in Somalia is not known. “But [a] rapid assessment conducted by IOM indicated [the] existence of international trafficking of Somali women to Djibouti, Kenya, and the Gulf States, mainly the United Arab Emirates, for sexual and labour exploitation. Moreover, further investigations confirmed the widespread practice of domestic human trafficking of Somali women and children [who are] lured into forced prostitution in some areas of Somalia [Somaliland and Puntland],” Ueno told IRIN.

In 2009, IOM launched a Counter Trafficking Project for Somalia, in Somaliland and Puntland, whose activities include awareness-raising campaigns targeting the local population to inform them of the dangers and risks of being trafficked. It has also supported Somaliland and Puntland in setting up National Counter Trafficking Taskforces.

Challenges remain, however, with the public and authorities not familiar with the concept of human trafficking and the best ways to respond, Mayumi said. “Furthermore, the general lack of social services and issues of culture and social stigma make victims' reintegration extremely difficult.”

Adapted from: "SOMALIA: Human trafficking on the increase." 2 April 2010. IRIN news.

New Task Force Aims to Fight Human Trafficking in Texas

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 20:38:00 GMT

Human trafficking in Texas is nothing new, but the state's previous efforts to end this practice have fallen short. To address the continuing problem, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot recently announced the creation of a new task force, which he says, "will take an aggressive stand against human traffickers, who have turned Texas into a hub for international and domestic forced labor and prostitution rings."

A big part of the problem is that victims of human trafficking crimes often do not realize that they are being exploited. From dishwashers to prostitutes, many believe they are working off debt. The Texas Human Trafficking Prevention Task Force aims to raise awareness of the issue, eliminate the demand for this kind of labor, understand the routes traffickers use, and report statistics.

Texas and Human Trafficking
Each year, 800,000 people become human trafficking victims and are transported across international borders. According to the Texas Attorney General, 20 percent of those people pass through Texas.

Texas was one of the first states in the U.S. to recognize human trafficking as a crime in 2003. Since then, Houston and El Paso have been cited by the U.S. Department of Justice as the places where human trafficking is most prominent.

What the Task Force Hopes to Accomplish
According to Abbot, the task force "will coordinate, fortify and expand law enforcement tools to prosecute traffickers and help better identify victims of 'modern-day slavery."

As human traffickers naturally move around, intelligence on their activities needs to move with them. The Texas Human Trafficking Prevention Task Force aims to connect law enforcement in different Texas cities. In addition, members of the task force will be made up of law enforcement, social services workers and officials from NGOs.

Adapted from "New Task Force Aims to Fight Human Trafficking in Texas." 24-7 Press Release. 2 April 2010.

Police Break Up Group Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation in Europe

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:16:00 GMT

Police in Italy and across Europe have arrested a group of mainly Nigerian citizens accused of trafficking women for sex, European police agency Europol said.

Europol said it and the Italian 'carabinieri' paramilitary police had arrested 34 suspects in Italy as well as in France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Spain and San Marino. Members of the criminal group had also worked with two Italian doctors to organise forced abortions, the Hague-based agency said.

Europol said investigations had focused on groups located in the coastal Marche region of Italy, where victims were held in criminal cells led by 'madames' and had to hand over all their earnings to pay off debt incurred for their journey to Italy. "The victims were subject to continued intimidation and violence, aimed at guaranteeing a daily income and to ensure their compliance," Europol said in a statement.

After providing victims with counterfeit documents, some were trafficked through the Netherlands and France where they were met and accompanied to Italy by members of the criminal group, while others came by sea or through Turkey and Greece.

The arrests follow a police bust of a drug trafficking network in April, in which drugs were smuggled from Madrid in Spain to the Italian regions of Piedmont and Marche by using drug 'mules', who were often the women forced into prostitution.

Adapted from: "Police bust sex trafficking group in Europe," Reuters, 24 June 2009.

Barbados Dismisses Human Trafficking Allegations

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:24:00 GMT

Barbados is the latest Caribbean country to defend itself against allegations that it isn't doing enough to prevent human trafficking.

The country's Minister of Youth, Family and Sports, Dr Esther Byer Suckoo is insisting that the government has been working assiduously to ensure that the relevant systems are put in place to deal with the scourge. Barbados was placed in the Tier Two of "countries considered to be making minimal efforts to satisfy the United Nations' anti-trafficking in persons' requirement", in the United States 2009 Report on Trafficking in Persons.

Dr Byer Suckoo countered the allegation in the document released by the US State Department, saying that "government has privately and publicly expressed its abhorrence of this heinous crime".

"The gravity and inhumane nature of this practice demands that we attack it on all fronts. We have to remain ahead of those unprincipled persons, so as to prevent human trafficking from occurring here, but if it does, we have to ensure mechanisms are in place to assist those victims," she said.

"The Bureau of Gender Affairs will be meeting with four major sectors that impact on human trafficking to finalise the protocol, before submission to the Ministry of Family for ratification. They will meet with officials in the areas of law enforcement and social services, non-governmental organisations and other government departments to analyse their responsibilities under the draft protocol and determine whether they have any challenges in meeting the stated commitments," the Minister added.

According to her, the exercise "aims to ensure that victims of human trafficking are not denied humanitarian support".

"Barbados is prepared to cooperate with countries and enter into arrangements to protect the welfare of victims, punish traffickers, and preserve its reputation as a promoter of human rights," Dr Byer Suckoo added.

Barbados has signed but not ratified the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children. This protocol supplements the United Nations Convention against Trans-national Organised Crime.

St Vincent and the Grenadines and Guyana have already reacted angrily to being placed in the Tier Two Watchlist, saying the report is not a reflection of the reality in the ground.

Adapted from: "Barbados dismisses human trafficking allegations," Caribbean360.com, 24 June 2009.

Safe House to be Established for Victims of Human Trafficking in Sabah, Malaysia

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:29:00 GMT

Sabah will set up a safe house for foreign women who are victims human trafficking and domestic abuse.

The safe house will be set up at an undisclosed location and will start operating later this year, said Assistant Community Development and Consumer Affair Minister Datuk Herbert Timbon Lagadan.

He said the facility would be able to accommodate at least 20 women.

“It would be operated by the Community Development Ministry,” he said after opening a workshop to set up an anti-human trafficking monitoring committee jointly organised by the Archdiocesan Human Development Committee of Sabah and the International Catholic Migration Commission of Indonesia here. He said abused women were now sent to the peninsula to be put under a protective programme.

However, Herbert claimed that the problem of human trafficking or abuse in the state was not serious. Last year, the state recorded only three such cases.

Meanwhile, National Anti-Human Trafficking Council secretary Ahmad Ismail said it was unfair of western countries to accuse Malaysia of being a transit point foreign citizens like those from Pakistan, Iraq and India.

“They cannot say that we are not doing anything to tackle this matter. Actually, the foreign citizens come into the country using valid social visit passes, but they leave using unofficial channels,” he added. “We need the cooperation of non-governmental organisations and the public to check this problem,” he said.

Adapted from: "Sabah safe house for victims of human trafficking, abuse," The Star, 24 June 2009.

Rhode Island, USA Senate to Vote on Bills Banning Prostitution and Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:36:00 GMT

The Senate [in Providence, Rhode Island] is expected to vote this week on two bills designed to strengthen the laws against prostitution and sex-trafficking.

A measure (S-596) introduced by Sen. Paul V. Jabour, D-Providence, to make indoor prostitution a crime “will come up for a vote this session,” Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed pledged.

Rhode Island is the only place in the country, other than certain counties in Nevada, where indoor prostitution is not a crime. “I believe that law enforcement sees this as a loophole and we’re addressing this,” Paiva Weed said. Jabour’s bill is awaiting a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

A separate bill, introduced in the House by Rep. Joanne M. Giannini, D-Providence, passed the Senate in May by a vote of 62 to 8. Meanwhile, the Senate also is expected to take up legislation as early as Wednesday to strengthen the laws against sex-trafficking in minors.

That measure (S-605 Sub A), introduced by Sen. Rhoda E. Perry, D-Providence, had been scheduled for a vote on the Senate floor Tuesday but was postponed to give senators a chance to review some last-minute changes.

Efforts to amend the 2007 human trafficking law initially drew broad support among a diverse coalition that included law enforcement, advocates for victims and church groups. But in recent weeks, some of the legislation’s supporters — among them the Rhode Island State Police — have raised concerns about the language in the Senate version of the bill.

The state police superintendent, Col. Brendan P. Doherty, said the original Senate bill included requirements for training that would be time-consuming and expensive. But the new version introduced Tuesday stipulates only that it is up to law enforcement to ensure necessary training.

One of the House bill’s vocal supporters, University of Rhode Island Prof. Donna Hughes, e-mailed a letter to senators last Monday urging them to reject the Senate bill. “Of course, I am opposed to sex trafficking,” she said in the e-mail, “but this bill comes loaded with loopholes and complex provisions that will create more problems than it solves.” Hughes wrote that the bill “creates a loophole for buyers of sex, if they are under 21. ”The amended Senate bill states: “Nothing in this chapter shall be construed as preventing the prosecution of ‘victims’ or ‘customers’ that are personally involved in the management, organization or proprietary ownership of an enterprise ...”

Kimberly Harris, cochairwoman of the Rhode Island Coalition Against Human Trafficking, said she was “optimistic that both the House and Senate will agree on the most comprehensive victim-centered bill.”

Harris said the coalition had hoped the bill would also cover trafficking for forced labor, but that provision was removed from the Senate version. A separate sex-trafficking bill (H-5661) introduced by Representative Giannini, which included a provision to cover forced labor, also is pending before the House but no vote has been scheduled.

Adapted from: Lynn Arditi, "Senate to vote on bills against prostitution, sex-trafficking," The Providence Journal, 24 June 2009.

Enforcement Agencies in Malaysia Combating Human Trafficking

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:07:00 GMT

Malaysian enforcement agencies are committed in addressing human trafficking by tightening surveillance and checks on travellers, said Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan.

"We have solved many human trafficking cases, made arrests and charged those responsible. These prove our seriousness in eliminating trafficking in persons," he told reporters at the police family day at Titiwangsa Lake Garden.

Malaysia has been downgraded to Tier 3 from Tier 2 in the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report 2009 released by US Department of State for allegedly not doing enough to combat human trafficking.

Musa said the Malaysian police would compare notes with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Australian police on human trafficking.

On a defamation suit filed against the government and the police by textile shop owner and his brother-in-law for wrongful arrest and trespass, Musa said it was their rights and the police were prepared to face it. He said the duo, who were suspects in the Nurin Jazlin Jazimin's abduction and murder two years ago, were picked up based on information received. Musa said the police had not closed the case and were still gathering evidence.

Trader Mohamad Zamri Ibrahim, 35, and former engineer Mohd Suhaimi Yusoff, 30, claimed that they want to clear their names which were tarnished due to the arrest and detention. The two plaintiffs yesterday named investigating officer ASP Loh Pei Pei, Musa and the Government as defendants.

Eight-year-old Nurin went missing on 20 August 2007 after going to a night market alone near her home in Wangsa Maju. Her naked body was found stuffed in a sports bag and left outside a shop in Petaling Utama on Sept 17 2007.

Adapted from: Enforcement Agencies Serious In Combating Human Trafficking - Musa, Bernama.com, 20 June 2009.

Police in Malaysia: "We Are Doing All We Can on Human Trafficking"

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:51:00 GMT

The deputy inspector-general of police rejected allegations that the force was not doing enough to investigate human trafficking cases.

Tan Sri Ismail Omar said the proof that police were giving attention to such cases lay in their records.

He said the United States State Department had no basis to put Malaysia in Tier 3 of its Trafficking in Persons blacklist or to make allegations that the force had not done its best to counter the problem.

Ismail said the force will continue to do so until the issue was resolved.

"Although there are many challenges and factors in curbing the problem, we have managed to take appropriate action based on the power given to us and the laws of the country."

Ismail said policemen had been stationed at border areas and other "hot" spots for those attempting to smuggle illegals into the country, adding that the force also worked closely with other enforcement agencies in the country such as Customs, Immigration and the Anti-Smuggling Unit.

Meanwhile, Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said Malaysia was waiting for a written reply from the United States embassy on its government's list of top trafficking offenders. He said he was told the report would be submitted soon.

"I want to know which aspects they are referring to. They have to be more specific and should not make accusations without backing their claims," he said. He said the government would take all steps under its jurisdiction to overcome the problem if it was within its control. "The issues regarding human trafficking cannot be overcome overnight. We need to get an accurate account from the embassy."

He said Malaysia was blacklisted in 2001 but its ranking improved to Tier 2 in the subsequent years until 2007, when it was relegated to Tier 3. Last year, after the enactment of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act 2007, Malaysia was again elevated to Tier 2.

Malaysia is listed with 16 other countries in Tier 3 this year, including six newly-added African nations.

Adapted from: Fadhal A. Ghani and Sajahan Abdul Waheed, "Police: We're doing all we can on human trafficking," New Straits Times, 20 June 2009.

Chinese Police Rescue Trafficked Children

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:51:00 GMT

Police across China have rescued 23 children in a nationwide crackdown on child trafficking from poor provinces, state media said.

The Wuhan Rail Bureau in central China has also netted 18 suspects in an 8-day campaign targeting trains pulling in from the city of Kunming, the capital of impoverished Yunnan province in southeast China, the Xinhua news agency said.

Other children, ranging in age from 100 days to 8 years, from the poor, coal-mining province of Shanxi, have been found in Shandong province on the prosperous coast. They were taken hundreds of miles in buses by smuggling rings that used poor migrants to accompany the children.

Many are now in orphanages, since their parents have not been found, Central China Television said in a report on the campaign. Chinese babies, especially boys, from poor and remote areas may be sold to more prosperous people in far-away provinces. Some older children are also sold to gangs who train them to beg in bigger, richer cities.

A child may be sold for anywhere from 7,000 yuan to 40,000 yuan ($1,000-$5,850), depending on the age and sex, the Xinhua report said. Police in Shanxi said parents struggling to make ends meet might sell their newborns. Chinese parents also face fines if they have more than the number of children allowed under China's population controls.

Women traveling with a small child and lots of milk powder but little in the way of children's clothing or other items are potential traffickers, the report said. The cheap and crowded train system allows them to bring the children long distances without being noticed.

Women and girls from the poor countryside are also potential victims of kidnapping and trafficking.

They are sold to poor men who can't get wives in equally remote villages in other parts of China, where differences in language make it difficult for them to escape.

($1=6.836 Yuan)

Adapted from: Lucy Hornby and Alex Richardson, "China police rescue trafficked children," The Washington Post, 21 June 2009.

Africa Union To Launch Initiative Against Human Trafficking

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:55:00 GMT

The African Union Commission announced that it will launch an initiative against trafficking in human beings, AU.COMMIT Campaign, among African population within the continent and in the Diaspora.

According to the AU Commission’s statement the launching ceremony of the initiative is scheduled to take place on Tuesday 16 June 2009, at 09:30 am, at the headquarters of the African Union in Addis Ababa.

The statement indicated that the theme of the initiative is “Let’s prevent trafficking, protect victims of trafficking and prosecute those involved in trafficking”.

The AU.COMMIT Campaign which coincides with the Day of African Child (DAC) observed every 16 June all over the continent and will feature with the public address by key personalities and a presentation of the AU.COMMIT Campaign Strategy, by Mehari Taddele Maru, Programme Coordinator for Migration, Department of Social Affairs, AU Commission, the statement said.

It also said that AU.COMMIT Campaign strengthens the framework of the Plan of Action on Africa Fit for Children and the Call for Accelerated Action on the implementation of the Plan of Action towards Africa Fit for Children.

The launch of AU.COMMIT Campaign is aimed at setting the pace for the fight against trafficking in human beings as a priority on the agenda of the continent.

Adated from: "Ethiopia: AU Commission to launch initiative against human trafficking," Ethiopian Review, 19 June 2009.

Nigeria Shows Political Will to Investigate, Prosecute, and Convict Human Trafficking Cases

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:23:00 GMT

It's not every day that the US government gives Nigeria a shout-out for a job well done. After all, the State Department labels this African nation's human rights record "poor" and its 2007 presidential election "seriously flawed."

But this week, the State Department praised Africa's most populous country for its progress in prosecuting human traffickers and helping their victims. "I can't talk about Nigeria enough," said Ambassador Luis Cde-Baca, who leads the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.

In only five years, Nigeria has advanced from the State Department's human-trafficking "watch list" to its top tier of countries fully complying with standards to eliminate servitude.

That stands as proof that other countries and the world as a whole can do something about this scourge flourishing in the shadows. An estimated 12 million adults and children have been induced by force, fraud, or coercion to become prostitutes, miners, farmhands, domestics, sweatshop workers – mostly in the developing world.

In its ninth annual report on human trafficking, the State Department said this week that the economic crisis has made people more vulnerable to the false promises and trickery that can lead to enslavement. Of the 175 countries and territories it rated, the 2008 report put 52 of them on its watch list, up from 40 the year before – a 30 percent increase.

And yet, since 2000, more than half of all countries have enacted laws that ban human trafficking. Nongovernmental organizations are working more closely with law enforcement and that's leading to thousands of prosecutions. Last year, nearly 3,000 traffickers were convicted.

It's the law enforcement follow-through that counts most, and that's one reason why Nigeria moved into the top-tier rank. Over the last year, it investigated 209 trafficking cases resulting in 23 convictions – more than double the convictions from the year before.

That number is small considering that 150 million people live in this West African country. Nigeria is a source and a destination for coerced labor. Boys are forced to work as street vendors and beggars, in stone quarries and as domestics. Women and girls are trafficked mostly for the commercial sex trade and as servants.

But Nigeria's anti-trafficking trajectory is moving in the right direction. The government is making a concerted effort to train law enforcement and cooperate internationally. Last year it helped in the arrest of 60 Nigerian trafficking suspects in Europe. It has increased funding for its anti-trafficking program and is assisting victims by working with NGOs to provide shelter, counseling, and vocational training.

Nigeria's efforts are even more remarkable given what happened elsewhere on the continent. Of the seven countries demoted to the report's worst-performing category, six were from Africa (the seventh was Malaysia, where traffickers are exploiting migrants from Burma, or Myanmar).

Mr. CdeBaca said several of these countries had stalled in their commitment to curb "hereditary slavery," in which a slave caste serves the same families, sometimes going back hundreds of years. He singled out the West African countries of Chad, Mauritania, and Niger.

Human trafficking occurs in every country, including the United States – which for the first time will be rated in next year's report. No doubt, it, too, can do more to stop this serious crime.

At the end of the day, it's not enough to pass laws banning human trafficking. Cases must be investigated, suspects prosecuted, and traffickers convicted. Nigeria has shown the political will to follow through. Other countries can, too.

Adapted from: Monitor's Editorial Board, "A stop sign for human trafficking," The Christian Science Monitor, 19 June 2009.

Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation in New York

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:35:00 GMT

Joseph Yannai’s neighbors expressed shock last month when a young Hungarian woman told Westchester County police the 65-year-old man had forced her into sexual slavery. Yannai maintained his innocence, yet police had long wondered about the succession of foreign-born women living in his house.

“You’d think a warning bell would go off in a neighbor’s mind,” said Ron Soodalter, author of the new book “The Slave Next Door: Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today.” Yannai, police said, hired the women as au pairs, though he has no children.

The State Department estimates 17,500 people are trafficked into the U.S. and enslaved each year as housekeepers, farm hands, factory workers and prostitutes. But that’s a guess, because less than 1 percent of cases get prosecuted.

“It’s the invisible crime,” said Nassau County Detective John Birbiglia. He thinks the number of enslaved people is much higher, though he’s only solved three cases over four years running the Long Island Anti-Human Trafficking Task Forces. His most notorious case involved a couple who held two Indonesian women as captive domestic workers.

These days Birbiglia’s focused on massage parlors. “We used to arrest these women,” he said. “Now we know they’re victims.”

Safe Horizon’s Jennifer Dreher says her group has seen 350 cases since 2001. Sixty percent involved forced labor, and most were women from Latin America. “It’s very real,” she said.

Adapted from: N.Y.’s hidden trafficking, Metro, 21 June 2009.

Program to Prevent Youth Trafficking in Kanasas, USA

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:38:00 GMT

Wichita, Kansas law enforcement and Via Christi Health Care workers unite through Healthcare Haven, a program designed to help victimized youth.

Within 48 hours of running away from home, statistics show one in three youth are lured into prostitution. Statistics also show the average age of entry into prostitution is 12. The statistics are startling, yet they apply to Wichita.

"In the Midwest, this is a big problem," said Kathy Gill-Hopple, Director of Healthcare Haven. "This is the third most profitable crime behind drug trafficking and arms trafficking."

The extent of the problem in Wichita was kept under the radar until about three years ago. Now, law enforcement and health care workers are working together to shed light on the problem and bring help to those effected.

"We realized nobody is providing the health care service to these kids," said Gill-Hopple. "So there was a real gap in what was available, and we thought helping these youth really fit with Via Christie's mission."

Project Healthcare Haven reaches out to young people victimized by trafficking and prostitution by offering free services. Services include: free pap smears, screening and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases and provide resources for other health problems, including teenage pregnancy, substance abuse, depression, and thoughts of suicide.

"It's very difficult to access these people. It's a population that is very non-trusting," said Gill-Hopple. "They have been groomed into thinking no one will help them," she said.

In the past year Healthcare Haven has treated 6 victimized youth from the streets. Gill-Hopple said it is a small number, but the effect they have had is remarkable. She looks forward to working with law enforcement and helping more youth as the years continue.

Adapted from: Abby Barnett, "Program to Prevent Youth Trafficking," KAKE.com, 22 June 2009.

Two Indicted in Hawaii on a Trafficking Case

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:44:00 GMT

A federal grand jury has indicted a Honolulu man and woman on charges they operated a sex-trafficking operation that involved women and children and advertised their services on the Craigslist Web site.

Rodney D. King, 43, was charged with five counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion and one count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government. Sharon-Mae Nishimura, 30, is accused of assisting King and was indicted on similar charges.

King, also known as "Shadow" and "Special K," is scheduled to be arraigned in U.S. District Court here on June 29. A warrant has been issued for Nishimura's arrest.

The grand jury indicted the two on May 20, but the indictment was kept under seal until yesterday. If convicted, each faces a prison term of 15 years to life.

Prosecutors allege that King was a pimp who ran a sex-trafficking operation in Honolulu from April 2006 to June 2007. The indictment accuses King of using force, fraud and coercion to engage three women and two girls in his commercial sex operation.

King directed Nishimura to place ads for prostitution involving one of the women and the two girls on Craigslist, using a computer at King's home, the indictment said. King would then arrange for transportation for the females to meet the customers, according to the court document, and directed Nishimura, also known as "Sassy," to collect the fees.

King also is accused of providing a 16-year-old girl with crystal methamphetamine "in order to induce continued compliance" by her with his sex-for-hire operation.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Darren Ching, one of the prosecutors in the case, would not comment on specifics, but said his office will prosecute cases such as this to the fullest. "The U.S. Attorney's office prosecutes sex-trafficking offenses to disrupt these activities and to deter the predatory actions of those who exploit minors and women," Ching said.

In 1999, King pleaded guilty in federal court to arranging for the transportation of a minor to a Waikiki hotel for prostitution. He was sentenced to two years in prison. Last month, he was sentenced to two years in federal prison for violating terms of his supervised release, according to court documents.

Adapted from: Curtis Lum, "2 are indicted in sex-trafficking case," Honolulu Advertiser, 19 June 2009.

Malaysia outcry at US trafficking blacklisting

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:24:00 GMT

Malaysia has accused the United States of unfair treatment over its decision to re-list the country on a human trafficking blacklist.

Washington's annual "Trafficking in Persons Report" says Malaysia is failing to comply with minimum standards to eliminate trafficking and "is not making significant efforts to do so".

Last year the report elevated Malaysia to a "watch list" from the 2007 blacklist after finding that it was "making significant efforts" to comply with standards.

"It is unfair to put us back on the list as we are doing our best," Malaysian Deputy Home Minister Abu Seman Yusop told reporters. "We will have to consider our next action in opposing the re-listing of our country on the blacklist," he added.

Abu Seman said the Malaysian government did not condone human trafficking and had taken stern action to deal with the problem, including enacting an anti-human trafficking law in 2007 and setting up a special task force.

The report said that while the Malaysian government took early steps to fight sex trafficking, it has yet to fully tackle labour trafficking. It said there were "credible allegations", including those in a US Senate report this year, that some immigration officials took part in trafficking and extorting refugees from Myanmar.

Malaysia, which is listed with 16 other countries, including six newly-added African nations, could face sanctions such as the withholding of non-humanitarian, non-trade related US aid. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said recently his country was being used as a transit point for illegal immigrants.

Recent incidents include the arrests of 17 Iraqis and seven Indonesians over the weekend after authorities intercepted a boat that was trying to smuggle some of them to Australia via Indonesia. Authorities have said 12 suspected illegal immigrants were drowned off Malaysia's southern coast in the last two months when they tried to sneak out of the country.

Adapted from: Malaysia outcry at US trafficking blacklisting, Google News, 17 June 2009.

A Legislative Move to Decriminalize Teen Prostitution in Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:09:00 GMT

Arrested teenage prostitutes are often sent back to the streets and the pimps who control them because juvenile lockups are filled with more serious offenders, a police officer who specializes in such cases told state legislators.

Atlanta police Sgt. Ernest Britton and others asked members of the House Non-Civil Judicial Committee to support a bill that would decriminalize prostitution for those 17 and younger. Britton said that would help the legal system find help and treatment for teenager prostitutes, who are usually victims of exploitation.

A crowd of about 40 from a coalition of religious and political groups in metro Atlanta that formed to fight sex trafficking turned out for the hearing — a large turnout for a summertime legislative committee hearing. It pushed legislation this year that created better reporting of the crime.

Teenage prostitutes need help, not jail time, said coalition member Colleen Rouse of Norcross.

But Rep. Bobby Franklin (R-Marietta), a member of the committee, opposes the bill. “It will encourage child prostitution, because it will no longer be a crime,” he said.

Atlanta is a U.S. center for the child sex-trafficking trade, the FBI has said. The nonprofit Juvenile Justice Funds estimates that 200 to 300 adolescents and teenagers are prostituted in Atlanta every month. Committee members discussed concerns about wholesale decriminalization as opposed to finding better ways to allow police officers to get help for teenagers.

Cheryl DeLuca-Johnson of Gwinnett County, a coalition leader, said that the packed committee meeting was just a warmup for when the Legislature opens in January. “Our plan is to have hundreds here, then thousands,” DeLuca-Johnson said.

Adapted from: Christopher Quinn, "Supporters push teen prostitution legislation," The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 17 June 2009.

New Laws to Protect Victims of Human Trafficking in Australia

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:14:00 GMT

The Australian government has announced significant changes to its scheme for protecting victims of people trafficking, which has protected 131 people since 2004, but which, advocates say, could have done a lot more for many of those subjected to one of the world's worst trades. Victims will no longer be forced to become police informants in order to get government help and an Australian visa to allow them to stay in the country.

Presenter: Linda Mottram, Canberra correspondent
Speaker: Associate professor Jennifer Burn, law faculty, University of Technology, Sydney, and head of the Anti-Slavery Project; Tanya Pliberseck, Australian minister for the status of women, Canberra

MOTTRAM: Non-government groups have lobbied hard for changes to Australia's support arrangements for victims of trafficking, many of whom have been trafficked for sex. And the lobby groups can't speak highly enough of the Rudd government's response. Associate Professor Jennifer Burn from the Law Faculty at the University of Technology Sydney runs the Anti-Slavery Project.

BURN: This is going to transform lives. It's a very sound response.

MOTTRAM: Professor Burn has been a member of a government-convened round table on the issue of support for victims of trafficking, formed year ago. Advocacy groups had sought changes to the support scheme for years but it was the round table process under a new government that opened up the possibility of change to what the groups saw as a system that didn't support victims well, and left them uncertain about their future under a complex, drawn out, and conditional visa process. Jennifer Burn again.

BURN: One of the major criticisms of the previous regime was that victim support and visa support was linked to a person's willingness to engage in law enforcement. So, unless they were willing and able to assist police, and willing and able to assist in a commonwealth prosecution, there was no recognition of their status as a victim of crime and there was no visa support. So, this left out in the cold people who undoubtedly were trafficked to Australia, people who on any assessment of their evidence, and indeed in the assessment of the AFP (Australian Federal Police), were trafficked to Australia, but for various reasons couldn't participate, couldn't take part in a police investigation and prosecution. A person like that was in the cold.

MOTTRAM: The government's changes to the scheme give victims support regardless of visa status. Access to permanent residency will be more certain in what's intended to be a shorter period of time. The system still offers a criminal justice visa for those who are assisting police. But Jennifer Burn says there will be far less uncertainty about it that in the past.

BURN: There will be a point at which a decision will be made while a person holds that criminal justice visa about their entitlement for Australian permanent residence.

MOTTRAM: So, it removes a huge amount of uncertainty that was lasting a very long time for people?

BURN: Look, previously people held that criminal justice visa for four, five, or even more years. It caused so much stress so much anxiety.

MOTTRAM: Professor Burn says there'll also be positive results for the criminal justice system in Australia, with victims of trafficking more likely to be willing to assist if they're secure in their protected status.

Australia's minister for the status of women, Tanya Pliberseck, says she and her colleagues, the ministers for home affairs and immigration considered the changes to be essential.

PLIBERSEK: We want to make it a little bit easier for people who have been traumatised over and over again through the process of their trafficking to be able to recover. If they're able to help police, that's terrific, but we're not tying their visa status to the information they give to police.

MOTTRAM: And what about protection for families, who may be outside of Australia, is there any change there?

PLIBERSEK: Yes, indeed, the change enables immediate family members who are outside Australia to be included in an application for a witness protection trafficking visa and that's particularly important for women who may be supporting children overseas.

MOTTRAM: You appear to have moved very quickly on this, it was only a year ago that the round table discussing this issue was established, how urgent did you feel it was?

PLIBERSEK: Australia's very fortunate that we don't have a large number of people who are trafficked into Australia when you compare us with many other countries. But for every individual who has been trafficked, we're talking about the most enormously traumatic, often dangerous, often physically abusive experience and we as a government saw it as critical to moving as quickly as possible to improve the areas where we believed improvement needed to be made.

MOTTRAM: There is though a remaining matter of education. Sex industry representatives report numbers of cases, where women from countries where prostitution is highly criminalised, like South Korea, refuse to seek help from authorities in Australia. Despite being enslaved, they assume that they would face the same penalties in Australia as they do in their home countries.

Adapted from: "New laws to protect victims of people trafficking in Australia," Australian Broadcasting Corporation Radio Australia, 17 June 2009.

Partnering Against Trafficking

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:17:00 GMT

Twenty-year-old Oxana Rantchev left her home in Russia in 2001 for what she believed was a job as a translator in Cyprus. A few days later, she was found dead after attempting to escape the traffickers who tried to force her into prostitution.

Oxana's story is the story of modern slavery. Around the world, millions of people are living in bondage. They labor in fields and factories under threat of violence if they try to escape. They work in homes for families that keep them virtually imprisoned. They are forced to work as prostitutes or to beg in the streets. Women, men and children of all ages are often held far from home with no money, no connections and no way to ask for help. They discover too late that they've entered a trap of forced labor, sexual exploitation and brutal violence. The United Nations estimates that at least 12 million people worldwide are victims of trafficking. Because they often live and work out of sight, that number is almost certainly too low. More than half of all victims of forced labor are women and girls, compelled into servitude as domestics or sweatshop workers or, like Oxana, forced into prostitution. They face not only the loss of their freedom but also sexual assaults and physical abuses.

To some, human trafficking may seem like a problem limited to other parts of the world. In fact, it occurs in every country, including the United States, and we have a responsibility to fight it just as others do. The destructive effects of trafficking have an impact on all of us. Trafficking weakens legitimate economies, breaks up families, fuels violence, threatens public health and safety, and shreds the social fabric that is necessary for progress. It undermines our long-term efforts to promote peace and prosperity worldwide. And it is an affront to our values and our commitment to human rights.

The Obama administration views the fight against human trafficking, at home and abroad, as an important priority on our foreign policy agenda. The United States funds 140 anti-trafficking programs in nearly 70 countries, as well as 42 domestic task forces that bring state and local authorities together with nongovernmental organizations to combat trafficking. But there is so much more to do.

The problem is particularly urgent now, as local economies around the world reel from the global financial crisis. People are increasingly desperate for the chance to support their families, making them more susceptible to the tricks of ruthless criminals. Economic pressure means more incentive for unscrupulous bosses to squeeze everything they can from vulnerable workers and fewer resources for the organizations and governments trying to stop them.

The State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons Report, released this week, documents the scope of this challenge in every country. The report underscores the need to address the root causes of human trafficking -- including poverty, lax law enforcement and the exploitation of women -- and their devastating effects on its victims and their families.

Since 2000, more than half of all countries have enacted laws prohibiting all forms of human trafficking. New partnerships between law enforcement and nongovernmental organizations, including women's shelters and immigrants' rights groups, have led to thousands of prosecutions, as well as assistance for many victims.

The 2009 report highlights progress that several countries have made to intensify the fight against human trafficking. In Cyprus, where Oxana Rantchev was trafficked and killed, the government has taken new steps to protect victims. Another example is Costa Rica, long a hub for commercial sex trafficking. This year, it passed an anti-trafficking law; trained nearly 1,000 police, immigration agents and health workers to respond to trafficking; launched a national awareness campaign; and improved efforts to identify and care for victims. This progress is encouraging. Much of it is the result of the hard work of local activists such as Mariliana Morales Berrios, who founded the Rahab Foundation in Costa Rica in 1997 and has helped thousands of trafficking survivors rebuild their lives. Advocates such as Mariliana help spur change from the bottom up that encourages governments to make needed reforms from the top down.

We must build on this work. When I began advocating against trafficking in the 1990s, I saw firsthand what happens to its victims. In Thailand, I held 12-year-olds who had been trafficked and were dying of AIDS. In Eastern Europe, I shared the tears of women who wondered whether they'd ever see their relatives again. The challenge of trafficking demands a comprehensive approach that both brings down criminals and cares for victims. To our strategy of prosecution, protection and prevention, it's time to add a fourth P: partnerships.

The criminal networks that enslave millions of people cross borders and span continents. Our response must do the same. The United States is committed to building partnerships with governments and organizations around the world, to finding new and more effective ways to take on the scourge of human trafficking. We want to support our partners in their efforts and find ways to improve our own.

Human trafficking flourishes in the shadows and demands attention, commitment and passion from all of us. We are determined to build on our past success and advance progress in the weeks, months and years ahead. Together, we must hold a light to every corner of the globe and help build a world in which no one is enslaved.

Adapted from: Hillary Rodham Clinton, "Partnering Against Trafficking," The Washington Post, 17 June 2009.

Taiwan Forms Anti-human Trafficking Group

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:22:00 GMT

An international alliance of Filipino migrant organizations hailed the decision of the Taiwan government to form a group to look into cases of human trafficking and take legal action against employers found guilty of the transnational crime.

Migrante International said the anti-trafficking group would help ensure that Filipinos are hired only by legitimate recruiters and are assured of legal work when they arrive in Taiwan.

The special body will be composed of the National Immigration Agency, court police, foreign police, and the National Police Agency. Taiwan’s Council of Labor Affairs will take care of providing the workers NT$10,000 as allowance and working permits as they are allowed to work in any job category while the case is being heard.

Garry Martinez, Migrante chairperson, said the formation of the body was a “positive development” that stemmed from the complaint filed by 10 overseas Filipino workers at the National Immigration Agency, assisted by the New Immigrants Labor Rights Association, a non-government organization.

The 10 OFWs in Jia Chiarng Company recently lodged a complaint against underpayment of their salary and the confiscation of their passports by their brokers. The National Immigration Agency of Taiwan has concluded that Jia Chiarng Company and its broker are guilty of Labor Trafficking due to slave-like wages and confiscation of passports of its migrant workers.

In a statement, Martinez lamented the lack of action of Philippine officials on the case. “How ironic that a foreign government has shown more concern in taking legal actions against employers found guilty of trafficking Filipinos while the Philippine government officials remain inutile in going after abusive employers,” he said.

Adapted from: Lira Dalangin-Fernandez, "Taiwan forms anti-human trafficking group," Global Nation Inquirer, 15 June 2009.

U.S. Department of State Releases 9th Annual Trafficking in Persons Report

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:48:00 GMT

The 2009 Trafficking in Persons Report is the most comprehensive worldwide report on the efforts of governments to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons. Its findings will raise global awareness and spur countries to take effective actions to counter trafficking in persons.

The annual Trafficking in Persons Report serves as the primary diplomatic tool through which the U.S. Government encourages partnership and increased determination in the fight against forced labor, sexual exploitation, and modern-day slavery.

The Tier Rankings for countries of interest to http://HumanTrafficking.org are:

» Australia: Tier 1
» Burma: Tier 3
» Cambodia: Tier 2 Watch List (downgraded from Tier 2 in 2008)
» China: Tier 2 Watch List
» Hong Kong SAR: Tier 2 (downgraded from Tier 1 in 2008)
» Indonesia: Tier 2
» Japan: Tier 2
» Lao PDR: Tier 2
» Malaysia: Tier 3 (downgraded from Tier 2 Watch List in 2008)
» Mongolia: Tier 2
» New Zealand: Tier 1
» Philippines: Tier 2 Watch List (downgraded from Tier 2 in 2008)
» Singapore: Tier 2
» South Korea: Tier 1
» Taiwan: Tier 2
» Thailand: Tier 2
» Vietnam: Tier 2

To download the full Trafficking in Persons Report, visit:
http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2009/index.htm

"The ninth annual Trafficking in Persons Report sheds light on the faces of modern-day slavery and on new facets of this global problem. The human trafficking phenomenon affects virtually every country, including the United States. In acknowledging America’s own struggle with modern-day slavery and slavery-related practices, we offer partnership. We call on every government to join us in working to build consensus and leverage resources to eliminate all forms of human trafficking. This year, there is new urgency in this call. As the ongoing financial crisis takes an increasing toll on many of the world’s migrants – who often risk everything for the slim hope of a better future for their families – too often they are ensnared by traffickers who exploit their desperation. We recognize their immense suffering, and we commit to aiding their rescue and recovery."

Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton

Cambodia's Thriving Child Prostitution Industry

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 18:47:00 GMT

Al Jazeera's investigation found underage girls working in brothel's around Phnom Penh.

Girls as young as 14 work in brothels' around Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, and while the industry is often shown as serving predatory foreign tourists, local men have been found to be the mainstay of clients.
Thousands of children are bought and sold for sex every day in Cambodia an investigation by Al Jazeera found.

Al Jazeera filmed secretly at several brothels, and in each case found much the same thing - rooms full of young women in their early twenties, as well as teenagers. "For my virginity they gave me $200," Ya Da, a 16-year-old former prostitute, said.

Ya Da worked in a brothel for two years before she ran away. Now, she lives in a safe house with other former prostitutes and abused children. "There were just a few foreign customers [at the brothel]," she said. "I never slept with any, I slept only with Cambodian men."

'Local customers'
Mu Sochua, a politician with the opposition Sam Rainsy Party and a former minister for women's affairs, told Al Jazeera that most of Cambodia's sex industry was supported "by local customers".

"And some of these local customers are high-ranking officials. You have the military, the police and civil servants. you have rich businessmen who have lots of money," she said. The involvement of high-ranking officials has been one reasons, NGOs say, that the sex industry has thrived in Cambodia.

"Very often these brothels and criminal networks are being supported and protected by high ranking officials," Mark Capaldi, from Ecpat International, an orgnaisation working to eliminate child prostitution, said. "The problem is not just as abusers but also the impunity and lack of law enforcement in closing down these brothels and karaoke bars."

Daniela Reale, an advisor from Save the Children, told Al Jazeera: "The reality is that we do know local demand is the force driving this abuse. "We also know it is around 70 per cent of local demand rather than sex tourism."

But General Bith Kim Hong, from the Cambodian national police force, rejected allegations that the officials focused their efforts to curb prostitution almost exclusively on foreigners. "The national police are concerned about anyone who commits a crime, who has sex with children, whether they are foreigners or Cambodian," he told Al Jazeera.

"We have a very high commitment to prevent child prostitution."

Few arrests
Last year, the Cambodian police arrested only 21 people for committing sex crimes with children - eight of those arrested were foreigners and 13 were Cambodians. The police also admit that the brothels they shut down in high-profile raids often reopen a few weeks later.

In 2002, Gary Glitter, the British pop star, was expelled from Cambodia amid child-sex allegations.
But while the arrest and conviction of foreigners make the headlines, most child sex trafficking supplies local demand, Mu Sochua said.

"It is easier to catch a foreigner and also the government wants to have showcases to make itself look good - that Cambodia is actually taking care of this problem of human trafficking, which is really not the truth," she told Al Jazeera.

Reale said that governments need to combat the worldwide problem: "They need to address their legal system and their law enforcement." To tackle the poverty that forces girls into prostitution, Reale said that governments must provide support systems to help families match their needs.

She said that the 3rd World Conference on Sexual Exploitation of Children in Rio de Janeiro next month will be as a big opportunity to make real and genuine committments.

Adapted from: "Cambodia - Child Sex Trade Soars in Cambodia." Al Jazeera. 21 October 2008.

VIDEO Direct Link:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2008/10/20081021560267677.html

Human Trafficking Expert Warns of Risks to Children in Disaster Zones

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:40:00 GMT

Natural disasters such as the cyclone in Myanmar can put children at risk for abuse and exploitation, a human trafficking expert.

Eva Biaudet, of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said she had no specific information about the situation of children in Myanmar, but noted that similar disasters, as well as conflicts, have put minors at risk of being taken advantage of and abused.

"When there are these kind of catastrophes — when the state fails, when there are no systems — children are extremely at risk for not only of course being just abandoned ... but also for abuse and exploitation," Biaudet told reporters on the sidelines of a two-day OSCE human trafficking conference that began Monday.

"It is a very good place for traffickers to be when the state sort of fails," Biaudet said, adding that children in conflict zones were also at the risk of falling prey to such criminals.

Last week, UNICEF said it believed the number of children left without guardians in Myanmar because of the cyclone is more than 600 and could rise.

Adapted from: "Human trafficking expert warns of risks to children in disaster zones." The Associated Press. 26 May 2008.

Immigration Operatives on Guard for Human Trafficking in the Philippines

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:43:00 GMT

Immigration operatives are on guard at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) following attempts by international syndicates to use Manila and Kuala Lumpur as transit point for human smuggling.

Immigration chief Marcelino C. Libanan ordered the NAIA-BI operatives to be vigilant after five passengers from Malaysia bound for Vancouver and Amsterdam were found to be carrying fake travel documents in a span of three weeks.

Libanan said "there is a pattern in the syndicate's movements and the frequency is rising that it would not escape notice."

"We are sending advisories to our Malaysian counterparts on this string of arrests of passengers that slipped their area," he said, adding that international cooperation is essential to combating human trafficking.

On Saturday, NAIA-BI personnel intercepted three Sri Lankans with bogus Malaysian and Singaporean passports as they were about to board a Royal Dutch Airlines flight for Amsterdam hours after they arrived as transit passengers from Kuala Lumpur.

One of the passengers, identified as Vengtespura Rao Appalanaidu, managed to escape while his passport and those of his companions were being examined at the airline counter. But airport authorities found Vengtespura Monday still inside NAIA. Vengtespura and the three Sri Lankans were sent back to Malaysia.

Last Friday, a Botswanian woman was nabbed at the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport in Angeles City for attempting to leave for Vancouver, Canada with a tampered passport.

The passenger, Tshekiso Boitumelo, had also arrived from Kuala Lumpur and was later sent back to her port of origin.

Adapted from: Tetch Torres, "Immigration operatives on guard for human trafficking." Global Nation. 27 May 2008.

U.S. Department of State Releases 2008 Trafficking in Persons Report

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 09:52:00 GMT

The 2008 Trafficking in Persons Report on 170 countries is the most comprehensive worldwide report on the efforts of governments to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons. Its findings will raise global awareness and spur countries to take effective actions to counter trafficking in persons.

The Tier Rankings for countries of interest to http://HumanTrafficking.org are:

» Australia: Tier 1
» Burma: Tier 3
» Cambodia: Tier 2
» China: Tier 2 Watch List
» Hong Kong SAR: Tier 1
» Indonesia: Tier 2
» Japan: Tier 2
» Lao PDR: Tier 2
» Malaysia: Tier 2 Watch List
» Mongolia: Tier 2
» New Zealand: Tier 1
» Philippines: Tier 2
» Singapore: Tier 2
» South Korea: Tier 1
» Taiwan: Tier 2
» Thailand: Tier 2
» Vietnam: Tier 2

To download the full Trafficking in Persons Report, visit: http://www.state.gov/g/tip

"We are pleased that in the seven years since the creation of the Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, the United States and our friends and allies have made important strides in confronting the reality that human beings continue to be bought and sold in the twenty-first century. It has been gratifying to witness the determined governments, human rights and women’s groups, faith-based organizations, and many brave individuals who are dedicated to advancing human dignity worldwide. Trafficking and exploitation plague all nations, and no country, even ours, is immune."
--Secretary Rice, June 4, 2008

Trafficking of Filipinas in Singapore

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:53:00 GMT

The Philippine Embassy in Singapore reports on unabated trafficking of Filipinas to Singapore.

The Philippine embassy said the trafficking of Filipinas in Singapore "continues unabated."

The embassy’s admission came six month after INQUIRER.net first reported the sharp increase in the incident of the transnational crime in the island-state.

In the report it submitted to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) dated April 28, the Philippine embassy in Singapore reiterated its warning about the dangers of human trafficking.

The warning came in the wake of meetings between the Philippine embassy, Ambassador Steven Steiner of the United States Department of State's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, and officials from the Philippine Presidential Task Force on Human Trafficking, who went to Singapore to assess the situation there.

In November 2007, INQUIRER.net posted a special report on the growing number of young Filipino women being lured to Singapore on the false promise of a high-paying job only to end up in prostitution.

The increased incidence of trafficking of Asian women, including Filipinas, to Singapore prompted the United States State Department to downgrade the city-state's rating from Tier 1 in 2006 to Tier 2 this year.

Philippine Ambassador to Singapore Belen Fule-Anota said Filipinas who want to work overseas must scrutinize their recruiters in the Philippines well and ensure they have valid contracts before leaving the country.

She also advised jobseekers to have their contracts duly verified by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) "before packing their bags for Singapore."

"They should not allow themselves to be deceived by the sweet tongue and false promises made by sex and labor traffickers because once they reach Singapore, they become more vulnerable to intimidation, deception, and exploitation," added the ambassador, who has served in the city-state for four years.

Steiner, who visited the Philippine embassy on the sidelines of a meeting in Singapore, acknowledged the ongoing bilateral cooperation between the two countries and the progress being made by the Philippines in fighting trafficking in persons.

He exchanged notes with embassy officials and discussed possible areas for strengthening bilateral cooperation.

In a separate meeting with the two-person team of the Presidential Task Force, the embassy proposed the improvement of inter-agency cooperation, particularly in the areas of rehabilitation, re-integration, and witness protection for the victims, and the prosecution of traffickers.

In a report submitted to the DFA early this year, the embassy in Singapore noted "an alarming increase" of 70 percent in human trafficking cases from 125 in 2006 to 212 in 2007. There were only 59 recorded cases in 2005.

Of the 212 human trafficking victims in 2007, a total of 57, or 27 percent, admitted to either having engaged in prostitution or being coerced by their Filipino and Singaporean handlers to prostitute themselves. Of the 57 victims, 39 were pub workers, 15 worked in escort service, while three were pick-up girls.

The embassy culled data from individual interviews, recorded statements, and affidavits of victims who reported to the embassy in 2007. The number is believed understated.

The Philippines considers trafficking in persons a serious transnational crime and human security issue requiring close international cooperation, particularly between the source and destination countries.

"Victims are considered as trafficked if they have been deceived, coerced or subjected to conditions of exploitation as defined by Republic Act 9208, a Philippine law otherwise known as the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003," the embassy said in a statement.

It said the Philippine definition of trafficking in persons is consistent with the definition in the United Nations Convention Against Organized Transnational Crime and its two protocols, all of which had been signed and ratified by the Philippines.

Adapted from: Veronica Uy, "Trafficking of Filipinas in Singapore."
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/news/breakingnews/view/20080428-133194/Trafficking-of-Filipinas-in-Singapore-unabated--embassy
globalnation.inquirer.net 22 April 2008

Europe Reconsiders Prostitution as Sex Trafficking Booms

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:03:00 GMT

Trafficking and forced prostitution are on the rise, and the EU countries' complicated prostitution laws make prosecution difficult.

An aid organization has opened its 12th office in Germany to advise women in need. Some 700,000 women are trafficked to western Europe every year, said lawyer Birgit Thoma, who works for Solwodi, or Solidarity with Women in Distress.

Affordable transport and instant communication have led to an increase in trafficking over past 10 years, with the trade now worth an estimated $30 billion (18.8 billion euros) globally, according to a United Nations report.

For many years the focus was on human trafficking from eastern Europe, but when the EU expanded -- mainly to the east and south -- in 2004, the legal status of women in the new member states changed. That's led Solwodi to shift its focuses to African women who are forced into prostitution in Europe.

Thoma said foreigners make up some 70 percent of people in Germany's sex trade. While exact figures aren't available, she estimated that about 100,000 women from Nigeria alone have been trafficked to western Europe.

Women Victimize Women
Unlike tactics used in eastern Europe, African women are often lured with marriage deals. The traffickers don't belong to large mafia gangs, but are organized in smaller, inconspicuous networks.

"Often the criminals are women," said Thoma. "These are the so-called 'mesdames,' most of whom used to be victims themselves." Voodoo rituals are often used to scare and psychologically intimidate the women, she added.

"Priests force them not to say where they're going and what happens to them," Thoma said. "Otherwise something will happen not only to their families, but sickness, death or curses will come over them too."

In 1985, the Catholic nun Lea Ackermann founded Solwodi in Kenya to assist women whose financial desperation had led to a life of prostitution. Three years later, the first Solwodi branch was founded in Germany as a refuge for foreign women who had become victims of forced prostitution or trafficking.

Europe Revises Legal Framework
Prostitution is legal in Germany, which creates obstacles to uncovering and prosecuting cases of trafficking. Since around 30 percent of trafficked women were aware beforehand that they would end up working in the sex trade, it is difficult to collect evidence proving they were forced into prostitution, Thoma said.

However, forced prostitution was redefined in 2005 when EU standards were applied to German law. As a result, human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation is no longer a sex crime but a "crime against physical integrity and against freedom," Thoma explained.

She added that the law's inclusion of robbing people of their freedom was a better description of forced prostitution than labeling it a sex crime. Germany is not alone in rethinking its laws surrounding prostitution. Sweden was the first in Europe to outlaw paying for sex in 1999. Last week, Norway's government proposed to fine or jail clients of prostitutes for up to six months in an effort to counteract trafficking and lower demand.

In Britain, where paid sex is legal but prostitutes aren't allowed to solicit in public, a group of Labour MPs have advocated for replacing criminal penalties for street prostitutes with mandatory counseling programs to get them out of the business.

"We don't criminalize people who sell kidneys, we criminalize the buyer," Labour MP Fiona MacTaggart told Reuters news agency.

Address the Problem at its Roots
The justice system also makes it difficult prosecute traffickers who force women into marriage. Victims of this crime have to prove that they suffered threats or abuse -- not only that they forced to marry against their will. These women also risk penalties if they are shown to have married only to acquire a residence permit.

For those without residence permits, a new law in Germany aims to encourage them to testify against their traffickers. After the initial three-month tourist visa, trafficking victims are granted an additional six months to consider whether to press charges.

"If they don't testify, they're deported," said Thoma. "But if they testify, they get a residence permit for the duration of the criminal proceedings." But ultimately, trafficking needs to be addressed from the bottom up, said the lawyer. That means pulling the women out of poverty and offering them a chance to improve their lives. "We have to create more possibilities for education there and improve the overall living situation for the women," she said.

Adapted from: Sabine Ripperger, "Europe Reconsiders Prostitution as Sex Trafficking Booms." Deutsche Welle 28 April 2008.

Child Trafficking in Senegal

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:07:00 GMT

Child trafficking found at the complicated intersection of greed and tradition.

On the day he decided to run away, 9-year-old Coli awoke on a filthy mat, curled against the cold, pressed between dozens of other children sleeping head-to-toe on the concrete floor.

It was still dark as he set out for the mouth of a freeway with the other boys, a tribe of 7-, 8- and 9-year-old beggars. Coli went between the stopped cars, holding up an empty tomato paste can as his begging bowl.

There are 1.2 million children like Coli in the world, trafficked to work for the benefit of others. Those who lure them into servitude make $15 billion annually, according to the International Labor Organization.

It's big business in Senegal. In the capital of Dakar, at least 7,600 child beggars work the streets, according to a study released in February by the ILO, the United Nations Children's Fund and the World Bank. The children collect an average of 300 African francs a day, just 72 cents, reaping their keepers $2 million a year.

Ninety percent of the boys are sent to beg under the cover of Islam, placing the problem at the complicated intersection of greed and tradition. Coli was brought to Dakar with his family's blessing to learn Islam's holy book.

In the name of religion, Coli spent two hours a day memorizing verses from the Quran and over nine hours begging to pad the pockets of the man he called his teacher.

Not all Quranic boarding schools force their students to beg. But for the most part, what was once an esteemed form of education has degenerated into child trafficking. Nowadays, Quranic instructors net as many children as they can to increase their daily take.

"If you do the math, you'll find that these people are earning more than a government functionary," said Souleymane Bachir Diagne, an Islamic scholar at Columbia University. "It's why the phenomenon is so hard to eradicate."

Adapted from: Rukmini Callimachi, "SENEGAL CHILD TRAFFICKING." The Associated Press. 27 April 2008.

Trafficking of Sri Lankan Children to Singapore

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:10:00 GMT

A racket involving the smuggling of more than 20 Sri Lankan children to Singapore has been busted and four suspects arrested, the National Child Protection Authority disclosed. The NCPA Chairman Jagath Wellawattha said that in the latest case, three children who were found deserted at the Singapore airport were flown back to Sri Lanka at NCPA expense.

He said four suspect racketeers were arrested and the parents who were alleged to have sold their children for Rs.1.8 million each were taken in for questioning. Mr. Wellawattha said the racket had been going on for some time and more than 20 children had allegedly been sold by the racketeers.

In February this year the media spotlighted a prostitution ring operated by Sri Lankan pimps in on of Singapore’s noted red light area where scores of Sri Lankan women were involved. The matter was exposed in a video aired by the Singapore Home Ministry and its anti vice squad.

The secretly shot video showed a group of Sri Lankan women soliciting customers under the watchful eyes of Sri Lankan pimps at Lorang 15 in the Geylang district. At the time the media reported that most of the women were stranded in Singapore and were scared or ill informed on how to seek assistance from the Sri Lankan mission in the country.

Adapted from: "Child trafficking racket busted." Daily Mirror. 28 April 2008.

Church of Scotland Report Highlights the Link between Prostitution and Trafficking

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:19:00 GMT

In a hard-hitting report to the General Assembly in May 2008, the Church of Scotland Guild will highlight some of the work it has done in the past year investigating methods of alerting potential brothel clients to the evils of human trafficking.

The General Assembly will hear that, both within the church and in the general population, there has undoubtedly been an increased level of awareness of trafficking. Press coverage has been considerable, due to the uncovering of trafficking rings through the Pentameter 2 initiative and the work of the UK Anti-trafficking centre, set up to coincide with the government’s signing of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking of Human Beings.

The Assembly will be told that grassroots Guild members were part of the wave of revulsion that led to the emergence of the significant ‘Extra Mile’ initiative held during Guild Week in November. That provided an opportunity for Guild members to raise issues with MSPs, including the provision of safe accommodation in Scotland for the period of recovery and the preparation of adequate measures to combat trafficking in the context of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

The Guild will ask for the Assembly’s encouragement to continue pressing for meaningful debate on the connection between prostitution and the trafficking of people for the sex industry.

The Guild will go on to remind the Assembly that the amendment to the law on street prostitution in Scotland and the intention to introduce similar legislation in Westminster have led to renewed public debate about the relationship between the demand for street prostitutes and the trafficking of women for the sex industry.

Many believe that there is no connection at all and that prostitution - as the oldest profession - will always be in society. The Assembly will hear that the Guild has a different view and asks what kind of profession "ruins health, routinely risks danger and erodes human dignity".

Other priorities are highlighted through the Guild’s projects scheme. The General Assembly will hear that the Guild’s support for the six projects in the Let’s Live series has now passed the halfway point of the three year partnership. These include advice services for homeless Scots in London and help for families suffering the effects of post natal depression.

Other projects in the current scheme support initiatives to tackle poverty caused by disease, injustice and climate change in the developing world. The generous financial support and commitment of guilds have enabled their partner organisations to develop their work substantially.

The report concludes with a commitment to remain a movement driven by a purpose, one that is resistant to becoming consumer driven and fosters a sense of belonging to a community, united in its aim to offer members opportunities to express their Christian faith in worship, prayer and action.

Adapted from: "Kirk Guild report highlights link between prostitution and trafficking."
Christian Today. 22 April 2008.

Protecting Victims of Human Trafficking in Southern Africa

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:23:00 GMT

Policy makers and senior government officials from Southern Africa meet on 22 April 2008 in Durban to address the urgent need to set up adequate protection mechanisms for victims of trafficking in Southern Africa.

The three-day meeting, part of the Migration Dialogue for Southern Africa (MIDSA), is hosted by IOM and the Southern African Migration Project (SAMP). It represents the first regional effort to specifically address the unique needs of victims of trafficking and identify programmes, policies and legal frameworks to be put in place to ensure their protection.

“Because of the clandestine nature of human trafficking and because many countries in the region have not yet put in place comprehensive counter trafficking programmes and legislations, many victims continue to fall through the cracks, with little or no attention paid to their protection needs and overall wellbeing,” says Hans Petter Boe, Regional Representative for IOM in Southern Africa. “This meeting aims to raise awareness among key government officials and identify concrete recommendations to be adopted at a regional level to ensure the better protection of victims of trafficking.”

There are currently few national and regional mechanisms that address the specific needs of human trafficking victims in Southern Africa. Trafficked persons often find themselves enslaved in situations where their documents are confiscated, where they are held against their will, where they often suffer violent abuse, where their families are threatened with harm, and where they are bonded by a debt that they have little or no chance of ever repaying.

Because of their irregular status, they are usually afraid to seek help from law enforcement officials, who treat them as irregular migrants rather than victims of trafficking. The clandestine and often syndicated criminal nature of human trafficking also poses a threat to victims’ lives, even after they have been rescued.

Earlier this month, Mozambique became the first and only country to pass anti-trafficking legislation in a region that is experiencing both strong internal and cross-border trafficking. Through its Southern African Counter-Trafficking Assistance Programme (SACTAP), IOM has over the past four years provided comprehensive assistance to 238 victims of human trafficking in Southern Africa.

Adapted from: "SOUTH AFRICA-Protecting Victims of Human Trafficking in Southern Africa." African Press Organization. 22 April 2008.

Human Trafficking Has Potential to Be Big Problem in Guam

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 17:04:00 GMT

Withholding food, passports and any financial means of escape. Beating, kicking and dragging a woman through broken glass, forcing them to have sex with men against their will or face physical punishment.

Those are just a few of the things the U.S. Attorney's Office alleges In Han Cha, Song Ja Cha, the owners of the Blues House Lounge in Upper Tumon, and their two employees, Freda Eseun and Saknin Weria did to the Chuukese women they brought to Guam.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, there's an estimated 600,000 to 800,000 men, women and children being trafficked internationally each year. The USDOJ also said the problem is one that's growing.

While the statistics are high around the world, Guam hasn't had a problem until recently, according to U.S. Attorney Lenny Rapadas. Rapadas said this was the first case of human trafficking since he took his position and can't recall any other cases before that.

Rapadas said it's hard to say if the problem is growing, but there is potential for it. "From zero to one that's pretty significant," Rapadas said. "With the military build up and the possible federalization of the (Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas), Guam is in a position right now where it can become a problem."

Rapadas said he thinks if human trafficking continues to be a problem in the region, it could have a detrimental effect on Guam.

"The effect that it could have on a community, I would think, would be devastating that you have these people having human beings demeaned in this way and for their own profit and their own gain. I would think that it would lower the society," Rapadas said.

While this is the first case of its kind in recent memory on Guam, the CNMI has seen a few. Rapadas said there were two trials connected to human trafficking in the CNMI over the past year and he was traveling to Saipan to get the word out and, hopefully, make the community more aware.

"We should care even if one person is trafficked. It's one human being dominating another human being to do something they don't want to do," he said. "It strips the human dignity of person and demeans them beyond belief."

Rapadas is hoping to curb the problem before it gets out of hand on Guam.

"With the indictment and getting this case out there more people will become aware and maybe spark more investigations," the U.S. Attorney said. "We need the community to be involved the law enforcement can't do everything." Rapadas encouraged anyone with information on possible human trafficking to contact law enforcement.

A training was held recently for law enforcement officers and non-government organzations. The training included topics such as identification of human trafficking victims and interviewing techniques in a culturally appropriate manner. Participants also talked about the formation of a human trafficking task force for Guam.

Regretful
Former Chuuk State Gov. Ansito Walter said he was very regretful the situation occurred not only because of the Chuukese victims, but for the two women indicted. "I regret that it happens. I believe, as a former leader of Chuuk, they should be responsible for what they do," Walter said. "As a leader I would like to apologize to the people (of Guam)."

Walter said he hopes that residents do not view all Chuukese nationals through the actions of a few. "I know this will be making a negative impact on the Chuukese. But they are also businessmen and teaching and working in the community," Walter said.

The former governor hoped residents would also support the victims in this trying time.

"I don't believe that's why they came from the islands. We have dreams for our daughters and sons. We dream they'll come to America for a better life," Walter said. "I hope we can help them so they can get the skills and education to do great things for the island of Guam."

How to cope
Walter hopes the victims will be able to move on, and the Attorney General's Office has the same hope. Assistant Attorney General Basil O'Mallan, of the office's Family Violence and Sex Crimes Unit, works often with victims of sexual assault and sees what they go through.

O'Mallan described what it's like for victims of sex trafficking because they have an extra layer of fear because they are in an unfamiliar place.

"What happens is they get here and they don't have family here and they don't have friends. The only people they know is the person who brought them here under false pretenses, their coworkers and customers. None of those three groups are there to help them so they're trapped," O'Mallan said. "They don't understand the American legal system and they're usually intimidated with law enforcement so they don't trust law enforcement."

O'Mallan said victims of sexual assault often have to repeat their story often, but the AG's Office has victim advocates by their side every step of the way. O'Mallan said it's just one of the services they provide to help victims through a difficult time.

"We provide services for them to make sure they have a place to stay that's safe, they're kept safe, there's food to eat, and we provide whatever other services they need, especially counseling," O'Mallan said.

Adapted from: Stephanie Godlewski, "Human trafficking has potential to be big problem," Pacific Daily News. 22 March 2008.

Children Lured into Sex Trafficking in Florida

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 17:08:00 GMT

"Tonya," not her real name, says she was lured into selling herself for sex as a child. "When I turned 12 years old, I started street prostitution," the woman says. "I had a pimp."

"Tonya" is one victim cited in a startling new study, which finds that children are being bought and sold for sex in the U.S. on a regular basis. The non-profit group "Shared Hope International" studied minors involved in sex trafficking in ten locations nationwide, with Clearwater being one of them.

ABC Action News investigative reporter Matthew Schwartz first reported last year on human trafficking in Clearwater, which is a form of modern-day slavery.

"Shared Hope International released undercover video taken in an undisclosed location (outside the bay area), in which one of its investigators poses as a buyer talking to a pimp, to show how easy it is to buy sex with a minor.

The pimp says to the investigator, "If you pay the price you can get what you want, and I can get it for ya." "Really?," the investigator replies. The pimp then says, "Now, if you want something really young, that's $200."

The results of the group's nationwide study have been announced, and among the key findings:

between one-hundred thousand and three-hundred thousand children in the u-s are at risk for sex trafficking each year.
as many as 2.8 million children live on the streets, a third of whom are lured into prostitution within 48 hours of leaving home.
12 to 14 is the average age of entry into pornography and prostitution.

One young victim explained how a pimp lured her into prostitution.

"The things that he said were things I've never felt before. I actually felt like I was loved by somebody for the first time." The study was funded by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Adapted from: "Investigators: Children lured into sex trafficking." abcactionnews.com.
26 March 2008.

Anti-trafficking Agreement Signed between Vietnam and Thailand

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 13:28:00 GMT

Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej opened a three-day visit to Vietnam Monday with the signing of an agreement between the two countries on combating human trafficking.

Thailand and Vietnam "have the same development situation," Samak told Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung. He said he looked forward to improving cooperation and trade relations.

The two leaders witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding on combating human trafficking by Thai Social Development and Human Security Minister Sutha Chansaeng and Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Public Security Le The Tiem.

The agreement is part of a joint anti-trafficking initiative launched in 2004 between the six countries in the Mekong subregion, which also includes Myanmar, China, Cambodia, and Laos.

Thailand is a relatively minor destination for Vietnamese trafficking victims, usually women, who are more often smuggled to Cambodia or China and forced into sex work, according to officials at anti-trafficking programs in Vietnam.

"I believe there are a number of Vietnamese working (in the Thai sex industry)," said Hoang Thi To Linh, an official at the International Organization for Migration's anti-trafficking programme in Hanoi.

Thailand does sometimes serve as a transit point for Vietnamese being smuggled on to Malaysia, Russia or Western European countries, according to officials at the UN Inter-Agency Programme on Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong Subregion.

The agreement signed Monday is a move towards adopting a standard operating procedure for victim identification and repatriation, which includes the adoption by all regional legal systems of the UN's definition of trafficked persons.

Adapted from: "Anti-trafficking agreement signed with Vietnam." bangkokpost.com.

Modern Global Slaves

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 17:15:00 GMT

During the four years that Benjamin Skinner researched modern-day slavery for his new book, "A Crime So Monstrous," he posed as a buyer at illegal brothels on several continents, interviewed convicted human traffickers in a Romanian prison and endured giardia, malaria, dengue and a bad motorcycle accident.

But Skinner, an investigative journalist, is most haunted by his experience in a seedy brothel in Bucharest, Romania, where he was offered a young woman with Down syndrome in exchange for a used car.

"There are more slaves today than at any point in human history," writes Skinner, citing a recent estimate that there are currently 27 million worldwide. One hundred and forty-three years after the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed in 1865 and 60 years after the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights banned the slave trade worldwide, slavery -- or, as it is euphemistically called, human trafficking -- is actually thriving. It is, as Hillary Clinton has said, "the dark underbelly of globalization."

That slavery in its many forms -- debt bondage, forced domestic servitude and forced prostitution -- still exists is, indeed, shocking, mostly because it is invisible to those of us who don't know where to look for it. Skinner's great achievement is that he shines a light on the international slave trade, exposing the horrors of bondage not only through assiduous reporting and interviews with modern-day abolitionists and government officials, but by sharing the stories of several survivors. These poignant tales -- of people like Muong, a 12-year-old Dinka boy from southern Sudan, who is abducted (with his brother and mother) by an Arab slave driver; Tatiana, an Eastern European woman who is tricked into slavery when her boyfriend of six months finds her an "au pair" job in Amsterdam; and Gonoo, an Indian man in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh who inherits a debt from his father and spends his days working it off at a stone quarry -- illustrate the harsh realities of slavery while also offering some hope that former slaves can rebuild their lives.

Salon sat down with Skinner to talk about modern-day abolitionists, what's wrong with redemptions (also called "buy backs"), and why he's optimistic that slavery can be eradicated.

Salon: You infiltrated many dangerous underworlds to get these stories, often putting your life at risk by chatting up child slave brokers and negotiating to buy young women from a Russian mobster in Istanbul who'd just been released from prison. Which situation, in retrospect, was the most harrowing?

Skinner: There were definitely some moments where I felt I'd made a mistake in terms of personal safety. At this point, though, I have to say that the people who are most in danger in these situations are the slaves themselves. My greatest concern going in was not "Am I going to come out whole?" but "Is there going to be some retaliation against the slaves if my cover is blown?" I had a principle that I would not pay for a human life. You buy a human being and you can't just set them free and dump them on the economy with no resources, no support system, no rehabilitation.

When I was offered this young woman in trade for a used car at the Romani brothel in Bucharest, I could have done one of a few things: I could've paid to redeem her. I was with a couple of guys and I could've fought physically with the traffickers to get her out. Or I could've gone to the police the next day to tell them, which is what I did.

Very unsatisfying, that. You want to rip this guy's head off, right? I was shown this woman who had scars all over her arm -- she was clearly trying to kill herself to escape daily rape, and she had Down syndrome. I was so in shock. I was undercover and I had this moment where I thought, "What would my character be doing in this situation?" So I tried to smile. And I physically couldn't. I was so horrified. I looked at my translator, who had not done this kind of work before, and there was just sheer horror on his face as well. To see somebody who is in such a condition. They had put makeup on her and her makeup was running because she was crying so much.

Salon: Did the police do anything?

Skinner: The response from the police was, "These are the Roma, they have their laws, they have their blood." The Roma are this incredibly oppressed and marginalized community within Romania -- and have been for centuries. That's why, I think, the major human traffickers in Romania over the past several years have been Roma.

I kept thinking of Samantha Power's book as I was reading this because you describe the reluctance of government officials to use the term "slavery" to describe what is obviously exactly that. (Power describes the same studied avoidance of the word "genocide" in "A Problem From Hell.") Colin Powell didn't use "slavery" in 2001 when he released the first Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report. Even the major piece of U.S. anti-slavery legislation, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, doesn't use the word "slavery."

There are over a dozen universal conventions and over 300 international treaties that have been signed banning slavery and the slave trade. We've all agreed that this is a crime of universal concern and it requires a robust response to stop it.

The U.S. has actually gotten better at using the term "slavery" when it's appropriate. One group that has not gotten better in this regard -- they've taken baby steps -- has been the U.N. They are so tepid and afraid of offending member states. Even in a case like Sudan, which was as egregious a form of slavery and slave raiding as you've had in the late 20th century. In 1999, at the height of slave raiding, the U.N. Human Rights Commission said, "OK, we will no longer refer to slavery, we will refer to intertribal abductions." And if you talk to U.N. officials behind the scenes, they'll say that the logic behind this is that in order to move the issue forward, we had to be diplomatic and reach this middle ground. The problem with that logic is that you lose all leverage. Abduction is not a crime against humanity -- slavery is. If it's a crime against humanity, you get hit pretty hard.

Salon: How would you get hit very hard?

Skinner: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 4, says slavery and the slave trade are banned worldwide. But actually, you're bringing up a good point. In terms of enforcement, the U.N. doesn't have the kind of systems built into it which can really deal with this, and that's a problem.

The U.N., which has, as part of its original mandate, the eradication of slavery and the slave trade, finds itself now at a stage where there are more slaves today than at any point in human history. And it really makes you question the viability of the model and the strength of the system.

There are philosophical differences about how to combat slavery. Some people, such as Michael Horowitz (the neocon abolitionist), have focused exclusively on sex trafficking, hoping there will be a "ripple effect" with other forms of slavery such as debt bondage and forced domestic servitude.

Nonsense.

Salon: But how do you explain this myopia? You cite so much research that shows that the other forms of slavery are even more prevalent -- in the U.S., you say, less than half of American slaves are forced prostitutes.

Skinner: I don't think enough reports have come out and the ones that have come out haven't been in the right places. I think when you start getting the 700 Club talking about how the slavery of a young man in a quarry in India -- or in a brick kiln or on a farm -- is equivalent to the slavery of the Israelites and you start quoting Bible verses, then maybe we'll be getting somewhere.

Salon: Another philosophical divide among modern-day abolitionists has to do with the role of poverty. The late Senator Wellstone, who co-sponsored the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000, was adamant that poverty was a central factor but Horowitz disagreed, vehemently. Why do you think that is? It seems so obvious that poverty is the very reason so many people are forced and hoodwinked into slavery.

Skinner: Paul Wellstone's view of this was basically that you can't address slavery without having targeted anti-poverty programs. When I presented this to Horowitz, he slammed his desk and said something to the effect of "The Paul Krugmans of the world would love for this to be a means for me redistributing my income to Sri Lanka." And I'll give him this: I understand his point that the end of slavery cannot wait for the end of poverty. That's not what I'm calling for and I don't think that's what Senator Wellstone was calling for.

But if you don't recognize that the primary driver of slavery today is the nexus between withering poverty of extreme marginalized communities with unscrupulous criminals, and you don't address both sides of it -- the criminal side and the socioeconomic side -- you're not going to solve this problem. As long as there's a ready source of people who are so desperate for survival that they will sell their children into slavery, as long as you don't address that, you will always have slavery. And I fundamentally feel that slavery can be ended.

Salon: Do you think the TVPA's three-tiered anti-slavery system, which evaluates countries' efforts to eradicate slavery and imposes non-trade sanctions on those who don't do anything to abolish it, works?

Skinner: I think it's a good thing, but I honesty feel it has outlived its usefulness. You can only slap a country lightly on its wrists so many times and have them notice. After a while it totally loses its effectiveness.

Let's talk about the practice of Redemptions. Are these still going on and is it a viable way to chip away at slavery, buying a slave's freedom one at a time?

There's a long history of it, and not all of it is bad. I find it a very imperfect and unjust way of freeing people. You are essentially acknowledging the right of property in man, by buying them. In recent history, I can't think of any instances where it has worked and been unproblematic.

Salon: It's mostly happening in Sudan, right?

Skinner: New York Times columnist Nick Kristof did it, of course, in Cambodia where he went in and bought two girls in a brothel. And he went back a year later and found that one of the girls was back in the brothel and hooked on methamphetamines.

To take our own history, Lincoln had contemplated buying all slaves from their masters and then setting them free in either Haiti or Liberia. But I think at a certain point -- and I defer to civil war scholars on this -- he realized that this was very much an imperfect justice and what needed to happen was the remaking, through force, of a society that would acknowledge that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, which was the initial promise, of course, of the Declaration of Independence.

What you have in Sudan are these evangelicals coming over with tons of hard currency in the middle of a war zone, going to one of the combatants -- in particular, one small faction of the combatants -- and saying, "OK, here's a ton of money, now go get us some slaves."

Salon: Basically funding the militia.

Skinner: Exactly. And even if every one of those people was a slave and everything was on the up and up ... the devil is in the details.

You'd think that the hardest part would be freeing slaves. But once they're free, their lives are never easy. At one point in the Sudan section you say "free, but free to starve." What seems to you the best solution for helping former slaves deal with their new-found freedom?

Giving them some access to credit, healthcare, property rights and education. And psychological help.

In many of these far-off places where I was, the arbiters of law -- the people who set the rules -- are people who are benefiting from a slave economy. As long as that's the situation, you need to break the grip of those people over the system.

Salon: In your epilogue, you say, "George W. Bush did more to free modern-day slaves than any other president." However, you also criticize the Bush administration for focusing on sex trafficking to the exclusion of other forms of bondage.

SKinner: The bar isn't very high. Only at the end of the Clinton years was there a recognition on the part of the executive branch that this was really an issue. But Bush deserves credit. He did more to free slaves than any president in modern history. But history doesn't grade on a curve on the subject of abolition. And he could have and should have done much more -- there's no question. The fact that there was such a narrow focus really hamstrung his efficacy on this.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has called trafficking "the dark underbelly of globalization."

Salon: Which presidential candidate -- Clinton, Obama or McCain -- do you think is most passionate about abolishing modern-day slavery?

Skinner: Listen, I'm not going to give Obama a pass on this. It's not clear to me that he cares about modern-day slavery -- he hasn't said a word about it. And Hillary has, certainly in the last couple of years. Though not on the trail.

But I think it is a mistake to make this a campaign issue. I think it has to be a big piece of our American foreign policy platform. It needs to be fundamentally a central piece of any meaningful new American foreign policy.

Salon: And what about John McCain?

Skinner: Well, he blurbed my book. John McCain is very close with John Miller, the former head of the TIP office, which is a good sign. But no, he hasn't been a leader on this.

Salon: One of the things I found hopeful about the book is that while it's important to make policy changes and create tough anti-slavery laws, NGOs and individuals clearly play a vital role in exposing slavery. People like Rampal in India (the activist who runs Sankalp) and the Amsterdam taxi driver who helps Kayta, a sex slave, buy her freedom. So the role of the individual is important.

Skinner: It is, it's extremely important. If there's a critical thing from that U.S. chapter that I was trying to get across, it's that this doesn't have to be some kind of neo-McCarthyism where you are spying on your neighbors, but just be aware of what's going on in your community.

I talk about three things that individuals can and should do. The first is becoming conscious of the reality of slavery -- becoming more attuned to the signs of what may be a trafficking or slavery situation. A key part of that is getting educated about slavery. The second thing is pressing elected officials and candidates for office on what they're going to do about it -- what creative approaches they have for combatting modern-day slavery and ending it within a generation. The third things is supporting groups like Free the Slaves (Kevin Bales' group) and Anti-Slavery International.

Salon: Abolishing slavery is clearly an all-consuming issue, something that often drives people who are involved with it to burn out or go crazy or both. How have you kept your sanity during the four years of researching this book?

Skinner: The question is really how these people that operate at the pointed end of the spear keep their sanity. And the people who run trafficking shelters in Romania -- who have weekly or monthly threats from traffickers -- how they keep their sanity. For me it was much easier. You go into these situations and certainly it stays with you. When you meet somebody like this young woman in the Bucharest brothel or Gonoo or the trafficker in Haiti who offered to sell me a child for $50.

Salon: What drove you to take on this project?

You could say that abolition is in my blood. My great-great-grandfather fought with the Union Army in the Siege of Petersburg [Va.]. His uncle was a rabble-rousing abolitionist in Connecticut. And I was raised Quaker. The Quakers were the heart of the abolitionist movement in the late 18th century, early 19th century.

Fast-forward to 1999. I read Kevin Bales' "Disposable People," which is an incredibly good, earnest take on modern-day slavery worldwide. Bales' estimate of total number of slaves was 27 million -- a staggering number. The one thing that I wanted to do was to put a human face on that: to tell the stories of the slaves, the slave masters and the slave traders. And to tell the stories of those who try to free them.

Adapted from: Hannah Wallace, "Modern slaves."salon.com 27 March 2008.

Efforts vs Exploitation in the Philippines

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 17:35:00 GMT

Efforts to put a stop to the trafficking and exploitation of children and women spreading in Negros Oriental have been stepped up by local government and non-government organizations.

The Provincial Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking in Persons (PIACAT), a committee formed by the provincial government in response to the growing cases of trafficking in persons here, recently lobbied with the mayors of the ten identified trafficking hotspots in the province to crack down on trafficking and exploitation activities in their areas.

This was disclosed by Marlene Pepino, a PIACAT member and provincial coordinator of Visayan Forum Foundation, during the Kapihan forum held by the Philippine Information Agency on March 18. Pepino said PIACAT is currently assisting the said towns in creating their Municipal Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking in Persons (MIACAT).

MIACAT will serve as PIACAT's arm in the localities to make sure that anti-trafficking and anti-exploitation measures are in place. Pepino said the Visayan Forum Foundation has earlier identified three cities and seven towns here as hotspots or areas with the most number of probable victims of trafficking.

The said areas are Bayawan City, Sta. Catalina, Siaton, Zamboanguita, Sibulan, San Jose, Amlan, Mabinay, Guihulngan City and Dumaguete City, said Pepino. The local law enforcement has already intercepted several trafficking victims in various transit points in the province.

SPO2 Josefa Lacandula of the Women's and Children's Concern Desk at the City Police Office in the same forum revealed that her office has rescued around 22 victims - aged 14 to 17 years old - from trafficking. Lacandula said most of the victims were rescued from the house of recruiters while others from the Ceres bus terminal.

She said that the perpetrators have learned new tricks of the trade by letting the victims travel on their own instead of being accompanied by the recruiter. "Ang mga bata ra ilang pabiyahe-on," said Lacandula, adding that the recruiter gives the instructions to the victims thru text.

Another new trick was exposed when the city police force together with the the local Department of Social Welfare and Development intercepted at the Ceres bus terminal a group of trafficked victims who were on their way to Bacolod City. The victims were recruited from Mabinay to be brought to Manila to work, but instead of traveling on the boat that leaves Dumaguete to Manila, the victims were instructed to travel to Bacolod first where they will then board a ship going to Manila.

The perpetrators are now resorting to making their victims take circuitous routes as transit points in the province are now under the tight watch of the police, said Lacandula. Traffickers lure victims into their net by promising them easy work and expensive cellphones. "Gihaylo ang mga bata nga sayon ra ang trabaho, ug maka-cellphone dayon sila," she disclosed.

Trafficking of young children and cybersex trafficking are now some of the problems here in the province, said Bridget Frederix, paralegal officer of Gender Watch Against Violence and Exploitation (GWAVE) during the same forum. GWAVE is a non-government organization that has been extending free legal services to trafficking victims rescued by the police.

Adapted from: Rachelle Nessia, "Efforts vs exploitation, trafficking in persons upped." Phillipine Information Agency. 27 March 2008.

Three Malaysians Jailed in Singapore for Child Trafficking

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 17:38:00 GMT

Three Malaysians were setenced to between four and 15 months in prison for child trafficking after they were caught trying to smuggle Sri Lankan children to London via Paris, news reports said on Saturday. The Malaysians were caught at Changi Airport on February 7 with the three children, aged 11, 14 and 15.

Shangar Shanmugam, 39, was sentenced on Friday to 15 months in jail while his sister, Patmavthi Shanmugam, 31, was jailed for 10 months, The Straits Times reported. Their friend, Vigiletchimi Suparayan, 61, was sentenced to four months in prison.

Shangar was promised 1,000 US dollars by a woman known to him as Naga to deliver the children to London, the court heard. Naga made three Malaysian passports with false names for the children at a Malaysian immigration office.

Shangar gave a cut of the money to his sister and asked her to pose as the mother of one of the children, the report said. He drove into Singapore via the Woodlands Checkpoint with the two women and three children and went to the airport.

The three Malaysians could have been jailed for up to four years each for the offence.

Adapted from: "Three Malaysians jailed in Singapore for child trafficking." The Earth Times. 12 April 2008.

Human Trafficking Has Potential to Be Big Problem in Guam

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:26:00 GMT

Withholding food, passports and any financial means of escape. Beating, kicking and dragging a woman through broken glass. Forcing women to have sex with men against their will or face physical punishment.

Rapadas said it's hard to say if the problem is growing, but there is potential for it.

"From zero to one that's pretty significant," Rapadas said. "With the military build up and the possible federalization of the (Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas), Guam is in a position right now where it can become a problem."

Rapadas said he thinks if human trafficking continues to be a problem in the region, it could have a detrimental effect on Guam.

Rapadas is hoping to curb the problem before it gets out of hand on Guam.

Rapadas encouraged anyone with information on possible human trafficking to contact law enforcement.

Walter said he hopes that residents do not view all Chuukese nationals through the actions of a few.

"I know this will be making a negative impact on the Chuukese. But they are also businessmen and teaching and working in the community," Walter said. The former governor hoped residents would also support the victims in this trying time.

O'Mallan described what it's like for victims of sex trafficking because they have an extra layer of fear because they are in an unfamiliar place.

Adapted from: Stephanie Godlewski, "Human trafficking has potential to be big problem." Pacific Daily News. 22 March 2008.

Children Lured into Sex Trafficking in Tampa Bay, Florida

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:31:00 GMT

"Tonya," not her real name, says she was lured into selling herself for sex as a child.

"When I turned 12 years old, I started street prostitution," the woman says. "I had a pimp."

ABC Action News investigative reporter Matthew Schwartz first reported last year on human trafficking in Clearwater, which is a form of modern-day slavery.

The results of the group's nationwide study have been announced, and among the key findings:

Between 100,000 and 300,000 children in the U.S. are at risk for sex trafficking each year.
As many as 2.8 million children live on the streets, a third of whom are lured into prostitution within 48 hours of leaving home.
12 to 14 is the average age of entry into pornography and prostitution.

One young victim explained how a pimp lured her into prostitution.

"The things that he said were things I've never felt before. I actually felt like i was loved by somebody for the first time." The study was funded by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Adapted from: "Investigators: Children lured into sex trafficking." abcactionnews.com. 26 March 2008.

U.S. Children are Victims of Sex Trafficking

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:37:00 GMT

Assessments of Service Delivery and Provision Reveal Gaps and Challenges.

Shared Hope International (SHI) has identified a startling trend: American children are victims of the sex trade and they are being trafficked within the United States. SHI research reveals that Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking (DMST) is a critical problem in many locations across the U.S.

Human rights investigations by SHI have verified that disturbing numbers of American children are lured and forced into prostitution. These innocent victims are supplying a demand for paid sex, a human commodity that SHI investigators find horrifyingly easy to buy.

"If you pay the price you can get what you want, and I can get it for you. Now if you want something really young, that $200, it's just going to cost you a little bit more than that," a trafficker says to an undercover SHI investigator.

American children are prostituted by pimps on the streets, sold over the Internet, and exploited through pornography and strip dancing. The federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act provides that any minor exploited in the commercial sex market is a trafficking victim... yet SHI has identified trafficked children incarcerated across the country for prostitution and related charges.

"I always felt like a criminal. I never felt like a victim at all," says "Tonya," a teenage trafficking victim who was lured into prostitution by a pimp at age 12. "Victims don't do time in jail, they work on the healing process. I was a criminal because I spent time in jail."

SHI has found that these children are often labeled as "child prostitutes." In the few instances they are properly identified as victims there are no protective shelter options and they are often placed in detention facilities with children who have committed serious offenses.

"At an average age of 12 these children are lured and snatched by traffickers. It is a severe injustice when American girls are held in physical and mental slavery and then punished for the crime that is committed against them," said SHI President and Founder U.S. Congresswoman Linda Smith (1994-1998).

SHI was awarded funding from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Assistance (DOJ/BJA) to conduct field assessments in 10 U.S. locations examining two critical issues: the identification of DMST victims and the service delivery to these victims. The assessments will be released starting the last week of March 2008. The locations include: Las Vegas, NV; Clearwater, FL; New Orleans/Baton Rouge, LA; Dallas, TX; Independence, MO; Ft Worth, TX; the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands; San Antonio, TX; Salt Lake City, UT; and Buffalo, NY.

Adapted from: "U.S. Children are Victims of Sex Trafficking." prnewswire.com. 24 March 2008.

Influx of Workers and Prostitutes for London Olympics Raises Sexual Health Fears

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 21:43:00 GMT

The imminent arrival of thousands of construction workers for the 2012 Olympics could cause a surge in prostitution and the spread of sexually transmitted infections, health experts say.

Olympics chiefs are being urged to address the impact of the predominantly male construction workforce, which is likely to total more than 100,000 over the next four years.

More than 1,000 people are already working on preparing the site, with a further 2,000 scheduled to begin arriving within weeks as work starts on the stadium. Health organisations are warning that thousands of prostitutes, including trafficked women, are likely to arrive in the run-up to 2012.

They are calling for extra staff in sexual health clinics to address a predicted rise in sexually transmitted infections and for preventive measures, such as sex leaflets in various languages and condom distribution. The Terrence Higgins Trust (THT), the HIV and sexual health charity, is calling for an urgent meeting with the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) and the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games.

Clinicians assessing the impact of the Sydney 2000 Games found a big increase in demand for sexual health services and a corresponding increase in sexually related diseases, mainly among casual workers, the trust said.

Lisa Power, policy director for the trust, said: “There will be increased sexual activity at the Olympics and in the run-up. There will be migrant workers, mostly men, separated from their families. Many of them will have unprotected sex. They will go out for casual sex or with sex workers. There is a big potential for increase in poor sexual health, including HIV, chlamydia and gonorrhoea. This an issue where everybody gets embarrassed and they don’t want to talk about it.”

Sara Walker, of the English Collective of Prostitutes, said: “Of course, where men gather with time and money then prostitutes will go there. We are more concerned about the police coming in and targeting prostitutes who are not illegal immigrants.”

Grahame Maxwell, spokesman on human-trafficking at the Association of Chief Police Officers, said that the Metropolitan Police were liaising closely with the Human Trafficking Centre and Maxim, another unit dealing with immigration and smuggling, to detect any increase in trafficking related to the Games. A spokesman for the ODA said that no plans had been made to address sexual health specifically, although an occupational health centre would be set up for workers.

With up to 25,000 workers on site during the peak of construction work in 2009-10, there are concerns about accommodation. Unions are worried that landlords will increase rents and provide poor, cramped accommodation. At least 50 per cent of the labourers are expected to be migrant.

Protection zone

— 100,000 construction workers are expected on or near the Olympic site in the next four years

— An estimated 10,000 sex workers were operating at the Sydney 2000 Olympics

— In Sydney 70,000 condoms for athletes went so fast that 20,000 more were ordered. Even these ran out before the Games ended

— Athletes at the Manchester Commonwealth Games were handed condoms wrapped in little gold medals

— The Home Office claims to have no estimate of the number of prostitutes operating in London

Adapted from: Jill Sherman, "Influx of workers and prostitutes for Olympics raises sexual health fears." The Times Online. 17 March 2008.

New York Man Convicted in Human Trafficking Ring

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 21:41:00 GMT

A New York man pleaded guilty in New Haven, Connecticut federal court for his role in a human trafficking ring that forced adolescent and teenage girls to work as prostitutes and dancers.

Corey "Magnificent" Davis, 36, of Queens, pleaded admitted to one count of sex trafficking of a minor before U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall. Davis was arrested in December 2006 on several charges including sex trafficking, forced labor and transportation of a minor for immoral purposes.

His trial was scheduled to begin on Monday. He has been detained since his arrest.

As a result of the guilty plea, Davis agreed to a prison term of 23 years when he is sentenced on June 2. Federal prosecutors said a victims' fund also has been created from profits of the criminal enterprise.

U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor said the plea deal lets the victims avoid testifying in court. "There are few crimes more heinous than sex trafficking of minors," O'Connor said.

Authorities said Davis forced a 12-year-old girl to be a sex slave in 2005, confining her to a house in New York and transporting her to Connecticut to work up to 12 hours a day as a prostitute. He also was accused of recruiting a 17-year-old girl in 2006 with the promise of a cheap apartment, but when she arrived, investigators say Davis took away her cell phone and locked her in an apartment.

They say Davis controlled all aspects of the girls' lives, including regulating their food intake and confiscating their identification documents.

The girls were slapped and beaten, threatened and confined to a house in Queens, authorities said. The 17-year-old worked at "Pleasant Moments" club in Bridgeport and in underground clubs, according to court documents. She was flown to Dallas, Texas, to engage in prostitution after she turned 18, authorities said.

One of the victims later called a Stratford police officer, who notified federal authorities. The operation allegedly allowed Davis to lead a life of luxury. Authorities seized $29,000 in cash, two Mercedes Benz cars, a two-family house in Queens, and jewelry worth $110,000, from Davis.

Adapted from: "NY man convicted in human trafficking ring." Newsday.com. 14 March 2008.

TV Series Raises Awareness on Trafficking in Women in Argentina

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 21:55:00 GMT

The soap opera has proved itself an effective medium for portraying social problems in Latin America, and now a popular one in Argentina is addressing an issue on which the news broadcasts have remained silent: the disappearance of women for commercial sexual exploitation.

"Vidas Robadas" (Stolen Lives), shown daily from this month on the Telefé TV channel, stars Facundo Arana and veteran actress Soledad Silveyra, and was watched by an estimated two million viewers every night during the first week.

The idea of a fictional plot based on a real-life story had already been used successfully in "Montecristo", a 2006 soap opera that told the story of a young woman whose parents were "disappeared" during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship, and whose true identity was kept secret from her by the couple who stole her as a baby and raised her as their own.

"Montecristo" had the highest ratings of any soap opera on Argentine television to date, and was later sold to stations in Chile, Mexico, Portugal and Uruguay.

Stolen Lives begins with the kidnap of a young girl from a low-income family, who falls into the hands of a human trafficking network which forces her into prostitution. The villain of the piece is the head of the trafficking ring, and the complicity between state and society in covering up the crime is shown.

After the first episode of the serial, the station broadcast "Humanos en el camino", a programme on real-life cases of women who had fallen victim to networks trafficking in persons in Argentina. Audience monitoring indicated that most viewers stayed with the channel and did not switch programmes.

Silveyra, who plays the mother of the kidnapped girl, met several times with Susana Trimarco, the mother of Marita Verón, a young woman abducted in 2002 in the province of Tucumán in the northwest of the country, and who is presumed to have been sold to a brothel.

Verón is still missing, but her mother’s search has led to the discovery and freeing of hundreds of women, many of them foreigners.

Human trafficking has already been the subject of popular serials in Brazil and Colombia. However, the real stories of the girls kidnapped in Argentina are much stranger than fiction.

In 2004, 26-year-old Andrea López disappeared. The father of one of her three children was her partner Víctor Purreta, the owner of two brothels in the province of Buenos Aires. Purreta was sentenced to prison for forcing López to work as a prostitute, but when he was released he denied any knowledge of her whereabouts.

López’s mother, Julia Ferreira, told IPS that she agonises over the soap opera, but at the same time she believes that discussing the problem publicly may help people "to become aware of what is happening, to have compassion for us and to come forward with information that can help us find the girls."

"Because of shame or ignorance, I never asked for help, but now I think that if I had done so when my daughter was beaten by her husband, perhaps she would not have disappeared," she said. Now she only has vague clues suggesting her daughter might once have been in a brothel in the province of Córdoba, but no solid evidence.

The only witness who said he had seen the girl in one of Purreta’s brothels was found hanged with a gag in his mouth, "a mafia killing, for which no one was ever charged," Ferreira said.

Ferreira lives in the central province of La Pampa, and is raising her grandson, now seven years old. She has to put up with Purreta’s visitation rights.

"As the justice system maintains that my daughter abandoned her marital home, it gives him the right -- he, who forced my daughter into prostitution -- to take the child away with him on the weekend," she complained.

Ferreira is convinced that Purreta knows what happened, but won’t say. "He said he woke up and she wasn’t there, but he only told me 20 days later. I wonder: if he knew that every time he beat my daughter, she came to my house, why didn’t he phone me that time to ask whether she was with me?"

Although there are no official statistics, women’s organisations report that there are about 500 young women who are missing, and who could be in the hands of these networks. Some have been kidnapped, while others have been lured by tempting offers of supposedly well-paid jobs in other provinces or countries.

Activists have not managed to get a law passed against this crime, which would also provide support and assistance to the victims. They blame a lack of political will. "The state does not show much interest in dedicating resources to this issue," lawyer Marta Fontenla, of the Women’s Association for Work and Studies (ATEM), told IPS.

"The soap opera is very important because it creates awareness and raises the profile of the problem. My only concern is that it might get stuck on the cases of kidnapped girls, when in fact those who weren’t forced to the same degree are also victims if they fall into the hands of a network," she said.

Fontenla said Argentina needs a law against trafficking that does not oblige women over 18 to prove that their captors used trickery or violence to force them into prostitution, as is stipulated in a draft law that was considered by Congress in 2007, but failed to make it through both chambers.

Sara Torres, the coordinator of the Red No a la Trata de Mujeres (No to Trafficking of Women Network), said that it was necessary to go beyond the fictional story. "The soap opera is good because it makes the problem visible, but this must not end there," she told IPS.

"The issue is gaining visibility in Argentina, because although pimping is against the law, new brothels are being opened every day," she said. (END/2008)

Adapted from: Marcela Valente, "ARGENTINA: TV Serial Raises Awareness on Trafficking in Women." ipsnews.net 14 March 2008.

US Says Trafficking is Still a Problem in Taiwan

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 21:34:00 GMT

The State Department's `Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2007' said that rape and domestic violence also remained serious concerns.

The US Department of State has ranked Taiwan's human rights situation last year as "commendable," with the exception of continued problems in specific areas, including official corruption and human trafficking.

"Taiwan generally respected human rights of its citizens; however, there continued to be problems reported in the following areas: corruption by officials, violence and discrimination against women, trafficking in persons and abuses of foreign workers," the department said in its annual rights report, 2007 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.

There were also allegations of official corruption during the year even as authorities continued to take action to fight corruption, the report said. Allegations of vote buying persisted, but all political parties were publicly committed to ending the practice.

As of last June, prosecutors had indicted 970 individuals on corruption charges and had convicted 477 people, it said. The accused included 70 high-ranking government officials, 152 mid-level, 201 low-level and 23 elected officials, it said.

In terms of women's rights, the report said violence against women, including rape and domestic violence, remained a serious problem, with the Ministry of the Interior estimating the total number of sexual assaults being 10 times the number reported to the police.

As of last October, a total of 60,326 cases of domestic violence had been reported, marking a 2 percent increase over the previous year, the report said.

On human trafficking, Taiwan was primarily a destination for Southeast Asian and Chinese nationals trafficked into forced labor or sexual exploitation, the report said. There were numerous reports of women -- mainly from Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand -- being forced or coerced into the commercial sex trade after receiving fraudulent offers of employment or marriage from dishonest labor or marriage brokers, the report said.

There were also reports of women being trafficked from Taiwan for sexual exploitation purposes to Canada, Japan, the UK, the US and other countries, the report said.

Last year, 423 persons were indicted for trafficking related offenses, an increase of 62 percent over the previous year, with some 350 cases still pending at year's end, the report said.

On abuse of foreign workers, brokers and employers regularly impose high brokerage fees and other charges on foreign workers, frequently using the debt as a tool for involuntary servitude, the report said.

The report also said that civilian authorities generally maintained effective control of security forces last year.

Adapted from: "Human trafficking still a problem in Taiwan: US." Taipei Times. 13 March 2008.

NBI Rescues 40 from Trafficking Ring in Manila, Philippines

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 21:36:00 GMT

National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) agents rescued at least 40 girls from a human trafficking syndicate in a raid on two apartments in Metro Manila.

Radio dzBB reported that as of 10 p.m., NBI's anti-human trafficking division was transporting the 40 "rescued" girls to NBI main headquarters in Manila.

As of posting time, it was not clear whether arrests were made during the raid and where it was conducted.

According to the report, the raid stemmed from a complaint by five victims who managed to escape from their “captors" a few days ago.

Adapted from: "NBI rescues 40 from trafficking ring in Metro Manila." gmanews.tv 13 March 2008.

Arab Schools Urged to Teach Ills of Human Trafficking

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 21:29:00 GMT

Qatar proposed that Arab countries introduce material on the fight against human trafficking into their school curriculums in order to raise awareness of the scourge.

"The issue of human trafficking must figure in modern curriculums in order to raise awareness and ensure a secure future for our societies," the secretary general of Qatar's Higher Family Council, Abdullah bin Nasser al-Khalifa, told the opening session of a conference on human trafficking.

Mariam al-Maliki, who coordinates the drive to combat human trafficking in the gas-rich Gulf state, said the campaign had been made more pressing by "the big economic and social changes experienced by Gulf societies," in particular population growth and the growing need for expatriate labour.

The two-day conference is organised by Qatar and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, with the participation of representatives of the United Nations Children's Fund.

The United States and international human rights groups have highlighted the problem of human trafficking in the oil-rich Gulf states, home to more than 13 million expatriates, many of them unskilled and low-paid Asian workers vulnerable to abuse.

The US State Department human trafficking report in 2006 upgraded the United Arab Emirates from the "Tier 3" of worst offenders to "Tier 2 Watch List" comprising countries which are making "significant" efforts to deal with the problem.

The UAE maintained its rank in the 2007 edition of the report, but other Gulf countries -- Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar -- were downgraded to Tier 3, joining Saudi Arabia.

According to UN estimates, around 2.5 million people -- 80 percent of them women and children -- are being trafficked around the world at any given time for purposes such as forced labour, sexual exploitation, the removal of organs and body parts, forced marriages, child adoption and begging.

Global annual profits from the exploitation of trafficked forced labour are estimated at 31.6 billion dollars.

Adapted from: "Arab schools urged to teach ills of human trafficking." AFP. 12 March 2008.

Human Trafficking Steps from the Shadows

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 21:30:00 GMT

On the eve of International Women’s Day, attention turns to the largely invisible issue of modern-day slavery

Bay Area residents were shocked when, in 2000, Berkeley landlord and restaurateur Lakireddy Bali Reddy was charged with smuggling minors into the United States and keeping them as sex slaves. (He was later sentenced to more than eight years in prison and ordered to pay $2 million in restitution.) Were it not for the accidental death of a 17-year-old girl brought here from India with her younger sister — the result of a malfunctioning heater in their small Bancroft Way apartment — that case, which involved at least 25 girls over a period of 15 years, might never have come to light.

On any given day, according to a 2005 report by the campus Human Rights Center, more than 10,000 men, women, and children in the United States are being forced to work as prostitutes, agricultural and sweatshop laborers, or restaurant and domestic workers. The center identified 57 forced-labor operations based in major urban areas in California alone, San Francisco among them. Traffickers, the report said, routinely subject their victims — often immigrants too terrified to reveal their plight — to beatings, threats, and other forms of abuse, both physical and psychological.

Obscure and widely misunderstood, the issue of human trafficking took a small step out of the shadows last Thursday — two days before International Women’s Day — at a panel discussion in Dwinelle Hall hosted by Stop the Traffick, a student group. Panelists included the head of the California Commission on the Status of Women, an attorney with Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach, a representative of Soroptimist International, and an Oakland police officer specializing in cases involving the sexual exploitation of minors.

The discussion touched on questions ranging from the need for tougher anti-trafficking legislation to the lack of state funds to assist victims. But what made the evening especially memorable was the keynote speaker, the author of a self-published book, The Sacred Bath: An American Teen’s Story of Modern Day Slavery.
Theresa Flores, author of The Sacred Bath: An American Teen’s Story of Modern Day Slavery.

“Slavery and human trafficking look like me, too,” declared Theresa Flores, a white, blonde, 43-year-old resident of Columbus, Ohio, who has spent the past year traveling the country to recount her story at similar events. Describing herself as “a nice Catholic girl who lived in a large, suburban house” near Detroit during her teenage years, she said she was targeted by traffickers, drugged, and date-raped at the age of 15 — “I was just a kid,” she said — and then blackmailed and forced to work as a prostitute “for two long years.”

“They said they would kill me and my family and my dog if I didn’t do what they said,” reported Flores, adding that she was “beaten into silence every night” by her captors. Throughout her ordeal, she said, she was permitted to live at home, sneaking out every night to turn tricks, and then returning home and going to school the next day. Once, she said, she was kidnapped, taken to inner-city Detroit, and “tortured for hours and hours and left for dead” before being returned to her emotionally absent parents by an unsympathetic police officer. Only when her father moved the family to another city after a job transfer, she said, did she finally break with her captors.

“This is a human-rights issue, and it is happening right here in the United States,” said Flores, now a social worker and mother of three. “Why isn’t this on the nightly news?”

It fell to the panelists to address that question, among others. Mary Wiberg, of the Commission on the Status of Women, and Erin Gangitano, of Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach, noted the difficulty of identifying victims of modern-day slavery, whose relative invisibility has slowed the passage of legislation to prosecute trafficking rings. As a member of the California Alliance to Combat Trafficking and Slavery task force, Wiberg took part in an 18-month examination of the problem, helping to produce a report in November titled “Human Trafficking in California.” Among its recommendations were stiffer sentences for traffickers, more funding for NGOs providing services to victims — such as shelter, health care, and legal support — and better data collection on the nature and extent of trafficking in California.

Gangitano, whose clients include domestic servants and restaurant workers brought here from developing countries, told of an all-too-typical case in which a woman’s passport was withheld by her traffickers on the pretext that she owed $10,000 for being brought to the U.S. Such victims often are unable to speak or understand English, and are unfamiliar with their rights under U.S. law. In many cases, she said, their consulates are “in denial” about trafficking in their countries, and thus unwilling to help.

Trafficking victims, said Gangitano, are apt to be found working in restaurants — often doing multiple shifts with minimal time off — or even as babysitters. “Keep your eyes open,” she advised the largely student audience.

The U.S. State Department estimates that human trafficking claims as many as 800,000 victims worldwide every year, and that up to 17,500 — chiefly from Asia and Central and South America — end up in the U.S. According to the Human Rights Center’s research, more than 500 people from 18 countries were ensnared in forced-labor operations in California between 1998 and 2003, nearly half of them in prostitution. The largest number of foreign victims, 136, came from Thailand, the center reported, followed by Mexico and Russia.

“These cases of forced labor represent only the publicized incidents,” the report’s authors cautioned. “We suspect the actual number is considerably higher.”

California, a major destination for traffickers, enacted two new laws in 2006 aimed at combating the problem: the California Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which made human trafficking a felony and provides for restitution to its victims; and the Human Trafficking Collaboration and Training Act, which requires law-enforcement officers to be trained in responding to human trafficking. The bills also established the statewide task force, the California Alliance to Combat Trafficking and Slavery (CA ACTS), that produced the 2007 report.

But much more needs to be done, said Carol Dippel, the president of the El Cerrito chapter of Soroptimist International, a volunteer organization of business and professional women that launched its Soroptimists STOP Trafficking project on Jan. 11, which the U.S. Senate last year designated as the National Day of Human Trafficking Awareness. Professionals, she said, especially need to be trained in recognizing the signs of human trafficking.

Jim Saleda, an officer with the Oakland Police Department’s vice crimes and child-exploitation unit, described his city’s efforts at charging human traffickers as traffickers, rather than simply as pimps. “We always use human trafficking as the first charge,” he said, if only to provide more accurate statistics on the crime.

He also said his own unit had grown in its understanding of the problem. “When we first started,” he said, the attitude toward prostitutes was “clear the streets.”

“Now,” he said, “we treat them as victims.”

Moderated by Stop the Traffick co-director Tonia Bui, the event was co-sponsored by the Associated Students of the University of California, the Gender Equity Resource Center, LunaFest, the Gender and Women’s Studies Department, and the Prytanean Women’s Honor Society.

Adapted from: Barry Bergman, "Human trafficking steps from the shadows." UC Berkeley News. 12 March 2008.

New Mexico Attorney General Believes Trafficking Should Be Addressed at State Level

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:04:00 GMT

It’s a worldwide problem that officials in New Mexico think is now becoming a problem in this state — human trafficking.

Some 30 members of the Gallup Soroptimist Club attended a 2 1/2 hour program on the subject with Maria Sanchez Gagne, an assistant attorney general for the state and head of the Border Violence program, speaking on the subject.

Each year, an estimated 800,000 to 900,000 men and women — mostly, women — are forced to become slaves either for sex purposes or for labor in a movement that nets those involved billions of dollars. As many as half of those number may be under 18 years of age.

Because of the magnitude of the problem, 30 states have passed laws making human trafficking a state crime — it already is a federal one — and Gagne said efforts are now under way to get a similar bill before the state Legislature in this session.

One person in the audience, who works for the juvenile probation office, asked why the state needs to enact law and go through the expense of prosecuting these crimes when there are already laws on the books that would require the federal government to do the prosecution. The federal government, Gagne explain, “would rather see the state handle these cases.”

“First of all,” she said, “the federal government doesn’t have the resources to handle these cases and have been asking the states for assistance. The state is also in a better position to enforce the law since local law enforcement agencies are more likely to see indicators that human trafficking is occurring.”

Which brings up the question — just how much of a problem is human trafficking in New Mexico and the Southwest? Gagne said that’s hard to answer because local law enforcement officials don’t have the ability to investigate cases where women have been brought over to this country from Mexico, Russia, China, or other countries and forced to become prostitutes or to work as nannies or as field workers for little pay.

And while there have been cases prosecuted by the federal government in other states, there has not been one in New Mexico “for quite a while.”

Despite this, Gagne feels that there is a need for state laws because a recent survey of law enforcement officers in the state have said there have been indications in their investigations of various crimes that human trafficking may be a problem in the southern part of the state. Gagne also said there are indicators there are problems in the northern portion of the state as well.

It’s known, according to printed material on the human trafficking problem, that many of the victims of human trafficking are being smuggled across the border into Arizona, Texas and New Mexico. And while many of these victims find themselves in the big cities — Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago — working in brothels or for escort services, Gagne said some find themselves living and working in New Mexico.

In Gallup, arrests for prostitution are very rare, and when they occur, it’s usually connected with activities at one of the truck stops.

Gagne said one of the major problems in detecting whether human trafficking is occurring is that the victims are afraid to come forward, either because they come from a country where law enforcement officers cannot be trusted or because they are afraid that if they come forward, they will be deported and will have to go back to their home country with the stigma of being a prostitute on their reputation.

One of the things the state law will do, she said, is provide some help to the victims, including a guarantee that they would be allowed to stay in this country while the case is pending. She said that it’s also possible that the victim would be allowed to stay in this country after the trial as well.

The state attorney general’s office is asking for money to be appropriated to be used to house the victims and provide them with funds for food and basic needs during the time the case is being adjudicated.

Adapted from: Bill Donovan, "Expert: Human trafficking, prostitution a universal problem." gallupindependent.com. 12-13 January 2008.

Guinea's Children Face Threat of Abandonment, Trafficking

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:31:00 GMT

Authorities and aid workers in Guinea say children in impoverished areas are increasingly being abandoned by their families, leaving them on their own, exploited as workers, or at the mercy of traffickers.

VOA's Nico Colombant reports from the capital Conakry, as well as Forecariah, near the border with Sierra Leone.

Eleven children recently rescued from suspected traffickers play in a courtyard under the supervision of aid workers from a non-profit group called Foyer de l'Esperance in Forecariah. One seven-year-old girl in the group, Fatimata Soumah, nervously plays with a Barbie doll next to an aid worker who translates from the local language Susu into French.

Fatimata explains she likes this center, because she is able to play games, and learn to read and count. She says there are mean adults outside the center, who steal children and even want to kill them.

Authorities say Fatimata was rescued from the clutches of her cousin, who is accused of trying to traffic the child to Sierra Leone after her boyfriend told her it would be a good way to make money. Authorities say they located Fatimata's parents, who signed a letter asking the center to keep her.

But another young girl here, Kadiatou Conte, who does not know her age, says if she had to choose between the center and her mother, she would choose her mother. The problem is her mother is in jail in Conakry with three other women suspected of trying to sell her, her brother, and eight other children, all of them now here.

The trial has yet to begin, meaning the 10 children are in limbo. They pass time playing with toy cell phones. Some adults came by the center, claiming to be their relatives or parents, but a judge has ordered DNA tests before any of the children are handed over.

The administrator of this center, Raphael Cekui Tea, a former priest, says families get very desperate for money, but that it is a shame this is taking place in Africa. He says people usually live in tight communities, and that neighbors or relatives should help.

The top administrative official in Forecariah, Marie Guilavogui, initially took care of the 10 children, after she was called by police who had apprehended the women and children at a border crossing inside a van in the middle of the night.

Guilavogui says the government is trying to decentralize efforts to combat child trafficking, by placing experts in each region. She says Forecariah is one of the worst affected areas, but that children face dire conditions across Guinea.

On the streets of the capital, residents say more children are living on the streets each night, like this boy, Mohamed Camara. He says he begs from what he calls patrons, meaning bosses, who walk by, to have enough money to eat. Asked how old he is, he says he is 12, but his body is very small. He taps on his only possession, a cardboard box of old dates, he says he keeps in case he gets really hungry at night. He says his parents are in a faraway village, but that he was taken away by an aunt. Mohamed says she asked him to beg for her, but he ran away preferring to beg for himself.

He says he has heard stories of men coming at night, putting money on the ground, and that when a child bends down to pick up the money, he or she, he says, is transformed, in other words, disappears. A roving band of street kids passes by, banging on boxes and buckets, singing the praise of the national soccer team which just beat Sudan in a friendly match. One boy in the group explains it is a good way to get money. He says you have to be creative when you beg.

An official who coordinates activities between Guinea's government and the United Nations children's body, UNICEF, Manimam Conde, explains many of these children end up being coerced into becoming domestic workers, working in plantations or given platters to put on their heads and sell food in markets.

But there is much worse.

Conde says children are also victims of organ trafficking. He says they are dismembered and their body parts sold for medical purposes. He says during traditional ceremonies, trafficked children are also sacrificed, killed in front of crowds.

Adapted from: Nico Colombant, " Guinea's Children Face Threat of Abandonment, Trafficking." voanews.com. 13 January 2008.

Prostitution Ban Huge Success in Sweden

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:41:00 GMT

Sweden has drastically reduced human trafficking and prostitution by imposing a ban on the purchase of sexual services, the first of its kind worldwide.

But many sex workers argue the ban robs them of their livelihood and makes them more vulnerable to violence. It's 9 p.m. in Stockholm and Malmskillnadsgatan Street is dead. The road, infamous for being one of the city's main drags for street prostitution, used to be packed with women, but tonight only three women are working the street.

For a long while, nothing happens, but then an older man with alcohol on his breath comes up the escalator from the Högtorget subway station. He pauses briefly in front of one of the women. Then she walks about 10 meters away and signals to him to follow her to a more discreet spot. In Sweden's sex trade these days, caution is a good policy: The john could face up to six months in prison if the police caught the two in the act.

Sweden has now introduced the first law of its kind worldwide. The purchase and brokering of sexual services have been criminalized, although the selling of sexual services remains legal. The law provides for up to six years in prison for pimps and up to 10 years for traffickers of prostitutes. "The goal is to criminalize the demand side of the equation, the johns, rather than putting emotionally and physically imperiled women behind bars," says Jonas Trolle, an inspector with the Stockholm police who belongs to a police unit dedicated to combating the sex trade.

The ban is hardly controversial in Sweden these days. According to opinion polls, 80 percent of the population agrees with Trolle. When a majority consisting of social democrats, greens and leftists ratified the ban on purchasing sexual services in the Swedish parliament in 1999, conservatives were the legislation's main opponents. They argued that the ban would drive prostitution underground and make life more difficult for the women.

Fewer Prostitutes

But it's easy to see the results. "We have significantly less prostitution than our neighboring countries, even if we take into account the fact that some of it happens underground," says Trolle. "We only have between 105 and 130 women -- both on the Internet and on the street -- active (in prostitution) in Stockholm today. In Oslo, it's 5,000."

Another benefit of the ban is that hardly any country in the European Union has fewer problems with human trafficking. According to the Swedish police, 400 to 600 foreign women are brought to Sweden each year to be prostitutes. In Finland, which is only half the size of Sweden, that number is between 10,000 and 15,000 women. Illegal trafficking is facilitated in Finland by the country's proximity to Russia and the Baltic states, but now Helsinki is also considering introducing a law based on the Swedish model. In Norway, the ruling Labor Party hopes to use similar legislation to fight human trafficking, especially of women from Nigeria.

Despite the prostitution ban, the number of convictions in Sweden is surprisingly low. Although a handful of pimps are sentenced to several years in prison each year, customers have so far managed to get away with fines and having their names entered in police registers. "The purchase of sex is difficult to prove," says Trolle. "Johns have to be caught in the act." Besides, he adds, it has taken time for members of the police force to accept the law. "But most officers have now realized that prostitution is not a normal business." The number of convicted johns has climbed from 11 in 1999 to 108 in 2006.

The ban on the purchase of sexual services is also intended to bring about a fundamental change in societal attitudes. Nowadays every schoolchild learns that purchasing sex for money is illegal. "The next generation in Sweden will consider this to be much less ordinary than we do today," says Trolle.

'I Need the Money'

Prostitutes themselves are, for the most part, opposed to the criminalization of their customers. They feel that they are being pushed into the role of victim and that the ban robs them of their livelihood. Take Johanna,* for example. She is 35 and one of the women who offers her services on Malmskillnadsgatan Street, usually at the end of the month. She is a heroin addict, and heroin is expensive. She charges the equivalent of €55 for having sex in a car. The fact that there are fewer customers narrows her choices. "When things are slow, the way they are tonight, I'm also willing to go with guys who want to get a little rough with me and don't want to use a condom," she says. "I need the money."

Lisa,* a woman in the southern Swedish city of Malmö, agrees. "The business has become tougher and more dangerous. There's more competition and more violence," says the 38-year-old, who has worked the streets for 12 years and sometimes stays at "Minnesota," a Malmö drug treatment facility.

She has been around long enough to remember the days before the ban on purchasing sex was introduced. "The nice customers are afraid of being caught," she says. "All that's left are the more troubled ones, those with whom you have to drive far out of the city so that they'll feel safe from the police. It puts you at their mercy."

Health care professionals have mixed feelings about the ban. "Cases of abuse and rape have increased considerably. The rate of sexually transmitted diseases has also gone up among streetwalkers because the lack of johns forces them to have sex without a condom," says Helena Cewers, a nurse who has been working for more than 15 years in an admission clinic for drug-addicted women in Malmö and knows almost every hooker in the city.

Only a few years ago, Cewers was vehemently opposed to the criminalization of johns. At the beginning, she says, the law did nothing but target johns, while doing nothing to help hookers deal with the significant changes in their situation. "All they talked about was bans and penalties, but not about the effects on the girls," says Cewers. "But now they're finally doing more for the girls. There are more social services that actively help prostitutes get themselves out of their dilemma." Withdrawal programs with the heroin substitute methadone and other treatments have also been made more available to prostitutes, says Cewers.

In fact, Cewers has actually become somewhat of a supporter of the ban, although she continues to believe that prostitution should be abolished altogether. "It's true: There are no happy whores. Most of the ones I've met here over the years were sexually abused by relatives when they were young and have serious emotional problems," she says. "Not much of this is about choice."

Those who have been doing it for a while, says Cewers, take drugs or sedatives. "This is not a normal profession," she says. "I wish all of them could get out of it."

* Editor's note: To protect the identity of those interviewed, some names have been changed.

Adapted from: André Anwar, "Prostitution Ban Huge Success in Sweden." www.spiegel.de. 8 November 2007.

Soroptimist International Initiates Project to Prevent Sexual Exploitation

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 15:03:00 GMT

On Sunday December 2, 2007, the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, the Soroptimist International launched a project to create awareness about the heinous practice of Sexual Trafficking of Women and Girls.

That program will launch in the United States on Friday, January 11, 2008, the first National Day of Human Trafficking Awareness.

What is trafficking?

A $32 billion annual industry, trafficking is a type of slavery that involves the transport or trade of people for the purpose of work. According to the U.N., about 2.5 million people around the world are ensnared in the web of human trafficking at any given time.

Trafficking impacts people of all backgrounds, and people are trafficked for a variety of purposes. Men are often trafficked into hard labor jobs, while children are trafficked into labor positions in textile, agriculture and fishing industries. Women and girls are typically trafficked into the commercial sex industry, i.e. prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation.

Some sex trafficking is highly visible, such as street prostitution. But many trafficking victims remain unseen, operating out of unmarked brothels in unsuspecting—and sometimes suburban—neighborhoods. Sex traffickers may also operate out of a variety of public and private locations, such as massage parlors, spas and strip clubs.

What is Soroptimist doing to stop trafficking?

As an organization of business and professional women working to improve the lives of women and girls and local communities throughout the world, Soroptimist undertakes a number of projects that directly and indirectly help potential trafficking victims. In late 2007, the organization launched a major campaign aimed at raising awareness about the devastating practice of sexual trafficking.

Soroptimist undertakes a number of other projects that directly and indirectly help victims and potential victims. These projects provide direct aid to women and girls—giving women economic tools and skills to achieve financial empowerment and independence:

The Women's Opportunity Awards program—Soroptimist's major project—provides women who are heads of households with the resources they need to improve their education, skills and employment prospects. By helping women to receive skill and resource training, Soroptimist provides trafficking and potential trafficking victims with economic options.

The Soroptimist Club Grants for Women and Girls program provides Soroptimist clubs with cash grants for innovative projects benefiting women and girls. Many clubs undertake projects that directly and indirectly benefit trafficking victims: a Soroptimist club in the Philippines supports a shelter for abused women and girls escaping from sexual trafficking; a club in California held a conference in support of the Western Regional Task Force on Human Trafficking; and a club in Chicago has held several educational events related to trafficking.

The Making a Difference for Women Award program honors women who work to improve the lives of women and girls. Kathryn Xian is a recent recipient. In 2004, she led a grassroots campaign against a local tour company offering Asian sex tours. She also testified at a Hawaii State House of Representatives hearing on trafficking. The hearings resulted in the passage of Act 82, which makes “promoting travel for prostitution” a Class C felony violation. Act 82 now serves as model legislation for other states.

Soroptimist's Disaster Relief Fund provides financial assistance to regions affected by natural disasters or acts of war, with special attention paid to services benefiting women and girls. Women and girls affected by disasters are often vulnerable to traffickers.

Stopping Sexual Trafficking–What You Can Do

Around the world, individuals and organizations are raising awareness about trafficking and slavery, and working to end it forever. Below are some ideas for ensuring that women and girls live free from violence and slavery.

Find out about sexual trafficking in your community and country. Search local newspapers, magazines and the Internet for articles about trafficking and slavery in your area. Use keywords like trafficking, prostitution, pornography, slavery, sex worker or pimp. Talk with university professors specializing in relevant fields, such as women's studies or criminal justice. Finally, talk with police officers and social service providers to learn what they are doing to end slavery.

Educate Others

Learn as much as you can and share that information with your friends and family.

Reach out. Write articles, editorials and letters to the editor and send them to local newspapers and magazines.

Contact the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. The UNODC launched a global human trafficking awareness campaign and has joined forces with partners in more 40 countries to produce customized versions of video spots. Find out about showing them in your community and connecting with local partners.
Support Groups Working to End Sexual Slavery

Contact Soroptimist. Find out more about what Soroptimist clubs in your local area are doing to end sexual slavery.

Target law enforcement. Police officers are often the first involved when a woman is rescued. Contact your local law enforcement to find out what the protocol is for dealing with victims of slavery.

Donate. For more information about what you can do to end the sexual trafficking of women and girls, please contact program@soroptimist.org

How Women and Girls Are Trafficked

Some women are lured into trafficking with the offers of legitimate and legal work as shop assistants or waitresses, for example. Others are lured with promises of marriage, educational opportunities and a better life. Some are sold into trafficking by boyfriends, friends, neighbors or even parents.

Women and girls are abducted or recruited in a country of origin, transported through transit countries and then forced into exploitative labor or sex work in destination countries. Trafficking victims often pass among multiple traffickers, moving further and further from their countries of origin. In many cases, traffickers and victims share the same nationality. A trafficker in the Ukraine, for example, may traffic her neighbor to Turkey. Once there, she may sell her victim to a Turkish trafficker, who will take the woman to Thailand, her final destination.

While transnational human trafficking has received more attention then intra-state trafficking, the reality is “that much of the worldwide trafficking and exploitation of persons occurs within communities and countries, if even only initially.” There is minimally reported evidence in the area of intra-state trafficking leaving institutions like the UNODC, who recognize the graveness of the problem, without the tools to eradicate it.

Both men and women participate in the trafficking of women and girls into sexual slavery. Men generally control a trafficking ring, but women are instrumental in effectively managing the trafficking victims. Female traffickers gain the trust of their victims in order to better psychologically manipulate them.

Typically, once in the custody of traffickers, a victim’s passport and official papers are confiscated and held. Victims are told that they are in the destination country illegally, which increases victims’ dependence on their traffickers, and are often kept in captivity. Victims are also trapped into debt bondage, whereby they are obliged to pay back large recruitment and transportation fees before being released from their traffickers. Many victims report being charged additional fines or fees while under bondage, requiring them to work longer to pay off their debts.

The High Cost of Human Sex Trafficking

Sex trafficking of women and girls has astronomical costs, both to the women and girls who are its primary victims, and to society as a whole. Trafficking is an abuse of physical and mental integrity, security of the person, freedom of movement, and privacy. Trafficking “violates the universal human right to life, liberty and freedom from slavery.”

Sex trafficking also has widespread negative consequences for individuals and societies:

Sex trafficking helps to promote societal breakdown by removing women and girls from their families and communities. If and when victims are able to return to their communities, they often find themselves doubly victimized by social stigmatization, discrimination and rejection.
Sex trafficking fuels organized crime groups that usually participate in many other illegal activities, including drug and weapons trafficking and money laundering.
Sex trafficking negatively impacts local and national labor markets, due to the loss of human resources. The effects of trafficking on economies include “depressed wages, fewer individuals left to care for elderly persons, and an undereducated generation. These effects leads to the loss of future productivity and earning power,” especially in child trafficking victims.
Sex trafficking burdens public health systems. Trafficking victims often suffer from myriad physical and psychological traumas, including sexually transmitted diseases, anxiety, depression and post traumatic stress disorder. Victims also often suffer physical complications from unsanitary living situations and poor nutrition.
Sex trafficking erodes government authority, encourages widespread corruption, and threatens the security of vulnerable populations.

For more information about Soroptimist and what you can do to end the sexual trafficking of women and girls, please contact Gail Rocco-Mack, President of the Soroptimist International of Santa Clarita Valley at 661-263-2528

Adapted from: "Program Creates Sexual Trafficking Awareness: Soroptimist International initiates project to prevent sexual exploitation." 09 January 2008.

UN Preventing Human Trafficking

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:20:00 GMT

Boi Ngoc is a young woman living in a remote farming village in South East Asia.

She has a child, but lives in a hostile family environment, with little means of securing any income. Desperate to support her child independently, she contacts a woman recommended by a relative, who says she can arrange a job as a waitress in a neighbouring country.

Burim is a young Eastern European boy staying in an asylum seekers' camp in a foreign country. He and his brother have been separated from their family for several years. As asylum seekers, they have no right to work in their host country but need money for clothing and other essential items. Their status and prospects are likely to remain uncertain for many years. A man approaches Burim and offers him and his brother the chance to start a new life.

People like Boi Ngoc and Burim are seeking better lives and are therefore vulnerable to manipulation by traffickers. UNODC's research shows that victims are often duped by a recruiter who is a relative, a supposed friend or seems like someone they can trust. Traffickers and victims often share the same nationality. In some parts of the world, female traffickers are selected to recruit women.

UNODC helps to make people like Boi Ngoc and Burim aware of the risks by making video and radio spots (public service announcements), which are broadcast in numerous languages throughout the world. UNODC also runs campaigns with NGOs, distributing written information and contacting actual and potential victims.

In December 2006, UNODC Colombia received a UN21 Commendation award for its anti-human trafficking activities, which included helping Colombian television to produce a prime-time television soap opera about human trafficking. Aired nightly to millions of viewers, the series exposed common traffickers' ruses, such as Internet scams, and explained where victims could seek help.

Vulnerable communities
Community-led activities are an important prevention tool. The porous border between India and Nepal, for example, is an area of heavy cross-border human trafficking. In 2006-07, UNODC supported NGO initiatives such as the Community Vigilance project, led by local leaders and women's groups, which has mobilized thousands of villagers to detect and prevent trafficking.

In 2006-07, UNODC provided funding for NGOs in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to run trafficking prevention campaigns among asylum-seekers, a particularly vulnerable group. Counselling was provided to young people like Burim to make them aware of the risks and where they can seek help.

Conflict zones
Sometimes the threat of trafficking can emerge very suddenly. In mid-2006, during the armed conflict in Lebanon, UNODC became aware that traffickers were targeting some of the 300,000 domestic workers from Sri Lanka, Ethiopia and the Philippines who were left behind when their foreign employers were evacuated. Having abruptly lost their livelihoods and official resident status, the workers quickly became vulnerable. As embassies struggled to assist their nationals, trafficking gangs offered alternative options.

UNODC put an emergency information campaign in place within days: it produced 12,000 pages of information in various languages, including the number of a telephone hotline run by the NGO Caritas Migrant for assistance and support. The materials were distributed in shelters, embassies, churches, shops and markets.

Research
UNODC's prevention work includes raising awareness among policy-makers, law enforcement bodies and civil society. In April 2006, UNODC published the report Trafficking In Persons: Global Patterns identifying 127 countries of origin, 98 transit countries and 137 destination countries. The sensitive nature of the issue and the lack of systematic action on trafficking worldwide make information collection a challenge, reflecting the unwillingness of some countries to acknowledge that the problem affected them. The absence of reliable global data, in turn, makes it more difficult for governments and international organizations to fight trafficking effectively. This UNODC report was a first attempt to get a clearer picture of the problem. It highlighted the complex nature of trafficking, such as women committing trafficking atrocities against other women, and identified national and regional characteristics of offenders, victims and exploitation. The Report listed states on a scale from "very low" to "very high" as countries of origin, transit and destination.

The report continues to have key relevance in initiating and informing discussions on trafficking in persons. In 2007, to date, the report has been downloaded 260,000 times, making it the most frequently used UNODC report after the World Drug Report.

Adapted from: "Preventing Human Trafficking."

Children Go Home as China Cracks Trafficking Ring

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:44:00 GMT

Nine kidnapped children were returned to their parents in central China on Thursday in a rare success story in a nation where population controls have led to rampant child-trafficking, state media reported.

Police detained 10 suspects after the abduction of nine children in Henan province early last month.

The gang was led by Ye Zengxi, his son, daughter-in-law, and his brother. The gang used Ye's 12-year-old nephew to lure the nine boys, aged between two and eight, away from their parents' view with toys or food, and then whisked them away by motorbike, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Child-trafficking is rampant in China, where population control policies have bolstered a traditional bias for male offspring, seen as the mainstay for elderly parents and heir to the family name, and have resulted in abortions, killings or abandonment of girls.

About 119 boys are born for every 100 girls, an imbalance that has grown since China introduced the one-child policy more than 25 years ago.

The imbalance has created criminal demand for abducted or bought baby boys, but also for baby girls destined to be future brides attracting rich dowries.

Ma Xuemin, director of the Nanyang Bureau of Public Security and commander-in-chief of the abduction case, told Xinhua that none of the boys had been mistreated. "Each kid was sold for 20,000 yuan (1,400 pounds)," Xinhua quoted Sun Zhouli, a police officer on the case, as saying.

Per capita income in China's urban areas is roughly $1,900 a year, and about $600 a year in rural areas.

When Lu Fujin, a father of two of the abducted children, finally held his two-year-old in his arms, "the boy tried to keep at arm's length, seeming a bit aloof after being away for nearly one month", the agency added.

The Ministry of Public Security recorded 2,500 cases of trafficking in China in 2006, but that figure only includes resolved cases, rather than those reported, and fails to make clear whether "cases" involve individuals or rings.

Adapted from: "Children go home as China cracks trafficking ring." Reuters-Africa. 3 January 2008.

UN and East Timor Police Arrest 28 Over Possible Human Trafficking Situation

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:47:00 GMT

UN and East Timorese police have arrested 28 foreign nationals as part of investigations into illegal immigration and possible human trafficking, the UN mission here said.

Officers raided two bars in the East Timorese capital Dili, the mission said in a statement.

At one bar, eight females suspected of involvement in sex work were arrested "for identification purposes, in connection with investigations into illegal immigration and possible human trafficking," it said.

At a second bar, 13 women and seven men, all foreign nationals, were arrested "for identification purposes related to investigations into the trafficking of women."

A UN official said the mission was not at liberty to say where the 28 were from as police were still trying to confirm all of their identities. A US State Department 2007 report said that the half-island nation was a destination country for women trafficked from China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand.

East Timor is one of the world's poorest nations. International peacekeepers are on patrol here following unrest triggered by factional fighting among security forces in 2006. UN police are also assisting in providing security.

Adapted from: "UN, ETimor police arrest 28 over possible human trafficking." afp.google.com. 3 January 2008.

Strategies to Improve Response to Trafficking in Persons Developed in the Philippines

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:50:00 GMT

As part of the efforts to strengthen the enabling environment to improve response to cases of anti-trafficking of persons and related casesin Eastern Visayas, an anti-trafficking in persons local technical working group/ local project consultation meeting will be conducted on January 7, 2008 at 9:00 o'clock in the morning at the Leyte Park Resort Hotel in Tacloban City.

The consultations meeting is being conducted by the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (Solidarity Center) and its various partners under the STEER project under the funding from a grant provided by the US Department of State.

In Eastern Visayas, the Project will build on earlier local and national initiatives in the fight against trafficking by strengthening the enabling environment and improving the implementation of the country's anti-trafficking legislation.

Mr. Cedric R. Bagtas, project consultant and coordinator, said that the project hopes to improve the capacity of government, NGOs and community-support groups at the national and local levels to generate reliable, on-the-ground information and maintain a centralized database on trafficking and related cases including their status.

The project will also strengthen the cooperation among government entities, trade unions and other NGOs in destination and sources communities in monitoring trafficking in persons complaints and cases, documentation and case build-up, and take action including rescue, repatriation and rehabilitation of trafficking victims.

Mr. Bagtas added that proposed project interventions are particularly focused in the fourteen source and receiving communities which include National Capital Region, Laguna, Cavite, Bataan, Subic, Surigao, Leyte/Samar, Cebu, Davao, General Santos city Cagayan de Oro City, cotabato City, Negros and Bohol and selected destination countries.

The consultation meeting, Mr. Bagtas revealed, aims to view the accomplishments of USAID/Solidarity Center Anti-Trafficking Project 2 and to present and discuss the terms and reference of the STEER Project.

Furthermore, the meeting aims to share developments in agencies' current anti-trafficking interventions, programs and activities; explore further areas of cooperation among participating groups and government agencies in implementing the series of activities; and to validate directions and develop the network's plans vis-a-vis project indicators.

Through this follow up, Mr. Bagtas said that the Project wish to renew earlier partnership and explore possible ways on how the coordinating groups could work together towards the effective implementation of Anti-Trafficking Law and regulations in the Region.

Adapted from: "Consultations in Region 8 tackle strategies to improve response to trafficking in persons." Information Agency. 6 January 2008.

Tri-border Area of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay Sees a Rise in Human Trafficking

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:03:00 GMT

The central business district of Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, a border city, is lined with stalls selling counterfeit goods.

Shopping centers offer seemingly everything and at the right price to a constant stream of shoppers from Brazil and Argentina and tourists on their way to the magnificent nearby Iguazu Falls.

One dollar buys a bus ticket from Puerto Iguazu in Argentina, through Foz da Iguazu in Brazil, and into Ciudad del Este in Paraguay.

After leaving Argentina there are no further customs or passport checks. From the center of Ciudad del Este, a rickety bus--boarded at every stop by children selling bananas, socks or tissues--takes you to a wealthier part of town, marked by a McDonald's restaurant and security guards with huge guns outside half-constructed houses.

At the end of an unevenly cobbled street, facing a deserted park, is a small outfit with a long name: the Office of the Center for Awareness, Prevention and Companionship for Children and Adolescents in Situations of Commercial Sexual Exploitation.

Seventy percent of the cases that the children's charity, set up in 2003, assists are trafficking victims. Seventy percent of those have been trafficked internationally. All the children there are female.

Inside the building--which serves as an office as well as a temporary home for survivors with nowhere else to go--female teens take turns washing one another's hair. Two have young children crawling on the floor; a third is heavily pregnant. A volunteer is teaching them the basics of working in a beauty salon.

An important part of the charity's work is teaching skills to replace prostitution, says Celina Figueredo, director of the charity.

Ciudad del Este's surrounding Tri Border Area--where Paraguay meets Brazil and Argentina--has over the past five years attracted notoriety as a major hub in international people-trafficking.

Eighty-five percent of trafficking in Paraguay is for sexual exploitation, the International Organization of Migration estimates.

"Women are the victims," says Martha, who doesn't want her name mentioned. She says she has received anonymous death-threats for her anti-trafficking work in Paraguay and the wider region. "More than 90 percent of the victims are women, and more than 90 percent of the exploiters are men."

Martha says that after women are sexually exploited some are used to carry drugs "until they are caught or killed or whatever."

The region attracts women from the outlying countryside, mostly from Paraguay where almost half of the population scrape out a subsistence living from agriculture. Over a third of the population earns less than $1 a day each.

False Promises, Financial Desperation
Some of the young women who wind up being trafficked have come to the region following promises of work as domestic employees. Some are from local families desperate for any form of income.

In Puerto Iguazu in Argentina, Marcelina Antunez, a program coordinator with the anti-trafficking organization Light of Infancy, pulls out some examples from a thick file of case studies and press clippings about who gets trafficked.

Most are between 10 and 20 and were offered work in restaurants, as salespeople or in domestic service. Initially, many cooperate with traffickers and accept false documents to cross borders or lie to their parents about the work they are expected to do.

In some cases, the captive girls and young women choose to stay so they can earn small amounts of money and send it back to their families. But many are subject to isolation, starvation and violence. Many are introduced to drugs and alcohol--especially cheap cocaine derivatives similar to crack--and forced to work in prostitution.

"With birth control proscribed by the Catholic Church, it is common to find families of eight children all under 18, exacerbated by teenage pregnancies at the age of 13 or 14," says Figueredo. "Many of the families make the problem worse by making the children responsible for providing for the family. They have to go out onto the street and bring back money; it doesn't matter how. Often they get exploited so they can bring back money, or sometimes in exchange for goods, clothes, fruit or vegetables."

Grimly Realistic
Figueredo is grimly realistic about what her group can hope to achieve. "It's not a question of getting back to normal, which is impossible, but to regain some self-esteem and to find a way to live," she says.

Aside from the barely controlled movement of people over borders in the region, another growth factor in prostitution and trafficking hub is the recent influx of sex tourists drawn to the hotels and commercial districts around the monumental Iguazu.

"Brazil is taking steps to shore up the border," says Martha. "But their interest is mainly economic and doesn't take the social aspect into consideration. The truth is that for the traffickers the borders don't really exist. No one will ask who the child traveling with you is."

But while the border is porous for traffickers advocates says it's tough for anti-trafficking efforts because the area requires triple-nation cooperation.

"There are so many different officials to deal with on three levels--the local, regional and national--in three countries and in three different languages," says Martha. In addition to Spanish and Portuguese, advocates also need to understand Jopara, the mixture of Spanish and the indigenous language, Guarani, used in Paraguay. "If the area was one country it would be possible to control it much more easily, but we are trying to get the different authorities to work with each other when they don't even speak the same language."

Nonetheless, there are signs of progress.

In September the International Office of Migration--an intergovernmental agency of 122 countries, established in 1951--opened an office in Asuncion, Paraguay's capital, to focus, among other issues, on the outflow of its citizenry.

There is also a widespread publicity campaign--now on radio, on posters and on bus tickets--about the dangers of trafficking.

"The problem is that we're working like tortoises and there's an enormous network out there," says Figueredo. "Some of the people involved are very high up and untouchable. It's on a very big scale."

Adapted from: Andy Footner," Paraguay's Traffic Hub Imperils Female Teens."
womennews.org. 8 January 2008.

Advocates Unite for Implementation of Anti-trafficking Law in Eastern Visayas, the Philippines

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:10:00 GMT

The Anti-Trafficking in Persons Local Technical Group and the American Center for International Labor Solidarity under the Strengthening the Enabling Environment to Improve Response to Trafficking in Persons and Related Cases (STEER) conducted a consultation meeting at Hotel Alejandro in Tacloban City, on Monday, January 7, 2008 and resolved to improve the coordination among the various stakeholders in government and in the private sector in the Region in order to effectively implement the Anti-Trafficking Law in the Region.

The participants from the 6 provinces of Eastern Visayas agreed that there is a need to improve the database maintenance and operations through expanded submission of Trafficking in Persons data and information for the database. The target is for the submission and encoding of at least 200 trafficking complaint standard reporting form. It was observed that very few of the actual cases of trafficking in persons are reported.

The STEER project also aims to encourage the local government units with the most number of persons being trafficked to have trained local persons in charge of databanking, start local databases,and allocate budget for the database IECs. The project also identified law schools and possible private law groups and practitioners who will commit volunteer services for TIP victims in terms of legal assistance and counselling.

In order to address the problem on the transportation of the victim in going home, the group identified possible partnerships and signing of memorandum of agreement with various transport industries in the region including bus companies and shipping companies plying in the region. Aside from monitoring the major ports in the Region, it was suggested that the monitoring agencies must also look into the minor ports which the traffickers are now using.

Through the STEER project, tarpaulins informing the victims the agencies and non-government organizations which could be of assistance to them. These tarpaulins will be posted in ports, terminals and places which are accessible and visible so that the victims will know that there are organizations they can call in times of distress.

Statistics show that in 2002, about 7.58 million Filipinos lived and worked in foreign countries. About 1.6 million of them were irregular migrants and are believed to have been victims of Trafficking in Persons. About 1,006 cases on trafficking in persons have been recorded from 1993 to 2001. It is believe that there are more actual cases and that a more systematic reporting and recording of data is needed.

Around 53% of the victims are women and 25% of these women victims were forced to land in prostitution.

Adapted from: "Advocates unite for effective implementation of anti-trafficking law in Eastern Visayas." Phillipine Information Agency. 8 January 2008.

Burma Arrests Two over Human Trafficking

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:13:00 GMT

Authorities in military-ruled Myanmar, listed by Washington as among the world's worst human trafficking offenders, arrested a couple trying to smuggle four women to China, state media said.

In a rare acknowledgement of the problem, the Myanmar-language Mirror paper said the two were held as they tried to bring four women to board a train in the commercial hub Yangon to the border town of Muse. From there they would have been smuggled into China to work as maids, the newspaper quoted police as saying, and identified the couple.

The government admits women from Myanmar have been lured to China with the promise of good jobs but were instead sold and forced to marry older men. Myanmar made human trafficking illegal in September 2005, but in an annual report last year the United States accused the government of complicity in the smuggling of people to Bangladesh, China, Malaysia and Thailand.

Among the reasons were sexual exploitation, domestic service and forced labour. Myanmar sentenced 33 human traffickers to life in prison in February last year, while in 2006, Chinese and Myanmar police arrested 64 people for human trafficking.

Adapted from: "Myanmar arrests two over human trafficking: state media." AFP. 9 January 2008.

'One Voice' Raises Awareness of Human Trafficking

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:16:00 GMT

"Human trafficking is modern-day slavery."

This harrowing phrase begins the description of the kNOw Trafficking Campaign Launch on Facebook. One Voice, which is sponsoring the campaign, is a student group coalition that aims to raise awareness about human trafficking, claiming that it will be the largest criminal industry in the world within three years.

Our primary focus is to let people know slavery was not gone with Lincoln, not even in the United States," said Weinberg sophomore and One Voice Education Chairperson Jennifer Yoo . "As students we can't do much, but we all have a lot of potential, and one day if students step into opportunities regarding human trafficking, they will have been enlightened enough to actually do something."

One Voice is a collaboration of 14 student groups that tackle human rights issues and hope to effect change by raising both awareness and funds for their causes. Last year, under the name Voice for Asia, members of One Voice focused on Asian orphans and took the message out of Evanston by hosting an awareness event in Millennium Park .

This year, co-chairwomen and Weinberg sophomores Francesca Chia and Christine Wang selected the group's issue. "I'm from Malaysia, where there are so many cases (of human trafficking) that are rarely spoken about," Chia said. "Everyone in the country knows it's happening and nothing is taking place to address it."

Tonight marks the first of several awareness-raising events culminating in a benefit concert in May, also to be hosted by One Voice. Social Policy Analyst Daria Mueller and Weinberg senior Ryan Pederson , who participated in the Global Engagement Summit, will speak to students in McCormick Auditorium .

All donations collected by One Life will be distributed between its two beneficiaries, Project Polaris and the Prevent Human Trafficking Institute, both of which are based in Washington, D.C., and focus on counteracting human trafficking. "We plan to have a lot of events throughout the year," Wang said. "We're raising money and picking beneficiaries that go into countries to educate young girls because human trafficking is a result of coercion."

Though the group hopes to make a difference through monetary contributions, awareness remains the main focus. "One Voice strives hard to ensure that this campaign unites the campus. We see it as an opportunity for everyone to take a stand together," Chia said. "We plan to execute a campaign that is as inclusive and appealing to the general mass as (much as) possible and make sure that our outreach is as big as possible."

Many students visiting One Voice's booth in Norris University Center supported the cause by signing a petition to raise prevention efforts.

"I think it's a good idea to get information on human trafficking out there," said second-year Kellogg student Faisal Khalid. "I'd heard of human trafficking, but I didn't know it was a $10 billion industry, I didn't have an idea of the quantum of it. Hard facts and information make an impact."

Adapted from: Kayleigh Roberts, "'One Voice' raises awareness of human trafficking." The Daily Northwestern. 11 January 2008.

Report Says California is Prime Target for Human Trafficking

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:22:00 GMT

Outreach efforts to victims of human trafficking were given new impetus by a recent California task force report that said the state is a prime target for trade in human beings.

Irina Goldenshteyn, a case manager for Refugee and Immigrant Services of the San Francisco Archdiocese's Catholic Charities program, said many people don't even realize they are victims. "They think it's supposed to be like that," she told Catholic San Francisco, newspaper of the archdiocese. "They don't know there's any other way."

A report released Dec. 4 by the California Alliance to Combat Trafficking and Slavery said the state's international border, numerous ports and airports, soaring immigrant population and growing economy all contribute to California being a prime target for human trafficking. It said that, beyond the sex trade, labor trafficking includes farming, construction, clothing manufacturing, domestic work, restaurants and the motel/hotel industry.

It cited a study by the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, which reported that 57 forced labor operations were uncovered between 1998 and 2003 in a dozen California cities, involving more than 500 people from 18 countries. In San Francisco, local advocates fear widespread abuse among domestic workers and farmworkers. They said undocumented workers are particularly at risk from employers who take advantage of their lack of education and sense of powerlessness.

Goldenshteyn said she hopes to recruit priests and nuns to reach out to victims and to provide other assistance. For instance, parishes are being asked to have emergency housing available on short notice, the first component in protecting victims and starting legal action against traffickers.

She explained that a place of long-term refuge can be crucial in labor trafficking cases, which are harder to prove than sex trafficking cases. This is partly due to victims' economic dependence on their abusers. Goldenshteyn said neighbors and fellow parishioners also could play a role in combating trafficking. Often trafficking is happening in plain sight, but can be difficult to detect, she said.

She said she recently interviewed a young Central American woman who was referred to Catholic Charities by a federal agency as a potential victim of trafficking or domestic violence. It was difficult to separate the two. "The look in her eyes ... it was nothing specific," Goldenshteyn said. "She spoke in Spanish and was very positive, but the look in her eyes ... (showed she was) looking for protection."

The experience convinced Goldenshteyn that more should be done to reach out to labor trafficking victims. "I was scared that millions of people would be exploited the same way and wouldn't be able to have help, or would be deported, or wouldn't have the guts to tell it," she said.

Kay Buck, executive director of the Los Angeles-based Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking, said Asians are the most numerous labor trafficking victims, followed by people from Latin America. Mexico and Guatemala are notorious sources of victims, who are typically domestic or sweatshop workers. Buck said she suspects there is much underreported trafficking in the agriculture industry. "In general this crime is underreported for reasons of fear," she said. "Traffickers not only threaten the victims but also their families back home. They'll threaten to kill the children. We haven't had cases where they'll murder their kids but we have had cases where they'll burn their houses down and intimidate the families."

With the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, Congress adopted measures to hold foreign governments accountable and doubled the prison sentence for federal trafficking. It also created a new type of visa for victims who cooperate with law enforcement and face peril if forced to return home.

But recently, lawmakers have been hearing advocates' pleas that more be done to provide legal protection and social services to the estimated 17,500 victims trafficked into the United States each year. In September, Bishop Gerald R. Barnes of San Bernardino, then-chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Migration, lamented the lack of public education on the problem.

"Humane responses have remained slow," he said in a statement. "The global community, including the United States, is only beginning to comprehend the scope and impact of selling human persons in the world."

Adapted from: Rick DelVecchio, "Report says California is prime target for human trafficking." Tidings Online. 11 January 2008.

Thai Men and Women Warned about Exploitive Jobs in Bahrain and Turkey

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 14:54:00 GMT

Labour authorities in Nakhon Ratchasima province have warned job seekers to be careful if they intend to work in Bahrain or Turkey. The warning came after a worker sought help from the Thai embassy in Bahrain's capital Manama.

The man was first told he would be paid 20,000 baht a month, and later made to pay 58,000 baht for return air tickets to Bahrain, said provincial labour office chief Saeng-ngern Khaolikhit.

When he started work he was paid only about 12,500 baht a month and the employer kept his passport, crane driver's licence and air ticket, Mr
Saeng-ngern said. Eight other men subsequently reported similar problems.

He said the embassy was arranging for the men's return to Thailand.

He also warned women who plan to work as masseuses in Turkey that they could be forced into prostitution. His office had received several complaints from Thai women working there.

Brokers charged each woman a job placement fee of 43,000 baht.

The Foreign Ministry yesterday warned workers overstaying visas in Bahrain to contact the embassy in Manama quickly, as the deadline for amnesty was only days away. The Bahrain government has said foreigners overstaying visas can return home without facing fines and jail terms if they contact their embassies by the end of the month.

Adapted from: "Jobs in Bahrain 'could be risky'." Bangkok Post, 27 December 2007.

Cambodia Approves Law on Anti-Human Trafficking

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 14:57:00 GMT

The Cambodian National Assembly unanimously approved the law on anti-human trafficking and sexual exploitation.

"This law is one of the first steps of reforming the judicial and court system of the country", Ang Vong Vattana, Cambodian Minister of Justice, told the National Assembly after it approved the law. It also helped to strengthen the rule of law and reduce poverty in the kingdom, he said, adding that the law will be exercised strictly.

Cambodia passed its old law on anti-human trafficking and sexual exploitation with 10 articles in 1996. The new law has 52 articles and contains more details than the previous one. According to the new law, relevant criminals could be sentenced to 20 years in jail and fined up to 2,500 U.S. dollars.

Cambodians used to be trafficked to Thailand, China's Taiwan and Macao, Malaysia, South Korea, Nigeria and Somali for labor, sex and forced marriage.

Adapted from: "Cambodia Approves Law on Anti-Human Trafficking." www.chinaview.cn, 20
December 2007.

Human Trafficking Crackdown in Vietnam

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 14:59:00 GMT

Local authorities will intensify their operations in 2008 to stop the trafficking of women and children across the Chinese/Cambodian
border.

Ministry of Public Security Vice Director of Social Order and Crime Investigations, Colonel Dang Quoc Nhat, said, women and children smuggling in Vietnam is very serious and complicated, requiring increasingly cunning methods.

As many as 900 human trafficking cases involving 1,600 traffickers and 2,200 smuggled women and children were detected from 2005-2007.

Police and border guards have also uncovered several rings that trafficked women and children from Vietnam via Laos to Thailand, Africa or Europe to be sex workers. Economic difficulties, unemployment and poor education, especially in mountainous and remote areas, were the major factors in the trafficking increase.

Adapted from: "Human Trafficking Crackdown." Thanh Nien News, 26 December 2007.

China Improves Efforts to Combat Trafficking through Regional Mechanism

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 15:06:00 GMT

According to the press conference held by the Ministry of Public Security, ministers from Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam signed the COMMIT Joint Declaration on 14 December 2007. Mr Zhang Xinfeng, the Deputy Minister of MPS said that China does not have a safety net against trafficking in women and children. However, China solved more than 2,500 trafficking cases in 2006, representing up to 80-90% of total trafficking cases. Mr Zhang also expressed:

· anti-trafficking efforts have received support from the highest levels of the government

· no law enforcement personnel were involved in trafficking cases

· more than 2500 trafficking cases were solved in 2006

· China has shifted from “combating trafficking” to “anti-trafficking”

· China will establish a database on trafficking

Adapted from: "There Is No Any Safety Umbrella for Traffickers in China." Beijing Youth Daily, 15 December 2007.

Welcome Remarks at the Second Inter-Ministerial Meeting of the COMMIT Process by Mr. Khalid Malik, United Nations Resident Coordinator

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 16:49:00 GMT

On 14 December 2007, the United Nations Resident Coordinator spoke to the second Inter-Ministerial Meeting of the COMMIT process.

December 14, 2007

Excellencies, Distinguished Government Delegates, Colleagues from the UN system, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good Morning. It is my great honour this morning to welcome you to this second Inter-Ministerial Meeting of the COMMIT process on behalf of the United Nations system.

Tackling human trafficking is a challenge which cuts across both national borders, and across different sectors of Government. As you will know better than most, preventing the illegal movement of such exploited people across the countries of the region is an important and legitimate national and regional public security concern.

It is also, of course, a development concern. Poverty is both a cause and a consequence of trafficking. The poorest people – women and children in particular – can be amongst the most vulnerable to the traffickers. Once people become trafficking victims, they are placed in situations where their basic rights are denied. Those trafficked into the sex industry are often not provided with condoms and are thus vulnerable to AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Those living and working in the most exploitative conditions in factories face great risks of contracting other contagious diseases. And their access to basic health and education, and to other vital social services, is minimal or non-existent.

As human trafficking is such a multi-sectoral challenge, it is entirely appropriate that the United Nations is so strongly engaged with the COMMIT process. It is hard to think of another field which better illustrates the way in which the three pillars of the UN’s work – peace and security, development, and human rights – are inextricably interlinked. I am therefore pleased to pledge the ongoing strong support of the United Nations in each of the six countries to the COMMIT process and the broader fight against trafficking.

But while the UN can support, advise and facilitate the process, it is Governments who must take the lead, in partnership with other national stakeholders. Looking back at the last three years since the last meeting in Yangon, it gives me great pleasure to see that this is exactly what has happened. In the COMMIT process, we have an all too rare example of a cross-border Government-led process delivering results according to international standards. I congratulate all of you who have been involved in putting this partnership together and bringing it to where it is now.

Of course, this is a fairly new partnership, tackling a large and complex problem, and there is a lot of work ahead. But we should take a moment to reflect on some of the practical outcomes that the process has already helped to deliver. In the area of victim protection, for example, I know that all six countries have already shared their experiences, and have together developed new guidelines which are now in the process of being adopted and implemented in each country. I also know that the new forum for exchanging urgent counter-trafficking information has already been put to good use. Grassroots NGOs are now starting to be able to share the information they have with the authorities, and this is delivering real impacts in terms of local law enforcement against the criminals involved in trafficking.

So, what must we do to ensure such early progress is maintained and built upon?
First, I hope all of us here today can recommit to this important work, and to take further practical actions to combat trafficking, protect its victims and prosecute its perpetrators;
Second, I hope that all of us working in this field across the six countries can also commit to ensure that all our work is consolidated and harmonized within the COMMIT process, so that we maximize our synergies and eliminate duplications;
Third, I would encourage you all to share the results of your work through regional and international fora you attend, in order that others can learn from your rich experiences. Human trafficking is, after all, hardly a problem found only in this part of the world.

In closing, I would like to thank all of you here today, from Government, civil society, and the international community, for your commitment to this vital work. I thank the Government of China, and Minister Meng Jianzhu in particular, for their leadership and for their kind hosting of this meeting. I thank all the senior officials who have worked so hard over the last two days to prepare us for today. And lastly, I should thank the staff of the UN Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region, UNIAP, for all their work in preparing and organizing this meeting.

Excellencies, Distinguished Government Delegates, Colleagues from the UN system, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I hope that in our discussions today we will reaffirm the importance of our work – on behalf of the most vulnerable – to take on the criminal elements that perpetuate human trafficking, and to eventually make human trafficking a thing of the past. It is a difficult task, but it can be done.

Thank you.

Source: UNIAP China

Sex slaves, human trafficking... in America?

Sat, 29 Dec 2007 14:08:00 GMT

In spring of 2004, Katya (not her real name), like thousands of other foreign exchange university students, was looking forward to the summer job placement that she and a friend had received in Virginia Beach, Virginia. When she and her friend Lena arrived at Dulles Airport after a long flight from Ukraine, they were relieved to be met by fellow countrymen who spoke Russian.

The two men, Alex Maksimenko and Michael Aronov, were holding signs with the girls’ names and greeted them by taking their bags and luggage. Charming and reassuring, Aronov informed the girls that they had been reassigned to a job in Detroit where they would waitress and perfect their English language skills.

The men drove Katya and Lena to the Greyhound bus station and gave them tickets to Detroit. Confused and exhausted, the girls had no reason to question the change of plans.

“When we got to the hotel in Detroit, everything changed,” says Katya. “They closed the door and sat us down on the couch, took our passports and papers and said, you owe us big money for bringing you here. They gave us strip clothes and told us that we were going to be working at a strip club called ‘Cheetahs.’”

Shocked and scared, the two women were subjected to physical, mental and sexual abuse over the next year as they were forced to work 12-hour shifts stripping for local Detroit men’s clubs. According to immigration customs agent Angus Lowe, the men controlled the women through intimidation with guns and threats to hurt family members back home.

Katya and her friend are two of the estimated 17,000 young women and girls annually who are forced to work in the sex industry in the U.S. by organized criminals. “Chicago, Houston, St. Paul, Minnesota, these crimes are happening in every community in America big and small,” says Marcie Forman, Director of Investigations for ICE (Immigration Customs Enforcement.) “We’re talking about money here. Millions of dollars and these people don’t think about these women as human beings. They think of them as dollars and cents,” Forman says.

In February 2005, after months of planning and finally confiding in a customer from the strip club, the two girls escaped and were brought to the FBI and ICE. Their escape resulted in the arrest of Alex Maksimenko and Michael Aronov, both of whom pleaded guilty and are serving time in federal prison for their crimes.

Even though her captors are in prison, Katya says she will never live without fear. Maksimenko’s father — who was also convicted of forced labor and illegal trafficking — continues to live openly in Ukraine as a fugitive from authorities.

Adapted from: Grace Kahng, "Sex slaves, human trafficking... in America?" msnbc.com. 3 December 2007.

Two Filipinas Tried for Trafficking in Hong Kong

Sat, 29 Dec 2007 14:52:00 GMT

The trial of two Filipino women in what government officials said was a “landmark” human trafficking case began here on Monday.

Jennifer B. Nicdao, 27, and Angelita D. Amparado, 39 were charged at the District Court with trafficking in persons and aiding and abetting the breach of condition of stay after they allegedly brought to Hong Kong, last July, five Filipinas who ended up working as prostitutes in the city’s red light district in Wan Chai.

Government prosecutor Edward Le Breton Laskey said the two women were the first Filipino women charged with human trafficking outside the Philippines. However, the accused pleaded not guilty to the charges and their trial is expected to last until Thursday.

“I am told that officials in the Philippines, including an adviser to the President, are very interested in this case,” he added.

“This is a landmark case because, if the authorities before charged only the trafficked women they arrested, this time, they’re going after the traffickers themselves,” said Vice-Consul Val Roque, head of the Assistance of Nationals section of the Philippine Consulate.

According to Laskey, a certain Loida approached the first two victims in June and offered them work in Hong Kong.

According to one of the victims, the “loan” of P60,000 had to be repaid within three months after they arrived in Hong Kong.

There was supposed to be a written contract and Amparado allegedly even threatened one of the victims that she could end up in jail if she failed to pay up. “(Amparado) told her that she could earn money by drinking with customers but if she wanted to earn more money and repay the loan quickly, then she should have sex with customers,” Laskey said.

The women earned their keep by getting commissions from the drinks their customers bought at the bar or by walking the streets to look for customers who would pay for sex. The first two victims arrived in Hong Kong on July 26, 2007, and Amaparado and Nicdao allegedly brought them to a flat in Wan Chai.

“(Amparado) had asked (one of the victims) to have sex with customers so as to repay the loan to her. (Amparado) had also reminded her to have sex with customers every day,” Laskey said. “On one occasion, Amparado took her to a club and asked her to approach the customers for sex. (She) refused. (Amparado) got angry and said (she) must have sex with customers on the next occasion,” he added.

“(The victims) subsequently felt that they had been exploited by (the accused) and went to seek assistance from the Philippine Consulate General on August 2, 2007,” Laskey said.

Nicdao was arrested in the morning of August 4 and she denied the accusation while Amparado was arrested on the same day. She refused to answer any question during the police investigation.

Adapted from: Philip Tubeza,"2 Filipinas tried for trafficking compatriots in Hong Kong."
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/news/breakingnews/view_article.php?article_id=104606
Global Nation. 3 December 2007

Police Uncover Human Trafficking in Great Britain

Sat, 29 Dec 2007 14:55:00 GMT

A ROMANIAN woman who was raped and forced to work as a prostitute is among 20 victims of human trafficking identified by police in the central belt in the past eight weeks.

The alarming results from the first few weeks of the UK's biggest-ever operation to tackle human trafficking in the sex industry can be revealed by The Scotsman. Seven women have been identified as trafficking victims in Edinburgh since police began Pentameter 2 in October.

Most of the women are from the Far East - mainly Thailand and Malaysia - with many thought to have travelled to Britain to pay off a family debt, ending up in Edinburgh's sex industry after becoming "debt-bonded" to a relative living in the UK.

In one case, a Romanian woman who arrived in London on the promise of work found herself repeatedly raped by her traffickers, who seized her passport. She was found working in a brothel in Edinburgh. Four raids were carried out on brothels operating out of flats in the city, leading to three arrests.

In Strathclyde, 13 suspected trafficked women have been identified following seven raids. Three people have been reported to the procurator-fiscal. Police are now extending Pentameter 2 into the New Year.

Detective Chief Inspector David Bullen, who is in charge of Pentameter 2 for Lothian and Borders Police, said: "Like the rest of the UK, we have a human trafficking problem. The problem we are encountering is getting them to speak to us. Many are so mistrustful of the police, and damaged, that they find it extremely hard to open up. "But they have undoubtedly been trafficked here against their will, often forced into prostitution to pay off family debts."

A spokesman for Grampian Police said they were "actively investigating a number of lines of inquiry". Amnesty International and Lothian and Borders Police have joined forces to mount a campaign raising awareness about the trafficking of human beings.

A display describing the lives of those who have been trafficked has been placed at Edinburgh Airport, as transport hubs have been identified as key areas in the human trafficking process. Amnesty International campaigner Naomi McAuliffe said: "It is vitally important that we raise awareness of this trade, we have come across stories of women being bought and sold in the cafés of airport lounges."

It has been estimated that as many as 700 foreign women have been trafficked into Scotland's sex industry. Anne Hamilton, from Glasgow-based Trafficking Awareness Raising Alliance - which will today host a conference on the problem - said it was currently supporting 17 trafficking victims in the city.

Throughout the UK, the first Pentameter operation resulted in 88 victims of trafficking being rescued from 22 countries. There were a total of 232 arrests, which led to 134 people being charged with a variety of offences.

NATASHA'S ORDEAL
WHEN Natasha, not her real name, was 18 she wanted to leave Latvia and come to the UK to study. But her family in a rural part of the country could not afford that, so she found a job in a local café. One day one of her mother's friends told her that she knew people who were living in London and needed someone to help with their first baby.

Natasha was very interested - this was a way she could practice her English, live in the UK and send money home to provide medical care for her grandmother. Natasha spoke to the family in London on the telephone and they arranged for her flights and to collect her at the airport.

When she arrived at the airport, Natasha was collected by a man called Alex and taken to a flat somewhere in London. There was a heavily pregnant woman there, but as soon as Natasha arrived she disappeared. At this point Natasha began to feel uneasy. Alex raped Natasha and told her she was now a prostitute. He threatened to tell her grandmother that she was a prostitute.

After three months Alex sold her to a man called Dimitri for £3,000. He told her that she was now his girlfriend and he respected her. They then drove to Glasgow where he had some friends. Dimitri said she needed to remain as a prostitute so they could get a place of their own and save up for their future together. Devoid of hope, she agreed.

Dimitri would drop her off and collect her from brothels in Glasgow. She was not allowed to socialise on her own, and would be beaten when she did. Once he beat her so badly she couldn't leave the house for weeks. An end to her tragedy only came after police raided a brothel while she was there.

Adapted from: Michael Howie, "Police uncover human trafficking misery." news.scotsman.com. 5 December 2007.

China Claims that Trafficking in Women and Children Is on the Rise

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 01:08:00 GMT

Trafficking in women and children is on the rise in China, authorities as they announced a five-year plan to combat the problem. The nationwide campaign, to begin next year, will seek to step up monitoring of the problem from the grass-roots level, as well as help victims, according to a circular posted on the central government's websites.

"There are new trends... in crimes that involve women and children trafficking, the situation is not optimistic. Organized criminal activities and cross-border cases are on the increase," the circular said. "[We] must minimize the physical and psychological harm suffered by women and children who have been kidnapped and sold."

Under the plan, local government departments will be required to clamp down on illegal job markets by closing unlicensed job and marriage agencies, which often lure women and children into the sex trade and forced labor. Transport departments must also step up monitoring at railway and bus stations, ferry docks, airports and entertainment venues to prevent women and children from being kidnapped.

Governments at all levels should also provide counselling for women and children who have been kidnapped to re-integrate into society. Around 3,000 cases of women and children being abducted are reported to police each year, according to official statistics, although the true number of victims is widely believed to be far higher as many cases go unreported.

Adapted from: "China says trafficking in women, children on the rise."
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/world/view_article.php?article_id=108207 21 December 2007.

Prosecuting Men who Pay for Sex Might Reduce the Trafficking of Girls'

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 01:11:00 GMT

Men will be prosecuted for paying women for sex under plans backed by ministers, which are to go before the Commons soon.

A former Labour minister today calls on “laddish male” ministers to help prevent Britain becoming the “sex slave” capital of Europe and stop women being exploited. Under proposed legislation tabled by Denis MacShane, the former minister for Europe, and two other former ministers, councils and police chiefs will be given powers to put men before the courts if they pay women for sex.

The idea is to extend successful action against kerb crawlers to brothels and massage parlours where the majority of trafficked sex slaves in Britain are forced to operate. The MPs’ campaign was boosted yesterday when Harriet Harman, the women’s minister, said that such a move was necessary to stem the flood of sex workers being trafficked into Britain. It was time to consider such moves as governments tried to tackle international human trafficking.

Ms Harman, Labour’s deputy leader and the Leader of the Commons, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think we do need to have a debate and unless you tackle the demand side of human trafficking, which is fuelling this trade, we will not be able to protect women from it. My own personal view is that’s what we need to do as a next step.”

She added: “Do we think it’s right in the 21st century that women should be in a sex trade or do we think it’s exploitation and should be banned? “Just because something has always gone on, it doesn’t mean you just wring your hands and say there’s nothing we can do about it.”

The Government is also studying the law in Sweden, where paying for sex has already been made illegal. “The time has come to tackle the demand side of the ever-increasing exploitation of women and that means making men accept that they have responsibility for the sex-slave industry,” Mr MacShane said.

He and Fiona MacTaggart and Barry Gardiner have tabled amendments calling for local authorities and the police to be given powers to identify zones in town areas where men caught paying for sex may be charged and put before the courts.

Mr MacShane led the campaign to get the British government to sign the Council of Europe Anti-Trafficking Convention. Tony Blair rejected Home Office objections that helping women trafficked as sex slaves would encourage more migration to the UK and signed the convention last year.

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, has now pledged to ratify the convention, which gives support to girls trafficked as sex slaves if they escape their pimps and helps the police to identify traffickers. Britain has an estimated 25,000 women – some under the age of 16 and many under 21 – who have been trafficked into the UK to work in brothels and massage parlours.

Mr MacShane said: “These are ruthlessly exploited girls and women who are not willing sex workers but who are beaten, raped and held as prisoners to satisfy the demand of British men for paid-for sex. Most of the women working in brothels are there in connection with drugs or debt.

“This is seedy, international crime and the men who pay for it should be made to accept their responsibility just as laws to stop kerb-crawling have seen an average 900 convictions a year since 2001 and helped reduce that part of the sex trade.”

“There are still some laddish male ministers who do not see this in terms of supporting women against men using money-power to exploit defenceless trafficked girls,” Mr MacShane said. “In 2007, we celebrated the 200th anniversary of abolishing the slave trade so I hope William Hague, David Cameron and Nick Clegg will make 2008 the year when we got serious about the sex-slave trade,” he added.

“This is an empowering amendment which leaves the decision [to prosecute] in the hands of local councillors, local communities and local police. “It is not Government deciding to abolish prostitution from on high. This is about local communities deciding if they want to slow down and reduce the sex slave business.”

The recently created All-Party Group on Trafficking is expected to generate cross-party support on the issue. The tabling of the amendments follows talks with newspapers to stop the publication of small advertisements offering services at brothels believed to be linked to human trafficking.

The Home Office is not seeking to deport foreign criminals given a jail term of less than 12 months unless the court recommends removal or proceedings are already under way. Prison governors have been told that the Border and Immigration Agency as a rule has “no interest” in pursuing such offenders.

The disclosure comes after the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, said in July: “I want a message to go out. If you come here, you work and you learn our language. If you commit a crime, you will be deported from our country.”

Since the 2006 scandal when it was found that foreign national prisoners were being released from jail without being considered for deportation, ministers have given the impression that foreign criminals will be removed.

Adapted from: Philip Webster, "Prosecuting men who pay for sex ‘will reduce the trafficking of girls’." http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3080509.ece 21 December 2007.

Cambodia Approves Law on Anti-human Trafficking

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 01:04:00 GMT

The Cambodian National Assembly unanimously approved the law on anti-human trafficking and sexual exploitation.

"This law is one of the first steps of reforming the judicial and court system of the country," Ang Vong Vattana, Cambodian Minister of Justice, told the National Assembly after it approved the law.

It also helped to strengthen the rule of law and reduce poverty in the kingdom, he said, adding that the law will be exercised strictly. Cambodia passed its old law on anti-human trafficking and sexual exploitation with 10 articles in 1996. The new law has 52 articles and contains more details than the previous one.

According to the new law, relevant criminals could be sentenced to 20 years in jail and fined up to 2,500 U.S. dollars.

Cambodians used to be trafficked to Thailand, China's Taiwan and Macao, Malaysia, South Korea, Nigeria and Somali for labor, sex and forced marriage.

Adapted from: "Cambodia approves law on anti-human trafficking."
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-12/20/content_7285713.htm 20 December 2007.

Oman will soon enact law to check human trafficking

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:46:00 GMT

The Sultanate has lent its full support to international efforts to check trafficking in humans with an announcement here that it will soon enact legislation to check the phenomenon. The Gulf state also said it would set up a 'National Committee for Prevention of Human Trafficking' (NCPHT).

The new moves were revealed by a senior official on the opening day of a workshop on combating human trafficking at the Diplomatic Institute here on Sunday. Nayef Obeid Al Salami, Head of the institute's International Affairs Department, said Oman would shortly pass "a special national legislation to deal with human trafficking and form a national committee in this regard."

He pointed that the government had given top priority to cooperation with the international community to curb the menace and further "consolidate Oman's commitments through international charters and by joining regulated international agreements and conventions such as the UN pact on fighting cross-border organised crimes and its protocols."

Attorney-General Hussain bin Ali Al Hilali, who inaugurated the seminar, said the Sultanate had managed to realise high rates in economic and social growth that resulted in making it a destination for skilled and unskilled expatriate workers. "Despite the development witnessed by the Sultanate in the last four decades, crime rates of all types are extremely low as compared to other countries," he added.

“Some people might think that our crime statistics were not referring to this kind of offence — human trafficking — because of legislation deficiency in this field. But we confirm that is not the case because we have provisions issued in 1974 that criminate and punish people found guilty of this crime," Hilali said, adding: "However, we affirm a special law will be enacted in the foreseeable future and through joint efforts we will portray our true image through the international community so as to realise the principles of human freedom which all people aspire for."

Executive Director of Protection Against Human Trafficking Project Professor Mohammed Mattar said he was delighted that the GCC countries were aware of the problem of trafficking and are trying to take necessary steps to combat the problem. He noted that in October, the Arab League held a session and called upon all Arab countries to pass laws on human trafficking.

Criminalisation, he stressed, was not enough. "We need to advance to protection and prevention as required by the UN protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking especially women and children." Several international experts and specialists from various government departments are taking part in the workshop which aims to raise awareness about the issue and how to combat it at the international level.

Adapted from: "Oman will soon enact law to check human trafficking."
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2007/December/middleeast_December273.xml§ion=middleeast&col=
18 December 2007.

Cambodian National Assembly Debates Anti-Trafficking Law

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 00:55:00 GMT

The Cambodian National Assembly here on Tuesday started to debate the law on anti-human trafficking and sexual exploitation.

"We are trying to pass it soon to combat modern intelligent criminals and perpetrators who exploit children's rights, conduct sex trade pornographic video production, and carry out labor exploitation and human trafficking," said Ky Lim Orng, chairwoman of the assembly committee of telecommunication, energy, mines and transportation.

"All these criminal acts are against our beautiful tradition and the dignity of human beings," she told Xinhua. "This law will be practiced strictly," she said.

Hy Sopheap, secretary of state at the Justice Ministry, said that the law is discussed against the background that current criminals have updated techniques for human trafficking and sex exploitation and the government has to adopt modern solution and law to cope with them.

"Criminals move quickly and sometimes we have difficulties to arrest them and find proof," he said.

Cambodia passed its old law on anti-human trafficking and sexual exploitation with 10 articles in 1996. The new law has 52 articles and contains more details than the previous one.

According to the new law, relevant criminals could be sentenced to 20 years in jail and fined up to 2,500 U.S. dollars.

Cambodians used to be trafficked to Thailand, Taiwan and Macao of China, Malaysia, South Korea, Nigeria and Somali for labor, sex and forced marriage.

Adapted from: Du Guodong, "Cambodian National Assembly debates law on anti-human trafficking, sexual exploitation." www.chinaview.cn 18 December 2007.

Research on Trafficking of Men for Labour Exploitation in Africa

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 00:58:00 GMT

New research to be carried out by IOM in Africa will shed some light on the trafficking of men for labour exploitation, an area long overlooked and consequently, little known about.

To date, counter-trafficking research and interventions have largely focused on the trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation across the world. However, there is growing evidence of the trafficking of men globally for labour, including in Africa. With little to no research available on this phenomenon, relevant stakeholders have found it difficult to design or implement counter-trafficking interventions targeting men.

The new IOM research, the first to comprehensively address the trafficking of men in Africa in general, and in Eastern and Southern Africa in particular, will establish the extent to which human trafficking is occurring between the East and Horn of Africa to the continent’s main economic hub, South Africa; information on how the men are trafficked and what their and their traffickers profiles are; what kind of abuses they suffer and what are the specific characteristics and vulnerabilities of source communities.

The study, funded by the US State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (G/TIP) and which kicks off in January 2008, will focus on significant male migration flows between these regions. According to early reports from Kenyan and Tanzanian authorities, much of this movement may be irregular and facilitated by agents operating illicitly across several land borders.

A 2003 IOM report found links between the trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation and the smuggling of men in Southern Africa, with both activities facilitated by the same criminal networks along common migration corridors. Little, however, is known about male trafficking in Southern Africa and, to the extent it exists, the exploitative purposes for which its victims are trafficked.

The research will cover key transit points along the routes that include Mozambique and Tanzania as well as destination and exploitation sites. Qualitative information identifying cases of male human trafficking will also be gathered.

Some anecdotal evidence already exists. IOM in Ethiopia, for example, is increasingly aware of stories of men who are promised lucrative contracts in the construction industry in South Africa as the country prepares for the football World Cup in 2010. In Tanzania, IOM has indentified individual cases where men have been trafficked from the East African country to South Africa and forced into criminal activity. In Kenya, a 2006 report by The CRADLE-Children’s Foundation on human trafficking found that 43 per cent of the trafficking victims it interviewed for the report were men.

South Africa, meanwhile, has a lengthy history as a destination for economic migrants. The Department of Home Affairs estimated in 2006 that there were more than seven million undocumented migrants in South Africa. Preparations for 2010 World Cup have contributed to an even greater migration pull into the country.

The project, which will also update IOM data on human smuggling and trafficking between these two regions, is expected to culminate in September 2008 with the publication of a report.

Adapted from: "SOUTHERN AND EASTERN AFRICA - Research On Trafficking of Men For Labour Exploitation."
http://appablog.wordpress.com/2007/12/18/southern-and-eastern-africa-research-on-trafficking-of-men-for-labour-exploitation/ 18 December 2007.

Two Filipinas Tried for Human Trafficking in Hong Kong

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 09:57:00 GMT

First Filipina women to be charged with human trafficking outside of the Philippines.

“This is the first case that Filipinas were prosecuted outside the Philippines in relation to trafficking of people. This has not happened in Singapore or the Middle East,” said Laskey during a break in Monday’s hearing. “I am told that officials in the Philippines, including an adviser to the President, are very interested in this case,” he added.

Laskey said that he had handled cases of Thai or Chinese traffickers bringing into Hong Kong women for prostitution but this was the first time that he encountered the case of Filipino women being charged for the crime. “This is a landmark case because, if the authorities before charged only the trafficked women they arrested, this time, they’re going after the traffickers themselves,” said Vice-Consul Val Roque, head of the Assistance of Nationals section of the Philippine Consulate.

The five complainants in the case initially sought the help of the Philippine Consulate before going to the police. The police then raided several bars in Wan Chai on August 4 and invited for questioning at least 35 Filipino women, including Nicdao and Amparado. According to Laskey, a certain Loida approached the first two victims in June and offered them work in Hong Kong.

Loida then introduced the women to Amparado, who allegedly told them that they would work as entertainers in a club, and this could include providing sexual services to customers, so that they could later pay the P60,000 for their plane ticket and their hotel accommodation. According to one of the victims, the “loan” of P60,000 had to be repaid within three months after they arrived in Hong Kong.

The two other complainants, who were allegedly also introduced by Loida to Amparado, said Amparado told them that customers would usually pay around HK$2,000 (P10,840) for sex so they had “to bargain” to “fix the price at HK$2,500 (P13,550).” “(The victims) subsequently felt that they had been exploited by (the accused) and went to seek assistance from the Philippine Consulate General on August 2, 2007,” Laskey said.

Nicdao was arrested in the morning of August 4 and she denied the accusation while Amparado was arrested on the same day. She refused to answer any question during the police investigation.

Adapted from: Philip Tubeza,"2 Filipinas tried for trafficking compatriots in Hong Kong." Global Nation. 3 December 2007.

Greek Police Break Up International Sex Trafficking Ring

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 09:59:00 GMT

Police raids in Greece's two largest cities on Thursday shut down a network trafficking in women for the sex trade in Greece and several other countries.

About 200 police officers raided houses and businesses in Athens and Thessaloniki in an operation overseen by the international police organizations Europol and Interpol. Thirty suspects were arrested — nine gang members and 21 associates, police said.

Thousands of women from Eastern Europe and the Balkans are forced into prostitution each year in Greece and other European countries under the pretext of helping them find jobs in the West. Police said in a statement that the police action had "broken up one of the biggest criminal gangs active in the sexual exploitation of immigrant women in our country."

Three victims of the ring — two Russians and a Romanian woman — were released in the operation. The gang operated in at least four European Union countries as well as several nations outside the EU.

The raid, which had been planned for a year, targeted 15 apartments, offices and other properties in the two cities. Police confiscated five cars used for transporting women along with mobile telephones, cash and around two dozen passports.

Police are seeking another 23 suspects, among them Greeks, Russians, Germans and a Turk.

Adapted from: "Greek police break up international sex trafficking ring." The Associated Press. 29 November 2007.

Chinese Police Detain Two Suspects over Trafficking Vietnamese Babies

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:02:00 GMT

Chinese police have detained a Vietnamese woman and a Chinese man who allegedly smuggled four babies from Vietnam into China.

The woman was caught holding two babies in arms on the China-Vietnam border in Dongxing City of southern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Tuesday night, when she illegally entered Chinese territory across a river. The woman seemed not to be the mother judging from her appearance, a spokesman with the Dongxing police said.

Police questioned the 53-year-old woman surnamed Pham from Mong Cai City of northeast Vietnam's Quang Ninh Province, and she confessed that she had planned to sell the two babies aged below two months to a man surnamed Ruan from south China's Guangdong Province, the spokesman said.

Pham also confessed that she has smuggled four babies on three separate occasions into China this month. Ruan was later captured in a makeshift shed in Dongxing, which neighbors Mong Cai.

The two babies are now being attended by the Dongxing Municipal Obstetric and Gynaecology Hospital, the spokesman said. The case is being further investigated, he added.

Adapted from: "Chinese police detain two suspects over trafficking Vietnamese babies." China View. 29 November 2007.

Combating Human Trafficking in Israel

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:06:00 GMT

The Israeli government is expected to approve a plan to combat human trafficking.

The goal: Assist victimized, often abused migrant workers.

The government on Sunday is expected to approve a national plan to combat human trafficking. The plan will be presented by Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann, Cabinet Secretary Oved Yehezkel and Justice Ministry Director Geberal Moshe Shilo who heads the Directors General Trafficking Committee.

The plan calls for providing housing solutions to victims; establishment of a rehab facility for victims who suffer psychosocial and medical problems; employment services and translation services. Medical services will be provided by the Ministry of Health in conjunction with the Ministry of Social Services. The Social Services. Ministry will allocate NIS 4.2 million ($1.1 million) to fund the plan.

The project's initiators said that the motivation is strictly humanitarian: "the victims of human trafficking, slavery or prostitution in Israel deserve protection and care."

Currently the victims are housed in various temporary facilities, homes of human rights activists and volunteers or various ad hoc institutions. "These are inappropriate solutions that do not provide structured support services."

Adapted from: Tova Ztimuki, "Combating human trafficking." ynetnews.com 30 November 2007.

Israeli Knesset Releases Report: Women trafficking to Israel Drops Sharply

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:09:00 GMT

Report compiled by Knesset division reveals no women smuggled into Israel caught since beginning of 2007, but infiltration of asylum seekers grows dramatically.

The smuggling of women for prostitution and of drugs from Egypt into Israel has dramatically declined since the IDF has taken over the border nine months ago. However, the infiltration rate of asylum seekers through the southern border has significantly increased over the same period, a new report compiled by the Knesset's Research and Information Center revealed Sunday.

The report was drafted ahead of a joint discussion of the Committee on Drug Abuse and the Subcommittee on the Trafficking of Women set to take place Monday. According to the report, since the beginning of 2007, 898 people were smuggled through the border from Sudan, 430 were smuggled from Eritrea, and about 40 of the infiltrators caught were from Georgia, Romania and Turkey.

The report stated that no women were caught being smuggled into Israel to serve as prostitutes in the last nine months, but head of the shelter for victims of women trafficking in Israel Ruth Davidovich claimed that some 30 women were currently staying at the shelter, and that most of them were smuggled through the Egyptian border.

The committee members are scheduled to discuss the urgent need for a fence to be constructed along the border to stop the infiltrations and smuggling. Other topics on the agenda would be the frequent violent clashes between Israeli security forces and the smugglers, and the need to boost forces on the Jordanian border, which is also exposed to smuggling.

The report stressed that despite Israel's substantial efforts, the border remained volatile, with smugglers becoming more sophisticated and using more technologically advanced methods.

Adapted from: Yael Branovsky, "Women trafficking to Israel drops sharply." Israel News. 11 November 2007.

Human Trafficking Not Uncommon on Long Island, New York

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:11:00 GMT

There are hundreds of homes on Long Island where immigrants, especially women, are held in conditions that approach slavery, Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota said Friday.

And many of those who end up working long hours for little or no pay, or who are forced into sex slavery, are lured to the United States by unscrupulous people who promise safe, well-paid jobs, Spota said.

But, he added, "We all know, of course, that there is no nanny position and there is no modeling" job for them once they arrive, he said. Spota spoke Friday morning at a conference on human trafficking held at Touro Law Center in Central Islip. Speakers at the conference defined human trafficking as the illegal control of a person through fraud, force and coercion.

Spota described how law enforcement officials found several Mexican women held against their will in a Plainfield, N.J., house, and said he is "convinced that there are hundreds of similar homes in our communities." On Long Island, most of the victims of human trafficking come from Mexico or Eastern Europe, Spota said. They come for a better life, but find slavery, he said.

The Touro conference was titled, "Modern-Day Slavery on Long Island: identifying victims of human trafficking." At the conference, several law enforcement and civic organizations said Friday that they plan to work together to crack down on human trafficking in the region, armed with recent state and federal laws that include tougher penalties.

Adapted from: Joseph Mallia and Laura Albanese, " Spota: Human trafficking not uncommon on LI." Newsday. 30 November 2007.

Sex slaves, human trafficking... in America?

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:13:00 GMT

Some foreign exchange students are tricked and exploited in the United States.

The men drove Katya and Lena to the Greyhound bus station and gave them tickets to Detroit. Confused and exhausted, the girls had no reason to question the change of plans.

Adapted from: Grace Kahng, "Sex slaves, human trafficking... in America?." msnbc.com. 3 December 2007.

Putting a Stop to Human Trafficking in the United States

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:16:00 GMT

Human traffickers force victims into hard labor or sell them for sex. Worldwide, millions of women and children are part of this modern day slave trade. In this country, the border is of special concern, and that’s where authorities are working to build awareness. It’s a heartbreaking crime that crisscrosses the border.

“We may have an individual who’s in the United States illegally,” Diana Kirk with the El Paso Police Department said. “They’re being trafficked; they may be forced into prostitution.” Or sold into the sex trade back home in Mexico.

The El Paso Human Trafficking Task Force brought together a diverse group of partners: prosecutors, police, community and victim’s assistance groups to learn more, including warning signs. “They won’t have any ID with them,” social worker Theresa Flores said. “They might not speak the language. They might be a child that’s out very, very late at night.”

The first time Flores attended a conference like this one, the Ohio social worker came to a painful realization about her sexual abuse as a teen. Now the survivor from a middle class family is speaking out and dispelling myths.

“I was targeted by traffickers and was threatened and coerced and forced into sexual slavery for 2 years,” she said. Experts call it a crime that hides in plain sight.

The community is the first line of defense: a simple tip from a neighbor, teachers or anyone who suspects something can lead authorities to traffickers and their captives — captives from across the border or across the street

Adapted from: Angela Kocherga, "Putting a stop to human trafficking." Khou.com. 3 December 2007.

Prostitution Fueling Exploitation of Women

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:19:00 GMT

The evil of human trafficking is receiving attention in many countries around the world...The illegal trade is carried out either to provide cheap labor or for the sex industry, although it is the latter that is receiving more attention.

The BBC on Nov. 6 noted that the United Nations in 2006 had named Israel one of the main destinations in the world for trafficked women. According to the report, during the 1990s and the first years of the current decade, up to 3,000 women a year were lured to Israel by false promises of jobs, only to find themselves forced to be prostitutes. Prostitution in Israel is legal, but pimping and maintaining a brothel are not, according to the BBC.

Japan is another country with significant numbers of women forced into being sex slaves, the South China Morning Post reported Oct. 27. Every year, 50,000 women enter Japan on entertainer visas, but sources cited by the newspaper maintained there are never that many working as dancers or singers.

Japan is one of the largest destinations for international trafficking of women and children for sex and forced labor, according to the South China Morning Post. Due to international pressure the Japanese police set up a department to combat the problem. In 2005 the new unit made 81 arrests, but only five cases have reached the prosecution stage in the courts, all ending with suspended sentences.

In England, an Oct. 22 article in the Independent newspaper reported the arrest of a gang of Lithuanian and Chinese criminals who made up to 5,000 pounds ($10,281) a day by forcing young women to engage in prostitution.

New form of slavery
"What these gangs do is modern-day slavery," detective inspector Gary Young of Scotland Yard's clubs and vice unit told the paper. The growing industry is being fueled by the expansion and sophistication of the Internet, he said.

According to the Independent, one estimate is that at any one time, up to 4,000 women are being compelled to work as prostitutes in Britain by criminal gangs.

The problem was also recently the subject of a study published in Ireland, the Irish Examiner reported Oct. 19. Eilis Ward of National University of Ireland, and Gillian Wylie of Trinity College Dublin, found 76 women from 20 countries had been trafficked into Ireland to work in brothels and lap dancing clubs. They said that the total number could be far greater.

A major front-page article in the Sept. 23 edition of the Washington Post examined efforts by the United States to stamp out human trafficking. The U.S. government has spent more than half a billion dollars fighting trafficking around the world since 2000. The State Department has an office in charge of investigating the problem, which publishes an annual Trafficking in Persons report. According to the Washington Post, estimating the number of women trafficked into the United States is problematic. Estimates vary widely, but one recent calculation put it at 14,500 to 17,500 each year.

The most recent edition of the report by the State Department came out in June. It estimated that in 2006, approximately 800,000 people were trafficked across national borders. This does not include, the report added, millions more who were trafficked within their own countries.

Trafficking and the sex industry play a major role in spreading HIV/AIDS, the report noted. In addition, violence and abuse "are at the core of trafficking for prostitution."

A seminar on how to fight against trafficking was recently held in Rome. The session was a joint effort between the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See and the Italian Union of Major Superiors (USMI). "Human trafficking is a critical (issue) for the Holy See," said Monsignor Pietro Parolin, the Pope's undersecretary of state, in an address to the seminar.

According to a press release dated Oct. 19, one of the fruits of the seminar was the creation of the International Network of Religious Against Trafficking in Persons (INRATIP). The new organization issued a statement in which it called upon governments "to address the issues of economic inequality, poverty and corruption which lead to the destruction of so many lives."

"We urge all people of good will to open your hearts to the victims and to act to change the root causes of human trafficking -- poverty, gender inequality, discrimination, greed and corruption," the statement declared. "Our hope rests in a vision of humanity which honors the principle that no woman, child or man is a commodity for sale."

Fallacy of legalization
To combat trafficking and other abuses against women in the sex trade, some argue in favor of legalizing prostitution. This is a serious mistake, according to the conclusions of a recently published study of how legalized prostitution operates in the U.S. state of Nevada.

In "Prostitution and Trafficking in Nevada: Making the Connections," Melissa Farley argues that legalization has not improved conditions for women, but has worked in favor of pimps and brothel owners. The boom in the sex trade in Nevada has also made the state one of the main destinations for victims of human trafficking, observed U.S. Representative Carolyn Maloney in the book's foreword.

In fact, after a two-year study of how prostitution functions in Nevada, one of the book's conclusions is that prostitution and sex trafficking are linked in the state as in other localities. "Sex trafficking happens when and where there is a demand for prostitution and a context of impunity for its customers," Farley stated.

Moreover, the legalization of prostitution has created a culture that promotes the sex trade, and far from eliminating illegal activities, both legal and illegal venues flourish. Farley calculated that Nevada's illegal prostitution industry is nine times greater than the state's legal brothels.

This is similar to what has happened in other places that have legalized prostitution, such as the Netherlands and the Australian state of Victoria, she added. In the former, legalized prostitution has made the country one of the major destinations for trafficked women, said Farley, citing several studies and declarations made by local authorities.

By contrast, places that have taken serious steps to stamp out prostitution, such as Sweden, have also seen a decrease in sex trafficking, Farley argued.

Promoting discrimination
We live in a world saturated with pornography and where prostitution is increasingly presented as a mainstream activity, she observed. It's a world where only too often girls and women are presented as sexual objects for men's gratification, and where sexual assaults against children are at ever-higher levels.

Prostitution, Farley argued, is a business rooted in inequality: between men and women, rich and poor, ethnic majorities and minorities. "Legal prostitution has set the stage for discrimination against women, especially those who are most vulnerable: poor and ethnically marginalized women," she concluded.

Legalization also increases sex trafficking because it expands the market. "It's actually deceptive to make a distinction between trafficking and prostitution because the implication is that it is the distance she is moved in order to be sold for sex that matters rather than being sold, used and prostituted per se," Farley expounded.

"What's relevant is what is done to her in prostitution, the sale of and sexual use of a human being," she continued. The degradation of persons, whether in trafficking or prostitution, stand out as one of the major challenges to a culture that too often ignores the weak.

Adapted from: Father John Flynn, LC. "Trafficking in Lives. Prostitution Fueling Exploitation of Women." Zenith News Agency. 3 December 2007.

Police Uncover Human Trafficking Misery in the UK

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:32:00 GMT

A Romanian woman who was raped and forced to work as a prostitute is among 20 victims of human trafficking identified by police in the central belt in the past eight weeks.

"But they have undoubtedly been trafficked here against their will, often forced into prostitution to pay off family debts." A spokesman for Grampian Police said they were "actively investigating a number of lines of inquiry".

Amnesty International and Lothian and Borders Police have joined forces to mount a campaign raising awareness about the trafficking of human beings. A display describing the lives of those who have been trafficked has been placed at Edinburgh Airport, as transport hubs have been identified as key areas in the human trafficking process.

Amnesty International campaigner Naomi McAuliffe said: "It is vitally important that we raise awareness of this trade, we have come across stories of women being bought and sold in the cafés of airport lounges." It has been estimated that as many as 700 foreign women have been trafficked into Scotland's sex industry.

Anne Hamilton, from Glasgow-based Trafficking Awareness Raising Alliance - which will host a conference on the problem - said it was currently supporting 17 trafficking victims in the city.

Natasha's Ordeal
WHEN Natasha, not her real name, was 18 she wanted to leave Latvia and come to the UK to study. But her family in a rural part of the country could not afford that, so she found a job in a local café. One day one of her mother's friends told her that she knew people who were living in London and needed someone to help with their first baby.

Adapted from: Michael Howie, "Police uncover human trafficking misery." news.scotsman.com. 5 December 2007.

NGO in Nigeria Says Child Abandonment Promotes Trafficking

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:39:00 GMT

An Non-government organsiation Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network (CRARN) has linked the high rate of child trafficking in Akwa Ibom State to frequent cases of abandoned children.

Mr. Sam Itauma, the CRARN President, said in Eket that 70 percent of cases of trafficking in the state involved stigmatised and abandoned children, wrongly labeled as witches. Itauma spoke to newsmen at a symposium on “Preventing Abandonment of child Trafficking Today (PACT)”.

He identified Esit Eket, oron, Eket and Mobo local governments as areas with the highst number of cases of child abandonment. Itauma said that the children were abounded based on the belief that they possessed spiritual powers.

According to him, such innocent children were tortured in some churches and forced to make confessions so that prayers of deliverance would be said for them. He expressed regret at the involvement of so called men of God in the social ill.

“Recently, the Police in Owerri arrested a woman who was in possession of children of Akwa Ibom origin and who claimed that the children were brought for deliverance from witchcraft. Itauma called on the Akwa Ibom State Government, Christian Association of Nigeria and Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria to team up and regulate the activities of churches.

Also peaking, Mr. Gary Foxcroft, Executive Director, Stepping Stones Nigeria, called for close collaboration with national Agency for the Prevention of Trafficking in persons (NAPTIP) to check child taffficking. He also called on Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly to pass the child rights act to provide a legal framework for the protection of the rights of children.

Foxcroft said that if stigmatized and abandoned children were not transformed they would grow up to become miscreants.

Adapted from: "NGO says child abandonment promotes trafficking." The Tide Online. 4 December 2007.

Winning War Against Women Trafficking in Nigeria

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:43:00 GMT

The trafficking in women and children in the society has become a major source of worry to many concerned individuals, governments, non-governmental organisations and civil societies.

Nigeria has been ascribed to have the highest number of children and women traffickers in Africa. The rate at which the trade occurs has made some persons to describe it as an endemic disease, which the government must be relentless in combating.

Women and child trafficking can be defined as the transportation of children and women (young ladies and adults) from one place to another either as child labour, sexual commodities or professional prostitutes who have their bodies for money or engage in other menial jobs for which there is neither future nor special skills.

Trafficking as it were, occurs in two ways, which are internal and external trafficking.

Internal trafficking occurs when the victims, especially young boys and girls, are moved from rural areas or communities to urban area to become house helps, hotel attendants, and nannies. The girls usually end up as satisfiers of the sexual urge of their masters, if they are in families or customers of the hotel or beer palours where their services are used.

External trafficking involves transporting victims from 10 years and above from their country for the aim of prostitution and child labour. Ironically, while some victims of trafficking persons are unassuming and innocent individuals, others especially the ladies allow themselves to be trafficked all for the purpose of monetary gains. One of the countries for this ugly trend is Italy.

While civil societies and non-governmental organisations have carried out several campaigns against trafficking in persons, the Nigeria government had made notable efforts towards the deportation and rehabilitation of the women in the past few years.

Aside ladies who get involved willingly in women trafficking, parents especially mothers have aided in the trade. Parents give out their girl-children or encourage them as a result of economic hardship and the level of ostentatious living that most of other girls on return from their trip display.

Most parents are unaware that some women solicit for their daughters’ involvement in the batch of young girls to be sent out of the country for prostitution or slavery. They arrange for payment by the traffics while the innocent girls suffer. In most cases the girls are made to take an oath to behave and do anything she was asked to do by her slave master or mistress and also warned not to attempt an escape.

At the end, most of these girls die in the process, those who do not die contact dreadful diseases like the HIV/AIDS or are rendered useless for life.

Some other children who are not involved in the sexual escapades are subjected to child abuse. They are made to engage in tasks that are too difficult for them – fetching of water with pots that are too heavy for their age, hawking in the streets. In some cases, these children become victims to kidnappers for ritual purposes. They are not sent to school, and when they grow up, become social miscreants and haters of the society in which they live. Some, at the end turn out to be armed robbers, molesting the society.

Organisations like Women Political Action Committee (WPAC) on women trafficking, International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the UNICEF have been in the forefront of fighting this social plague. Their efforts have been on not only discouraging girls and mothers from such acts and emphasising the danger but also suggesting ways they could be useful to themselves and make money the proper way.

In Rivers State, the wife of the former Governor of the state, Justice Mary Odili had through The Adolescent Project (TAP) re-focused the minds of young and susceptible children to the acquisition of skills that would make them responsible in life. Many young boys and girls have been trained in skills ranging from tie and die, sewing, hairdressing, paint making and others. This gesture had in no small way redirected these youths from engaging in acts that would be inimical to their lives, their families and those of the society.

Thousands of these adolescent were graduated, equipped to be independent during the eight years of Dr. Peter Odili’s administration through the wife.

An NGO in Calabar, known as Girls Power Initiative (GPI) has been fighting against sexual exploitation of teenage girls in Cross River State. The founder of the NGO, Prof. Bene Madunagu, to empower the girls in the area opened a vocational training centre. She saw the idea of the centre came with the realization that girls from the poor homes were more vulnerable to sexual exploitation than those from well-to-do families.

Economic empowerment of the girl-child is the surest way to make her independent and protect her from sexual exploitation and prostitution. This programme is all about self-employment on adulthood, she had said. The essence, she explained further, is to make girls realize their God-given talents which can tomorrow become their source of livelihood.

At the international level, the United Nations (UN) and UNICEF have urged eastern and southern African nations, where it says more than eight million children live in dire poverty, to halt the boom in child trafficking. Per Engebak, UNICEF’s regional director for eastern and southern Africa warned that unless swift action was taken, the region was poised to become a major supplier of trafficked children often subjected to sexual and physical abuse.

Traffickers are exploiting the aspirations of those living in dreadful conditions with virtually no risk of prosecution. “In many countries, the absence of a specific law on child trafficking is a serious loophole that undermines the global effort to stop child trafficking” he said.

UNICEF acknowledged that existing laws often address certain aspects of trafficking, such as kidnapping, rape or sexual exploitation, but fall short of punishing perpetrators for the crime itself. “Only Mozambique and South Africa have made progress in enacting domestic legislation against child trafficking” UNICEF said, urging other countries to follow suit.

The UN agency on its part warned that global human trafficking, which spawns an estimated seven to 10 billion dollars annually is expanding to regions. Though child-women trafficking seem to be an African affair, there is need for countries and individuals to help the government in its prevention and stoppage.

Adapted from: "Winning war against women trafficking." The Tide Online. 21 June 2007.

California Top Spot for Human Trafficking in U.S.

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:44:00 GMT

California is the top destination in the United States for human traffickers who force women and girls into hard labor and sex trade, local TV channel ABC 7 reported.

A new report released by the state's anti-human trafficking task force shed light on how bad the problem is in California, and the team wants police and prosecutors to have more power to fight these crimes. Though exact numbers don't exist, thousands are somehow brought in across the borders and coerced into the sex trade or hard labor, officials and activists said.

Researchers at U.C. Berkeley found 57 forced labor operations over a five year period in about a dozen California cities, involving more than 500 people from 18 countries. A Mexican woman named "Esperanza" was lured by human traffickers to California from her destitute hometown five years ago with the promise of a good job making good money, but it turned out to be grueling work in a Los Angeles sweatshop.

"I had to live and sleep in the shop. I had to work 17 hours a day, sometimes more," Esperanza told a press conference Tuesday at Sacramento, the state capital. When Esperanza asked to leave, her employers threatened her family members and close ones. "She said someone who I love would pay the consequences," said Esperanza.

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, who is on the task force to help state leaders find solutions for the problem, said that about 80 percent of the victims of human trafficking are women and girls, and up to 50 percent of them are minors.

Esperanza spent 40 days in the Los Angeles sweatshop before she pretended to go to church and escaped, and now she has become a victims' advocate. "I want to tell victims that there is hope, there is help," she said. To raise public awareness about the human trafficking problem, a new resolution is expected to take effect next month declaring every January 11 in California as "National Human Trafficking Day."

Adapted from: Yan Liang, "California top spot for human trafficking in U.S." China View. 5 December 2007.

Report Issued by Anti-Trafficking Task Force Names California Top Destination for Human Traffickers

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:56:00 GMT

California is a top destination for human traffickers who coerce people into the sex trade or hard labor through force or fraud, according to an 18-month government study.

The report by a 19-member task force of the California Alliance to Combat Trafficking and Slavery says California is particularly vulnerable to human trafficking because of its international border, ports and airports; its booming immigrant population; and a large economy that includes industries that attract forced labor.

The problem goes far beyond the sex trade, with migrant farm and construction workers, household employees and workers in motels, restaurants and clothing factories frequently vulnerable to abuse, task force members said.

The report, required by a 2005 state law, cites research by the U C Berkeley Human Rights Center. From 1998 to 2003, university researchers found 57 forced labor operations in nearly a dozen California cities involving more than 500 people from 18 countries. Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose were centers for the problem.

Researchers say 80 percent of the victims are female, and half are children. The federal government says human trafficking is second only to the drug trade as an international criminal industry. "We don't have chains, but the traffickers use coercion and fear" to keep people from fleeing, said a 35-year-old woman who said she was lured from Puebla, Mexico, to a Los Angeles sweatshop in

The woman goes by the name Esperanza, a pseudonym that means "hope" in Spanish, because she said the sweatshop owner continues to stalk her. She said she spent 40 days working and sleeping in the clothing factory before escaping by telling her overseer she wanted to attend Catholic Mass.

She said the sweatshop owner threatened to harm her mother and the three children she left behind in Mexico and warned that she would be jailed as an illegal immigrant if she went to authorities. "She told me I had no identity: 'If I kill you, no one will answer for you,'" Esperanza said at a news conference at the state Capitol.

Esperanza now helps train law enforcement officers to spot human trafficking victims, who are often frightened, penniless, unskilled, don't speak English and lack basic knowledge of how to dial a telephone or board a bus to seek help. It's the sort of training task force members said should be provided for firefighters, building inspectors, ambulance workers and others who might be in a position to spot the signs of human trafficking.

The state should also increase penalties for traffickers and provide housing and protection for victims, the report says. Task force members are backing pending legislation that would allow a maximum prison term of six years, up from five now, for engaging in human trafficking and make it easier to prosecute child labor cases and trafficking rings that cross county lines.

Until recently, traffickers could be prosecuted only for related crimes, such as kidnapping, pandering or pimping, said San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, a task force member. Trafficking was made a specific stand-alone federal crime in 2000 and was criminalized in California in 2005.

That is one reason researchers have mainly anecdotal evidence that the crime is widespread, said task force Chairwoman Nancy Matson, who directs the state attorney general's Crime and Violence Prevention Center. About 600 cases are documented in California a year, Matson said.

The U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division estimates that, nationwide, 14,500 to 17,500 people each year are brought into the United States by traffickers to work in the sex trade or other jobs. Harris said that doesn't include American citizens who are transported across state lines.

Adapted from: Don Thompson,"State a hot spot for human trafficking, panel says." Associated Press. 5 December 2007.

Morocco Center of Trafficking of Filipinos to Europe

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:00:00 GMT

The promise of employment and a better future has forced many Filipinos to resort to illegal means just to get to Europe.

Human trafficking syndicates are now using Morocco as the center of illegal recruitment for most Filipinos trying to cross the border of Europe. The North African country has become a favorite jumping point of illegal recruiters because it does not require a visa and is just near the border of Spain.

The tourist visa is valid up to three months. Many Filipinos have already overstayed from six months to one year, hoping to get their travel documents and make it to Europe. Madel de Silva is one of them and she is hopeful she will be able to join her sister in Milan, Italy.

De Silva said that incidentally, she replaced, her other sister who initially paid P350,000, but could not wait any longer in Casablanca, Morocco. She said her sister stayed in Casablanca for two months. De Silva is with 12 other Filipinos who are living in a crowded old apartment building in Mohammedia.

They have their own stories to tell, the ultimate goal of which is to get a job in Europe. JR Negoy said his family, now in Monaco, had already spent P2 million trying to get him. His first recruiter was able to take him only up to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, France, but was deported for illegal documents. Sensinio Villar Jr., meanwhile, is worried of crossing the border again after he discovered that his Schengen visa is fake.

His was a tampered visa with glaring discrepancies from the original document. Sam Siatrez, meanwhile, is no longer interested to pursue his European dream after almost seven months in Morocco. He believes that part of his P400,0000-placement fee would still be refunded.

Negoy, Villar, Siatrez and seven others earlier tried but failed to cross the Tangier port via the ferryboat which is just about an hour away from Marbella, Spain. Their Moroccan guide left them after the group paid 32,000 euros (P1.99 million) to a certain Arwin Montoya. Montoya is now wanted by the Moroccan police.

Another exit point from Morocco is Tetouan, which is almost an hour away from Spain. Except for Siatrez, most Filipinos are willing to wait and even take the risks of being arrested, justifying there is no better alternative in the Philippines.

Risk-takers
Stranded Filipinos in Morocco are willing to face deportation and arrest in their desperate attempt to cross europe despite having spurious travel documents. But a handful are just lucky to make it and join their loved ones in Europe. ake the case of "Cristy" (not her real name) who was able to enter Milan after a group of Filipinos took her in shortly after arriving at the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris recently.

Cristy has rejoined her mom, who is domestic helper for many years in Italy. Cristy left Manila July 15 after her mother paid an initial amount of P250,000 to a recruiter whom she identified as Bobby Flores. She stayed for a month in Bangkok, Thailand and another two months in Morocco. Cristy revealed the modus operandi of the illegal recruitment syndicate. In traveling, they use two bags, one for check-in and the other, the handcarry bag. The check-in bag, she explained, is only for show to make it appear that she has a final destination. This bag only contains old clothes and sleepwear. The handcarry bag is where they hide the fake travel papers, and show it to immigration authorities when exiting the transit point in Europe.

The specially-designed bag has a secret opening at the bottom portion for documents which could not be detected by x-ray machines. At least one Filipino in Morocco, meanwhile, said the legal way is still the best way for Filipinos to gain entry to Europe. Lito Porto has been helping Filipino victims of illegal recruitment for the past 12 years in Morocco.

For him, the best way is still to do it legally because its not only deportation but the harsh penalty of arrest that Filipinos will have to pay.

Adapted from: Danny Buenafe, "Morocco center of trafficking of Pinoys to Europe." ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau.
6 December 2007.

Finland Falls Short in Helping Human Trafficking Victims

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:03:00 GMT

Finland often fails to identify victims of human trafficking, according to a steering group from the Ministry of Labour.

Hundreds of human trafficking victims are estimated to pass through Finland annually. But for many victims, Finland is the final destination. So far, police have launched investigations into just a handful of human trafficking cases. Only one investigation has led to convictions. In the summer of 2006, the Helsinki District Court sentenced seven people in a human trafficking and procurement case.

According to the steering group, more needs to be done to recognise human trafficking victims. It's calling for better training for officials working on such cases. The group also proposes nominating an independent human trafficking rapporteur, who would be responsible for analysing and assisting in human trafficking cases.

The government is expected to approve the steering group's recommendations in the future.

Finland Fails to Identify Sex Abuse Victims
Internationally, victims of human trafficking are often used for sex, and are often women. However in Finland, a large number of suspected human trafficking victims are men who are used for labour.

"The Finnish profile does not match the international picture. We have failed to identify human trafficking victims used for sex," said the chair of the steering committee, Mervi Virtanen. The report emphasises the importance of NGOs and labour organisations in finding victims.

"Victims feel more comfortable approaching NGOs than police," Virtanen added.

Adapted from: "Finland Falls Short in Helping Human Trafficking Victims." YLE.fi. 6 December 2007.

Anti-Trafficking Campaign Launched in East Africa

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 00:50:00 GMT

The International Organisation for Migration has launched a campaign to raise awareness about human trafficking in Tanzania, a country increasingly becoming a transit point, it said in a statement on Monday.

The three-month campaign dubbed "Uwe sauti Yao" (Be their voice) was launched at a hip-hop rally in the capital Dar es Salaam, and is being followed by public service announcements on television and radio. Posters, brochures, calendars, stickers, T-shirts and caps will also be distributed in all major cities across the impoverished African country.

"We're delighted that this truly unique event has received the full support Tanzania's most famous hip hop and gospel singers," Par Liljert, IOM's chief of mission in Tanzania, said in a statement. "Just like the media, artists have a crucial role to play to ensure people do not fall prey to ruthless trafficking networks," he added.

Cases of international and domestic trafficking have increased in Tanzania, most being internal ones. "Girls and boys are routinely trafficked from rural areas to urban areas where they are abused and exploited in domestic worker, commercial agriculture, fishing and mining industries, and in child prostitution," the statement said.

Women and children are also trafficked for sexual or labour exploitation to neighbouring countries as well as to the Middle East and Europe. Over the past two years, IOM Tanzania has assisted more than 120 victims of trafficking with support from the US State Department.

Adapted from: " Trafficking campaign launched."
http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_2239752,00.html www.news24.com. 17 December 2007.

Countries in Europe and North Africa Confront Human Trafficking

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 00:53:00 GMT

Representatives of 35 countries have reaffirmed their commitment to regulate migration flows from the developing south to the industrialized north in order to curb the trafficking of human beings across the Mediterranean Sea.

Delegates that took part in a two-day government meeting in Portugal agreed on everything that must be done in particular to prevent the trafficking of women, who often fall prey to prostitution and sexual exploitation networks. They also agreed to strengthen the channels of legal migration.

The village of Albufeira, in the southern Portuguese region of Algarve, hosted the first Euro-Mediterranean conference on migration November, 18-19 2007.

The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (Euromed) is made up of 25 of the 27 European Union countries and 10 Mediterranean partners: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestinian Authority, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey. Libya has held observer status since 1999.

The interior ministers and other government representatives announced Nov. 19 that the EU would introduce training courses for migrant workers, pre-departure professional training and language courses for potential migrants, information campaigns on legal migration and labor opportunities available in the countries of destination, as well as programs and activities for new legal immigrants.

The main aim of these initiatives is to facilitate the flow of legal immigrants from non-EU Mediterranean countries and bolster their social and professional integration, according to the ministers, who also decided to create a joint working group to carry out an in-depth study of the labor situation and of the labor market’s need for migrants.

The Algarve, whose name comes from al-Gharb, which means “the West” in Arabic, is the region with the strongest northern African influence in Portugal.

The main aims of the meeting were to improve management of migration, fight trafficking in human beings and strengthen opportunities for legal migration, economic development and cultural exchange.

The final declaration said cooperation among all Mediterranean countries is essential in order to stiffen border controls and obtain concrete results. Despite the upbeat tone of the final document, non-EU countries complained of “brain drain” from North Africa to Europe.

Tunisian Minister of Social Affairs Ali Chaouch, who spoke with reporters after the meeting along with Ahmed El-Kewaisny, the coordinator of the group of Arab countries in Albufeira, said the countries of the Maghreb–Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania–“need their brains.”

With respect to economic questions, special emphasis was put on the remittances sent home by emigrants, an important source of revenue for the countries along the southern edge of the Mediterranean. Emphasis was also placed on microcredit, a mechanism that is becoming more and more important as a curb on migration to the EU.

Euromed recently released a study based on 2004 data that showed the largest flows of expatriate remittances from the EU go to the Maghreb, especially Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, while the main source of those flows are Spain, Italy and France. Morocco is by far the leading destination, receiving $4.2 billion in remittances in 2004, followed by Algeria, with $828 million, and Tunisia, with $228 million.

In recent years, European civil society organizations have loudly criticized the EU’s lack of flexibility with respect to migration flows from Africa and have called for measures such as temporary worker programs.

In one of the latest tragedies, 56 Africans trying to reach Spain’s Canary Islands starved to death, were either killed or committed suicide when they found that the cans that supposedly carried fuel were actually full of water. Only the Senegalese skipper was found alive in late October in the boat, which had drifted south of the Cape Verde islands.

Portugal’s Serviço de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras (SEF) has launched the “You Are Not For Sale” campaign aimed at fighting trafficking in persons.

The typical victim is a young woman from the developing south or from central or eastern Europe who is lured to a rich country by a trafficker with promises of a decent, well-paying job. Once there, her passport is seized and she is forced to work as a prostitute to pay off the debt she incurred in order to be smuggled into the country.

The U.S. State Department’s seventh annual “Trafficking in Persons Report,” released in June, said “Portugal is primarily a destination and transit country for women, men, and children trafficked from Brazil, Ukraine, Moldova, Russia, Romania, and to a lesser extent Africa. The majority of Brazilian female victims are trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation.”

The report added that Portugal “does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so.”

Adapted from: Mario de Queiroz, "Countries confront human trafficking."
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_4189.shtml www.finalcall.com
17 December 2007.

Dubai Declares War on Human Trafficking

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:07:00 GMT

Launching a new drive against human trafficking, authorities in Dubai have busted a well entrenched prostitution ring operating from upscale villas and apartments.

The Dubai police have arrested 247 suspects, including 170 sex workers after raiding 22 locations on December 1, said Dubai police chief Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim. Most of the sex workers were from East Asia.

This operation is only part of a series of other raids and measures that we will undertake to eliminate human trafficking from Dubai, sources in Dubai police told The Hindu.

Analysts point out that men and women have been trafficked to the United Arab Emirates (UAE.), where they have faced involuntary servitude and commercial exploitation.

There have been reports about UAE also being used as a transit country for human trafficking in the region. Women from Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda, India, Pakistan, China, the Philippines, Iraq, Iran, and Morocco have been reportedly trafficked to the U.A.E.

However, armed with a new law, authorities have started targeting the networks, said Lt. Gen. Dahi. He said women who had been inadvertently drawn into prostitution rings or possess information about such networks can make use of the Al Ameen helpline and seek protection. He added that with the biggest raid launched, a war on human trafficking had been declared.

Earlier this year, UAE Attorney-General Eassam Al-Humaidan had announced that a decision had been taken to confront human traffickers with an iron hand. He said practitioners would face a five-year jail sentence. Besides, anyone convicted of forming a gang for this purpose would be jailed for life.

Adapted from: Atul Aneja. "Dubai declares war on human trafficking." The Hindu. 6 December 2007.

Single Trafficking Act needed in South Africa

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:09:00 GMT

South Africa urgently needs legislation to counter human trafficking, particularly to help the people who are abused, a panel discussion in Pretoria heard.

"At some point we hope there would be a law protecting those victims who are not criminals," said Yitna Getachew of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). Speaking at the panel discussion hosted by the IOM and the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), Getachew said trafficked people were simply deported by the South African authorities.

"For instance women who are trafficked for sexual exploitations simply get sent back before we can assist them or find out more about the networks who trafficked them," he said. He said the law should not only focus on the criminal side of the issue but also how to deal with trafficked persons.

"What are you doing with a victim, about their immigration issues, are you going to send them back certainly not, you are going to keep them," Getachew said. Patric Solomons of community-based organisation Molo Songololo said there was some legislation in the pipeline but this needed to be enforced or finalised.

They include the Children's Act and the Sexual Offences Bill, which make some provisions to tackle trafficking. The SA Law Commission is also working on a comprehensive legislation proposal which is expected to be submitted to the justice department next year.

Professor Vasu Reddy of the HSRC gender and development unit said there was a need for organisations to push for the legislation. "The next step would be to look at what mechanisms we can use to push for that," she said.

Reddy said this could include lobbying of parliament, research and further awareness raising of the issue. Several of the organisations who attended the discussion undertook to take up the issue.

Adapted from: "Single Trafficking Act needed." News24.com. 5 December 2007.

Judges in South Africa Asked to Clamp Down on Trafficking

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:12:00 GMT

South Africa is being used as a destination and transit point, as well as a source for human trafficking, the International Association of Women Judges was told at a conference in Boksburg.

Public prosecutions director, advocate Thoko Majokweni, speaking on behalf of Justice Minister Brigitte Mabandla, said: "Mozambican women are trafficked to the mines and sometimes to Kwazulu-Natal. "Malawian women are sold by Nigerian syndicates... to Germany, Italy and Belgium, and this all happens via South Africa." She said South Africans themselves were being trafficked to Hong Kong and Macau.

'It really needs to be transnational'
"Thai women are debt-bonded in brothels in Johannesburg and in KwaZulu-Natal, especially in port areas," she said. Chinese traffickers were using Johannesburg as a transit point for Swaziland, Lesotho and Mozambique, Majokweni said. Russian and Bulgarian women were exploited in private clubs and venues in Johannesburg.

Majokweni said reliable statistics on trafficking in southern Africa were difficult to obtain because most countries in the region had not criminalised the trafficking of people. Necessary legislative reforms were underway in South Africa to halt trafficking. She said the SA Law Reform Commission had prioritised finalising the Combating of Trafficking in Persons Bill to make human trafficking a criminal offence in this country.

One of the key issues in the Bill was the amendment to the definition of the action of trafficking itself. In SA, the commission was adding to the definition of trafficking as "recruitment, transportation, transfer and harbouring", also the "sale, supply, capture and procurement" of people both within or across the border. "It really needs to be transnational," said Majokweni.

She also said the issue of illegal adoption across the country had been incorporated into the bill. Majokweni said that in the short term other legislative measures such as provisions of the Children's Act, the Sexual Offences Act and racketeering charges were being used to prosecute those involved in trafficking. However, these laws had limitations.

For example, cases tried under the Sexual Offences Act criminalised the act of trafficking in persons for sexual exploitation only. She also said the sentences issued under these laws often did not correlate with the severity of the crime.

South Africans should remember human trafficking was new in terms of recognition but not in its existence, she said. "You look and see the life of Sarah Baartman, who was sold into slavery in France, paraded naked for men's pleasure, and even in death didn't get any dignity because she was torn into little parts," Majokweni said.

"We do not see the chains, yet the bondage is there. We do not see the whips, yet the wounds are there."

Adapted from: Sapa, "Judges asked to clamp down on trafficking." Independent OnLine. 19 October 2007.

Ho Chi Minh City Cracks Down on Human Trafficking

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:14:00 GMT

The Ho Chi Minh City Association of Child Protection on October 19 held a meeting with relevant agencies to discuss measures against women and children trafficking.

Municipal police reported that recent raids have unrooted five human trafficking gangs and 35 locations used by the gangs as match-making places to arrange illegal marriages between foreigners and local girls. Police also released a list of 15 suspects of illegal human trafficking and 64 others suspected to have arranged illegal marriages to foreigners.

Although HCM City is not a hotbed, it is used by the bandits as a transit port, police said. They emphasized on preventive measures and called on relevant agencies and social organizations to be active in the fight as the country is intensifying an overall action plan against women and girls trading.

Adapted from: "HCM City cracks down on human trafficking." Mathaba News Agency. 21 October 2007.

End to Human Trafficking Is UAE’s Top Priority

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:16:00 GMT

The UAE shares the core universal values that make the elimination of human trafficking a top priority, said Dr. Anwar Mohammed Gargash, Minister of State for Federal National Council Affairs and Chairperson of the National Committee on Human Trafficking, in an exclusive interview with Khaleej Times.

Dr. Gargash said the recently-formed committee has undertaken several steps to ensure a comprehensive assessment of the problem in the UAE. He said the committee has taken into consideration the contributing factors unique to the country and common in the developed countries.

“The committee has already met four times in the past few months and has undertaken several steps to ensure a comprehensive assessment of human trafficking in the country. The committee recognises the multi-faceted nature of the problem and is, therefore, acting at all levels including prosecution, prevention as well as protection of victims,” said the minister.

Answering a question on the efficiency of the committee, he said the committee was still in the process of collating data from various agencies and emirates. “However, according to preliminary indications, there are at least 10 cases pertaining to human trafficking registered so far this year. Five of these are related to instigating prostitution, two to threatening the life of children, and three cases are related to other issues,” disclosed Dr Gargash.

“It is heartening to note that when the Federal Law No.51 of 2006 was first implemented, two people had already been sentenced to a jail term of seven years, and a third for three years for indulging in and aiding and abetting human trafficking,” he said.

“The government is committed to strictly enforcing the new law and punishing all those found guilty, and rehabilitating the victims in the best possible way and with compassion,” Dr Gargash stressed. The Federal Law No.51 on combating human trafficking, which is the first of its kind in the Middle East was enacted last year with the aim of eradicating trading in persons and protecting and rehabilitating victims of this crime.

Regarding the tasks of the committee, the minister underlined that the committee is responsible for developing an implementation framework for the federal human trafficking law. “The committee focuses on drafting legislation, assesses government implementation procedures, monitors cases, coordinates between government divisions, and promotes public awareness on human trafficking,” the minister added.

He said the primary mandate of the committee is to coordinate among federal ministries and departments efforts to curb crimes related to trafficking in persons, be it prostitution, abuse, maltreatment, coercive exploitation and abuse of work force, or illegal organ transplantation. “Secondly, the committee seeks to ensure strict enforcement of the law and its provisions. The committee has also been designated as the official authority to receive and manage international enquiries and delegations related to human trafficking,” Dr Gargash clarified .

About the initiatives taken by the government to curb the crime, he said, “One of the noteworthy accomplishments during the last two years has been the total ban on child camel jockeys, as well as the multi-million-dirham compensation and repatriation programme that the government continues to support in conjunction with the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef).”

The Dubai Women and Children Foundation’s initiative by His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, which was launched earlier this year, is another step taken by the government to combat trading in persons, he said.

The initiative aims at providing a safe environment, assistance and rehabilitation for women and children who were exposed to physical and psychological abuse, including human rights abuses such as trafficking. “The UAE has signed an agreement with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to provide up to Dh50 million to support the Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking .This demonstrates the country’s commitment to tackle the crime not only in the UAE, but globally as well,” Dr Gargash stated.

He pointed out that it was important to highlight that human trafficking in the UAE has its origins in some other countries, a matter that has prompted the government to take joint measures with several countries, he said. “Agreements have been signed with Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to regulate the flow of workers. All labour contract transactions will henceforth be processed by labour ministries or offices in the supplying countries to prevent unscrupulous private recruitment agencies from trafficking, or otherwise exploiting, workers,” the minister concluded

Adapted from: Nada S. Mussallam. "End to human-trafficking UAE’s top priority." Khaleej Times Online. 20 October 2007.

Combating Human Trafficking a Priority in South Africa

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:18:00 GMT

Human trafficking is an evil as terrible as the Atlantic slave trade of the past, Chief Justice Pius Langa said.

"It is an evil as terrible as the slave trade of the past and it requires a concerted response from civil society and government," he said at the International Association of Women Judges Conference in Boksburg. "During the entire Atlantic slave trade, 25 million people were forced into slavery. Today there are an estimated 200 million people in conditions of slavery worldwide.

Langa said that even though slavery had been abolished over a century ago, practices like human trafficking kept its legacy alive.

'many women are subjected to an 'initiation' rape'
Langa said at least 800,000 to 900,000 people were trafficked annually around the globe. At least 28,000 children have been trafficked to South African cities for purposes of sexual exploitation. The majority of SA trafficking victims were refugees that were already in the country or came from the SADC region, Thailand, China and Eastern Europe.

"Refugees from other African countries already in South Africa often arrange for close female relatives to join them. "Once these women receive asylum-seeker status, their male relatives force them into prostitution." Langa said these women were often caught in a double bind when trying to access the law to help them.

"[They] are then placed in the unenviable position of choosing between deportation to an inhospitable home or remaining 'enslaved' but 'with' their family." Langa also said about 1 000 Mozambican girls and women were trafficked annually in SA.

He said they were lured with promises of lucrative jobs or picked up at taxi ranks while searching for a lift. "After crossing the border, many women are subjected to an 'initiation' rape at transit houses near the border. "The girls are then sold as 'wives' to men on the mines in the West Rand for around R650 or to SA brothels for R1 000."

Langa said gaps in SA laws meant it was only mainly the trafficking of children and sexual trafficking that was covered. New legislation aimed at targeting all forms of trafficking was in the pipeline, he said.

However, Langa said trafficking could not be solved by legislation alone. "Trafficking is a result of very serious social problems," he said.

"Trafficking in Southern Africa is generally attributed to extreme poverty, unemployment, war, lack of food and traditional practices that commodify women and make their sale acceptable. Langa also said organised crime syndicates and a demand for sex workers drove trafficking.

"As long as these realities exist it will be extremely difficult to abolish trafficking completely, but it is equally dangerous to use these realities as an excuse for not going the whole hog in fighting trafficking," he said. "[Fighting human trafficking] will require a combination of extended research, legislative measures, improved policing and prosecution practices and judicial awareness."

Langa said only this kind of multi-pronged approach could hope to fight what has become the third biggest profiteering organised crime after drugs and armaments. "Traffickers can make profits on drugs only once, they can sell the same person again and again and profit infinitely," said Langa in explaining trafficking's predominance.

Adapted from: Sapa."Human trafficking as terrible as slavery." Independent OnLine. 19 October 2007.

NGOs in Israel Warn Against Plan to Increase Russian Visas

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:21:00 GMT

Activists working against human trafficking in Israel called on Tourism Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch to reconsider a move to scrap visa requirements for visiting Russians, fearing the change could increase the flow of illegal sex workers into the country.

Report notes that the Israeli government still "does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking."

"I understand that it will increase globalization and strengthen Israel's economy," Rita Chaikin, the anti-trafficking project coordinator of the grassroots Isha L'Isha - Haifa Feminist Center, told The Jerusalem Post Tuesday. "I also understand that Russian tourists need to come in and visit, but the minute we open the borders, we have to be prepared [for the possibility] that trafficking will increase."

The abolishment of Russian tourist visas - a move that the Tourism Ministry claims will add tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue to the Israeli economy within the next few years - was approved last month by the cabinet and is now in the final stages of implementation. It will also allow Israelis to visit Russia without visas.

However, Russia is considered a transit destination for trafficking operations, with many men, women and children from neighboring countries arriving there before being transported elsewhere. Egypt has no visa requirements for Russian visitors, and its border with Israel is considered to be a main entry point for human traffickers.

A spokesman for Aharonovitch told the Post zthat the minister was aware of the problems of human trafficking in Israel and that the issue needed to be tackled; however, he added that there was little connection between the trafficking and the cancellation of visa requirements for Russian visitors.

He also said that the number of women arriving from Russia was much lower than those from other countries and that countries with border policies stricter than Israel's still had to contend with women and men being smuggled in for illegal work purposes.

However, Chaikin countered that "a legitimate Russian passport can be obtained quite easily," pointing out that the women are not necessarily from Russia, but coming through Russia from other countries in the Former Soviet Union block and Eastern Europe.

"Its like the [Tourism] Ministry was born yesterday," she continued. "They should really do their research and check the field before making such decisions. They have only thought about the financial benefits."

According to the US State Department's 2007 Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP), which was released last June, Israel has made efforts to prevent such activities, but still "does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking."

In the 2006 report, Israel was listed on the Tier 2 (Watch List) category - one level before the US imposes sanctions on a country. Russia currently appears in the same category.

"We need to be ready to go back to that [level of problems]," continued Chaikin. "Our status has improved, but if this [visa] change is not properly monitored, we could end up back where we were." Although she believes it is most likely too late to prevent the visa change from going ahead, Chaikin said the government must still take steps to continue fighting human trafficking.

"Now there need to be even better checks of people entering the country, and closer attention must be paid to groups of young women traveling here," she said, adding that advertisements were needed to raise public awareness and to advise slave trade victims on where to receive help if they needed it.

Government-appointed attorney Rachel Gershoni, the national coordinator in the battle against trafficking, refused to comment on the pending visa arrangement between Israel and Russia.

Adapted from: Ruth Eglash. "NGOs warn against plan to increase Russian visas." The Jerusalem Post. 23 October 2007.

MTV, Rain Campaign Against Human Trafficking

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:26:00 GMT

MTV, one of the world's largest and influential television network, has launched ``End Exploitation and Trafficking'' (EXIT), a global campaign to raise awareness about human trafficking. Along with Thai star Tata Young, Korea's pop singer Rain has joined in the action as the front man for the Asia Pacific region.

``This is a form of slavery that still exists today, and I don't think enough people are aware of that,'' said Simon Goff, 30, campaign director for MTV EXIT, told The Korea Times at MTV Korea in central Seoul.

Individuals are denied their basic human rights and are usually tricked or coerced into prostitution, domestic servitude or other labor, according to the United States Trafficking Victims Protections Act (TVPA). After drugs, it is the second largest illegal trade in the world, and generates about $10 billion every year. Its total market value is around $32 billion.

The U.N. International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that 2.5 million people worldwide are victims, of which over half live in Asia Pacific. The majority of them are women and children, most of whom are sexually exploited, Goff said.

It is shocking and sad that the majority of these trafficked and exploited people are women and children. I hope I can be of help to those battling for these people,'' Rain was quoted as saying, according to MTV Korea.

Goff explained that the issue ``was getting some attention from the media but certainly not directed toward young people… We're the biggest broadcaster in the world so we have the ability to target messages and target our audience, so on a pro-social level it works very well.

It's also part of MTV's overall commitment to not just entertain our audiences but to educate them on social issues that are going on, and affecting young people around the world,'' he said. Launched in 2003, MTV EXIT's campaign theme was inspired by a music festival in Serbia. It receives support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

In every country, (celebrities') involvement increases the impact on massive messages immeasurably. If you put out a documentary, x number of people will watch it; if you put something with Rain in it… it will quadruple the number of people tuning into it,'' he said.

Actress Angelina Jolie, for example, hosted a documentary titled ``Inhuman Trafficking'' and supermodel and photographer Helena Christensen and Pelle Almqvist from Swedish rock band the Hives presented short films for MTV EXIT. Last summer, there was also a large-scale concert tour across Europe.

On Saturday and Sunday, a series of street performances featuring highlights of the documentary and live skits created a buzz in Daehakno and Hongdae, two hot spots in northern Seoul.

In countries like Korea and Japan where human trafficking is less reported, ``it is a difficult issue. We have these issues in Western Europe as well,'' said the British native. Nobody likes to be told they're an exploited country… but it's important to acknowledge that it's happening.''

According to the June 2007 U.S. State's Trafficking in Persons (T.I.P.) Report, Korea is classified as a Tier One country, meaning that the government fully complies with the TVPA. But Korean men flocking to Southeast Asia for sex has recently been gaining media coverage. With the escalating number of foreign brides here, traffickers have been abusing the brokered international marriage system. And yet, Korea is primarily considered a source country.

The biggest surprise I've found while looking into this is the fact that there are still Korean women being trafficked -- especially given that Korea is a developed country,'' Goff said. Korean women and girls are trafficked internally to the U.S., Canada and Mexico, according to the T.I.P. Report.

As soon as you start talking about prostitution you are obviously in a quite sensitive area that in any culture nobody really wants to acknowledge what's going on. So with the campaign we try not to go down into it too much,'' he said.

The MTV documentary provides a broad spectrum of the issue. Though only 30 minutes long and very fast-paced, the film gives viewers an in-depth look at the matter and makes it approachable at an individual level. It features seven people: three victims, a trafficker, a consumer (a young man who buys sex), a policeman pursuing traffickers and a social worker helping survivors of trafficking.

As these individuals courageously testify to the horrors of human trafficking, the documentary touches the core of the issue -- how it petrifies individual lives. Its music video-like audiovisual also speaks well to an audience whose attention span is rather short. Rain fans should not expect to see his signature smile as he narrates the film.

Future of Trafficking
As for the future of the human trafficking issue, Goff said, ``I think it'll get through there… Obviously 20 years ago, HIV/AIDS campaign started coming out and it was a bit taboo at the time. But the government began to understand the importance.'' The director had also been part of MTV's 2002 HIV/AIDS campaign ``Staying Alive,'' in which stars like Diddy and Alicia Keys participated.

This is tied in with national security issues so governments are interested in doing something about it... But now it's time for the guy in the streets to do something about it so they can start to sort of make as stand against it as well,'' he said. However, Goff pointed out that organized criminal networks primarily run the lucrative trafficking business in countries like Korea and Japan, which not only makes it difficult to gather exact statistics but also makes it challenging to crack down.

It is thus up to individuals to initiate a change. ``As a consumer you're part of this issue,'' said the director, explaining that consumers in Korea and elsewhere could well be eating shrimp that involves forced labor. As Bridget, a social worker helping victims recover says in the film, ``If everyone is aware that we are part of the problem and part of the solution then we can exercise our responsibility to uphold social justice for all.''

Tune into the documentary, to premiere on Korea's MTV channel at 10:20 p.m., Oct. 27 (Sat.). Catch the reruns at 9:20 p.m., Oct. 29 (Mon.) and 5:30 p.m., Oct. 31 (Wed.). No English subtitles.

For English and other language versions, visit www.mtvexit.org. You can view video clips, links to related organizations, as well as ways in which you can become involved. The Korean version featuring Rain is yet to be posted.

Based in Bangkok, MTV EXIT Asia was launched across Thailand, India, China and the Philippines. After Korea it will continue on to Japan, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Adapted from: Lee Hyo-won. "MTV, Rain Campaign Against Human Trafficking." The Korea Times. 23 October 2007.

Council of Europe Convention Against Trafficking in Human Beings Will Enter into Force

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:28:00 GMT

The Council of Europe Convention against Trafficking in Human Beings (CETS n° 197) will enter into force on 1 February 2008, following the ratification by Cyprus as the tenth country to ratify it.

On this occasion Terry Davis, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, made the following statement:

“The Convention is deliberately hard on traffickers and makes a clear difference for the victims of this crime. These victims will be offered comprehensive assistance and protection of their human rights.

Europe is finally going to use this new and far-reaching instrument to fight this modern form of slavery. Ten ratifications take us over the threshold required for the Convention to enter into force, but the Convention will use its full potential when it is ratified by other countries in Europe and beyond.

The fact that this treaty has been agreed within the Council of Europe extends its application to all European countries, which include countries of origin, transit and destination of the victims of trafficking. It is also open to non-European countries and therefore provides a global response to a global problem. “

The main features of the new Convention include:

compulsory assistance measures and a recovery and reflection period of at least 30 days for the victims of trafficking;
the possibility to deliver residence permits to victims not only on the basis of cooperation with the law enforcement authorities, but also on humanitarian grounds;
the possibility to criminalise “the clients”;
a non-punishment clause for the victims of trafficking;
a strengthened international cooperation system and an independent monitoring mechanism, GRETA, which will monitor the proper implementation of the Convention by the Parties.

Adapted from: "Council of Europe Convention Against Trafficking in Human Beings Will Enter into Force." Coucil of Europe. 25 October 2007.

Trafficking 'Potentially' a Huge Problem in Ireland

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:30:00 GMT

The Minister for Justice, Brian Lenihan, has said human trafficking has the potential to become a significant problem in Ireland.

Mr Lenihan was speaking in the Dáil during this morning's debate of the second stage of the Criminal Law Human Trafficking Bill. He said the Government was committed to tackling the crime and recognised the need to draw together the various Government departments in combating it.

His comments came after the arrest of one suspect as part of an investigation into an international child trafficking ring.

Dutch police announced last night that 19 arrests of suspected traffickers were made in Holland, Spain, Belgium, Britain, the United States and Ireland. It says Nigerian children, allegedly controlled through voodoo threats, were trafficked into Holland and forced to work as prostitutes in several European countries including France, Italy and Spain.

The suspect arrested in Ireland, on a European Arrest Warrant, is Peter Sarfo and he is due back before the High Court next week. It is understood there is no evidence of any children being trafficked into Ireland.

This investigation into the disappearance of Nigerian children in Holland has been ongoing for over a year. It uncovered a child trafficking ring, whereby Nigerian children, mostly girls controlled by voodoo threats, were sent to Amsterdam with fake documents and told to apply for asylum.

The young girls were then moved from care centres and forced into prostitution. More than 130 went missing and several victims have been found on the streets of France, Italy and Spain as well as Holland.

In a series of raids the Dutch found 10 migrants and arrested 13 people, while six other suspects have been arrested in Spain, Belgium, Britain, the United States and Ireland.

Adapted from: "Trafficking 'potentially' a huge problem." RTE News. 25 October 2007.

Ireland Criticised in Child Trafficking Report by Amnesty International

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:33:00 GMT

Ireland has been criticised in an Amnesty International report for a lack of child trafficking legislation and inadequate treatment for mentally ill children.

The Amnesty International Report for 2007 is an assessment of human rights worldwide. The report also claims that counter-terrorism laws could pose a potential threat to free speech in Britain.

The so called 'war on terror' and the ongoing conflict in Darfur are two of the principle issues raised in the report. But how Ireland treats young people with mental disabilities and the Irish record on human trafficking do not escape criticism.

Noeleen Hartigan of the Amnesty International Irish Section claims that victims of trafficking are currently criminalised rather than supported. The treatment of children with mental disabilities in adult inpatient facilities is in direct contravention of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, according to Amnesty International.

Adapted from: "Ireland criticised in child trafficking report." RTE News. 23 May 2007.

Irish Minister of Justice Takes Note of Child Trafficking

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:36:00 GMT

Minister for Justice Brian Lenihan has warned that human trafficking could become a major problem in Ireland if the issue is not addressed.

Mr Lenihan was speaking during a Dáil debate on the second stage of the Criminal Law (Human Trafficking) Bill 2007. The Bill, if passed by the Oireachtas, will make it an offence to recruit, transport, transfer or harbour a person for the purpose of sexual or labour exploitation, or the removal of their organs.

The Minister said the Government was fully committed to taking a "holistic approach" to tackling human trafficking. "[The Government] recognises the need to draw together all the work that is being done across the various departments and agencies," he said. He added that although there is "no evidence of an appreciable problem" of trafficking into Ireland, "any level is deplorable".

"Trafficking into Ireland is not a significant problem, however it is a potential problem and could grow without remedial action," Mr Lenihan said. Mr Lenihan was speaking as gardaí announced they have arrested a man in Dublin in connection with a Dutch investigation into a child trafficking ring that allegedly used voodoo to force Nigerian children into prostitution in Europe.

The man was arrested by gardaí under a European arrest warrant on October 10th and will appear before the High Court on October 31st.

His arrest is part of an international operation involving six police forces. Dutch authorities, who have been investigating the disappearance of Nigerian children in the Netherlands for over a year, announced yesterday they had arrested 19 suspected traffickers.

Thirteen suspects were arrested in raids in the Netherlands, while the other six were arrested in Ireland, Spain, Belgium, Britain and the United States. It is believed that up to 130 Nigerian children, mostly girls, have been trafficked into the Netherlands by a criminal ring who controlled them using voodoo threats.

The children were sent to the country with false passports, told to apply for asylum, and then taken by the traffickers from the facilities in which they were placed by the Dutch state. They were then forced to work as prostitutes in several European countries, including France, Italy and Spain.

Gardaí said there is no evidence to suggest any of the children were trafficked into Ireland.

Adapted from: Clodagh Mulvey. "Lenihan issues warning on human trafficking risk." The Irish Times.
25 October 2007.

Human Trafficking Case on Long Island, New York

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:48:00 GMT

Slavery trial in New York may help highlight human trafficking.

Local authorities are hoping a Muttontown, New York couple's conviction on slavery charges will make people more aware of human trafficking - a problem they say is far worse than most people suspect.

Authorities say it is likely that numerous people are brought to Long Island each year to be used as slaves, but that it is nearly impossible to know how many, especially because the victims in such cases are usually terrified of reporting their situations to the police.

"Often, the victims don't speak the language, they are living in very isolated conditions, and they are distrustful of the police," said Nassau Det. Lt. Andrew Fal, who is a member of the Long Island Human Trafficking Task Force, which includes representatives from Nassau and Suffolk counties, New York State and the U.S. attorney's office. "They fear that if they complain, they will be arrested or deported themselves."

Awareness of human trafficking has skyrocketed in the past several years, since Congress passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act in 2000, according to Andrea Bertone, director of HumanTrafficking.org, a Web site funded by the U.S. Department of State.

Since then, many states, including New York just this spring, have passed their own human trafficking laws, making it easier for state and local prosecutors to bring traffickers to justice. The federal government is also funding 42 task forces on trafficking, including the one on Long Island.

In a speech earlier this month at Touro Law Center in Central Islip, Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota said he was convinced that there are hundreds of homes in Long Island and the metropolitan area where immigrants are being held captive. Spota's numbers come from multi-jurisdictional investigations of massage parlors and escort services from 2002 to 2004, said Bob Clifford, a spokesman for Spota's office.

Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice said through a spokesman that she hopes the conviction of Varsha Sabhnani and her husband, Mahender, will encourage victims to come forward.

"It would irresponsible to think this type of exploitation isn't more widespread," said Eric Phillips, a spokesman for Rice.

Bertone agreed. "Cases like this can shine light on this issue and maybe promote the change in attitudes toward people who are here in very abusive situations," she said.

NOW PRISON

In approving the initial bail arrangement, U.S. District Judge Thomas Platt said "For all practical purposes," their home would be turned into "a jail at their own expense."

COST

NOW: $15,000/day or $5.475 million/year for both

IN PRISON: $133.92 per day or $48,880/year

(includes food, security, all ongoing operations)

(average for two prisoners in federal prison system, source Bureau of Prisons. divide by two if you prefer numbers for each.)

SIZE

NOW: 5,898 square feet, or 983 square feet per person (assuming all four children live there per article 6/1/07)

IN PRISON: As little as 60 square feet per person (per GAO report; refers to minimum)

ACCESS TO PHONES

NOW: One phone line and one fax line, both monitored All calls in English

IN PRISON: 300 minutes per month on monitored lines Calls to attorneys not monitored

PERMITTED TO LEAVE

NOW: To visit attorneys, attend religious services or see doctors, accompanied by guards and wearing monitors

Adapted from: ANN GIVENS, " Slave trial may help highlight human trafficking."
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/nassau/ny-bzmore185505916dec18,0,765807.story. 17 December 2007.

US Monitors Uganda on Human Trafficking

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 00:44:00 GMT

THE US has placed Uganda on its watchlist of countries dogged by human trafficking. According to the 2007 US Trafficking in Persons Report, Uganda falls in “Tier 2”, which refers to countries that do not meet minimum standards of combating human trafficking but are making significant efforts to ensure compliance.

Although Uganda is a source, transit and a destination for trafficking in persons, it does not have a specific law addressing the phenomenon, revealed Rogers Kasirye, the executive director of Uganda Youth Development Link.

Kasirye told a consultative workshop organised by the Uganda Women Parliamentary Association at Ridar Hotel in Seeta, Mukono yesterday that Uganda had not ratified the Palermo Protocol on fighting trafficking although it signed it in 2000.

Parliament recently allowed the chairperson of the Women MPs, Winnie Masiko, to move a private members’ Bill on human trafficking. Kasirye said although there was scanty information on the actual numbers of persons trafficked; boys were trafficked as early as 10 years and girls at 15 years.

Women and girls are more vulnerable because of their gender roles, he added.
He noted that internal trafficking was the highest form, with children brought to Kampala and Mukono from Karamoja, Kisoro, Rakai, Lyantonde, Mbarara, Masaka, Fort Portal, Luwero, Bugerere and Kayunga. The victims, he said, are taken by the traffickers to work as sex slaves in lodges, do manual labour and dance in bars.

Others are taken for marriage, sacrifice, cross-border trade, while others end up as street children. On cross-border trafficking, Kasirye noted that Ugandan children were being exchanged for guns and medicine in Kenya.

The women legislators had invited selected male counterparts to sensitise them on the subject, with a view to seeking their support when the Bill is debated.

Adapted from: Joyce Namutebi," US monitors Uganda on human trafficking."
http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/13/602562 17 December 2007.

American Anthropologist Comments on Global Efforts to Reduce Human Trafficking

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 15:16:00 GMT

An international monitoring project designed to combat human trafficking is flawed, according to Brown University anthropology professor Kay Warren.

Warren made her remarks during this year’s Robert G. Mead Jr. Lecture, held in the Student Union Theatre on November 8, 2007. The lecture, on human trafficking around the world, was part of the University’s celebration of International Week.

Warren is the Charles B. Tillinghast Jr. ’62 Professor in International Studies at Brown, where she directs the Politics, Culture, and Identity Program at the Watson Institute for International Studies.

She said a Trafficking in Persons program (TIP) was created by the U.S. State Department to measure countries’ levels of compliance with international norms in what are called TIP reports. However, she says, the TIP program lacks the measures needed for accurate results.

She defined human trafficking as “the international recruitment and transportation of individuals, especially women and children, which involves some form of coercion with the goal of exploitation for financial gain.”

Any form of labor could be the subject of trafficking, she said, but “in practice, there has been a much narrower understanding of trafficking, which focuses mostly on women and children and sexual exploitation.”

The Colombia-to-Japan trade fits into this category. Women, mostly in their 20s, are recruited from Colombia to go to Japan for the country’s sex entertainment industry, she said.

“That may range from anything from bar hostessing with no touching at all, to what would be regarded as coercive and violent sexual exploitation,” said Warren. “The TIP reports are widely circulated four-tier rankings designed to reward those judged to be in full compliance and to sanction those that fail both to recognize human trafficking and to embrace the global discipline combating this transnational crime,” Warren said.

“My analyses show how state policies and practices in Colombia and Japan have reworked American standards in striking ways – being that these and other countries jockey to keep their U.S. State Department rankings high. It’s hysterical to watch in practice.”

She said that countries take the protocol and “try to change it with another national, domestic agenda. The protocol actually morphs in this process. It might, for instance, take on a new identity as an anti-immigrant vehicle. “Even as these countries are trying to play with this imposition from the U.S. government, they also want high rankings,” she said. “Everyone wants to be a tier 1.”

Colombia, a source country for trafficking, has a high tier ranking, Warren said, noting that it is “working very hard to reform its morals.” Japan, on the other hand, through 2004, was ranked tier 2. “It hurt their reputation,” Warren said. “Japan is the second largest economy in the world. It’s a sophisticated place.”

But it has been hard for Japan to move out of tier 2 status, Warren said: “Japan has a one billion dollar sex entertainment industry. It’s part of their corporate culture.” She said the global estimate of 600,000 to 800,000 trafficking victims each year has been used in government reports as a measure of a global tragedy, but asked, “Where did those numbers come from? There was no methodology.”

She asked, “Is criminal disorder actually defeated by these anti-trafficking processes? It’s not clear to me. Anti-trafficking policies have had important effects on state policies through the legal system, but it’s unclear to me that they have had very effective consequences for transnational organized crime.”

Added Warren, “The issue is: Would there be another way to measure, and another kind of methodology, that one could develop that would target the criminals?”

Adapted from: Sherry Fisher,"Speaker says efforts to reduce human trafficking ineffective."
The UConn Advance. 26 November 2007.

Victim in Trafficking Case Details Ex-wrestler's Control over Women

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 15:17:00 GMT

Strung out on drugs and reeling from the death of her daughter, Lexi thought she had hit rock bottom in that Cobb County, Georgia extended-stay hotel.

Then came the muscle-bound man in the black SUV. Former pro wrestler Harrison 'Hardbody' Norris Jr., shown giving his own opening argument, lured women by promising to turn them into wrestlers, but testimony by one of the women, 'Lexi,' illustrated how it was really a sex trafficking ring.

He pulled up to Lexi as night fell on a gas station parking lot off Windy Hill Road in June 2005. He introduced himself as "Hardbody" and asked Lexi whether she had ever considered a job in professional wrestling. She was flattered.

The guy seemed legit. He pulled out fliers from his training facility: the Southstar Championship Wrestling Alliance. And the eight women inside his GMC Denali said they were wrestling understudies, too. No matter that they were wearing mini-skirts and stiletto heels.

"Being on the streets, you get tired," she would say later. "This seemed like something positive in my life." Lexi disappeared into the SUV with the "HARDBDY" license plate and hoped it would take her to something better.

Instead, a federal jury ruled last week, 30-year-old Lexi had entered a sex trafficking ring run by Harrison "Hardbody" Norris Jr. The former pro wrestler was found guilty of peonage, forced labor, aggravated sexual abuse and sex trafficking involving Lexi and four other victims. In essence, he turned them into sex slaves at his two Cartersville homes. Jurors also found Norris, 41, guilty of conspiracy charges involving three other women.

Norris, who will be sentenced Feb. 28, faces life in prison under a 2000 law that has made it easier to punish those who force people into labor. No longer do prosecutors need shackles to prove a case. The anti-human-trafficking law recognizes that tools of imprisonment can be financial, psychological and physical. In a 2 1/2-week trial, the government painted Norris as a master of all three.

The testimony from "Lexi" — the name given to her in Norris' home — helped build that case. (Her real name is being withheld because she is the victim of a sex crime.) She declined to talk outside the courtroom, leaving some questions about her life unanswered.

The following account is taken from Lexi's day on the witness stand. Norris, who represented himself at trial, argued that the women had plenty of chances to leave. In cross-examining Lexi, he asked why she never cried out for help to people she encountered: doctors in the hospital, authorities in jail or security guards at nightclubs.

But jurors sided with Lexi. In sometimes graphic detail, she explained how she felt trapped in his web for nearly three months. Then one morning, with the help of a razor blade, she cut her way free. For Norris, that was the beginning of the end.

The night Lexi hopped into the Denali, she and the other girls hit Latino clubs around metro Atlanta. Men would pay them $5 for a dance. Lexi didn't think much of it when the women handed the money to Norris.

Just before daybreak, the group arrived at side-by-side homes along a suburban street in Cartersville, 40 miles northwest of Atlanta. "I'd been up for I don't know how long," Lexi told jurors from the witness stand, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. "I was exhausted."

Her grueling initiation was just beginning. Lexi had one week to master seven lists. Some were expectations to memorize. Others were duties to practice. They had names like "Hardbody's 10 Commandments" and "The Hallway of Pain."

Norris, a former Army sergeant and Gulf War veteran, ran the homes with military-like precision. He slept in the "General's Quarters." Norris told Lexi she was a "soldier" and pinned a stripe on her chest. She would be assigned a "team leader" named "Athena" whose real name was Aimee Allen, whom prosecutors called an unindicted co-conspirator in the case against Norris.

"We were never allowed to be alone," Lexi said. There was even a sign-in sheet for the bathroom. Norris, a 2001 national Toughman champion, put them on a strict diet. A typical dinner was three hard-boiled eggs, grapefruit juice and wheat toast.

Resisting Norris' orders didn't seem to be an option, Lexi said, something he made clear in one of her first sessions in the gym Norris built out back. Lexi, an asthmatic, had forgotten her inhaler. She was wheezing in the ring. Norris said she could retrieve it, but at a cost: Her entire team would be fined. So Lexi pressed on without it and nearly collapsed.

She sensed a strong bond forming with her teammates. "It felt like I was actually starting to belong somewhere." The training regimen grew more oppressive as the week wore on, however, particularly the session called "HB Training." "You think it's going to be something in the ring," she said. "But it wasn't. It was sex with [Norris]."

It wouldn't be the last time she had sex at Norris' request. Less than two weeks into her stay, he drove Lexi to a home in Rabun County for the last duty on her list: CPT, which meant "cut party training." "Cut parties" were forced orgies.

"I told him I really didn't feel comfortable doing anything like that," said Lexi, who had never been a prostitute. Norris, the man providing a roof over her head, somehow made her feel guilty. "He asked me was I 'in' or not?"

The pressure was compounded by the knowledge that her teammates would be fined if she refused. Lexi didn't want to let them down. She went into the living room, where three men were sitting on a couch. As Norris and other women watched, Lexi had sex with all three.

Soon after, she found out what really was expected at those Latino clubs.

The women would leave the Cartersville homes wearing long coats over their skimpy outfits. Norris' wife, after all, lived there with their daughter, the youngest of his three children. At the clubs, the women didn't always stop at a $5 dance. An additional $200 would buy one hour of sex in a car or a nearby hotel.

At the end of each night, Norris would divide up the money. Half went to him. Much of the rest went into envelopes labeled for various expenses, from rent to manicures. And if any of the women broke a rule, she'd have to pay a fine into a piggy bank labeled with the transgression. One was called "Talks Too Much."

When Norris bought Lexi's anti-seizure medication — she had diabetes — he added it to her bill. Lexi was working as a prostitute but falling into debt. By day, she learned wrestling moves and enjoyed announcing the matches. But there was nothing "pro" about this wrestling. Norris' friends and neighbors would watch. Nobody ever paid.

The real money rolled in when Norris would put on a leather trench coat filled with condoms and get behind the wheel of the Denali. Sometimes he'd take the women to other states. One trip, to a North Carolina casino, ended in disaster. The police pulled Norris over on suspicion of drunken driving. He was sober, but an ID check revealed Lexi had an outstanding warrant for a probation violation. She went to jail.

Norris told her to keep an eye out for recruits, "girls who didn't have anywhere to go." Lexi was surrounded by authorities but never thought of reporting Norris. She owed him money. "And I just thought it would make things worse for me," she said. "I'll be honest, there was never a time when the law worked for me."

That was about to change.

Lexi had grown close to "Sierra," another new member of the group. They'd chat for hours in the back of the Denali. Eventually, they realized they shared a goal: to escape Norris' control. While visiting a Michigan casino, Norris denied Sierra's request to see her sister. Lexi protested, and Norris flew into a rage. "He threatened to put me through the wall of the hotel."

Lexi believed him. She had heard Norris beat one of the other women. That night Norris didn't let Lexi have dinner. She suffered a diabetic seizure and ended up in the hospital. The time had come, she thought, to leave.

Lexi informed Norris of her decision. He tried to talk her out of it and reminded Lexi that she still owed him for medication. They agreed that one last trick would be enough to pay Norris back and buy a Greyhound ticket home, provided she also completed her chores. Lexi's teammates chipped in, helping her finish the list.

Lexi prostituted herself and asked Norris for bus fare. But he remembered a Western-style brothel portrait he had made with Lexi and the other girls. Now, if she left, it would be useless. She couldn't leave without paying him for that, too.

The next morning, Lexi's roommate — a "team leader" who was supposed to keep an eye on her — dozed off. Norris was in a bedroom down the hall, so walking out would be too risky. Lexi entered the bathroom and pretended to take a shower. With the water running, she pulled out a bladed tool used to scrape dead skin off her feet. She cut through the window screen, climbed up on the vanity and escaped — feet first.

Lexi tapped on Sierra's window, but there was no answer. She'd have to come back.

She ran to a nearby shop, where she asked a worker to call the police. Then she called Sierra's cellphone and begged her to make a run for it. The police were coming, it would be OK. "[Sierra] thanked me. She was afraid that I had left her."

Police arrested Norris and realized this was no ordinary prostitution ring. He had false imprisonment charges pending. A year earlier, three women shopping in Smyrna had dashed out of a store to a passing policeman. They said Norris was holding them against their will.

Now federal investigators took over and raided his Cartersville homes. During Norris' trial, prosecutors displayed one of the seized items. Lexi identified it as the chore list. Dozens of duties were beneath each woman's name.

A prosecutor asked Lexi to read the word scribbled across the bottom of the column with her name.

Lexi glanced at Norris, dressed in a bright orange jumpsuit. Then she smiled and answered:

"Gone."

Adapted from: BRIAN FEAGANS, Victim in trafficking case details ex-wrestler's control over women." The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 25 November 2007.

Former Wrestler Found Guilty on Human Trafficking Charges in Georgia

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 15:24:00 GMT

A federal jury returned guilty verdicts against former professional wrestler Harrison Norris Jr.

A federal jury returned guilty verdicts against former professional wrestler Harrison Norris Jr., known in the wrestling world as "Hardbody Harrison," on multiple charges of sex trafficking and slavery related to a scheme to force women into prostitution, announced Rena J. Comisac, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, and David E. Nahmias, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia.

According to the charging documents and evidence presented at trial, Norris kidnapped some of his victims and lured others to come live with him by promising to train them as professional wrestlers. Once he got the women to his home, however, he instead forced them to work for him as prostitutes. The witnesses at trial described beatings Norris administered and threats he made to bend the women to his will. On one occasion, Norris
head-butted a woman and threatened to throw her through a hotel window when she would not engage in sex with two customers.

Witnesses also testified that Norris imposed a strict military structure in his home. The defendant assigned each of his victims to a "squad" overseen by an "enforcer," a woman conspiring with Norris to keep the victims in servitude. Witnesses also testified that Norris referred to himself as "the General"; sometimes made his victims sleep with him in "the
General's Quarters"; and pierced the victims' skin with a mark of their "rank" in the operation. Numerous witnesses also testified about parties at which the women were forced to have sex with numerous men and sometimes with other women. One woman testified that Norris forced her to sexually assault another woman during one of these parties. Evidence at trial
established that forced acts of prostitution occurred at Hispanic nightclubs, in apartments, at hotels, in the back of Norris' truck, and in North Carolina and Northern Georgia. The victims also testified that they were forced to have sex with Norris.

In addition to forcing the victims to work as prostitutes, the defendant made the women work in and around his two homes in Cartersville, Ga. Witnesses testified that Norris required the victims to haul trees, lay sod, and paint. The evidence at trial further established that Norris set strict rules and fined the women for such infractions as talking too much or failing to exercise. In addition, Norris kept the women financially indebted to him by charging them for cigarettes, medicine, and food. Norris then told the victims that they could not leave until their debts were paid, all while continuing to increase the debt he claimed he was owed.

The jury convicted Norris after two days of deliberation. In rendering its verdict, the jury specifically found that Norris' offenses involved aggravated sexual abuse. Because of this special finding, Norris faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

"This jury has vindicated the rights of the numerous young women this defendant exploited, abused, and forced into prostitution. The Department of Justice will continue to prosecute vigorously matters, such as this one, involving the sexual exploitation of young women," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Rena J. Comisac.

United States Attorney David E. Nahmias said, "The evidence at trial clearly proved that Norris used force and threats of force against the victims forcing them to work as prostitutes against their will. Sex trafficking and other forced labor are forms of modern day slavery and cannot be tolerated."

Human trafficking prosecutions such as this one are a top priority of the Department of Justice. In the last seven fiscal years, the Civil Rights Division, in conjunction with the U.S. Attorneys' Offices, has increased by nearly seven-fold the number of human trafficking cases filed in court as compared to the previous seven fiscal years. In FY 2007, the Department
obtained a record number of convictions in human trafficking prosecutions. This case was investigated by special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and officers of the Atlanta Police Department, Human Trafficking Task Force.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Susan Coppedge and Department of Justice Civil Rights Attorney Karima Maloney prosecuted the case.

Adapted from: U.S. Department of Justice, "Former Wrestler Found Guilty on Human Trafficking Charges in Georgia." USNewswire. 23 November 2007.

Spotlight on Human Trafficking in the UK

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 15:29:00 GMT

The scale of human trafficking in Swindon and Wiltshire, UK, will come under the microscope at a meeting.

Stop the Traffik has organised a meeting for 27 November 2007. Those at the event will hear from Stop The Traffik's project manager and Emma Triplett who runs Fair Trade company Hatti Trading.

The event will also be addressed by a senior officer from Wiltshire Police who will reveal details of the force's involvement in Operation Pentamater - a national drive to halt human trafficking for the sex trade.

"People do say that this sort of thing doesn't happen here," said Sally Parker, regional representative for Stop The Traffik. "But that just isn't the case, it is very much here in this country and in Wiltshire.

This event is about raising its profile because for much of the time we here in Wiltshire will bury our heads in the sand over issues like this." Planning for the event began earlier this year after issues of modern day slavery were highlighted at the time of the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade.

So far organisers have contacted politicians, teachers, faith and church leaders, Amnesty and victim support officers to drum up interest. "People can change their eating habits so that the foods they eat are fairly traded which means those involved in its production are not exploited. At the event we will talk about other changes we can make," said Sally.

The meeting will be staged at the University of Bath's Oakfield Campus in Marlowe Avenue, Swindon from 7.30pm.

Adapted from: Matthew Pardo, "Spotlight on Human Trafficking." thisiswindon.co.uk. 23 November 2007.

Filipino 'Sex Slaves' Rescued in Malaysia

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 15:32:00 GMT

Three women who were rescued from a flesh trade in Malaysia on November 9, 2007 and repatriated to the Philippines on November 15, 2007 filed charges of illegal recruitment and human trafficking against their recruiter.

The Manila Standard Today newspaper said Philippine Vice President Noli de Castro, the presidential adviser for overseas Filipino workers, accompanied the unnamed complainants to the Department of Justice in Manila, where they filed the charges. The recruiter is an unnamed Filipina.

In their complaint, the women recounted that a Filipina recruited them to work in Malaysia as waitresses. They said a Malaysian immigration officer facilitated their entry into Malaysia even without proper documents obtained from Philippine government agencies that regulate overseas employment.

Once in Malaysia, they were force to provide sexual services to customers. They were not allowed to leave a house where they were confined. They claimed there are 40 other Filipinas in the sex den in Labuan and the recruiter is hiring more from the Philippines.

Adapted from: Windsor Genova, "Filipino 'Sex Slaves' Rescued In Malaysia Sue Recruiters For Human Trafficking." allheadlinenews.com. 24 November 2007.

Arrests Made in Sex Trafficking Probe in the United Kingdom

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 15:34:00 GMT

Nine people have been arrested after a series of raids on 10 suspected brothels in Devon and Cornwall. The seven women and two men were arrested on suspicion of offences in connection with running a brothel.

The week of raids was part of Operation Pentameter - a national operation aimed at targeting people trafficking.

Twelve sex workers, all foreign nationals, were taken into protective custody but 11 told officers they had not been working against their will. The sex workers were from England, Korea, Latvia, the Czech Republic and Thailand.

One woman from China remains in protective custody after telling officers she had been coerced into sex work. Police raided addresses in St Austell, Truro, the Torbay area, Plymouth, Whimple and Exeter.

More than £12,000 in cash was also seized. The first Operation Pentameter in 2006 freed 84 women and teenage girls from brothels and massage parlours and led to 232 arrests.

It also led to the creation of the Human Trafficking Centre, aimed at stopping the trade and supporting victims.

Adapted from: "Arrests in sex trafficking probe." BBC News. 24 November 2007.

Should Human Trafficking Should be Taught in School in the Philippines?

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 15:36:00 GMT

If this NBI chief agent had his way, the problem of human trafficking and how not to be caught in the traffickers’ snares would be discussed among schoolchildren.

"Law enforcers should go to primary and secondary schools to educate kids, especially young girls, on human trafficking," said Ferdinand Lavin, chief of the National Bureau of Investigation’s Anti-Human Trafficking Division in the Philippines.

“The campaign should be focused on grades five to high school because these minors are often the target of syndicates," he added in a recent informal chat with reporters. He said the campaign should be mounted with the help of Department of Education officials.

"We should strengthen the preventive aspect, perhaps by information dissemination," he said. "IACAT (Inter-agency Council Against Trafficking) should also map out where the victims came from and focus on info dissemination in that particular area."

Lavin said he has long pushed for an information dissemination campaign, even taking up his idea with IACAT officials.

"We already made this appeal to the IACAT but we were told that there was no funding. That’s the problem," he said.

Adapted from: Tina Santos, "Human trafficking should be taught in school." Inquirer.net. 24 November 2007.

Britain Cracks Down on Human Trafficking

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 13:27:00 GMT

Britain is among a number of European countries cracking down on human trafficking, a virulent form of modern-day slavery.

The UK is a main destination in the international human trafficking market and, in the latest drive to stop the crime, police say they are targeting gang leaders and their trade routes.

Joanne is not her real name. She wants to remain anonymous. She says that when she left her war-ravaged home in Rwanda, she thought life would get better.

"It felt like a new chapter, a new life, a new beginning and I was desperate for that," she said. The man who smuggled her into Britain had other plans. "He forced himself on me, then he started bringing different people to gang rape [me]. He'll be [he was] paid in the process," she added.

Joanne says her entire family died in Rwanda's civil war of the 1990's and she had no one to help her. Leaving seemed like a good solution, but when she finally made it to Britain in 2000, another nightmare began.

"My first thought was to escape, but to where? I wanted to kill myself, but didn't have the means to do that. I wish I had died with my family," she said. Joanne is one of thousands here in Britain who have been sold into modern-day sexual slavery.

British government research suggests that 4,000 women involved in the illegal sex trade may have been brought to the country for that purpose, and the number may be twice that. Authorities say they are tightening controls in a new crackdown in hopes of surpassing previous efforts to curb and eliminate the trade.

In operations last year, police freed 84 women and teenage girls from brothels and massage parlors and made over 200 arrests. Detective Chief Superintendent Nick Kinsella, head of Britain's Human Trafficking Center, says the focus must increasingly be on the gangs that run the trade.

"We need to make this, the UK, a hostile environment for traffickers where if they are involved in trafficking activity, it's a high risk, low profit crime," he said. The UK is just one of the European destinations for human traffickers, who focus largely on the richer western European nations, such as Sweden, Germany, France, Spain and the Netherlands.

Nearby, in the Netherlands, figures show a 25 percent rise in the trade since prostitution was legalized in 2000.

To fight the trade, Sweden came up with a unique law in 1999, criminalizing those who buy sex. The penalty is a fine or up to six months' imprisonment. The Swedish government says the law is working and cites a substantial drop in trafficking.

The United Nations is now recommending that other countries consider the Swedish model. Speaking in her therapist's office here in London, Joanne says she was set free after 11 months, because her health began to fail and she was no longer useful to her trafficker. She says he let her go, but gave her devastating news.

"He said, 'I have HIV and I'm pretty sure I have infected you as well.' I went to a clinic and found out I was HIV positive which leads to AIDS and I totally lost my mind," she explained. Sister Patricia Mulhall is a Roman Catholic nun who works with the United Nations in developing legislation to stop the trade in humans.

"A drug is sold, it's gone, but a woman and a girl can be sold over and over and over again," she noted. Sister Mulhall says the message has to get to the men who pay for sex.

"I think we have to tackle the situation head-on. Look at the demanders and challenge the social behavior," she added. Mulhall says if the demand stops, the trade could cease to exist. But, Joanne says she is not hopeful. "It's happening, it is still happening and it's not going to end with me," she said.

Adapted from: Mandy Clark, "Britain Cracks Down on Human Trafficking." Voice of America. 27 November 2007.

West Africa Urged to Reduce Vulnerability of Children to Trafficking

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 13:34:00 GMT

At an international meeting on trafficking in children and armed conflict taking place from 26-28 November in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, the Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Antonio Maria Costa, urged governments of West and Central Africa to reduce the vulnerability of children to human trafficking.

Young victims of human trafficking can be found in many countries of the region: children - drugged, coerced, and forced to carry guns almost as big as themselves - become killers, child soldiers on the frontlines of savage conflicts; boys, with stones tied around their ankles, are forced to dive into dangerous waters to untangle nets (like on Lake Volta); girls, caught up in conflict, are forced into sex slavery; children, who should be at school, are working long hours in coco fields or in mines doing back-breaking work for almost nothing.

Mr. Costa warned that this crime has an impact far beyond the trauma suffered by these children, "for how can West Africa build a peaceful and prosperous future if its youth is being exploited, recycled, and scarred for life?"

Since many child soldiers are hooked on drugs, the UN's drugs chief underlined the need for drug treatment as an integral part of post-conflict rehabilitation.

He also stressed that more attention should be given to the plight of girls who are caught up in conflict situations because "they are twice as vulnerable: first, as victims of rape and sexual harassment perpetrated by armed groups; and second because they are seldom involved in disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration processes, nor provided with special rehabilitation programmes". He pointed out that this misery is compounded by HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases contracted as a result of being victims of human trafficking, leading to further stigmatization, trauma, and disease. "Let's make sure that victims of conflict do not become victims of trafficking", he said.

Noting that internally displaced people and refugees are highly vulnerable, Mr. Costa urged governments to make "extra efforts to ensure that safe havens do not become recruiting grounds for traffickers". He added that "it goes without saying that peacekeepers themselves should abstain from becoming part of the problem. The UN must show zero-tolerance for peacekeepers involved in sexual abuse and exploitation."

Mr. Costa appealed to the private sector in Africa, and doing business in Africa, to ensure that their supply chains and employment practices do not supporting human trafficking, warning that "your reputation is at stake".

He also urged consumers to use their purchasing power more forcefully: "do you really want to eat chocolate, drive on tires, or wear diamonds dripping with the blood and sweat of slave labour?"

To fight human trafficking, Mr. Costa called on all governments of West and Central Africa to implement the UN anti-trafficking Protocol which includes measures designed to criminalize human trafficking, prevent trafficking, prosecute the traffickers, and protect the victims. He also urged them to improve regional cooperation, and collect data on trafficking cases and trends so that policy is evidence-based.

During his visit to Cote d'Ivoire, Mr. Costa met with President Laurent Gbagbo and government ministers, and observed a basketball clinic against child trafficking and child soldiers in the former war-torn region of Bouake

Adapted from: "West Africa urged to reduce vulnerability of children to trafficking." ReliefWeb. 26 November 2007.

Review of the film "Holly"

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 13:54:00 GMT

The inspiration for "Holly," a docudrama about child sex-trafficking, came as Israeli-born producer Guy Jacobson inadvertently wandered into a notorious red light district in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh five years ago.

"It was a dusty street like any other, but suddenly, I was surrounded by 15 little girls -- 5, 6 and 7 years old -- who were aggressively soliciting me for sex," Jacobson said in a phone interview from his Manhattan apartment, now the headquarters of the Redlight Children Campaign he has co-founded to help fight child prostitution. "I was struggling to remove their hands, and most of them realized that I was not a potential client, but one of the littlest girls kept saying, 'I yum yum very good; I no money today, mama-san boxing me,' which meant the madam of her brothel would beat her up. I gave her $20 and walked away, but I knew I had to return and do something about this horrific problem."

In the summer of 2004, Jacobson did return to that dusty street and the adjacent brothels to film "Holly" -- accompanied by 40 bodyguards wielding M-16s to protect the cast and crew from gangsters.

The drama tells of Holly (Thuy Nguyen), a 12-year-old virgin, and Patrick (Ron Livingston), an American smuggler who becomes obsessed with saving her from the pervasive, government-backed industry. It proves to be a fool's errand, and while "Holly" has been lauded on the festival circuit (one reviewer called it "a work of serious, contemplative outrage"), it has also been criticized for "dousing its drama with the cold water of education," in the words of another.

Critics have also noted that it is among several recent films on sex trafficking, including "Trade" and the documentary, "Very Young Girls," which "is working its way into the popular culture since the U.S. Congress passed human trafficking legislation in 2000, said Carol Smolenski of ECPAT-USA (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes-USA). An estimated 2 million child sex workers toil in what the United Nations deems the fastest growing criminal enterprise worldwide.

The hyper-realistic portrayal of such a child's life has made "Holly" a darling of human rights activists (the United Nations hosted a VIP screening with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton [D-N.Y.] on the host committee); The New York Times published two stories on the movie, one also focusing on the Red Light campaign, before it opened in New York two weeks ago, earning a No. 2 slot for all-around box office receipts.

While the prostitution drama may well recoup its budget of several million dollars, the effort was not about the money, Jacobson insisted. "I don't mean to offend anybody, but for me, this is a global crime against humanity, similar to the Holocaust," he said. "And once you see the film, you can no longer say you didn't realize the scope of the problem, only that you don't care."

Jacobson, 44, said it is no coincidence that almost everyone involved in making the film grew up in Israel, including the writer-director, Guy Moshe, and New York financiers Smadar and Amit Kort, who were so moved by early drafts of the script that they vowed to give Jacobson whatever he needed to produce it. "We're used to operating under stress, and making this film was like a miniwar," he said.

Jacobson drew on his experience in Israeli intelligence during the Lebanon War to research "how a 12-year-old prostitute really feels" in Phnom Penh. While posing as a pedophile client, he chatted with the girls, their pimps and clients in cafes and "bought" a time upstairs with various girls in order to photograph their rooms, which were tiny, dirty, and decorated with magazine cutouts of puppies and kittens (he would ask them to take a shower so he could snap pictures and tell them he wasn't in the mood when they returned.)

It took 15 drafts (and Moshe's reworking of the script) to get the tone just right: "Go a bit too far and the film becomes unbearable, and if you don't go far enough, it won't raise awareness," Jacobson said. The filmmakers included neither sex nor nudity in order to avoid exploiting the subject matter.

Moshe said he also drew on his Israeli military service -- in an elite special forces unit in the Gaza Strip during the intifada -- to make the film. His job was to seek out and arrest terrorists, and while he declined to elaborate, he would say, "You're still a child mentally, but you're thrown into situations and experiences that many much older people never go through. It makes you identify more with people enduring the bleaker side of life."

Because of their wartime experiences, neither Moshe nor Jacobson were alarmed when they received a call from Interpol agents just before they were to begin production, reporting that contracts had been taken out on their lives. The filmmakers were advised to leave the country immediately.

"Then just three days before the shoot, we learned officials were going to shut down the movie unless we paid them an obscene amount of money," Moshe said. "We had to negotiate with them around the clock, and that debacle ended with me counting out $60,000 in cash -- with a bodyguard standing behind me -- to a delegate with his own bodyguard."

Moshe and Jacobson smuggled the scenes shot each day to secret locations outside of Cambodia ("That meant I didn't see dailies until 17 days into the shoot," Moshe recalled), and a co-producer was detained at the airport as she tried to leave the country with much of the equipment (she laid low for a week by hiding in seedy hotels under an assumed name).

The scene based on Jacobson's memories of being solicited by a 5-year-old posed a different set of challenges. Moshe obtained his child actors from an orphanage run by a social worker, who wanted to help eradicate the real-life problem. In order to protect the girls, who did not speak English, he taught them their lines phonetically so they did not know what they were saying. ( Two psychologists were on the set.)

"For me, that sequence epitomized what the whole film is about, and how sacred this subject is in a certain way," he said.

The film opens Nov. 23 at the Laemmle Theatres.

Holly
23 November 2007
The Laemmle Theatres.
Naomi Pfefferman, Arts & Entertainment Editor
Jewishjournal.com

Five South Koreans convicted in US over sex-trafficking ring

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 18:32:00 GMT

Five South Koreans were found guilty in a New York court of involvement in a sex-trafficking ring involving a string of brothels across the northeastern United States, officials said.

The five owned or managed brothels in Washington, New York and Connecticut that operated under the cover of massage parlors, spas and acupuncture clinics going by names such as "Magic Health Salon" and "OK Spa."

The five were convicted of conspiring to transport women across state and foreign borders to engage in prostitution and were among 31 people arrested in August last year and charged with immigration and trafficking offences.

The five, named as Sun Daneman, Hyang Ran Kim, Seng Hee Ryan, Jae Shim, and Tae Nam Thompson, face between five and 10 years in jail and are due to be sentenced in March next year.

An investigation began more than two years ago after a South Korean couple who owned a chain of brothels in New York City attempted to bribe an undercover detective to avoid being raided.

The resulting investigation turned up a network of brothels stretching from Rhode Island in the north to Washington, prosecutors said. At one location, investigators discovered more than 2,000 condoms hidden in picnic coolers.

According to prosecutors, the trafficking ring found women in South Korea who wanted to move to the United States and either smuggled them in through Canada or Mexico or provided them with false immigration documents.

The women would incur debts running into tens of thousands of dollars and would be forced to work as prostitutes to pay off their debts.

Adapted from: "Five South Koreans convicted in US over sex-trafficking ring." New York AFP. 10 November 2007.

Israel and Human Trafficking

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 21:56:00 GMT

Thousands of women are being smuggled into Israel where they are constantly subjected to violence and abuse, a new report says.

According to a parliamentary committee, the issue has created a booming sex trade industry which rakes more than $1 billion a year. Findings of the report showed that each year some 3,000 to 5,000 women are smuggled and sold into the prostitution industry where they face danger, threats and violence.

These women are brought into Israel on the false promises of jobs, education and a better future.

"When I was in the Ukraine, I had a difficult life," said Marina, who is a victim of sex slavery. She came to Israel in 1999 at the age of 33 after answering a newspaper advertisement offering the opportunity to study abroad.

"I was taken to an apartment in Ashkelon, and other women there told me I was now in prostitution. I became hysterical, but a guy starting hitting me and then others there raped me."

"I was then taken to a place where they sold me - just sold me!" she said, recalling how she was locked in a windowless basement for a month, drank water from a toilet and was deprived of food.

Like Marina, some trafficked women are brought into Israel legally, while others are smuggled by Bedouins across the border from Egypt. In all cases, the traffickers take away the women's passports before selling them on to pimps.

Sometimes the women are subjected to degrading human auctions, where they are stripped, examined and sold for $8,000-$10,000. The US State Department ranks Israel in the second tier of human trafficking around the world.

Most of these unfortunate women in Israel come from Ukraine, Moldova, Uzbekistan and Russia.

Adapted from: "Israel ranks 2nd in human trafficking." pressTV. 17 Nov 2007.

Israeli State Still Falters on Human Trafficking

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 22:01:00 GMT

Trafficking in human beings for the purpose of slave labor and prostitution is a serious threat to Israel's national security, US Ambassador to Israel Richard Jones told a joint session of the Knesset Committee for Foreign Workers and the Subcommittee on the Trafficking in Women.

"Once the channels of trafficking [humans] have been established then they can easily be used to smuggle drugs, arms and even terrorists into the country," Jones warned those gathered at the meeting, including representatives of the Justice, Interior, Welfare and Social Services ministries, as well as law enforcement officials and non-governmental organizations.

Jones presented the committee with the findings of the US State Department's 2007 annual Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP), which was published in June. Israel was placed in the Tier 2 category of countries who have made efforts to combat trafficking in human beings but have yet to fully comply with the minimum requirements of the US State Department.

Israel's standing slightly improved on the previous year, when it was placed on the report's Tier 2 Watch List, which is just one level higher than the lowest - countries that completely refuse to comply with the State Department's requirements.

Israel's elevation to Tier 2 and off of the watch list was due in part to legislation passed in the Knesset last October, which broadened the definition of human trafficking and outlined stiffer punishments for those caught trafficking humans, explained Jones. However, Israel needed to make a greater effort to actually prosecute the perpetrators and increase awareness among the victims of their rights, he added.

"Israel has made significant progress in combating trafficking into the country but there are still many steps that can and should be taken to improve the situation," Jones said, adding that he hoped by the time of next year's report Israel would be elevated to the optimum Tier 1 status.

Trafficking in humans will lead to drugs, arms and even terrorist smuggling, US Ambassador to Israel Richard Jones said Monday at the Knesset.

"I believe that Israel not only has to make every effort to reach Tier 1 by next year, it actually has no choice but to make it there," MK Ran Cohen (Meretz), chair of the Foreign Workers Committee, told The Jerusalem Post following the meeting. "I think that with all the pressure from politicians interested in this subject we have a good chance of getting there."

Jones pointed to the appointment in June 2006 of Rachel Gershuni, Israel's inter-office liaison on trafficking in persons, as another step in the right direction.

A lawyer by training, Gershuni presented to the committee some of the efforts initiated over the past year, including an agreement with Thailand to ensure basic conditions for workers arriving here. She also said that her department would use the TIP report to evaluate activities in other countries around the world, including leveraging private companies to combat trafficking. Israel's national airline carrier El Al is one example of a company that could be utilized to disseminate information to foreign workers coming into Israel, said Gershuni.

Among other activities to be put in motion in the coming months, Gershuni described the establishment of safe houses countrywide for foreign workers and prostitutes who fall victim to trafficking or slave labor conditions and increased legal assistance for those victims to prosecute their former employees.

Another issue that was raised in the meeting was the handing out of visas to victims of trafficking who want to stay in Israel following their ordeal.

MK Zehava Gal-On (Meretz), head of the Subcommittee on the Trafficking of Women, said a firm policy should be established by the Interior Ministry to issue visas to all foreign nationals that have been enslaved in Israel either for purposes of labor or prostitution. Currently, the ministry assesses each case individually and hands out visas as a humanitarian gesture.

A representative of the Interior Ministry's Population Registry said, "When it has been determined the person is a victim we usually do not have a problem handing out the [required] visas. Our staff has started to undergo training to identify such victims."

"Trafficking in humans is not only a threat to our national borders," Gal-On said. "Fortitude is also measured by how a country protects is weakest people."

Jones ended the meeting by calling on all governmental bodies and NGOs to work together to eliminate trafficking completely from our society.

"Just as traffickers use networks to transfer people around the world, so do governments need to establish networks to prevent or eliminate such exploitation," he said.

Adapted from: RUTH EGLASH, "State still falters on human trafficking." The Jerusalem Post. 20 November 2007.

West African Human Trafficking is Catalyst for Child Abuse

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 22:05:00 GMT

Akissi was not even 10 when she was sent abroad from Togo to work as a domestic servant for a woman who beat her and twice forced chilli peppers into her vagina to punish her.

Now 15 and struggling to care for her 6-month-old baby and a husband who beats her, Akissi's tale was discovered by researchers investigating the psychological effects of child trafficking in West Africa and the way it encourages abuse.

Researchers for U.S.-based non-profit development agency Plan International, who shared their findings with Reuters ahead of Monday's World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse, gave the girl the pseudonym Akissi to protect her identity.

Working with researchers, Akissi drew a "life-line", with flowers to represent good experiences and stones for bad ones.

A green flower marks her return from domestic servitude in Benin to her village in Togo at the age of 12. A black stone indicates when she was raped there before her next birthday.

Akissi is severely traumatised by past and present abuse, and is at serious risk of committing suicide by consuming agricultural chemicals, having already tried to do so once, Plan researchers say.

"There are very few institutions ready to help them ... there is no psychological support for these children. Their families do not understand, and sweep it under the carpet," said Plan's Serigne Mor Mbaye, who worked on the pilot research programme in Togo that interviewed Akissi.

"This really is the tip of the iceberg," he said.

"MODERN SLAVERY"

The U.N. Children's Fund UNICEF estimates that 1.2 million children are trafficked every year into what it calls "the modern-day equivalent of slavery".

This trafficking takes many forms in West Africa, encouraged by a tradition of "placing" young children with families of wealthier relatives to receive an education or learn a trade.

"It's a high-risk practice," Mbaye said.

"Many of those who are placed are victims of abuse. This traditional practice continues to happen, but (social) solidarity does not function like before," he said, adding that many children are placed these days with unrelated strangers.

The Plan research in Togo found most trafficked children went to Nigeria, girls generally as domestic servants and boys working in agriculture, markets or serving food.

Different types of child trafficking networks have sprung up in other parts of West Africa.

Police in tiny Guinea-Bissau uncovered a trafficking network last week when they found over 50 young boys headed to Senegal, where hundreds of children sent from neighbouring countries to attend Koranic schools end up begging for coins on street corners.

"You should have seen the state they were in. Aged between 4 and 21, these exhausted children were barefoot, poorly clothed, some naked from the waist up," said Carlos Abdulai Djalo, governor of the Bafata region where the 52 children were found.

Rights activists have campaigned against the use of "child slave" labour on farms in Ivory Coast and Ghana, which together produce most of the world's cocoa beans. But researchers have said the situation is often more nuanced than appears, with children working on family-owned fields in traditional fashion.

The child trafficking debate has been revived by the arrest last month in Chad of French humanitarian activists on child kidnapping charges over a bid to fly 103 children to Europe.

The children were presented as orphans from Darfur, even though most turned out to be from villages in the Chad/Sudan border area and had at least one living parent. (Editing by Pascal Fletcher)

Adapted from: Alistair Thomson, "African human traffic is catalyst for child abuse." Reuters. 18 Nov 2007.

Lucy Liu Presents MTV Human Trafficking Documentary

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 22:10:00 GMT

Actress Lucy Liu, star of the new ABC series Cashmere Mafia, will present Traffic: An MTV EXIT Special, a documentary on human trafficking that premieres in Singapore today.

The documentary is aimed at raising awareness and increasing prevention of human trafficking in the Asia Pacific. The program is the lead feature of the MTV EXIT campaign across Asia and the Pacific, an expansion of the successful MTV EXIT European campaign that launched in Europe in 2004. MTV EXIT television programming is produced rights-free and free of charge for all broadcasters and organizations.

Lucy Liu joins other Asian celebrities, including Korea’s pop icon Rain, Thailand’s Tata Young, Greater China’s Karen Mok, and Bollywood star and former Miss Universe Lara Dutta, to raise awareness about this issue. A number of different language versions of the documentary have been produced, including English, Korean, Thai, Japanese, Mandarin, Tagalog and Vietnamese, among others. MTV is also working closely with broadcasters in other territories to produce more language versions with local celebrities.

Traffic tells the stories of real people who unknowingly became part of the trafficking chain, including Anna, who was trafficked from the Philippines and forced into prostitution; Eka, an Indonesian woman trafficked into forced domestic servitude and a life of slavery; and Min Aung from Burma, who was trafficked to Thailand and imprisoned for two years in a factory. Their stories are told alongside other people in the trafficking chain, including a trafficker from the Philippines who has been forcing girls into prostitution for over 20 years and a woman who runs a shelter in Singapore for victims of trafficking and other abuses. The documentary also provides information on how individuals can protect themselves against trafficking, as well as what people can do to help end exploitation and trafficking.

"Human trafficking has become a critical human rights issue facing young people across Asia and the Pacific,” said Bill Roedy, the vice chairman of MTV Networks. “Victims are subject to horrendous abuses, including rape and torture, with women and girls particularly affected. MTV EXIT is part of our commitment to highlighting issues affecting young people in Asia and across the world, and we are delighted that Lucy Liu is joining us and lending her powerful voice to the fight against trafficking and exploitation.”

Adapted from: Irene Lew,"Lucy Liu Presents MTV Human Trafficking Doc." WorldScreen.com. 20 November 2007.

Anthropology Says Efforts to Reduce Human Trafficking Ineffective

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 22:33:00 GMT

An international monitoring project designed to combat human trafficking is flawed, according to Brown University anthropology professor Kay Warren.

Warren made her remarks during this year’s Robert G. Mead Jr. Lecture, held in the Student Union Theatre on Nov. 8, 2007. The lecture, on human trafficking around the world, was part of the University’s celebration of International Week.

The Colombia-to-Japan trade fits into this category. Women, mostly in their 20s, are recruited from Colombia to go to Japan for the country’s sex entertainment industry, she said.

“That may range from anything from bar hostessing with no touching at all, to what would be regarded as coercive and violent sexual exploitation,” said Warren.

“The TIP reports are widely circulated four-tier rankings designed to reward those judged to be in full compliance and to sanction those that fail both to recognize human trafficking and to embrace the global discipline combating this transnational crime,” Warren said.

“Even as these countries are trying to play with this imposition from the U.S. government, they also want high rankings,” she said. “Everyone wants to be a tier 1.”

Colombia, a source country for trafficking, has a high tier ranking, Warren said, noting that it is “working very hard to reform its morals.”

Japan, on the other hand, through 2004, was ranked tier 2. “It hurt their reputation,” Warren said. “Japan is the second largest economy in the world. It’s a sophisticated place.”

But it has been hard for Japan to move out of tier 2 status, Warren said: “Japan has a one billion dollar sex entertainment industry. It’s part of their corporate culture.”

She said the global estimate of 600,000 to 800,000 trafficking victims each year has been used in government reports as a measure of a global tragedy, but asked, “Where did those numbers come from? There was no methodology.”

Added Warren, “The issue is: Would there be another way to measure, and another kind of methodology, that one could develop that would target the criminals?”

Adapted from: Sherry Fisher, "Speaker says efforts to reduce human trafficking ineffective." The UConn Advance. 26 November 2007.

Economic Crisis Fueling Child Labor and Trafficking in Burma

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 01:01:00 GMT

The economic crisis and instability in Burma is driving waves of Burmese children into hard labor, begging and the sex trade, claims exiled Burmese rights groups.

To mark the fourth anniversary of the international Day Against Child Trafficking on December 12, Mae Sot-based organization Burma Anti-Child Trafficking and the Burmese Migrant Workers' Education Committee organized a campaign in the Thai border town of Mae Sot against the trafficking of children and warning against the hardships of child labor.

The two groups called for the protection of children’s rights in an event that was attended by some 2,000 children, parents and teachers.

Nang Muu, coordinator of the Burma ACT told The Irrawaddy: “The amount of Burmese children trafficked increases year after year. It is because of the economic crisis and the social problems that parents believe the word of traffickers.”

Often, parents of children and teenagers in Burma are persuaded by businessmen, relatives and friends to send their children abroad—usually to Thailand, China, India, Malaysia or Indonesia—to seek jobs with better salaries than exist in Burma, according to a member of Yaung Chi Oo Workers Association, a Mae Sot-based migrant rights group.

Migrant “street children” in Thailand feature in no official statistics and NGOs can only hazard a guess at their true number—20,000 is a generally accepted figure. A 2005 report released by Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University highlighted the vulnerability of migrant street kids. Children were found at shopping malls, weekend markets, train and bus stations, slum districts and bar areas, said the report.

Burma ACT has documented about 70 cases of child trafficking in 2007 and helped to send four trafficked children from Mae Sot back to their homes in cooperation with other rights groups, said Nang Muu. Meanwhile, the results of child trafficking has had a huge impact on the education of many Burmese migrant children, forcing the children into hard labor in factories, sweat shops and even into the sex trade, according to Burmese migrant education groups.

Many victims under the age of 18 have become street beggars and sex workers instead of studying at school, said Paw Ray, the chairperson of the BMWEC, which operates nearly 50 schools for children of Burmese migrant workers in Mae Sot.

Paw Ray, who is also a director of Hsar Thu Lay School in Mae Sot— a learning centre for orphans, refugees and Burmese migrant children—said, “Children are our future. We should take care of them and protect them. We should let them express their feelings freely.” Due to the difficulties of daily survival, some parents are forcing their children to work and some children are even sold by their parents, said Paw Ray.

Meanwhile, Penpisut Jaisanit, a Rajabhat University researcher who conducted a study around northern Thailand’s border with Burma’s Shan State, said most child laborers were ethnic children from Burma. “We found that the ethnic children were forced to beg by their parents, especially in Mae Sai. If they cannot collect enough money they are punished. Some girls under the age of 15 work in ‘entertainment centers’ and are sexually harassed at an age when they should be in school,” said Penpisut.

“We should not sit back and watch. Rights groups should cooperate and try to stamp out the trafficking of children and highlight the issue,” urged Paw Ray, adding: “The Burmese regime is responsible for this.”

However, Thailand’s Minister of Labor, Somsak Thepsutin, has indicated that it would be another ten years before the worst forms of child labor are eradicated in Thailand. Burmese child laborers were unearthed in six of Thailand’s provinces, from Chiang Rai in the north to Songkhla in the south, said researcher Penpisut Jaisanit.

Ne Oo, the secretary of the BMWEC, tells the parents that if their children don’t receive an education they will have hard lives: “It’s difficult for us to help those [migrant families] with their daily survival. We explain to them the comparison between the lives of educated people and uneducated people,” he said.

Ne Oo added that many children lack the interest in education and said he had noted some 40 Burmese street kids coming every day to collect plastic and rubbish under the bridge linking Burma’s Myawaddy town and Thailand’s Mae Sot. “They [migrant children] don't get pocket money if they attend school. If they collect plastic and sell it, they earn at least 20 baht per day. So, they prefer to keep working as street children,” he said.

Meanwhile, a Rangoon resident told The Irrawaddy on Friday that the amount of street children in the former capital is now increasing. “Many children aged between 4 and 13 are begging on the streets. Some young children are carrying babies and begging. Some street children look for plastic in the rubbish bins and dumps and some go fishing every day for their daily survival,” she said.

The Rangoon resident added: “If we are sitting and eating in a shop, they [child beggars] come to us and wait for money. They will wait until we have finished eating.” Ne Oo concluded: “We try to explain to the parents of these children. We told them that the life of an uneducated person is hard. How can they expect their children to survive in the future?”

Adapted from: Saw Yan Naing, "Economic Crisis Fueling Child Labor, Trafficking."
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=9627 18 December 2007.

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Cracks Down on Human Trafficking

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 23:37:00 GMT

The Ho Chi Minh City Association of Child Protection on October 19, 2007 held a meeting with relevant agencies to discuss measures against women and children trafficking.

Police also released a list of 15 suspects of illegal human trafficking and 64 others suspected to have arranged illegal marriages to foreigners.

Although HCM City is not a hotbed, it is used by the bandits as a transit port, police said.

They emphasized on preventive measures and called on relevant agencies and social organizations to be active in the fight as the country is intensifying an overall action plan against women and girls trading

Adapted from: "HCM City cracks down on human trafficking." Mathaba News Agency. 21 October 2007.

NGOs in Israel Warn Against Plan to Increase Russian Visas

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 23:37:00 GMT

However, Russia is considered a transit destination for trafficking operations, with many men, women and children from neighboring countries arriving there before being transported elsewhere.

Egypt has no visa requirements for Russian visitors, and its border with Israel is considered to be a main entry point for human traffickers.

In the 2006 report, Israel was listed on the Tier 2 (Watch List) category - one level before the US imposes sanctions on a country. Russia currently appears in the same category.

"We need to be ready to go back to that [level of problems]," continued Chaikin. "Our status has improved, but if this [visa] change is not properly monitored, we could end up back where we were."

Although she believes it is most likely too late to prevent the visa change from going ahead, Chaikin said the government must still take steps to continue fighting human trafficking.

Government-appointed attorney Rachel Gershoni, the national coordinator in the battle against trafficking, refused to comment on the pending visa arrangement between Israel and Russia.

Adapted from: RUTH EGLASH,"NGOs warn against plan to increase Russian visas." The Jerusalem Post. 23 October 2007.

MTV, Rain Campaign Against Human Trafficking

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 23:42:00 GMT

MTV, one of the world's largest and influential television network, has launched "End Exploitation and Trafficking'' (EXIT), a global campaign to raise awareness about human trafficking.

Along with Thai star Tata Young, Korea's pop singer Rain has joined in the action as the front man for the Asia Pacific region.

"This is a form of slavery that still exists today, and I don't think enough people are aware of that,'' said Simon Goff, 30, campaign director for MTV EXIT, told The Korea Times at MTV Korea in central Seoul.

Goff explained that the issue "was getting some attention from the media but certainly not directed toward young people… We're the biggest broadcaster in the world so we have the ability to target messages and target our audience, so on a pro-social level it works very well."

In every country, celebrities' involvement increases the impact on massive messages immeasurably. If you put out a documentary, x number of people will watch it; if you put something with Rain in it… it will quadruple the number of people tuning into it,'' he said.

Actress Angelina Jolie, for example, hosted a documentary titled "Inhuman Trafficking'' and supermodel and photographer Helena Christensen and Pelle Almqvist from Swedish rock band the Hives presented short films for MTV EXIT. Last summer, there was also a large-scale concert tour across Europe.

On Saturday and Sunday, a series of street performances featuring highlights of the documentary and live skits created a buzz in Daehakno and Hongdae, two hot spots in northern Seoul.

In countries like Korea and Japan where human trafficking is less reported, "it is a difficult issue. We have these issues in Western Europe as well,'' said the British native. Nobody likes to be told they're an exploited country… but it's important to acknowledge that it's happening.''

Future of Trafficking

As for the future of the human trafficking issue, Goff said, "I think it'll get through there… Obviously 20 years ago, HIV/AIDS campaign started coming out and it was a bit taboo at the time. But the government began to understand the importance.'' The director had also been part of MTV's 2002 HIV/AIDS campaign ``Staying Alive,'' in which stars like Diddy and Alicia Keys participated.

However, Goff pointed out that organized criminal networks primarily run the lucrative trafficking business in countries like Korea and Japan, which not only makes it difficult to gather exact statistics but also makes it challenging to crack down.

It is thus up to individuals to initiate a change. "As a consumer you're part of this issue,'' said the director, explaining that consumers in Korea and elsewhere could well be eating shrimp that involves forced labor.

As Bridget, a social worker helping victims recover says in the film, "If everyone is aware that we are part of the problem and part of the solution then we can exercise our responsibility to uphold social justice for all.''

Tune into the documentary, to premiere on Korea's MTV channel at 10:20 p.m., Oct. 27 (Sat.). Catch the reruns at 9:20 p.m., Oct. 29 (Mon.) and 5:30 p.m., Oct. 31 (Wed.). No English subtitles.

Based in Bangkok, MTV EXIT Asia was launched across Thailand, India, China and the Philippines. After Korea it will continue on to Japan, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Adapted from: Lee Hyo-won, " MTV, Rain Campaign Against Human Trafficking." The Korea Times. 23 October 2007.

Council of Europe Convention Against Trafficking in Human Beings Will Enter into Force

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 23:45:00 GMT

The Council of Europe Convention against Trafficking in Human Beings (CETS n° 197) will enter into force on 1 February 2008, following the ratification by Cyprus as the tenth country to ratify it.

On this occasion Terry Davis, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, made the following statement:

The main features of the new Convention include:

compulsory assistance measures and a recovery and reflection period of at least 30 days for the victims of trafficking;
the possibility to deliver residence permits to victims not only on the basis of cooperation with the law enforcement authorities, but also on humanitarian grounds;
the possibility to criminalise “the clients”;
a non-punishment clause for the victims of trafficking;
a strengthened international cooperation system and an independent monitoring mechanism, GRETA, which will monitor the proper implementation of the Convention by the Parties.

Adapted from:"Council of Europe Convention Against Trafficking in Human Beings Will Enter into Force." Coucil of Europe. 25 October 2007.

Houston, Texas Major Hub for Human Trafficking

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 23:48:00 GMT

Large ring kept up to 120 women in virtual slavery.

If you think you've identified a victim of human trafficking, call 911 or the national Trafficking Information and Referral Hotline at 1-888-373-7888. For information locally, contact the Houston Rescue and Restore Coalition at 713-306-0583. Here are some questions to ask a suspected trafficking victim:
• What type of work do you do?

• Are you being paid?

• Can you leave your job if you want to?

• Can you come and go as you please?

• Have you or has your family been threatened?

• What are your working conditions like?

Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

The picture, with its implicit threat, was all it took.

It was taken just before Christmas 2004. She had been thinking about running away from the windowless bar on Houston's northwest side, where he kept her and other women, forcing some of them into prostitution while they paid off their "debts."

But Maximino "Chimino" Mondragon knew of her plans.

Carrying a camera and Christmas presents for the woman's daughter, he had appeared unannounced at her family's home in El Salvador. The woman, who was not identified by authorities, told investigators that Mondragon had talked his way into the home by saying the gifts were from her.

"By the way," Mondragon reportedly asked her parents, "would you mind taking a photo of me with the little girl?"

There were no more plans of escaping.

With similar threats, Mondragon and a network of family members and associates operated one of the largest human trafficking rings in U.S. history in which as many as 120 women were held captive and coerced to work off their smuggling debts. Some of the women were raped and forced to have abortions.

Mondragon's operation collapsed in November 2005 when the women were freed and he and seven other defendants from El Salvador and Honduras were arrested on federal human trafficking charges.

All eight defendants in the case have pleaded guilty in Houston courtrooms, but only one woman — a Honduran accused of providing the abortions — has been sentenced. The remaining sentencings are scheduled for this winter.

Houston a trafficking hub
The Mondragon case underscores the need to raise awareness about human trafficking, which still largely operates "under the radar" despite major efforts to combat the crime in recent years, said Ed Gallagher, the deputy chief of the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Houston. The U.S. State Department estimates that 17,500 people are trafficked into the United States each year, but the vast majority are never identified as victims.

Gallagher said the Mondragon case was remarkable because of the large number of victims. The only U.S. case with more certified human trafficking victims was based in American Samoa, and involved a ring that forced hundreds of Vietnamese and Chinese to work in a factory, officials said.

Maritza Conde-Vazquez, a special agent with the FBI, said Houston is a popular trafficking hub in part because the city is so diverse, with large Hispanic, Asian and Middle Eastern populations, which allows traffickers and their victims to blend into local communities. The city's major port and proximity to the border also influence its position as a major distribution point for traffickers.

Recognition of the growing problem in Houston has spawned coalitions and task forces that include law enforcement agencies and nongovernmental organizations, Gallagher said. The joint efforts have led to major cases, and helped put Texas behind only California in the number of registered human trafficking victims, with 252 reported since 2001, according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

"It's everywhere. It's in restaurants and so-called spas. A lot of them are fronts for cantinas and brothels," said Deputy Edwin Chapuseaux of the Harris County Sheriff's Department. "Wherever there is some kind of labor, there's a possibility human trafficking could be happening."

The Department of Justice estimates that human trafficking is the third-most-profitable criminal activity in the world, after drug and arms trafficking, with an estimated $9.5 billion generated annually worldwide.

Nationally, prosecutions of human traffickers are increasing, according to Department of Justice statistics. The DOJ reported a record number of defendants charged and convicted in connection with human trafficking in fiscal year 2006, while the number of investigations that year increased more than 20 percent from the previous year, to 167 from 138.

'Modern-day slavery'
Gallagher said human trafficking is often confused with smuggling, but differs substantially. To fit the legal definition of human trafficking, a crime must involve using force, fraud or coercion. Recent cases in Houston have ranged from domestic servitude to forced prostitution rings.

"In many cases, they are brought into modern-day slavery," Gallagher said. "They are exploited repeatedly, and they are treated as a commodity rather than a human being."

Under the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000, victims who cooperate with authorities on trafficking cases are permitted to stay in the U.S. legally, at least temporarily while the case moves through the court system. Some victims meet the qualifications for a "T-visa," a trafficking visa, which also offers a path toward legal residency. The rules are slightly different for children and teens, who are sometimes too vulnerable to be compelled to testify.

Chapuseaux, an investigator on the local human trafficking task force, lives with the images from the Mondragon case. He has a picture of a stillborn baby born at a Houston hospital, perfectly formed at five or six months, the result of the abortion-inducing drugs. He said he struggles with the memory of a 17-year-old Salvadoran girl who was purchased from the Mondragon ring by a source working for investigators. She was raped on a mattress in a room behind the bar before the source could pick her up, Chapuseaux said.

Mondragon and his co-defendants worked with Walter Alexander Corea, an admitted smuggler, to bring the women to Houston and force them to work in cantinas on the northwest side, including Mi Cabana Sports Bar, El Portero de Chimino Bar and Huetamo Night Club, prosecutors said. If a customer just wanted a beer, it would cost $2 or $3, depending on the brand. But if the customer wanted the company of a girl, a Corona would cost $13, investigators said. Of that, $9 went to pay down the debt from the smuggling.

When authorities raided the apartments where the women lived on Houston's northwest side, they found 98 possible victims, witnesses and suspects, officials said. Eventually, the number of victims in the Mondragon case grew to about 120.

Lorenza Reyes-Nunez, aka "La Comadre," who was accused of performing abortions, took a deal with the government. The Honduran woman was accused of giving pregnant women an herbal supplement that induced abortions, often late in the pregnancies.

One woman who took the drugs in a failed abortion attempt weeks later had a baby born with a hole in his heart and vision problems, investigators said. Reyes-Nunez pleaded guilty in August 2006 to obstruction of justice for encouraging women to destroy evidence. She was sentenced to time served in prison while the case waited for trial and marked for deportation to Honduras.

In January and February, sentencings are scheduled for Maximino Mondragon; his brother Oscar Mondragon; half brother Victor Omar Lopez; and the wives or ex-wives of the Mondragon brothers, Olga Mondragon and Maria Fuentes. Corea and his son, Kerin Silva, also are scheduled for sentencing this winter.

Long-term damage
Prosecutors and investigators said it's unclear whether the victims will testify at the sentencings. The lore of the trafficking ring is still powerful, investigators said, especially since the network operated in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

Officials declined to allow a reporter to speak with the victims because the case is still pending. Some of the women have returned home, while others have settled in Houston or Dallas with visas that allow them to work legally in the U.S., their attorneys said.

Some have suffered long-term psychological damage, while others have health problems, such as sexually transmitted diseases from their time as prostitutes, advocates said. One woman who drank heavily while working in the Mondragon ring's cantinas suffered serious kidney damage and is on dialysis two to three times a week, Chapuseaux said.

"She has one foot in the grave," he said. "It's just a matter of time."

Adapted from: SUSAN CARROLL, "Houston major hub for human trafficking
Large ring kept up to 120 women in virtual slavery." Houston Chronicle. 28 October 2007.

'Ethical Traveler' Raises Awareness about Child Prostitution in Cambodia

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 17:09:00 GMT

Four non-profit groups have come together this year to launch a campaign to help stop and bring about awareness of Cambodia’s child sex trade.

Driven by Berkeley-based Ethical Traveler, the campaign will feature a letter-writing drive in the hopes to pressure the government to pass and enforce laws to protect minors. Global Exchange, Not For Sale Campaign and ECPAT-Cambodia will join Ethical Traveler in its cause. The letters will all be sent from travellers straight to Cambodia’s Minister of Tourism, urging him to use his name and influence to help abolish the now thriving sex slave industry.

"Cambodia relies on tourist dollars for much-needed foreign exchange," said Jeff Greenwald, Ethical Traveler's Executive Director. "Child sex tourism is a threat to the future of this developing nation, and to its appeal as a legitimate travel destination."

Victims of sex slavery are often treated as illegal immigrants in Cambodia and are sent to prison, whilst their traffickers go unpunished. The letter writing campaign aims to disrupt the attitudes and laws surrounding victims.

"We have created a simple, easy, and direct way for concerned people from around the world to write the government of Cambodia, urging it to take action to stop child prostitution," said Greenwald. "Tourism is a major economic force in Cambodia. By joining together, travelers can influence Cambodia to protect vulnerable children even as it protects its reputation as a world-class tourist destination."

For more information on this campaign, or to send a letter to the Cambodian Minister of Tourism, please visit http://www.ethicaltraveler.org/cambodia.

Human Trafficking Should Be Taught in Philippines' Schools

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 13:22:00 GMT

If this NBI chief agent had his way, the problem of human trafficking and how not to be caught in the traffickers’ snares would be discussed among schoolchildren.

Lavin said he has long pushed for an information dissemination campaign, even taking up his idea with IACAT officials.

"We already made this appeal to the IACAT but we were told that there was no funding. That’s the problem," he said.

Adapted from: Tina Santos, "Human trafficking should be taught in school." Inquirer.net. 24 November 2007.

Illegal Immigrant Victims of Crime Can Now Apply for New Visa

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 10:18:00 GMT

Illegal immigrants who are victims of violent crimes in the US can now apply for special visas, seven years after Congress offered protection against deportation to those who cooperate with law enforcement agencies.

The U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services is finally starting to process the visas this week, agency spokeswoman Marilu Cabrera said.

The long delay occurred largely because the agency drafted rules for issuing the so-called "U" visas before it became a division of the then-new Department of Homeland Security, she said. Consequently, the rules had to be reviewed again. Then the Department of Justice had concerns, she said.

"It is legally very complex, and so it went back and forth for a while," Cabrera said.

The 2000 Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act established the visa to encourage illegal immigrants to report crimes against them in return for the right to remain in the United States and eventually apply for permanent residency.

"This is an extremely important visa for individuals who have been victims of a crime," Cabrera said. "It is helpful for the government that we get information and cooperation so we can solve these crimes and prevent future crimes. For the person, it gives them peace of mind and an opportunity for a new life."

The law authorized up to 10,000 "U" visas every year. The visas are good for up to four years, and visa holders who are in the U.S. continuously for three years can apply for permanent residency.

Critics are concerned about that provision.

"I would much prefer that we used it as a temporary visa, not an immigrant visa — something that allowed a person to testify but didn't give them the jackpot of a green card," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors limits on immigration.

Ed Hayes, the Kansas director of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, is more vigorous in his opposition to the program. He argues that there are many more American victims of crimes committed by illegal immigrants than illegal immigrants who are crime victims.

"If they are here illegally, they broke the law," Hayes said. "If they become a victim, I am sorry for them. They should testify and then go home."

Since the law was passed, 8,301 petitioners and their families have been granted interim relief from deportation while awaiting publication of the "U" visa rules. They now have 180 days to apply for the special visas.

Among those who qualified for deferred action was Eleuterio Rodriguez Ruiz, who said he hopes to get a visa that will allow him to travel to Mexico to see his parents.

"More than anything I came to this country to find a better standard of living, maybe even buy a house," he said in Spanish in a phone interview from Sacramento, Calif., where he works as a field hand harvesting fruit.

The 30-year-old Mexican citizen was one of seven people held at gunpoint at an Arizona rest stop by an Army reservist as they were crossing illegally into the United States.

Rodriguez Ruiz said he cooperated with authorities, who subsequently filed aggravated assault charges against Sgt. Patrick Haab. The county attorney later dropped the charges, citing a state law that allows citizens to make an arrest when a felony has been committed.

The delay in the "U" visa program led a coalition of civil rights groups to file a class-action lawsuit in 2005 against Citizen and Immigration Services and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

"We intend to continue the fight for immigrant crime victims. ... Because it was a largely poor, vulnerable population with no political clout, it took seven years," said Peter A. Schey, lead counsel in the lawsuit.

Schey wants Citizen and Immigration Services to allow more than 10,000 annual "U" visas to compensate for the delay.

He also opposes restrictions giving victims only six months to apply for the visa and the requirement that petitioners be certified as crime victims by a law enforcement agency or prosecutor.

"Hundreds of thousands of law enforcement agencies will not see fit to certify them. They don't know about it, don't want to get involved or don't care," Schey said.

Angela Ferguson, an immigration attorney in Kansas City, Mo., who has handled about 50 deferred action cases for "U" visas, doubts the program will change immigrants' attitudes toward police.

"I don't think it is going to help them trust law enforcement more," she said. "The fear is being stirred up everywhere — the fear of racial profiling, the rumors, the raids. I have people for the first time coming into my office and saying they are giving up and leaving."

Adapted from: ROXANA HEGEMAN, "New US visas offered to crime victims." Associated Press. 19 October 2007.

Advocating through Mekong Youth Forum

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 09:08:00 GMT

For the 30 young people that gathered in Bangkok last week for the Mekong Youth Forum on Human Trafficking (MYF), the issues were both familiar and well worth fighting for.

Shortly after a delegate from Laos finishes briefing on repatriation services available to trafficking victims in his country, the group breaks for hot cocoa and begins singing, under the Cambodian delegation's direction, "See, See Banana". The song, which is catchy, nonsensical, and involves hand motions, will become an almost-anthem, revisited several times during the course of the week (so, too, will the issue of repatriation services).

It's not often an anti-trafficking forum takes pause for nonsense, nor that it be governed - like this one - by a set of rules (so simple, but so practical!) that are penned in magic marker and posted on the wall: Do not disrespect others, Do not throw things around the room, Do not waste food, etc.

Ten minutes later, though, proceedings resume. The group moves on to serious discussion of issues like migration and the plight of stateless people, after being called to order, in typical course, with a drumbeat and the week's battle cry - "Mekong Youth Forum!"

Policy on human trafficking may strike many as heavy stuff for the 12-19 tween and teen crowd. Yet for the 30 young people that gathered in Bangkok last week for the Mekong Youth Forum on Human Trafficking (MYF), the issuesare both familiar and well worth fighting for.

Culled from vulnerable areas of the six countries of the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS-Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam), the youth came to the forum - the second of its kind - in an effort to make their voices heard and combat trafficking in the region.

Much of this effort centred around the 30 recommendations delegates drafted during the week and submitted in a meeting Thursday with senior officials from the six countries' human trafficking taskforces. The recommendations, finalised by the youth on Friday, after Thursday's dialogue, will be considered and incorporated into discussion at the GMS meeting in Beijing this December. The youth also met with select officials from the six governments for less formal discussion on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Though the forum, supported this year by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Save the Children UK, World Vision, and the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking in the GMS (UNIAP), had its first incarnation in 2004, this year's was the first in which youth were given an opportunity to directly engage with the government (World Vision and UNIAP are also new sponsors). Over half of the 2.5 million trafficking victims worldwide come from Asia, many from the young adult demographic represented at the MYF.

Allan Dow, Communications Officer with the ILO's Mekong Project to Combat Trafficking in Children and Women, says that while there are no reliable numbers for trafficking-related child labour in the region, there are indicators - NGO reports, the number of undocumented migrants, and the number of children seen in shelters - that indicate trafficking-related practices like sexual and labour exploitation are on the rise. Dow notes that in the region chief problems are boys and men being trafficked into fishing industries, exploititve conditions involved in domestic service, and sexual exploitation.

Adapted from: Erika Fry. "Tomorrow's Advocates." Bangkok Post 8 September 2007.

Lao Immigration and Border Officials Receive Training on How to Fight Trafficking

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 09:13:00 GMT

More than 50 police and human trafficking officials gathered in Vientiane, Lao PDR on 11 September 2007 for training on combating human trafficking.

Immigration and border police will receive three days of training by advisors from the Asia Regional Trafficking in Persons Project. "Detailed understanding of human trafficking is low among the police and public, so the course will teach them more about what human trafficking is and how to prevent the problem happening in the future," said the project's Country Coordinator, Mr Sythala Pathammavong.

He explained that the course is aimed at clearly discussing the problems and solutions with officials to increase understanding among those who are at the frontline. The Asia Regional Trafficking in Persons project began in August 2006 and will run for five years with funding from the Australian government through AusAID.

"The project focuses on the criminal justice response to trafficking with special emphasis on ending impunity for traffickers and securing justice for victims," said Mr Sythala. The project is initially working in Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Myanmar. Activities may expand to other ASEAN countries during the life of the project, particularly Indonesia. A special mechanism has been developed to assist in the identification of countries for expansion as well as their successful integration into the project.

Mr Sythala confirmed that after the three days of the training course, trainees will be well aware of the specifics of the problem, as well as prevention methods.

Adapted from: Souknilundon Southivongnorath. "Official receives instruction on human trafficking." Vientiane Times. 12 September 2007.

ASEAN Debates Labor Standards

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 09:15:00 GMT

The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) is working towards the standardisation of labour skills and has agreed to study the impacts of ASEAN labour integration.

The 10 member countries met in Indonesia at the 3 rd meeting of the Ad-Hoc Working Group on progressive labour to enhance competitiveness. The meeting agreed to follow on from decisions made at the 12th ASEAN Summit regarding the establishment of an ASEAN Committee on the Implementation of the ASEAN Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of Rights of Migrant Workers. Participants also confirmed their support for regional best practices in industrial relations.

The meeting adopted other priorities regarding the ASEAN Forum on Migrant Workers, Social Security and Protection Systems. The progress of these priorities will be reported at the ASEAN labour ministers' meeting next year. The Deputy Director General of the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare's Labour Department, Mr. Thongdeng Singthilath, said following his return to Laos last week that the member countries placed an emphasis on the establishment of an institute to test and certify labourers in each member country.

"Even though thousands of students are now graduating from universities, colleges and vocational schools, many remained unskilled," he said. He explained that the establishment of the new institution was aimed at enhancing labour skills so that workers' qualifications would be recognised throughout the region.

The rapid growth of the industrialised sector has shown an increasing demand for workers from other countries to work in the industries of developing countries. Indonesia has a huge population and could therefore send workers to its neighbours to fill employment gaps.

The recognition of the skills of a labour pool would enable Lao workers to work in other countries with higher wages, and with protection mechanisms similar to those of local workers. Thailand is currently seeking more than 50,000 workers from Laos to work in its factories, which has stimulated the labour sector to develop the skills of its workforce.

"The export of skilled workers will ensure that our workers receive higher wages and similar protection benefits as the workers in their country of employment," Mr. Thongdeng said. He said that, first of all, Laos would aim to set standards for its own workers and produce a skilled labour pool with the right objectives.

It is necessary to produce the correct number of workers to match the numbers required, to avoid producing too many in some sectors and insufficient in others, as is the case now, he said. However, Laos suffers considerable budgetary constraints in financing the development of labour skills to match those of its neighbours.

Mr. Thongdeng said the older ASEAN countries had expressed their intention to assist the newer member countries in developing human resources, including improving labour skills.

Adapted from: Somsack Pongkhao. "Asian debates labour standards." Vientiane Times. 17 September 2007.

Lao Trafficking Victim Repatriated from Thailand with Brain Injuries

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 14:27:00 GMT

One of the six boys who returned to Laos after having been rescued by Thai authorities from human trafficking has serious brain injuries following an attack by a work colleague a year ago. The 16-year-old was rendered disabled after he was attacked from behind with a knife while working on a fishing boat in Thailand by a crew member working on the same boat.

A senior official from the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, Ms Vanly Sounantha, said yesterday that the boy could no longer speak intelligibly, as a direct result of the knife wound that cracked his skull. He also has difficulties in working with his hands, due to other injuries sustained during the attack.

"The boy worked in Thailand illegally for one year, and after he was attacked, he stayed in a Thai hospital for another year prior to returning to Laos," she said. She explained that he is from a poor family in Pak Ngum village of Vientiane, with four sisters and one brother, and was lured to Thailand with the promise of being able to earn money to improve his family's situation.

The returned boys were rescued from exploitative situations, working on a fishing boat and at a car wash, in which they were forced into hard labour by their employers. Ms Vanly said the Lao and Thai authorities had in fact planned to repatriate eight victims to Laos, but the villages of two of the victims were recently flooded, and their return has been postponed indefinitely.

She added that earlier this year, a Lao human trafficking victim sent a letter to her ministry, saying that there were more than 50 victims of human trafficking waiting for help from authorities in a doll factory in Bangkok. The matter is now being investigated by authorities to determine the location of the factory and the possible circumstances of the illegal workers' arrival there.

Human trafficking is likely to become a more serious problem as more Lao people are being lured to Thailand illegally based on a number of circumstances. These include poverty, Thailand's close proximity in terms of location, language and culture, and the high demand for cheap labour in Thailand, causing more and more people to cross the border to work there illegally.

The Lao and Thai governments signed a Memorandum of Understanding in 2002 regarding labour cooperation, to address the issue of illegal Lao workers in Thailand. They also agreed to send 50,000 Lao workers through legal avenues to work in Thailand, but until August this year, Laos was only able to supply 6,546 people to work in Thai factories.

Director General of the Labour and Social Welfare Department, Mr. Pasith Dethphommathet, said that since 2001, more than 900 Lao victims of human trafficking had been sent back to Laos. From January to September this year, almost 200 victims were returned, and some 120 victims are being detained in Thai rehabilitation centres.

Lao and Thai authorities will meet again next week in Thailand to discuss further cooperation, including an amended process of holding and repatriating victims to Laos. Human trafficking is an increasing problem in Laos and throughout the world; in Southeast Asia alone, between 200,000 and 250,000 women and children are trafficked each year, an ILO report stated in 2002.

Adapted from: Samsack Pongkhao. "Trafficking victim repatriated with brain injuries." Vientiane Times. 20 September 2007.

Lao Women's Union Debates Human Trafficking

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 09:41:00 GMT

The Lao Women's Union focused on the prevention of human trafficking and other abuses of women and children in Laos during the two-day meeting they hosted in Vientiane.

More than 80 representatives from different government organisations met from September 17-18 to discuss recent developments in laws on the protection of women and children, especially those related to human trafficking.

Participants included delegates from the ministries of education, public health, labour and social welfare, justice, and foreign affairs. Also present were representatives from the Lao Youth Union, the People's Court and the Prosecution Office.

The meeting served to facilitate understanding among participants about the development and implementation of laws defending women, familiarising them with the legal process and ways to help victims, following government policies, said the President of the Lao Women's Union, Ms Sisay Leudedmounsone. She said many Lao women and children were affected by a variety of problems, including domestic violence, estrangement, divorce, rape, prostitution, drug use, human trafficking and exploitation.

A report from the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, which the Lao and Thai governments jointly produced from 2001 to 2007, found that about 970 Lao people had been victims of human trafficking, with 835 of these aged under 18, Ms Sisay said.

According to the Consultation and Protection of Women and Children Centre in Vientiane, from September 2002 to August 2007, 14,700 women and children requested help from the centre, resulting in 1,150 legal cases.

Ms Sisay said that between May and July of this year, 36 women and children were victims of human trafficking, 16 people were victims of domestic violence and four rape victims.

Educating the various ministries and organisations in Laos about the laws and how to implement them will help reduce social problems and contribute to socio-economic development, she said. She called on every department concerned to work together to develop and strengthen measures to protect women and children from violence and exploitation, especially human trafficking, so that the both the economy and society would improve in keeping with the law.

The union promotes and monitors the implementation of government and party policies, the constitution and the laws of the country, as they relate to the benefits of women and children. It also promotes education, training and the country's ?three good values' campaign. These promote good citizenship, good development and good cultural families, to create better quality of life for women and children.

The meeting was coordinated by the Lao Women's Union and supported by the UN Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong Sub-region.

Adapted from: Khamphone Syvongxay. "Women's union debates human trafficking." Vientiane Times. 20 September 2007.

South Korea Gets Tough on Sex Tourism

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 09:55:00 GMT

South Korea announced a crackdown on its nationals evading the country's tough anti-prostitution law by buying sex abroad instead.

The government will revise the law so that its citizens caught buying sex in foreign countries will have their passports confiscated, the gender equality ministry, the justice ministry and the foreign ministry said in a joint press briefing.

An inter-ministerial team has also been formed to clamp down on brokers who help South Korean girls obtain visas to sell sex abroad and travel agents who arrange sex tours for South Korean men, they said. "The government agencies share the view that the country's image is being damaged greatly by the purchase of sex (by South Korean travellers) in overseas countries and decided to step up crackdowns on sex trafficking here and abroad as well," they said.

South Korea brought in a tough anti-prostitution law in 2004, punishing clients with fines and throwing pimps in prison. Last year alone, courts prosecuted 35,000 clients, 2.5 times higher than the number of those who were caught buying sex in 2003.

Incidents of South Koreans caught up in the foreign sex trade are increasing sharply, Yonhap news agency said. The latest government initiative followed a local TV report last week about South Korean high school students allegedly buying sex while they were on field trips to China.

The MBC TV network showed South Korean teenagers venturing into a massage parlour in China. Some said it was common practice.

Adapted from: "South Korea gets tough on sex tourism." AFP. 20 September 2007.

Travelers Unite to Stop Child Prostitution in Cambodia

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 10:42:00 GMT

Aside from its unique culture and magnificent Khmer ruins, Cambodia has become notorious for a much darker attraction.

The country is a source, destination and transit point for modern day slaves: men, women and children sold into the sex trade.

A coalition of four non-profit groups has launched a campaign to highlight the plight of children in Cambodia's sex trade. The effort, spearheaded by Berkeley-based Ethical Traveler, will arrange to send letters from travelers to Cambodia's Minister of Tourism, urging him to use his influence to end child sex slavery in that country.

"Cambodia relies on tourist dollars for much-needed foreign exchange," says Jeff Greenwald, Ethical Traveler's Executive Director. "Child sex tourism is a threat to the future of this developing nation, and to its appeal as a legitimate travel destination."

Attitudes and laws in Cambodia must change in order to protect victims and punish sex slaveholders. Currently, officials often treat sex slaves as "illegal immigrants" and send them to prison, while their traffickers go free.

Sex tourism is a thriving industry in Cambodia, with male tourists paying high premiums for sex with children. NGOs like UNICEF and Save the Children estimate that 50,000 to 100,000 women and children are at risk.

"We have created a simple, easy and direct way for concerned people from around the world to write the government of Cambodia, urging it to take action to stop child prostitution," says Greenwald. "Tourism is a major economic force in Cambodia. By joining together, travelers can influence Cambodia to protect vulnerable children even as it protects its reputation as a world-class tourist destination."

Ethical Traveler's campaign against child sex trafficking in Cambodia is being waged in association with Global Exchange, Not For Sale Campaign, and ECPAT Cambodia. For more information on this campaign, or to send a letter to the Cambodian Minister of Tourism, please visit http://www.ethicaltraveler.org/cambodia

Adapted from: "Travelers Unite to Stop Child Prostitution in Cambodia." http://www.prweb.com 16 September 2007.

Demand for Virgins Fueling Sex Trade in Cambodia

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 10:45:00 GMT

High demand for virgins from mostly Asian clients is fuelling the flow of underage girls into Cambodia's sex trade, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) says.

About 38 per cent of the women and girls surveyed working in the sex trade in Cambodia entered the industry by selling their virginity, IOM found, while 85 per cent of the clients paying to sleep with them were Asian men.

"The commercial sale of virginity is one of the major routes into commercial sexual exploitation,'' the group said in a report released earlier this week. "This trade clearly shapes the patterns of trafficking within Cambodia ... it is arguably the largest factor contributing to entry into commercial sex.''

Non-Asian foreigners accounted for 9 per cent of customers paying for sex with virgins, IOM said, while the other 6 per cent was unknown. More than half the Asian clients were Cambodian men, with the other half made up of Chinese, Taiwanese, South Korean, Japanese, Thai and Filipino men.

Most women were 16 or 17-years-old when they sold their virginity, and the majority said they entered prostitution willingly. But others told IOM they were tricked by family and friends.

"There was a high use of force and incapacitation through drugs or alcohol at the time of commercial sex,'' the humanitarian group said. People were increasingly picking up virgins in high-end karaoke bars, massage parlors and other entertainment establishments in the country's urban centres, IOM said, whereas before the trade was found mostly in brothels.

IOM surveyed 203 women and girls working in the sex trade in the tourist hub of Siam Reap, the seaside town Sihanoukville and Koh Kong province, which borders Thailand. Cambodia has struggled to shed its reputation as a haven for paedophiles, putting dozens of foreigners in jail for child sex crimes or deporting them to face trial in their home countries since 2003.

Adapted from: "Demand for virgins fuelling sex trade." http://www.news.com.au 16 September 2007.

Sex Work with Foreigners a Job that Some Won't Turn Down

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 12:15:00 GMT

Srey Mom, a bright 22-year-old woman, is a sex worker in Phnom Penh.

She laughs when she is told that she may be the target of NGOs and government actions and gently but firmly says she has no intention of leaving the trade- at least not until she becomes "too ugly."

Mom and her friends, however, target foreign men who come to Cambodia looking for sexual partners, aiming to find a position as a girlfriend for however long the man is interested in being with just one girl. Relationships are built based on mutual distrust but also on an acceptance of roles, Mom said. Navy, a friend of Srey Mom's, has a boyfriend who cheats on her all the time and treats her badly.

"I don't like it when he treats me like this but through him I can get enough money for my family and to save for the future," Navy said. "And I haven't always been faithful to him either- when there were other opportunities, I take them."

Vanna was trafficked from her home village in Kompong Cham province three years ago. She said that she was told of a job as a waitress and jumped at the chance to escape poverty and earn money for her family. When she arrived in Phnom Penh she was taken to a brothel where she remained for two years. Vanna was rescued twice. The first time she returned to the brothel on her own volition. "I didn't have anything else I could do," Vanna said. "The people there were my family even though I hated the work. And I couldn't go back to my village for fear of shame. So what could I do?"

The second time she was rescued she was taught to read and write by a shelter, even learning some English. But she again returned to the sex trade. This time friends introduced her to foreigners in Western bars, she said. Now she says that the options offered by NGOs hold no interest for her.

"I can earn anything from US$200 a week sometimes it's much more," Vanna said. "It may not be a wonderful job, but I don't want to work in a garment factory for US$45 a month. What choice would you make?"

Behind the bravado, there's a hint of wishtfulness when talking about the future. Navy said no respectable man will want her and that her clients are very unlikely to offer her anything more than short-term stability. She said she knows she will not be able to continue as a sex worker for ever.

But the women do not see themselves as victims. "Sometimes I get sad and sometimes I get treated badly, but I chose to do this," Vanna said. "If you try to help me then you are trying to stop me doing want I really want to do."

Srey Mom agreed. "If anyone can help me, they can help by stop judging me and stop thinking they know what I think," she said. "I'm a prostitute but I've seen other people do worse."

Adapted from: Roo Griffiths. "Sex Work with Foreigners a Job that Some Won't Turn Down." Cambodia News & World Report, September 2007; Issue 6; Year 1.

Trade in Sex with Virgins an Asian Affair

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 10:50:00 GMT

While the scourge of Western pedophiles may grab local and international headlines, it is predominately Asian men who fuel Cambodia's trade in virgins, according to a new report by the International Organization for Migration.

About 85 percent of the clients who pay to have sex with virgins in Cambodia are Asian men, whereas Westerners comprise only 9 percent of the clientele and 6 percent were unknown, Elenor Brown, an IOM researcher who authored the report, said at its launch Tuesday.

Roughly half of the Asian clients are Khmer, and the other hald are Asian foreigners, including Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese and Thai men, the report said.

The report, titled "The Ties That Bind," is based on 203 interviews and 312 surveys from sex workers in Koh Kong, Siem Riep and Sihanoukville provinces in 2005-2006, and was funded by the US State Department.

According to the report, the trade in virgins has in recent years shifted out of brothels and into higher-end karaoke bars, massage parlours and other entertainment establishments in Cambodia's urban centers, in part due to increased counter-trafficking efforts.

The average payment for a virgin is $482, with a payment range that typically falls between $200 and $1,000, said Brown, who noted that the loss of virginity was "the largest factor contributing to entry into commercial sex."

According to Brown, within the virginity trade, 27 percent of the women and girls involved said they experience overt force, while 74 percent of those who sold their virginity were under 18 at the time and 14 percent were under the age of 15.

Brown added that women and girls were often deceived into providing sexual services after being recruited into non sex-trade jobs, such as putting ice into customers' glasses at a karaoke bar.

The practice of virginity selling has become much more covert in recent years, and is arranged by small, mobile groups of brokers, Brown added.

"Before, everyone knew that it was going on" she said.

"People don't talk about it anymore.whoever is arranging the deals makes sure that no one knows, and if they say anything they will violently threaten them," she added.

Keo Thea, deputy director of Phnom Penh's anti-trafficking police, said that police made regular arrests of Korean, Chinese, and Japanese men- as well as Cambodian nationals- for trafficking and debauchery, but their crimes were less visible because media outlets neglected to cover the issue, preferring instead to focus on Westerners.

Last year, police arrested around 20 foreign Asian nationals for sex offenses and sex trafficking, while there were only about 10 arrests of Westerners for the same crimes, Keo Thea said.

"We don't discriminate and arrest only Western men. Most of the cases are Khmer men, [but] some print media, foreign media don't focus on this," he said.

A representative from the In-ternational [sic] Justice Mission said that Western perpetrators and saes of sexual exploitation teded to be more high profile because they often could be prosecuted in their countries of origin.

The representative added that Western countries- most prominently the US, the UK, and Australia- were also leading the donors to Cambodia's anti-trafficking efforts.

"One of the motivations [for donor aid] may be.that they don't want their nationals to offend, and if they do offend, they have laws to successfully arrest them," the IJM representative said.

Keo Thea said, however, that it was more difficult for his officers to investigate trafficking and sex crimes in more upscale entertainment establishments in Cambodia.

"The new style is more secret, not like brothel areas," he said. "We need to dress our officers up like businessmen to reach them," he added.

Keo Thea also said that trafficking networks were primarily run by ethnic Vietnamese and Cambodian nationals. He added, however, that virginity brokers within karoke bars and other establishments were often foreign Asian nationals, including Chinese and Japanese, but denied that foreign Mafia or organised crime gangs were running the operations.

Police have made "a lot" of arrests of virginity buyers, managers, and traffickers, Keo Thea said, though he did not have the exact figures on hand.

Samleang Seila, country director for Action Pour Les Enfants, said that buying a young woman's virginity was a cultural behaviour specific to Asian nationals, which was why Westerners made up only a fraction of the clientele.

According to the IOM report, sex with a virgin is believed to have a "rejuvenating and purifying effect" on the buyer.

Samleang Seila also noted that Asian sex tourists in Cambodia are a less visible group than their Western counterparts, not just because of their ethnicity, but also because of the locations they frequented and their approaches to looking for sex.

Brown agreed that so-called "sex-pat"- a play on the word expatriate- communities of Western clients in Cambodia are "quite loud and in visible places, Asia [sex] tourism happens behind closed doors."

Adapted from: Suzy Khimm (additional reporting by Saing Soenthrith). "Trade in Sex with Virgins an Asian Affair: Report." The Cambodia Daily. 14 September 2007; Volume 37; Issue 87; p1&21.

Panel Created in China to Target Trafficking Prevention

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 12:28:00 GMT

The government plans to set up the first national mechanism for combating trafficking to protect women and children from forced labor and prostitution.

The joint effort by 21 ministries - including the ministries of public security, labor and social security, education and supervision - aims to provide sustainable and long-term solutions to human trafficking.

It will be led by a leading group reporting directly to the State Council, Yin Jianzhong, a senior official of the anti-human trafficking office of the Ministry of Public Security, told China Daily yesterday. Meanwhile, the National Plan of Action on Anti-trafficking of Women and Children (2008-12), which is being drafted, will be unveiled by the end of this year, Yin said.

The highlight of the policy is to shift the focus from crackdown, rescue and recovery to prevention, Yin said.

Kathleen Speake, chief technical advisor to the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) Project to Prevent Trafficking in Girls & Young Women within China, said: "Trafficking in persons is complex and a global concern. It is often associated with periods of mass migration, such as we are seeing in China. "It is encouraging that the Chinese government is looking at this issue from a cross-ministerial perspective with a coordinated focal point. This will greatly enhance coherence in policy making and implementation." The latest effort comes at a time when forced labor and sexual exploitation have become the features of human trafficking in the country.

"The number of such cases is rising," Yin told China Daily earlier.

Traditionally, trafficking was associated with adoption or forced marriages. Speake said prevention of trafficking is a low-cost and effective way to combating trafficking. Labor migration in China is an important contributor to the country's continued economic development and the creation of a balanced and well-off society, said Speake. However, without adequate support and protection, uninformed and ill-prepared migrants are at high risk of falling prey to forced labor or prostitution, she said.

With a spending of 13 million yuan ($1.7 million) from governments at various levels and co-funded by the UK's Department for International Development, the ILO's pilot program makes preventing trafficking in girls and young women a priority and is likely to be promoted nationwide, according to Speake. Women and girls are the most vulnerable to trafficking, accounting for 80 percent of the trafficked population worldwide, she said. About 3,000 cases of selling women and children are reported to police across the country every year, according to figures from the Ministry of Public Security.

To protect them, the ILO, in cooperation with the All China Women's Federation, has established 137 women's homes in six provinces including Anhui and Henan, offering safe migration and work assistance.

Adapted from: "Panel set to target human trafficking." China Daily. 4 September 2007.

Report on the National Anti-Trafficking Workshop in China

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 10:00:00 GMT

Hosted by the National Working Committee on Children and Women under the State Council and the Ministry of Public Security, in cooperation with the UNIAP China Office and the International Organisation for Migration, the National Anti-Trafficking Workshop was successfully held from 26 to 31 August 2007, in Lijiang, Yunnan Province. This training aimed to further improve the capabilities of personnel engaged in anti-trafficking work, more powerfully promoting the effective implementation of the six country, regional Memorandum of Understanding and the Sub-Regional Plan of Action.

Representatives attending this national training came from the National Working Committee on Children and Women under the State Council, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Central Committee for Comprehensive Management of Public Security, the Youth Corps Central Committee and leaders at all levels who are engaged in anti-trafficking work from relevant departments in Yunnan, Guangxi, Guangdong, Sichuan, Shanxi and Gilin Provinces. The UNIAP China Office and the International Organisation of Migration China Liaison Office also sent personnel to attend the training.

The training focused on the international and national definitions of trafficking, prevention, protection and legal assistance for victims, the prosecution of traffickers, etc. Lively discussions on issues concerning theory and practice took place. Everybody thought that, China’s trafficking legislation is included in China’s Criminal Law, Labour Law, Public Order Regulations and other laws and regulations. It is necessary to further consider how the “trafficking definition” used in the International Protocol on Human Trafficking can be integrated into China’s laws, as well as to compare and cooperate with other countries. The participants believe that, anti-trafficking work is a long-term and arduous task, under the leadership of the government with the participation of many departments and national and international cooperation, from the grassroots to national level everyone must make a concerted effort. The Chinese Ministry of Public Security has already made combating human trafficking a priority, so that the economy can benefit it should also link up with many departments to undertake comprehensive improvements, all-round prevention and develop methods to prevent human trafficking at the lowest cost for the largest society.

The trainers were Deputy Director-General Huang TaiYun from the Criminal Legislation Department of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the National People’s Congress, Prof. Liang ShuYing from the China University of Political Science and Law, Dr. Mi XiaoXiong from the Social Policy Research Centre of the China’s Academy of Social Sciences, Tong JiYu, a researcher from the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences and Lance Bonneau, a senior regional programme officer for the International Organisation for Migration.

Those who attended the training thoroughly approved of the training methods and made positive suggestions on the content of the training.

(Provided by the UNIAP China Office, August 2008)
Source: http://uniap.law.pku.edu.cn/article/Details.asp?NewsId=895&Classid=-9&ClassName

China Plans to Combat Cross Province Trafficking for Forced Labour

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 15:41:00 GMT

In China the trend for trafficking people with the intention of exploiting them for labour and sexual services is increasing. Recently, a project officer from the International Labour Organisation revealed to a reporter that, based on the “Six Nation Anti-Trafficking Process” (China, Vietnam, Thailand, Burma, Lao PDR, Cambodia), the Chinese government is preparing the National Plan of Action on Anti-Trafficking.

Trafficking and the migrant population are inseparable. Data from the Ministry of Labour and Social Security indicates that, 60% of the labour force’s migration between provinces and within provinces is through unregulated channels, where there is a chance they could be trafficked. In particular young rural females, who blindly go to the cities for work, can easily fall into the hands of traffickers.

Full text: China Youth Daily. "China Plans to Combat Cross Province Trafficking for Forced Labour." 5 September 2007.

Women and Children Trafficked at South African Border

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 15:58:00 GMT

South Africa is the main destination in Southern Africa for human trafficking and 60 percent of the victims are children and young girls under the age of 15. While South Africa is a signatory to the United Nations protocol on human trafficking, children's rights organisations warn that the 2010 Fifa World Cup could provide an ideal market for trafficked women and children - since no specific legislation exists.

Martus de Wet, a legal adviser for Doctors for Life, an organisation that looks after the interests of prostitutes, said there was "a huge need" for these specialised laws as organised crime syndicates dealing in human trafficking are difficult to prosecute.

Superintendent Rajen Aiyer, from the Durban organised crime unit, said the trafficking of women and children from Eastern Europe, South East Asia, Thailand, Taiwan and across Africa was still a major problem in the city.

"These women are usually lured from their home countries with the promise of work in SA," he said. "When they get here their travel documents and passports are confiscated by the traffickers." The girls, he said, were told they would get their documents back when they paid their travel expenses.

"But they get caught in a debt/bondage situation."

Aiyer said there were cases of desperate parents selling children for as little as $2 000 with the promise that they would receive an education. Some of these children land up in SA. Aiyer said the Durban organised crime unit took "an aggressive stance" on human trafficking and there had been a number of convictions.

The After Dark night club in Prince Alfred Street where 16 Thai women were found to be working in a brothel. They were charged and found guilty of prostitution, keeping a brothel and contravening the immigration act. The women were later deported. Earlier this year nine Thai women were kept as sex slaves at a house in Umbilo.

Debbie Toughey, a former prostitute and brothel manager said there was a "common misconception" that human trafficking occurred only across borders. "It is not uncommon in SA for women and children to be trafficked within the borders and sold to brothels in different cities," she said.

She described the trafficking chain as "extensive and highly organised". Victims, said Toughey, are passed from person to person. "In the case of cross border trafficking, girls are kept in appalling conditions, smuggled into the country in the backs of trucks, in taxis, cars and in some cases even on foot or in containers as stowaways on ships. They are beaten and abused and often do not speak any South African language".

Tara, a former prostitute, said more and more young girls under the age of 10 were arriving in the city from rural areas. The South African Law Reform commission is currently drafting legislation criminalising the trafficking of humans.

Adpated from: "Women and children trafficked at SA border." 18 September 2007.

Human Trafficking Documentary Premieres in Beijing, China

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 16:03:00 GMT

An MTV-backed documentary on human trafficking in Asia premiered in China in a country still reeling from a scandal involving teenagers and children enslaved at several brick kilns.

'One of the shocking things is that when you ask young people, does slavery really exist, the general answer would probably be no, or they won't believe it's happening here,' MTV EXIT Campaign Director Simon Goff told Reuters in an interview in Beijing.

MTV EXIT – an anti-human trafficking initiative of programmes and events – screened the China premiere of 'Traffic', a documentary about three young victims of human trafficking across Southeast Asia. It includes Anna, taken from the Philippines and forced into prostitution; Eka, an Indonesian woman forced into domestic servitude in Singapore; and Ming Aung, a Burmese man detained for two years in a factory in Thailand. '(We) worked with expert groups like the ILO, the UN and the IOM (International Organisation for Migration) about which were the most prevalent forms of trafficking in Asia,' Goff said.

'That came down to trafficking for sexual exploitation, for domestic servitude and for forced labor.' Human trafficking is a major global problem, particularly in Asia and Africa. The United Nations estimates 2.5 million people are currently coerced into forced labor or prostitution in a trade worth between $7 billion and $10 billion annually. In China, where the 30-minute documentary will be shown several times on MTV China's channel in October and November, human trafficking cases involving sex and forced labor are increasing, officials have said. Chinese police detained 47 people accused of trafficking babies earlier in the month and rescued dozens of infants being traded because of rural families' desire for children in a country that strictly enforces population control. This followed a scandal earlier in the year involving hundreds of farmers, teenagers and children being kidnapped, beaten and forced to work in brick kilns.

Goff said one of the most important underlying causes for human trafficking was 'demand'. 'The demand that we all represent for cheaper and cheaper consumer products and labor and the demand for paid sex,' he said. MTV signed up a string of Asian pop stars to present the documentary, including South Korea's Rain and Thailand's 'Britney Spears' Tata Young in country-specific releases. Canto-pop star Karen Mok narrates the Chinese version in Mandarin.

The show will be beamed to about 13 million homes, MTV executives said, mainly in China's affluent southern province of Guangdong and hotels in other provinces. China places strict controls on foreign and non-state broadcasters and bans cable access in most private homes, though many residents in larger cities often watch foreign cable channels through illegal satellite dishes. 'We know that ... those who are most at risk of being trafficked don't necessarily have access to MTV,' Goff said, adding that the station would reach out to state-owned CCTV and other local channels. 'Hopefully we can get support from them, too,' he said.

Adapted from: "Human trafficking documentary premieres in Beijing." 21 September 2007.

Thailand - Laos Provincial Cooperation Accord Signed

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 14:27:00 GMT

Thailand and Laos have reached a provincial-level agreement to jointly combat crossborder crime, ranging from drug trafficking and the hiring of illegal immigrants to the flesh trade.

The provincial-level pact between the neighbouring countries was signed by Ubon Ratchathani governor Suthee Makboon and Saravan governor Kamboon Duangpanya at Rajabhat Ubon Ratchathani University. Under the terms of the Thai-Lao pact, the authorities of both sides will jointly combat crossborder crimes such as human trafficking, drug trafficking and illegal immigrants, especially those who may have dual nationality, and contraband smuggling. The Lao side also suggested that Thai entrepreneurs consider investing in labour-intensive, agro-projects in Laos, and noted that temporary border checkpoints in the socialist state could be turned into permanent ones to promote sustainable tourism and trade between the two countries.

Adapted from: "Thailand-Laos provincial accord signed at Ubon." 31 August 2007.

MTV Spotlights Human Trafficking in Thailand

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 14:26:00 GMT

MTV, the most popular music channel in the Asia-Pacific region, will soon be playing a different tune.

Half-hour shows, beginning Sep.18 for MTV Thailand, will have live and hip music giving way to the harrowing accounts of human trafficking victims. No glam shots and glitzy productions here, just raw and oftentimes shocking images that will make young MTV fans sit up. Trafficking will get a human face through the personal accounts of Anna, Eka and Min Aung. Anna was forced into prostitution in the Philippines, while Eka is an Indonesian who was an abused domestic worker in Singapore. Min Aung from Burma recounts his experiences working and being practically imprisoned in a Thai factory for two years.

"Why is MTV involved in the issue of human trafficking? It's primarily because our audience, who belong to the 15 to 29 age range, are the main target of traffickers. We believe that the key to solving the problem is to raise awareness especially among the young people," said Tom Ehr, chief executive of MTV Europe Foundation (MTVEF) at the launch of the documentary, titled 'MTV Exit: End Exploitation and Trafficking', here.

The programme, hosted by popular Thai singer Tata Young, was produced by the Britain-based MTVEF and MTV Networks with the full support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The documentary, which will be presented by different hosts in the region, will be shown in Japan, Taiwan, China, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, to name a few. According to the U.S. Embassy's deputy chief of mission James Entwistle, estimates vary on the number of people trafficked each year, with figures ranging from the hundreds of thousands to millions.

"Regardless of the exact figure, trafficking is inexcusable. This is why the U.S. government contributed more than 74 million U.S. dollars in 2006 to fund anti-trafficking programmes in 70 countries," he said. The United Nations estimates that the total market value of human trafficking is 32 billion dollars. "We worked with organisations and talked with experts to see what forms of trafficking we would focus on, the most prevalent forms that affect our audiences. We selected regions that would best represent the issue. Then, finally we brought in a production team, led by a Thai producer and a director from the UK," MTV Thailand campaign director Simon Goff told IPS. Goff said that it took them six weeks of pre-production work, including research and sourcing, another six weeks to shoot the documentary, and six weeks more of post-production work. It took about four and a half months of "solid production," he added.

Beyond the emotional and disturbing accounts of the trafficking survivors and the disturbing re-enactments of rape, beatings and abuse, the documentary also had interviews with a trafficker and a 'client' who openly admitted to the crime.

In an interview with 'The Chairman', a Filipino recruiter who forces young girls into prostitution revealed the horrific experiences young girls go through, and this has reinforced by what "Ama", a Chinese client who admitted to paying for sex with trafficked girls, narrated. Asked how they were able to get such interviewees, Goff said, "We had a very, very good production team. In fact, the victims in the story were the easiest people to find. It was The Chairman and Ama who were the two hardest characters to get hold of."

According to Goff, the producers sought the help of 'fixers', usually journalists, who could give them contacts. "After talking with different contacts, we were able to contact the Filipino trafficker, told him we want him to be in our show, and he agreed -- with no strings attached," said Goff. "When the crew began filming, he was obviously a bit wary. But interestingly enough, towards the end of the shoot, he relaxed a bit and gave the film crew fantastic access. He was walking through his brothels, showing the crew what he's doing and giving them a view of his world and revealing exactly how he works. What was even incredible is, by the end of the shoot, he agreed to be on camera completely. It was amazing."

MTV, however, decided not to reveal the identity of the trafficker, out of concern for the safety of their contacts. "We felt it might endanger the journalists who found this person for us. If something happens to him based on his involvement in this, and the fixer and the fixer's family have something happen to them, it would be our responsibility," he explained.

Calling the campaign "tragic" because of its disturbing nature, Tata Young said that she felt "sick" after the first day of shooting her spiels. "I went home and vomited because of what I've seen about the abuse of these young people. It hurts me so much and I will definitely try my best to help in raising awareness about the plight of trafficked people and how we can best prevent this from happening," she said.

The challenge now, said Goff, is to break the people's apathy and denial about human trafficking. "Ultimately, time will tell. We have launched the campaign and it's already out there in the media. We hope that the show will make people realise that they are both a part of and a solution to the problem," he said. In Thailand's case, he added that it is also important for Thais to realise that it is not just about Thai victims being trafficked abroad, but it's also "necessary to look that we have other nationalities, such as Min Aung, who has been trafficked here".

According to http://www.HumanTrafficking.org, an online resource for combating human trafficking, Thai women are trafficked to Australia, Bahrain, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan, Europe and North America for commercial sexual exploitation. On the other hand, significant numbers of Burmese, Laos, Cambodian and Chinese end up working in plantations, the fishing industry, and commercial sex work, among others, in Thailand. "Thailand is a massive destination and a transit country and trafficking is particularly prevalent here. In a way, it's been reported so much that the people have become apathetic. We want to try to jar them out of that state and convince them to start acting against trafficking again," said Goff.

He added that the documentary has practical suggestions on how to curb trafficking in people, including through education and information to prevent more young people from being lured into the illicit trade. "In all, it is a global campaign given a local content. We want our audience to feel that they're a part of something wider but that it also concerns the local community," he said.

Adapted from: Lynette Lee Corporal. "Rights-Asian: MTV turns spotlight on human trafficking." IPS News. 5 September 2007.

US Estimates Thousands of Victims, Efforts to Find Them Fall Short

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 09:23:00 GMT

Outrage was mounting at the 1999 hearing in the Rayburn House Office Building, where congressmen were learning about human trafficking.

A woman from Nepal testified that September that she had been drugged, abducted and forced to work at a brothel in Bombay. A Christian activist recounted tales of women overseas being beaten with electrical cords and raped. A State Department official said Congress must act -- 50,000 slaves were pouring into the United States every year, she said. Furious about the "tidal wave" of victims, Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.) vowed to crack down on so-called modern-day slavery.

The next year, Congress passed a law, triggering a little-noticed worldwide war on human trafficking that began at the end of the Clinton administration and is now a top Bush administration priority. As part of the fight, President Bush has blanketed the nation with 42 Justice Department task forces and spent more than $150 million -- all to find and help the estimated hundreds of thousands of victims of forced prostitution or labor in the United States.

But the government couldn't find them. Not in this country.

The evidence and testimony presented to Congress pointed to a problem overseas. But in the seven years since the law was passed, human trafficking has not become a major domestic issue, according to the government's figures.

The administration has identified 1,362 victims of human trafficking brought into the United States since 2000, nowhere near the 50,000 a year the government had estimated. In addition, 148 federal cases have been brought nationwide, some by the Justice task forces, which are composed of prosecutors, agents from the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and local law enforcement officials in areas thought to be hubs of trafficking.

In the Washington region, there have been about 15 federal cases this decade.

Ronald Weitzer, a criminologist at George Washington University and an expert on sex trafficking, said that trafficking is a hidden crime whose victims often fear coming forward. He said that might account for some of the disparity in the numbers, but only a small amount.

"The discrepancy between the alleged number of victims per year and the number of cases they've been able to make is so huge that it's got to raise major questions," Weitzer said. "It suggests that this problem is being blown way out of proportion."

Government officials define trafficking as holding someone in a workplace through force, fraud or coercion. Trafficking generally takes two forms: sex or labor. The victims in most prosecutions in the Washington area have been people forced into prostitution. The Department of Health and Human Services "certifies" trafficking victims in the United States after verifying that they were subjected to forced sex or labor. Only non-U.S. citizens brought into this country by traffickers are eligible to be certified, entitling them to receive U.S. government benefits.

Administration officials acknowledge that they have found fewer victims than anticipated. Brent Orrell, an HHS deputy assistant secretary, said that certifications are increasing and that the agency is working hard to "help identify many more victims." He also said: "We still have a long way to go.''

But Tony Fratto, deputy White House press secretary, said that the issue is "not about the numbers. It's really about the crime and how horrific it is." Fratto also said the domestic response to trafficking "cannot be ripped out of the context" of the U.S. government's effort to fight it abroad. "We have an obligation to set an example for the rest of the world, so if we have this global initiative to stop human trafficking and slavery, how can we tolerate even a minimal number within our own borders?"

He said that the president's passion about fighting trafficking is motivated in part by his Christian faith and his outrage at the crime. "It's a practice that he obviously finds disgusting, as most rational people would, and he wants America to be the leader in ending it," Fratto said. "He sees it as a moral obligation."

Although there have been several estimates over the years, the number that helped fuel the congressional response -- 50,000 victims a year -- was an unscientific estimate by a CIA analyst who relied mainly on clippings from foreign newspapers, according to government sources who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the agency's methods. Former attorney general Alberto R. Gonzales told Congress last year that a much lower estimate in 2004 -- 14,500 to 17,500 a year -- might also have been overstated.

Yet the government spent $28.5 million in 2006 to fight human trafficking in the United States, a 13 percent increase over the previous year. The effort has attracted strong bipartisan support.

Steven Wagner, who helped HHS distribute millions of dollars in grants to community groups to find and assist victims, said "Those funds were wasted."

"Many of the organizations that received grants didn't really have to do anything," said Wagner, former head of HHS's anti-trafficking program. "They were available to help victims. There weren't any victims."

Still, the raw emotion of the issue internationally and domestically has spawned dozens of activist organizations that fight trafficking. They include the Polaris Project, which was founded in 2002 by two college students, and the Washington-based Break the Chain Campaign, which started in the mid-1990s focusing on exploited migrant workers before concentrating on trafficking after 2000.

Activist groups and administration officials strongly defend their efforts, saying that trafficking is a terrible crime and that even one case is too many. They said that cultural obstacles and other impediments prevent victims from coming forward.

Mark P. Lagon, director of the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, said that such problems make the numbers "naturally murky. . . . There are vigorous U.S. government efforts to find and help victims in the United States, not because there is some magic number that we have a gut instinct is out there. Any estimate we're citing, we've always said, is an estimate."

But Lagon said he is convinced that "thousands upon thousands of people are subject to gross exploitation" in the United States. Few question that trafficking is a serious problem in many countries, and the U.S. government has spent more than half a billion dollars fighting it around the world since 2000.

Last year, anti-trafficking projects overseas included $3.4 million to help El Salvador fight child labor and $175,000 for community development training for women in remote Mekong Delta villages in Vietnam, according to the State Department. Human trafficking, in the United States and abroad, is under attack by 10 federal agencies that report to a Cabinet-level task force chaired by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

In the United States, activists say that trafficking has received far more attention than crimes such as domestic violence, of which there are hundreds of thousands of documented victims every year.

The quest to find and help victims of trafficking has become so urgent that the Bush administration hired a public relations firm, a highly unusual approach to fighting crime. Ketchum, a New York-based public relations firm, has received $9.5 million and has been awarded $2.5 million more.

"We're giving money to Ketchum so they can train people who can train people who can train people to serve victims," said one Washington area provider of services for trafficking victims, who receives government funding and spoke on condition of anonymity. "Trafficking victims are hidden. They're not really going to be affected by a big, splashy PR campaign. They're not watching Lifetime television."

Yet the anti-trafficking crusade goes on, partly because of the issue's uniquely nonpartisan appeal. In the past four years, more than half of all states have passed anti-trafficking laws, although local prosecutions have been rare. "There's huge political momentum, because this is a no-brainer issue," said Derek Ellerman, co-founder of the Polaris Project. "No one is going to stand up and oppose fighting modern-day slavery."

A Matter of Faith

Throughout the 1990s, evangelicals and other Christians grew increasingly concerned about international human rights, fueled by religious persecution in Sudan and other countries. They were also rediscovering a tradition of social reform dating to when Christians fought the slave trade of an earlier era.

Human trafficking has always been a problem in some cultures but increased in the early 1990s, experts say. For conservative Christians, trafficking was "a clear-cut, uncontroversial, terrible thing going on in the world," said Gary Haugen, president of International Justice Mission in Arlington, a Christian human rights group.

Feminist groups and other organizations also seized on trafficking, and a 1999 meeting at the Capitol, organized by former Nixon White House aide Charles W. Colson, helped seal a coalition. The session in the office of then-House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.) brought together the Southern Baptist Convention, conservative William Bennett and Rabbi David Saperstein, a prominent Reform Jewish activist.

The session focused only on trafficking victims overseas, said Mariam Bell, national public policy director for Colson's Prison Fellowship Ministries. "It was just ghastly stuff," Armey recalled last week, saying that he immediately agreed to support an anti-trafficking law. "I felt a sense of urgency that this must be done, and as soon as possible."

A New Law

A law was more likely to be enacted if its advocates could quantify the issue. During a PowerPoint presentation in April 1999, the CIA provided an estimate: 45,000 to 50,000 women and children were trafficked into the United States every year.

The CIA briefing emerged from the Clinton administration's growing interest in the problem. First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton had been pushing the issue, former administration officials said.

But information was scarce, so a CIA analyst was told to assess the problem in the United States and abroad. She combed through intelligence reports and law enforcement data. Her main source, however, was news clippings about trafficking cases overseas -- from which she tried to extrapolate the number of U.S. victims.

The CIA estimate soon appeared in a report by a State Department analyst that was the U.S. government's first comprehensive assessment of trafficking. State Department officials raised the alarm about victims trafficked into the United States when they appeared before Congress in 1999 and 2000, citing the CIA estimate. A Justice Department official testified that the number might have been 100,000 each year.

The congressional hearings focused mostly on trafficking overseas. At the House hearing in September 1999, Rep. Earl F. Hilliard (D-Ala.) changed the subject and zeroed in on Laura J. Lederer, a Harvard University expert on trafficking.

"How prevalent is the sex trade here in this country?" Hilliard asked.

"We have so very little information on this subject in this country. . . . so very few facts," Lederer said.

"Excuse me, but is the sex trade prevalent here?" Hilliard asked.

Nobody knows, Lederer said.

Bipartisan passion melted any uncertainty, and in October 2000, Congress enacted the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, significantly broadening the federal definition of trafficking. Prosecutors would no longer have to rely on statutes that required them to prove a victim had been subjected to physical violence or restraints, such as chains. Now, a federal case could be made if a trafficker had psychologically abused a victim.

The measure toughened penalties against traffickers, provided extensive services for victims and committed the United States to a leading role internationally, requiring the State Department to rank countries and impose sanctions if their anti-trafficking efforts fell short.

The law's fifth sentence says: "Congress finds that . . . approximately 50,000 women and children are trafficked into the United States each year."

Raising Awareness

Just as the law took effect, along came a new president to enforce it.

Bell, with Prison Fellowship Ministries, noted that when Bush addressed the U.N. General Assembly in 2003, he focused on the war in Iraq, the war on terrorism and the war on trafficking.

Soon after Bush took office, a network of anti-trafficking nonprofit agencies arose, spurred in part by an infusion of federal dollars.

HHS officials were determined to raise public awareness and encourage victims to come forward. For help, they turned to Ketchum in 2003. Legal experts said they hadn't heard of hiring a public relations firm to fight a crime problem. Wagner, who took over HHS's anti-trafficking program in 2003, said that the strategy was "extremely unusual" but that creative measures were needed. "The victims of this crime won't come forward. Law enforcement doesn't handle that very well, when they have to go out and find a crime," he said.

Ketchum, whose Washington lobbying arm is chaired by former U.S. Rep. Susan Molinari (R-N.Y.), formed coalitions of community groups in two states and 19 cities, to search for and aid victims. The coalition effort was overseen by a subcontractor, Washington-based Capital City Partners, whose executives during the period of oversight have included the former heads of the Fund for a Conservative Majority and the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, in addition to the former editorial page editor of the conservative Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader newspaper.

Trying to Get the Number Right

Three years ago, the government downsized its estimate of trafficking victims, but even those numbers have not been borne out. The effort to acquire a more precise number had begun at the Library of Congress and Mercyhurst College in Pennsylvania, where graduate students on a CIA contract stayed up nights, using the Internet to find clippings from foreign newspapers.

Once again, the agency was using mainly news clips from foreign media to estimate the numbers of trafficking victims, along with reports from government agencies and anti-trafficking groups. The students at Mercyhurst, a school known for its intelligence studies program, were enlisted to help. But their work was thought to be inconsistent, said officials at the Government Accountability Office, which criticized the government's trafficking numbers in a report last year.

A part-time researcher at the Library of Congress took over the project. "The numbers were totally unreliable," said David Osborne, head of research for the library's federal research division. "If it was reported that 15 women were trafficked from Romania into France, French media might pick it up and say 32 women and someone else would say 45."

A CIA analyst ran the research through a computer simulation program, said government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing the CIA's methods. It spat out estimates of destination countries for trafficking victims worldwide. The new number of victims trafficked into the United States: 14,500 to 17,500 each year.

The simulation is considered a valid way to measure probability if the underlying data are reliable. "It seems incredibly unlikely that this was a robust, sound analysis," said David Banks, a statistics professor at Duke University. The CIA's new estimate, which first appeared in a 2004 State Department report, has been widely quoted, including by a senior Justice Department official at a media briefing this year. It's also posted on the HHS Web site.

The Justice Department's human trafficking task force in Washington has mounted an aggressive effort to find victims.

But at a meeting of the task force this year, then-coordinator Sharon Marcus-Kurn said that detectives had spent "umpteen hours of overtime" repeatedly interviewing women found in Korean- and Hispanic-owned brothels. "It's very difficult to find any underlying trafficking that is there," Marcus-Kurn told the group.

People trafficked into the United States have traditionally been the focus of the crackdown. In recent years, there has been increasing debate about whether the victim estimates should include U.S. citizens. For example, adult U.S. citizens forced into prostitution are also trafficking victims under federal law, but some say that such cases should be left to local police.

D.C.: A Trafficking Hub?

In a classroom at the D.C. police academy in January, President Bush appears on a screen at a mandatory training session in how to investigate and identify trafficking. The 55 officers who attended watch a slide show featuring testimonials from government officials and a clip from Bush's 2003 speech to the United Nations.

Sally Stoecker, lead researcher for Shared Hope International in Arlington, which aims to increase awareness of sex trafficking, takes the microphone. "It's a huge crime, and it's continuing to grow," Stoecker says, citing the government's most recent estimate of victims.

The D.C. officers are among thousands of law enforcement officials nationwide who have been trained in how to spot trafficking. In Montgomery County, police have investigated numerous brothels since the force was trained in 2005 and last year. Officers have found a few trafficking victims, but there have been no prosecutions.

The Justice Department runs law enforcement task forces across the country. It's a top priority for the department's Civil Rights Division. Justice officials have said there has been a 600 percent increase in U.S. cases. But the department said in a report last September: "In absolute numbers, it is true that the prosecution figures pale in comparison to the estimated scope of the problem."

The 148 cases filed this decade by the Civil Rights Division and U.S. attorney's offices might not include what Justice officials call a limited number of child trafficking prosecutions by the Criminal Division, Justice officials said Friday. They could not provide a number.

Arlington County Commonwealth's Attorney Richard E. Trodden, who studied trafficking for the Virginia Crime Commission, said he doesn't know of any local prosecutions in Northern Virginia. Nearly seven years after it began, the anti-trafficking campaign rolls on.

"This is important for me personally," Gonzales said in January as he announced the creation of a Justice Department unit to focus on trafficking cases. Encouraged by Gonzales, who sent letters to all 50 governors, states continued to pass anti-trafficking laws. Maryland enacted a law in May that toughens penalties. Virginia has not taken legislative action; some legislators have said that a law isn't needed.

HHS is still paying people to find victims. Last fall, the agency announced $3.4 million in new "street outreach" awards to 22 groups nationwide. Nearly $125,000 went to Mosaic Family Services, a nonprofit agency in Dallas. For the past year, its employees have put out the word to hospitals, police stations, domestic violence shelters -- any organization that might come into contact with a victim.

"They're doing about a thousand different things," said Bill Bernstein, Mosaic's deputy director.

Three victims were found.

Adapted from: Jerry Markon. "Human Trafficking Evokes Outrage, Little Evidence: U.S. Estimates Thousands of Victims, But Efforts to Find Them Fall Short." The Washington Post. 23 September 2007

TRADE Movie Portrays Human Trafficking in the United States

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 23:08:00 GMT

Kevin Kline was at the United Nations to promote a film on human trafficking that officials hope will raise awareness about the alarming and largely unknown problem.

"Trade," based on a 2004 magazine article, follows the abduction of a young Eastern European woman and a 13-year-old Mexican girl who are roped into an international sex ring. Kline plays a Texas policeman who teams up with the girl's brother to track down her abductors.

He told reporters Wednesday the movie gives viewers an idea of how trafficking networks operate "not only behind the scenes but ... in plain sight in these residential neighborhoods."

"All around the world it's happening and people see it but they're not aware of it," the 59-year-old actor said. "The movie is gut-wrenching and alarming and disturbing, as it is meant to be."

The U.S. State Department, which releases an annual report on trafficking, estimates 1.1 million people are smuggled across borders each year, the vast majority of them women and children.

Global profits from trafficking victims around the world are as high as $32 billion per year, according to U.N. figures.

Antonio Maria Costa, head of the Vienna-based U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, said he hoped "Trade" would "create worldwide awareness so that people, governments, business leaders and religious leaders are motivated to join forces in dealing with this crime."

"Obviously there is no better way of building public awareness than using the most popular media around the world," Costa said.

"Trade," the debut American feature from young German director Marco Kreuzpaintner, opens in theaters Sept. 28, 2007.

Adapted from: LILY HINDY. "Kline Promotes Film on Human Trafficking. Associated Press." 19 September 2007.

Child Victims of Trafficking Vanish from Social Services Care in the UK

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 23:12:00 GMT

More than 180 children recently trafficked illegally into the UK have since gone missing without trace from social services care, according to a Unicef report warning that the government is failing to protect vulnerable youngsters brought into the country.

The study published calling for new safeguarding measures says official figures significantly underestimate the "hidden crime" of child trafficking, which sees children as young as five brought secretly into Britain to work as domestic servants, in cannabis factories, or for sexual exploitation or under-age marriage.

According to the report, Rights Here, Rights Now, even if trafficked children are identified "their care and protection is inconsistent, ad hoc and, in some regions, completely absent". To help plug "gaps in the system", Unicef wants reforms including a professional guardian for each trafficked child to protect their interests.

Most children identified and put into care, usually living in hostels or bed and breakfast accommodation, simply disappear. They may be lured away again by criminals or the same traffickers who brought them illegally into the country, according to campaigners.

Government figures highlighted in the Unicef study reveal that of 72 Chinese children known to have been trafficked into Britain during 18 months in 2005-6, 63 (88%) have since gone missing. Of the 140 boys identified as trafficked into the country during that period, three quarters are now missing from care. In total, 183 of the 330 trafficking victims were now missing.

The Home Office data also reveals that the children came from 44 countries. By far the highest number came from China, followed by Nigeria, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Eritrea, though 33 children were trafficked from Russia and eastern Europe - a tenth of the total. Christine Beddoe, director of Ecpat UK - a campaign group on child trafficking and prostitution that has jointly published today's study with Unicef - said official figures on trafficked children were "the tip of the iceberg".

Data collection on the issue is still much less efficient in the UK than in continental Europe, she said, but increased awareness among agencies including police and social services was revealing a problem affecting not only London but the whole of the UK.

While trafficking for sexual exploitation remains a key issue, many children are brought into the country for "domestic servitude", she added. "We are talking about the idea of home help, but in a very exploitative situation with children.

"We have cases of African families buying child labour for domestic work but also minding smaller children in the family. It is not like having a nanny. They are not considered part of the family: they may live in the family home but I have heard situations where children have been locked in the garage or having to sleep on the floor before doing the scrubbing and cleaning. It really is Dickensian type of stuff."

The use of trafficked child labour - mainly from Vietnam - to run illegal cannabis farms appeared to be increasing, Ms Beddoe added. Last week, the charity Drugscope highlighted how Vietnamese children are being used as "human sprinkler systems" to water and tend plants in UK cannabis farms, often living in lofts or cupboards and facing criminal charges rather than protection if the farms are raided by the police. On average, police are raiding three farms a day.

A report on child trafficking in the UK, produced by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) and published by the Home Office in June this year, indicates that most trafficked children are between 14 and 17 years old, though the youngest child trafficked to be a domestic servant was five.

Ms Beddoe said the government figures and Ecpat's own research suggested some 60% of children identified as trafficked later go missing. "Usually they go into B&B or shared accommodation. Most is sub-standard and certainly not secure."

It was almost impossible to track what happened to the children, she said, but a handful who returned had reported being "lured away by a so-called boyfriend, and becoming a victim of rape".

Last night a 17-year-old girl who was trafficked from east Africa to a terraced house in the north of England told the Guardian she had been promised work as a model. However, when she arrived she found herself forced into prostitution.

"I asked the man about my modelling - I was excited about it - but he waved me off. The man started bringing men to the house, telling them about what I used to do in my country and I realised things were bad. They were rough with me." The girl, who did not want to be named, said she had contemplated suicide. "Then one morning he left, but the door was open. I went outside and asked a lady to show me to the train station. I got on a train to London. Escape was my only chance." She is now studying for A Levels.

The Home Office minister Vernon Coaker said his department, together with the Department for Children, Schools and Families, would publish guidance later this year on best practice on identifying and protecting victims of trafficking. The government had already published the UK Action Plan on Tackling Human Trafficking last March. He added: "A huge amount of work has been done. But there is more to do and we will work with all agencies and colleagues."

John Coughlan, joint president of the Association of Directors of Children's Services, said that care did not mean a secure setting. "The best that care will be able to do is provide a safe and secure haven for children who are believed to have been trafficked ... We take the responsibility of looking after these children seriously but sadly what we can't do is prevent them running off."

Adapted from: Lucy Ward and Matthew Taylor. "Vanished: the child victims of trafficking." The Guardian. 20 September 2007.

In Asia, MTV Turns Camera on Trafficking

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 23:18:00 GMT

Its high production values, driving musical score, and slick edits make the film, in the words of its producers, "very MTV." But don't expect to see boy bands or risqué hip-hop.

MTV's "Traffic" is a hard-hitting, US-funded documentary that is part of a campaign aimed at educating vulnerable youth in Asia about the risks of being trafficked illegally for exploitative labor.

The movie, which premieres Tuesday on MTV Thailand, is tailored for the US broadcaster's vast youth audience in go-getting East Asia. By raising awareness of the dangers, campaigners say they hope to address a practice that is akin to modern-day slavery.

"This is a criminal enterprise and it involves criminals," says Richard Whelden, deputy director in Asia for the US Agency for International Development, which is funding the MTV campaign. "It's undercover and in the shadows. What we're doing is putting a spotlight on the problem and bringing it out in the open so you can see what it is: slavery."

Antitrafficking advocates say that governments in Southeast Asia, where smuggling of women and children is rife, have begun to tighten laws and step up cross-border cooperation. This has allowed for some successful criminal prosecutions. But traffickers continue to exploit porous borders and lax policing, while shifting their operations to countries that have yet to fully outlaw the practice and only enforce labor laws with milder penalties.

MTV's 24-minute television special seeks to portray the dangers of human trafficking in Asia through the harrowing stories of three young victims. One is sold overseas into commercial sex work, another is beaten and abused as a domestic servant, and the third is forced to work around the clock in a factory. Viewers will also get advice on where to turn for help and how to get involved in the campaign.

The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that 12.3 million people worldwide are engaged in some kind of forced or bonded work, including child labor. Much of this takes place within a single country's borders: Hundreds of teenagers and adults were found earlier this year toiling in prisonlike conditions in kilns and mines in central China.

The State Department estimates that around 800,000 people are sold illegally across national borders. It says that 80 percent of those trafficked internationally are women and children, most of whom are sold into prostitution. The global market for smuggled people is worth between $7 billion and $10 billion annually, second only to the illegal drug trade.

Thailand's sex industry has long been a magnet for traffickers. As Thai authorities try to curb the most egregious abuses, criminals have switched to supplying women to brothels in Malaysia and Singapore, says Edelweiss Silan, an antitrafficking coordinator in Bangkok for Save the Children. "They're trying to move to where laws are not in place, and people aren't aware of the issue," she says.

These shortcomings will likely dampen the impact of regional information campaigns unless they're harnessed to long-term rural development and better governance, say advocates. "Raising awareness is not enough. Government interventions are not enough ... there needs to be a critical mass developed to reduce the numbers," says Allan Dow, a spokesman for the ILO's antitrafficking unit in Bangkok.

Called EXIT, or End Exploitation and Trafficking, the MTV campaign includes public service spots, South Korean-made animation shorts, and a multilingual website (www.mtvexit.org). "Traffic" is being dubbed into eight languages by local celebrities, such as Korean pop icon Rain. In South Asia, a separate documentary called "Sold" will be aired. Advocacy groups say trafficking patterns differ in that region.

MTV says it reaches 380 million mainly urban households across Asia. To get the message out to rural areas where traffickers mostly recruit, EXIT specials will be rebroadcast on free-to-air channels, says Simon Goff, campaign director for MTV. Local organizations will also screen films in at-risk communities. In Burma (Myanmar), where TV coverage is limited, MTV plans to distribute free copies via consumer-product marketing networks.

Experts say another factor complicating the response to trafficking is that it's often hard to untangle the forced, illegal movement from voluntary migration. People smugglers offer a way out of rural poverty, so migrants who are rescued and repatriated may try to leave again, despite the risks. Some antitrafficking raids on brothels in Thailand have incurred the wrath of sex workers who reject being classified as victims who need to be saved.

Given this complexity, campaigners say MTV's message to viewers isn't as simple as "Don't do it." "Some people will still take risks. And this is why we've got to continue making these programs to try to ensure that they know these resources exist that can help them," says Mr. Goff.

Adapted from: Simon Montlake. "In Asia, MTV turns camera on trafficking." The Christian Science Monitor. 18 September 2007.

Traffickers Exploit Increased Mobility of Underage Girls in Nepal

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 15:00:00 GMT

Sixteen-year-old Sushma does not want to reveal her true identity for fear that the traffickers who sold her into the notorious brothel area of Kamathipura in Mumbai, India, could track her down and kill her.

"I should have listened to my village schoolteacher who told me not to be taken in by false promises of a job abroad," she told IRIN, expressing regret that she had left her village in Banke, nearly 600km southwest of Kathmandu, without even informing her parents.

"There are so many innocent village girls who have been lured by traffickers with false promises of earning a lot of money in a foreign country," said Sushma. Anti girl-trafficking activists have asked the local police authorities, especially those stationed near the open Nepal-Indian border, to be on the lookout for any young underage girls leaving the country.

In the last week alone a prominent local non-governmental organisation (NGO), Maiti Nepal, intercepted around 15 girls, half of whom were underage. "They were all carrying fake passports and didn't even know where they were travelling to," said activist Keshab Koirala from Maiti Nepal in Banke.

Maiti Nepal and other NGOs like the Women's Rehabilitation Centre are actively raising awareness of the dangers of trafficking but the traffickers can be persuasive: "I trusted the man who came to help me but I didn't know he was tricking me," said Fudoma Sherpa, a 15-year-old girl who was saved by Maiti Nepal at the border near Nepalgunj in Banke District. The alleged trafficker is in hiding, according to activists.

Despite measures by the government and NGOs to protect girls from being trafficked, the situation has barely changed, according to activists, who said hundreds of Nepalese girls still get trafficked to India every year where they are forced into prostitution.

NGOs suspect that one of the reasons for the steady number of trafficked girls is that mobility restrictions imposed by the recent armed conflict in Nepal now no longer exist. During that period young girls could not easily leave the villages due to the Maoist rebels who controlled the movement of people. The traffickers are able to exploit this situation, they say.

Particularly vulnerable are girls who have become internally displaced persons (IDPs) due to growing political violence in southern Nepal's densely populated Terai region.

How the Traffickers Operate
According to Maiti Nepal, traffickers have been luring girls into prostitution by offering them fake jobs in Gulf countries and southeast Asia. The NGO says most of the vulnerable girls are under 16.

Investigations by the NGO have revealed that the Nepalese brothel owners in India use their strong networks at village and city level in Nepal to ensure a steady supply of girls. The local traffickers get a cut from the brothel owners.

Young Nepalese girls are sold at a high price to the biggest brothel owners. One of the most notorious brothel owners was released a few years ago due to her political connections, which proved that traffickers get political protection, according to Maiti Nepal.

Adapted from: "Traffickers Exploit Increased Mobility of Underage Girls." IRIN News. 22 August 2007.

Community Leaders in Romania Take Action against Human Trafficking

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 15:23:00 GMT

Community leaders from five communes in Iasi County, northeastern Romania, joined World Vision staff for a two-day meeting in Iasi Area Development Program (ADP) to discuss the issue and prevalence of human trafficking and explore the integration of anti trafficking initiatives into the ADP's development work based on community and World Vision staff capacity.

'I am glad that we joined as representatives of our communities to prevent human trafficking. As teachers, parents and leaders of our communities, we are responsible for the safety and well being of our community and our children. It is up to us to take into account everything that we learned here and make sure these horrible things don't happen to the members of our communities,' said a community member. 'The secret is working together with the local authorities and creating a network of dedicated and responsible people.'

'We took time to discuss and analyze risk factors and identify vulnerable groups in each of our communities - an important step in understanding the problem and in figuring out what we need to do next. We knew that people, especially young adults, are leaving to work abroad but I think that we never seriously understood the risks involved,' said a participant.

'Community awareness of the trafficking phenomenon and their ownership of a response to the issue is exactly the result we hope to see at a grassroots level. By understanding what factors put people at risk, communities like Iasi are positioning themselves to address trafficking where its influence on the community starts,' said Matthew Stephens, regional anti-trafficking coordinator.

As part of the ATAC (Anti-Trafficking Action Committee), an anti-trafficking initiative in the Middle East and Eastern Europe Region, World Vision has assessed three counties in Romania that are vulnerable to human trafficking and is identifying local capacity to develop a pilot project to combat human trafficking.

Survey results showed an association between the risk of trafficking and migration. In Iasi County, poor rural areas appear to be most at risk of trafficking to due lack of economic opportunity.

Children with at least one parent working abroad are considered at risk by the local authorities. These children fall victim to trafficking more easily due to neglect and weakened family relationships. Young men and women who leave foster care centres are also at risk, as many of them are unprepared to live independently and have not been taught how to make wise decisions.

Teenagers coming from vocational schools are in danger of being trafficked. The majority of these students has a lower level of education and comes from families with little to no economic opportunity. With few life prospects, they commonly seek work abroad, which puts them at risk of being trafficked.

World Vision is partnering with both communities and other NGO's in its anti-trafficking efforts. The organization is pursuing a regional and gender integrated approach because trafficking is a transnational problem that requires an international and gender focused solution.

Human trafficking is a major human rights violation that is gathering increasing attention both at a local and international level. The phenomenon has profound social and economical implications, affecting many countries and persons. Each year, an estimated 600,000 to 2,000,000 persons become victims of trafficking, with up to 50% of the victims being children.

According to a report issued by the US State Department, over 800,000 persons are trafficked across national borders each year. Eighty per cent of them are women and 70% are trafficked for sexual exploitation. Still, these are just official estimates; the real number of victims cannot be determined as most victims do not or cannot come forward.

Romania is considered to be a source and also a transit county for victims of trafficking networks.

Adapted from: "Community leaders in Romania take action against human trafficking." Reuters.
28 August 2007.

A Report by Save the Children Reveals Millions of Children Live as Child Slaves

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 15:27:00 GMT

On the 200th anniversary of the Slave Trade Act, a new report by Save the Children reveals millions of children are still living as child slaves.

The report exposes the eight most prevalent forms of child slavery that are still forcing children to live in appalling conditions, to work long hours for little or nothing in return, and to be subjected to extreme harm, violence and rape.

Child trafficking
1.2 million children and babies are trafficked every year, including into Western Europe, the Americas and the Caribbean, and the number is increasing. Gangs involved in child and people trafficking make an estimated profit of US$ 32 billion per year.

Child prostitution
At any one time across the world, around 1.8 million children are being abused through prostitution, child pornography and sex tourism. In the UK there are 5,000 child prostitutes. 75% of them are girls.

Bonded child labour
Millions of children are forced to work away their childhood in horrific conditions to pay off debt, or simply the interest on it. In India alone, estimates suggest up to 15 million children could be enslaved by somebody else's debt, many involved in illegal, hazardous and dangerous work.

Forced work in mines
One million children are risking their lives in mines and quarries in more than 50 African, Asian and South American countries. In the Sahel region of Africa, 200,000 children are daily risking their lives in gold and mineral mines.

Agricultural labour
More than 132 million children under 15 are trapped working in agriculture, often exposed to pesticides, heavy machinery, machetes and axes. In Kazakhstan, children work in cotton and tobacco fields and factories for up to 12 hours a day, seven days a week.

Child soldiers
More than 300,000 children under 15 are involved with fighting forces, including government armies. Boys and girls in at least 13 countries are actively being recruited as child soldiers or as army 'wives'. Around 11,000 children in Democratic Republic of Congo are currently being held by fighting groups.

Forced child marriage
Child marriage, which often includes mail order and internet brides, is one of the most widespread - yet hidden - forms of slavery. Girls as young as four are forced to live and have sex with their husband, and are often kept trapped indoors. Girls under 15 are five times more likely to die during pregnancy and childbirth than women over 20. In Afghanistan more than half of all girls are married before they are 16.

Domestic slavery
Millions of children across the world, some as young as six, are forced to work up to 15 hour days as domestic workers. Many are beaten, starved and sexually abused.
There are 200,000 child domestic workers in Kenya, 550,000 in Brazil and 264,000 in Pakistan.

Jasmine Whitbread, CEO of Save the Children, said:
"Child slavery is not a historical phenomenon - it is a stark reality for millions of children in both poor and rich countries. These children are treated like commodities; they can be lent or sold to other owners without warning, and live under crushing conditions of humiliation and abuse. Governments everywhere - including the UK - are not doing enough to respond to the plight of children in this inhumane situation. World leaders and international donors must act as a matter of urgency to address child slavery and put in place the laws and resources needed to eradicate these terrible practices."

Save the Children is calling on all governments to:

address and ensure the eradication of child slavery through their own policies on global poverty reduction.
invest sufficient money and resources to protect children associated with slavery.
implement international standards on the worst forms of child labour where children in slavery are found.
put in place protection programmes, including recovery and rehabilitation, to offer emergency and long-term support to all children trapped in slavery-like conditions.
ensure education is offered in ways that support the removal of children involved in the worst forms of child labour; for example, that it is accessible, flexible and affordable.

The Small Hands of Slavery

Australia Provides Aid to Indonesia to Combat Human Trafficking

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:25:00 GMT

Australia has announced it will give support to Indonesia's fight against human trafficking, aid which will add to programs already being helped by the UN and the US.

Australia launched Monday August 27, 2007 a partnership with the Indonesian government to focus on advisory and training activities to fight the human trade.

"The project provides training for front-line law enforcement officers like police, judges and prosecutors to make them aware how to handle people trafficking," Phillippe Allen, AusAid representative in Bangkok, told reporters.

Australian Ambassador to Indonesia Bill Farmer said that the five-year A$21 million (more than Rp 160 billion) regional initiative would work through Indonesia's criminal justice system to enhance efforts to prevent human trafficking in the region. Indonesian National Police chief of detectives Com. Gen. Bambang Hendarso Danuri said that as trafficking was a multinational problem it would need multilateral cooperation to prevent it.

"If we don't cooperate with other countries, it will be difficult to solve human trafficking cases in our country," he said. Deputy senior representative of AusAid Andrew Collins agreed that the project opened an opportunity to build stronger cooperation among countries in ASEAN to deal with the problem.

He said that more than 800,000 people were victims of trafficking every year in the region. The Australian initiative is part of the Asia Regional Trafficking in Persons (ARTIP) launched in August 2006 initially as a partnership with Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.

The project seeks to strengthen cooperation between countries on trafficking cases across national borders, and promotes the development of common standards between countries by working closely with regional bodies dealing with trafficking.

"Without committed police, prosecutors and judiciary it will never be possible to combat the traffickers or to seek justice for the victims of this terrible crime," Farmer said. Earlier, Indonesia, through its Jakarta Center for Law Enforcement Cooperation (JCLEC), working together with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), launched a training program worth US$8 million for the enhancing skills and knowledge of Indonesian legal officials.

The U.S. government has also announced that it will continue to support Indonesia by funding programs to help the country combat trafficking, rescue victims and improve law enforcement efforts. It said that it has provided more than $20 million to assist Indonesia in the fight against human trafficking.

Although the U.S. praised Indonesia in its latest global report on human trafficking for passing strong anti-trafficking laws, it underlined the great magnitude of the trafficking problem in the country and some difficult issues that still need to be overcome, including trafficking-related complicity by public officials and the need to provide greater protection to migrant workers at risk of trafficking.

Adapted from: Abdul Khalik. "Australia gives aid to slave trade fight." The Jakarta Post. 28 August 2007.

Exploitation of Skilled Migrants in Australia Exposed

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:48:00 GMT

Conditions in remote Australian workplaces, where two foreigners died within three days in June, are so harsh that a leading immigration expert says they are "akin to slavery".

A Herald investigation has exposed blatant breaches of the 457 skilled visa scheme and uncovered hidden details of the deaths of the two workers in the Northern Territory and Queensland, and of a third north of Perth.

The investigation highlights disturbing exploitation of overseas workers, too afraid to speak out, under a scheme that allows employers to sponsor thousands of foreigners to come into Australia and do jobs locals cannot or will not do. It reveals the "extremely ugly face" of the 457 visa system, according to the immigration expert Professor Bob Birrell, from Monash University.

The Herald has found that a university-trained Filipino farm supervisor, Pedro Balading, was thrown off the back of a Toyota utility and killed on a Gulf of Carpentaria cattle station in the Northern Territory. A witness, who was on the back of the ute, says it was being driven very fast on a rough road.

Mr Balading, 35, left behind a wife and three young children. His wife says that in the months before his death he complained repeatedly that his working conditions were much tougher than he had been told to expect, and he was forced to do menial work such as fencing, in breach of his skilled visa.

Two days earlier, a logger from Inner Mongolia, China, 33-year-old Guo Jian Dong, died in a remote state forest 700 kilometres west of Brisbane when a tree he was felling brushed a dead tree which then fell and crushed him. Although the visas only allow foreign workers into Australia to do jobs for which they are skilled, Jack Watson, the man who trained Mr Guo, says he had never used a chainsaw before he arrived in Queensland. Mr Guo left behind a wife, and a child he had never met.

Others who work for N.K. Collins, the company that employed Mr Guo, are still living in western Queensland, including three who live in a caravan in a timber mill next to the Mitchell town dump, speak no English, and push a wheelbarrow nearly three kilometres to town to buy food.

The company will not say where many of its other Chinese employees live, nor reveal the address of the deceased man's wife or allow employees to talk openly of the accident that killed him.

Professor Birrell said: "The specific instances … are akin to slavery. That derives from the fact that these people are cowed into believing that if they move away from their contract they will have to go home. Employers are exploiting their power in the relationship and … these people feel they have lost their rights."

In March, 10 weeks before the two deaths, a Filipino specialist stonemason, Wilfredo Navales, 43, was crushed to death by two slabs of granite in a stoneworks north of Perth. Mr Navales's family says he died doing labouring work he was forced to do rather than using the skills for which he was ostensibly brought to Australia.

The 457 visa requires employers to abide by strict conditions, but the Herald found numerous breaches, including:

■ Workers in positions that have no benefit for the local workforce;
■ Accommodation and meal expenses wrongly deducted directly from workers' wages;
■ Workers employed in locations other than stated on their visas;
■ Safety standards being routinely ignored;
■ Overtime unpaid.

A Federal Government report into the deaths, due for release in mid-July, was still not finished, a spokeswoman for the Minister for Immigration, Kevin Andrews, said. But action may be taken against the employers in the Northern Territory and Queensland. "Both employers have been asked to provide further information why action should not be taken against them."

Don Collins, from N.K. Collins, said it was a tragic accident that killed Mr Guo. Despite the contract trainer, Mr Watson, telling the Herald that Mr Guo had no experience as a logger, Mr Collins said: "They had experience in cutting trees." Of the workers camping in a caravan, he said: "I don't think it does any harm."

While the 457 visas were originally designed for professionals, in the past couple of years they had been "picked up by much more marginal employers", Professor Birrell said.

Another expert on the visas, a former public servant, Bob Kinnaird, of R.T. Kinnaird and Associates, said design faults in the visa scheme had set up a "race to the bottom in work conditions". "The dangerous aspect of the 457 visa is that people from low-wage countries, even if they are being underpaid by Australian standards, are still earning more than at home, so they will be tempted to put up with anything to stay here," he said.

The Immigration Department has only 65 officers to monitor compliance with the visas, which makes it impossible to police more than 100,000 visa holders living across Australia. The Government says 21 people have died on 457 visas in the past five years but insists only three deaths were work-related. It has provided only a one-line statement on the cause of the three work-related deaths investigated by the Herald, but refused to release the names. It would give no details on the other deaths, other than the five countries of origin, China, Japan, the Philippines, the US and Britain.

Its own figures point to rising exploitation. Abuses of the visa system saw the Government cancel the rights of 95 employers to use them in the past year, mainly for underpaying workers - up from three the previous year. Gino Lopez, head of Migrante International, which represents Filipino workers in Australia, said the scheme gave employers an opportunity to "treat employees badly" and "if the bosses are able to get more sweat out of the workers, many of them will do it".

"They are afraid of saying something to their boss, because they fear they will be sent home." John Sutton, from the Construction Forestry and Mining Employees Union, revealed last month that the three 457 workers had died, but had scant details. He said he was not surprised to learn of the working conditions in which they were killed.

"I regard it is as modern-day slavery," he said. "They are being treated as lesser citizens."

Adapted from: Matthew Moore and Malcolm Knox. "Exploitation of skilled migrants exposed." The Sydney Morning Herald.
28 August 2007.

Asian Women Duped in Bahrain

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 07:46:00 GMT

Many Asian women in Bahrain are being duped into working as sex slaves for men who lure them with promises of marriage, according to Thai Ambassador Phithak Phrombubpha.

He says victims are put up in apartments and visited once a week by their boyfriends, who brainwash them into believing they will eventually live together and start a family.

Mr Phrombubpha said women who want to escape are powerless to act as their passports are confiscated and once their visit visas expire they become illegal residents who rack up huge overstay fines that they have no means to pay. His comments come after one victim of human trafficking, who managed to escape from her captor, came to the embassy seeking help.

The 25-year-old, whose identity is being protected, is being kept in an emergency accommodation in Zinj until she flies home. "These people come to Bahrain because of an economic problem and they want to earn money," Mr Phrombubpha told the GDN.

"People recruit them by any means but they may not know exactly what kind of work they will be doing.” “Many Arabs come here and hire apartments and have these kind of women staying there.”

“There maybe many Thai women with similar cases and who is to say there may not be women of other nationalities. Some of them can go out freely but others are kept inside and they cannot leave because their passports are confiscated.”

“We would like to warn the newcomers that they have to be on alert and comply with the laws here. They have to know about the visa system." The Thai victim came to the embassy in Zinj after her Saudi boyfriend beat her up while he was under the influence of alcohol.

She managed to run away and a taxi driver dropped her off at the embassy. "She was a registered nurse and was promised a job in her profession, but she was sent to a hotel and the people who brought her here said she had to pay back BD1,500," said Mr Phrombubpha.

"She thought that she had a chance to go to Australia because she was told they needed nurses. "She was told that she would go there from Bahrain once her paperwork was completed.

"A Saudi customer then later bought her from the pimp and she fell in love with this man. "He kept her locked in a room and every week he would come to see her and give her some money so she could send it to Thailand."

The woman, from Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, is single and does not have children but travelled abroad to support her parents and other family members. Her Saudi lover gave her BD50 a month to send back home. An embassy spokesman said this was one of the more extreme cases officials had come across.

Although willing to go home, the embassy official said the woman still appears to be in love with the Saudi man and is hoping he will stick to his promise to marry her. She does not wish to press charges against him and, while officials say they are powerless to stop her if she wishes to return to him, they are determined to protect her and ensure she leaves Bahrain.

Adapted from: "Women 'duped into sex slavery'." www.gulf-daily-news.com. 14 August 2007.
(Source: UNIAP Cambodia)

Lao Youth Exposed to Human Trafficking

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 07:48:00 GMT

The problem of youth exposure to human trafficking was the focus of an enthralling drama performance at 9th Annual Donkoy Children’s Fair in Lao PDR.

A room at Donkoy Children’s Development Centre, Xaysettha district, Vientiane was beautifully prepared and a simple stage set for the performance by the children of the centre. Young actors present a drama on human trafficking.

The amateur performers had spent two months of their summer holiday practicing traditional dance and singing routines as well as learning to make handicrafts at the centre. Onstage the children gave the impression of trained actors, expressing sadness, laughter and anger on cue in a bid to capture the hearts of the judging panel and encourage applause from the dozens of onlookers packed into the small room.

Some actors used only their voices, while others had props or musical instruments provided by the centre, such as the melodica. The performance of a group of ten children drew the most interest. Wearing black clothes and simple sinhs, the children acted out their dismay at their friends being cheated by criminals. The sadness of the children made a great impression on the audience.

The Monkey Dance provided some happy relief with the masked children running and playing among the audience and causing plenty of laughter. The musical instruments were basic but played well, much to the enjoyment of the guests.

“I loved being a part of this performance,” said Ms Lina Heaungpaseauth, 14, an actor in the human trafficking drama. “I enjoyed it so much and we were happy to entertain our guests.”

Ms Lina had joined the drama class for two months after completing her normal studies for the year. Although she attends Phanmanh Secondary School, some distance from the centre, she is dedicated to regular classes at the centre.

While the school is closed, the centre encourages children not only from Donkoy village but also from other villages to come and take part in activities during their holidays. It plays an important role in providing children with fun learning activities. They learn traditional dances, how to play traditional instruments, creative writing, weaving and even carpentry.

The centre has been like a second home to many of the children and young people who go there on a regular basis. Here they can talk to staff about any problems they have and get advice on matters of concern.

Adapted from: "The Problem of Youth Exposure to Human Trafficking." Vientiane Times. 22 August 2007.
(Source: UNIAP Cambodia)

Council of Ministers Approves Draft Human Trafficking Law in Cambodia

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 08:46:00 GMT

The Council of Ministers approved on 24 August 2007 the draft law on Combating Human Trafficking and Sexual Trade and will submit it to the National Assembly for a vote, according to a statement.

The new draft was prepared by the Ministry of Justice to replace the current law on Suppression of Kidnapping, Trafficking, Sale and Exploitation of Human Persons, which was passed by the National Assembly in 1996, the Council of Ministers statement said. The new draft “aims to crack down on human trafficking and the act of sexual trade to protect the rights and morality of humans,” the statement said. Justice Minister Ang Vong Vathana that he was too busy to comment on the draft law.

Adapted from: Kuch Naren and James Welsh. "Government OKs Anti-human trafficking draft law." The Cambodia Daily. 25-26 August 2007; Issue: 493; Pg: 3. (Source: UNIAP Cambodia).

National Workshop to Review Burma's Draft National Plan of Action to Combat Human Trafficking

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 10:11:00 GMT

From 22 to 23 March 2007, a national workshop to review Burma's draft National Plan of Action to Combat Human Trafficking was held in Naypyitaw.

Organized by the Myanmar Ministry of Home Affairs with the support of UNIAP, the workshop brought together government officials from 24 ministries and departments, as well as UN agencies, international and national NGOs and other stakeholders in the fight against human trafficking. The workshop marked the culmination of the development of the National Plan of Action, which was undertaken by the Burmese government in accordance with PPC 3 of the COMMIT Sub-regional Plan of Action (SPA), which calls for the development of National Plans of Action.

In the preamble to the National Plan of Action (NPA), it states that the NPA was developed to meet three objectives: firstly, to implement prevention, prosecution, protection and rehabilitation activities effectively, secondly to cooperate and strengthen activities among related ministries, organizations, INGOs, NGOs and the private sector, and thirdly to strengthen cooperation with regional and international agencies in combating transnational trafficking. To this end, the proposed NPA is divided into five substantive areas: 1) policy and cooperation, 2) prevention, 3) prosecution, 4) protection, and 5) capacity-building.

The NPA covers a five year period, from 2007 to 2011. While the plan sets out broad goals under each of its components, it also calls for annual workplans to be developed with specific targets. A National Task Force will be formed to monitor implementation of the NPA, with the responsibility of preparing a quarterly progress report on implementation to the Central Body for the Suppression of Trafficking in Persons, the highest government body dealing with trafficking, chaired by the Minister of Home Affairs and including deputy ministers and senior officials from 22 government departments. The Central Body will report implementation progress to the government on an annual basis.

Drafting of the NPA had begun in March 2006, with a meeting attended by 15 government departments and ministries that agreed on the formation of a technical working group charged with developing the draft NPA. During 2006, the technical working group held frequent meetings and sought technical inputs from all relevant government departments. The Ministry of Home Affairs, as the lead ministry on human trafficking, consolidated responses and coordinated the drafting process. UNIAP supported the process by engaging a national consultant to review NPAs of other countries in the region, to learn from their experiences and incorporate best practices into the draft of the Burmese plan.

The March review meeting was an opportunity for non-government stakeholders to provide their input to the plan. Among the participating organizations were UNICEF, IOM, ARTIP, UNIAP, Save the Children, World Vision, AFXB and representatives from the Japanese and Australian embassies. Dr. Susu Thatun, Senior Advisor to the COMMIT process, also jointed the NPA review meeting in Naypyitaw to facilitate the discussions and offer additional inputs. Similarly, several of the organizations working in Burma had invited colleagues from the regional level to participate in the discussions, reflecting the high value placed on the meeting by all participants.

Chaired by the Chief of Police, the meeting reviewed both the National Plan of Action as well as the 2007-08 workplan. While all organizations present at the meeting expressed their strong support for the NPA, the meeting entailed a lot of discussion on technical details and suggestions on how to strengthen the provisions of the NPA to ensure that it attains its goals. With government departments, UN organizations and local and international NGOs all working together to strengthen the NPA, progress was already being made on one of the objectives of the plan – for stronger collaboration between the different stakeholders.

After two days and one evening dinner filled with discussions, a range of valuable technical input had been provided. The Ministry of Home Affairs is now working with other relevant government ministries and departments to finalize the National Plan of Action and begin implementation. UN agencies and INGOs have expressed their readiness to work with the government in supporting the implementation of the NPA. While the NPA will provide a coordinating framework to bring together the many strands of the anti-trafficking response in Burma, its value also lies in the emphasis it places on a coordinated and collaborative response. The open discussions and willingness of all parties to work together in implementing the NPA thus were a promising sign for the future of this framework.

Adapted from: "A Platform for Collaboration: Government departments, UN agencies, INGOs and stakeholders meet to review Myanmar's draft National Plan of Action on Human Trafficking." UNIAP China. August 2007.

Indigenous People in Thailand Need Citizenship

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 07:19:00 GMT

The Thai government should grant indigenous people in Thailand their basic human rights to education, medical care and citizenship, Kerd Phanakamnerd, a representative of the working group for indigenous rights, told a conference in Chiang Mai.

More than 200,000 indigenous people in Thailand are essentially stateless and have sought national verification from the government for many years, he said.

Amporn Meesuk, Thailand’s human rights commissioner and a keynote speaker on 8 August 2007, said the stateless status of many indigenous people denies them access to public programs, including education and medical services.

Amporn said that “in many cases, the human rights abusers are government officials.”

Ethnic people in northern Thailand have been blamed for deforestation and accused of drug trafficking, leading to forced relocation in many areas for “national security” reasons, Amporn said.

Kerd and Amporn spoke at the First World’s Indigenous People Day Commemoration in Chiang Mai on 7 August and 8 August. There are about 1.2 million indigenous people from 13 ethnic groups in Thailand. Most live in mountainous regions in the north; others live along the coast and on islands in the south.

Dr. Narumon Hinshiranan Arunotai, a researcher at the Social Research Institute at Chulalongkorn University who works with so-called "sea gypsies" in Thailand, said that this indigenous group finds it difficult to live now because their traditional homes have become national parks or tourist destinations.

Previously, they traveled from Thailand to Burmese islands to Malaysia’s coastline, but many are now construction workers, she said.

Currently, an estimated 10,000 sea gypsies live along Thailand’s Andaman Sea coast, she said.

The conference was part of the UN's effort to raise awareness of the plight of indigenous people around the world.

Adapted from: "Indigenous People in Thailand Need Citizenship, say Advocates." www.irrawaddy.org. 8 August 2007.

Slavery of Africans in Britain

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 05:42:00 GMT

Brought into the country under false identities and tricked into leaving their families with the promise of an education and a better future, hundreds of African children are being trafficked into the UK for a life of servitude, according to human rights campaigners.

NGOs and human rights lawyers have sounded the alarm over the "invisible children", illegally smuggled into Britain using false visas and documents.

Dragan Nastic, Unicef UK's policy and parliamentary officer, said: "The first recognised case of child trafficking in the UK was a Nigerian girl more than 10 years ago in 1995. Here we are in 2007 and there have been no prosecutions made in cases of children trafficked into domestic labour from Africa. Not one."

Since 2003, 62 cases of child trafficking have been prosecuted, and there are 59 pending. The police do not break the statistics down in terms of ethnicity, but experts confirm that no prosecution has ever been made relating to African children.

Recent studies suggest that hundreds of children are brought over from African countries, such as Nigeria, Ghana and Uganda, by highly organised traffickers.

Nigeria is believed to be the main source country on the continent, where destitute families are either paid for their children or persuaded to give them away believing that they will receive an education and a better life in the UK.

On arrival, children as young as 10 are kept undercover from British society and forced to work as domestic slaves or prostitutes. Behind closed and often locked doors, they work long days for no money, are kept from school and beaten if the work is not done.

Debbie Ariyo, director of Afruca (Africans Unite Against Child Abuse), said: "It's a scandal nobody has been convicted when we know so many people who have been trafficked and have lost their childhood.

"We're making a serious mistake in not convicting people, because it won't stop. How long can we go on for before someone is arrested and convicted? So many lives will be destroyed if urgent action is not taken".

The Home Office minister, Vernon Coaker, acknowledged that the Government still had a long way to go in tackling the issue of trafficked children from Africa. He said: "Research suggests that [trafficking] is not reducing in either scale or reach. It's a sad sign of our times that children are still being trafficked to the UK as modern slaves."

Mr Coaker, who has been implementing the UK Action Plan on Tackling Human Trafficking, published earlier this year, said the practice was "a moral outrage", but it would take time for change to happen. "You can't change it overnight, but we [the Government] are also human beings, we also have children, and we're outraged that this happens. We'll do all we can to move this forward as quickly as possible."

The first report dedicated to child trafficking into the UK, published by the Home Office in June, showed that more than a third of the 330 children that were discovered to be either trafficked or suspected of being trafficked were African. The survey, which was undertaken over a 10-month period, revealed that 102 west and east African girls were discovered to have been trafficked into the country and enslaved.

And the authors of the report, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, acknowledge that this initial figure is "not a definitive number, but simply the cases that were brought to us in our initial study".

Christine Beddoe, director of Ecpat, a coalition of charities dealing with child trafficking, including Unicef, Save The Children and the NSPCC, said that the Government's failure to prosecute the traffickers of African children was just one of the failures of the system.

She said the charity had found "a culture of disbelief in the offices looking at asylum claims", that caused escaped child slaves to be treated as illegal immigrants rather than unwitting, isolated victims. According to Ms Beddoe, African child slaves have become "the invisible children", passing by police, immigration and social services unnoticed. "Having suffered the most debilitating experience, they get no support", said Ms Beddoe. "They are often here without a legal basis to stay, then are treated within the system as undeserving of help."

One of the main reasons why so many cases are disbelieved is the children have been given fake passports and identities, which contradict the true story they try to convey. Add to this a lack of training in recognising victims, and it becomes clear why many of these young people feel so let down by the police and social services they tried to turn to in the days after their escape.

Tolu, 19: 'It was like being in prison'
Tolu never wanted to leave her family in Nigeria but when her parents insisted she went to the UK for an education, she decided to do as they asked. At just 13, a stranger brought her over on a flight to London and took her to the family who were supposed to be looking after her.

But education could not have been further from her minders' thoughts. "They tricked my family, they told them I would be coming here to study", she said. "But when I arrived I was here to work and look after the children. I was so disappointed." Waking at seven every morning she had to cook breakfast for three children and take them to school, before getting on with the housework. "People used to ask me why I wasn't at school, but I was too afraid to say", she said.

The woman she worked for, that she refers to as her "auntie", was a well-to-do British Nigerian who worked in the Home Office. "She knew it was wrong", said Tolu, but that did not stop her from continuing to beat and bully her to work all hours at her beck and call. "It was like being in prison. At least in Nigeria I had freedom, even though we didn't have much".

After two years, the family finally registered her at a college but she was only allowed to go one evening a week. "because of all the work I had to do I was too tired to concentrate, and I failed the foundation maths exam twice".

She finally escaped at 19, after being severely beaten around the face for using the telephone to call a friend. She ran away while the couple were at work and is now applying for asylum.

Adapted from: Emily Dugan. "Britain's 'invisible army' of African slaves." The Independent. 13 August 2007

Ukrainian Woman Trafficked to Israel

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 05:49:00 GMT

Forty-seven year old Ukrainian woman trafficked to Israel is now receiving protection and care at a shelter.

Two years ago, S., 47, came from Ukraine to work as a domestic in the home of an Israeli businessman. The employment company abroad that contracted her told her she had "nothing to worry about," with respect to her new boss. However, according to S., her employer - a resident of a wealthy Tel Aviv suburb, who works at a foreign consulate in Israel - withheld most of her salary, took her passport, did not let her leave the house unless he was with her, and raped her. In many cases, S. says, her employer's friends who came to dinner or parties sexually molested her, and one of them also raped her.

Today, the police, who are concluding their investigation of S.'s charges, are arranging a confrontation between the suspect, who has denied any wrongdoing, and the alleged victim. According to the suspect's lawyer, Yehoshua Resnick, S. made up the whole story to avoid deportation.

S., who fled her employer after working for about three months, was arrested by the Immigration Police, who intended to deport her until she filed the complaint of abuse by her employer. She is now staying at Ma'agan, a shelter set up in 2004 for victims of trafficking in women, and is supervised by the Social Affairs Ministry.

According to the facility's director, attorney Rinat Davidovich, S.'s case may be a landmark with respect to enforcement of the Israeli law in human trafficking that was amended in 2006, following pressure from the United States. This law relates not only to trafficking in humans for purposes of prostitution, but also for purposes of forced labor or slavery.

Annual reports in which the U.S. ranks countries according to their efforts in this area have noted improvement in Israel in the prevention of trafficking for prostitution. However, Israel has still not met minimum standards when it comes to preventing human trafficking for other purposes.

The amendment stipulates that an individual can be tried for holding a person "under conditions of slavery for the purposes of work or services." According to the legislation, "slavery" is defined as "a situation in which a person controls another person's life to the extent where the person negates his or her freedom."

At present, two other women besides S., who were brought from the Palestinian territories to work in Israel, are living at the shelter.

In Ukraine, S. was told by intermediaries that her job would include cleaning, doing laundry and organizing social events in the home. She was promised $1,000 a month and one day off a week, with which she had hoped to support her mother and a handicapped sister and to pay for her daughter's college education.

At the end of her first month of employment, her boss told her he would not pay her because he was deducting the cost of bringing her to Israel. After she begged him, S. says, he gave her $200 - and that was the only money he paid her in three months of work. She said she was allowed out of the house only to walk the dogs, or when accompanied by her employer.

"I felt I had no choice but to stay, because I had no right to return home without money," S. says. In March 2006, the employer took her to a supermarket, where she managed to make contact with a woman who helped her hail a taxi and escape. She had been working at odd jobs, until she was apprehended by the Immigration Police. They had originally intended to deport her, but when her story came to light, she was transfered to the shelter, where she is awaiting the results of the investigation and a decision by the State Prosecutor's Office as to whether to try her employer.

The employer refused to respond to questions by Haaretz. His attorney said S. was not brought to Israel to work at home, but rather to "learn how to manage warehouses," for a few weeks. "As the expiration date of her visa approached, my client wanted her to extend her stay in Israel. When she declined, my client bought an airline ticket back to Ukraine for the complainant. My client, who was financially liable for her leaving the country, was very surprised when she did not show up for her flight, and chose to disappear. From that time, my client and the Immigration Police sought to locate the complainant. Recently, apparently following her arrest, the complainant chose to spread false complaints against my client."

The suspect's lawyer said there was no truth to the claim that S. was not allowed out of the house, and that she had house keys and could come and go as she pleased. The lawyer also said there had been no sexual contact, and that S. had tried to blackmail him, eventually making good on her threats to go to the police, "hoping to 'gain' extra time in Israel." The suspect's lawyers added that "we are certain that this simple truth will come out at the end of the police investigation."

Adapted from: Tamara Traubmann. "Ukrainian national says employer raped her, confiscated passport." Haaretz.com. 12 August 2007.

MTV Networks in Asia & Pacific and MTV Europe Foundation Launch Youth-Focused Anti-Human Trafficking Campaign

Sun, 12 Aug 2007 05:28:00 GMT

MTV EXIT documentary programs will reach 380 million households with other artists.

LONDON/BANGKOK/HONG KONG – 8 August 2007 – MTV Networks, a unit of Viacom (NYSE: VIA, VIA.B) and the MTV Europe Foundation, a registered UK charity, announced the launch of MTV EXIT (End Exploitation and Trafficking) across Asia and the Pacific, in partnership with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The Campaign is the first youth-focused pan-regional initiative created to raise awareness and increase prevention of human trafficking – a tragic form of modern day slavery.

Human Trafficking is defined by the United Nations as "the recruitment, transportation, and receipt of a person for sexual or economical exploitation by force, fraud, coercion, or deception" in order to make a profit. The UN estimates that at any one time there are 2.5 million trafficked victims in the world, with the majority of these victims in Asia and the Pacific. It is the second largest illegal trade after drugs, with criminal traffickers earning over US$ 10 billion every year through the buying and selling of human beings. Often, victims are young men and women – the MTV demographic – who are guilty only of wanting a better life for themselves and their families.

But trafficking can be fought through awareness and prevention. Thus, MTV Networks in Asia and the Pacific and the MTV Europe Foundation are collaborating on a multimedia campaign funded by USAID to inform youth across the region about trafficking. In recognition of the diverse nature of the MTV audience in Asia and the Pacific, MTV EXIT will feature multiple general and targeted messages, including safe migration advice and guidance to young people who might be at risk of trafficking, and messages to educate all young people that, as consumers, they may play a part in the demand underlying trafficking and exploitation.

MTV EXIT will highlight and address three major forms of trafficking in Asia and the Pacific: sex trafficking and forced prostitution, labour trafficking, and forced domestic servitude. Due to the complexities of trafficking and the differences found geographically, the campaign is split into two regions: Asia-Pacific and South Asia. MTV EXIT is producing dedicated campaign television programming, beginning with a unique half-hour documentary for each region, versioned in the 8 languages of MTV Asia and Pacific and presented by major Asian and international artists. Pan-Asian heartthrobs Rain of Korea and Tata Young of Thailand will present the Korean and Thai versions respectively with more artists to be announced shortly.

"I'm honored to join the MTV EXIT Campaign and make a stand against exploitation and trafficking. It is shocking and sad that so many people, the majority who are women and children, fall into modern-day slavery and are suffering, with their rights to pursue happiness stolen," said Rain. "I hope that my involvement in the MTV EXIT Campaign will encourage others to join the fight to end exploitation and trafficking."

Tata Young commented: "I'm so honored and very proud to join MTV EXIT as Thailand's representative. This campaign is about a social issue that is very important to me so I'm glad to take part and join other international superstars, such as Rain in Korea, to help raise awareness. Human trafficking and exploitation are happening every day and we can't ignore it."

The documentaries will premiere in September 2007, with fictional short films and a series of public service announcements to follow in 2007 and 2008, along with a multi-language website, http://www.mtvexit.org, and live awareness and prevention events.

"Human trafficking has become a critical human rights issue facing young people across Asia and the Pacific. Victims are subject to horrendous abuses, including rape and torture, with women and girls particularly affected," said Bill Roedy, Vice Chairman, MTV Networks. "Education is key to prevention. MTV EXIT is part of our commitment to help highlight issues affecting young people in Asia and across the world."

"Law enforcement and community-level efforts to stop human trafficking have been hampered by the public's lack of awareness about the severity of this problem," said USAID Regional Mission Director for Asia Olivier Carduner. "USAID is funding this project with MTV because of the unique opportunity that MTV Networks provide to reach hundreds of millions of people in a region that accounts for many of the world's trafficking victims," Carduner said, adding that raising awareness will encourage communities to promote the law enforcement and victim outreach efforts needed to stop this modern-day form of slavery.

The MTV EXIT initiative across Asia and the Pacific is an expansion of the successful MTV EXIT European campaign, which has been raising awareness and increasing prevention of trafficking and exploitation in Europe since 2004. Many influential artists have supported MTV EXIT's special programming and events in Europe, including Angelina Jolie, Helena Christensen, and R.E.M.

MTV EXIT television programming is produced rights-free and free of charge for all broadcasters and organisations.

For more information, please contact:

Ho Yan Mok
MTV Networks Asia
+852 2313 8018
mokhy@mtv-asia.com


or

Simon Goff
MTV Europe Foundation
+66 2 259 6933
goff.simon@mtvne.com

MTV Europe Foundation
Launched in 2003, the MTV Europe Foundation is a UK-based charity (Reg. No. 1103267) whose overarching aim is to utilize and maximize the power of MTV's network to educate youth and adults on critical social and human rights issues. The Foundation produces multimedia programming and events aimed at raising awareness and influencing attitudes and behaviors on key issues, as well as inspiring young people to take action. In addition, the Foundation seeks to support nongovernmental organizations that are working on the ground to address these issues and effect positive change.

About MTV Networks in Asia and the Pacific
MTV Networks, a unit of Viacom (NYSE: VIA, VIA.B), is one of the world's leading creators of programming and content across all media platforms. MTV Networks in Asia and the Pacific comprises three distinctly branded channels in the region reaching more than 400 million households: MTV, the world's largest television network and the leading multimedia brand for youth; Nickelodeon, the leading entertainment brand dedicated exclusively to kids; and VH1, the music video network that keeps adult viewers connected to the music they love. In Asia and the Pacific, MTV and Nickelodeon's businesses also include branded consumer products, program sales and digital media comprising of 19 websites, three broadband services and various mobile platforms. MTV Networks in Asia and the Pacific has a total of 25 channels which are seen via 24-hour and programming blocks.

USAID
USAID, the United States Agency for International Development, is an independent U.S. government agency that receives foreign policy guidance from the U.S. Secretary of State. Since 1961, USAID has been the principal U.S. agency to extend assistance to countries world-wide recovering from disaster, trying to escape poverty, and engaging in democratic reforms. See http://www.usaid.gov for more information.

Philippines officials ask US to get to Iraq to probe ‘trafficking’ allegations

Sun, 12 Aug 2007 05:44:00 GMT

Oversees Foreign Workers (OFWs) allegedly forced to work on US embassy in Baghdad.

The Philippine fact-finding mission looking into the alleged trafficking of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to Iraq has asked the United States for help in entering the war-torn country, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said.

In a press conference, Crescente Relacion, executive director of the DFA’s Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers’ Affairs, said the team, headed by special envoy to the Middle East Roy Cimatu, will proceed to Iraq on instructions of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

“Yes, they are proceeding to Iraq. Yes, we’ve asked the help of the US military to enter Iraq,” he said.

The team also includes Philippine Ambassador to Kuwait Ricardo Endaya, charge d’ affaires in the Philippine embassy to Iraq, which operates from a satellite office in Amman, Jordan, and labor attaché to Kuwait Leopoldo De Jesus.

By: Veronica Uy. "RP asks US aid to get Iraq to probe 'trafficking.'" INQUIRER.net. 10 August 2007.

Click here to read the rest of the article, Philippines asks US aid to get Iraq to probe ‘trafficking’

Nigerian Nuns Set Up Home for Victims of Human Trafficking

Sun, 12 Aug 2007 06:02:00 GMT

Nigerian nuns are celebrating the realization of their dream to set up a home for rescued victims of human trafficking, a worsening evil in the country and West Africa in general.

The dream came true on July 11, 2007 when the Women Resource Centre was opened.

The home is a generous donation from the Italian bishop's conference. It was built and supervised by Fr. Vincenzo Marrone and other Salesian Missionaries in Akure/Ibadan. Caritas Italiana bought the land upon which the shelter is built. The Dutch Foundation of Religious against Trafficking in Women (SRTV), Missio Aachen and many other groups gave generous donations.

The idea to do something about the vice came to mind after the nuns came face to face with the reality of Nigerian girls involved in prostitution in Europe. In 1999 the nuns formed the Committee for the Support of the Dignity of Women (COSUDOW) to address more concretely the issue of sexual abuse of Nigerian girls in Italy.

The nuns say Benin City is the worst-hit area of trafficking in Nigeria.

At the opening ceremony on July 11, the Holy Mass was presided over by Archbishop Felix Alaba Job of Ibadan who is also president of Catholic Bishops' Conference of Nigeria.

"Nigeria: Nuns Set Up Home for Victims of Human Trafficking." Catholic Information Service for Africa. 10 August 2007.

Click here to read the rest of the article, Nigeria: Nuns Set Up Home for Victims of Human Trafficking.

Vietnam & China Work Together to Fight Human Trafficking

Sun, 12 Aug 2007 06:05:00 GMT

Vietnamese and Chinese police have stepped up co-operation in the battle against human trafficking.

Progress of the teams was reviewed at a workshop on the prevention and fight against human trafficking on Monday by the Vietnamese police and their Chinese colleagues.

Since 2006, police have uncovered 110 cases of trafficking women and children and arrested 214 suspects. In active coordination, Chinese police have rescued and returned 511 victims to Viet Nam.

In the review period, 149 cases of human trafficking to China were discovered, involving as many as 271 people, including 59 children. Victims were from rural and isolated areas in northern provinces.

Recently, there has been an increase in the number of victims from central, Central Highlands and southwestern provinces.

Adapted from: "VN, China work together to fight human trafficking." Vietnam News Service. 8 August 2007.

Police in UK Use iPods to Help Trafficking Victims

Sun, 12 Aug 2007 06:10:00 GMT

iPods will be used by police to help victims of human trafficking, cops revealed.

The Durham force has bought them to improve communication between the authorities and people smuggled into the country.

The palm-sized devices have been pre-programmed with messages in a variety of languages, designed to assist the victim through their first contact with officers.

Many come from countries which have a deep mistrust of the police, so those behind the scheme hope what victims hear through the iPods' headphones will provide reassurance they will come to no harm.

Audio files have been recorded in Albanian, Portuguese, Czech, French, Lithuanian, Malay, Mandarin, Romanian, Russian and Thai.

The iPods are kept in police stations across the county.

Detective Chief Inspector Paul Harker said: "For some nationalities it can take several hours to find an official interpreter.

"The iPods are meant to be a basic measure, a first step before we are able to get hold of someone who can speak the same language as the victim.

"And if they come from a place where the police are feared or mistrusted, it makes the task of getting vital information from them much more difficult."

Adapted from: "Police use iPods to help trafficking victims." Sunderland Echo. 8 August 2007.

Dateline NBC in USA Spotlights the Sex Trade in the US and Southeast Asia

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 08:11:00 GMT

Dateline NBC's Chris Hansen reports on three stories of human trafficking spanning from the United States to Southeast Asia.

First story: Lannie was a girl preyed on by human traffickers. But she had one thing going for her: two men who would stop at nothing to get her back.

Rescue of Filipina Trafficking Victim (Click Here to Watch Video)

Excerpt:
October 5, 2006. "Troop" Edmonds and his Philippine-born wife, Ravina, are at home in Oregon when they receive a panicked call from overseas.

Troop Edmonds: I’m sitting there. I'm trying to watch a football game. And all of a sudden my wife's cell phone rings. My wife gets really upset.

On the other end on the line is their 22-year-old Filipino niece, Lannie Ejercito

Troop Edmonds: She was scared. Crying. And in total desperation.

Chris Hansen: And what did she say?

Troop Edmonds:”Get me out of here!”

And then someone on the other end takes the phone away from Lannie.

Troop Edmonds: She said -- if you want your niece back, you have to send us $1,200 and we'll give you a back account to send it to. And she hung up.

Chris Hansen: They wanted the money wired to this bank account. And did this strike you as a ransom demand?

Troop Edmonds: Yes.

By: Adam Ciralsky and Chris Hansen, Dateline NBC. 9 August 2007. This story aired on 8 August 2007.

Second story: New developments in the hidden camera investigation exposing a child sexual slavery ring in Cambodia.

Cambodian child sex ring update (Click Here to Watch Video)

Excerpt:
Phnom Penh - The moment we stepped outside our hotel in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, we were greeted with this offer.

Driver: Many, many, many girls.

Dateline: Many girls?

Driver: Yes.

Dateline: How young?

Driver: Young, maybe, uh,... 12.

Twelve year olds for sale? Sounds shocking, but when we arrived in this village called Svay Pak, we met a young pimp selling even younger girls.

Po: New girls, too much for you.

How young?

Po: Eight, eight.

Along with a human rights investigator, we followed the pimp through the village alleys into a room filled with kids.

By: Chris Hansen, Dateline NBC. 8 August 2007. This story aired on 8 August 2007.

Third story: After going to Malaysia for a job as a waitress, 'Anna' was trapped against her will and forced into prostitution.

Sex trafficked: Anna's story (Click Here to Watch Video)

Excerpt:
"Anna," who has asked that we disguise her identity, was trafficked to Malaysia from her home in the Philippines in early 2007.

Promised a job as a waitress, she arrived to find her traffickers had something very different in mind.

Anna: My manager told us we will work as a prostitute … I go there, I'm still virgin. I tell my friend I don't want this work because I cannot give myself to anybody ... My boss tell me I sign contract, I cannot go back Philippines.

By: Adam Ciralsky and Chris Hansen, Dateline NBC. 8 August 2007.

UN Calls on Cambodia to Protect Land of Indigenous People

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 07:13:00 GMT

The United Nations criticized Cambodia's government for doing little to protect the land of indigenous people, whose livelihood has increasingly come under threat from land-grabbing by the rich and powerful.

The government needs to take swift action to halt land-grabbing in tribal areas, the U.N. Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Cambodia said in a statement Wednesday. The statement was released to mark the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples.

"There are continuing concerns about the protection of indigenous land. Of particular concern is the growing number of economic land concessions and mining licenses granted over indigenous land, without community consultation,'' it said.

Members of the Tampoun ethnic minority in the remote northeastern province of Rattanakiri said Wednesday they were forced to bury their tribal chief at a new site after their ancestral graveyard was sold to a private owner, an action they feared could bring them bad luck.

The U.N. office noted that Cambodia's land law passed in 2001 recognizes the right of indigenous communities to collective ownership of their lands, which includes land reserved for shifting cultivation. But in the six years since then, ``not a single collective land title'' had been issued to any indigenous community by the government, it said.
In recent years, land disputes have become frequent occurrences in Cambodia, usually pitting poor farmers against developers. Several people have been killed.

Yash Ghai, the U.N. secretary-general's special representative for human rights in Cambodia, expressed deep concern about ethnic minority groups losing out on land to business allies of the government.

"A wealthy and powerful social class has emerged on the back of the state through the exploitation of the people and the country's resources, relying on access to, and accumulation through, the apparatus of the state,'' he said in his report to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights in June.

Instead of helping the indigenous people, "the government tilts in favor of business companies whenever their interests clash with the interests of rural or urban people,'' he said. The government called his allegations unacceptable.
In the Rattanakiri case, the relatives of Bou Nuth, a 76-year-old tribal chief who died Sunday, were barred from burying his body in their ancestral graveyard, said Tev Mak, the deceased man's nephew.

Instead, they had to bury him about 1 kilometer away from their village, contrary to tradition that says the deceased must be buried near their home, he said.

Seng Thung, a village chief, said the old graveyard, covering about four hectares (10 acres), was sold to a senior provincial official in recent years by an unknown individual who had claimed ownership over the property.
Sak Son, a provincial district deputy governor, dismissed the villagers' claim the land was their ancestral graveyard, saying only that it belongs to a provincial official whom he declined to name.

Adapted from: "UN calls on Cambodia to protect land of indigenous people." Associated Press. 8 August 2007.

Burma Accused of Not Caring for Its Migrant Workers in Thailand

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 07:17:00 GMT

Labour activists blame Burma for a failure in the Thai-Burmese joint effort to legalise illegal migrant workers from that country through citizenship verification.

Than Doke, of the Tak-based Burma Labour Solidarity, said the joint effort between the two governments to verify the nationality of the workers who have illegally entered Thailand failed because the Burmese government does not care about the plight of its people. The Memorandum of Understanding on Employment Cooperation signed between the two neighbours in 2003 came to a complete halt in September last year.

"The real problem is that Burma is not interested in solving the problem of migrant workers," he alleged.

Vasant Sathorn, director of the Labour Ministry's Bureau of Illegal Migrant Workers Management, said Burma insisted the migrants must return to the country for the verification process, brushing aside Thailand's request that it fields its officials on Thai soil to carry out the verification, similar to what Cambodia and Laos are doing.

He said the registration of illegal migrants from Cambodia and Laos is expected to be completed by June next year thanks to good cooperation from the two countries.

Moe Swe, secretary-general of the Yaung Chi Oo Workers Association, said while Thailand and Burma have yet to agree on permanent measures to deal with the problem, Thai authorities should consider allowing individual migrant workers to register themselves, instead of having their employers do it for them.

"Employers or the factory owners usually violate basic labour rights of these workers as they can hold necessary documents like work permits as hostage for the stay of the workers," he said.

Labour activists plan to submit their proposals from their recent workshop on the protection and promotion of the rights of migrant workers in Asean countries to the Foreign Ministry today.

The proposals are to be forwarded to other ASEAN nations which have adopted a framework on migrant workers at the Asean summit in Cebu, the Philippines, early this year.

Adapted from: "Burma blamed for verification process failure." The Bangkok Post. 2 August 2007.

Police Break Women Trafficking Ring in Vietnam

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 06:49:00 GMT

Police say they've broken up Vietnam's largest network responsible for trafficking women out of country.

A Taiwanese man and five Vietnamese have been jailed for up to 12 years for trafficking more than 100 Vietnamese women to Malaysia - where a new law designed to combat the trade has recently come into effect.

The women believed they were to wed Malaysian men, but many were tricked into working as sex slaves.

Tran Thi My Phuong and her Taiwanese husband Tsai Hsien are now behind bars after being found guilty by the Ho CHi Min City People's Court for trafficking women.

They were the ringleaders of an operation responsible for trafficking 126 women to Malaysia between April 2005 and March 2006.

Andrew Bruce, the Chief of Mission for the International Organisation for Migration, deals in the human cost of people trafficking.

He tells the story of a Vietnamese woman who found her self in a position similar to the women sold by Tran Thi My Phuong and her accomplices to Malaysian men for a mere $US1500.

"We had a case that we know quite well. We had a woman who was married to a Taiwanese in the normal way these marriages are conducted, and from what we can understand is that she had just turned 18 and he took her directly from the airport to the brothel. So he had come to marry a woman whom he was selling directly into prostitution," Mr Bruce says

Those sent to Malaysia by Tran Thi My Phuong's human-trafficking ring are enduring a similar fate to the young woman sent to a Taiwanese brothel.

"She was, I think two years in a brothel in Taiwan, and was the youngest woman in the brothel and every man wanted her. It was I think pretty terrible what she went through and we are working with her to try and get her head together again," Mr Bruce said.

While Mr Bruce and his organisation tries to deal with the consequences of human trafficking, authorities in Vietnam attempt to stop those responsible. But it's a battle that will be hard fought. Authorities face an invisible enemy that operates across Europe, Asia and the United States.

The scale of human trafficking in Vietnam is unclear - but, according to information from UNICEF and Vietnam's Ministry of Justice, 400,000 Vietnamese women and children have been trafficked overseas since 1990. That figure is believed to account for 10 per cent of women and children trafficked worldwide.

"There is a belief and police keep saying that it is expanding and that there is more trafficking going on all the time and it's hard to get numbers, particularly on the northern border with China. I don't think anyone really has any idea how many women are trafficked into China," Mr Bruce says.

According to Vietnamese government estimates, at least 22,000 women and children were illegally sent to China during the 1990s.

Other countries, or provinces, listed as being targets for Vietnamese human traffickers include Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, the Czech Republic, Cambodia, the United States and Malaysia.

Aegile Fernandez is the coordinator of human rights group Tenaganita's anti-human trafficking campaign, based in Malaysia.

"Over the last two years we have seen an alarming rate of them being trafficked especially within the South-East Asian countries."

Ms Fernandez says it's not just women wanting to escape poverty who are fuelling Southeast Asia's booming trade in human beings. She says Malaysian men are creating demand for these women. "Demands like that, we always tend to overlook. We always blame the women. But a lot of it is the men themselves."

She says that some people are cashing in on the Visit Malaysia Year 07 tourism campaign. "You find that there are tours offering not only tourist places, but also different women for tourists who come here. So the demand is also there."

Ms Fernandez says there are even more sinister elements that exist within human trafficking in Malaysia.

"There are also the sale of babies. And you find that especially in the state of Sarawak where Indonesian women are brought in and then they are either raped or they stay and get pregnant and then these babies are sold."

Malaysia is stepping up its effort to crackdown on human trafficking. But Ms Fernandez believes human-trafficking cannot be stopped by a single country. She says it is a problem that exists across Southeast Asia and as such must be tackled as a regional issue.

"The ideas that not only Malaysia but also the countries of origin where the women come from. I think those countries will also have to play an important role. We have also asked the countries within ASEAN to take a greater role in the whole issue of trafficking, which they are now discussing."

Adapted from: "Police break women trafficking ring in Vietnam." www.radioaustralia.net.au. 31 July 2007.

Human Trafficking Victims in Bahrain Difficult to Find

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 07:17:00 GMT

MIGRANT workers' rights activists say they are helpless when it comes to assisting victims of human trafficking in Bahrain to benefit from the government's general amnesty.

Migrant Workers Protection Society (MWPS) action committee head Marietta Dias said women being held against their will and controlled by others are likely to have little chance of making it to the relevant authorities.

"Human trafficking victims are of concern to us, but what can we do?" she told the GDN. "We have no idea where these people are being held or whether they have come here on their own free will. "We hope that these people can somehow take advantage of the amnesty, but how we get to the victims is the main thing."

Her comments come after Thai Embassy officials said the fear of arrest was preventing many of its people from taking part in the amnesty. A spokesman said misconceptions about the scheme meant people mistakenly believe they will be questioned by police and prevented from returning to Bahrain.

Up to 1,000 Thais are estimated to be working illegally in Bahrain and an unknown number of women are believed to have been victims of human trafficking. Ms Dias said that court cases surrounding some illegal workers could also prevent expatriates from taking advantage of the amnesty, if verdicts are not reached before the December 31 deadline.

"These people sometimes do not even know there is a case against them," she said. "However, I was told that the Justice and Islamic Affairs Ministry has been asked to fast track these sort of cases."

Ms Dias claimed many cases that sponsors file against workers involved "false" claims, especially that they had stolen something. She said that while the courts would be able to uncover the truth, the time taken to reach a verdict might mean some will miss their chance to travel home during the amnesty period.

It is hoped thousands of illegal workers will be able to benefit from the scheme, which came into force last Wednesday, by returning home without prosecution or legalising their stay.

Adapted from: Geoffrey bew. "Human trafficking victims failing to turn up." Gulf Daily News. 8 August 2007.

Thai Ministry of Social Development Extends Cooperation with IOM

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 07:20:00 GMT

The Geneva-based International Organization for Migration (IOM) and Thailand's Ministry of Social Development 6 August 2007 signed a counter-human trafficking pact extending a decade of cooperation.

The Thai Ministry of Social Development and Human Security (MSDHS) endorsed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Cooperation in the Implementation of Projects Addressing Trafficking in Persons and Assistance to at- Risk Groups. The MOU will facilitate and strengthen the establishment of a cooperation framework focusing on five areas:

-- cooperation in establishing care and assistance programmes for victims of trafficking, including: victim screening and identification procedures; building referral mechanisms and institutionalizing 'good practice' shelter management arrangements; and establishing operational standards and arrangements for the return of victims.

-- training and other capacity building support to Thai MSDHS staff, other relevant government officials, and others responsible for implementing national policies and programmes on human trafficking.

-- extending bilateral and multilateral cooperation between Thailand and other concerned countries on the issue of return and reintegration of victims.

-- help to develop bilateral and multilateral agreements, MOUs and standard operational procedures supporting bilateral cooperation on trafficking between Thailand and other countries in the best interest of the victims.

-- developing national awareness-raising and prevention strategies to reduce vulnerability to trafficking though cooperation with the ministry's provincial offices.

Adapted from: "Pact on human trafficking with IOM signed." The Bangkok Post. 8 August 2007.

Heavy Traffic

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 16:43:00 GMT

Adair Fincher captures the complexities of human trafficking in this compelling article written for Chronogram.

Excerpts from full report:

In Alexandropoulos, Greece, a Nigerian woman spends her nights servicing men in the hopes of paying off the 40,000 euro debt that she owes the man who smuggled her there. Promised a better life working in a Greek bar, she has instead been forced into a life of sexual servitude. She cannot leave because the man has made sure she fears the native African voodoo spell that has bound her to repay the 40,000 euros.

In Seoul, a Filipina dances naked on a tabletop. Lured to Korea with the promise of marrying an American GI, her third day there finds her bound by her travel debt and unable to speak the language.

In Bombay, a premenstrual girl, bought in the rural Indian countryside, cries out as a silver-haired brothel patron, who has paid for her virginity, rapes her. If she starts to bleed, the madam of the brothel will give the girl ice before sending the next man in. This night, 25 men or more may rape her. If she resists, she will be beaten.

On May 13 of this year a wild-eyed Indonesian woman covered in bruises runs into a Dunkin Donuts dressed only in pants and a towel. Forced to work as an indentured servant for a wealthy couple in Muttontown, Long Island, her life is a hell of physical abuse involving sticks, knives, and cigarettes.

Trafficking of human beings—the domestic or global transfer of people for cash, through deceit, exploitation, or force—is one of the most lucrative forms of international illegal trade, second only to drug smuggling. According to the US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report, approximately “600,000 to 800,000 people—mostly women and children—are trafficked across national borders” each year. This does not include the millions trafficked within their own countries. Human trafficking—a contemporary form of slavery—is a global industry with sticky, money-hungry tendrils that extend to every nook and cranny of the world.

According to Andrea Bertone of Humantrafficking.org, a web-based human trafficking watchdog organization, due to the underground nature of this modern-day slave trade, truly accurate numbers of the mass of people trafficked and exploited annually are elusive, as are which countries have the worst human trafficking records.

Each country has specific issues that it must tackle and each country must tackle their issues differently. According to Humantrafficking.org’s Bertone, overall it can be said that countries with large migrant populations typically have the largest reports of abuse. Internationally, the US is the most progressive country in the fight against human trafficking, with the Bush administration, in particular, being the most aggressive. Although former president Bill Clinton signed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 directly prior to his leaving office, incoming president George Bush was left to implement the act—a task he took on with great vigor.

Adapted from: Adair Fincher. "Heavy Traffic." Chronogram. 21 June 2007.

To read entire report, visit: Heavy Traffic: Modern-Day Slave Trade

China 'will catch slave owners'

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 15:45:00 GMT

China has pledged to bring to justice traffickers who enslaved hundreds of children and adults to work in brick kilns in two provinces.

As it prepared to send investigators to Henan and Shanxi, the government said that all captives would be freed. Some 550 people have been liberated in recent weeks and families believe up to 1,000 children were enslaved.

The story made national headlines after parents of some of them launched an internet campaign for their freedom. Children thought to be as young as eight years old were kidnapped, held captive and forced to work long hours for no pay.

The case has revealed the dark side of China's booming economy with forced labour and human trafficking common in rural areas, the BBC's Dan Griffiths reports from Beijing.

'All-out' search
Responding to calls for action by President Hu Jintao and other senior top politicians, the labour and social security ministry vowed to send a team of investigators to the two provinces. "The team will find out the truth as soon as possible, and we will go all out to rescue the workers who have been forced to work as slaves in the brick kilns," a deputy minister, Sun Baoshu, was quoted as saying by the Chinese state news agency Xinhua.

"The criminal offenders will be dealt with to safeguard the legal interests of the workers." Thousands of police have been checking building sites in the two provinces and have made scores of arrests, Chinese media report.

Provincial authorities in Shanxi have also said they will punish officials for dereliction of duty unless all abused workers are freed within 10 days.

'Jail-like'
The wife of one kiln-owner arrested by police said that officials had previously done nothing about the kilns other than ask for money from her husband. "The officials said that we were illegal and so they came for money but they didn't do any more than that," Zhang Mei told Reuters news agency in Hongtong, Shanxi.

She also blamed a Hongtong foreman, Heng Tinghan, who had allegedly found workers and controlled them directly and is now wanted by police. "We really didn't know they weren't getting money," Mrs Zhang said.

State TV reports prison-like conditions in the kilns where slaves were controlled with beatings or fierce dogs. Some young male workers were shown to have festering wounds on their feet and waists, possibly from being burnt by the kilns where they worked.

Many labourers were reportedly abducted off the streets of regional towns and sold on for as little as 500 yuan ($66, £33), the AFP news agency reports, quoting Chinese press.

Adapted from: "China 'will catch slave owners'." BBC. 16 June 2007.

Children Talk about How to Prevent Trafficking at the National Anti-Trafficking Children’s Forum

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 07:53:00 GMT

The national Anti-Trafficking Children’s Forum was held in Beijing from 26 to 29 July 2007. This forum was held by the All-China Women’s Federation, with the assistance of four organisations: the International Labour Organisation, UNICEF, UNIAP and Save the Children UK. The child representatives attending the forum come from grass-roots villages, towns and counties in Anhui, Henan, Hunan, Jiangsu, Guangdong, Yunnan, Sichuan, Guangxi, Xinjiang, these nine provinces (and autonomous regions). 38 of these official representatives were elected at children’s forums which took place in each province, two children who attended the first Mekong Sub-Region’s Anti-Trafficking Children’s Forum in 2004, will be special representatives.

The national Anti-Trafficking Children’s Forum adopted children’s methods, they told stories, discussed in small groups, painted, danced and performed other similar kinds of shows. They discussed and exchanged their ideas and opinions on gender equality, preventing trafficking, the protection of children and other social issues which are closely related to their rights and interests. They stated the risks of trafficking which they face, analyze the causes and results which trafficking produces, and state their ideas and suggestions for solving these problems.

During the forum, the leaders of the government and related departments discussed with the children (Senior Officials Discussion), how to prevent trafficking. The government departments were invited to sit face-to-face and listen to the children’s ideas on trafficking issues, and to understand the children’s suggestions on how to solve this problem. The government and the whole society will be urged to pay more attention and attach more importance to children’s rights to subsistence, the right to develop, the right to participate and the right to protection.

During the forum, children were elected to attend the Mekong Sub-Region’s Anti-Trafficking Children’s Forum. This forum will embody the modern view on children: children should be respected, believed and served, they should also have equal opportunities to communicate. Through the forum, the ability of children to participate equally in social affairs will be improved; the consciousness of children about safeguarding their own rights will be increased; the whole of society will be encouraged to pay more attention to issues of child trafficking in order to protect the healthy development of children and provide them with a good environment.

Before the national Anti-Trafficking Children’s Forum is convened, nine provinces (and regions) will separately convene their own provincial (or regional) level children’s forum.

From 12th to 14th December, the second Inter-Ministerial Meeting on the Mekong Sub-Region’s anti-trafficking issues (abbreviated to Inter-Ministerial Meeting) will be convened in Beijing. To cooperate with the Beijing Inter-Ministerial Meeting, every country in the Mekong Sub-Region (China, Cambodia, Burma, Lao PDR, Thailand and Vietnam) will launch a series of children’s forums on the anti-trafficking theme.

Adapted from: China Online. "Children Talk about How to Prevent Trafficking at the National Anti-Trafficking Children’s Forum." 26 July 2007.

China’s Ministry of Public Security Strengthens the Combating Crimes of Trafficking in Women and Children

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 09:34:00 GMT

On 26 July 2007 reporters learnt from the first National Anti-Trafficking Children’s Forum, held by the All-China Women’s Federation that, in recent years, the combating of crimes of trafficking women and children has achieved tangible results, in total all levels of the Ministry of Public Security have put on record, investigated and dealt with more than 2,000 cases of trafficking of women and children.

According to the person in charge at the Ministry of Public Security’s Investigative Bureau, the public security organ registered, investigated and dealt with more than 2,400 cases of trafficking in women and children in 2005 and more than 2,100 in 2006. In comparison with the 1980s and 1990s, the number of cases has clearly fallen, furthermore the trend is gradually relenting year on year.

In recent years the public security organ’s adoption of many active and effective combating measures has made a positive impact on the number of trafficking cases. As explained, from 1991 to 2000 the Ministry of Public Security has successively launched four large-scale specialist anti-trafficking initiatives in focal areas throughout the country. Between 2001 to 2005 the Ministry of Public Security successively organised and launched all kinds of regional specialist anti-trafficking initiatives in Guangxi, Sichuan, Henan, Hubei and other such focal provinces and regions, from which they achieved positive results.

Adapted from: "China’s Ministry of Public Security Strengthens the Combating Crimes of Trafficking in Women and Children." Xinhua Online. 26 July 2007.

Trafficking for the Purposes of Exploitation and Prostitution Has Increased in China

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 09:38:00 GMT

There is an upwards trend of trafficking for the purposes of exploitation and prostitution in China, moreover traditional trafficking for the purpose of selling women and children is being gradually brought under control, said a high-level official from the Ministry of Public Security in an interview with the English language China Daily.

“Every year approximately 3,000 cases of trafficking in women and children are recorded in China, this figure is decreasing by around 20% every year, they are generally bought for the purposes of marriage and adoption.” At the National Anti-Trafficking Children’s Forum, Yin JianZhong, an anti-trafficking official from the Investigative Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security said, at present the phenomenon of trafficking for the purposes of forced physical labour and prostitution is worsening. However, the target of China’s criminal law on crimes of trafficking in women and children includes women and children, yet neglects minors over 14 and male adults. “In trafficking and abduction aspects China’s legal protection is underdeveloped, and it needs to be further strengthened” Yin JianZhong pointed out.

So that the legislative work can be further promoted and the combating of all kinds of trafficking can be strengthened, aiming at the new trend of trafficking the Ministry of Public Security set up an anti-trafficking office at the beginning of July. Yin JianZhong one of the members of this newly established office said, “Now the international community is paying great attention to combating trafficking, we also want to increase our power to combat untraditional trafficking crimes.

Adapted from: "According to Officials from the Ministry of Public Security Trafficking for the Purposes of Exploitation and Prostitution Has Increased." China Daily. 27 July 2007.

Chinese Children Unite to Fight Trafficking

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 09:48:00 GMT

From the terraced countryside of Yunnan Province to the rapidly expanding industrial zones of the Eastern Seaboard, Chinese children - aged 11 through 17 - have come together to craft the country's first set of recommendations to combat human trafficking - drafted exclusively by and for young people.

The children traveled to Beijing from a total of nine provinces. All 38 of the young participants had previous experience working with anti-trafficking projects run by the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF) and sponsored by the International Labour Organization (ILO), Save the Children UK and UNICEF. Another UN body - UNIAP, in collaboration with the ACWF - facilitated a high-level dialogue between at-risk children and senior Government officials who are responsible for
anti-trafficking policies on prevention and enforcement.

More than a dozen officials from various departments participated in the dialogue, some moved to tears by the children's stories of hardship and loneliness. Officials commended the children for their participation in the fight against trafficking adding that the future of China is in their hands.

A representative from one of the co-sponsors of the forum, Kathleen Speake of the ILO's Project for the Prevention of Trafficking in Girls and Young Women for Labour Exploitation said, "consultations such as these are vital to ensure that anti-trafficking work is relevant to the needs of those most vulnerable to being trafficked including left-behind children, and children of migrants".

Following the dialogue, the young people drafted a statement of recommendations for further consideration by the Government. Those recommendations included:

* better protection for vulnerable children who are left behind when parents migrate for work;
* better access to affordable and high quality secondary education;
* more emphasis on prevention work at the community level, including better awareness raising about the links between migration and trafficking;
* an acknowledgment of the importance of children*s voices in developing plans of action on anti-trafficking;
* the children also acknowledged their own responsibility in reducing the risk of being trafficked through better self-awareness and self-protection.

The young participants chose five of their number to travel to Bangkok in September 2007 to take part in a Mekong Youth Forum on Human Trafficking (MYF). They will join other children and young people from across the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) to develop a sub-regional set of recommendations in order to further assist the Governments of the GMS in the fight against cross-border trafficking. The MYF is co-sponsored by the ILO's Mekong Sub-regional Project to Combat Trafficking in Children and Women, Save the Children UK and World Vision International.

The ILO and ACWF first began their anti-trafficking collaboration work in 2000, in Yunnan Province, China. Since then, the collaborative work has expanded to Henan, Hunan, Anhui, Jiangsu and Guangdong.

For further information, please contact:

Kathleen Speake
Chief Technical Advisor
International Labour Organization - Beijing Office
Tel: (86-1) 06532 5091
kspeake@ilobj.org.cn
www.preventtraffickingchina.org

ILO Holds Mekong Women's Forum in Vietnam

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 15:58:00 GMT

Leading women from across the GMS unite to intensify action against human trafficking, discrimination and labour/sexual exploitation

Women activists from across the Greater Mekong Sub-region gathered in Viet Nam during the week of 12-13 July 2007 to intensify their efforts in combating human trafficking and the related discrimination, labour and sexual exploitation endured by thousands of young women across the sub-region.

Hosted by the Viet Nam Women's Union, and supported by the International Labour Organization, The Mekong Women's Forum attracted approximately 100 participants and observers to the two-day event in Hanoi.

The Forum was opened by Ms. Ha Thi Khiet, Preseident of the Viet Nam Women's Union and Ms. Sachiko Yamamoto, the ILO's Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific. Dr. Saisuree Chutikul, distinguished member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination of Women and a recognised expert on human trafficking in the GMS was the keynote speaker for the forum.

The Forum, with its theme "Women*s Solidarity & Empowerment in Action against Human Trafficking and Discrimination" provided an opportunity for women's organizations from across the GMS to showcase the work they are already doing to prevent trafficking of women and children and help those who have already been victimized by the related sexual and labour exploitation that results.

From the establishment of migrant women's homes in China, to village savings-and-loan schemes in Lao PDR, awareness-raising in rural Viet Nam, to name but a few, these Women*s Unions and organizations are arming young women with the information they need to avoid discrimination and the trafficking and migration-related exploitation. Some of these projects will be on display and interviews with key participants can be arranged upon request.

Among those who attended the Mekong Women's Forum were high-level representatives from Government - including senior officials involved in the Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative against Trafficking in the GMS (COMMIT) - as well as delegates from Workers' and Employers' Organizations from five countries: Cambodia, China, Lao PDR, Thailand
and Viet Nam.

For further information, please contact:

Mr. Allan Dow
Communications Officer
ILO Mekong Sub-regional Project to Combat\ Trafficking in Children and Women
Thailand
Tel: (66-2) 288 2057
E-mail: dow@ilo.org

Ms. Duong Thi Xuan
Head of IEC Department,
Viet Nam Women's Union
39 Hang Chuoi Street,
Hanoi, Viet Nam
Tel. (84-4) 9719916
E-mail : xuan_iec@yahoo.com

Uzbek Trafficking Victims in Thailand

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 11:53:00 GMT

The entrance to Alibaba's - the popular discotheque and thumping underworld of one of Nana's longest-running, most belovedly lawless hotels - opens, portentously enough, with a "No Firearms" sign and a guard who is quick to frisk down any customer trying to slip in with a private bottle of whiskey (don't bother).

Past this, and the throng of men dancing to an Arab-tinged track of "Sexyback" (the club's real point of mirth), is Bee - in big hair, thick make-up, and sequins - who, this night, like most nights, is stationed on a bar stool"doing business". Like the 50 or so other women that ring the room, Bee has made her way here from the nearby coffee shop, where her night began several hours earlier around shared cigarettes and beers.

She is not friendly - irritated, actually - when I slip up beside her, lean against the bar, and in a poor icebreaking attempt make an "I'm befuddled" sort of gesture towards Alibaba's choice: beer or Bacardi Breezer. She looks at me like I'm stupid (fair enough), tells me I shouldn't be drinking (fair enough), and shuts down the conversation shortly after I learn that she is from Uzbekistan and that she is here "for business".

Especially popular with Arab and African clients in the area, Bee will probably "do business" - for the price of 2,000 baht - once, maybe twice by morning. But to give this description, is to be incomplete and egregiously insensitive to the fact that most of these women - steeped in debt, separated from their passports and shuttled on a disorienting path through Asian nations - are trafficking victims and working as foreign prostitutes in venues like Alibaba's against their will.

In recent years, this has become a sad and strangely common fate for Uzbek women, and Thailand (its discos, its prisons, its Immigration Detention Centre) a strange and sadly common stop for them. As an Anti Trafficking Project Officer with Thailand's Foundation For Women (FFW), Dararai Ruksasiripong interviews and identifies trafficking victims detained in Bangkok's Immigration Detention Centre (IDC), scores of whom have been Uzbek.

"Almost all are trafficked," she says. "It is hard for these women to get here alone. Plus, living here is hard. They have no visa, and have to hide all the time," she says. As an example, she tells the story of Elena, a university student from Uzbekistan's capital city, Tashkent, who came to Thailand to earn her next year's tuition, after she was duped by the warm manner and false promises of an Uzbek woman who claimed to have secured her a job in a Thai clothing shop.

Within 72 hours of "hiring", Elena was Bangkok-bound, set upon a nightmarish journey in which, over the course of a couple months, she was forced into prostitution in Pratunam, smuggled into Malaysia, and sent to Pattaya to spend 5 days with a European man (from there she was able to place the phone call that led to her rescue).

Though few women are lucky enough to be rescued, Dararai says the terrifying and convoluted journey is common among victims, as is eventual arrest or detention in the IDC. Since 2004, the IDC has detained 179 and deported 193 Uzbeks, almost all of whom were women. In 2002, there were 228 cases, a number so unprecedented from the country that FFW launched a study and a public information campaign, and partnered with an Uzbek open society organisation to fight the trafficking.

Meanwhile, as richly reported in the crime pages of the Pattaya Daily News, foreign prostitues are a common presence there. In just the past three months, police there have arrested 36 Uzbek prostitutes and conducted one questionably-ethical sting operation (netting four, according to PDN, in "Pattaya Inn Hotel, Rooms 203, 206, and 207 when the love making sessions were concluded.")

In 2003, FFW wrote an open letter to police asking them to reconsider their arrest policies and the use of such stings, in which officers are allowed to indulge in illegal, rights-violating behaviours, in order to nab the women for activities that are no more illegal; FFW says police never responded.

When I asked Shavkat Jamalov, Consul General for the Uzbekistan consulate in Bangkok, why and how so many of his countrywomen are trafficked here, he emphasised that many countries struggle with trafficking, and contends the motivations are simple.

"Here I can answer in two words. Why? For money. How? By cheating people. Some people seek easy ways to earn money." He continues, "Swindlers offer a good service, promising to organise all necessary documents and to send them abroad for good work and good salary. When they arrive in a country they will be welcomed by people linked to unclean business and forced into prostitution."

Annie Dieselberg also hears this story - and a number of its grim and grimmer variations - often. As Founder and Director of NightLight, a ministry in Bangkok that "reaches out to women and children working in the bars of Nana and Sukhumvit," she and her staff regularly canvass the neighbourhood, looking for women that want help or simply want to talk.

She estimates seeing anywhere from 50 to 80 foreign prostitutes per night, and has met women from 13 different countries, most of them in Central and Western Asia, with women most often coming from Uzbekistan. Like Dararai, the majority of those she meets have been trafficked and are in debt to the trafficker for often exaggerated costs of plane tickets, lodging, document procurement, and immigration expenses.

In addition, these women are confronted with living conditions that are variously bleak. She has encountered women that are locked in their room all day and others that have been bruised and beaten by their agents, and sometimes their clients. She has encountered cutters (self-mutilators) and one night, witnessed (and took to the hospital) an Uzbek woman who had become the assault victim of an angry Thai street vendor and a flying water bucket.

While she has met a few women who have managed to clear their debts (they all subsequently turned to freelance prostitution), she says this is difficult because the women often accrue even greater debts as they are moved from country to country (Malaysia, Korea, Isreal, and the UAE are among common stops), in accordance with visa laws and the trafficker's efforts to stay under the radar of law enforcement.

Dieselberg calls this "really the genius of the traffickers", as it not only increases debt bondage, but also victim helplessness - preventing the women from ever getting so oriented with a place's language, resources, or people that they could seek help. She said trafficker's identities varied, though she had personally encountered both men and women, from Uzbekistan, Korea, and several Middle Eastern countries serving the agent role.

Strikingly, many of the women she has met previously had successful, well-established lives in their home countries. She has met accountants, teachers, PhD holders, shopholders, students, mothers - the majority of whom were tricked by individuals that promised them better jobs and greater fortunes abroad. She notes that the few exceptions to this have been women from Uzbekistan, who sometimes realise they'll be working in the sex industry, but rarely understand the terms under which they'll be working.

"It's known that's what is happening there. More than once, I've been told, 'there's no life for us in Uzbekistan,"'says Dieselberg. Both she and the FFW's 2003 study mentioned Thailand's reputation as a sex tourism hub often helps to entice the women. Similarly, one detective that works for the Lumpini Police Station, and patrols the Nana area, believes it's social and economic conditions, not trafficking, that has brought most of the foreign prostitutes here. "Most of the Uzbek prostitutes are also driven by poverty in their homeland. They are not young, single women. They have children back home. They earn here in one day what they get doing backbreaking jobs in Uzbekistan in one month," he comments.

He adds that they often live four to five in a room in the Nana area, both to conserve costs and to register (and maintain legal visa standing for) only one resident. To be sure, times are not at their best in Uzbekistan. The nation is cited in world media for its "poor human rights record" and "widespread unemployment and poverty", yet it is also known for having a dismal record with human trafficking . In June of this year, it was again named to the US State Department's most severe human trafficking blacklist.

Jamalov acknowledges that "Uzbekistan, as well as most of the new independent states, has faced illegal migration issues," but he offers a long list of actions and conventions his country has adopted to tackle the problem. Adding that the "'smuggling' of people is a problem in many countries of the world, that can't be solved by one state alone," he asks, "Is it possible for foreign people to organise such kinds of unclean business without help and support from locals?"

Back at Alibaba's, when a hotel staff member is asked whether the establishment has any problems with foreign prostitutes, the representative says no, explaining, however illogically, that it is impossible there because their rooms are always filled. That said, Alibaba's is hardly the only establishment in town to grace the "Russian girls in Bangkok" webboards.

Anecdotal evidence along with the always chatty community of online sex tourists suggests that Uzbek women are in a handful of centrally located hotel discotheques and lounges - one of the most notorious and upmarket to which, in an ironic and refreshing show of scrutiny, I was recently denied entrance, having forgotten ID and looking of questionable club-going age.

Yet where the young-looking 26-year-old is not allowed to tread, the well-connected, prostitute usually can (or so my long, longing glance through discotheque's tinted window and the thrum of strobe would seem to show), thanks to creative door-keeping, frustrated law enforcement, or increasingly sophisticated trafficking rings. The Lumpini detective explains some of the challenges his department faces in stopping the activity, "It is not easy to arrest these women for prostitution. We cannot arrest them for sitting in a hotel coffeeshop or a discotheque. The men who are with them in their rooms may say they are just lovers and we can do nothing."

Dararai has another view, "Uzbek women are big business here." Though the number of Uzbek detainees at the IDC has dropped in recent years, Dararai speculates that there are equal, if not greater numbers of Uzbek women being trafficked into Thailand. She explains that the number of IDC detainees does not capture those that are arrested and jailed for prostitution.

Meanwhile, she adds that because it is "big business," traffickers have gotten better at covering tracks, and their efforts in the past few years have become increasingly networked, and well-financed. At the same time she thinks that the government's recent crackdown on illegal migrants has forced traffickers to make their activities more clandestine - and so, their victims more tightly controlled. She cites a recent case in Pattaya, where two weeks ago, an Uzbek woman escaped from a brothel and led the authorities to her captors - two Uzbek women, aged 26 and 54 - and their cache of passports and records logging names and outstanding debts, as evidence of this.

"What to do with these Uzbek ladies?" asks the detective. "I don't know. They are free to travel here. Maybe Thai embassies should impose more restrictions on women traveling to Thailand . .. the same tough measure taken by the US, Japanese, and other foreign embassies in Bangkok. Without restrictions, these women will continue coming here, make money and fly home. And I don't think they pay taxes, or do they?"

In recent years, visa rules for Uzbek tourists have been toughened, though (a measure taken in response to the spike of IDC detainees in 2002). While it used to be that visitors could receive visas on arrival, those coming from Uzbek now must procure them in advance through the Thai Embassy in Moscow.

Even so, figures from the Tourism Authority of Thailand show the number of Uzbek tourists to Thailand has doubled since 2003. Nearly 5,000 Uzbek passport holders visited in 2006 and four 200-passenger flights now arrive in Bangkok from Tashkent each week. Undoubtedly, the majority of these are standard Uzbek tourists, neither victims or proliferators of illicit activities.

While Dieselberg and FFW would surely support immigration-amending efforts, they'd also both contend that officials should turn their attention away from the ladies and start targetting traffickers. "Prostitution destroys their most intimate self," says Dieselberg. Giving one last impression of the women, she says, "Once here, they lose dreams, ambitions, hope. They simply have nothing left."

Adapted from: Frye, Erika. "Dancing to a Trafficker's Tune." The Bangkok Post. 5 August 2007

Men Working in Thai Fishing Industry Subject to Severe Exploitation

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 12:09:00 GMT

Sakda Seehawongs, an iron factory worker, was on his way home to Si Sa Ket. Waiting at Rangsit railway station, two northeastern men befriended him. They went to have some drinks. When Mr. Sakda woke up, he was on board a fishing trawler.

The 27-year-old was later forced to work from dawn to dusk on board a boat that caught fish in Indonesia for nearly a year. The work was inhumane. He was allowed short sleep, forced to eat malnutritious food. Whenever he took a break, he was beaten up by the skipper or his associates. In May this year, Mr. Sakda was rescued by marine police after he was spotted jumping off the trawler, which moored at Pak Phanang pier in Nakhon Si Thammarat province to have some machines fixed.

Mr. Sakda's fate is like that of many workers who are either kidnapped or forced to work like slaves on board fishing boats plying the international waters. Deceiving young men to work in extremely harsh conditions in the fishing industry is a new pattern of human trafficking in Thailand. "We are very concerned about it," Ekkaluck Lumchomkhae, chief of the missing people information centre, Mirror Foundation, said during a recent seminar on ''Slave Labour on Illegal Fishing Trawlers.''

Set up four years ago, the centre has received about 800 complaints from relatives of missing people. It is investigating 19 cases of people believed to be deceived or abducted into working on fishing trawlers. The number is but a tiny tip of the iceberg, said Mr Ekkaluck. He is certain many more men have been duped into taking the fishing jobs but they cannot yet escape the floating hell.

Having worked with the centre throughout the four years of its existence, Mr Ekkaluck found that Thai men mostly from the North and the Northeast are the main victims of this human trafficking ring. The ring members paid 3,000-5,000 baht to their labour agents who would persuade or abduct young men to work on fishing trawlers.

Traditionally a source of income for men from the Northeast, the fishing work has been largely shunned and left to migrant workers because of its heavy workload and cruel conditions. Mr Ekkaluck added that these agents rely on different means ranging from placing job ads to a personal approach and drugging the victims to get them on board the boats.

Sompong Sakaew, director of the Labour Rights Promotion Network (LPN), called on state authorities to work harder to help suppress this human trafficking ring. More preventive measures and campaigns should be launched to raise awareness of job seekers about the trafficking danger.

Mr. Sompong, whose organisation monitors the rights of Thai and migrant workers mostly working in the fishing industry, said many of the victims are maltreated by fishing business operators. He cited as an example a case of six fishing trawlers with about 100 crew members, most of them migrant workers, which sailed from Samut Sakhon province to fish in the Indonesian waters a few years ago.

The trawlers returned to Thailand in July last year but about 40 crew members did not. They died on the job. Some who did became seriously ill – emaciated, emotionally disturbed and unable to see, hear or walk properly. A Samut Sakhon Hospital medical report diagnosed the men with serious vitamin deficiencies as they ate only fish for months. None was paid. Ironically, they are not considered by law to be victims of human trafficking, Mr. Sompong said.

Adapted from: "Many men made to suffer in floating hell." The Bangkok Post. 24 July 2007.

China’s Sub-Mekong Region Seminar on Anti-Trafficking Training Material

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 12:32:00 GMT

In order to improve the ability of Chinese anti-trafficking personnel at every level, so that they can better carry out their jobs, as well as to strengthen the work in this area, the UNIAP China office has gathered together experts to compile a pilot edition of national anti-trafficking training materials.

On 24 July 2007 a seminar was convened, which was attended by relevant departments and experts.

Attendees came from the leadership of the NWCCW, the Ministry of Public Security, officials from the All-China Women’s Federation (who submitted written ideas), officials from the International Labour Organisation’s Mongolian office, as well as experts from the China University of Political Science and Law, the China Women’s University and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

During the meeting the framework and style of the teaching materials and the main approach to teaching was talked about in detail, they paid particular attention to the content of the teaching materials. The experts will amend the teaching materials according to their needs, and they will be used at the end of August at the national level anti-trafficking workshop, following this they will be improved further.

Adapted from: UNIAP China office http://uniap.law.pku.edu.cn/article/Details.asp?NewsId=794&Classid=-9&ClassName

Looking for Better Life Puts Burmese Migrants at Risk in Thailand

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 15:04:00 GMT

Saw Wah* sat in the noisy, stifling darkness and hoped the Thai police manning the checkpoints would not discover him.

He had paid 3,500 baht (about US $100) to ride in the luggage compartment of a bus for the 8-hour ride from Bangkok to Mae Sot. “Every time the bus arrived at a checkpoint, I was scared to breathe for fear that they would discover me,” said Saw Wah. “I heard some passengers leave the bus with the police.” They were illegal migrants, just like him.

Saw Wah, 22, was one of thousands of Burmese refugees living in camps along the Thai-Burmese border in Tak Province. Burmese refugees are not allowed to live or work outside the camp; most residents have no jobs, no income and not much of a future.

He and ten others had paid a courier 5,000 baht ($150) to take them to Bangkok to find work. They set out on foot, had to tote their own food and slept in the forest. Just outside Bangkok, Saw Wah was detained for three days before finding work. Separated from his friends, he was employed by a Chinese man to purchase used electronics and other goods at a wage of 4,000 baht per month ($120), which included a small room. He had to provide his own food.

Saw Wah’s story is typical of many Burmese refugees, who increasingly fall prey to human traffickers. Half of all Burmese migrant workers in Thailand have been trafficked, according to the Mae Sot-based group Social Action for Women (SAW), and many of them don’t even realize it.

“The problem is that people do not know they have been trafficked. Even when they face violence, they refuse to go back to Burma,” said SAW director Aye Aye Mar. “If they escape from [employers], they cannot afford to pay back the money they borrowed to find work in Thailand in the first place.”

Not all of Thailand’s migrant workers are illegal. More than 400,000 Burmese workers renewed their work permits in June this year, according to the Chiang Mai-based Migrant Assistance Program. But many opt for less official channels to find employment. Trafficking in Persons, a US State Department report launched in mid-June, described Burma as “a source country for women and men trafficked for the purpose of forced labor and sexual exploitation.” The report criticized Burma’s military government for not doing enough to stop the flow of human trafficking, particularly of women and children.

Aye Aye Mare said that Burmese can be trafficked in a variety of ways. They are brought into Thailand in vegetable carts, diesel tanks or by walking through a vulnerable point along the border. Some have died from suffocation. Women have been raped by couriers on their way to Bangkok. Migrants can pay as much as 15,000 baht ($450) to get from Mae Sot to the Thai capital, where they hope to find employment.

Saw Wah lasted only six months at his job in Bangkok. Returning to Mae Sot took considerable effort and substantial risk. He endured an expensive and dangerous ride in the belly of a bus. In addition to the 3,500 baht bus fee, he had to pay 4,000 baht ($120) in additional fees and 300 baht ($8) to get from Mae Sot to his home in the refugee camp.

“After 8 hours sitting in darkness, I felt dizzy and weak. I nearly feel down after the luggage door opened and I tried to stand up in the light,” Saw Wah said. “I will not go back to work [in Bangkok] again.”

*Saw Wah is not his real name.

Adapted from: "Looking for Better Life Puts Burmese Migrants at Risk." The Irrawaddy News. 11 July 2007.

ASEAN Declaration Urges Better Migrant Worker Rights

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 15:07:00 GMT

Thailand is taking steps to reform migrant worker laws and regulations but still falls short and often fails to take into account the situation faced by refugees, especially from Burma.

That was one of the messages from a seminar sponsored by the International Labor Office as part of follow-up talks to strengthen migrant workers' rights throughout South East Asia. The gathering was a follow-up to the Association of South East Asian Nations Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers signed by the Asean nations in January.

The Asean document calls for improved migrant worker rights and welfare, as well as taking steps to combat human smuggling and trafficking. The Thailand Development Research Institute released a study this month that estimated Thailand will need up to 700,000 migrant workers in 2007.

Migrant employment should be free of discrimination and arbitrary regulations, and include provisions for incentives to “law abiding employers,” according to the study. Kovit Buraphatanin, the director of the International Affairs Division of the Labour Ministry, said there are sound economic reasons for reforms to be put in place.

“The government realizes that foreign workers create a mutual benefit for those who are coming to work here, and also the country, because it makes the economy go smoothly,” Kovit told The Irrawaddy. Thailand is preparing new laws on “alien workers," he said, and with their passage many reforms could occur, including categorizing occupations that will be open to foreign workers as well as setting quotas.

“The management of the foreign worker would be more systematic,” he said. In media reports, academics at Chulalongkorn University’s Institute for Asian Studies have criticized existing migrant worker regulations as arbitrary and dependent on whoever is in power. The academics accused some officials of corruption in overseeing changes to favor certain authorities or political figures.

Prapan Vongsarochana, a senior official in the Thai Education Ministry, told the seminar that worker reforms have been taking place since 1992, including easing restrictions on migrant children to attend schools. Since 2005, school entrance requirements and documentation required by migrant worker parents have been eased.

“If they have no IDs or house registration papers or documents whatsoever, the mother and father can come to the school and testify that these are their children,” she said. “Even if you are undocumented (migrant worker children) you have rights to education, regardless,” she said. However, children of "political" refugees do not have the same rights.

Often there are uncertainties on how long migrant children will remain in school. “The parents are here to make the most money they can (before they leave)," she said. "The Burmese people are facing many problems back in their own country. Many are fleeing poverty and repression.”

ILO labor analyst Manolo Abella, in a telephone interview, said the ILO was trying to persuade ASEAN countries to further open labor markets, with skill assessment studies one of the first issues to be addressed. There are both technical as well as political issues that need to be dealt with as different groups are affected by reforms, he said. Similar issues were faced by the European Union in the1960s, with the resolution of the question of qualifications taking several years.

“We are looking at these things," Abella said. "They will need to address these issues sooner than later.” Opening the seminar, Bill Slater, the director of the ILO’s sub-regional Office for East Asia, said the labor migration issue had implications for “economic activity, human security and national security.”

Slater said the ASEAN declaration signifies a regional concern for the management of labor migration and “demonstrated a commitment to regional cooperation to tackle issues arising from cross-border movement of labor.” Migrant workers play a key role in developing economies, he said.

“No doubt, the exports of agricultural and fishery products from Thailand are the efforts of both Thai and foreign workers, from plantation, harvesting, processing and transport,” he said. “They also help Thai export-oriented sectors from shrimp and rubber to textile in their competitiveness internationally.”

The ILO says migrant workers in Thailand number about 5 percent of the workforce and contributes US $2 billion to Thailand’s economic growth. Slater acknowledged that the issue of opening labor markets is controversial and divisive.

“The management of labor migration is not an undertaking of one individual country, but it is the responsibility of the origin, transit and destination countries to ensure orderly migration,” he said. In Thailand, gains have been made in migrant worker rights in recent years, said Vitit Muntarbhorn, an international human rights advocate and law professor at Chulalongkorn University.

“For Thailand over the past five years the door has become much more open to migrant workers through a process of regularization,” Vitit told The Irrawaddy. Under these policies, foreigners working clandestinely have been able to come forward and openly register with the government. But in the case of Burma, despite Thailand's signing a memorandum of understanding on labor migration, the agreement remains largely ineffective.

“That has to be dealt with diplomatically and cautiously,” he said. “We need concrete, accessible, meaningful responses in terms of access to health care, access to wages, guarantees of access to consular help—the basics of life in terms of reasonable responses to their livelihood, including to ensure their safe return to their country of origin,” he said.

He said refugees also need to receive more attention from the government. “Refugees come into Thailand for even more desperate reasons than migrant workers," he said. "It’s only logical in a way that we should provide equitable treatment so that all sides, all parties, will have access to the basics of life.”

Adapted from: "Asean Declaration Urges More Migrant Worker Rights." The Irrawaddy News. 11 July 2007.

Company in Pennsylvania, USA Accused of Trafficking

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 15:21:00 GMT

Workers from Thailand say they’ve been made into economic slaves by the company that brought them to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They’re 20 men from Thailand who for the past year have picked mushrooms in Armstrong County.

They say they often did not get paid and now they must return home where they will face enormous debt. Venture into an abandoned limestone mine in Armstrong County and you’ll find hundreds of workers picking mushrooms in the dark.

It’s tough work and not enough locals wanted the job so last year Creekside Mushrooms hired 20 legal guest workers from Thailand through a California company called Global Horizons. Under the contract, Creekside paid Global but soon discovered that Global wasn’t paying the workers for long stretches of time. Some nights, the men had to go fishing after work just to feed themselves.

“We made multiple phone calls to the president of the company who then chose not to return any of my calls or emails and the gentlemen just weren’t getting paid,” Domenic Galassi, an official with Creekside Mushroom, said. And Galassi says their situation has become even more dire. He says each man paid upwards of $20,000 to a recruiter in Thailand to come to America on Global’s promise of three years employment.

But now Global is telling them they must return to Thailand after only one year. “These guys are going home with huge debt owed to this company that cost them to get the ability to come here,” Galassi said. “People being forced to work under harsh conditions without compensation,” Mary Burke, from the Project to End Human Trafficking, said. A human rights group in Pittsburgh is now accusing global of human trafficking, a form, they say, of economic slavery. But that’s just the least of it.

This past year, the U.S. Department of Labor banned Global from bringing new workers into country, citing Global for fraud and violating workers’ rights. The company is currently under investigation in at least three states, including Washington where a judge last week ordered the company to pay Thai workers $1.9 million.

The Pennsylvania state Labor Department also confirmed that it’s investigating, but a Global representative denied any allegations of human trafficking. “That is not true,” Pranee Tubchompol, from Global Horizons, said. “We [are] not trafficking the worker[s].”

She concedes that some workers were paid late because she says Global is in financial trouble. And even though they were promised longer stays, Tubchompol says the workers must return home now.

Sheehan: “What if they resist?”

Tubchompol: “We’re gonna have to report to the INS, to the immigration that they absconded or they [ran] away.”

People sympathetic to these workers have relocated the workers. They are appealing to the U.S. Department of Labor to recognize them as victims of trafficking and they want the U.S. to issue them new visas.

Adapted from: "Company Accused Of Human Trafficking." www.kdka.com. 16 July 2007.

UNIAP Human Trafficking Estimates Competition

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 15:35:00 GMT

The Problem…

There are few accurate numbers that reflect the extent of human trafficking throughout the Mekong Region, much less the rest of the world!.

…A Proposed Solution?

Between now and August 2007, the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region (UNIAP) is hosting a Trafficking Estimates Competition. Entrants are asked to estimate the number of human trafficking victims within their own choice of region and sector(s). The aim of the competition is to identify well-conceived and defendable approaches for estimating the extent of human trafficking in GMS countries or areas.

Individuals, teams or organizations are eligible, with submissions due by the 20th August 2007. Everyone is encouraged to submit as many entries as they can come up with. A selection of the best entries will be invited to Bangkok to defend their approach to a panel of judges on 31st August 2007, with a public audience of peers. Prizes include the publication and wide dissemination of the top methodologies and the opportunity for them to be validated in the field. (And of course a trophy!)

For full information, access document below.

UNIAP Welcomes SIREN!

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 15:39:00 GMT

WHAT IS SIREN?.

The Strategic Information Response Network (SIREN) is a new UNIAP-supported initiative intended to deliver high quality, responsive, and up-to-date data and analysis on cutting edge issues within the human trafficking sector. It is aimed at key stakeholders in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) – government and non-government – in order to inform and encourage their attention and action on the target issue.

SIREN aims to convey information to the human counter-trafficking sector in a variety of different forms: briefing reports, maps, data sheets, and discussion forums and debates, to name a few. Research, validation, and analysis will be conducted in the field, by community-based organizations, national and international agencies, and/or UNIAP itself. The goal is to bring real knowledge and context on real priority issues from the grassroots to the national and regional levels, and vice versa.

For more information, contact:
Paul Buckley
UNIAP Regional Office
paul.buckley@undp.or.th

Vital Voices Global Partnership Releases Report on Statelessness in Thailand

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 16:01:00 GMT

Study Shows that Obstacles to Citizenship in Thailand Lead to Vulnerability to Human Trafficking.

Vital Voices Global Partnership announced its new study, 'Stateless and Vulnerable to Human Trafficking in Thailand.' This report examines the legal obstacles to obtaining citizenship for tribal people in northern Thailand and their subsequent vulnerability to human trafficking.

"This is a comprehensive research project that examines the complicated legal challenges to citizenship facing tribal people in northern Thailand," stated Ms. Melanne Verveer, Co-Founder and Chair of the Board, Vital Voices Global Partnership.

Thailand has long committed itself to eliminating modern-day slavery. It has put many laudable policies and programs in place to combat human trafficking, a global challenge that knows no boundaries. However, as the Government of Thailand readily acknowledges, the country remains a source, destination and transit country for the trade of human beings. There are many contributing factors to human trafficking, including poverty, lack of education and awareness among at-risk groups, and a high demand for labor and sexual exploitation. As the study shows, the lack of citizenship also directly leads to vulnerability to human trafficking.

According to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, while more than half of hill tribe villagers in Thailand have Thai citizenship, hundreds of thousands of villagers remain without nationality. "The consequences associated with lacking citizenship, such as the inability to access state benefits like healthcare services or education or travel permits to freely travel around Thailand, imposes huge impediments on villagers applying for jobs outside their villages. As a result, they become more vulnerable to exploitation, the black-market and human trafficking. If trafficked, victims without proof of citizenship receive limited protection, little assistance and may be denied re-entry into Thailand," says the report.

"While there have been many regulations and resolutions drafted by the Cabinet of Ministers, the Ministry of Interior and other departments in Thailand that attempt to address the citizenship issue, the process for obtaining citizenship in Thailand remains extremely complicated and difficult," said Wenchi Yu Perkins, Director of Human Rights of Vital Voices Global Partnership.

"Our study argues that improving access to citizenship would eliminate a significant factor contributing to human trafficking in Thailand," stated Perkins. The report recommends that Government of Thailand should implement measures such as: registering the birth of all children; improving the transparency of the citizenship application process; training local officials and people on the elements of the law and eliminating fees associated with the application process; and eliminating restrictions on travel, education, health care and employment for non-citizens during the application process.

"It took more than one year, with visits to northern Thailand, and numerous in-depth consultations with field experts and legal scholars to complete this study," stated Verveer. "It would not have been possible without the generosity of the law firm, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, especially Orrick lawyer, Kathleen Kerr. The level of collaboration between the public and private sectors on this project has been remarkable."

"We sincerely intend and hope that this report will serve as a positive contribution to the discussion of statelessness, one of the major root causes of human trafficking in Thailand and around the world, which will prompt more government actions and civil society solutions to address this serious problem of statelessness. Thailand is not alone in facing this challenge of statelessness and human trafficking. For example, the Roma populations in Europe, the stateless children in South Africa and Egypt, and many more vulnerable populations similarly demand the world's attention and action," remarked Perkins.

Read the full report: Stateless and Vulnerable to Human Trafficking in Thailand.

Vital Voices Global Partnership: http://www.vitalvoices.org/

CONTACT:
Wenchi Yu Perkins
wenchiyuperkins@vitalvoices.org
+1.212.992.9110

The Asia Foundation Launches Anti-Trafficking Prevention Program in Vietnam

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 16:47:00 GMT

The Asia Foundation is launching a US$300,000 project to combat human trafficking over the next two years in five Vietnamese provinces most affected by the crime. To support the project activities, the foundation will open an office in Vietnam's southern An Giang province along Cambodia's border.

Funded by the US Department of State’s Office to Combat and Monitor Trafficking in Persons, the project will pilot new methods for preventing the serious and growing problem of trafficking in Vietnam. Many women and young girls are trafficked as they migrate from Vietnam to Cambodia or from rural to urban areas within Vietnam, seeking better economic opportunities.

The program will support public education on safe migration and peer counseling to prevent trafficking. Dramatic theatre performances, often staged by the communities themselves, will inform young girls about the risk of trafficking and how to avoid falling prey to traffickers' false promises of jobs or marriage.

The Asia Foundation will also work closely with local officials to increase women's participation in the budget process so that they have greater say over how local public resources are used and to ensure that there are resources allocated for safe migration. "By our work, The Asia Foundation reaffirms its strong commitment to combating the terrible global problem of trafficking in persons across the Asia-Pacific region," said Douglas Bereuter, president of The Asia Foundation.

The Asia Foundation is a non-profit, non-governmental organization committed to the development of a peaceful, prosperous, just, and open Asia- Pacific region.

Adapted from: "NGO launches anti-trafficking program in Vietnam." www.thanhniennews.com. 31 May 2007.

Thai Woman Wins Landmark Compensation in Australian Sex-Trafficking Case

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 16:54:00 GMT

An Australian tribunal has awarded compensation to a Thai woman who was forced to work as a prostitute in Sydney when she was 13.

It is the first time a victim of sex trafficking has received damages from the tribunal. Jetsadophorn Chaladone was brought to Australia with her father's permission in 1995 and had hoped to be employed as a nanny.

Instead she was put to work in a brothel by a gang of traffickers and was told she had to pay off a AU$28,000 debt. The New South Wales Victims Compensation Tribunal has recognized the depression and post-traumatic stress she suffered as a result. The tribunal has ordered that Jetsadophorn be paid compensation from a government fund for crime victims. The amount has not been disclosed.

She now lives in northern Thailand and has said the money will help pay for her son's education. Australia introduced laws against sex trafficking and slavery in 1999.

The government in Canberra has signed anti-trafficking agreements with Cambodia, Burma, Laos and Thailand to improve international cooperation.

Adapted from: "Thai Woman Wins Landmark Compensation in Australian Sex-Trafficking Case." www.voanews.com. 1 June 2007.

Thai Workers Complain of Exploitation in New Zealand

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 16:55:00 GMT

Labour Department bosses have stopped a horticultural contractor from recruiting more foreign workers, after eight Thais complained of exploitation.

Applications from Havenleigh Global Services to employ further international workers have been suspended "until further notice", department spokesman Steve Cantlon said. It follows a complaint from a group of Thais who claimed they had been ripped off by Thailand-based recruitment agents and Havenleigh.

The Thais said they paid agency fees of up to NZ$14,000 each on the false promise of lucrative jobs and believed Havenleigh underpaid them for working 60- to 70-hour, seven-day weeks, including public holidays. The Thais, whose work permits were revoked after their falling out with Havenleigh, have been granted permission to work in Marlborough vineyards until September.

Meanwhile a Marlborough vineyard owner is coming out in defence of Havenleigh, saying he and other growers using the company's workers have been shocked by the allegations. Redwood Pass vineyard's Barry Feickert said he believed Havenleigh worked above board, looked after its employees and was being targeted unfairly.

If the Department of Labour was investigating that company, it should investigate all of Marlborough's contractors on the same basis, he said. Immigration Minister David Cunliffe has begun a full inquiry and Thai authorities are investigating a complaint against the recruitment agents.

Mr Cantlon said the department's investigation would look at whether the company was meeting employment requirements such as minimum wage and holiday entitlements, whether it met its workplace health and safety requirements and whether it was abiding by the conditions agreed on with the department when they recruited workers from overseas.

The eight Thai workers and Havenleigh go to mediation this month in a bid to resolve their dispute.

Adapted from: "Company stops hiring Thais." The Marlborough Express. 11 June 2007.

The Sixth Sub-Mekong Region’s Anti-Trafficking Workshop is Held

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 16:58:00 GMT

The UNIAP held the sixth Anti-Trafficking Workshop in Khon Kaen, Thailand, this training is one of the main activities of the Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative against Trafficking (COMMIT).

The Head of China’s delegation, the Deputy Director of the Office of the National Working Committee on Children and Women under the State Council, Su FengJie, led six representatives attending the eight day training. Members of the delegation came from the Office of the National Working Committee on Children and Women under the State Council, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Public Security, the All-China Women’s Federation and Save the Children. There were also trainees from other countries in the Sub-Mekong Region, from Cambodia, Lao PDR, Burma, Thailand and Vietnam.

The training employed international, commonly used training techniques: PowerPoint, role plays, panel discussions, energizers, etc. The content was divided into four sections: trafficking prevention, protection, prosecution and policy. Anti-trafficking work, amongst other things was also introduced during the training. Each countries trainees was effectively mobilized into active participation, the participants shared their experiences, interacted and cooperated with each other in this anti-trafficking platform.

In order to further unite the countries in the region, during the training the China delegation introduced China’s anti-trafficking work, on which the other five countries actively exchanged their ideas.

Adapted from: http://uniap.law.pku.edu.cn/UserImages/00000391.pdf

U.S. Department of State Releases 2007 Trafficking in Persons Report

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 16:07:00 GMT

On 12 June 2007, the United States Department of State released its annual report on the world's efforts to combat human trafficking.

2007 Trafficking in Persons Report

The U.S. Government has been issuing a report every year since 2001, as it is mandated by the US law Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000.

This year, a total of 16 states - four more than in 2006 - were given a Tier 3 status. Lao PDR improved its record from Tier 3 last year to Tier 2 this year. Singapore was demoted to Tier 2 this year from Tier 1 last year. Malaysia is new to Tier 3 this year.

The tier status of the countries represented on this web site are:

Tier 1
Australia
Hong Kong
Republic of Korea
New Zealand

Tier 2
East Timor
Indonesia
Japan
Lao PDR
Philippines
Thailand
Singapore
Vietnam
Mongolia
Taiwan

Tier 2 Watch List
Cambodia
China (PRC)

Tier 3
Malaysia
Burma

Detroit Man Sentenced to 14 Years in Prison in Michigan, USA

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 17:00:00 GMT

Aleksandr Maksimenko, age 27, was sentenced today to serve 168 months (14 years) in prison and pay more than $1,5 million in restitution for his role as one of the ring-leaders in a conspiracy to force Eastern European women to work as exotic dancers in Detroit area strip clubs, Stephen J Murphy, United States Attorney, Eastern District of Michigan, and Wan J Kim, Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, announced.

United States District Judge Victoria A. Roberts sentenced Maksimenko following his conviction for an involuntary servitude, immigration and money laundering conspiracy. Maksimenko is a naturalized U.S. citizen, born in Ukraine, who resided in Livonia, Michigan, at the time of his arrest in mid-February 2005.

"The defendants in this case took advantage of innocent women from Eastern Europe by enticing them to come the United States and then holding them in bondage for commercial and sexual exploitation,” said U.S. Attorney Stephen J. Murphy. “In sentencing Mr. Maksimenko to 14 years in prison, the Court underscored the gravity of this type of crime. Criminal operations involving human trafficking, such as this one, will be pursued with the greatest vigor by my office."

"Human trafficking, as exemplified in this case, is nothing short of modern-day slavery,” said Wan J. Kim, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. “The Department of Justice is committed to vigorously prosecuting these crimes wherever they occur.”

According to court papers, Maksimenko and his business partners operated a human trafficking ring which exploited Eastern European women and used the guise of a legitimate business – Beauty Search, Inc. – to cover their criminal conduct. Maksimenko and his partners smuggled women into the United States and compelled them through threats and coercion to work as dancers in strip clubs. To force the women to keep working, Maksimenko and his partners took a number of steps, including confiscating the dancers’ passports; imposing large debts; isolating the dancers; threatening physical violence; searching the dancers’ apartments; and threatening to turn the dancers into authorities because of their illegal immigrant status.

The Court increased Maksimenko’s sentence after finding that Maksimenko sexually abused two of the dancers who labored for Beauty Search. The Court also found that Maksimenko unlawfully took over $1.5 million in earnings from the dancers. The Court entered a preliminary order of restitution requiring Maksimenko to pay the dancers a total of $1,570,450, the amount of earnings the victims were forced to turn over to Beauty Search. The Court further ordered that $537,043.84 in cash seized by government agents from Maksimenko’s home and safety deposit boxes, as well as about $30,000 worth of jewelry, be used to satisfy a portion of the Court’s restitution award.

Maksimenko is the third of nine defendants to be sentenced for crimes associated with this trafficking conspiracy. Still to be sentenced is Michail Aronov, a Lithuanian citizen from the Chicago area, who was also a ring-leader in this involuntary servitude conspiracy. Aronov, like Maksimenko, pleaded guilty to participating in this conspiracy. He is scheduled to be sentenced on August 16, 2007, at 2 p.m. Others who have been convicted in the prosecution include the following:

Duay Joseph Jado, a Greek citizen from the Skokie, Illinois area, was sentenced to 46 months in prison for setting fire to the car of one of the dancers. Jado set the fire to retaliate against the dancer for her failure to repay a debt allegedly owed to Beauty Search and for her escape from the defendants.

Evgeniy Prokopenko and Alexander Bondarenko, two Ukrainian citizens residing in Brooklyn, NY, pleaded guilty to visa fraud, admitting that they entered into sham marriages in 2004 with two of the dancers in order to permit the dancers to gain entry into the United States.

Anna Gonikman-Starchenko, a Ukrainian citizen living in the Detroit metro area, pleaded guilty to obstruction-related charges stemming from actions taken following the arrests of Maksimenko and Aronov. Gonikman-Starchenko is scheduled to be sentenced on June 28, 2007 at 10:30 a.m.

Niki Papoutsaki, a Greek citizen living in the Detroit metro area, pleaded guilty to misprision of a felony in connection with obstruction-related activity. Papoutsaki is scheduled to be sentenced on June 28, 2007 at 10:00 a.m. Valentina Maksimenko, a naturalized U.S. citizen residing in the Chicago area, pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to obstruct justice during the course of the federal investigation. Valentina Maksimenko is scheduled to be sentenced on June 28, 2007 at 11:00 a.m.

Human trafficking prosecutions are a top priority of the Department. In the last six fiscal years, the Civil Rights Division, in conjunction with U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, has increased by six-fold the number of human trafficking cases filed in court. In 2006, the Department obtained a record number of convictions in human trafficking prosecutions.

The case was investigated by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation, and the State Department Diplomatic Security Service. Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Chutkow and Luis de Baca, Chief Counsel, Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit, Criminal Section, Civil Rights Division, are prosecuting the case. Peter Ziedas, Assistant United States Attorney is handling the asset forfeiture part of the case.

United States Attorney Stephen J. Murphy
Eastern District of Michigan

For more information, contact:
GINA BALAYA
(313) 226-9758
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/mie/

Woman Pleads Guilty to Human Trafficking in Texas, USA

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 16:59:00 GMT

Olga Mondragon pleaded guilty to federal civil rights charges for her role in conspiring to smuggle Central American women and girls into the United States and to placing them in a condition of involuntary servitude, Assistant Attorney General Wan Kim for the Civil Rights Division and US Attorney Don DeGabrielle for the Southern District of Texas announced.

At a hearing this morning in Houston, Olga Mondragon pleaded guilty to a total of 13 counts including eight counts of holding young Central American women in a condition of forced labor at her bar in the Houston area, and a forced labor conspiracy, conspiracy to and smuggling Central American women into the United States for financial gain, and harboring illegal aliens. She is the seventh of eight defendants charged in this human trafficking case to plead guilty. Co-defendant Maria Fuentes awaits trial.

Olga Mondragon is a 47-year-old El Salvadoran national. She and her co-defendants conspired with others to smuggle female illegal aliens from Central America to Houston. Once in Houston, Olga Mondragon, working with other co-defendants held the women and girls in a condition of servitude in bars owned by the conspirators until the women had paid their smuggling debts to the defendants. The defendants used threats of harm to the women and their families to keep the women in a condition of servitude. Specifically, Olga Mondragon and her co-defendants threatened that the women’s families or children would pay the consequences if any of the young women attempted to leave before paying their smuggling debts, including threats of kidnaping and threats to report the young women to dangerous co-conspirators who could have people killed or burn people’s houses down.

“Human traffickers pervert the American dream and use it as a ruse to lure vulnerable persons into terrible conditions of victimization,” said Assistant Attorney General Kim. “The Justice Department will continue to prosecute those who would perpetrate these heinous crimes.”

“This insidious crime is nothing more than thinly-cloaked modern day slavery. Seven defendants have been held accountable for these crimes and should serve as a warning to any who are engaged in this form of human trafficking and oppression,” said U.S. Attorney DeGabrielle.

Eight defendants were originally charged in this matter. Oscar Mondragon, operator of the Mi Cabana Sports Bar located on West Tidwell Road, pleaded guilty in May 2006 to conspiring with his brother, Maximino Mondragon, also known as “El Chimino”, and co-defendants Victor Omar Lopez and Walter Corea to recruit and transport women and girls from Central America to travel to the United States with the expectation of legitimate jobs in restaurants, only to hold the women through threats of force to compel and maintain their service as “bargirls” at bars and restaurants in the Houston area until each repaid smuggling and other assessed fees. Kerin Silva, son of Walter Corea, also pled guilty to conspiring to harbor and transport illegal aliens for commercial advantage and financial gain. Lorenza Reyes-Nunez pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice.

This human trafficking organization operated for a period of approximately four years beginning in November 2001. The indictment identifies eight women from El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua ranging in age from 16 to 38, who were recruited by one or more of the conspirators and compelled to work as “bargirls.”

U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore has set sentencing for Sept. 24, 2007. Mondragon, who was permitted to remain free on bond pending her sentencing hearing, faces a maximum punishment of five years in prison for the forced labor conspiracy conviction, a maximum of 20 years in prison for each of 8 forced labor counts of conviction, up to 10 years for the conspiracy to smuggle illegal aliens for financial gain and harboring illegal alien convictions, and no less than 3 and no more than 10 years in prison for each of two counts of conviction for smuggling illegal aliens for financial gain. Each of the eight counts of conviction carry a maximum fine of $250,000 and specified terms of supervised release.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has made combating human trafficking a top priority of the Justice Department. In the last six fiscal years, the Civil Rights Division, in conjunction with U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, has increased by six-fold the number of human trafficking cases filed, quadrupled the number of defendants charged, and tripled the number of defendants convicted. In FY 2006, the Department initiated 168 investigations, charged 111 defendants in 32 cases, and obtained a record number of convictions totaling 98.

This case is the result of the investigative efforts of the Human Trafficking Rescue Alliance (HTRA) of the Southern District of Texas including agents of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Harris County Sheriff’s Department, and the Texas Alcohol and Beverage Commission, and the Harris County Constable Precinct Five Office. Assistant United States Attorneys Ruben R. Perez and Joseph Magliolo, and Trial Attorneys James Felte and Hilary Axam with the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, are jointly prosecuted the case.

For more information, contact:

Mr. Robert Moossy, Director
Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit
Criminal Section, Civil Rights Division
(202) 514-2007
TDD (202) 514-1888
http://www.usdoj.gov

Defendant Found Guilty in a Human Trafficking Case in Connecticut, USA

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 16:58:00 GMT

A federal jury in Hartford, Connecticut found Dennis Paris guilty tday for his role in the operation of a sex-trafficking ring.

The jury convicted Paris of knowingly using minors, including a 14-year-old girl, in his prostitution business and also of using force, fraud, and various coercive means to compel two adult victims to perform commercial sex acts for his financial benefit. In addition to four counts of sex-trafficking, Paris was also found guilty of conspiracy and 13 counts related to the use of interstate facilities to promote and conduct a prostitution business, as well as three counts of money laundering. The defendant faces a sentence that ranges from 360 months to life in prison, and a fine of up to $1.5 million.

Paris was charged in a 21-count indictment in December 2006 for crimes related to his role in the operation of a prostitution and sex trafficking business from 2000 through 2004, in the Hartford area. Nine co-defendants in this case have previously pleaded guilty to federal charges including the sex trafficking of minors and sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion.

The evidence at trial proved that the defendant preyed upon the specific vulnerabilities of his victims including age, socioeconomic status, living situations, and drug addictions. He used these vulnerabilities and whatever manipulative means necessary to cause all four victims to engage in commercial sex acts for his benefit. The victims were also forced to engage in sex acts with the defendant against their will.

“Sex trafficking is an abhorrent crime that too often occurs in our own backyards, and too often victimizes children,” said Wan J. Kim, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “It is a top priority of the Justice Department to root out and prosecute those who so ruthlessly victimize others.”

“The defendant was found guilty of conduct that clearly shows that prostitution is not a victimless crime,” said Kevin J. O’Connor, U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut. “The federal government is committed to prosecuting sex trafficking crimes, particularly when minors are abused and women are forced to commit sexual acts against their will and under the threat of violence.”

The federal trial was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Genco and Special Litigation Counsel Andrew J. Kline of the Department of Justice’s Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit, Civil Rights Division. This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Hartford and Windsor Police Departments, and the Internal Revenue Service.

For more information, contact:

Mr. Robert Moossy, Director
Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit
Criminal Section, Civil Rights Division
(202) 514-2007
TDD (202) 514-1888
http://www.usdoj.gov

ABC News (USA) Airs Series on Trafficking in the United States

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 19:31:00 GMT

Every year an estimated 800,000 people are bought, sold and smuggled worldwide -- part of the multibillion dollar human trafficking industry. Officials estimate that more than 15,000 people enter the US this way, helping to fuel a modern-day slave trade. Lured either by the hope of a better life or simply kidnapped, they are forced to work for little or no money in deplorable conditions. Beginning May 21, “World News with Charles Gibson” will feature a special series, “Slavery in America: Living in the Shadows,” reported by Justice Department Correspondent Pierre Thomas.

The series will examine how, in the 21st century, slavery still exists in the United States. Thomas sits down with Evelyn Chumbow, who was a slave in a suburban Maryland home for two years before finally escaping. In her first on-camera interview, Evelyn, who thought she was coming to the US to receive an education, describes how she was forced to work 18 hour days and was routinely beaten by her female captor.

Thomas was also granted wide-ranging access to law enforcement officials who discuss the scope of this problem, particularly among undocumented workers desperate to enter the country under any circumstance.

Day 1: Slaves in the U.S.: 'This Happens All Over the Country'

Day 2: 'Modern Day Slavery': Lucrative Trade Thriving

For more information, contact:
ABC News Media Relations:
Natalie Raabe
+1 212 456 2418

Targeting Human Trafficking

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 19:37:00 GMT

After years of shameful recalcitrance, New York will take the lead in the nation’s effort to combat sex and labor trafficking with a new law that targets this modern form of slavery. The issue is an urgent one. Each year, thousands of people are brought into the United States — often through New York — to be used for forced sex or labor. Yet New York has lagged behind at least two dozen states in enacting laws to go after the traffickers and help their victims.

Federal law enforcement tends to focus on the largest trafficking rings rather than local brothels and sweatshops, and federal efforts need bolstering in any case. But attempts over the last two years to pass anti-trafficking legislation in New York ended in failure. Assembly Democrats resisted imposing tough new criminal penalties, and the Republican Senate objected to providing services for trafficking victims. Given Albany’s penchant for partisan gridlock, the deadlock might have continued for many more years absent a muscular nudge from Gov. Eliot Spitzer. The result is being applauded by both prosecutors and victims’ advocates and will give the state one of the strongest anti-trafficking laws in the country.

A conviction for sex trafficking would bring a penalty of 3 to 25 years in prison while labor trafficking would be punishable by three to seven years. Coercing victims into prostitution by force would be treated as a felony sex trafficking offense, as would luring victims with promises of jobs or by providing them with illegal drugs. Language added at Mr. Spitzer’s behest also takes aim at “prostitution tourism,” clarifying that selling travel-related services to facilitate prostitution abroad is a felony.

The law would improve training to help police and prosecutors recognize trafficking, and expand the availability of social services, such as temporary housing and health care, to trafficking victims.

The measure is not perfect. It does not include the proposed Safe Harbor law, which would place young children exploited by pimps and johns in safe houses, instead of sending them to the juvenile equivalent of prison. Still it’s a significant milestone. The Legislature should lose no time in formally voting on it, and send it to Mr. Spitzer for his signature.

Citation: "Targeting Human Trafficking." Editorial. New York Times. May 21, 2007

Call for Papers - St. Antony's International Review (STAIR)

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 19:55:00 GMT

Associated Editor of the St Antony's International Review (STAIR), a peer-reviewed academic journal of international affairs based here at St Antony's College, University of Oxford has issued a call for papers.

St. Antony's International Review (STAIR)

Call for Papers: The Politics of Human Trafficking

Abstracts due August 30, 2007
Papers due December 30, 2007

In the year of the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade, the global trade in human beings is back on the policy agenda. This illegal trade is no longer restricted to a singular westward flow across the Atlantic, but now occurs in such diverse regions as South Asia and the Middle East. International crime control, migration agencies and the media show great concern over the upward trend in human trafficking based on the new opportunities created by increasing global mobility. But, despite this growing alarm, there remains insufficient serious scholarship addressing human trafficking. There is no consensus as to the precise meaning of the term, as its elements of victimhood and agency remain obscure, whilst economic analysis of human trafficking, and its relationship to the international labour market remains hazy at best. Similarly, despite the existence of research on the international abolitionist movement and drug policies, little comparative analysis exists between forms of trafficking. For these reasons, the St Antony’s International Review (STAIR) invites academics, young researchers, and policy experts to submit abstracts of papers that explore one or more of the following lines of enquiry for the forthcoming issue on ‘The Politics of Human Trafficking.’

Agency and “Victimhood”
The popular portrayal of human trafficking often resembles a Dickensian landscape of suffering and pain, with voiceless children and powerless women caught in a trap of violence and exploitation. Whilst this may be true of a number of cases, it is now frequently asserted that such depictions unfairly obscure the complex web of coercion and consent that underpins and characterises the diverse processes of contemporary human trafficking. In many cases the boundaries between voluntary labour migration and forced exploitation are so thin as to hide the intricacies of the choices that people actually make. Why do some parents encourage their children to go and what motivates them to leave? What do men and women stand to gain from illegally crossing borders and are all at risk of abuse if they do? Are traffickers inherently evil or do they provide an unregulated service in an apparently failing economy? Is there room for agency even in situations of extreme hardship? And if so, why does the discourse of disempowerment and victimhood so dominate the standard narrative?

Economics of Trafficking
The impacts of human trafficking are manifold. Aside from creating human misery, and straining political systems, the economic impact of human trafficking on national economies can be enormous. Academics and policymakers highlight the need for greater research in order to better understand both the relationship between trafficking and development and that between trafficking and the dynamics of the international labour market. How should we integrate the supply-side and the demand-side in our analysis? How can the existence of remittance flows help us to better understand the processes and motivations of trafficking? What is the relationship between trafficking and economic migration, and what role do global social inequalities, freedom of movement and corruption play in this relationship?

Politics and policy making
The fight against human trafficking has become an increasingly salient political issue for governments around the world. In spite of widespread agreement on the need for multilateral cooperation in addressing this problem, its very persistence highlights the important weaknesses that still remain in the identification of appropriate counter-trafficking policies. How can national legislation foster a more inclusive approach to trafficking? What are the best methods for adapting to increased global mobility? What has been the role of immigration laws and policies and is a victim-centered approach appropriate? Does international trafficking lead to more internal trafficking and if so, what role do governments have in dealing with this? What is the role of non-state actors involved in the fight against trafficking? How can the monitoring and evaluation of counter-trafficking policies be improved?

Methodology: Trafficking in International Affairs
Trafficking research is not well integrated with the academic study of politics and international affairs because of the apparent lack of data, methods and analytical models. How can trafficking studies draw on existing research, such as international trade theory, transnationalism and migration studies, to benefit the discipline and our understanding of both the trade and its policy responses? What conventional types of sources are available for analysing illegal trades and are there feasible alternatives, such as interviews with end-users? Do criminology or anthropology offer useful alternative methodologies or do they take us too far from the disciplinary mainstream? And does it make sense to compare human trafficking across different regions and/or contrast it to other forms of illegal trade in drugs, diamonds or arms? If so, what can be learnt from such comparisons?

In conjunction with the general Call for Papers for the forthcoming issue on 'The Politics of Human Trafficking', STAIR also seeks to publish book reviews of works that adhere to the advertised theme of the issue. If you are interested in submitting book reviews related to the theme 'The Politics of Human Trafficking”, please contact book.reviews@stair-journal.org

Notes for Contributors are available at: www.sant.ox.ac.uk/STAIR

For more information, contact:
Ms. Heidi Stöckl
Associated Editor, St. Antony's International Review (STAIR)
Heidi.Stoeckl@nuffield.ox.ac.uk

Thai Government and International Organizations Pledge Cooperation to Provide Assistance to Victims

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 23:50:00 GMT

Two months after psychiatric treatment that included shock therapy, the 24-year-old woman is much recovered. Yet she still does not know her name or where she is from. All she can remember is that she has a child and that an acquaintance lured her to Bangkok from her village in Burma by promising her a job as a servant. Instead, she ended up in a karaoke bar where she was forced into prostitution and regularly beaten by her pimps.

When she finally managed to escape, she rushed to a policeman for help. But worse was to come. The woman was deported and was left to find her way home from the Thai border. Walking through the jungle, she was repeatedly raped by groups of Karen guerrillas. Traumatised and lost, she was eventually rescued by a stranger who took her to a refugee camp in Mae Hong Son, from where she was sent to Suan Prung Mental Hospital in Chiang Mai when camp staff realised she had lost her mind.

While poor women from neighbouring countries enter Thailand in pursuit of work, many Thai women head overseas for the same reason. And many end up in similarly hellish conditions, said psychologist Pornsri Boonthanasathit who has worked with many victims of human trafficking.

"For example, a Chiang Mai woman in her thirties was lured to Japan by a job broker from Bangkok who had offered her a job at a home for the elderly, with a monthly salary of 30,000 baht. Upon arrival in Japan, she realised she had been tricked. She ended up in a brothel owned by a yakuza gang, but managed to escape and get to the Thai embassy before she was raped." On returning to Thailand, the woman had to go into hiding after associates of the traffickers tracked her down and attacked her. She is now a spokesperson for an anti-trafficking programme in Chiang Mai.

Saisuree Chutikul, chairwoman of the Social Development and Human Security Ministry's Sub-Committee on Co-ordination for Combating Trafficking in Children and Women, says Thailand serves as a portal for international trafficking. "The international community sees Thailand as a human trafficking hub. This is true because Thailand has 56 border checkpoints and 300 informal crossings where people can just walk across the borders." Because state authorities see them first and foremost as illegal aliens, victims of trafficking are usually arrested and jailed when they are discovered, rather than being provided with help.

To change that, a memorandum of understanding was recently signed between the relevant state agencies to ensure that assistance is provided to all trafficking victims regardless of their gender or nationality (or absence of nationality, in the case of stateless people). Formerly, only local women and children were officially viewed as victims of trafficking, a position that resulted in foreign women and girls, as well as men, who are often trafficked into slave-like working conditions, being overlooked.

The initiative, entitled the Memorandum of Understanding on Common Guidelines for Practices for Concerned Agencies in the Seventeen Northern Provinces in the Prevention, Suppression and Solution of Human Trafficking, was recently signed by the Social Development and Human Security Ministry, UNICEF Thailand, Plan Thailand and state agencies in 17 northern provinces. It seeks to cover all forms of trafficking, and specifically identifies every scenario that can be construed as trafficking.

Children are trafficked to toil on farms, in factories, plantations, sawmills and fisheries, to work as beggars and to be used for sex. While statistics show that less Thai children are becoming victims of trafficking, the number of children from neighbouring countries is increasing, said Amanda Bissex, head of Child Protection for UNICEF Thailand.

Chief of the Chiang Mai Home for Boys, Boonme Swangthamma, who also works at the Chiang Mai Centre for Protection of Child Rights, said the centre regularly receives tip offs directing it to child beggars and children who have been forced into prostitution. Of the 114 victims it rescued last year, 90 per cent were non-Thais. The majority of them were being prostituted.

After the centre rescues a child from prostitution, they are first sent for a check-up and to have their age identified through dental and bone checks since they usually claim, as ordered by their keepers, to be 20 years old. To avoid lengthy and traumatic court cases, the victims are interviewed by a social worker and a psychologist. With the victims' consent, the interviews are taped for use against the traffickers.

Rossukon Tariya, a social worker for the Social Development and Human Security Ministry, said information about each victim is sent to the ministry to co-ordinate home visits and family interviews by the relevant agencies in the victims' countries of origin (necessary to ensure the victim will not be subject to further abuse or simply trafficked again when they are returned home). Pending a trial or their return home, the victim is provided with occupational training, legal assistance and medical care.

Assisting child beggars requires a different approach as many of the children exploited have been rented out by their own parents or relatives. According to Suriya Kasemsirisawat of the Anti-Trafficking Coordination Unit Northern Thailand (Trafcord), gangs rent children, mostly Burmese, through traffickers or directly from a child's family for around 2,000 baht per month. "To generate sympathy, the gangs wrap bandages around the youngsters' heads, arms and legs," said Suriya. "Many of them have health problems, such as tuberculosis and pneumonia."

In the north of Thailand, the majority of trafficking is undertaken to meet the needs of the flesh trade. Most foreign women trafficked to Thailand for sex are ethnic Shans or Laotians, said Dr Manoj Chokchaemsai, a forensic doctor at Maharaj Nakhon Chiang Mai Hospital, who is a member of Trafcord's multidisciplinary team. Despite the extensive sex industry in the upper north, only two cases of human trafficking in the region were judged in court between 2003 and 2006. Most attempts to charge traffickers failed because the victims fled after being threatened by influential sex industry operators.

Yet Mr Wanlop Ploytubtim, permanent secretary of the Social Development and Human Security Ministry, argued that Thailand is doing its best to fight human trafficking, which he described as a serious violation of human rights and a transnational crime. He said the government has declared that the suppression of human trafficking is on the national agenda and has set aside 500 million baht for programmes to help trafficking victims. He added that the government has a national centre against trafficking at the ministry as well as similar centres at provincial halls around the country and at Thai embassies abroad. To tackle the problem in the countries where people are trafficked from, Thailand has signed anti-trafficking MOUs with Cambodia and Laos. Similar MOUs with Vietnam and China are being developed, said Wanlop.

Meanwhile, the government is in the process of passing the Anti-Human Trafficking Bill, which will give protection and assistance to victims and more severe punishments to traffickers. The bill will also empower law enforcement officers to conduct searches without warrants if they receive information that a trafficked person's life is in danger.

"Thailand has become a regional leader in the fight against human trafficking and is extending support to all victims of it, both Thai and foreign, with a range of comprehensive services," said Tomoo Hozumi from UNICEF Thailand. He said the new MOU covering men and non-Thais will further help the country fight human trafficking. Yet he added that the crucial step following implementation will be enforcement.

Human trafficking can be reported to the Social Development and Human Security Ministry's Prachabodi Centre on the hotline number 1300. Trafficking in the northern regions can also be reported directly to Trafcord by calling 08-7174-5797 or online at www.trafcord.org/.

Adapted from: "Trading in People: To ensure adults and children trafficked in Thailand receive help, state and international agencies have signed an agreement to not discriminate between victims." The Bangkok Post (Outlook), 21 May 2007 (edited). (Source: UNIAP Thailand).

India Imposes Ban to Curb Trafficking of Women

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 20:18:00 GMT

The Indian government has banned the emigration of women under 30 as domestic help to several countries in order to check the possibility of their sexual exploitation, the Times of India reported.

The ban will apply to countries for which workers need to obtain emigration clearance from Indian authorities before leaving India, it was reported. These countries include the Gulf nations (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman) Malaysia, Syria, Jordan, Afghanistan, Thailand, Indonesia, Iraq, Brunei, Nigeria, Sudan and Libya.

According to government data, more than 500,000 people leave India for work every year while unofficial estimates put the figure at about a million. Many are women recruited as nurses and maids, usually from India’s southern states like Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Indian media regularly reports about lowly-paid Indian housemaids being physically and sexually abused by their employers. But complaints are rarely registered.

Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Chowdhury had recently visited Kuwait where she received a number of complaints from women who had been brought in as domestic help only to be forced into trafficking after their passports and visas were impounded by their employers.

Adapted from: "India imposes ban to curb trafficking of women." Khaleej Times 15 May 2007 (edited). (Source: UNIAP Cambodia).

UN Urges Ratanakkiri Court (Cambodia) to Act on Trafficking Case

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 20:22:00 GMT

Representatives from the UN human rights office in Phnom Penh urged Ratanakkiri Provincial Court to hasten their investigation of three men charged with human trafficking for assisting Montagnard asylum seekers, a court official said.

The UN agency also called on the court to set bail for Andong Meas district villagers Thol Mnguyen, Kralan Phoeung and Rocham Hloeur, who were arrested April 20 and later accused of taking money in return for helping “illegal immigrants,” Investigating Judge An Samnang said.

An Samnang said that the men are accused of taking the equivalent of about $125 to help 18 Montagnard asylum seekers from Vietnam, who are now under the protection of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Kenrik Stenman, acting representative for the UN center for human rights, said he did not yet have information from his team in Ratanakkiri and declined to comment.

Villagers protesting the men’s innocence have said that the three only accepted the money to buy food and other supplies for the group of asylum seekers as they hid in Cambodia’s forests. An Samnang said that he must question a fourth man charged with human trafficking, Sev Thol, before he can make a decision regarding bail for the three men.

“The UN can convince him [Sev Thol] to go to court because I must question him. After that I will consider the request,” An Samnang said. Pen Bonnar, provincial coordinator for local rights group Adhoc, who was also briefly accused and detained for alleged human trafficking for assisting Montagnard asylum seekers in 2004, said that the accused men are innocent.

The money the men received was spent on food for the asylum seekers, he added. “It is not against the law to take the money to buy [goods] for them. It is normal,” Pen Bonnar said.

Adapted from: "UN Urges R’kiri Court To Act on Trafficking Case." Cambodia Daily. May 4, 2007.

Svay Pak Child-Sex Trade Back in Business – Again

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:17:00 GMT

“Small girl, small girl,” a tattooed teenager named Ratha shouted from the dusty road leading down from National Route Five into the notorious brothel village of Svay Pak on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.

Ratha led reporters past apartment complexes and small shops to an outdoor coffee shop in the village, located 11km from central Phnom Penh, and launched hos child prostitution sales pitch. “You want a small girl, I can get for you,” Ratha said. But, he added: “We have to do in secret now.”

Children aged 10 and younger are available for sex, he said. Svay Pak, which gained global notoriety as a haven for pedophiles, is not the thriving red light area it was before it was once-again officially declared closed in November 2004, but it is definitely back in business.

Phnom Penh Municipality declared in December 2004 that a modern shopping center would be constructed at Svay Pak, and that a new bridge was to be constructed nearby across the Tonle Sap river, in a bid to attract legitimate investment to the area.

Ratha, one of several teenaged pimps hawking for customers on Wednesday and Thursday, said it is again safe for pedophiles because police no longer monitor Svay Pak. The village in Russei Keo district on average receives two foreign customers each day, he said.

Ratha pointed to a man on a motorcycle driving by and claimed he was a plainclothes police officer, but added that there was nothing to worry about. “The police have the same business as us. We only worry about NGO’s,” he said.

The introduction over, Ratha led a reporter Wednesday through a maze of a tiny wooden houses just off the village’s main dirt road to the back door of a large, windowless brick building. Inside, he pointed to a small room with a pink velvet-covered bed and instructed a reporter to wait.

After five minutes, a girl of about 12 years, but who Ratha said was 13, entered the small room and said simply “$100." Ratha said he could talk her price down to $40 for sexual intercourse. During a follow-up visit, Ratha said he had other girls younger than 10 years old.

Anti-pedophile NGO International Justice Mission it was aware that Svay Pak’s child-sex trade was again operational, but added that coordinating raids on the village had proven difficult. “It’s very difficult to do operations in that environment with the level of involvement of government officials,” an IJM official said on condition of anonymity.

“It goes all the way up the chain,” he said. Although IJM has no direct evidence of involvement by officials in the Svay Pak child-sex racket, past operations to rescue children were thwarted under suspicious circumstances after coordinating with local police, ahead of raids, he added.

Keo Thea, deputy director of the municipal anti-human trafficking police, denied that police were involved with child prostitution. “[Pimps] hardly make money so how can they pay police,” he said.

Since Svay Pak was officially closed down, its operations have gone underground, Keo Thea said. “The girls are living at home with their mothers and are called by pimps who bring them out when guests demand,” he said, adding that the child-sex trade in the village “is small, secret and difficult to get rid of.”

Asked about Svay Pak, Interior Ministry spokesman Lieutenant General Khieu Sopheak said the battle against child prostitution is an ongoing effort, but referred further questions to the anti-human trafficking police. Mao Saovann Phalla, police chief of Svay Pak commune, said the residents of the village were to blame for the child-sex trade’s tenacious grip.

“It’s difficult to completely get rid of [child prostitution],”he said. “People in the community help the brothel owners,” he added.

Adapted from: "Svay Pak Child-Sex Trade Back in Business – Again." Cambodia Daily. May 25, 2007. (Source: UNIAP Cambodia).

Thai Government Reports on Progress to Combat Human Trafficking and Protect Human Rights

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 11:03:00 GMT

Recent Developments Regarding Human Rights, Human Trafficking and Other Social Issues in Thailand.

1. Protection and Promotion of Rights and Liberty in the Draft Constitution
The Draft Constitution seeks to correct the weaknesses inherent in the 1997 Constitution, which led to monopoly and abuses of State powers, political mismanagement, failure to scrutinize the exercise of State powers and inadequate protection of the rights and freedom of the people. The present Draft seeks to address those problems on all fronts. One of the focuses is to ensure the protection, promotion, and expansion of the rights and freedoms of the people.

1.1 The present Draft provides more rights and freedom than the 1997 version. New features include:

Recognition of the rights and freedoms of international conventions to which Thailand is party, with the same binding effect as those rights and freedoms provided in the present Draft;
Increase of rights in the criminal justice process;
Greater protection of the rights and freedoms of the press than ever before – prohibiting closure of mass media, interference in the presentation of information, and prohibiting ownership or share-holding in mass media by holders of political office to prevent the use of mass media to advance their own personal benefits;
Legislation for the first time of labor rights to safety and welfare at work and security of employment during and after employment;
Continuation of the twelve years of free education with special support for the needy, the disabled or handicapped, or those in financial difficulty so that they may receive education on par with others;
Persons without a home or adequate income to have the right to receive State aids for the first time;
Extension of community rights - before undertaking any project or activity which may cause serious environmental damage, the public, particularly those directly affected, will be consulted. The community can sue a government agency, State agency, State enterprise, local government, or other State agency which is a juristic person to ensure compliance with the community rights provisions;
Rights for the people to monitor and to demand scrutiny of the performance of duties of a holder of political office;
Public hearings to be required before signing any international agreement which may have an impact on the people.
People of 100,000 or more to be able to petition to get the Constitution amended - another first.

1.2 The Draft makes the exercise of rights easier through the following measures:

Rights and freedoms are arranged and categorized in a clear and readable form;
Rights and freedoms provided in the Constitution may be invoked even if they have not been enacted; the people may exercise those immediately in courts;
The number of signatures needed to remove a holder of political office will be reduced from 50,000 to 20,000.

1.3 The Draft makes the exercise of rights and freedoms more efficient with clear safeguards:

Removing the phrase “as provided by law” from all Sections on rights and freedoms, which means the provisions of the people’s rights and freedoms take immediate effect upon the passage of the Draft Constitution, not pending their enactment;
Placing a time limit on enactment of organic-law Bills, so as to prevent those in authority from delaying their passage to restrict rights and freedoms;
Giving the people the right to bring before the Constitutional Court directly cases involving violation of the rights and freedoms provided in the Constitution;
Giving a community the right to bring cases involving violation of the rights and freedoms directly before the Constitutional Court;
Allowing the National Human Rights Commission to initiate legal action in the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Administrative Court;

1.4 The Draft makes the Directive Principles of the Fundamental State Policies explicit and more binding than before on the government by:

Clearly differentiating the Chapter on the Directive Principles of the Fundamental State Policies to cover all aspects;
Increasing the Principles of the Fundamental State Policies in key areas;
Requiring the in-coming government to declare its policy to the National Assembly ensuring that it is in line with the Directive Principles of the Fundamental Policies and submit an annual report to the National Assembly.

1.5 The Draft allows public participation in the administrative activities of the local government and greater decentralization of powers to local governments so as to make them the bedrock of democracy at the national level:

Providing complete freedom for the local government to manage its own affairs in all aspects;
Reforming personnel management of the local government such that the personnel will have the status of civil servants like their counterparts at the national level, with their own committees independent of the central government’s control, powers to transfer personnel across agencies, and their own ethic committee as well;
Boosting public participation at the local level, allowing local residents to hold referendums on local matters of importance, reducing the number of signatures required to remove a holder of local political office and to legislate local ordinances, making the local government inform the public with respect to budgeting, spending, and performance so that the latter can take part in scrutinizing and monitoring its management;
Restructuring the supervisory and monitoring system of the local government to improve its efficiency, adopting a common standard so that the administration can operate independently, giving due consideration to the suitability and difference in development levels and management efficiency of the area. The local authority is to be encouraged to determine its own modus operandi according to its needs and to set up their scrutiny mechanism.

2. Related Laws Enactment
During the current administration, many draft laws related to human rights and social issues are in the pipeline for enactment. For instance, the Cabinet already approved the Draft Child and Youth Development Act. More recently, on May 8, 2007, the Draft Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking Act, and the Draft Domestic Violence Victims Protection Act. The National Legislative Assembly is now considering the drafts before they can become effective.

3. Signing of Relevant International Conventions

Thailand signed the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on March 30, 2007. The Ministry of Social Development and Human Security will call for a meeting of relevant agencies to consider any necessary changes to bring domestic legislations in line with the provision of the Convention before the ratification later on;
Thailand is also in the process of considering acceding to the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The Ministry of Justice has been tasked to be a focal point on this matter.

4. Human Trafficking MOU
Last week 17 northern provinces signed a new MOU on Common Guidelines for Concerned Agencies Engaged in Human Trafficking. It provides framework of coordination for relevant agencies in order to more effectively combat human trafficking. It broadens the scope of the previous MOU signed in 2003, which focused on children and women. The new MOU now also covers male victims. The 17 provinces are Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Kamphaeng Phet, Lampang, Mae Hong Sorn, Nakhon Sawan, Nan, Phayao, Phetchabun, Phichit, Phitsanulok, Phrae, Lanpang, Lamphun, Sukhothai, Uttaradit and Uthai Thani.

5. Registration of Illegal Foreign Workers
To solve the problem of illegal foreign workers and trafficking problems, the Government has allowed illegal foreign worker to register and extend their work permit. According to this month’s statistics, the Government has extended work permits for 198,404 illegal foreign workers – 174,900 Myanmar, 11,714 Laotians, and 11,790 Cambodians. The deadline for them to submit their request to the Ministry of Labor is June 30, 2007. The Government has also launched a registration for more foreign workers to support the Special Economic Development Zone in southern Thailand. 7,847 foreign workers already registered under this program.

6. Issuance of Identity Care for Displaced Persons
The Government has initiated an ambitious program to issue an identity card for Myanmar displaced persons to properly identify them and allow access to basic medical services in the country. At present, 80,000 Myanmar camp inhabitants have been formally registered and issued the identity card. The long – term goal is to register and issue ID cards to all displaced persons. The program has received the full support of all Thai agencies involved.

7. Citizenship for Hill Tribal and Minority People
The Government has continued its efforts in resolving the issue of status and rights of the hill tribal and minority people who reside in Thailand but do not have Thai citizenship. As a result of the Strategy to Resolve Issues of Status and Rights of the People, the Ministry of Interior is now in the process of granting citizenship to hill tribal and minority people. More than 100,000 people will be granted citizenship, making them eligible for rights and benefits entailed.

Compiled by North America Division
Department of American and South Pacific Affairs
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Royal Thai Government
May 18, 2007

Cameroonian Couple Sentenced on Human Trafficking Charges in the U.S.

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 13:01:00 GMT

Evelyn and Joseph Djoumessi, both Cameroonian nationals, were sentenced by a judge in Detroit, Michigan, to 218 months and 60 months, respectively, for conspiracy related to their holding a young girl from Cameroon in involuntary servitude. Judge Arthur Tarnow also ordered the defendants to pay $100,000 in restitution to the victim.

In March 2006, a jury convicted defendant Evelyn Djoumessi and a judge convicted defendant Joseph Djoumessi after the government presented evidence that between October 1996 and February 2000, the defendants forced the Cameroonian girl, whom they had brought to the United States illegally, to work against her will as a domestic servant in the Djoumessi home. The jury found that Evelyn Djoumessi forced the girl to take care of the defendant’s children and perform household chores without pay, and beat her with a belt, a spoon, and a shoe in order to force her to comply with these demands. The judge found that in addition to forcing her to work as a domestic servant, Joseph Djoumessi sexually abused the victim.

“The promise of freedom has brought millions of people to these shores,” said Wan J. Kim, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “The Djoumessi’s had no right to deprive their victim of that freedom. The Justice Department will continue to vigorously prosecute and bring to justice those who victimize some of society’s most vulnerable members.”

“Today’s sentence gives fair warning to all human traffickers and any others who would ever seek to force an innocent teenager to become the equivalent of a personal slave: you will pay a steep price for your crime,” said U.S. Attorney Stephen J. Murphy for the Eastern District of Michigan. “This Office will continue to pursue and aggressively prosecute such heinous offenses.”

“It is a basic and fundamental human right to be free, and no child should ever be forced to live in a world of fear and involuntary servitude,” said Special Agent in Charge Brian Moskowitz, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office of Investigations. “Today’s sentences are a testament to our solemn commitment to protect those who cannot protect themselves. While we cannot restore someone’s childhood, we can bring their abusers to justice.”

Human trafficking prosecutions are a top priority of the President and the Department of Justice. In the last six fiscal years, the Civil Rights Division, in conjunction with U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, has increased by 600 percent the number of human trafficking cases filed in court. In fiscal year 2006, the Department obtained a record high number of defendants charged and defendants convicted in human trafficking prosecutions.

The case was investigated by agents of the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and was prosecuted by attorneys from the Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan.

For more information, contact:
Mr. Robert Moossy, Director
Human Trafficking Unit
(202) 514-2007
TDD (202) 514-1888
http://www.usdoj.gov

Funds Earmarked for Young American Prostitutes in Atlanta

Wed, 23 May 2007 07:57:00 GMT

$140,000 will fund assessment centers in five counties, but isn't enough for the emergency shelter advocates.

To help young girls who have been prostituted, Georgia lawmakers have earmarked $140,000 - far less than advocates wanted. The Juvenile Justice Fund had sought $700,000 from Georgia's 2008 general budget. Its goal was to open a seven-bed regional assessment center and emergency shelter for sexually exploited children, possibly at Inner Harbour, a psychiatric hospital for children in Douglasville.

There staff are experienced at helping girls rescued from pimps and others who exploited them. Now the Juvenile Justice Fund, a nonprofit affiliated with the Fulton County Juvenile Court, is modifying its plans, said Kimberley Borna, executive director. It will create satellite assessment centers for exploited children in five metro Atlanta counties: Fulton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Clayton and Cobb.

It isn't yet clear how many beds will be available for the children. The centers will be based at existing hospitals or treatment centers, who first must submit proposals to the Juvenile Justice Fund, Borna said. Few places exist to help sexually exploited kids, even though authorities call metro Atlanta a major hub for child prostitution. Many prostituted girls end up locked in youth detention centers or back on the streets. One option is Angela's House, a group home in rural Fulton County, that the Juvenile Justice Fund owns.

But the house has room for only six girls at a time, and they stay for up to six months. In five years, more than 90 girls, some as young as 11, have come to Angela's House for help. Some were runaways lured into prostitution, some were kidnapped and forced into prostitution, some were homeless and desperate. Once the satellite centers are chosen, the Juvenile Justice Fund will train staff at the hospitals and other facilities how to identify and treat minors who have been prostituted. The organization also will teach law enforcement officers and child protection workers how to contact the assessment centers to admit victims.

Borna said she hopes the children will begin receiving services as early as July. Janice Barrocas, who lobbied lawmakers last session for the $700,000, said she's pleased that the General Assembly allocated at least $140,000. "The importance of these dollars is that it's the beginning of starting to address the need," she said.

"You have to be able to start. So if you have to start small, we can start small." Next year, the Juvenile Justice Fund will seek $700,000 from the General Assembly again, Borna said. By then, the organization will be able to support its request with data from the new satellite centers about the need for services for children who have been prostituted, she said.

A silent auction fund raiser, with food and live music, for the nonprofit Juvenile Justice Fund is planned for 6 p.m. June 12 in the garden courtyard of Fulton County Juvenile Court, 395 Pryor St. SW, Atlanta. The organization is seeking donations of $75 per person. For more information, please call 1.404.224.4474.

Adapted from: Jill Young Miller. "Lawmakers provide startup funds to help prostituted kids." The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 10 May 2007.

Debating Legalized Prostitution

Sun, 20 May 2007 17:10:00 GMT

Two scholars debate whether or not to legalize prostitution. Professor Janice Raymond is the co-executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, the author of 5 books, and Professor Emerita at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Dr. Melissa Ditmore was the principal investigator for Revolving Door, the first report released by the Sex Workers Project, and is currently a research consultant for the organization.

Against Legalization
Professor Janice Raymond - When the question of legalization of prostitution is discussed, many commentators start with the unproven assumption that legalization protects women. Who said so? Let’s look at the evidence in countries that have legalized or decriminalized prostitution.

In the Netherlands, Germany, and Australia, legalization has failed to protect the women in prostitution, control the enormous expansion of the sex industry, decrease child prostitution and trafficking from other countries, and prevent HIV/AIDS -- all arguments used for legalization. And it has transformed these countries into brothels.

Legalizing prostitution is legalizing the prostitution industry. What many people don’t realize is that legalizing prostitution means not only decriminalizing the women in prostitution, but also the pimps, brothels and buyers. My organization favors decriminalizing the women but not the pimps who promote prostitution and trafficking and exploit the victims. In countries like the Netherlands when legalization took effect, pimps overnight became sex businessmen. One day, they were criminals and the next day legitimate entrepreneurs.

Legalization led to open season on prostituted women in the Netherlands. Organized crime took over the sex industry, and this is the main reason why 30 percent of the window brothels have recently been shutterd by the mayor of Amsterdam. Because they had become a haven for traffickers and unsafe for women, Amsterdam and Rotterdam have also closed down their tipplezones -- what some call tolerance zones, but in truth are out-and-out “sacrifice zones” where certain women can be bought and sold.

Germany’s legalized prostitution system has become a magnet for sexual exploiters, so much so that Germany has become the destination of choice in Europe for traffickers. Legalization in the State of Victoria in Australia has encouraged 3 times more illegal than legal brothels. Even the Australian Adult Entertainment Industry acknowledged that the illegal sex industry is out of control there. At the same time, many legal brothel owners have been involved in setting up and profiting from illegal brothels. “Customers” want more “exotic,” younger, cheaper women and those who can be induced not to use condoms. Victoria has the highest rates of child prostitution of all the states and territories in Australia.

In the 21st century, how can any individual or country say they support gender equality when, at the same time, they fortify the legal segregation of a class of women who can be bought and sold? So often we hear that prostitution is inevitable, and that a zero tolerance approach is unrealistic. It is no more unrealistic to work for an end to sex slavery than it was and is to work for an end to race slavery.

There is no evidence that legalization of prostitution makes things better for women in prostitution. It certainly makes things better for governments who legalize prostitution and of course, for the sex industry, both of whom enjoy increased revenues.

Instead of abandoning women to state-sanctioned brothels, laws should address the demand. Men who use women in prostitution have long been invisible. There is a legal alternative to state sponsorship of the prostitution industry. Rather than cozying up with pimps and traffickers, States could address the demand – as Sweden has done -- by penalizing the men who buy women for the sex of prostitution. And as in Sweden, this would help create a chilly climate for the buyers and the traffickers.

For Decriminalization
Dr. Melissa Ditmore - Prostitution should be decriminalized. This would remove prostitution from the criminal code and thereby render prostitution akin to other businesses. It’d be taxed and subject ot business requirements. Decriminalization of prostitution has been a success in New Zealand and parts of Australia. They cite decriminalization as an advantage over legalization because removing prostitution from the criminal code avoids both the problems of graft and abuse associated with police jurisdiction over prostitution and the sometimes overbearing regulations that accompany legalization. (For example, in Nevada’s brothels, brothel-owners decide whether licensed prostitutes are allowed to leave the brothel during their off hours. Prostitutes can be required to stay on the premises for weeks at a time, no matter their working hours.) Decriminalization would better protect people in the sex industry from violence and abuse.

In many places, legal reform of prostitution laws is not a high priority for advocates for the rights of sex workers. One reason is that in the majority of the world, consenting adults exchanging sex for money is not per se illegal, but this does not prevent the harassment of sex workers and their colleagues by law enforcement. Legal reform clearly does not solve all problems related to the sex industry.

However, advocates and activists would rally behind legal reform that would lead to police addressing violence committed against sex workers. Police cannot and do not simultaneously seek to arrest prostitutes and protect them from violence. Currently, under New York Criminal Procedure Law, sex workers who have been victims of sex offenses, including assault and rape, face greater obstacles than other victims. Indeed, women describe being told, “What did you expect?” by police officers who refused to investigate acts of violence perpetrated against women whom they knew engaged in prostitution. The consequences of such attitudes are tragic: Gary Ridgway said that he killed prostitutes because he knew he would not be held accountable. The tragedy is that he was right – he confessed to the murders of 48 women, committed over nearly twenty years. That is truly criminal.

Posted by Janice Raymond & Melissa Ditmore on 28 February 2007

The Plight of Asia's Stateless People

Thu, 17 May 2007 09:03:00 GMT

Hidden in the back corners of the world is a scattered population of millions of nobodies, citizens of nowhere, forgotten or neglected by governments, ignored by census takers.

Many of these stateless people are among the world’s poorest; all are the most disenfranchised. Without citizenship, they often have no right to schooling, healthcare or property ownership. Nor may they vote, or travel outside their own countries – even, in some cases, the towns-where they live.

They are stateless for many reasons – migration, refugee flight, racial or ethnic exclusion, the quirks of history – but taken together, these noncitizens, according to one report, “are among the most vulnerable segments of humanity.”

Without the rights conferred by citizenship, they have few avenues for redressing abuses, and little access to resources that could help them build better lives. They have few advocates, because human rights groups tend to focus on the types of abuses they suffer – trafficking, exploitation, discrimination – rather than the roots of their problems, their statelessness. In their variety, they share the lack of a basic human need: a place to call home.

About two million of them are in Thailand, mostly members of ethnic minority groups and hill tribes, perhaps the largest stateless population in the world. Many were born in remote areas along the border with Burma, out of touch with the government, and lack documents that could prove that they, or one of their parents were born in Thailand.

“Everything is affected, all my rights,” said Saidaeng Kaewtham, 38, who works as a gardener. “I can’t travel, go to the hospital, do business or get an education. You can’t choose your job, only labour.” “Why can others do these basic things and I can’t?” he asked. “If I had been a citizen I might have finished my education. I might have earned a master’s degree already. Some of my friends have master’s degrees.”

The number of people like Saidaeng is rising today with the shifting populations of a globalised world, experts say. The emergence of new democracies is also a factor, particularly in Africa, where the granting or removal of citizenship is used as a political weapon. “The very fact that democracy makes people count makes citizenship a more important social and political fact, and that has given an incentive to some political leaders to use citizenship as a tool to disenfranchise opponents,” said James Goldston, executive director of the Open Society Justice Initiative.

By the most common count, there are 15 million stateless people in the world, but by its nature, this is a number nobody can know for certain. “Statelessness is a global phenomenon but each of the stories is different,” said Philippe LeClerc, an expert on the issue with the UNHRC in Geneva.

The stateless include some 200,000 Urdu-speaking Bihari in scores of refugee settlements in Bangladesh, where they are barred from many government services and subject to harassment and discrimination.

Formerly a prosperous and land owning community, they were stranded in Bangladesh when it separated from Urdu-speaking Pakistan in 1971. Although Pakistan at first offered refuge to fleeing Bihari, neither nation offers citizenship today to those who stayed behind.

The stateless also include members of the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority from western Burma, where they have been stripped of citizenship and denied civil rights and face exploitation, forced labor and religious persecution. More than 100,000 Rohingya have fled in recent decades to Bangladesh, where they live in camps or on the streets.

They also include ten of thousands of Filipino and Indonesian children in the Malaysian state of Sabah over the past three decades. There are now 750,000 of them, nearly one third of the local population, and the authorities are forcing many to leave. Because their children often lack documentation, an estimated 10,000 to 30,000 have been left behind to fend for themselves.

In Thailand, the government has embarked on an unusual and ambitious program to determine its stateless people’s rights to citizenship, checking documents and interviewing witnesses and local elders. “You have hundreds of nationality decision taking place every month in these provinces,” said LeClerc. “It’s going in slow motion, but it demonstrates a consciousness on the part of Thailand that they have to address the issue.”

The only documentation Boon Phnoma, 43, could offer was a birth date scribbled on a palm leaf by her mother. She said she was turned away by officials who said, “No you’re not Thai.” Like some others without papers, she then presented officials with the results of a DNA test that she said was accepted as proof of her right to Thai citizenship.

“I found out I have a whole big family here, 335 people,” said Boon who now works to help other stateless people. “I am a Thai confirmed, a Thai since birth.”

Adapted from: "Citizens of Nowhere, Asia’s Stateless Remain Hidden." Cambodia Daily. 3 April 2007.

Malaysian Government Presents First Bill Against Human Trafficking

Thu, 17 May 2007 07:54:00 GMT

The Malaysian government has presented its first anti-human trafficking bill to provide the legislative means to fight the trafficking in human beings, particularly women and children.

The Anti-Trafficking in Persons Bill 2007, which was tabled in parliament for first reading Tuesday, offers protection for women and children and makes it easier for the police, immigration and other authorities to pursue, prosecute and convict human traffickers.

"Currently, there is no legislation which tackles human trafficking. This law will address the concerns raised about human trafficking and (provide) arm enforcement agencies with the tools to fight it," Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times.

Once the bill is passed in the current parliament sitting, the government could ratify the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, which supplements the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, Nazri told reporters Tuesday in the parliament lobby.

Currently, the Malaysian government has ratified the Convention but is unable to implement the Protocol as there was no legislation to cater to it in the country.

Under the anti-human trafficking bill, any person who traffics for the purpose of exploitation shall on conviction be punished with imprisonment not exceeding 15 years, and be liable to a fine upon conviction.

Those caught using threats, force, coercion, fraud or deception will be punished by a jail term of not less than three years but not more than 20 years and a fine.

Those who provide financial services or facilities to traffickers will also face punishment, including imprisonment of up to ten years, according to the bill on the table.

The new bill not only allows the authorities to clamp down on anyone involved in human trafficking but also cares for victims and informants.

The victim or trafficked person will not be prosecuted for illegal entry, or charged for entering the country with fraudulent documents provided by the trafficker. Medical care will be extended to victims and they can be moved from one safe house to another for additional protection.

At present, victims are sent to Immigration detention centers and not treated as victims of trafficking.

To address concerns of individuals who offer tip-offs to police, the bill says informants will be protected by police and remain anonymous to ensure their safety.

Local media reports said the government's move comes in the wake of allegations that Malaysia is becoming a transit point for human trafficking. Police statistics show that 371 foreign women were rescued between 2004 and 2006 in the country.

Adapted from: "Malaysian gov't presents first bill against human trafficking." People’s Daily Online. 25 April 2007.

Malaysia Reconceptualizes its Assumptions about Human Trafficking

Thu, 17 May 2007 08:02:00 GMT

Human trafficking is not only confined to vice activities. Hundreds of foreign workers who are duped by agents and brought into the country are also victims of human trafficking.

This was revealed by the Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) which urged the authorities to look at the "bigger picture" of human trafficking. "Licensing agents to bring in foreign workers has worsened the problem of human trafficking here," said MTUC secretary-general G. Rajasekaran. He said there are currently 220 licensed outsourcing agents who were given permits to bring in as many as 500 workers each into the country.

The agents would then sell the workers or outsource them to employers who need them. Last year, MTUC received 400 complaints of foreign workers here who are being oppressed by their employers.

Rajasekaran said the numbers could be higher as they believe for every reported case, there were between 10 and 20 cases that go unreported. "These are workers who are brought here but left stranded without jobs for months. There are also cases of workers not being paid for months. They are afraid to go to the authorities as their travel documents are being held by the employers."

He urged the authorities to look into this matter seriously and added that through outsourcing, the government was actually promoting human trafficking. "What was wrong with the previous system where only the employer could bring in workers? Why did the government change it to the so called labour-supplying system," he asked.

Several agents who were interviewed, however, while admitting the problem existed, pointed the accusing finger at agents from the countries of origin."The agents in those countries are the ones who cheat the workers. They promise the workers high-paying jobs here but do not explain the nature of the jobs available," said R. Retnam, an agent here.

"Outsourcing means mobilising the workers to any part of Malaysia, under the same category of work. When the agents there do not explain this, the workers think they are being cheated. "There are also workers who come here without paying a cent, on an agreement that all the expenses will be deducted from their salary.

"However, when they realise their salary after the deduction is very low, they start complaining." Another agent K. Panjamurti said outsourcing agents should be responsible for their workers’ welfare. Both agents agreed that attestation (endorsement of the working contract by the respective high commissions) could avoid the issue of agents and employers taking advantage of a migrant worker.

Outsourcing company Seri Antanum Jaya chief executive officer Zamri Noordin said there were cases of licences being sold to individual agents.He also said there were companies which brought in hundreds of workers but couldn’t provide jobs for all of them. These companies should be blacklisted.

Adapted from: "Foreign Workers also Victims of Human Trafficking." The New Star Online. 27 April 2007.

Thai Provincial Restrictions on Migrant Workers Called Human Rights Violation

Thu, 17 May 2007 08:05:00 GMT

Labor activist groups will stage a demonstration in Bangkok against restrictions on migrant workers imposed by Thai provincial authorities, saying they violate basic human rights.

The provincial migrant worker restrictions, first imposed in December 2006, were issued for "national security" reasons, according to provincial authorities, and include measures such as a ban on public gatherings of more than five migrant workers without prior permission, a ban on the use of mobile phones, motorcycles and cars and a curfew on migrant workers that restricts them to their quarters from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m.

An estimated 200,000 workers are affected by the restrictions. Meanwhile, the Action Network for Migrant Workers held a press conference in Bangkok on Sunday to protest the same provincial policies, which are in place in Phuket, Surat Thani and Ranong provinces in the south and Rayong province in the east. The network said the restrictions might also be extended to include Chiang Mai Province in the north.

The labor groups urged authorities to repeal the provincial decrees and other policies that abuse the rights of migrants. A group statement said the restrictions adversely affect migrant workers' ability to receive health care, practice their religion and to exercise their right to education, particularly non-formal education.

“Such restrictions increase the opportunities for extortion and corruption by the authorities and the migrant communities will live in a state of increased fear," the statement said. "In addition, these decrees reinforce negative attitudes towards migrants and incite xenophobia in Thai society.”

Supatra Nakapiw of the action network said focusing the restrictions only on migrant workers from Burma, Laos and Cambodia was a clear violation of human rights, and in addition, those groups make an important contribution to economic development. “We urge the authorities to cancel the legislation and to prevent it being imposed by other provinces," he said. "The Thai government should protect the rights of migrant laborers the same as Thai workers, which would contribute to their living peacefully in the Thai community.”

The coalition of activists sent letters to the International Labour Organization, the Human Rights Commission of Thailand and the Thai Lawyer Council urging them to support the rights of migrant workers.

Adapted from: Sai Silp. "Provincial Restrictions on Migrant Workers Called Human Rights Violation." The Irrawaddy. 30 April 2007.

Police in Vietnam Break Up Marriage Brokerage Ring

Thu, 17 May 2007 08:12:00 GMT

Police burst into a house in Ho Chi Minh City only 5m from a police station and found 66 young Vietnamese girls being ‘carefully’ and ‘thoroughly’ scrutinized by two South Korean suitors.

They detained Thang Ngai Linh, a 46-year-old woman who has recruited the girls and promised pick nice wives for the two Koreans for a fee of VND1.5 million each (US$93.7). The suitors, one South Korean girl and an interpreter were also summoned to the station. Sources said the suitors even searched the girls’ bodies ‘entirely’, to check for scars and birthmarks.

Brokering marriage for money is illegal in Vietnam.

Linh mostly recruited the girls from rural Mekong River Delta in the south and promised to marry them off to rich men from the Republic of Korea. Linh admitted during the past three days she had ‘shown off’ 200 girls but said she did not know the practice is illegal. She said the suitors have promised to give their future in-laws US$400-500 each and take their newly-found wives to Korea to start a family.

Ironically, Linh has been blacklisted before for housing girls in her rented house, which is just separated by one house from the ward police station. Thus, within only a fortnight, the city police discovered three such marriage brokerages with nearly 400 girls involved. It has been a fact that many poor Vietnamese girls have been trying to marry South Koreans, Taiwanese and Malaysians. Some were happy but some abused, even forced into sex trade in the foreign countries.

Last year, a local newspaper carried news that dozens of Vietnamese girls were lined up in the Republic of Korea to be selected by suitors. Just last December several international newspapers reported that Malaysian men “bought” Vietnamese wives at bridal parades for a mere US$5,600 each. There are also reports that Vietnamese girls were even put on glass displays at marriage exhibitions.

Adapted from: "Police catch 66 girls in marriage selection ring." Thanh Nien Daily. 23 April 2007.

Human Trafficking In Vietnam: An Update

Thu, 17 May 2007 09:00:00 GMT

Police in Ho Chi Minh City said that they had broken up an illegal match-making business where eight South Korean men were choosing potential “brides” from among 118 local young Vietnamese women.

Police in the raid Monday detained the Vietnamese couple who had organized the business. The women were sent back to their home towns, mostly in the poor Mekong Delta region. “They thought their lives would change for the better if they married a foreigner,” a police officer told reporters, adding that the women had also been handed into the care of provincial communist women’s unions.

International marriages are legal in communist Vietnam, but the match-making rings — where the women are typically paraded before men, sometimes holding signs with numbers, for selection — are not, and the phenomenon has stirred anger here. Men in South Korea and Taiwan who can afford to “buy” women use “matchmaking agencies” to serve as liaisons.

The U.S. Department of State has decried this behavior and had urged Vietnam to work to put a stop to human trafficking. Vietnam is not the only nation where this is a problem.

Young Thai girls and women and Cambodian females are also highly prized by men with the financial resources to come to these countries for women. Vietnam has become a popular destination for bachelors from South Korea, Taiwan and elsewhere searching for women, often on week-long marriage tours that include medical checkups, visa procedures and speedy honeymoons.

The women are promised a better life but often end up with their “husbands” confiscating their papers and passports and treating them as sex slaves. Asian women are often sent to America with promises of better lives and they end up as prostitutes servicing as many as 70 men a day.

Last year Vietnam summoned South Korea’s press attache to Hanoi amid angry protests from women’s groups after a newspaper in Seoul printed a photo of a line-up of Vietnamese would-be brides kneeling before a Korean suitor.

Adapted from: John E. Carey. "Human Trafficking In Vietnam: An Update." OpEd News. 11 April 2007.

Justice Officials Debate Response to Human Trafficking in Lao PDR

Thu, 17 May 2007 09:09:00 GMT

Crime and human trafficking officials met in Vientiane to learn about measures to combat human trafficking, at a four-day workshop.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) organised the workshop jointly with the Ministry of Justice, titled ‘Strengthening of the Legal and Law Enforcement Institutions to Prevent and Combat Human Trafficking.’ The workshop, from April 3-6, is the third of its kind. The purpose is to raise awareness and understanding among law professionals, line ministries and different authorities in order to prevent and combat human trafficking, the Vice Minister of Justice, Mr La Singdala, said. Talks will revolve around the need to adopt and amend the UN Trafficking in Persons Protocol and the Transnational Organised Crime Convention. There will also be a focus on the particular requirements of doing this within the Lao legal context, according to a press release. This is necessary if there is to be a coordinated and unified response to the global challenge of human trafficking.

The workshop will outline the need for a practical and realistic case study approach to identify and quantify human trafficking. The work done in this area was very important, Mr La said. We hoped that after the workshop participants would have a greater understanding of international conventions and Lao criminal law and that this knowledge would equip them to combat human trafficking on a national and international scale.

An expert from the UNODC in Vientiane, Mr Richard Philippart, observed that slavery had reappeared during the last 10 to 20 years in a different form, perhaps in an even worse form. It is now what we call ‘human trafficking’ or ‘trafficking in persons’.

Men are found working on fishing boats, fields, mines and quarries or in other dirty and dangerous working conditions. Women, boys and girls, are trafficked into a diverse group of industries such as textiles, fishing or agriculture, or maybe into one of the worst forms of exploitation - sexual exploitation, he said. Many countries are involved as either source, transit or destination countries, Mr Philippart said.

South East Asia was often seen as a source region for trafficking and the situation in the Lao PDR was of great concern. Human trafficking is one of the worst violations of human rights and is widespread and growing. It is one of the most profitable activities of organised crime groups worldwide and generates an estimated profit of over US$30 billion, he said.

Criminals want to make money and they will always try to be one step ahead to avoid prosecution. Mr Philippart added that this criminal phenomenon did not respect borders. The response requires strong and committed cooperation. Judiciary and law enforcement networks must prove that they can be stronger, more connected and more efficient than criminal networks.

An equally transnational approach must apply to protecting and rescuing the victims of trafficking, particularly the most vulnerable, who are usually women and children. “Combating human trafficking should be a top priority,” Mr Philippart said, adding that just a few days ago UNODC launched the Global Initiative to fight Human Trafficking, which would strengthen anti-trafficking networks to generate coordinated response.

Adapted from: Meuangkham Noradeth. Justice officials debate response to human trafficking. Vientiane Times. 6 April 2007.

Thailand's Cabinet Approves Anti-Human Trafficking Bill

Thu, 17 May 2007 09:29:00 GMT

The cabinet approved a draft bill which will give officials more power to fight human trafficking.

The bill proposed by the Human Security and Social Development Ministry covers all forms of human trafficking such as prostitution, forced labour and oppression, slavery and forced begging. It also aims to help Thai victims both inside and outside the country and to punish those involved in trafficking.

Government spokesman Yongyuth Maiyalap said the bill will be submitted to the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) for consideration and will become the first of its kind in the country if it passes through the NLA. The draft bill will pave the way for the establishment of a national committee to prevent and suppress human trafficking, chaired by the prime minister.

The committee will be tasked with coming up with policies and measures to prevent and suppress human trafficking for the cabinet, and it will have the power to order relevant state officials to take action. The bill will also give officials authority to search vehicles and places believed to be involved in human trafficking networks without seeking court orders.

Adapted from: "Draft bill gets nod from government" Bangkok Post. 2 May 2007.

Meeting on Birth Registration and Statelessness hosted by UNESCO Bangkok

Thu, 17 May 2007 09:39:00 GMT

On 20 April 2007, UNESCO Bangkok hosted a meeting on birth registration and statelessness in Thailand.

The purpose of the meeting was to bring together organizations working on issues of birth registration and/or statelessness in Thailand. Representatives from a number of UN agencies, international organizations and NGOs attended the meeting including: UNHCR, UNIAP, UNICEF, Plan Thailand, JRS, Knowing the Children, FACE and World Vision. In coming together, these organizations hope to cultivate a better means of sharing information and collaborating with one another.

Some of the main discussion points during the meeting were the problems created by the existence of differing statistics regarding birth registration and statelessness, collaboration between the government and agencies to construct a more inclusive registration system, and the integration of data collected by each agency’s studies and surveys.

Some projects currently being worked on are;

1) A survey of various children in primary and secondary schools by Plan Thailand;
2) An upcoming meetings with Government officials by UNHCR;
3) A survey to community based organizations by Knowing Children;
4) A partnership with Payab University to run a legal center in Mea Ai funded by UNICEF;
5) An analysis of a survey of 63,724 people from 12,719 highland households out of 16,408 households within 191 villages in Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, and Mae Hong Son provinces by UNESCO.

The next meeting will be hosted by the UNHCR on June 4, 2007 at the United Nations Building in Bangkok.

Strengthening Legal Enforcement Institutions to Combat Human Trafficking in Lao PDR

Thu, 17 May 2007 21:45:00 GMT

The Ministry of Justice in Lao PDR and UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) hosted a workshop on Human Trafficking entitled Strengthening of the Legal and Law Enforcement Institutions to Prevent and Combat Human Trafficking.

This workshop was held on13 March 2007. The workshop lasted until 16 March to raise awareness and understanding among law professionals, line ministries and different authorities to prevent and combat human trafficking.

Three-day event focuses mainly on the requirements and the need to adopt and amend legal provisions to implement the Trafficking in Persons Protocol (TIPP) and the Transnational Organised Crime Convention (TOC) within the Lao legal context and strengthen the understanding of the qualification and identification of human trafficking through a practical and realistic case study approach.

"Human trafficking is one of the worst violations of human rights which the United Nations confronts. It is widespread and growing," said Mr Richard Philippart, representative of the UNODC. "Some estimate that between 700,000 and 2 million people are trafficked globally each year and this outnumbers the figures we know of slavery," he continued.

Mr Philippart said that Southeast Asia was often seen as source region for trafficking and all countries are concerned as source, transit or destination country. "The situation in the Lao PDR is of great concern." In 2000, the international community set up a number of infrastructures to combat human trafficking and organised crime, which the UN General Secretary, Mr Koffi Annan qualified as a milestone in the global struggle for the rule of law.

These instruments are the United Nations Convention against Transitional Organised Crime, the so called Palermo Convention, the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children; and the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land Sea Air.

The Lao PDR is partly to the Palermo Convention and protocols and is committed to address the problem of human trafficking vigorously. Mr Philippart was quoted as saying.

Adapted from: "Strengthening legal enforcement institutions to combat human trafficking." Organisation of Asia-Pacific News Agencies. 14 March 2007.

ECPAT Outlines Campaign Against Child Sex Tourism

Thu, 17 May 2007 10:05:00 GMT

You can do something about child sex tourism.

For a long time, ECPAT has been engaging the travel and tourism industry in efforts to end the abhorrent practice of child sex tourism-traveling away from your home country or region to sexually exploit children. While the legitimate travel industry is not promoting child sex tourism, their facilities are used by sex tourists to get to destinations where they can find vulnerable children. This puts the industry in a position to help combat child sex tourism.

For that reason ECPAT-Sweden developed a Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism. More than 500 companies around the world have signed the Code of Conduct. In the U.S., one large travel company, Carlson Companies, has signed the Code of Conduct as have several small companies and one travel industry trade association.

We estimate that 25% of the sex tourists abusing children around the world are Americans. But few U.S. companies have signed the Code of Conduct. We need to let these companies hear from all Americans that this is not acceptable.

Everyone has a role to play. There are three things you can do:

1) Send letters to the four large US hotel companies asking them to sign the Code of Conduct. Attached are copies of four letters that we ask you to sign and send to the CEOs of these large companies. If you prefer to have ECPAT-USA send these letters for you, send an email to the contact below with your name and address and ECPAT-USA will send these letters on your behalf.

2) Patronize Code of Conduct companies when you travel, for leisure or business. You might also want to let them know that the reason you are patronizing them is because they have signed the Code of Conduct. Here's the list of companies that have signed:
http://www.ecpatusa.org/documents/Signatories_COC_Condensed_2006.doc.

3) Encourage the company you work for to get involved. If you work for a company that has an in-house travel department, ask them to adopt an ethical policy on child sex tourism, such as the one in the Code of Conduct, and to book company travel only with companies that have signed the Code of Conduct. Some companies might be interested in training their personnel and taking other steps to follow the Code of Conduct.

Please write your letters today to support all children's right to be safe from sexual exploitation. It is unacceptable for any child to spend one more day at the mercy of American sex tourists. Please pass this on to anyone else who would be willing to write letters as well.

Thank you for all the support you have shown for ECPAT-USA and our campaign to protect children the world over. Visit ECPAT-USA for more information about child sex tourism.

*** To report suspected cases of child sex tourism, go to: www.cybertipline.com or contact:

Carol Smolenski
Executive Director
ECPAT-USA
157 Montague St.
Brooklyn, NY 11201
+1.718.935.9192
csmolenski@ecpatusa.org

Massage Parlours Raided in Kansas City, Missouri; Trafficking Suspected

Thu, 17 May 2007 10:30:00 GMT

Federal agents and local police in Johnson County, Missouri raided 12 businesses and four homes on 10 May 2007, rescuing 15 women from ‘massage parlors'.

The action came during a crackdown on human trafficking by 175 federal agents, police officers and support staff.

The women were receiving shelter, food, clothing and counseling. They also are being interviewed about activities at the businesses, FBI spokesman Jeff Lanza.said. “They are not being treated as suspects,” he said. Neighbors said the businesses raided on Thursday had drawn attention for some time. Businesses were open until 11 p.m., seven days a week. The clientele was almost exclusively men and the customers often didn’t park in front of the business. Witnesses also saw young women being dropped off at one business, as recently as this week, with suitcases and clothing.

A new law will require background checks for current and new massage therapists and companies employing them. Last summer, federal prosecutors in Kansas City established a human-trafficking task force similar to those in about two dozen other cities.

Adapted from: "Modern-Day Slavery: Human-trafficking investigation leads to 16 Johnson County raids." The Kansas City Star. 11 May 2007.

Couple Held Captive Two Servants for Years in New York

Thu, 17 May 2007 11:05:00 GMT

Federal prosecutors charged a wealthy Long Island couple on Tuesday with keeping two Indonesian domestic workers as virtual prisoners in their home for more than five years under conditions they called “modern-day slavery,” beating one severely and paying them very little.

The couple, Varsha Mahender Sabhnani, and Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani, 51, who the authorities say run a multimillion dollar perfume business from their home in Muttontown, pleaded not guilty to the charges at their arraignment here before Magistrate Judge Kathleen Tomlinson of United States District Court. They were charged under a federal law that makes it illegal to force someone to work under threat of violence.

Their lawyers, Charles A. Ross and Alexandra Tseitlin of Manhattan , said the accusations against the Sabhnanis amounted to nothing more than “an assault allegation.”

Police and federal immigration agents developed the case against the couple after one of the women, identified only as “Samirah” in court papers, was seen wandering near a Dunkin’ Donuts shop in Syosset on Sunday morning, wearing only pants and wrapped in a towel. Her face was bruised, and when shop employees tried to communicate with her, she made gestures of slapping herself and uttering what sounded to them like the word “master,” prosecutors said.

The police took Samirah to Nassau University Medical Center, where, with the help of an Indonesian translator, she told them that she and a second woman, identified in papers only as “Nona,” were forced by the Sabhnanis to work long hours, given little food, forced to sleep on mats on the floor, kept hidden when company came, threatened with violence, and in Samirah’s case, frequently beaten by Mrs. Sabhnani.

In court documents, prosecutors said Samirah’s employer had promised to pay her $300 a month when they offered her a job in 2002 during a visit to Indonesia . They paid only $100, however, and the money was sent directly to Samirah’s daughter in Indonesia . Mrs. Sabhnani was also charged in the papers with having cut Samirah with a knife, burned her with cigarettes and subjected her to a series of tortures, in one instance forcing her to eat many hot chili peppers.

Immigration agents searched the family home on Monday, and found Nona hiding in a closet under the stairs. Prosecutors said she confirmed the story Samirah had told them. Both servants held temporary work visas that had expired.

Mr. and Mrs. Sabhnani, who have two daughters away at college and a younger son and daughter living at home, were held without bail yesterday pending a bail hearing scheduled for Thursday. Demetri M. Jones, an assistant United States attorney for the Eastern District, told Magistrate Tomlinson that the couple were a flight risk and should be held without bail for the duration of their prosecution because they had extensive business and family contacts throughout Asia .

But the defendants’ lawyers said the couple were highly unlikely to flee since they had two homes here, a flourishing business, and four children born in the United States . “What we have here is one person’s version of what happened,” Mr. Ross said. “There are no allegations of slave trading. This is basically an assault allegation by one person.”

He said the case would prove to be “much more involved and complicated” than the initial story told by the two servants to federal agents. It is unusual for the employers of domestic servants to be charged under a 2000 federal law that bans human trafficking. Most prosecutions under that law have involved traffickers in prostitution.

Human rights advocates have said that domestic workers are often kept hidden away, and are rarely willing to risk deportation by seeking help. Magistrate Tomlinson asked the lawyers to produce an accounting of the family’s assets at Thursday’s bail hearing.

Citation: Paul Vitello. "Couple Held Two Servants Captive for Years, U.S. Says." New York Times. 16 May 2007.

50 Year Old Anti-Slavery Law Used in Thailand to Combat Human Trafficking

Thu, 17 May 2007 14:43:00 GMT

After treating the 13-year-old girl like a slave, and beating her for a whole year, it was her abusive boss's last act of cruelty that saved the girl's life.

Since Chand (not her real name) could no longer work due to a high fever from the infected wounds all over her body, she became ''useless''. Her employer put her on a train back to her home village in Buri Ram, one of the country's poorest provinces, alone, untreated and unpaid for the previous year's work.

Alarmed by Chand's condition, the village head immediately sent her to Buri Ram Hospital for treatment. The little girl remained hospitalised for weeks before she could return home. When the doctors at Buri Ram Hospital saw Chand's wounds, they were so shocked they contacted human rights organisations for help.

Chand was forced to work from 4am to midnight every day, serving 50-year-old Wipaporn Songmeesap and her family of six. Instructed never to leave the house or contact her parents, fear-stricken Chand was only allowed to eat once or twice a day, unless her boss was angry with her, in which case she went hungry.

When unhappy with her work, Wipaporn would violently beat her with an iron rod or a belt with a metal buckle, said Chand. She was never sent to the doctor, and repeated beatings kept opening old wounds, leading to a severe infection.

The legal efforts to take Chand's employer to court for the crime of slavery began two years ago. In a landmark verdict last month, the Criminal Court sentenced Wipaporn to more than 10 years in jail for abusing Chand as a slave. The mother of four was also ordered to pay Chand 200,000 baht in compensation. Despite an appeal by the defendant, history was made. The country's 51-year-old anti-slavery law had been enforced for the first time, paving the way for future cases to tackle human trafficking and slavery.

Millions of migrant workers from Burma, Laos and Cambodia, suffering too long hours and unfair pay, in illegal confinement, will stand to benefit. So will the children, Thais and non-Thais, who are sold to work in factories, private households and, worst of all, the sex industry. According to the Criminal Code, subjecting another person to slave-like conditions can result in a maximum seven year prison term. If it involves children under 15, the maximum jail term is increased to 10 years.

So why did it take 50 years for the anti-slavery law to be used? The problems that plagued Chand's case, including attitudes of the community to domestic workers and police in interpreting the law, provide telling answers.

''A good law is often not enforced because of deep prejudices that can paralyse the legal system,'' Human rights lawyer Siriwan said. ''We cannot expect the problem of slavery to go away unless we tackle our own prejudices that endorse the exploitation.'' Condemned as a centre of human trafficking, Thailand is drafting an anti-human trafficking bill which will also punish the use of slave labour. But this progressive law won't work if the present anti-slavery law remains unenforced, said Siriwan. For without legal precedent, the police will continue to refuse to charge abusive employers with the crime of slavery.

Adapted from: "Of human bondage: After 50 years, the anti-slavery law is finally being enforced." Bangkok Post. Outlook, 8 May 2007.

Ethnic Hill-Tribe Children Learn about the Dangers of Trafficking

Thu, 17 May 2007 14:49:00 GMT

Human trafficking has been included in the school curriculum in some schools in the northern province of Chiang Rai to prevent hilltribe girls from being lured into the flesh trade. The pilot project was launched with the support of the International Labour Organisation.

Mee-or Ayee, 17, an ethnic Akha girl in Chiang Rai's Mae Chan district, said she had learned quite a bit about child prostitution and forced labour in school.

Suthin Sorachart, a teacher at Mae Chan School, said the course had greatly helped ethnic students learn more about the problem and also how to protect themselves from human traffickers. Mae Chan School is part of the pilot project. ''First of all, we need to raise awareness on human trafficking among teachers because they are recognised as a major mechanism,'' Ms Suthin said.

The Mirror Foundation is also holding an eco-tourism project in four hilltribe communities in Muang district of the northern province to combat human trafficking. Project manager Parisutra Suthamongkol said the project is to prevent hilltribe people from migrating to the cities and ending up becoming victims of human traffickers. Besides, city people who visit the villages will also have a chance to learn about hilltribe cultures.

Chiang Rai governor Amorphan Nimanant said his province has become a major transit point for human trafficking because of its location as it borders Burma and is also very close to China, where human trafficking is rampant as well. ''More importantly, people were still poor, deeper in debt, and had no access to proper education, which would only worsen the situation,'' he said. However, the province is determined to suppress the problem, he said, adding that a network has been set up to fight it.

Dussadee Chantraka, head of home care for trafficked children in Chiang Rai, said education should help solve the problem. ''Every anti-trafficking organisation tries to educate the youths to live their life with a sense of pride, rather than with the financial ambition,'' she said. The network urged the police to keep a closer watch on the trafficking routes such as Bor Kaew in Chiang Rai's Chiang Khong district, and Luang Nam Ta, Bor Ten, and Bor Harn in Laos.

Adapted from: "Course to save hilltribe girls from flesh trade" Bangkok Post. 8 May 2007.

Human Trafficking on Long Island, NY

Thu, 17 May 2007 14:53:00 GMT

Human trafficking has become so rampant on Long Island that three years ago the US Justice Department set up a task force to focus on the problem.

The Long Island Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force is one of 42 such federally funded groups around the country, said Andrea Bertone, director of HumanTrafficking.org, a project of the Academy for Educational Development in Washington, D.C. which focuses on anti-trafficking measures.

The Long Island group was born in the fall of 2004, just months after the arrests of a couple on Long Island in what was then considered one of the largest human-trafficking cases in the country. The task force includes agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Nassau Police.

Mariluz Zavala and her husband, Jose Ibanez, later pleaded guilty to smuggling 69 fellow Peruvian immigrants and enslaving them in Amityville, Brentwood and Coram. Both are in prison; Zavala was given 15 years, even longer than prosecutors asked for.

The victims said Zavala and her husband held them as virtual slaves. They had to hand over their paychecks in return for meager rations. The task force is a federally funded program that includes federal agencies, state and local law enforcement, and community groups such as Catholic Charities, which works with the victims.

"It's a priority with the Department of Justice to combat this," said Robert Nardoza, a spokesman in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District, which includes Long Island and Queens. Long Island's high immigrant population makes it vulnerable to human trafficking, some experts said. "In just about any place in the U.S. with low-wage immigrant workers there is a chance that you are going to have trafficking," said Juhu Thukral, director of the Sex Workers Project, a program of the Urban Justice Center in Manhattan that helps immigrants who are trafficked for prostitution.

Cheap labor is one of the biggest aspects of human trafficking, she said, and many cases involve domestic workers. In some ways the forced domestic work is more dangerous, Thukral said. "They [the employers] don't respect you," she said. "That leaves you open for abuses."

Adapted from: Carrie Mason-Draffen. "Target of federal task force." Newsday. 16 May 2007.

Trafficking of Men in Thailand

Thu, 17 May 2007 14:56:00 GMT

The fight against human trafficking has for more than a decade tried to protect women and children, often forgetting that men, too, are victims of "new slavery". Thailand remains one of the region's busiest human-trafficking centres.

The National Human Rights Commission reports that between 17 and 19 July 2003, six fishing trawlers with about 100 crew sailed from Tha Chalom in Samut Sakhon province to fish Indonesian territorial waters. Most of the crew were migrant workers and four were younger than 16. None were allowed home for three years. The trawlers returned to Thailand in July last year. However, thirty-eight never returned – dying on the job. Two were buried on one of Indonesia's myriad islands and the rest unceremoniously dumped at sea. One more crewmember died shortly upon his return. Others returned home seriously ill - emaciated, emotionally disturbed and unable to see, hear or walk properly.

A Samut Sakhon Hospital medical report diagnosed the men with serious vitamin deficiencies. They had suffered months without proper food or water, eating only fish. None have been paid. Yet, they are not considered by law to be victims of human trafficking.

When they demanded compensation their "employers" claimed the men were unknown and said crew employment was the responsibility of trawler skippers. The boat owners refuse to pay until the men can prove they were aboard. Complicating the issue is the registration of the men under Thai names. They are all Burmese, Mon and Karen migrant workers. In addition, they discovered the labour law in Thailand does not cover fishermen working outside Thai territory for more than a year.

But, a new memorandum of understanding on Common Guidelines for Concerned Agencies Engaged in Human Trafficking and the Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking Bill are rays of hope. Men are covered by both documents. The memorandum was signed last week and broadens the scope of a similar 2003 document. The 2003 memorandum only included "children and women" in its target groups, but concerned agencies in 17 northern provinces have signed the new draft and expanded the scope to include protection of men. The memorandum will bring Thailand and its Social Development and Human Security Ministry up to world standards of protection.

The Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking Bill is before the National Legislative Assembly. Trafficking goes beyond the sex industry and child labour and many cases involve men, Sub-Committee on Coordination for Combating Trafficking in Children and Women chairperson Saisuree Chutikul said. Therefore, "[In the draft] we changed the wording from "women and children" to "human trafficking" because we found trafficking involves male victims," Saisuree, one of the world's leading voices in the fight against the trade in people, said.

Adapted from: "The misery of male slavery." The Nation. 14 May 2007.

200 Thais Flee Their Traffickers in Bahrain Every Year

Thu, 17 May 2007 15:00:00 GMT

An average of 200 Thai women, forced into prostitution in Bahrain, escape their pimps and are sent back to Thailand each year, it was revealed.

Four Thai women who arrived home on Friday from Bahrain showing clear signs of physical and mental distress will undergo rehabilitation provided by the Pavena Foundation, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) who fights for the rights of children and women.

Two of the women were badly injured after jumping from a second floor flat in Hoora to escape a vice den, as reported earlier by the GDN. One woman has both legs in casts and the other suffered injuries to her back. The other women also said they escaped from their pimps and sought the assistance of the Thai Embassy last month.

All four women claimed that they were brought to Bahrain by recruiters with the promise of high paying jobs. The recruiters turned out to be pimps, who forced them into prostitution, having had to "service" at least five men each day. The woman behind Paveena Foundation, politician Paveena Hongsakula, co-ordinated the women's return. She said the Thai government was now providing immediate mental and vocational rehabilitation for the women and granted them 15,000 Baht to help them get back on their feet.

All four women and their relatives have reportedly also filed legal complaints with the Thai police against their alleged pimps, said Ms Hongsakula. Officials from the Thai Embassy in Bahrain were unavailable for comment yesterday, however, a spokesman earlier told the GDN that investigations were continuing into the women's individual cases. "It is the embassy's job to protect its citizens and we are very concerned about this problem involving the exploitation of Thai women," he said.

The embassy also said that authorities in Thailand were hoping to shatter a network of pimps who promise women good paying jobs in Bahrain, only to turn them into prostitutes after they arrive. The network is said to have grown so much that female pimps (known as "mamasans") from Thailand have already established themselves in Bahrain.

The embassy does not have a record of how many Thai women are being forced into prostitution in Bahrain, but the spokesman said it knew of some who were being kept by their pimps against their will. The GDN reported last month that the embassy was seeking more co-operation from officials in Bahrain and had written to the Interior Ministry requesting to be alerted every time one of its citizens was arrested.

Adapted from: "200 Thais fleeing pimps every year." - Gulf Daily News. 13 May 2007.

UN Anti-Trafficking Drive Hits Culture Barriers

Thu, 17 May 2007 15:59:00 GMT

Global efforts to crack down on human trafficking are handicapped by lack of information from countries whose cultures have not deemed some forms of slavery to be a crime, U.N. officials said.

The United Nations is trying to raise awareness that two centuries after the transatlantic slave trade was abolished, millions of adults and children are sold into prostitution or made to work in degrading conditions for little or no pay.

"We operate in an information fog. We don't know the scope of threats we face and can't gauge global trends. We just see the tips of icebergs," said Antonio Maria Costa, director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). "It's time to move from statements of intent and legislative mandates into realisation of goals and delivery of results," he told a meeting of the U.N. Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in Vienna.

Costa told a news briefing during a break in the meeting: "When families (in Asian villages) sell their daughter, it's not out of poverty necessarily, it may be cultural." He said only a fifth of member states had so far responded to a UNODC questionnaire asking them to identify and measure their organised crime problems. "Many do not know (what to say), and ask for our technical assistance."

A diplomat close to the UNODC said its campaign was running up against cultural traditions in some significant developing nations that tolerated human trafficking and related slave labour outlawed by U.N. conventions. "In case of human trafficking, until now it often hasn't been tracked. It's only now that police in some countries are coming to realise that it's a crime," said the diplomat, asking not to be named.

"Normally, they would arrest a load of women and treat them like prostitutes and completely miss the point that they are actually victims of horrendous (trafficking to clients abroad)." More than 110 countries have signed and ratified a U.N. protocol against human trafficking since December 2003 but many criminal justice systems have not curbed the practice.

Adapted from: Mark Heinrich. "U.N. Anti-Trafficking Drive Hits Culture Barriers." Reuters. 23 April 2007.

Activists Urge Zambian Government to Crack Down on Human Trafficking

Thu, 17 May 2007 16:08:00 GMT

Each year, human traffickers in southern Africa lure young children and adolescent women from their home countries into the sex industry, while others are forced into child labor.

From Lusaka, Zambia, Voice of America reporter Kaunda Danstan tells us that according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) southern Africa's political and economic instability make it fertile ground for illegal human and child trafficking. Adding to the problem are porous and poorly policed international borders between countries as well as weak institutional structures for enforcing the law.

The agency estimates that over one thousand adolescents each year are enticed from their homes under the pretext of better lives, including marriage, education and jobs in the regions' most prosperous countries like South Africa and Botswana. Once the victims are lured away, they are sold to so-called 'sex' homes and to restaurant owners where they are forced to work long-hours with no-pay.

Other victims are trafficked to Europe and Asia via South Africa. Kafukanya is the IOM counter trafficking coordinator in Zambia. He says human trafficking is "a well netted network. Some recruiters are outside the country others are within. So it is a network, they work together. Human trafficking is a 'good' business, they make a lot of profit, and it is easy because we do not have punishable laws against human trafficking."

Kafukanya said the victims are often lured abroad by some of their family members living in other countries, or by night club owners and truck drivers who help transport victims across international borders. Zambia - due to its central location in the region -- is used as a traffic transit country where victims are carried from refugee-prone nations such as the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Kafukanya says Zambia is also one of the most vulnerable countries to human and child trafficking: "What they do in this recruitment, they use deception, they entice somebody. And when they go there [the destination country] the ball changes. They are forced into hard labor jobs. And for the girl Childs is forced into prostitution while the boys into criminal activities."

Last year, the agency assisted over 1,600 people trafficked from southern Africa. They also trained law enforcement officials and NGOs in the region on how to identify victims and assist them. Mavis Banda works for the MAPODE center -- a local agency that offers shelter and rehabilitation to women and children who are recovered.

She says: "Those that have been returned some of them are HIV positive, others are traumatized and we try to counsel them and also attach them to other organizations like IOM that can take-up the responsibility of training them in skills and helping them out." The region's children and young women are often vulnerable to the recruitment tactics of human traffickers because of civil unrest and economic deprivation in their home countries.

Most SADC countries are yet to ratify the regional protocol on human and child trafficking. The absence of domestic anti-trafficking legislation weakens legal efforts to pursue the criminal syndicates. According to an Institute for Security Studies (ISS) report, there are as many as 500 organized criminal groups operating in southern Africa.

There are no profit estimates from human trafficking in the region, but the ISS says the global estimate is as high as $7 billion per year, making the trade one of the largest sources of profit for organized crime worldwide.

Adapted from: Danstan Kaunda. "Activists Urge Zambian Government to Crack Down on Human Trafficking." Voice of America. 1 May 2007.

Council of Europe: Not for Sale Campaign

Thu, 17 May 2007 17:02:00 GMT

The Council of Europe Campaign to Combat Trafficking in Human Beings was launched in 2006 under the slogan Human Being – Not for Sale. The Campaign aims to raise awareness, among governments, parliamentarians, local and regional authorities, NGOs and civil society, of the extent of the problem of trafficking in human beings in Europe today. It highlights the different measures which can be taken to prevent this new form of slavery, as well as measures to protect the human rights of victims and to prosecute the traffickers.

The campaign should promote the widest possible signature and ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings in order that this efficient instrument for combating trafficking in human beings may enter into force rapidly. The Campaign will end in 2008 when the Convention is expected to enter into force.

At the core of the Campaign is a series of regional information and awareness raising seminars organised by the Equality Division of the Directorate General of Human Rights in cooperation with the Council of Europe member states. In 2006, five seminars are organised in the context of the Campaign: Bucharest on 4-5 April, Riga on 21-22 September, Rome on 19-20 October, Oslo on 1-2 November and Athens on 5-6 December. Six more seminars will be organised in 2007.

Among the other activities organised by the Equality Division of the Directorate General for Human Rights in the framework of the Campaign are a Regional Seminar on Guidelines in South Caucasus for a co-ordinated action against trafficking in human beings in Tbilisi on 22-23 February 2006, a Seminar on non-legislative measures in Montenegro for preventing trafficking in human beings and strengthening the protection of victims in Igola on 26-28 April 2006 and a Seminar on the Promotion of the signature and ratification by the Russian Federation of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings in Moscow on 15-16 November 2006.

In the framework of the UPIC project (International co-operation in criminal matters in Ukraine), the Directorate General of Legal Affairs is carrying out a review of the Ukrainian legislation in view of the requirements of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, followed by a workshop aimed at providing support in the drafting of related necessary amendments and the drafting of the law for the ratification of the Convention.

The Migration and Roma Department of the Directorate General for Social Cohesion organises training seminars aimed at creating a pool of Roma women mediators in Albania, Moldova and Slovakia who will closely work in the settlements with the Roma community, particularly the parents, in awareness-raising on trafficking in children and young women. The seminars will also provide families with information on the existing channels and networks of assistance for the trafficking victims and their families, reintegration and tracing the identity of the victims of trafficking.

The Equality Division of the Directorate General of Human Rights will organise, at the end of 2007, a major conference on the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings and in particular its monitoring mechanism, with a view to preparing its entry into force.

On 31 May 2006, the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities adopted Resolution 210 (2006) 1 on the Council of Europe Campaign to Combat Trafficking in Human Beings, in which it asked local authorities and associations of local authorities to sign a Declaration on the fight against trafficking in human beings.

At its meeting on 11 April 2006, the Committee on Equal Opportunities of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe decided to set up a new Sub-Committee on Trafficking in Human Beings with a view to participating in the Council of Europe Campaign to Combat Trafficking in Human Beings. The Sub-Committee strongly supports the aim of the Campaign to promote the widest possible signature and ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings in order that it may enter into force at the earliest opportunity and intends to play an active part in promoting such signatures and ratifications.

The Commissioner for Human Rights regularly addresses trafficking in human beings in his reports. The Commissioner supports the Council of Europe Campaign to Combat Trafficking in Human Beings by promoting the widest possible signing and ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings.

In order to inform civil society about trafficking in human beings and the Campaign, a comic strip for young people who could be potential victims of trafficking in human beings has been prepared and is being distributed together with other information and publicity material (booklets, posters, calendars, bookmarks). Furthermore, the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings is translated into a number of languages of the Council of Europe member states.

Background

Since the late 1980s, the Council of Europe has been active in the fight against trafficking in human beings. The Organisation has, among its member states countries of origin, transit and destination of the victims of trafficking. All these countries are directly concerned by the scourge of trafficking.

Trafficking in human beings constitutes a violation of human rights and an offence to the dignity and the integrity of the human being. The Council of Europe, whose principal vocation is to safeguard and promote human rights, became the “natural home” for activities aiming to combat a phenomenon that constitutes a violation of people’s dignity and integrity, their freedom of movement, as well as, in some cases, their right to life.

As far as the individual is concerned, trafficking undermines the principle of the equal dignity of all human beings. At society level, it constitutes a modern form of slavery and calls in question the rule of law and fundamental democratic values.

Based on the fundamental principles of pluralist democracy, respect of human rights and the rule of law, the Council of Europe has organised activities aimed at combating trafficking in human beings.

Actions undertaken by the Council of Europe

As far back as 1991, a Seminar on Action Against Trafficking in Women, considered as a violation of human rights and human dignity, was organised by the Council of Europe.

Then, through the Group of Experts on traffic in women (1992-93), which reported to the Steering Committee for Equality between Women and Men (CDEG), the Council of Europe identified the most urgent areas for action which were included in a Plan of action against trafficking in women. The Plan proposed areas for reflection and investigation in view of making recommendations to the member states on legislative, judicial and punishment aspects of trafficking; on assisting, supporting and rehabilitating its victims and on prevention programmes.

Trafficking aroused the collective concern of Council of Europe Heads of State and Government at the Strasbourg Summit (October 1997): the final declaration states that violence against women and all forms of sexual exploitation of women constitute a threat to citizens' security and democracy.

Numerous activities have been organised since the Summit. The first type of activity was concerned both with raising awareness and action. The Council of Europe organised seminars to heighten the awareness of governments and civil society to this new form of slavery in order to alert the different players (police, judges, social workers, embassy staff, teachers etc) to their role vis-à-vis trafficking victims and the dangers facing certain individuals.

In addition, member states were encouraged to draw up national action plans against trafficking. To that end, the Council of Europe prepared the above-mentioned model plan of action against trafficking in women in 1996 and since then has encouraged the preparation of both national and regional action plans, in particular in South-East Europe and the South Caucasus.

Studies and research have also been carried out to apprehend the problem of trafficking from its many different angles. In particular the CDEG prepared a report on the Impact of the use of new information technologies on trafficking in human beings for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

In addition, targeted seminars and meetings of experts have taken place in many member states, providing them with both the necessary technical assistance for drawing up or revising legislation in this area and assisting them to adopt the necessary measures for combating this scourge. In particular, the LARA Project to support the reform of criminal legislation in South-East Europe as a means of preventing and combating trafficking in human beings (July 2002 - November 2003). This Council of Europe Project, implemented within the framework of the Stability Pact Task Force on Trafficking in Human Beings, enabled the participating countries to adapt and review their national legislation in this field. As a result of this Project, nearly all the participating countries adopted national action plans against trafficking in human beings, covering prevention, prosecution of traffickers and protection of the victims.

During the 3rd Summit of the Council of Europe (Warsaw, May 2005) the Heads of State and Government of the member States firmly condemned trafficking in human beings which undermine the enjoyment of human rights and which is an offence to the dignity and integrity of the human being.

Legal texts

The awareness-raising activities led to setting up a legal framework for combating trafficking in human beings. The Committee of Ministers adopted two legal texts dealing specifically with trafficking in human beings for sexual exploitation, most of whose victims are women and children:

· Recommendation No. R (2000) 11 of the Committee of Ministers to member States on action against trafficking in human beings for the purpose of sexual exploitation
· Recommendation Rec (2001) 16 of the Committee of Ministers to member States on the protection of children against sexual exploitation

These put forward a pan-European strategy taking in definitions, general measures, a methodological and action framework, prevention, victim assistance and protection, criminal measures, judicial cooperation and arrangements for international cooperation and coordination.

Furthermore, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has adopted the following texts:

· Recommendation 1325 (1997) on traffic in women and forced prostitution in Council of Europe member States
· Recommendation 1450 (2000) Violence against women in Europe
· Recommendation 1523 (2001) on domestic slavery
· Recommendation 1526 (2001) on a campaign against trafficking in minors to put a stop to the east European route: the example of Moldova
· Recommendation 1545 (2002) on a campaign against trafficking in women
· Recommendation 1610 (2003) on migration connected with trafficking in women and prostitution
· Recommendation 1611 (2003 on trafficking in organs in Europe
· Recommendation 1663 (2004) on domestic slavery: servitude, au pairs and mail-order brides

Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings

The Council of Europe considered that it was necessary to draft a legally binding instrument which goes beyond recommendations or specific actions. On 3rd May 2005, the Committee of Ministers adopted the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings. The Convention was opened for signature in Warsaw on 16 May 2005, on the occasion of the 3rd Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Council of Europe who underlined that this new Convention is a major step forward in the fight against trafficking.

On the occasion of the 6th European Ministerial Conference on Equality between Women Men (Stockholm, 8-9 June 2006), the Ministers adopted a Resolution in which, inter alia, member states were encouraged to sign and ratify the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings and to participate actively in the Council of Europe Campaign in this field.

This new Convention, the first European treaty in this field, is a comprehensive treaty focussing mainly on the protection of victims of trafficking and the safeguard of their rights. It also aims to prevent trafficking and to prosecute traffickers. In addition, the Convention provides for the setting up of an effective and independent monitoring mechanism capable of controlling the implementation of the obligations contained in the Convention.

The Convention will enter into force when it has been ratified by 10 states, eight of which must be Council of Europe member states.

National Plan to Tackle Trafficking in Persons in Guyana

Thu, 17 May 2007 20:07:00 GMT

The Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Unit at the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security has gotten a boost through an agreement with the newly installed task force at the Ministry of Home Affairs.

The Unit and members of the taskforce, led by Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee recently met to formulate a national plan to stem the incidents a press release from the Government Information Agency (GINA) said. GINA quoted Rohee as saying "The Home Affairs Ministry's task force will be operating as an oversight to the TIP unit." So combined, we are now a Ministerial task force. This will help to strengthen the fight."

The task force will play an active role in the anti-TIP fight and will be working with Food for the Poor, Help and Shelter and other non-governmental organisation. The ministry's TIP Unit has been working with these groups to educate the population about the issue. Over the years the Unit has also conducted several awareness campaigns countrywide; particularly in Amerindian communities which have been identified as the most vulnerable.

GINA said last year about 50 sensitization workshops were held in communities countrywide. About 4,500 persons participated in the sessions where 450 of them were trained to assist in the TIP Unit with cases at the community level. Hundreds of volunteer social workers have also been trained to handle reported TIP cases.

The programme will continue this year with assistance from the International Organisation for Migration and the United States Agency for International Development. TIP is a global issue and traffickers use a range of coercive mechanisms to control victims and keep them in positions to be exploited.

Adapted from: "National plan to tackle trafficking in persons." Stabroek News. 5 May 2007.

Taiwan Men Seek Vietnamese Wives

Thu, 17 May 2007 20:42:00 GMT

In Taiwan, some men choose brides from the comfort of their living rooms by watching a TV show that airs photographs and biographical details of Vietnamese women looking for husbands.

The women are willing to marry men sometimes decades older than themselves to exchange a life of poverty at home for relative affluence abroad. These couples often don't live happily ever after. Vietnam native Nguyen Chi, 28, was kicked out by the husband she married five years ago and now scrapes by working at an electronics factory in Taipei. Ten of her 20 Vietnamese colleagues have also been dumped by their Taiwan husbands.

"We've all got the same problem. We're divorced or our husbands don't want us, and some of us are raising kids," said Nguyen, speaking in Mandarin learned during five years in Taiwan. "I figured it would be a lot better than Vietnam here, but I hadn't been before. It's not that easy to make money."

The story of women such as Nguyen has prompted Taiwan and Vietnam -- whose 75,000 nationals are the island's largest non-Chinese immigrant group -- to get tougher on cross-border marriages to stop fraud and illegal residency following break-ups. Taiwan men looking for "mail-order brides" are partial to Vietnamese women who they consider to be particularly submissive, matchmakers say. Often left on the shelf by local women, these men are looking for wives willing to have babies and help their aging parents, the matchmakers add.

Men often enlist friends and business contacts in their wife search. But the popularity of Vietnamese brides is so great that there is now a prime time television show that broadcasts photographs and biographical data of prospective wives. Those who prefer a more personal approach use the services of about 300 marriage brokers operating in Taiwan who organize wife shopping trips to Vietnam at costs that range from $900 to $10,000 for stays up to one week.

Before leaving, the men can narrow down the field by flipping through photos of available young women.

POLICE CRACKDOWN
Police are cracking down though. A new law that forbids women from marrying Taiwan men more than 10 years their senior has hurt business for brokers, a Taipei-based matchmaker said. In early April, police in Ho Chi Minh City broke up a matchmaking ring and arrested two suspected marriage brokers. A raid on a home turned up more than 100 women seeking husbands.

But despite the risks, Vietnamese brides who come to Taiwan can enjoy lifestyles and amenities hard to find at home. "Life in Vietnam isn't great. I wanted to come here, and I did it by fate," said Du Hsue-li. "Here there's work. I can buy what I want," added the 25-year-old.

Despite a more affluent life, some brides are ill equipped to deal with cultural and other issues, including large age gaps with their husbands and demanding in-laws. Lack of Chinese language skills can also cramp marriages. Some husbands hold their foreign mail-order brides captive.

"The men control their ID cards, won't let them contact other Vietnamese women," said a Vietnamese woman who takes distress calls for a support group. She gets about 10 calls a day. Vietnam's state-run e-newspaper Vnexpress.net says most brides headed to Taiwan lack formal education and usually meet their husbands less than three times before getting hitched.

"We all wish Vietnamese women could find good husbands who love them and provide them with a secure life instead of the tragic plight endured by those who were unfortunate to marry Taiwanese or Korean men only for material purposes and no real love," an article in Vnexpress.net states. Some foreign brides brought to Taiwan under the pretext of marriage end up as forced laborers or prostitutes, according to a U.S. State Department report on human trafficking.

Taipei is trying to curb this through better screening of women moving to Taiwan and also by pushing marriage brokers to make home visits to check on the new brides. Nguyen, stung by her husband's rejection and obstacles to earning money, hopes to return to Vietnam one day.

"It's a little bit better in Taiwan, a little bit safer," she said. "But it's difficult to live here."

Adapted from: Ralph Jennings (Additional reporting by Nguyen Nhat Lam in Hanoi). "Taiwan Men Seek Mail-Order Brides From Vietnam." Yahoo! News. 4 May 2007.

Operation White Light Shuts Down Human Trafficking Ring in Colombia

Thu, 17 May 2007 20:48:00 GMT

Diplomatic Security Special Agents Collaborate with Colombian Officials in 19 Arrests.

In conjunction with Colombian authorities, the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS) Special Agents in Bogota collaborated in Operation White Light to take down a Cali-based human smuggling and visa fraud ring. The operation took place on May 8, 2007 in Cali, Colombia. This operation is a prime example of the excellent bilateral cooperation between the United States and Colombia. In addition to the international cooperation, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) special agents were essential to the success of the ring bust.

As a result of the operation, Colombian authorities arrested 19, of whom 12 were Cali-based medical doctors. The prisoners are facing charges ranging from human smuggling, conspiracy, and producing and selling false identity documents.

The U.S. Embassy in Bogota first alerted Colombian authorities to the problem in late 2005 based on false identity information obtained by Consular Officers during the U.S. visa application process of a minor Colombian child. With this lead, the Colombian authorities were able to open a major investigation. Evidence revealed that the main suspect provided false documents and identities to U.S. visa applicants with the purpose of fraudulently obtaining passage to the United States. Ultimately, this investigation led to today’s successful arrests of the human smugglers.

Operation White Light represents a cooperative effort between the Colombian Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (DAS), the Colombian Fiscalia and the U.S. Embassy in Bogota. The Bureau of Diplomatic Security is the U.S. Department of State’s law enforcement and security arm. The special agents, engineers, and security professionals of the Bureau are responsible for the security of 285 U.S. diplomatic missions around the world. In the United States, Diplomatic Security personnel protect the U.S. Secretary of State and high-ranking foreign dignitaries and officials visiting the United States, investigate passport and visa fraud, and conduct personnel security investigations. In 2006, DS logged more than 1,200 arrests globally, primarily for passport and visa fraud, including 512 arrests overseas in cooperation with foreign police. Read more in the U.S. Department of State’s Visa and Passport Security Strategic Plan.

Additional information about the U.S. Department of State and the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.

For more information, contact:
L. Kendal Smith
571-345-2509
SmithLK2@state.gov

Adapted from: Operation White Light Shuts Down Human Trafficking Ring in Colombia. Bureau of Diplomatic Security
Washington, DC. US Department of State, 8 May 2007.

Human Trafficking Victims Give Testimony in Tetovo Court, Macedonia

Thu, 17 May 2007 20:54:00 GMT

Ten women of foreign nationality, including Bulgarians and a Serb, were brought in for questioning before an investigative judge in a competent Tetovo Court relating the Oriental As case, Makfax's correspondent reported.

The girls were found during a police raid in the Oriental As bar located in the Tetovo's nearby village of Zherovjane. Although Police raised allegations of sexual exploitation, today's questioning was focused on other lighter crimes that were allegedly committed.

The girls gave statements in the frameworks of the ongoing investigation against Oriental As's owner Ali Arifi from Bogovinje, who is accused of illegal confinement and violation of the labor rights. If found guilty on these charges, Arifi would face a sentence ranging from pecuniary fine to one-year imprisonment.

The women of foreign citizenship aged 22 to 27, were illegally employed as waitresses in the bar. The Police suspect their freedom of movement was limited to the premises of the bar as they found a room that served as a girls' living quarter.

Adapted from: "Alleged human trafficking victims gave testimonies in Tetovo Court." Max Fax Online. 9 May 2007.

Trafficking of African Women is Thriving

Thu, 17 May 2007 21:00:00 GMT

Trafficking of women from West Africa to Europe for sexual exploitation is thriving amid inaction from African governments, experts at a regional conference on the issue in Senegal.

"The trafficking of women is difficult to identify, but it is a phenomenon that is not on the decline. It is growing in volume," said Babacar Ndiaye, a specialist consultant with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. "The trafficking of women is less visible, more difficult to identify," he said on the sidelines of the three-day Dakar forum looking at ways at tackling human trafficking.

Specialists at the conference, gathering representatives from 12 west and central African countries and from international and national non-governmental bodies, estimated that thousands of African women were forced into prostitution rings abroad every year. But African governments have not yet faced up to the multi-million dollar phenomenon.

In January Italian police smashed several human trafficking rings involving African and eastern European females and netted some 800 suspects. Nigeria is the worst culprit in human trafficking where "peddlers work quietly and in the open" unfazed by law enforcing agents, said Ndiaye.

The treatment of women "has not been seriously taken into account by (African) authorities," he said. Outside Nigeria, other main sources of females for prostitution were the west Africa states of Cameroon, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Togo.

A French police expert, Philippe Barbancon, said the trafficking of women and African prostitution networks have become complex in recent years because "the roles are superimposed and some prostitutes are also pimps". "Once they pay back the traffickers the money they owe them (for fares and relocating expenses) the victims are transformed into pimps," said Barbancon.

"It becomes very difficult to identify the traffickers, when everyone is prostituting," he said. Before they graduate into "mamas" - a moniker for pimps - each victim has to reimburse around $50 000 (around R347 000) to the peddlers, he said. After that, they can start buying their own women at between $7 000 and $10 000 (around R48 000 - R70 000) each.

Philippe Thelen, coordinator of a French non-governmental organisation, ALC, a support group for victims of trafficking in the south of France, estimated that about 25 percent of prostitutes in France were Africans. Trafficking for the regional market in Africa was also not uncommon.

Bernadette Ouedraogo, who heads a Burkinabe non-governmental organisation, said the majority of prostitutes in Burkina Faso come from the sub-region. She said young girls were lured with fraudulent offers of jobs in Europe, only to end up being violently forced into prostitution.

Senegalese Justice Minister Sheik Tidiane Sy, pledged at the opening of the forum on Wednesday, his country had a "firm will" to fight the "dangerous crime which the human conscience should not accept." The French ambassador to Senegal, Andre Parant, said human trafficking "is too often a silent crime affecting the most vulnerable among us, women and children. It is nothing else but a form of modern slavery".

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) says some four million people are affected by all forms of transfrontier trafficking. Around half of them are children, often pressed into hard manual labour.

Adapted from: Francois Tillinac. "Trafficking of African women is thriving." Independent Online. 10 May 2007.

Child Trafficking on the Rise in Southern Africa

Thu, 17 May 2007 21:23:00 GMT

Child trafficking continues unabated in Africa but efforts to rehabilitate those affected is hampered by poverty and long-held traditions, a regional forum has heard.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that some 1.2 million children are trafficked globally and a third of the victims - 400,000 - are in west and central Africa. However only around 10,000 children are rehabilitated and reintegrated into normal social life.

"A drop in the ocean," lamented Elkane Mooh, regional advisor for Save the Children, on the sidelines of a regional conference on human trafficking. The children’s re-insertion into normal life is rendered complex by the increasing numbers unwilling to return to their original homes, dreading the poverty that drove them out in the first place, the conference heard.

In 2004, about 60 children from Mali were rounded up in Senegal and sent home, but experts said a few months later they were spotted back in the country, considered better off than its poverty-stricken neighbours. In Africa, child trafficking and abuse is fuelled by poverty which forces families to entrust their children into the care of richer family members who often exploit them as heavy domestic or farm labour.

Most of the children earn very little or do not get paid at all, and some are sexually abused. As a result, child trafficking and exploitation is considered to be essentially sanctioned and run by families themselves.

Adapted from: "Child trafficking booming." Sunday Times. 12 May 2007.

New York State Approves Law on Human Trafficking

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 20:17:00 GMT

State lawmakers and Governor Eliot Spitzer said Wednesday that they had agreed to make labor- and sex-trafficking felonies, breaking a deadlock on an issue many thought should have been resolved long ago.

Although there are federal laws against human trafficking — essentially a modern form of slavery — some state lawmakers and advocacy groups say they are insufficient. Federal law enforcement has focused mostly on the largest criminal trafficking rings, rather than smaller operations like sweatshops and brothels, advocacy groups say.

Moreover, although local law enforcement officials are most likely to stumble across victims of trafficking, the advocacy groups say, the absence of a state trafficking law has provided little incentive for local prosecutors to tackle such cases.

“New York is finally joining the ranks of other states in ensuring that those who exploit innocent people and children and cause extreme suffering are subject to strict punishment under state law,” Governor Spitzer said in a statement.

At least 29 states already have laws specifically addressing human trafficking. The State Department has estimated that 14,500 to 17,500 people a year are brought into the United States and then used for forced labor or sex, although experts say such statistics are inexact estimates. Efforts during the past two years to get a trafficking law in New York stalled, partly because Senate Republicans objected to provisions for services for the victims in legislation passed by Assembly Democrats. But advocates said the agreement reached between Mr. Spitzer and the Legislature would give New York one of the toughest and most comprehensive laws in the nation.

“This bill will be the model for any state law on trafficking in the country,” said Taina Bien-Aimé, the executive director of Equality Now, which has pushed for a trafficking law. According to a press release from the governor’s office, the laws would make sex trafficking and labor trafficking separate felonies. A conviction of sex trafficking would carry a penalty of 3 to 25 years in prison, while a labor trafficking conviction would bring 3 to 7 years, according to the press release.

The law would clarify existing statutes to make it a felony to knowingly sell “travel-related services to facilitate prostitution,” no matter whether prostitution is legal in the state or country being visited. Coercing victims into prostitution by force would be included as a felony sex trafficking offense, as would tricking people into entering the country by promising them jobs or providing them with illegal drugs, and then forcing them into sexual servitude.

“If you don’t have a definition that includes deception, and then you find that woman three months later in a brothel, it’s very hard to prove force or coercion,” Ms. Bien-Aimé said. “But she would still be a trafficking victim.” The law would provide a broad package of services to victims of sexual trafficking, including allowing those who are in the United States illegally to receive state aid for housing, mental health, drug treatment and other services. Legislative leaders did not provide cost figures.

In a statement, Michael E. Bongiorno, the district attorney for Rockland County, said the law “will provide local law enforcement and prosecutors with the tools they need to successfully investigate and prosecute human trafficking cases.” The matter is one of the few substantive settlements lawmakers have reached in recent days.

The agreement was announced Wednesday during a public meeting of the governor and Legislative leaders in the Capitol. After being criticized for negotiating the budget largely behind closed doors, the governor has been trying to operate more openly in recent weeks. Still, he is not finding much common ground with the Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno, the state’s top Republican.

Trouble started almost as soon as the meeting began, when Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Malcolm Smith, the Senate minority leader, invited several Democrats to come to the table and make speeches about human trafficking before the cameras. Mr. Bruno said the speech-making was a waste of time.

“Why would we need to spend our time and spin our wheels, when there are very important issues that I’d like to get to and this one’s done?” Mr. Bruno said. After another Republican lawmaker raised a similar objection, Mr. Spitzer, in a rare peace-making mode, joked, “One might conclude we’re more needy than you are.”

Lawmakers went on to discuss a number of issues, from reinstating legislation that would permit the building of new power plants to overhauling the Wicks Law, which requires multiple contractors on public construction projects. But there appears to be significant disagreement and a lack of good will.

“I’m impressed as hell with everything that I’ve heard, but we’re not getting a bill done,” Mr. Bruno said of the speeches, adding, “This is terrific, but it’s a lot of wasted time.”

Citation: Danny Hakim and Nicholas Confessore. "Albany Agrees on Law Against Sexual and Labor Trafficking." New York Times. 17 May 2007.

Anti-Trafficking in Persons Seminar Held in Beijing, China

Wed, 16 May 2007 13:41:00 GMT

The UN Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region (UNIAP) China Office organised an anti-trafficking seminar which was held on 12 April 2007 in Beijing. Concerned leaders and experts from the Criminal Law Office of the Law Working Committee of the National People's Congress, the Criminal Investigation Department of the Ministry of Public Security and the office of the National Women’s and Children’s Working Committee under the State Council attended the seminar. Topics for discussion included: China’s National anti-trafficking Plan Action (NPA), the international and domestic definition of anti-trafficking, the main strategies of UNIAP’s third phase and the Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative on Trafficking (COMMIT) as well as issues regarding the Inter-Ministerial Meeting (IMM) and the Senior Officials Meeting (SOM), they will be held in December of this year.

The attendees enthusiastically discussed the aforementioned topics, exchanged ideas and reached a consensus on several of the above mentioned key ideas. It was a fruitful meeting and after the meeting every party said that they would actively carry out their own tasks. They expressed that the IMM/SOM will be successfully held in Beijing.

Adapted from: http://uniap.law.pku.edu.cn

Officials from Five Chinese Provinces Meet to Exchange Experiences with Preventing Trafficking

Wed, 16 May 2007 13:44:00 GMT

On 11 April 2007 in Hefei the All China Women’s Federation and the International Labour Organisation jointly held a conference to exchange experiences of Anhui Province’s All China Women’s Federation “National Anti-Trafficking Spring Rain Initiative”. Leaders from the National Women’s Federation, the Railway Ministry, the International Labour Organisation and other relevant leaders and specialists as well as workers from the Railway Ministry and Women’s Federation from the provinces involved in this project, Anhui, Jiangsu, Guangdong, Henan and Hunan attended this meeting.

The 2007 spring travelling season was season in which the most migrants were exploited in the five provinces, Anhui, Jiangsu, Guangdong, Henan and Hunan. Experimental units in bus stations and trains were set up in the counties of every province to powerfully and dynamically launch the “Anti-Trafficking Spring Rain Initiative” aimed at the migrant population. They publicized “anti-trafficking and safe migration” information targeted at females who were going to the cities to work.

At the meeting to exchange experiences, the attendees thought that the “Spring Rain Initiative” should continue to create an anti-trafficking atmosphere throughout society, safeguard the legal rights and interests of women who come to the cities to work and promoting society’s stability are all very important, from today these practices should be spread further to form a long-lasting mechanism for publicising anti-trafficking information.

Adapted from: "Officials from Five Provinces, Anhui, Jiangsu, Guangdong, Henan and Hunan Meet in Hefei to Exchange Experience of Initiatives Preventing Trafficking." Jianghuai Morning Post. 12 April 2007. http://www.hf365.com

Former US Ambassador Criticizes UN for Promoting Sex Trafficking in Peacekeeping Missions

Wed, 16 May 2007 14:11:00 GMT

A former US ambassador accused the United Nations of being among the major promoters of human trafficking in the world by failing to halt sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers.

John Miller, a former U.S. ambassador at large on modern-day slavery who is now a professor, urged the world body to enact real reforms in its peacekeeping department.

A senior official in the U.N. peacekeeping department, Yewande Odia, called the accusations "completely false" and "actually offensive." She said the U.N. has taken action on many fronts to try to end sexual abuse by peacekeepers.

Miller said the abuse by peacekeepers constituted sex trafficking and the U.N. had done too little to implement suggested reforms in a report written after allegations of abuse came to light in 2005.

"It is hard for the United Nations to take the lead in combating human trafficking when it is one of the major promoters of human trafficking in the world,” said Miller, who teaches international affairs at George Washington University.

Allegations of abuse have dogged U.N. peacekeeping missions since their inception over 50 years ago, but the issue was thrust into the spotlight after the United Nations found in early 2005 that peacekeepers in Congo had sex with Congolese women and girls, usually in exchange for food or small sums of money.

Jordan's U.N. ambassador at the time, Prince Zeid al Hussein, wrote a report several months later that described the U.N. military arm as deeply flawed and recommended withholding the salaries of the guilty and requiring nations to pursue legal action against perpetrators.

Odia, chief of the disciplinary and conduct team in the U.N. peacekeeping department, countered that "we've implemented every single thing" in Zeid's report. She noted that the department has set up discipline teams in 10 missions that regulate the conduct of every U.N. peacekeeper. The U.N. has also revised the contract between troop-contributing countries and the U.N. to include prohibitions of sexual abuse, she said. However, the revised contract, which was introduced in December, has not yet been accepted by the troop-contributing countries, Odia said.

They have not only failed to adopt the new contract but in several cases where accusations of sexual misconduct have been confirmed and the U.N. has repatriated peacekeepers, countries have not informed the U.N. if any legal action was taken against them.

Adapted from: "Former U.S. ambassador criticizes U.N. for promoting sex trafficking in peacekeeping missions." International Herald Tribune. 12 April 2007.

Child Laborers Toil in Thai Seafood Factories

Wed, 16 May 2007 15:30:00 GMT

It is 7.30 in the evening and an excited chatter fills the room as 11-year-old Nampeung and her friends get their work checked before clearing their desks and heading home.

But this is no scene from the end of a school day. Nampeung is an ethnic Mon girl from military-ruled Myanmar who has been working in a seafood factory in central Thailand for nearly three years.

The desks are the metal tables where she spends six days a week shelling shrimps and her work is measured by the kilogram. Of the 200 people working in the barn-like factory during an unannounced visit by Reuters, nearly half appeared to be in their early teens or younger -- clear evidence of child labor in an industry worth $2 billion a year in exports.

Half Thailand's exported shrimps go to the United States, where they end up on the shelves of retail giants such as Wal-Mart and Costco, according to Poj Aramwattananont, president of the Thai Frozen Foods Association.

Japan and Europe each account for another 20 percent. Even though she can only dream of going to school, Nampeung is one of the lucky ones. She makes up to 300 baht ($9) a day -- more than the province's minimum wage -- and sees nothing wrong with children her age working.

"The old people are so slow," she said with a broad smile, sitting demurely on the floor of the concrete hut next to the factory, which she shares with her mother, father and three siblings.

Slave labor
Other factories in the coastal province of Samut Sakhon, 50 km (30 miles) west of Bangkok, where 40 percent of all Thailand's shrimps are processed, do not have such a contented workforce.

A police raid on a factory called Ranya Paew in September revealed conditions that were little short of mediaeval. Around 800 men, women and children from deeply impoverished Myanmar -- or Burma, as it used to be known -- were imprisoned in a compound behind 15 foot (4.5 meter) walls topped with razor wire and patrolled by armed guards.

The rescued workers told human rights monitors they had to work 18 hours or more a day and were paid 400 baht a month, out of which they had to buy food -- mainly rancid pork -- from the factory's owner. Those who asked for a break had a metal rod shoved up their nostrils. Three women who asked to leave were paraded in front of the other workers, stripped naked and had their heads shaved.

One shipment from Ranya Paew a few years ago had ended up in the United States, according to a Western diplomat who has followed the case closely. The Labor Rights Promotion Network (LPN), a non-governmental organization that estimates there are 200,000 Myanmar migrant workers in Samut Sakhon -- of whom only 70,000 are registered legally -- says the Ranya Paew case is the worst it has seen.

But it is also, LPN says, just the tip of a human trafficking iceberg of factories fed by cross-border people-smuggling rings and labor brokers that enjoy the complicity, if not active involvement, of provincial police and government officials. "For many migrants, work in Samut Sakhon is the chance for a better life, but for too many it leads to abuse," LPN president Sompong Srakaew said.

"Unscrupulous employers and brokers conspire to ensure migrant workers remain vulnerable to exploitation. This is only possible with the complicity of elements within the law enforcement authorities," he said.

Audits
Wal-Mart and Costco said none of their shrimp had ever come from Ranya Paew and that strict ethical guidelines for suppliers, as well as audits of processing units in Thailand, ensured they complied with food standards and labor regulations.

Thai Frozen Foods Association chief Poj Aramwattananont also denied children or trafficked people worked in the industry, saying factories were monitored carefully. "There are no more illegal workers in the Thai food industry because the government registers all the workers properly. We never use child labor," he told Reuters.

However, even Thailand's biggest agroindustrial firm, Charoen Pokphand Foods (CPF), which produces its own shrimp from pond to packet to ensure a higher degree of transparency, is not untouched by allegations of trafficked labor.

CPF sells a range of shrimp dishes to the U.S. and Europe, including the "Thai torpedo" and "Bangkok firecracker." According to LPN, when police and immigration officials raided a CPF factory in Samut Sakhon on April 5 and fired shots into the air, more than 100 Myanmar migrants in the compound tried to escape by swimming a canal.

Six workers who could not swim are thought to have drowned, LPN said, and police rounded up and deported 90 others back to Myanmar for being illegal migrants. Narong Kruakrai, general manager of the CPF plant, described the raid as a "regular visit" by immigration police, and said his factory never hired illegal workers. LPN said the workers appeared to have been "employed" by a third-party broker.

With smaller shrimp companies, overseas buyers have an even harder time conducting their own background checks as much of the processing is outsourced to small operators.

As a result, foreign firms rely more on the Thai Labor Ministry, which is responsible for ensuring factories do not use illegal or child workers. However the ministry is short on staff, as well as enthusiasm, the Western diplomat said.

"The Thai Ministry of Labor lacks the proper resources to conduct rigorous inspections of these factories," he said. Despite the discovery of abuses at Ranya Paew -- around 200 Myanmar men were deported as illegal immigrants and more than 60 women and children are in a trafficking victims center in Bangkok -- Samut Sakhon police have allowed the plant to remain open.

Citation: "Child laborers toil in Thai seafood factories." CNN. 24 April 2007.

Human Trafficking for Forced Labor Might Exceed Perception

Wed, 16 May 2007 15:59:00 GMT

Human trafficking for forced labor might be a greater problem than the more widely known problem of trafficking for sexual exploitation, says Kristiina Kangaspunta, the chief of the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

"We don't know that much about forced labor issues," she acknowledged in an April 26 interview with *USINFO. * "We don't know, but it seems that it might be that forced labor is a bigger part of the human trafficking than human trafficking for sexual exploitation." She cited an enormous number of places that could absorb the forced labor of men, women and children: restaurants, hotels, bars, agriculture, domestic and construction work.

"Our findings were that there was more sexual exploitation; but often countries have legislation that only covers sexual exploitation," she explained. "It may be that sexual exploitation is simply reported more often." UNODC, she added, is working closely with the International Labour Organization, which views sexual exploitation as an integral part of forced labor, to get a clearer picture of the problem.

Kangaspunta spoke to *USINFO* at the 16th session of the United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, being held in Vienna, Austria, through April 27.

RELIABLE DATA ARE HARD TO FIND
Dealing with the problem of human trafficking depends on accurate information – a difficult commodity to find, she said. Kangaspunta said the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice, recently surveyed some 24,000 articles on human trafficking and found them wanting because of poor methodology in conducting the studies.

It took Kangaspunta's own unit three years to conduct its first study, released in 2006, on human trafficking – *Trafficking in Persons: Global Patterns* -- which relied on open sources.

"Some countries could not provide us with data," she said of the first study. "But it is also valuable information to know that they do not have the data. We can offer technical assistance to these countries."

The UNODC's Anti-Human Trafficking Unit is planning to undertake another study on countries that supply, receive or transit trafficking victims, this time with greater input from official sources, she said.

"Identification of victims is very important or we cannot help them," Kangaspunta said. "At the same time, we must be able to identify traffickers, otherwise we cannot convict them."

"One of the main questions we have is, 'Why are there so few convictions?' Everywhere in the world," she said, "there are very few convictions. And of course it is a training question; it is also a question of the identification of victims, identification of cases and identification of criminals." Existing laws, she observed, need to be enforced more strongly. She added: "We do not have very much knowledge about it, but it seems to be that corruption is playing a large role. We're trying to develop tools for more understanding of the link between trafficking and corruption."

THE GLOBAL INITIATIVE TO FIGHT HUMAN TRAFFICKING
Kangaspunta said her unit's work will be facilitated greatly by the $15 million contribution by the United Arab Emirates to the UNODC's Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (GIFT), which was launched in March. "This is a very considerable sum for the UNODC," she said, "because usually our projects are around $500,000 or less."

The two-year initiative will focus on data collection and analysis, raising public awareness, and policy development. "We are trying to develop policies for regions, regional action plans, with the support of U.N. agencies like the Crime Commission," she explained. "One of the biggest parts of our work is to support technical cooperation activities that are carried out at the country level. They are developed and implemented by our 22 field offices around the world. Our office supports them substantively so that the right issues are addressed in the ways we have found to be successful."

PRIVATE INDUSTRY GETTING MORE INVOLVED
Kangaspunta said that as public awareness of human trafficking increases, more companies in private industry are helping to combat the problem. Among the examples she offered: Carlson, which owns hotels around the world, has undertaken a training program for its managers on how to recognize and prevent child exploitation. Air France is working on public service announcements to show on its flights. MTV is working on videos to warn young people against becoming ensnared by traffickers. Microsoft is training law enforcement personnel in India on the use of computers for investigations of human trafficking cases.

UNODC, Kangaspunta said, is encouraging executives in private industry to become more aware of how forced labor may be playing a role in their supply chain. She said that some carpet manufacturers in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have made efforts to end child labor and market their products with labels certifying that child labor was not used in production.

For more information on U.S. policies and additional coverage of the 16th session of the U.N. Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, see Human Smuggling and Trafficking

Jane Morse. "Human Trafficking for Forced Labor Might Exceed Perception." USINFO. 26 April 2007.

Dissemination Workshop on a Study into Exploitative Labour Brokerage Practices in Cambodia

Wed, 16 May 2007 16:39:00 GMT

On 16 March 2007 the Cambodian National COMMIT Taskforce, in cooperation with UNIAP-Cambodia, launched a Study into Exploitative Labour Brokerage Practices in Cambodia. The study is the first pilot study in the region on Project Proposal Concept 8 (PPC8) of the COMMIT Sub-Regional Plan of Action. PPC8 specifically focuses on Addressing Exploitative Brokerage Practices.

The case studies explored in the research revealed:

Malpractices and apparent negligence by licensed recruitment agencies;
Unlicensed companies operating illegally to send Cambodians to work overseas;
Abuses by employers in receiving countries are common;
Cambodian migrants face various vulnerabilities at different stages of the migration process; and
Extent of problem of trafficking for labour exploitation remains unknown.

The question and answer session of the workshop was particularly productive. Many high level government officials contributed to the success of the dialogue. Please see attached the summary report of the workshop which includes a transcript of the question and answer session.

This Study into Exploitative Brokering Practices in Cambodia seeks to provide an example and lay the groundwork for further regional action in this area. The Dissemination Workshop was followed-up by a Skills Sharing Workshop on Labour Brokerage Practices held on 21-22 March in Phnom Penh. The workshop was co-organized by the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training (MOLVT) and the UN Inter Agency Project on Human

Trafficking (UNIAP), together with the International Labour Organization (ILO), the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). It saw the participation of more than 80 representatives from the MOLVT, Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Interior, private recruitment agencies, employers’ association, local non-government organizations (NGOs), and the media.

The workshop was organized to support the Project Proposal Concept Number 8 (PPC8) under the COMMIT SPA which aims to address exploitative brokering practices. The objectives of the workshop were:

To provide a skills sharing forum for officials from the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training to learn about the procedures of labour recruitment and the policy and legislative framework governing labour recruitment in Cambodia;
To raise conceptual understanding of human trafficking, human smuggling and various forms of international migration as well as international conventions relating to migrant workers;
To provide a forum for interaction and exchange between recruitment agencies and the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) to consider how policy can assist both parties;
To create tangible goals and actions that work towards achieving higher standards for the conduct of private recruitment agencies in Cambodia.

Find attached the Summary Report of this Workshop. The Summary Report highlights some of the issues that were discussed and debated during the two-day workshop. The conclusions are presented at the end of the report.

Consultation Meeting on the Structure of the National Taskforce in Cambodia

Thu, 17 May 2007 09:06:00 GMT

The New National Taskforce in Cambodia to implement MOUs on Human Trafficking was launched on 6 April 2007 at the Cambodianna Hotel in Phnom Penh. The decision to create the new National Taskforce was signed by His Excellency Prime Minister Hun Sen on the 12 March 2007.

The National Task Force heralds a new approach in dealing with trafficking in Cambodia. Funded by the CTIP Program, using a streamlined model based on three working groups in the areas of prevention, protection and reintegration and prosecution, NGOs and Government will share the responsibility and jointly determine the agenda of the respective working groups.

See attached the decision signed by His Excellency Prime Minister Hun Sen on the 12 March.

Palau Supreme Court Convicts "Carnival Four" In Forced Prostitution And Human Trafficking Case

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 08:12:00 GMT

Four foreign nationals have been convicted in the Republic of Palau of forty-seven criminal counts for offenses relating to prostitution, human trafficking and exploiting trafficked persons, marking Palau's first trial for human trafficking violations.

The charges were brought in September 2006 after waitresses at Carnival Restaurant and Karaoke, located in Koror, Palau, fled their employment to escape abuse at the hands of the owners and managers of the bar. The victims alleged they were deceived into coming to Palau to work as waitresses, only to end up serving up drinks – and themselves – in a karaoke bar. The prosecution charged that the waitresses were forced into prostitution through a whole host of coercive tactics, including food deprivation, confinement to barracks and illegal salary deductions.

During a trial that spanned four weeks, ten former waitresses testified through tears of the abuses and indignities they endured, which ranged from underwear inspections and regular weigh-ins to being paraded in a line in front of customers to be chosen for sex – a practice referred to as a "show up." The waitresses also stated they were forced to hide in the restrooms of the bar in order to eat and were only permitted to leave their barracks for two hours per day. A ledger maintained by the manager of the bar, which was obtained during a search warrant, revealed that the waitresses suffered constant salary deductions, some months earning as little as $7 in salary.

Assistant Attorney General Erin E. Johnson filed the charges in "ROP v. Eriich, et al.", Crim. Case. No. 06-212 (consolidated), naming Teng Feng Chiang, BaiYue Wang, Katherine Manio, and Lolita Pamentuan, who were the owner, manager, mamasang and recruiter, respectively. The criminal information charged multiple crimes related to the abuse, including advancing prostitution, human trafficking offenses, tax violations, labor violations and foreign investment violations. The prosecution also charged the Palauan individual that served as a front for the business, Tilde Eriich, who pleaded guilty prior to trial and testified for the prosecution.

The case presented the first occasion for the Palau Supreme Court to interpret Palau's newly enacted human trafficking statute, which seeks to hold all participants in the trafficking chain criminally liable and provides for stiff penalties, including up to $250,000 in fines and 25 years in jail. In a written verdict, filed April 23, 2007, Associate Justice Kathleen Salii held that "recruiting individuals to work in Palau through false pretenses and then forcing them with coercive measures, such as threats and salary deductions, into prostitution constitutes People Trafficking under the Court's interpretation of the Act." The convictions place Palau on the world stage as among a growing trend of countries prosecuting karaoke bars for deceiving and trafficking waitresses into forced prostitution, a practice particularly common in the Pacific region.

Lead prosecutor Erin Johnson stated, "this case is a huge step forward in the global fight against human trafficking. The Court recognized that trafficking is not limited to physically kidnapping and smuggling individuals, but also encompasses more subtle and nefarious tactics such as those used by the defendants in this case – deceiving and preying upon the unsuspecting and unsophisticated to gain control over them and send them into the sex trade. These karaoke bars are the new face of human trafficking and we intend to keep prosecuting those that would use these bars to exploit human beings." Sentencing in the case is scheduled for May 8, 2007.

The Republic of Palau is a small island nation in the Pacific that sits between Guam and the Philippines. A former United States Protectorate and member of the Trust Territory of the Pacific, Palau has been an independent nation since 1994. Palau most recently gained notoriety as the location for the tenth installment of the popular United States reality television show, "Survivor."

For a copy of the Court's written findings or to obtain more information about the case, contact the Office of the Attorney General for the Republic of Palau at (680) 488-2481 or agoffice@palaunet.com. Ms. Johnson may be contacted directly at erin.johnson.pw@gmail.com.

Adapted from: "Palau Supreme Court Convicts "Carnival Four" In Forced Prostitution And Human Trafficking Case." 26 April 2007.

Vital Voices Conference in Hong Kong Discusses Labor Trafficking

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 14:15:00 GMT

It is "a disgrace" for Hong Kong to turn a blind eye to human trafficking, which involves millions of people worldwide, a Hong Kong University scholar says.

"Even though [human trafficking] exists here, say, with prostitutes, people are not going to worry about girls elsewhere working as forced labor as a result of poverty," said Richard Welford, a professor specializing in corporate environmental governance and a founding director of Corporate Social Responsibility Asia.

He added there was no way of knowing the real number of sex slaves in the city. Welford estimates 3,600 others are trafficked each day, not only as sex slaves but in other forms of forced labor. As an example, Welford said many Indonesian domestic helpers have to hand over their first seven months' salary to their agents as a commission for facilitating their employment. "The problem is some of them are fired after seven months," he said.

According to Vital Voices, organizer of a summit on human trafficking, some 24 million people worldwide are forced to work in an industry worth an estimated US$32 billion (HK$249.6 billion). The summit, held 19 April 2007 at the Peninsula Hotel, Hong Kong, attracted senior executives and officials from global corporations including Microsoft and Manpower and from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and other non-government organizations.

A two-year global initiative against forced labor was launched at the day-long summit to raise corporate awareness on anti-trafficking matters. Part of the initiative involves the signing of the Athens Ethical Principles, set up in January last year as part of the End Human Trafficking Now campaign launched by corporations and NGOs.

Businesses signing the principles pledge "zero tolerance" to working with companies or organizations involved in human trafficking. David Arkless, senior vice president of corporate affairs at Manpower, said 146 global corporations had joined the anti-trafficking movement by January this year.

But Arkless said the antitrafficking fight faced a long journey. "Getting companies to put their signatures on a convention is one step - ensuring their prolonged cooperation is another," Arkless said.

Adapted from: "Apathy to forced labor `a disgrace'" The Standard. 20 April 2007.

New Task Force in Thailand Established to Find Missing Children

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 14:21:00 GMT

Authorities need to act quicker against traffickers, says minister.

A special task force to trace missing children by coordinating information from relevant agencies should be set up, Deputy Social Development and Human Security Minister Poldej Pinprateep said yesterday. He said the authorities cannot afford to waste time in their attempts to find missing children, many snatched by human traffickers and forced to work as child labourers, beggars or sex workers.

Ekarak Lumchomkhae, head of the Mirror Foundation's missing persons information centre, said more than 400 cases of missing people have been reported to the centre since 2004. Missing children reported to the centre have ranged from newborn infants and toddlers to children aged 10-12.

Mr Poldej said a centre should be set up specifically to search for missing children and it must be able to work quickly. The more time passes, the slimmer the chances are of finding them and reuniting them with their families, he said.

He was speaking during a visit to three families of missing children in Krathum Baen district of Samut Sakhon. Soraya Dankuekul is the mother of Chaiyapas, or Nong Ten, 12, who has been missing for four months. She said she has not lost hope of getting her son back and believes he is still safe. He disappeared on Dec 16.

However, the ordeal has traumatised Nong Ten's father, Charoen. To him, the four months have been an eternity. He said he has gone through many crises in his life, but nothing like this. He also voiced frustration about the slow response by police who refused to register his complaint hours after the boy went missing. Police said the family had to wait at least 24 hours before they could lodge a missing person's complaint.

Rapid changes in society has contributed to the rising number of children disappearing, Mr Ekarak said. As neighbourhood ties are weakened, fewer people in the same community know or care about each other, he said.

Mr Poldej said his ministry was also floating the idea of establishing a neighbourhood watch network in communities to help look out for strangers and suspicious activities. He said a website and a 1300 hotline would also serve as a centre to receive complaints and useful clues about any missing children.

Adapted from: "New task force urged to trace missing kids." Bangkok Post. 22 April 2007.

Task Force in Cambodia Attempts to Improve Coordination Among Groups and Agencies

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 15:29:00 GMT

The Cambodian government has launched the country's first national task force to combat human trafficking.

Thousands of people are trafficked in or through the south-east Asian nation every year. The new task force will bring together government ministries, law enforcement groups and international agencies.

Cambodia has hundreds of different anti-trafficking organisations, and reducing duplication of effort will be one of the task force's main goals.

Clearer Picture
Anti-trafficking is a fashionable cause, and donors have poured untold millions of dollars into efforts to help victims and punish traffickers.

But in Cambodia at least, that eagerness to help has also been the cause of consternation. There are so many organisations operating here that it can be difficult to measure the success of anti-trafficking efforts, and many of them are competing for donor funding, muddying the waters still further.

The new task force hopes to co-ordinate efforts and get a clearer picture of what is actually going on. "The problem up until now has been that we have about 200 organisations at least, and international organisations and government ministries," said Mariel Sander Linstrom of the Asia Foundation, who is the technical adviser to the task force.

She said that probably more than 5,000 people were all over Cambodia trying to stop trafficking, but they were not speaking to each other or following the same systems or standards. Improving law enforcement is another goal. In the past, police efforts to arrest traffickers have been undermined by courts failing to prosecute suspects or throwing out cases.

Despite the problems, there are signs that Cambodia is making some progress. Last year, the United States elevated the country from the lowest level on its human trafficking watch list.

Adapted from: Guy Delauney. "Trafficking crackdown in Cambodia." BBC. 6 April 2007.

Deputy Prime Minister, Vietnam, Asks for More Focus on Human Trafficking Prevention

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 08:52:00 GMT

Discussion should focus on the situation, causes and shortcomings remaining in the fight against the trafficking of women and children with the aim of countering this crime, said Deputy PM Truong Vinh Trong at a conference held in Hanoi on April 6, 2007.

While chairing the national conference on women and children trafficking prevention, Deputy PM Trong also urged that the action plan for the 2007-10 period should be developed with feasible solutions.

The senior government official stressed that it's a shame to see women and children traded and sold as a kind of commodity and that nothing is more important than human life.

Viet Nam has detected 33 rings of human trafficking and nearly 140 hot beds so far, reported deputy Defence Minister of Public Security Le The Tiem. In 2005-06, Viet Nam discovered 568 cases with 1,518 women and children. During this period, 1,280 victims were sent back to Viet Nam.

In 2006, the number of cases detected went up more than 72 percent over the 2005 figure, and the number of victims up nearly 140 percent. Nearly 6,000 women and children have so far been trafficked across Viet Nam's borders and almost 8,000 women and children absent from their families without any information left. They are suspected of being coerced into this situation.

Apart from women and girls, men and boys are also being trafficked for forced labour overseas. Most of the victims, who were sent across the country's borders for prostitution or child adoption purposes, are from remote, mountainous and underprivileged regions.

Current forms of human trafficking include forced labour, forced marriages with foreigners, child adoption and tourism. Many e-human trafficking rings have also been set up.

Adapted from: "Deputy PM asks for more focus on human trafficking prevention." Vietnam Net. 8 April 2007. (Source: VNA)

Sexual Exploitation in Italy

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 08:57:00 GMT

There is a side to the Eternal City that most of us are loathe to acknowledge.

Passing through certain parts of Rome and its surroundings, one is likely to see women -- or often, girls -- lining the streets. Via Guilia is one such street known for prostitution, but there are others. To much of the world, these women and girls are mere prostitutes, but to Sister Eugenia Bonetti, they are victims of the most dehumanizing and crippling type of slavery.

Sister Eugenia, who is also the head of the Italian Union of Major Superiors, was recently presented with the Woman of Courage award by the U.S. State Department for her efforts to combat trafficking in persons.

The work of the religious was also acknowledged in 2004 when she was named one of six Heroes Acting to End Modern Day Slavery in the annual Trafficking in Persons report published by the State Department. First in Rome, and now throughout the world, Sister Eugenia has trained women religious to provide shelter and rehabilitation to women rescued from prostitution.

According to the woman religious, the young women are the ones punished for the crime of prostitution. Sometimes, she said, they are arrested, thrown in jail where they might be mistreated, and then cast back out, while the men who use them walk away free.

The women are bought and sold, traded and discarded at the whim of their traffickers and those who abuse them sexually, she said. "The statistics are staggering," said Sister Eugenia. "Sexual slavery is problematic worldwide, it happens here. It is in our face.

"This problem is destroying women, and families. When I see a car stop with a baby seat in the back, I know this man has a wife and baby at home. "When we ask police to help, they often arrest the girls, and let the men go."

According to Sister Eugenia, most of the women who are bought and sold for sex in Italy come to the country under the pretext of a job. In Italy, many are from Eastern Europe or Nigeria. "The girls are tricked into this," Sister Eugenia said. "They are offered what they believe to be good jobs."

Once beyond the safe bounds of home, their documents are taken away and they are forced to sell their bodies for money. Many of the girls are just barely teenagers when they are forced into prostitution, she said.

"It takes a Nigerian girl an average of 4,000 sexual encounters before she is released," the woman religious said. "Who can survive that? If a girl manages to survive physically, it is a miracle is she survives psychologically."

Nevertheless, Sister Eugenia said there is hope for these women. Once they are safe, many recover and learn to support themselves. The Consolata Missionaries provide respite and rehabilitation for girls courageous enough to leave their traffickers.

The religious said: "Our sisters leave the safety of our convents at night to reach out to these girls who know no safety. But there is always a danger. "When a girl leaves her captors, her family at home is often threatened. Many girls are afraid to leave their traffickers.

"In some ways, we are fortunate in Italy because our laws offer some protection for these girls. When they cooperate with authorities, they receive other benefits and can be granted citizenship." Together with other religious sisters, the Consolata Missionaries have established an international network of shelters among women religious of various denominations.

"Sisters can do this work," said Sister Eugenia. "When the girls see us, they know they can trust us. They see us as mothers, and they know they are loved. When I visit my girls, they call me 'Mama.'"

Adapted from: Irene Lagan. "Missionaries Take Women off the Streets." Zenit.org. 29 March 2007.

UAE Establishes New Panel to Combat Human Trafficking

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 09:00:00 GMT

The cabinet’s recent decision to constitute a national committee on curbing the crime of human trafficking was widely appreciated by federal ministries and high ranking officials for being a complementary step for the UAE efforts in devising policies and legislations that guarantee human rights protection for people who live and work in the country.

They said that setting up such a committee would greatly contribute to finding appropriate measures and regulations on protecting individuals as well as labourers from falling victim to the crime of human trading.

The national panel will act as a boost to the federal law on combating trafficking in persons enforced in the country, the officials observed. The cabinet, under the chairmanship of His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has recently taken a decision to set up a national anti-human trafficking committee.

The new committee shall be chaired by UAE Federal Minister of State for FNC Affairs. Other official representatives from the federal ministries of interior, foreign affairs, labour, health and social affairs as well as from the State Security Authority and the UAE Red Crescent Society (RCS).

Minister of Justice, Mohammed bin Nakhira Al Dhaheri, said that the federal cabinet resolution on setting up the committee is yet another boost to the federal law No 51 for 2006 on combating trafficking in persons.

“The committee will have a dual mandate, the first is to coordinate between federal ministries and departments concerned to eliminate crimes related to trafficking in persons on the UAE land whether prostitution, abuse, mistreatment, coercive exploitation and abuse of work force, or illegal organs transplantation, “ he said.

According to him, the second mandate calls for strict enforcement of the law and its provisions in full. “The UAE has put in place all legislations and measures to make sure the country is free of crimes related to human trafficking and ensure protection of those living on its land,” he stressed. The minister clarified that trafficking in persons includes recruitment, transportation, transfer or harbouring of persons by means of threat or use of force with or without the victim’s consent or knowledge, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or of position and taking advantage of the vulnerability of the persons. Humaid Mohammed Obaid Al Qutami, Minister of Health, viewed the initiative as an indication for the government’s serious role in preserving basic human rights.

“Establishing a national panel to oversee that people in the country enjoy all their human rights, including rights to have access to quality health services, is an indication to the government role to protect rights of individuals in this country,” said Qutami. He added that the committee will help decision-makers to come up with appropriate measures and regulations to protect the human rights of people.

Dr Mohammed Mahmoud Al Kamali, Director-General of the Judicial Institute, said the committee would concentrate its efforts on protection of workers from exploitation. Citing international statistics, Al Kamali said about 12.3 million workers were being subject to various types of abuse and exploitation around the world.

The UAE efforts, he affirmed would prevent human trafficking gangs in achieving their goals in the UAE. “The Committee will chalk out a comprehensive strategy to prevent occurrence of such crimes in the UAE,” he said..

Mohammed Al Za’abi, Director of International Relations Department at the Ministry of Labour (MoL), said: “Forming a national committee on curbing the crime of human trafficking is a positive step that confirms UAE has always been respecting human rights. It furthermore assures that the government seeks to protect everyone that live and work in this country.”

The Experts Committee at the International Labour Organisation (ILO) hailed the UAE efforts in protecting the labourers’ rights and resolving workers’ disputes that are common to erupt between employees and employers, observed Al Za’abi.

“The UAE has undertaken many steps to ensure safety of workers and to preserve their legal rights. “The new committee indicates the country’s keenness to protect labourers rights,” Al Za’abi added.

Adapted from: Nada S.Mussallam, Adel Arafah & Ahmed Abdul Aziz. "Plaudits for new panel to combat human trafficking." Khaleej Times. 10 April 2007.

Trafficking of Thai Women to South Africa a Concern for Thai Officials

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 07:47:00 GMT

The trafficking of young Thai women who become the playthings of local men has increased to enormous proportions, the Thai government has said.

The shock statistics, which tell of a doubling in the trade of Thai sex workers to South Africa, comes as authorities prepare to deport a group of women arrested at a Durban club in 2006.

The 24 Thai nationals will be deported back to Thailand on Wednesday. This is after 22 women and two men pleaded guilty in the Durban regional court to contraventions of the Immigration Act. The women, in their mid-20s, also admitted they intended to have sex with the patrons of the "After Dark" Nightclub for money. They were arrested at a suspected brothel in Pinetown in December and at After Dark near Victoria Embankment.

The women entered into a plea bargain with the state and in a statement said they were destitute in their home country and came to South Africa to improve their financial situation. All the women arrived in the country on a month-long visitor's visa and took up accommodation at After Dark.

The women and two men, who are believed to be their "handlers", were sentenced to a fine of R10,000 or a three year prison term suspended for five years.

Jeerasak Pomsuwan, the First Secretary of the Royal Thai Embassy, confirmed that the sex trade from Thailand to SA had seen an alarming increase over the last two years. Pomsuwan said other countries, like Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Bahrain, faced similar problems. He explained that in South Africa, the Thai government faced two major problems in that the women come to SA without a visa for 30 days for tourism purposes and become easy prey for traffickers.

"SA still does not have the anti-human trafficking law, so prosecuting authorities have to utilise other legislation to prosecute the traffickers, which is not effective enough." He said the Thai embassy had been trying to propose the Memorandum of Understanding to fight human trafficking between SA and Thailand. Pomsuwan said the final draft of the document would be sent to the SA government soon.

"One reason Thai ladies come here is because they can access SA easily via the 30 days visa exemption. Another major reason is the demand, since Thai ladies with their good manners are wanted by the SA men. Once high demand exists it drives supply," he said.

Adapted from: "Thai sex trafficking 'doubles' in SA." Independent Online. 9 April 2007. (Source: UNIAP Thailand)

Vietnamese Government Concerned about Trafficking of Women and Children

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 07:48:00 GMT

More and more Vietnamese women and children are being sold into slavery by human traffickers, said Deputy Prime Minister Truong Vinh Trong at a national workshop in Ha Noi.

Nearly 6,000 Vietnamese women and children have been sold as cheap labour or prostitutes in foreign countries, according to reports released by the Ministry of Public Security. Another 8,000 are suspected to have been smuggled out of the country illegally by traffickers.

Deputy Minister of Public Security Le The Tiem said the number of human smugglers that were caught increased by 72 per cent in 2006 when compared to statistics from 2005. The number of victims also rose by a staggering 140 per cent.

In addition, the ministry believes many of the 136,000 marriages between foreigners and Vietnamese women are connected to human smuggling rings and mail-order bride schemes. The ministry said young boys and even men are also targets because they can be used in sweatshops and paid virtually nothing for their work, if they get a salary at all.

Over the last two years, Viet Nam investigated nearly 600 human trafficking cases involving more than 1,500 women and child victims. An estimated 1,300 of those were safely returned to their homes. Most of the smuggling rings were run by transnational criminals that make huge profits from their crimes. They targeted unemployed women and poor children from rural areas by promising to find them work or rich husbands, he said.

Participants at the workshop discussed potential solutions to human trafficking including: raising awareness via mass media; encouraging people to protect themselves and expose smugglers; drafting new laws to prevent human trafficking; asking the National Assembly to ratify international conventions and protocols related to the issue; improving information exchanges between domestic authorities; strengthening international co-operation in fighting these crimes; helping them find victims and help them integrate into their communities and stepping up investigations to bring their captures to justice.

Adapted from: "Human trafficking on the rise in Viet Nam." vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn. 7 April 2007. (Source: UNIAP Thailand)

Human Rights Organizations Point to Rise in Child Trafficking in China

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 08:21:00 GMT

Rural Chinese children increasingly risk being sold or forced to become beggars, petty thieves or sex workers as their farmer parents flock to cities looking for work, an international rights group said.

China has a thriving black market in girls and women sold as brides, and in babies who are abducted or bought from poor families for sale to couples wanting children. The government says that it has cracked down harshly on such cases and that the trend is decreasing. But Kate Wedgwood, Save the Children's country director for China and North Korea, said that there were no reliable figures for the number of children being trafficked and that the continuing migration from farms to cities is sure to make the problem worse.

In recent years, an estimated 150 million to 200 million people have moved from the Chinese countryside to urban areas, where their labor at factories and construction sites has fueled breakneck economic growth. Several hundred million more are expected to leave China's vast rural hinterland in the next 15 to 20 years.

Wedgwood said poor rural children from ethnic communities are the most at risk because they have limited command of Mandarin Chinese and often do not know their rights. Children who are disabled or have HIV/AIDS also face increased risk of being trafficked and are sometimes forced into panhandling, Wedgwood said. She estimated that tens of thousands of boys from Xinjiang have been bought or kidnapped by gangs, who force them into pickpocketing and other nonviolent crime in China's eastern cities. Ethnic minority girls from Yunnan Province and the Guangxi region in the south risk being forced into the sex trade in China and nearby Southeast Asian countries like Thailand and Malaysia, Wedgwood said.

Children left behind in villages are vulnerable because they are often looked after by grandparents -- who often need care themselves -- or by institutions that lose track of the children. However, those who migrate with their parents are also in danger because they are thrust into unfamiliar surroundings with limited social services, and their parents are often busy working.

Wedgwood wants China to redefine child trafficking to include victims up to 18 years of age and children forced into work to pay off family debts. China currently defines child trafficking victims as children up to age 14 years old who are sold or kidnapped.

Adapted: "Human rights group points to rising incidence of child trafficking in China." taipeitimes.com. 5 April 2007. (Source: UNIAP Thailand)

UNESCO/ADB Radio Prevention Drama Wins First Prize in China

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 11:00:00 GMT

The Jingpo language HIV/AIDS, drug and trafficking prevention radio drama, “Life of Tragedy”, took first prize at the Fifth Provincial Literary and Artistic Creation Awards held recently in Kunming, Yunnan, China.

This radio “soap opera”, written by the renowned Jingpo author, Professor Yue Jian, and produced by a team from Yunnan Radio, combines an exciting story with HIV/AIDS, drug and trafficking prevention information. The author and the Yunnan Radio broadcasting team produced the programme using the methodology developed by UNESCO – a methodology designed to guarantee the production of culturally and linguistically appropriate materials. Financial support for this programme came from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to UNESCO.

“Life of Tragedy” was broadcast twice by Yunnan Radio, first in October 2004, and again in February 2005. With further financial assistance from UNESCO, the drama was reproduced on both cassette tapes and CDs and distributed to 260 Jingpo villages in Dehong Prefecture, Yunnan, in early 2006. Copies of the programme have also reached the Kachin State in Myanmar/Burma.

The UNESCO methodology has been used to produce radio programmes in Thailand, Lao PDR, Cambodia and Yunnan Province since 2002. The programmes receive funding and support from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) through the UNESCO Regional Project on Trafficking and HIV/AIDS.

More information can be found on the Trafficking and HIV/AIDS website: www.unescobkk.org/culture/trafficking.

Inquiries can be addressed to:
Dr. David Feingold: d.feingold@unescobkk.org;

Dr. Heather Peters: h.peters@unescobkk.org

Texas Considers Tougher State Anti-Trafficking Laws

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 12:12:00 GMT

Bills in the Texas House and Senate would bolster the state's ability to fight human trafficking, the dark, underground practice of coercing people to immigrate illegally to trap them into forced labor or sex slavery.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has identified more human trafficking victims in Texas than in any other state since 2001, according to the agency. But anti-trafficking activists are concerned that there have been no prosecutions at the state level. Traffickers are tried in federal court.

Texas lawmakers said they're trying to put more muscle into the state statute and get more training for local officials. The bills would, among other things, tweak the language of Texas' anti-trafficking laws to give prosecutors more firepower.

"We can put an end to this wretched underground world of sex slavery and indentured servitude," said state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, author of the Senate bills.

One of her bills would make it a crime to coerce people into labor or servitude by threatening to destroy their immigration documents or harm their family. Another would increase the legal age of minors from 17 to 18 for the purpose of prosecuting traffickers who force minors into prostitution.

State Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, who has several anti-trafficking bills in the House, said he began focusing on the problem when he saw federal agents make a major human-trafficking bust in his neighborhood in 2002. Prosecutors said the human-smuggling ring forced Honduran women into prostitution in Fort Worth bars. Six people convicted of smuggling and harboring illegal aliens are serving federal prison sentences.

One of Burnam's bills would order the Health and Human Services Commission to form a work group to come up with ways to help trafficking victims and create a Web site of all the government and nonprofit groups that can assist them. Another Burnam bill would have the attorney general train police and sheriffs to fight human trafficking and help victims.

Some of this training is already taking place with federal grants. Hundreds of law enforcement officers gathered in Arlington last month to train in methods to identify and fight human trafficking. The officers, including Fort Worth and Dallas police, make up the North Texas Anti-Trafficking Team, one of 32 such task forces in the country.

Cynthia Magnuson, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Justice, said Texas, Florida and California are considered the major human-trafficking gateways into the U.S. Nearly 19 percent of human-trafficking victims have been found in Texas, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Despite Texas' unwanted prominence in human trafficking, no one has been prosecuted under anti-trafficking laws the Legislature passed in 2003, said Stephanie Weber, co-chairwoman of the Houston Rescue and Restore Coalition.

The Texas attorney general's office said there's no way to confirm that, but Sarah Wolf, a spokeswoman for the Texas District and County Attorneys Association, said no one in her organization has ever heard of a district attorney in Texas prosecuting anyone under the state's anti-trafficking statute. "The penalties are stiffer at the federal level so usually that's what happens; the feds take those places," she said.

But Andrea Bertone, executive director of humantrafficking.org, said new state laws are important because they add punch to the fight against trafficking. "Sometimes, the Department of Justice is really overloaded," she said. "There are so many resources needed to fight this crime."

Bertone said 27 states had adopted anti-trafficking laws as of December. The Texas bills are awaiting committee hearings.

Adapted from: Patrick McGee. "Human-trafficking bills would toughen laws." Star Telegram. 5 April 2007.

Thai Workers Sue North Carolina Contractor

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 12:19:00 GMT

As a farmer in Thailand, Muangmol Asanok often made less than $500 a year.

So he couldn't believe his good fortune when a recruiter came to his village offering three years of farm work in North Carolina at a rate of more than $8 an hour. He mortgaged his farm to get the recruiter's $11,000 fee, said goodbye to his wife and infant son and headed to Johnston County -- where he says he became a prisoner in a storage building beside a rural highway.

Asanok is one of 22 Thai men suing the former owners of a Wayne County labor contracting company, saying the owners stole their money, failed to pay them for their work and held them captive with threats of violence. The vast majority of North Carolina's farmworkers still come from Mexico, state officials say. But a few new farm labor contractors have moved into the state in the past few years, offering laborers who have never worked in the United States and using temporary visas for farmworkers to bring them in legally.

"These companies promise the moon to farmers, saying, 'Sign here, and we'll bring you all the workers you need,' and 'Don't worry, we'll charge them,'" said Libby Whitley, who runs másLabor, a farm labor contracting business in Virginia. "They're proliferating." Bubba Grant of the Employment Security Commission in Raleigh, who handles migrant farmworker applications for temporary work visas, said he has seen only a handful of applications from countries outside Mexico, but he said he couldn't provide exact figures.

Lawyers with Legal Aid of North Carolina, a federally funded agency that advocates for the poor, say they know of at least 115 workers whom contractors brought to North Carolina from the Far East between 2004 and 2006. "There's a desire for a work force that's not going to speak up," said Kate Woomer-Deters, a lawyer with Legal Aid. "Any time you can get people who are more vulnerable than Hispanic workers, unfortunately, that's an attractive work force."

Legal Aid filed suit last month on behalf of the Thai workers. The group also sued on behalf of three Indonesian workers who say they were charged $6,000 apiece to come to the United States as farmworkers, then held captive in an industrial workshop in Charlotte. The suits demand repayment of the fees plus an undisclosed amount in damages and lost pay.

Debt for the Future
Asanok, 28, comes from one of Thailand's poorest regions, a place where men routinely travel to other countries for the promise of better-paying work. In his early 20s, he worked three years in a clothing factory in Taiwan. But in the spring of 2005, a recruiter from a company called Million Express Manpower offered something he never imagined possible: three years of work in the United States.

His earnings would be enough to start a business and pay for the education of his children, born and unborn, he said in a telephone interview this week. The fees were steep, and he said he had to mortgage his land, take a bank loan, take another loan from a neighborhood loan shark and borrow from his mother.

He figured he would pay it all back in the first year of work.

Cheaper Labor
For the owners of Million Express Manpower, the Mount Olive labor contractor that recruited the men, Thai workers were a novel product that they offered to farmers around the state, according to the lawsuit. They knew that some farmers were disgruntled with the Mexican laborers who picked their crops, the lawsuit says. The majority of the state's legal farmworkers, who come to the United States on temporary visas each growing season, had formed a union. They started demanding rights beyond their federally mandated wages, which this year will be more than $9 an hour.

Billy Carter, who grows tobacco and produce in Moore County, said that since the union formed in 2004, a few of his workers have started complaining about 65-hour work weeks. In the past, he said, his workers wanted as many hours as they could get. "They just have a completely different attitude," Carter said. "They're more Americanized, basically."

Carter says he never got an offer from Million Express, and he stuck with his Mexican workers. But he said talk spread in farm country that it might be time for a new crop of farmworkers. The owners of Million Express arrived at some farms with promises of workers so indebted that they would abide almost any working conditions, the lawsuit said.

One owner, Roy Raynor of Dunn, said in a deposition that he offered farmers a "new breed." Raynor declined to comment to The News & Observer. He found at least a few takers, who signed documents allowing Million Express to get temporary visas for 30 Thai men, including Asanok.

Poor Treatment
When they arrived in the United States in August 2005, the labor contractor confiscated the Thai men's passports and return plane tickets, the lawsuit says. They got only two or three days of work a week on farms. And after about a week living in a motel in Benson, they were moved to a small storage building in Dunn, behind the home of Seo Homsombath, a native of Laos who is president of Million Express, the lawsuit says.

There, the 30 men slept on blankets spread on the floor and shared a single bathroom, Asanok said. Homsombath took them to work, and otherwise didn't allow them to leave the property. Homsombath did not respond to requests for comment.

Homsombath at first contained the men by telling them that, without passports, police would arrest them if they left the property. Later, he showed them a gun, according to both Asanok and the lawsuit. A relative or employee was always at the house to guard them, Asanok said.

Homsombath delivered food, but it often wasn't enough for all 30 men, Asanok said. They had no kitchen, so they cooked outside on a portable gas burner. By mid-October the farm work ran out, and Homsombath took the workers to New Orleans, the lawsuit says.

They spent a few weeks in a condemned hotel, badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina, without electricity or clean water. During the day, the lawsuit says, they demolished parts of the hotel they lived in. Asanok said he spent his days tearing down walls and hauling piles of destroyed carpet out of the hotel.

The Thai workers, including Asanok, say they were never paid for their work in New Orleans. Some were so broke, the suit says, that they trapped and ate pigeons. Change from Mexico

Until a few years ago, virtually all of North Carolina's temporary agricultural workers with legal visas were brought in by the N.C. Grower's Association. Farmers pay the group a fee to recruit workers in Mexico, arrange their travel and fill out paperwork. Recently, the group has been weakened by frequent lawsuits claiming that it mistreated workers. In 2004, the association agreed to a worker union and raised fees for farmers. New labor contractors moved in, seeing opportunity.

Regina Luginbuhl, head of the state Labor Department's Agricultural Safety and Health Bureau, said farmers should question recruiters who offer low prices for workers from across the world. The law requires farmers to pay their workers' travel expenses. If the recruiter were following the law, transportation alone would cost farmers thousands of dollars per worker.

"The whole idea of bringing people thousands and thousands of miles to do farmwork is suspicious," Luginbuhl said.

Finding Help
After a few weeks in New Orleans, the Thai workers bought cell phones and got in touch with a relief group, Boat People SOS, that helps refugees. In November 2005, seven of the men, including Asanok, left their jobs and moved into free housing provided by the relief group in Washington, where they remain.

The other men spoke with officials from the Thai embassy in Washington, but got no help, said Woomer-Deters, the Legal Aid lawyer. Those men later moved to the Boat People SOS housing as well. The News & Observer's phone calls to the embassy were not answered. Million Express has gone out of business, Legal Aid officials say.

The men's temporary visas have expired, but they are applying for visas available to victims of human trafficking. Asanok said his wife and son are scraping by in Thailand. If he can't find a way to pay back the $11,000 he borrowed, he could lose his land and his home.

He says he wants nothing more than a fulfillment of the recruiter's promises. He wants to work.

Adapted from: Kristin Collins. "Workers: Promise became a prison Thai men sue N.C. contractor." News Observer. 10 March 2007.

A Push for Anti-Trafficking Legislation in Kentucky, USA

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 12:24:00 GMT

Cases of human trafficking have begun to surface in Kentucky, and advocates argue that the state should join 27 others that have enacted laws against exploiting people for forced labor, domestic work or the sex trade.

"It is happening here," said Cori Hash, a legal aid lawyer in Lexington. "We've seen it. We know the victims are out there." A bill filed by Sen. David Boswell, D-Owensboro, would make it a criminal offense to bring people into the state for exploitation.

The measure, Senate Bill 43, also would provide services and help for the victims of human trafficking, often women or children. "I think this issue is very important -- it's a human rights issue," Boswell said.

A human-trafficking bill passed the Senate last year, but it died after the House attached an unrelated amendment dealing with identity theft. Boswell said he's discussing the bill -- which has been assigned to the Judiciary Committee -- with Senate leadership and thinks its chances are better. "This bill is getting some traction," he said.

Groups backing the bill include the Catholic Conference of Kentucky, the Kentucky Office of Legal Services and the Kentucky Domestic Violence Association. The Rev. Patrick Delahanty, who is working on the bill for the Catholic Conference, said it's difficult to know how significant the problem is in Kentucky. "These people are coerced, intimidated and forced to work," he said. "They are very fearful of coming forward."

Trafficking victims often come from other counties -- enticed by purported offers of jobs or marriage. Many are laborers or migrant workers, but some are U.S. citizens, often children, forced into prostitution, Hash said. Congress passed a law banning human trafficking in 2000 to combat what the State Department has said is a growing problem in the United States. It says that as many as 800,000 people a year are trafficked worldwide, with up to 17,500 of those coming to the United States, according to its 2005 Trafficking in Persons Report.

The Justice Department, which enforces the federal law, also is urging states to adopt their own laws, said Andrea Bertone, director of HumanTrafficking.org, a Washington resource and information center. State laws provide more law enforcement resources to fight trafficking, as well as services for victims, Bertone said.

Indiana adopted a trafficking law last year, and Bertone said Kentucky should consider one as well. "Victims of trafficking have been found in some pretty remote areas," Bertone said. "No state is immune to people at some point being exploited."

In Kentucky a handful of women believed to be victims of human trafficking have arrived at domestic violence shelters over the last few years, said Sherry Currens, director of the domestic violence association. Domestic violence often is involved if the victim is forced to live with a male she thought she was coming to marry, Currens said. Some victims are forced into prostitution and have their passports and other documentation taken and freedom restricted, she said.

The victims, who may not speak English and may not be in the country legally, often are afraid to go to authorities. If they do get away, they may have nowhere to go, Currens said. "I think it's a growing issue," she said. "There are homeless shelters, but in rural areas the services just aren't there.

Hash, who works at the Maxwell Street Legal Clinic in Lexington, specializes in immigration cases. She said she and other immigration lawyers have seen several cases where they believe human trafficking was involved. In one case, a Western Kentucky family brought a foreign woman to live with them to work as a nanny and housekeeper. But when she arrived, they took her passport, restricted her to the house and made her work long hours for wages that amounted to less than $1 an hour.

The woman was afraid to press charges, but legal aid lawyers were able to work with her to recover some of the wages she said she was owed, Hash said. Hash said she also is working with a woman who said she was sold to a Southern Kentucky man as a wife. And her office is tracking child prostitution prosecutions in Tennessee and Ohio where evidence shows the prostitution rings operated in Kentucky.

"I expect the numbers are actually much higher than are coming through our doors," she said.

More information is available at www.HumanTrafficking.org.

Adapted from: Deborah Yetter. "Human trafficking legislation is pushed." The Courier-Journal. 11 February 2007.

Cambodian Government Lauches First National Task Force on Human Trafficking

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 08:47:00 GMT

The Cambodian government has launched the country's first national task force to combat human trafficking.

Cambodia has hundreds of different anti-trafficking organisations, and reducing duplication of effort will be one of the task force's main goals. Anti-trafficking is a fashionable cause, and donors have poured untold millions of dollars into efforts to help victims and punish traffickers.

Despite the problems, there are signs that Cambodia is making some progress. Last year, the United States elevated the country from the lowest level on its human trafficking watch list.

Adapted from: Guy Delauney. "Trafficking crackdown in Cambodia." BBC News. 6 April 2007

Human Trafficking of Vietnamese on the Rise

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 08:49:00 GMT

A conference to review the first phase of a Vietnamese program to combat the trafficking of women and children had little good news to report in Hanoi.

The trafficking of Vietnamese women and children, mainly across borders with China and Cambodia, has continued increasing as perpetrators have come to disguise their trade more cleverly.

Over the past two years, human traffickers have sent thousands Vietnamese women and children abroad, using cunning tricks to lure victims. Many victims are told they will be happily married, visit lost relatives, or work and travel leisurely on the other side.

But most of the cheated women and children are then sold to brothels, forced to work as sex slaves or work hard labor. The conference showed that during two years’ implementation of Program 130/CP, Vietnam discovered 568 human trafficking cases involving 993 people that illegally sold 1,518 women and children abroad.

Several years ago, the human markets were only China, Laos and Cambodia, but they are now expanding to Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan. Participants at the conference expressed their concerns over the rising trade of young men from Vietnam used for compulsory labor or selling organs abroad. Many international organizations have recently warned Vietnam over this problem.

Asked by Thanh Nien about the possibility of adding men trafficking prevention into the Program 130/CP, Deputy Minister of Public Security Le The Tiem said his agency would put forth solutions to fight against human trafficking in all its forms, including the trafficking of men.

According to a recent survey, several women and children fortunate enough to have been rescued and brought back home have gone through severe mental shock and trauma due to inhuman tortures they suffered. Many victims have problems reintegrating into society.

In 2005 and 2006, some 1,280 victims of human trafficking were brought back to Vietnam, 122 of whom were rescued and sent home by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Adapted from: "Vietnam’s human trafficking plague still on the rise." Thanh Nien News. 6 April 2007.

UK Prepares for Possible Increase in Human Trafficking during 2012 Olympics

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 08:57:00 GMT

THE UK Home Office is drawing up plans to combat the human trafficking of prostitutes and illegal workers that it believes the 2012 Olympic Games in Stratford will attract.

New measures are contained in the UK Human Trafficking Action Plan, which aims to protect innocent victims through improved support services, victim detection, increased awareness campaigns and enforcement activity. The 111-page document was published on March 23, two days before the bicentenary of the abolition of slavery.

Home Secretary John Reid marked the fight against what is described as modern slavery by signing the Council of Europe Convention on Action Against Human Trafficking on the same table that William Wilberforce and other abolitionists drafted the original slavery Bills.

Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker said: "Human trafficking is an appalling crime that causes terrible trauma to its victims.

Adapted from: Larry Ferguson. "Crackdown on Olympic trafficking." Newham Recorder. 6 April 2007.

Millions of Girls and Women Are Still Deprived of their Freedom

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 18:26:00 GMT

Some 800,000 to 900,000 people worldwide are trafficked every year into forced labour and sexual exploitation, a highly lucrative global industry controlled by powerful criminal organizations, according to a collaborative report by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).

The State Department of the United States research shows that 80 per cent of victims trafficked across international borders are women and girls, 70 per cent of them for sexual exploitation.

"Human trafficking is a modern-day slave trade. It violates fundamental human rights and exploits innocent people", said Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa, President of the General Assembly, in her opening remarks at the International Conference on Trafficking in Women and Girls, held at UN Headquarters on 5 March 2007. "Preventing this kind of activity should be one of the main objectives of the international community", she said, pointing out that human trafficking disproportionately impacts millions of people in poor countries and is a multi-billion dollar industry that lines the pockets of organized crime. She suggested a "bottom-up approach" to combat such trade, which would include local public awareness campaigns, with vulnerable groups joining in discussions on finding solutions and improving local economies to prevent "risky migration practices".

Somaly Mam, President and co-founder of a non-governmental organization called Acting for Women in Distressing Situations (AFESIP), informed delegates about the thriving sex trade in Cambodia where, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), 30 per cent of sex workers are under 18 years old. She called for the international community's attention to women and girls, who are trafficked and forced into prostitution, saying further that government corruption and law enforcement in Cambodia should be addressed to combat the trafficking of women and young girls.

Abandoned and raped at 12, Ms. Mam was sold off two years later and forced to marry a stranger who mistreated her. At 30, she became a spokesperson for women and children tortured in the brothels of Cambodia. She now leads AFESIP in the fight against trafficking in women and children for sex slavery and rescues victims in Thailand, Viet Nam and the Lao People's Democratic Republic. AFESIP was founded in 1996, and since then Ms. Mam has saved over 3,000 young girls who were sold and forced into prostitution, despite threats from gangs and traffickers. Ms. Mam, who has dedicated her life to rescuing these women and girls, was honoured by Glamour magazine as one of the Women of the Year in 2006.

The year 2007 marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition of transatlantic slavery, but "modern slavery has become more devious and brutal", said Natalya Petkevich, Deputy Head of the Administration of the President of Belarus. Located in Eastern Europe, Belarus is a primary source of women and children trafficked for sexual exploitation in Europe, North America, the Middle East, Japan and South Korea, according to the State Department's report. In 2006, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 61/180, sponsored by Belarus, on improving coordination of efforts against trafficking in persons.

Not only are there significant numbers of illegal migrants and victims of human trafficking within the country, said Ms. Petkevich, but "Belarusians themselves also become export commodities". She suggested two directions to effectively combat human trafficking: stopping the criminals behind the trade and ensuring economic and social stability in societies. "We will never defeat this social evil unless there is an effective counteraction to factors, such as poverty, gender inequality and lack of education, and decisively address corruption, which fuels the demand for trafficking", she concluded.

"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Yet, around the world, millions of people are still deprived of their freedom", said UN Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro. "There should be no place in the twenty-first century for forced labour or sexual exploitation. These are forms of slavery in our world today and should fill us with shame-as an African woman, it also fills me with rage", she noted.

She urged all Member States to ratify and implement the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, adopted by the General Assembly in 2000 and signed by 177 Member States, with 110 ratifying it.

The International Conference on Trafficking in Women and Girls was organized by the Governments of Belarus and the Philippines, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and Vital Voices. For more information, please visit http://www.unodc.org, http://www.afesip.org and http://www.vitalvoices.org

Adapted from: Yuwei Zhang. Trafficking in Women and Girls: Millions Are Still Deprived of Their Freedom. United Nations. 31 March 2007.

United Nations Highlights Human Trafficking

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 18:31:00 GMT

The UN has launched a campaign to highlight human trafficking, an issue it says has reached epidemic proportions over the past decade.

Modern-day slavery affects millions of people around the world, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said. Its initiative aims to raise awareness of trafficking both among potential victims and those who buy services or products that rely on slave labour.

It comes as the UK marks 200 years since abolition of the slave trade. The campaign, entitled The Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking, brings together a raft of UN agencies and NGOs.

At the launch in London, UNODC Executive Director Antonio Costa said that the types of exploitation varied from place to place. "In Europe there may be sex-related exploitation while in other parts of the world there may be camel jockeys, children forced to dive looking for pearls or oysters, people beaten like modern slaves, women in quarries," he told Reuters news agency.

He also called for greater commitment from countries to legislate against the human trade and to prosecute violators.

Sex Trade
According to a report last year by UNODC, countries that were major sources of trafficked persons included Thailand, China, Nigeria, Albania, Bulgaria, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine.

Thailand, Japan, Israel, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Turkey and the US were the most common destinations, the report said. There are no exact statistics on the number of people affected globally.

But according to UNODC, experts believe that some 2.5 million people throughout the world are at any given time the victims of human trafficking. Many of these are women and young girls forced to work in the sex industry, while others are men forced to work as labourers in dangerous conditions for little or no pay, the UN agency said.

Adapted from: UN Highlights Human Trafficking . 26 March 2007.

UK Home Office Recognizes "Modern Slavery"

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 19:27:00 GMT

An end to the cruelty of modern day slavery was how the UK Home Office hailed the publication of an Action Plan to tackle Human Trafficking.

New measures in the "UK Human Trafficking Action Plan" aim to protect the innocent victims of trafficking through improved support services, victim detection and increased awareness campaigns while increasing enforcement activity and knowledge of the crime.

On Friday the Home Secretary signed the ‘Council of Europe Convention on Action Against Human Trafficking’ on the same table that William Wilberforce and other abolitionists drafted the original slavery bills.

The Convention aims to provide a framework for the minimum rights and protection for all identified victims of trafficking.

Key points from the Action Plan include:
* establishing specialist teams at ports of entry;
* the introduction of a Child Trafficking Telephone Advice Line for social workers, police and immigration staff who may come into contact with potential victims: the creation of a national referral system to help with the formal identification of victims.

The plan also highlights increased enforcement activity to be driven forward by the UK Human Trafficking Centre.

Home Office Minister, Vernon Coaker, said: "Human trafficking is an appalling crime which causes terrible trauma to its victims. I have heard first hand from those who have suffered at the hands of traffickers and I am fully committed to do all I can to end this horrific crime.

Scotland’s Justice Minister, Cathy Jamieson, said: "Today, 200 years after the legal abolition of the slave trade, we are faced with a new challenge - how we tackle the appalling trafficking in human beings and prevent the misery which it causes."

Adapted from: "Human trafficking branded ‘modern slavery.’" Londra Gazette. 27 March 2007.

US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law Testimony

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 18:38:00 GMT

A US Justice Department official and representatives of nongovernmental organizations involved in combating trafficking in persons say a "victim-centered approach" to the problem is crucial to prosecuting perpetrators and rescuing victims.

Testifying at a 26 March 2007 hearing of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Grace Chung Becker cited the formation of the Justice Department's Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit, which uses such an approach.

The new unit works closely with U.S. attorneys? offices and human trafficking task forces around the country. These task forces are composed of federal, state and local law enforcement authorities, plus nongovernmental organization personnel who provide necessary services to trafficking victims.

"We work together to ensure the victims? safety and housing, to see that their medical and psychiatric needs are taken care of, and -- for our foreign victims -- to cooperate in normalizing their immigration status," said Becker. "This victim-centered approach works," she added.

Working with U.S. Attorneys' offices, Becker said, the Civil Rights Division has increased court-filed human trafficking cases since 2001 by 600 percent.

Protection of Trafficking Victims
A key U.S. tool in the fight against human trafficking is the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 ( TVPA ). This law makes adult victims of severe forms of trafficking who have been certified by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services eligible for benefits and services to the same extent as refugees. Victims of severe forms of trafficking who are under 18 years of age also are eligible for benefits to the same extent as refugees but do not need to be certified.

However, Katherine Kaufka, an attorney with the National Immigrant Justice Center, said statistics show that enforcement efforts have fallen short of the law?s goal of identifying victims and tracking down and prosecuting traffickers operating in the United States.

"We believe that a principal cause of this failure is that the burdens placed upon the victims are too high," said Kaufka, referring to the requirement for HHS certification for protection.

Kaufka listed three areas in which she believes the law needs adjustment: providing greater protection for victims and their families; ensuring that victims who make an effort to cooperate with law enforcement are adequately protected; and responding to the special needs of children who are victims of human trafficking.

One example Kaufka cited was a teenage girl from India who at first was reluctant to cooperate with law enforcement because the traffickers had threatened to hurt her younger sisters in India if she ever went to the police.

"We recommend that victims of trafficking who cooperate with law enforcement have the option to be united with family to support them through the legal process," said Kaufka. "If those family members reside outside the United States, they should be allowed to enter the U.S. temporarily to aid the prosecution's efforts. This change to the law will not only enhance victim protection and rehabilitation, it will simultaneously facilitate cooperation between victims and law enforcement, leading to more successful prosecutions of criminal traffickers."

Martina Vandenberg, an attorney in private practice and author of three reports on trafficking in persons, said that although Congress, the executive branch and nongovernmental organizations have worked together to assist victims and bring traffickers to justice, gaps do still exist, and traffickers continue to operate with impunity in those gaps. Holding traffickers accountable for their human rights violations can only be done when their victims are safe, secure and able to rebuild their lives, Vandenberg said.

"By focusing on the human rights and fundamental needs of the victims," said Vandenberg, "we can close off the zones of impunity in which the traffickers thrive."

Holly Burkhalter, vice president of government relations for the International Justice Mission, focused her testimony on the need for greater enforcement not only of the TVPA, but also the 1988 labor rights and anti-slavery provisions in the Trade Act, which linked U.S. trade benefits to recipients' abolition of slavery and child labor, and the Millennium Challenge Act, which tied access to U.S. aid to meeting a standard of good governance that included ending corruption -- "a key factor in the existence of slavery today," Burkhalter said.

"The most difficult and significant work for this Congress is to insist on the execution of existing law that we have in our hands today that speaks directly to the enduring, contemporary crime of human trafficking and slavery," said Burkhalter. "If supported and enforced, these statutes could contribute substantially toward the abolition of these crimes in our lifetime."

Subcommittee Chairman Dick Durbin noted that there are now 117 signatories to the U.N. Protocol To Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, and many of these countries have passed tough anti-trafficking laws in the past few years, including the United States.

"If there is any silver lining to this tragic problem, it is that the world has now opened its eyes," he said. The full text of Durbin's remarks and testimony by Becker, Kaufka, Vandenberg and Burkhalter can be found on the subcommittee Web site.

(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov )

Adapted from: "Victim-Centered Approach Is Key To Fighting Human Trafficking." Media-NewsWire. 26 March 2007.

Sex Slavery Evident in the UK

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 18:45:00 GMT

There is evidence of thousands of children working in the sex trade in the UK.

Young women tricked into coming to England, often by boyfriends, are being sold off in auctions at airport coffee shops as soon as they arrive.

They are among the thousands of women brought into the UK to be sex slaves, usually with no idea of their fate. The trade was one of the findings of a BBC News website investigation into slavery in 21st Century England. As the UK marks 200 years since the Parliamentary Act to abolish the slave trade, slavery goes on in another form. The slave trade, outlawed by legislation introduced in March 1807, saw people from Africa transported en masse to the Americas by the UK and other European countries.

Women Rescued
Modern day victims of slavery are often young women from eastern Europe, thinking they are coming to England to work as cleaners or au pairs, only to be forced into prostitution.

The Home Office estimated in 2003 that 4,000 women were trafficked into the UK for sexual exploitation. It is thought the figure may have grown since. Police forces from Cornwall to Northumbria have found themselves having to rescue women and prosecute the traffickers who brought them to England to work as sex slaves.

And as well as foreign citizens coming to the UK, charity workers in Manchester told the BBC they believed British women working in massage parlours had been sold abroad, because they owed the owners money. Child protection organisations and human rights groups also believe there are thousands of child sex slaves in the UK.

The UK Human Trafficking Centre was opened last year to co-ordinate the law-enforcement approach to the problem. A spokesman told the BBC women were sometimes sold off in auctions in airport coffee shops and restaurants as they arrived in the country.

And he said there were also many cases of English women, from backgrounds of poverty, being sold from town to town to work as prostitutes. But it is now believed that as many as 85% of women working in brothels in the UK have come from overseas - in the mid-1990s, an estimated 85% were UK citizens.

Operation Pentameter, a Home Office initiative aimed at rescuing sex workers held against their will carried out between January and July 2006, saw 84 trafficked women rescued, including 12 aged 14 to 17. Some 230 arrests were made and more than £250,000 in cash was seized - but officers were only able to visit about 10% of the estimated number of sex establishments in the country.

'Horrific brutality'
The Poppy Project, a London-based scheme which provides accommodation and support for the women, has had 581 victims referred to it since its launch in 2003. Its own research in 2004 found evidence of "off street" prostitution in every one of London's 33 boroughs, again with the overwhelming majority of workers in brothels, saunas and massage parlours being non-British nationals.

The Helen Bamber Foundation, set up to help victims of torture and other human rights violations, said women being forced into sex slavery in England were experiencing "horrific brutality", with physical violence and the psychological trauma of being forced into sex.

Many women rescued from the sex trade have said they were sold, or strongly encouraged into heading for the UK, by boyfriends or family members. Many think they are coming to work in jobs such as cleaning or ice cream selling.

Jiera, a 19-year-old from Lithuania who was helped by the Poppy Project, thought she was coming to London on holiday with friends, only to find they were people traffickers who sold her into prostitution. She said: "When I was with clients I tried to pretend I was doing something else, but I couldn't. It made me so angry that I was often violent towards the clients.

Many police forces - and not only in major metropolitan areas - have set up specific teams to deal with the problem. It is estimated 85% of UK brothel workers are from overseas

Sussex Police appointed a detective to lead investigations into sexual exploitation in November. They said they had responded to information concerning potentially exploited women working in brothels in the county almost every week since.

The government prioritised human trafficking during the UK's presidency of the EU in 2005. In the next few weeks it is to lay out a strategy to counter the problem. A Home Office spokesman said: "Human trafficking is a particularly horrible crime, based on deceit, exploitation and very often brutality.

"It is a crime that has a devastating effect on the lives of individuals, and contributes to the overall harm caused to the country by organised crime. "It is important for all countries, including the UK, to do whatever is necessary to develop effective enforcement, prevention and victim support systems, both internationally and domestically."

Adapted from: "Sex Slavery Widespread in England." BBC. 19 March 2007.

Texas Considers Anti-Trafficking Bill

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 18:57:00 GMT

Six new bills being proposed by state senators will make it easier for local and state law enforcement agencies to combat human trafficking.

According to State Senators, one out of every five people forced into slave or sex labor travel right down through Interstate 10 in Texas.

Paul Pinon, coordinator of the Human Trafficking Task Force for the El Paso Police Department, tells ABC-7, "Generally speaking, people here in the United States think the Emancipation Proclamation at the end of the Civil War eliminated slavery. Unfortunately, slavery still exists in the form of human trafficking."

Senator Leticia Van de Putte from San Antonio claims 25% of all human trafficking cases begin in Texas. The new bills will help local officials prosecute these types of cases. "It is not going to be the federal guys who uncover a victim of this billion-dollar industry it is going to be your local law enforcement agents," she stated.

El Paso District Attorney Jaime Esparza tells ABC-7 his office does not process any human trafficking cases because of inefficiencies in 2003 anti-trafficking law. Esparza believes the 2003 law is not realistic and has failed to accomplish its main goals. "As a result, we do not get any human trafficking cases presented to us by local law enforcement agencies, they send the cases to the Federal Government," he stated.

The 6 new bills being presented aim to strengthen the 2003 law so area District Attorney Offices will be able to prosecute human trafficking cases. It will also provide additional resources, such as grant money, that will allow the District Attorney Offices to hire people with experience in this field.

Another important issue Senator Van de Putte and District Attorney Esparza point out is that human trafficking should not be equated with illegal immigration. Although the majority of people forced into the sex trade are immigrants, others are homeless or runaway American children.

In the next two weeks, the state legislature will have several hearings to consider the bills.

Adapted from: "Proposed bills will help DA prosecute human trafficking cases." 29 March 2007.

Ohio Considers a Law on Human Trafficking

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 18:57:00 GMT

Some state legislators believe that coerced sex slavery could exist in Ohio because the state lacks a law specifically targeting human trafficking, even though federal law prohibits it, so they're working to fill in the gap.

"Human trafficking is far more serious than kidnapping,'' said Rep. Kathleen Chandler, D-Kent, who introduced a House bill targeting the issue. "It's modern-day slavery.''

There have been instances in Ohio:
Nearly four years ago, a Cleveland teenage girl was abducted at gunpoint downtown and driven to Detroit, where she was kept with other girls who were being forced to have sex with men in exchange for food and money.

Last year, federal authorities broke up a prostitution ring in Toledo that abused girls and young women smuggled into the United States. Near Cleveland in March, a police traffic stop found a driver and passengers, including a terrified 23-year-old woman, in a car that came from Mexico. The woman, disoriented and pregnant, told rape counselors through an interpreter that instead of finding her family, she was forced into prostitution.

Federal law prohibits human trafficking, and the U.S. Department of Justice has urged each state to make its own statute. Twenty-seven states have. Chandler's bill would require training for police to identify human trafficking.

A Senate proposal, sponsored by Sen. David Goodman, R-Columbus, has similar provisions. Both versions would make human trafficking a first-degree felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

The Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association opposes both bills, saying they could clash with existing laws that often are used to prosecute prostitution. State Rep. Louis Blessing, R-Cincinnati, who chairs the Judiciary Committee that would hear the House bill, agrees with the prosecutors group.

But Kathleen Davis, an advocate for a state law, said the existing statutes can cover only certain aspects of the crime, such as rape and assault. "But the biggest problem is we don't have a definition of human trafficking, and the pimps are smart. They know the law,'' she said.

Adapted from: "Legislators take on human trafficking." Associated Press. 31 March 2007.

South Carolina, USA Addresses Human Trafficking

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 19:00:00 GMT

US Attorney Reggie Lloyd plans an increased push against human trafficking after authorities broke up a prostitution ring ran by three illegal immigrants in South Carolina.

In the past, South Carolina authorities would simply deport women in the county illegally if they were arrested for prostitution and charge the people running the ring with immigration offenses, such as falsifying documents, Lloyd said.

But that has changed, especially after the arrests last week of two men accused of smuggling a 14-year-old girl from Mexico into the U.S. and forcing her into prostitution, Lloyd said. A third man is being sought in the case.

"We don't look at them anymore as an illegal alien; we really are looking at them now as victims," Lloyd said. "Regardless of them being here illegally, they are being exploited." Lloyd said human trafficking in the state is bigger than anyone recognized.

"There is a great deal of this going on in this state," Lloyd said. "As we get better, I think you will see more of these cases brought." The human trafficking trade can be as sophisticated and lucrative as the drug trafficking business.

The people selling the women must smuggle them into the United States, help them live and take them from place to place to work as well as round up customers, Lloyd said. It can also mean big profits. In a 2005 case in Myrtle Beach, Jose Hernandez-Becerra, who was in charge of a brothel, told authorities he made $700 in one night from one prostitute, according to court documents obtained by The (Columbia) State.

That incident also shows how these cases used to be handled. One woman busted for prostitution was an illegal immigrant from Mexico. After being promised a better job in Myrtle Beach, she said she was forced to have sex for money or the leaders of the ring would kill her.

After her arrest, she spent three months in prison. Nowhere in the sworn statement leading to her arrest mentioned her forced prostitution, assistant U.S. attorney William Day said. The leaders of the prostitution ring, Martin Carbajal-Servin and Estella Aguilar-Ortiz, a husband and wife who were here illegally, pleaded guilty to enticing women into prostitution. Carbajal-Servin got two years in prison; Aguilar-Ortiz was sentenced to 11 months.

Lloyd started a human trafficking task force for South Carolina a few months after he took office in February 2006 that includes the FBI and Gov. Mark Sanford's office. "We should have been doing this a long time ago," Lloyd said. "It is a moral outrage that we haven't done anything prior to this."

South Carolina is also one of less than 10 states that have passed a law banning human trafficking. "This activity is human slavery," said Rep. Catherine Ceips, R-Beaufort, who sponsored the bill. "I hope this law will help prosecute those men to the fullest extent that they can be prosecuted."

Adapted from: "U.S. attorney plans increased push against human trafficking." Wilmington Star. 1 April 2007.

UN Fund to Combat Human Trafficking

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 19:03:00 GMT

The United Nations proposed a new global fund to fight international human trafficking and forced labor, a problem that it said had grown to epidemic proportions and was rarely effectively prosecuted by governments.

"Slavery is a booming international trade that involves several million people a year being trafficked in bondage," said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UN Office of Drug and Crime, who announced the new initiative on trafficking in London.

"There is finally a growing awareness of a huge problem in terms of size, money and the human costs in terms of suffering," Costa added. The UN estimates that 2.5 million people are trafficked and enslaved, although the crime is frequently unreported and many estimates are far higher. The International Labor Organization estimates that there are 12.3 million people across the globe in forced work. The U.S. government say that up to 800,000 people are shipped like commodities across international borders to serve as cheap labor.

About 50 percent of people smuggled and sold into forced work are minors and 80 percent are women and girls, according to a 2006 State Department study. Most end up working in the sex trade. In China, for example, they are often lured from poor villages with promises of factory jobs in coastal boomtowns, only to discover themselves destitute and sold into prostitution. During the World Cup in Germany last summer, international women's groups estimated that thousands of trafficked women were brought into the country, where prostitution is legal, although German investigators denied the validity of such numbers.

But there are increasing reports of men being trafficked for labor as well. Last summer, Italian police in the southern region of Puglia freed nearly 100 Polish workers who said they were working as virtual slaves, picking tomatoes.

The trade in humans is now a market worth $30 billion to $40 billion, often with links to organized crime, Costa said. The rapid rise in trafficking is largely a result of globalization, experts say. Better communications makes it easier to lure poor people with unrealistic promises. Open borders in Europe make it easier to send them to wealthier countries, as they are often transported claiming to be students or people with legitimate work.

The German authorities place the number of victims trafficked into that country at between 2,000 and 20,000 each year, but in 2004 only 972 victims were registered.

Adapted from: Elisabeth Rosenthal. "UN Fund to Combat Human Trafficking." International Herald Tribune. 26 March 2007.

Gambia to Host Summit on Human Trafficking

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 19:06:00 GMT

The Gambia in collaboration with the African Tourism and Development Organisation and Sub-sahara Inter Agency Network Against Human Trafficking, Sexual exploitation in Tourism, and Illegal Migration will host its first annual training summit from the 12-14 April, 2007, at Sun Beach Hotel, Bakau.

The summit is expected to address ways to tackle the root causes of trafficking as a development issue, especially those affecting women, boys and girls.

Speaking to Daily Observer, Modou Demba, a member of the co-ordinating committee said the event is in support of African Tourism and Development Organisation, which is a five year pilot project. He said the project started last year in partnership with the Swedish ministry of Foreign Affairs.

According to him, the summit will be used to address issues confronting human trafficking and illegal migration. He said “the objective through effective partnership programmes with stakeholders is to prevent and reduce the demand for trafficking and as well protecting human rights”.

Mr Demba added that His Excellency Anders Oljelum, the newly appointed ambassador and international co-ordinator against trafficking in humans for the Department of Development at the Swedish ministry of Foreign Affairs, is invited as a special guest of honour to lunch the summit.

According to him, the inaugural event will featured ATO’s president, His Excellency Lassana Kuyateh, the newly appointed Prime Minister of Guinea and His Excellency Dodou Bammy Jagne, Ambassador of The Gambia, to the United States, who will chair the training summit.

Mr Demba further revealed that sixteen resource agencies including the European Union Office of Human Trafficking and Development, and Office on Drugs and Crime, Geneva, destination countries, Spain, BBC world service, ATO Sub-saharan Agency Net-work, Gender and Development as well as The Gambia Police Force amongst others are expected to the take part in the summit.

As part of activities marking the summit, the youth awareness cycling campaign against trafficking in humans and illegal migration will be followed on the 14th April 2007.

Adapted from: Hatab Fadera. "Gambia to host summit on human trafficking." Observer.1 April 2007.

Rising Incidences of Child Trafficking in China

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 19:09:00 GMT

But Kate Wedgwood, Save the Children's country director for China and North Korea, said that there were no reliable figures for the number of children being trafficked and that the continuing migration from farms to cities is sure to make the problem worse.

"We already know the risks [of child trafficking] are exacerbated by migration, so I think the likelihood is that it will increase," she said. In recent years, an estimated 150 million to 200 million people have moved from the Chinese countryside to urban areas, where their labor at factories and construction sites has fueled breakneck economic growth.

Several hundred million more are expected to leave China's vast rural hinterland in the next 15 to 20 years. Wedgwood said poor rural children from ethnic communities are the most at risk because they have limited command of Mandarin Chinese and often do not know their rights.

Children who are disabled or have HIV/AIDS also face increased risk of being trafficked and are sometimes forced into panhandling, Wedgwood said. She estimated that tens of thousands of boys from Xinjiang have been bought or kidnapped by gangs, who force them into pickpocketing and other nonviolent crime in China's eastern cities.

Ethnic minority girls from Yunnan Province and the Guangxi region in the south risk being forced into the sex trade in China and nearby Southeast Asian countries like Thailand and Malaysia, Wedgwood said. Children left behind in villages are vulnerable because they are often looked after by grandparents -- who often need care themselves -- or by institutions that lose track of the children.

However, those who migrate with their parents are also in danger because they are thrust into unfamiliar surroundings with limited social services, and their parents are often busy working. Wedgwood wants China to redefine child trafficking to include victims up to 18 years of age and children forced into work to pay off family debts.

China currently defines child trafficking victims as children up to age 14 old who are sold or kidnapped.

Save the Children is based in the UK.

Adapted from: "Human rights group points to rising incidence of child trafficking in China." Taipei Times. 5 April 2007.

UN Taps African Religious Leaders in Fight Against Human Trafficking

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 19:13:00 GMT

The United Nations is seeking to enlist religious groups in Africa in the war against human trafficking.

The head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime announced the initiative during a visit to South Africa.

The head of the U.N. office on drugs and crime, Antonio Maria Costa, says faith-based groups have a major role to play at various levels of human trafficking. "Religious-based organizations can play a very active role in increasing awareness, in making sure that individuals who offer themselves and eventually become victims of trafficking are alerted about the severity of the tragedy they may face," he said.

He said faith-based groups also have the power to pressure governments to strengthen efforts against human trafficking and enforce the laws against it. Finally, he said religious groups can help persuade those who engage in human trafficking or exploit its victims that they are involved in what he called an evil trade.

He called the meeting positive and noted that religion can be a powerful motivator against evil in human beings. "We may organize a very major inter-faith forum so we can launch a very strong message about the severity of the problem and the importance of religious leaders and religious-based organizations to do something about it," he added.

The archbishop of Capetown is seeking to organize a gathering of religious leaders from around the world in anticipation of an international conference in Austria later this year. The conference is to produce a plan of action and a special fund to fight human trafficking. The United Nations says millions of people in more than 120 countries are victims of human trafficking and their bondage produces an estimated $32 billion per year for their exploiters.

During his visit, Maria Costa also discussed with South African officials ways to strengthen the fight against illegal drug trafficking and consumption. He said these have increased in Africa in recent years, in part, because of successful campaigns against them in wealthier nations.

Adapted from: Scott Bobb. "UN Taps African Religious Leaders in Fight Against Human Trafficking." Voice of America. 5 April 2007.

Trafficking Prevention Awareness Printed on Playing Cards in China

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 10:37:00 GMT

Hunan Province’s All China Women’s Federation and other departments held a large-scale “Spring Rain Activity” at Changsha Railway Station Plaza, during which information on trafficking prevention and safeguarding human rights was disseminated.

The province’s Deputy of the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress, Zhou Shichang also participated in the activity, he gave free advice to the crowd who attended and provided fancy playing cards.

“Identity cards and other documents should not be voluntarily given to other people, it is necessary to give a photocopy” ”it is better if workers coming from another place travel in the company of somebody else”……looking at the playing cards one can see a safety notice for women who have come to the cities for work straight away, Zhang Yanfang from Yiyang, Anhua smiled as she said this.

Now is the peak period for workers to migrate to Hunan’s cities. According to statistics from Hunan’s Labour and Social Security Department, in 2006 in Hunan a total of 1,003,023 workers went to work in the cities, females accounted for more than 40% of the total.

“In these big armies of workers there are some girls and young women who due to the way they have haphazardly migrated are trafficked and fall into exploitative, forced labour and slave like working conditions, their human rights as well as their labour rights are seriously violated.” The person in charge of the province’s All China Women’s Federation’s work on this matter said, in recent years the number of cases of trafficking women for marriage has decreased, yet the number of cases of workers being trafficked into the sexual services industry or exploitative labour has increased.

Adapted from: "Traffic Prevention Awareness Printed on Playing Cards." Xiaoxiang Morning Post. 3 March 2007.

Slavery Thrives in Australia 200 Years After Abolition

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 10:18:00 GMT

On Sunday, 25 March, communities across the globe celebrated Freedom Day, the 200th Anniversary of the Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade Act.

Freedom Day marks anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce's 20-year struggle to end the legalised buying and selling of human beings in Britain when it was a mainstay of many western economies. And yet, today, there are more people being trafficked and enslaved than were ever traded during the entire 350 years of the legalised slavery; an estimated 27 million people worldwide in forced labor, debt-bondage and servitude. Estimates of human trafficking, the recruitment and transportation of people for the purpose of exploitation and slavery, vary from 600,000 - 2 million traded around the globe annually. Anywhere from $9 - $30 billion is being made each year by criminals through deception, coercion and violence who force victims to work for little or no pay across a spectrum of industries. The United Nations has characterised human trafficking as the third most lucrative trans-national crime after drugs and arms smuggling.

“Australia is not immune to the problems of trafficking and slavery,” says Jennifer Burn, Director of the Anti-Slavery Project and Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the University of Technology Sydney. “Freedom Day provides an opportunity to seriously reflect on the human cost of slavery and how effectively we have responded to the plight of victims of in our country.”

While estimates of the numbers of people trafficked and enslaved in Australia remain unclear, the Government has been engaged in international dialogue and began developing a domestic response in the late 1990s to trafficking and slavery primarily in the sex industry. In December 2002, the Government signed the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking Persons and ratified the Protocol in September of 2005. In 1999 and 2005, the Australian Government updated the Australian Criminal Code to include new criminal offences that address the trafficking and enslavement of people.

In 2004, the Government released its National Action Plan to Eradicate Trafficking in Persons and allocated AU$20 million for its implementation. The majority of funds were expended on programs in Southeast Asia aimed at prevention and to establish a 23-member specialist Australian Federal Police Trans-national Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking Team (TSETT) to focus on investigating and prosecuting trafficking and slavery crimes. A small amount of funding was allocated to support services for victims in Australia. It is time now to evaluate the success of the Action Plan by reviewing the numbers of victims identified nationwide, the operation of the witness protection visa scheme and the prosecution process.

“The Australian Government's commitment to combating trafficking and slavery is commendable,” says Jennifer Burn. “However, its approach and strategies, thus far, have failed to achieve substantive results in the areas of protection for victims, prosecution of traffickers/ slaveholders and in prevention. We urge the Government to consider recommendations to improve responses to human trafficking and strengthen the commitment to victims of trafficking and slavery.

The Anti-Slavery Project (ASP) was established in 2005 within the Faculty of Law at the University of Technology Sydney. ASP is at the forefront of promoting a human rights response to human trafficking and slavery in Australia through law reform and policy advocacy, research, community education, training, collaboration with government and non-government agencies and victim assistance. ASP’s work is directly informed by the experiences of victims who receive legal services and advocacy, supportive counselling and other case management services from its volunteer staff and Sydney Community Response Network to Assist Victims of Trafficking and Slavery.

Trafficked and enslaved persons are men, women and children working in a variety of sectors: sex work, agriculture, construction, domestic work, restaurants, health care and other industries. Most often they are from vulnerable communities where opportunities for work or education are lacking and they are deceived into accepting offers of good jobs in another place. Upon arrival at the destination, the nature and conditions of what they were promised disappear, passports are taken and threats (often against family members at home) or actual violence are used to make them comply with the trafficker/employers’ wishes. Many are also placed into a system of spiralling debt for the cost of their transportation.

Below are just some of the recommendations the Anti-Slavery Project has identified for improving the current response:

Implement a coordinated human rights approach to combat trafficking and slavery.
The Australian government has pursued a migration and law enforcement approach to address trafficking and slavery focused on criminal justice and immigration control rather than a holistic human rights and social justice approach (best practice). The National Action Plan should be re-evaluated and new strategies developed in conjunction with human rights organisations.
Reform the current visa regime to protect ALL victims of trafficking and slavery.
A victim-centered visa regime will prevent the re-trafficking and re-enslavement of victims regardless of their cooperation with authorities.
Provide resources to investigate and prosecute ALL cases of trafficking and slavery.
Trafficking and slavery remain lucrative businesses for perpetrators in sectors such as construction, hospitality, health care, manufacturing, etc.
Adequately resource and implement a victim support program that effectively meets the needs of survivors of trafficking and slavery by providing comprehensive and culturally appropriate services. The current victim service program provides a certain level of services to victims of trafficking who are participating in law enforcement processes. However it is our experience that the level of support is variable and can be inadequate to meet the needs of victims leaving them vulnerable to violence, exploitation and endangerment of their ability to cooperate with law enforcement.
Resource and engage communities to combating trafficking and slavery.
Community agencies are well-positioned to identify victims of trafficking and slavery, facilitate contact with the authorities and provide support to victims.
Fund research into the full spectrum of the patterns and practices of human trafficking and slavery across ALL labour sectors in Australia
Estimates of the numbers of victims of trafficking and slavery in Australia have varied from 100 to 1,000 victims. The main focus of law enforcement has been to investigate and prosecute crimes related to sexual servitude. Anecdotal evidence combined with reported cases suggests that trafficking and slavery takes place in many areas of activity such as in hospitality, construction, and domestic servitude

For a more detailed outline of recommendations, go to the Anti-Slavery Project website at www.antislavery.org.au and view an evaluation of the trafficking visa framework (Burn & Simmons), the Australian NGO Shadow Report on Trafficking in Women and Joint Statement from Australian Cambodian and Thai NGOs submitted to the 34th Session of the Committee for the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

ANTI-SLAVERY PROJECT
University of Technology Sydney FACULTY OF LAW
PO BOX 123 BROADWAY NSW 2007
www.antislavery.org.au

For more information:
JENNIFER BURN, Director
02 9514 9662 office
0431 974 523 mobile

Join the International Coalition for Responsible and Respectful Tourism

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 18:22:00 GMT

International Coalition for Responsible and Respectful Tourism,
Say No to Child Sex Tourism, Crime Without Borders.

Organizers:

Accueil Prevention Soutien aux Enfants Cambodgiens et Chinois (APSEC)
www.apsec-asso.com
Paris.TV Productions
Association Internationale pour le Developpement, le Tourisme et la Sante (AIDeTouS)
Echoway

The birth of the International Coalition for Responsible and Respectful Tourism:
With 842 millions arrivals and a 4,5% growth rate, 2006 was another year of record for international tourism. 1 billion tourists are expected in 2010 and 1,6 billion in 2020 . This phenomenon opens new places of freedom and exchange and can foster development and alleviate poverty in many countries. However, new liberties and new profits generate and reinforce selfish behaviors and predatory instincts that can damage the environment and give birth to new types of exploitation such as child sex tourism.

The fight against child sex tourism: a priority at the root of the international coalition
The International Coalition "for Responsible and Respectful Tourism, Say no to Child Sex Tourism, Crime without borders" has its roots in the humanitarian experience of Frédéric Leroy who personally saw the devastation caused by child sex tourism in Cambodia while he was on the field. That is the reason why he created the NGO APSEC (Accueil Prévention Soutien aux Enfants Cambodgiens et Chinois) to help the numerous victims of this practice. Child sex exploitation is a universal and alarming issue which is unfortunately on the rise. Sex tourism is now the third illegal trade at the international level and UNICEF estimates that almost 3 millions of children are victims of this plague.

To read more about the Coalition, access the document below.

To join the Coalition, complete the form below and send back to worldday@hotmail.fr

For more information, contact:
Mr. Frederic LEROY
General Manager
International Coalition
worldday@hotmail.fr

New UN Book Aims to Help Vietnam Fight Human Trafficking

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 06:53:00 GMT

A new book on fighting human trafficking will help Vietnamese authorities combat [trafficking and] people smuggling.

Launched in Ha Noi, the book was in part produced by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

The Office’s representative, Narumi Yamada, said the publication would be especially useful in assisting Vietnam’s implementation of the UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime and its supplementing protocols on human trafficking and smuggling migrants.

Deputy Minister of Public Security Le The Tiem and Deputy Minister of Justice Hoang The Lien congratulated the book’s writers, stressing the importance and usefulness of the in-depth legal assessment, practical guidelines and training materials in the publication.

The book launching ceremony was preceded by a workshop on fighting human trafficking held for members of the Police Academy, Border Army Academy, Prosecution College and Court Training School.

Workshop participants discussed issues relating to both domestic and international human trafficking. The new book and workshop details new law enforcement approaches to investigating and prosecuting human traffickers, and explores topics such as trafficking methodology, investigation principles, victims as witnesses and international police co-operation.

The workshop’s course materials, available both in English and Vietnamese, have been developed by senior experts from relevant ministries in Viet Nam with UNODC assistance, and include case studies, role plays, practical exercises, and legal assessments.

Adapted from: "New UN book aims to help nation fight human trafficking." vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn. 29 March 2007.

Thai Agencies in Southern Thailand Cooperate to Combat Human Trafficking

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 06:56:00 GMT

Representatives from government offices and related organizations from the six Andaman Coastal provinces of Phuket, Phang-Nga, Krabi, Ranong, Trang and Satun attended a meeting to learn about a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and how to work together on the human trafficking issues for the region.

The memo & code of conduct was prepared by the Ministry of Social Development and Welfare’s Bureau of Welfare Protection and Protection of Children, Youth and Disabled aiming at properly tackling the problem as well as to be a mechanism for human trafficking preventive measures. They also discussed concerns and suggestions for the best efficiency in combating the issues.

Adapted from: "Related agencies are informed about preventive measures on human trafficking in the Andaman." thaisnews.com. 30 March 2007. (Source: UNIAP Thailand)

Group Works to Rescue Burmese Victims of Human Trafficking in China

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 07:59:00 GMT

An ethnic Kachin women’s group says it is seeking to rescue numerous women it believes are victims of human trafficking who left to work in China and whose whereabouts are now unknown.

Ja Awng, a member of the Kachin Women’s Association based on the China-Burma border, said the KWA will attempt to find and rescue the alleged victims through the assistance of the Kachin Independence Organization, a border-based ethnic ceasefire group, and Chinese authorities.

According to Ja Awng, 26-year-old Maran Hkawn, and 37-year-old Ma Lum, who both lived in the village of Mung Baw, Namdu Township, northern Shan State, were lured by a job offer from a Chinese national to work in a restaurant somewhere near the border and left for China in June 2006. Since then the two have disappeared and neither of their families know their whereabouts.

Another 23-year-old Kachin woman, Mun Ja of Kutkhai Township, who worked at a Chinese restaurant in a village near Rulli in Yunnan Province, disappeared in early January this year along with the owners of the restaurant. Vendors reportedly said the owner had taken the woman to another location in China.

Ja Awng said many human trafficking cases take place on the China-Burma border. She said the KWA rescued two victims last year. The KWA and the KIO gave 8,000 yuan (US $1,032) to Chinese police to rescue a 3-year-old Burmese girl from a Chinese house in a village near Rulli, she said.

The New Light of Myanmar, a Burmese state-run newspaper, reported on February 20 a Burmese court sentenced a 33-year-old man to life imprisonment for human trafficking. The newspaper said a joint China-Burma investigation had uncovered a 64-member human trafficking ring that had allegedly enticed 49 women with offers of jobs in China and then forced them to marry Chinese men.

In early 2005, the Chiang Mai-based Kachin Women’s Association of Thailand, released a report that listed 63 cases of trafficking from 2000 to 2004 involving 85 victims from Kachin State and Shan State. The report said women as young as fourteen were taken to border towns, into Yunnan Province and as far as Eastern China, where they were forced to marry Chinese men or work in the sex industry.

Adapted from: "Group Works to Rescue Victims of Human Trafficking." irrawaddy.org. 2 March 2007.

Human Trafficking Rate in Indonesia Still High

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 08:02:00 GMT

The commitment of the Indonesian government in handling human trafficking is still considered to be low.

This can be seen from the amount of human trafficking victims that keep increasing every year.

As a result, Indonesia is threatened to be listed in Tier 3 by the US Department of State as a country that fails to handle human trafficking. The US Department of State, which focuses on human trafficking, rates a country as Tier 1 if it is considered as being capable of fighting trafficking.

The Tier 2 rating is given to a country that is committed to eradicate trafficking, while the Tier 2 Watch List is for countries with low commitment, and Tier 3 is for a country having a really poor commitment to handling trafficking.

The worst rankings have been given to Saudi Arabia, Iran, Laos, South Korea and Uzbekistan. According to Wahyu Susilo, Policy Analyst of Migrant Care, there were no improvements that Indonesia achieved during the last two years in wiping out human trafficking.

Therefore, in June last year, the US Department of State re-rated Indonesia to Tier 2 Watch List, although in 2004, Indonesia had been rated Tier 2. If the government cannot uphold the law, Wahyu said he was concerned that Indonesia's rate could degrade to Tier 3.

In addition, criminal laws and regulations on migrant workers were still weak so that they have mostly made matters worse for human trafficking victims. “Therefore, the House of Representatives must soon legalize the Law on Human Trafficking,” he said.

Sumarni Dawam Rahardjo, Deputy of Child Protection at the Department of Women’s Empowerment, denied that Indonesia was said as threatened to be rated Tier 3. “We have tried and showed our commitments,” she said.

Adapted from: Ninin Damayanti. "Human Trafficking Rate in Indonesia Still High." TEMPO Interactive. 15 January 2007.

Servile Marriage Puts Women at Risk

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 08:19:00 GMT

It was one thing when Lina Maria Carmona's would-be new husband told her she would have to get a job within days of unpacking her bags from Medellin, Colombia, and hand him her paycheck.

Then there was the time he grabbed her by the feet and dragged her down the stairs. And the way he made her have sex every day, once wanting to film them in the act. But when he grabbed her arms, sat her in front of the computer and ordered her to pick him a new wife from the same "Colombian Sweethearts" Web site he had found her months earlier, she couldn't sleep that night.

"I kept thinking anything could happen, like maybe he would suffocate me with a pillow," the 21-year-old said. The next morning, after the man who brought her to Las Vegas left for work, she walked out the door, seeking help from one of the few people she had met during her five weeks in the United States.

Two weeks later, wearing borrowed clothes and sporting a new hair color, she's on the run, with a daunting deadline closing in on her. Her "fiancee" visa expires in a month, she knows nothing of the complex, relatively new and largely untested federal law designed to protect victims of what's called human trafficking, and she has no money to make it back home.

Interviewing Carmona's would-be husband or the marriage agency in Colombia to obtain the other side of her story would increase the risk of putting her in danger. But experts say her story suggests that she may be a victim of "servile marriage," one of the least known forms of human trafficking.

Nearly half of the cases nationwide involve prostitution, capturing more attention to date, said Terri Miller, director of a federally funded office within Metro Police called the Anti-Trafficking League Against Slavery. The office is seeking to get a handle on trafficking in the Las Vegas Valley and coordinates with private and government agencies to deal with everything from offering victims temporary shelter to prosecuting trafficking rings.

Carmona's case, Miller said, "alerts us to another area that needs to be looked at." It's not difficult to understand how the young woman wound up where she did, even though she said she curses herself for being so naive.

Extended family raised her. She never met her father. Her mother was killed by a stray bullet during the Pablo Escobar days of the mid-1980s, when Medellin led the world in murders. She went to work after high school and rented an apartment with a friend, unusually independent in a country where sons and daughters often live at home until married.

After two years of working in sales for a supermarket chain, she earned about $225 a month, paid a third of that in rent and never saved a peso. Then a friend told her about "Colombian Sweethearts."

"I've never had anything," she said, crying as she recalled the day she first went to the agency. "Everybody always says life here is different, it's so wonderful. And my family is so important. I could help them with money from here."

She saw marrying someone from the U.S. as a way out.

Sheila Neville, who works with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles and is an expert on human trafficking, said mail-order brides are ripe for being abused. For many foreign women and their families, especially in the developing world, "marrying a white American is a huge step up," Neville said.

The Colombian women who work in the U.S.-owned agency wowed Carmona with a photo album "this big," she said, holding her hands apart the way fishermen do. She saw each photo as a potential husband. Soon she met her Las Vegas catch. Over about 10 months, they saw each other eight times in Colombia. They went bowling. They went dancing. They ate out. He spoke a little Spanish. She speaks no English. The agency-supplied interpreter gave her opinions of the guy, telling her what a great life she could have with him.

"I guess I was really stupid," she said. On May 27, there was a civil ceremony in Medellin. She wore a white dress. She signed papers. She thought they were married. The Colombian Sweethearts Web site has a photo of the two from that day, with a caption saying they were married. However, months later, those who helped her pointed out that her visa is for the fiancee, not the wife, of a U.S. citizen. It expires after 90 days, on April 18.

Neville said the confusion over her status - married versus engaged - may be a sign of fraud underpinning the relationship. Fraud and coercion are two indicators of trafficking, she said.

On Jan. 18, Carmona started her new life in Las Vegas. Unfortunately, it was hardly a smooth start to her new marriage or life in a new country. When she asked her "husband" for help buying clothes, he told her to get a job. He took her to a Subway sandwich shop, where she began work in a kitchen full of Spanish speakers. But he told her all the money she earned would go to him, so she left after five days.

Home life also darkened, as he daily called her stupid. The man she had hoped to launch a family with hid the television's remote control, so she couldn't watch programs in Spanish. One day she tried to get on his good side by tickling him, she said. They were standing by the top of the stairs of the two-story house. He responded by grabbing her ankles and dragging her down the steps.

Within days, she was gone. Now, she's in the limbo that trafficking victims often find when they escape. "She's completely isolated. She has nothing," Neville said.

David Thronson, an immigration lawyer and one of the founders of the immigration law clinic at UNLV, said the Las Vegas area suffers from a lack of agencies with experience about trafficking. His clinic has handled a half-dozen cases in recent years, only three of which have been completed, with the trafficking victims receiving U.S. residency and help starting a new life. Lauren Hermosillo, who works with Miller on the social services side of helping victims, said she has obtained emergency shelter for less than a dozen victims.

Not only are there few agencies offering help, but information also is lacking about the help available, Thronson said. Miller said nearly a third of her $370,000, three-year grant is targeted at getting the word out to victims through radio, billboards, posters and pamphlets.

Carmona knows nothing about all that. She said her aunt has been getting calls from the agency in Medellin and her "husband" in Las Vegas, bad-mouthing her and alleging that authorities are on her trail. She says she's scared of what "that man" might do to her and unsure of her options.

"After getting my hopes up so much, what am I supposed to do now?"

Adapted from: Timothy Pratt. "Servile marriage puts women at risk." Las Vegas Sun
Timothy Pratt can be reached at 259-8828 or at timothy@lasvegassun.com.

From Sex Workers to Restaurant Workers, the Global Slave Trade Is Growing

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 10:51:00 GMT

A thriving commerce in human beings is taking place behind the facade of most major cities and towns in the U.S. and worldwide. Activists are pushing back, but they need reinforcements.

Twenty-seven million slaves exist in our world today. Girls and boys, women and men of all ages are forced to toil in the rug loom sheds of Nepal, sell their bodies in the brothels of Rome, break rocks in the quarries of Pakistan, and fight wars in the jungles of Africa.

Go behind the façade in any major town or city in the world today and you are likely to find a thriving commerce in human beings. You may even find slavery in your own backyard. For several years my wife and I dined regularly at an Indian restaurant located near our home in the San Francisco Bay area. Unbeknownst to us, the staff at Pasand Madras Indian Cuisine who cooked our curries, delivered them to our table, and washed our dishes were slaves. Restaurant owner Lakireddy Reddy and several members of his family had used fake visas and false identities to traffic perhaps hundreds of adults and children into the United States from India. He forced the laborers to work long hours for minimal wages, money that they returned to him as rent to live in one of his apartments. Reddy threatened to turn them into the authorities as illegal aliens if they tried to escape.

The Reddy case is not an anomaly. As many as 800,000 are trafficked across international borders annually, and up to 17,500 new victims are trafficked across our borders each year, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. More than 30,000 additional slaves are trans-ported through the U.S. on their way to other international destinations. Attorneys from the U.S. Department of Justice have prosecuted 91 slave-trade cases in cities across the United States and in nearly every state of the nation.

Like the slaves who came to America's shores 200 years ago, today's slaves are not free to pursue their own destinies. They are coerced to perform work for the personal gain of those who subjugate them. If they try to escape the clutches of their masters, modern slaves risk personal violence or reprisals to their families.

President George W. Bush spoke of the global crisis of the slave trade before the United Nations General Assembly in September 2003. "Each year 800,000 to 900,000 human beings are bought, sold, or forced across the world's borders," he said. "The trade in human beings for any purpose must not be allowed to thrive in our time." Of those individuals extracted out of impoverished countries and trafficked across international borders, 80 percent are female and 50 percent are children, according to the U.S. Department of State's "2005 Trafficking in Persons Report."

The commerce in human beings today rivals drug trafficking and the illegal arms trade for the top criminal activity on the planet. The slave trade sits at number three on the list but is closing the gap. The FBI projects that the slave trade generates $9.5 billion in revenue each year, according to the U.S. Department of State's "2004 Trafficking in Persons Report." The International Labour Office, in the 2005 report "A Global Alliance Against Forced Labor," estimates that figure to be closer to a whopping $32 billion annually.

"Ten Million Children Exploited for Domestic Labor" -- this title for a 2004 U.N. study hardly needs explaining. The U.N.'s surveys found 700,000 children forced into domestic labor in Indonesia alone, with staggering numbers as well in Brazil (559,000), Pakistan (264,000), Haiti (250,000), and Kenya (200,000). The U.N. report indicates that children remain in servitude for long stretches of time because no one identifies their enslavement: "These youngsters are usually 'invisible' to their communities, toiling for long hours with little or no pay and regularly deprived of the chance to play or go to school." UNICEF estimates that 1 million children are forced today to sell their bodies to sexual exploiters. In a single country, Uganda, nearly 40,000 children have been kidnapped and violently turned into child soldiers or sex slaves.

We may not even realize how each one of us drives the demand during the course of a normal day. Kevin Bales, a pioneer in the fight against modern slavery, expresses well those commercial connections: "Slaves in Pakistan may have made the shoes you are wearing and the carpet you stand on. Slaves in the Caribbean may have put sugar in your kitchen and toys in the hands of your children. In India they may have sewn the shirt on your back and polished the ring on your finger."

Widespread poverty and social inequality ensure a pool of recruits as deep as the ocean. Parents in desperate straits may sell their children or at least be susceptible to scams that will allow the slave trader to take control over the lives of their sons and daughters. Young women in vulnerable communities are more likely to take a risk on a job offer in a faraway location. The poor are apt to accept a loan that the slave trader can later manipulate to steal their freedom. All of these paths carry unsuspecting recruits into the supply chains of slavery.

"The supply side of the equation is particularly bleak," says Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas. "While there are 100,000 places in the developed world for refugee resettlement per year, 50 million refugees and displaced persons exist worldwide today. This ready reservoir of the stateless presents an opportunity rife for exploitation by human traffickers."

During the era of the American plantation economy, the slaveholder considered slave ownership an investment. The supply of new recruits was limited. The cost of extracting and transporting the slave, and ensuring that they would be serviceable by the time they reached their destination, was considerable. In the modern slave trade, the glut of slaves and the capacity to move them great distances in a relatively short period of time drastically alters the economics of slave ownership. Kevin Bales' description of modern slaves as "disposable people" profoundly fits: Just like used batteries, once the slave exhausts his or her usefulness, another can be procured at no great expense.

Notwithstanding these emerging trends in global markets, traditional modes of slavery also persist. Bonded labor has existed for centuries and continues to be the most common form of slavery in the world today. In a typical scenario, an individual falls under the control of a wealthy patron after taking a small loan. The patron adds egregious rates of interest and inflated expenses to the original principal so that the laborer finds it impossible to repay. Debt slaves may spend their entire lives in service to a single slaveholder, and their "obligation" may be passed on to their children. Of the 27 million people worldwide held captive and exploited for profit today, the Free the Slaves organization estimates that at least 15 million are bonded slaves in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal.

In my journey to monitor the rise of modern global slavery, I had prepared myself to end up in the depths of depression. To be honest, I made some unpleasant stops there. But my journey did not end at despair. The prime reason: I met a heroic ensemble of abolitionists who simply refuse to relent. I felt like I had gone back in time and had the great privilege of sharing a meal with a Harriet Tubman or a William Wilberforce or a Frederick Douglass. Like the abolitionists of old, these modern heroes do not expend their energy handicapping the odds stacked against the antislavery movement. They simply refuse to accept a world where one individual can be held as the property of another.

Kru Nam is one of those abolitionists who operate on the front lines in the fight against sex slavery. She is a painter with a university degree in art who launched a project to reach street kids in Chiang Mai, the second largest town in northern Thailand. Once she turned the kids loose with paintbrushes, they created a series of disturbing images that added up to a horror story.

Kru Nam soon realized that most of the kids did not come from Thailand. Most came from Burma, with a sprinkling of Laotians, Vietnamese, and Cambodians tossed in the mix. The Burmese boys spoke of a well-dressed Thai gentleman who had visited their village in the south of Burma. Accompanying him was a 14-year-old Burmese boy who wore fine-tailored clothes and spoke Thai fluently. The man told parents that he was offering scholarships for young boys to attend school back in Thailand. "Look how well this child from your region is doing," he said, pointing to his young companion. "If you let me take your son back to Chiang Mai, I will do the same for him." Many families agreed to let their sons go with the Thai man. Once they reached Chiang Mai, the Thai man immediately sold them to owners of sex bars and brothels.

The boys living on the streets were the lucky ones; they had escaped. They told Kru Nam that many more boys remained captive. Her blood boiled. She could not stand by and do nothing. Kru Nam did not exactly have a plan when she marched into the sex bar for her first raid. Only her mission was clear: rescue as many of the young boys as she could find. One by one she approached a table where a boy sat and calmly said, "Let's go, I'm taking you out of here." Several moments later, she was leading six little boys out the door and to her safe house in Chiang Mai.

Kru Nam made several more impromptu raids. Eventually, owners put the word out that they would kill her if she walked into their bars. Deploying a fresh strategy, she organized street teams to scour the night market of Chiang Mai and connect with young children recently off the bus from the northern Thai-Burmese border. Recruiters for the sex bars also trolled the streets on the hunt for vulnerable kids. It became a life-and-death contest to find them first.

One day it struck Kru Nam that if she moved upstream before the kids hit Chiang Mai she would have an edge over the recruiters. So she moved about 40 miles north to the border town of Mae Sai, a major thoroughfare for foot traffic between Burma and Thailand. In Mae Sai she set up a shelter to take in kids on the run. Nearly 60 boys and girls today find safe refuge each night at Kru Nam's shelter. She has had to move her safe house several times. Neighbors on each occasion have forced her out; they do not want "these dirty kids" living on their block. So Kru Nam purchased a block of land some 15 miles outside of Mae Sai. She does not have the money she needs to buy a proper residence, so for the time being Kru Nam and the children will live on the land in temporary shelters.

Kru Nam is irrepressible. She does not have a large organization standing behind her -- a skeletal staff of three assists her and she receives modest funding from a tiny nongovernmental agency based in Thailand. What she does have is a burning passion to rescue young boys and girls so that they do not fall into the treacherous control of slaveholders. Her passage from a single act of kindness to fighting for justice on a grander scale is the quintessential story of the abolitionist.

The abolitionists working today are truly extraordinary, but they cannot win the fight alone. They are overwhelmed and beleaguered. The size and scope of Kru Nam's project is about the norm for abolitionist organizations. They sorely need reinforcements, a new wave of abolitionists, to join them in the struggle. All of us wonder how we would have acted in the epic struggles of human history. Imagine we lived in rural Tennessee in 1855 and Harriet Tubman came to our door, asking us to join the Underground Railroad. Would we have stood up and been counted among the just?

There are times to read history, and there are times to make history. We live right now at one of those epic moments in the fight for human freedom. We no longer have to wonder how we might respond to our moment of truth. Future generations will look back and judge our choices, and be inspired or disappointed.

This article was adapted from David Batsone's new book Not For Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade -- and How We Can Fight It (HarperSanFrancisco, © 2007) and was printed in ALTERNET.org: http://www.alternet.org/rights/48951/
15 March 2007.

Advocating a More "Complete" Approach to Combating Sex Trafficking

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 12:10:00 GMT

Liezl Tomas Rebugio, anti-trafficking project director for the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum (NAPAWF), said the new approach for dealing with trafficking of women should focus on human rights of women, and less on forced sex work.

Rebugio said 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year, with the majority being women. Rebugio spoke on behalf of NAPAWF, the only national, multi-issue Asian and Pacific Islander (API) women's organization in the United States. Rebugio spoke at the Voyageurs Room in Atwood Memorial Center, with about 35 people in attendance.

NAPAWF is concerned with taking a new approach in dealing with trafficking, because the current focus is on women being trafficked into doing sex work, Rebugio said. There is no other focus on issues like forced labor, Rebugio said. "The U.S. government doesn't use a complete approach," Rebugio said. The human rights approach is what NAPAWF emphasizes, Rebugio said. NAPAWF's goal is to build a movement to advance social justice and human rights for API women and girls, and to do so, there needs to be more recognition of other aspects of women trafficking, Rebugio said.

Rebugio added there are people being trafficked into the United States to work at garment shops and who are not receiving proper rights because they have been forced into that position. Rebugio said law enforcement can only do so much with this issue and, "a law of policy is only as good as it is implemented."

Rebugio said migration is being confused with trafficking and, "building a fence between the U.S. and Mexico does not stop trafficking." Rebugio said any person can contribute to changing the ways of anti-trafficking. They can support a legislator that does not require the survivor to participate in the investigation and prosecution of their trafficker in order to receive services and legal immigration status.

Society can break the silence in communities and help increase awareness of the issue, especially the API community, because they are at the greatest risk of being trafficked. Supporting community-based research projects to ensure the number of API women trafficked into the United States is needed because correct, factual evidence is needed to make a change, Rebugio said.

They can also identify other anti-trafficking polices in countries like Thailand and India and those policies can be replaced in the United States. Rebugio said this is important to everyone because most of the API efforts toward change are ignored, and change is not made until the larger community recognizes their efforts.

Adapted from: Kyle Nelson. "Group focuses on trafficking change " University Chronicle. 22 March 2007.

UK Steps Up Action on Human Trafficking

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 12:16:00 GMT

The UK government has committed itself to tackling human trafficking by publishing its action plan to end the sale of women and children for labour and prostitution.

As part of the drive, home secretary John Reid is signing the European convention on human trafficking. Human trafficking has been described as a modern form of slavery and the moves come as the bicentenary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade approaches.

The action plan includes measures to protect and detect victims, and increase awareness and knowledge of the crime. It will see specialist teams established at ports of entry, an advice line set up for child trafficking and a referral system to formally identify victims.

"Human trafficking is an appalling crime which causes terrible trauma to its victims," said Home Office minister Vernon Coaker. "The government have introduced comprehensive anti-trafficking laws resulting in a number of successful convictions, and have given the police the power to seize assets to prevent offenders profiting from their crimes."

There is currently one refuge for trafficking victims - the government funded Poppy Project. But Coaker said the action plan and move to sign the European convention "demonstrates the governments commitment to do more and help identify and protect the victims of this vile crime".

It is also "another step towards our other main aim to make the United Kingdom a hostile place for traffickers", he added. However, the Conservatives argued that the move was welcome but not sufficient.

"Signing up to the convention while welcome is insufficient alone," said shadow home secretary David Davis. "There are more practical measures that [John Reid] could and should adopt to combat this heinous crime - such as establishing a dedicated UK border police which would proactively detect and deter this evil practice."

Human rights charity Amnesty International commended the government for signing the convention. Campaigns director Tim Hancock said it was "a great step on the road to eradicating trafficking in Britain." "It should end the situation of victims being criminalised and facing possible immigration detention and deportation, instead of receiving the support they need," he added.

Adapted from: UK steps up action on human trafficking.

How to Tackle Human Trafficking in the UK

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 12:23:00 GMT

"Trafficked women are ordinary people who left home thinking they would be waitresses." Zarin Hainsworth wants the media to raise awareness.

"They are then groomed, suffering gang rape and violence, into someone who receives 20-odd clients a day at all-service establishments." Zarin Hainsworth knows what she is talking about, and has often argued her case at the UN and before the EU and UK governments.

The Stroud-based campaigner heads up the National Alliance of Women's Organisations, a lobbying organisation working to help draft legislation around women's rights - and putting pressure on governments to implement it. She played a part in getting definitions of trafficking incorporated into UK law and campaigns tirelessly for gender equality.

For Ms Hainsworth, trafficking is about dealing with supply and demand, and relates to the wider issue of society's tolerance of violence against women. "We need to cut the demand in the host countries and cut corruption, increase life chances and boost the economy in the countries of origin, she said.

In this analysis, Ms Hainsworth echoes Claudia Agresta of the International Organisation for Migration, which runs a voluntary return and re-integration programme for trafficked women. Her organisation has dealt with more than 10,000 victims.

Ms Agresta describes the typical trafficked woman as "18 to 23 with no secondary education, unemployed and living in reduced circumstances". "We need to address the root causes [of trafficking] in countries of origin - poverty, violence and demand," she said.

Many trafficking victims believe they can escape these pressures in the UK, only to find themselves sold as sex slaves. This comes as the UK marks the 200th anniversary of the Parliamentary Act to abolish the slave trade.

Residency permits
Some of these victims then find themselves deported back to their violent home lives in non-EU countries. "After deportation they go back to the same situation: the mafia have control of their families and they live with threats of violence," Ms Hainsworth said. "Returned women have been raped at police stations - we have anecdotal evidence for this."

She welcomed the government u-turn on providing asylum for trafficked victims to help them out of the vicious circle. It had refused to sign the Council of Europe's Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, which provides a more victim-centric approach through a 30-day reflection period during which trafficking victims cannot be deported, and residency permits.

The Home Office had argued that it had to take immigration law into account and that by signing the convention, people could "abuse" the fact that they had been a victim of trafficking. But in January, the Home Secretary backed down and the government is due to sign "in a matter of months".

For Ms Hainsworth, the humanitarian benefits are obvious and she said this will also boost the chances of successful prosecutions.

Human trafficking is a global problem
"Often these women only know the police back home as corrupt. We need to give the police the chance to get witnesses. "Of course, if one considers the trauma suffered by trafficked women it is doubtful whether a month is sufficient to overcome the trauma in order to make a judgement on what to do with the rest of one's life. However it is a significant move forward," she added.

She also wants more action on the demand for trafficked women working as prostitutes in the UK. "What does it say about our society that we are the main destination for trafficked women? "Customers sometime say they like a woman who can't speak English - so they can talk dirtier to her," she added.

Denise Marshall, from the Eaves charity which runs a project providing shelter for trafficked woman, said that since 2003, they had had 555 referrals and taken in 145 women. "180 woman were referred by police. But 11 were referred from punters - who had slept with the women before referring them."

Ms Hainsworth added: "We need a media campaign to affect this demand."

Adapted from: "How to tackle human trafficking." BBC. 19 March 2007.

Increasing Number of Bosnian Women Fall Victim to Trafficking

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 12:31:00 GMT

The number of victims of human trafficking on territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina has been falling over recent years, but the share of female citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina falling victim to this crime is on the rise, Bosnian state co-ordinator of efforts aimed at countering human trafficking said.

Samir Rizvo told a news conference in Sarajevo that last year, 60 persons were registered as victims of trafficking in human beings, and half of them were Bosnian women forced into prostitution. In 2005, there were 66 registered victims of human trafficking, and a third of them were local women and girls.

The fact that scopes of human trafficking in Bosnia have recently been smaller can be ascribed to comprehensive measures taken since the end of the war to combat growing prostitution involving women from east European countries.

The co-ordinator Rizvo believes that this phenomenon has been almost uprooted, but a new problem cropped up with criminals forcing local girls, often under-age girls into prostitution. In 2006, the youngest victim of this kind of crime in Bosnia-Herzegovina was a 13-year-old girl.

Mara Radovanovic, the chairwoman of the Lara nongovernmental organisation, commended the police for their active struggle against human trafficking and forced prostitution. She added that the police were well trained for this job. She, however, criticised the conduct of courts, claiming that decisions of Bosnian judicial authorities only stimulated criminals. Sentences for those found guilty of human trafficking in Bosnia vary in length from prison terms of one year to 15 years.

According to Radovanovic, judges more frequently resort to milder sentences. So far only once the sentence of 14 years has been delivered for this crime.

Adapted from: Increasing Number Of Bosnian Women Fall Victim To Trafficking. Hina News Line. 19 March 2007.

Nepalese Teenager Leads Campaign Against Child Trafficking

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 12:38:00 GMT

A Nepalese teenager, who slogged as a child labourer after being sold by his poverty-stricken parents, has now donned the mantle of a campaigner and is raising awareness against child trafficking in South Asian countries.

The boy was 10-years-old when his mother sold him for 1,000 rupees to an Indian broker. However, after undergoing arduous labour along with torture at the hands of his master, Abdul Mallik of Janakpur is now campaigning in the border areas of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and other South Asian countries to raise awareness against child trafficking.

Along with Mallik are around 100 other children, who were sold and made to undergo similar hardship at the hands of cruel masters in Nepal and India. The campaign is being supported by an NGO.

"There is no word to describe the master's cruelty," Mallik said recalling his painful days in a woolen clothes factory in Delhi. "There, I had to work over 18 hours a day, but the master always found excuses to torture me. Now we are on a campaign to raise awareness in the border areas of South Asian countries so as to prevent the illegal sale of children," he said.

The South Asian campaign against the sale of children began from Kolkata on February 25. They would carry out their campaign in all SAARC countries, said Kailash Satyarthi, the organizer of the campaign and chairman of the Save Childhood Movement.

"Our campaign also aims to rescue those already sold and to ask the authorities for taking action against those involved in such inhuman acts," he said.

Adapted from: "Nepalese teenager leads campaign against child trafficking." Zee News. 18 March 2007.

EU and ASEAN Join Hands to Fight Trafficking

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 12:42:00 GMT

Foreign ministers of the European Union and the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) agreed to back the launch of talks on a free trade agreement (FTA) between the two blocs. His Royal Highness Prince Mohamed Bolkiah, Brunei's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, attended the meeting.

In the "Nuremberg Declaration on an EU-ASEAN Enhanced Partnership", the two sides also pledged to cooperate closely on fighting terrorism, human trafficking and organised crime. In the document issued after two days of talks in the German city of Nuremberg, the two blocs committed to support talks on an FTA based on the platform of the World Trade Organisation. They also reaffirmed their commitment to the stalled Doha round of WTO negotiations.

The 27-member EU and the 10-member Asean said they would cooperate closely on combating terrorism, trafficking in human beings, drug trafficking, sea piracy, arms smuggling, money laundering, cyber crime and related transnational crime. On energy and climate change, the two sides agreed on the need for "stable, effective and transparent global energy markets" and pledged to promote energy security "through an EU-Asean policy dialogue on energy".

They also called for the swift implementation of the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions.

Without mentioning Myanmar's membership of Asean - a controversial point for the EU - the two blocs committed themselves to "promoting universal values of justice, democracy and human rights" in line with the UN Charter.

On the sidelines of the meeting, EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner called on Myanmar to improve its human rights record and to release Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest since 2003. The two blocs also committed themselves to cooperating on disarmament, arms control and nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

EU foreign policy head Javier Solana said he had been "positively impressed" by the contribution of Asean countries to the meeting. "We discussed the most important international issues... There was a sense of commonality of thinking, not only in trade and economics, but also in politics," he said.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who co-chaired the meeting with his Cambodian counterpart, Hor Namhong, said the meeting had discussed the Middle East, the Iraq conflict, Iran's nuclear programme, North Korea and other issues of international concern. The talks were the 16th since links were established between the two blocs 30 years ago. The meeting took place under the auspices of the German presidency of the EU. -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

Adapted from: "EU and Asean Join Hands To Fight Terror, Trafficking." March 2007.

Argentina Recruits Celebrities to Raise Awareness about Trafficking in Women

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 12:44:00 GMT

In order to rouse public indignation against trafficking in women for the purpose of sexual exploitation, popular Uruguayan actress and singer Natalia Oreiro, who lives in Argentina, launched a campaign in conjunction with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

"I heard testimonies that were dreadful, appalling. I was really quite ignorant about the magnitude of the problem," the actress said at the launch of the campaign, surrounded by photographers, officials, legislators, and representatives from the IOM and non-governmental organisations.

The campaign, "No to Human Trafficking, No to Modern-day Slavery", aims to call the Argentine public's attention to a criminal activity that affects 2.4 million people, most of them women, and rakes in some 32 billion dollars a year worldwide, according to the IOM.

Oreiro recorded a television spot and a video clip for her song "Esclava" (Slave Woman), to be broadcast on television and radio. "The idea is to show the video clip at public gatherings and fiestas in small towns where young women are taken in by fraudulent job offers, and end up being sexually exploited," the actress said.

There will also be other publicity spots with survivors' testimonies, and appeals to report these illegal practices by telephone. At the campaign launch, the IOM also presented an exploratory study on human trafficking for sexual exploitation in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, carried out in 2006.

According to IOM figures, there are a variety of forms of slave labour in the world, and 85 percent of the victims are women and children caught up in sexual exploitation networks. "It's incredible. Women just disappear and no one can find them," said Oreiro, who is participating in the campaign in an honorary capacity.

The IOM report is "harsh and realistic," according to its authors, and describes the "characteristics and dimensions" of human trafficking for sexual exploitation. The researchers indicated that in Latin America, transnational trafficking organisations and domestic networks in each country find "ideal conditions" because of the lack of visibility of the problem.

According to studies by the Organisation of American States (OAS), few countries in the Americas have specific laws against this crime. Those that do are Canada, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Panama, Peru and the United States. The legal vacuum is a loophole that allows procurement networks to expand.

The study points out that recruitment, trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and girls exist in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, but whilst in Argentina the problem has "medium" visibility because of the work of non-governmental organisations, in Chile its visibility is "limited," and in Uruguay "non-existent."

The IOM's regional representative for the Southern Cone region, Eugenio Ambrosi, told IPS that "Uruguay is not exempt from this scourge, but not enough attention is paid to it there." He added that the small South American country "has problems related to sex tourism." He said that in a few months IOM researchers would present the results of a study on sex tourism in the exclusive Uruguayan beach resort of Punta del Este, which is visited by tens of thousands of tourists from Argentina and the rest of the world every year.

The IOM study presented says that recruitment and trafficking of women for sexual exploitation occurs in Argentina, which is also a destination country for foreign women caught up in the same trade. There are 47 criminal trials under way for human trafficking, but there are "few convictions" and there are "concerns" about the "recurrent" involvement of public officials.

On the other hand, the researchers emphasised that this problem has become "a permanent fixture on the public agenda" in Argentina. A comprehensive draft law to prevent and combat this crime has been passed by the senate, and only requires the approval of the chamber of deputies to be put into effect.

The draft law provides for a secretariat of state within the executive branch to coordinate action all over the country, a programme of prevention and victim assistance, and changes to the criminal code to create more specific penalties for human trafficking. One case that attracted public notice in Argentina is that of Marita Verón, 23, who was kidnapped in the northwestern province of Tucumán in 2002. Her mother, Susana Trimarco, has been looking for her ever since, and although she has not found Marita yet, her search has shed light on the nature of the trade, and has secured the release of many other young women.

Trimarco, honoured this month as a "Woman of Courage" by the U.S. State Department, infiltrated provincial brothels to find information which led to the rescue of nearly 100 young women, the prosecution of 24 members of recruiting networks, and the removal from office of a judge who was accused of being an accomplice.

However, she said there was a lack of political will to combat the organisations that dupe women with fancy job offers. Trimarco said the information she has received from the families of other victims and from the police indicates that there are about 500 missing young women in Argentina who may have been trapped by human traffickers. One of them is her daughter Marita, who according to several testimonies collected by Trimarco is still alive.

The campaign launched by the IOM and Oreiro warns about these methods of fraudulent recruitment. It warns young women to be on their guard against advertisements promising easy money for work in different cities, provinces or countries, and encourages relatives and neighbours to report any suspicious activities, while informing the victims where they can turn to for help.

In support of the campaign, the National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism (INADI) has made available a free hot-line that will receive calls 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Adapted from: Marcela Valente. "ARGENTINA: Recruiting Celebs Against Trafficking in Women." IPS News. 15 March 2007.

Israel Steps Up Fight Against Human Trafficking

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 12:53:00 GMT

Israel has taken two key steps over the past year to improve its rating in the US State Department's annual report on the fight against international human trafficking, Rahel Gershuni, Government Coordinator of the Battle against Trafficking in Persons, told The Jerusalem Post recently.

The first step was her own appointment to the newly created position on May 31, 2006. The second was the introduction of legislation known as the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (Legislative Amendments) Law, which the Knesset approved on September 11, 2006.

Both steps were taken in response to State Department demands for Israel and other countries to step up their efforts against human trafficking, and specific criticism of Israel's performance in fighting the phenomenon last year.

The State Department published its first report on the subject in 2001. This report assigned Israel to the lowest status, Tier 3, which includes countries that do not fulfill minimal standards of fighting trafficking and are not taking significant steps to do so. Between 2003 and 2005, Israel was upgraded to Tier 2, which includes countries that do not meet minimal standards, but are taking significant measures to do so. Last year, however, Israel was assigned to the "watchlist," a special category which, in Israel's case, indicated that it might be dropped to Tier 3 if it did not improve its performance.

Until 2003, trafficking referred only to the sex trade. Since then, the State Department has expanded the term to include trafficking in human beings for a wide array of exploitative purposes. Gershuni said her job is to coordinate the efforts of various government ministries and agencies to fight human trafficking through prevention, prosecution of traffickers and their assistants and protection of victims and potential victims.

Although she is a Justice Ministry employee, Gershuni recently moved into her own offices in a building far from Justice Ministry headquarters. She said it would be easier to coordinate and liaison with other ministries and agencies if she were not completely identified with the Justice Ministry.

Gershuni's office researches matters related to human trafficking, represents Israel in international forums dealing with the problem and is now waiting for the chance to get the state to prosecute traffickers according to the new legislation. Until now, there have been a fair number of indictments and convictions in trafficking for the purposes of prostitution, but none regarding the new forms of slavery recognized by the recent legislation.

"Our first cases must be extreme, so that they will guarantee convictions," she told the Post, adding that the courts will have to learn to discern between slavery indictments and lesser charges of work exploitation. According to the new law, the punishments for slavery crimes are severe. Section 377A of the new legislation states that, "anyone who carries out a transaction involving a person for one of the following purposes, or in so acting places the person in danger of one of the following, shall be liable to 16 years imprisonment."

The illegal purposes include removing an organ from a person's body, giving birth to a child and taking the child away, subjecting the person to slavery or forced labor and instigating the person to commit an act of prostitution or an obscene publication or obscene display. Other new crimes that have been added to the Criminal Code in the context of the new legislation include holding a person under conditions of slavery and forced labor. This law also increased the punishment for exploitation of vulnerable populations.

The government hopes that the introduction of the law and the establishment of the new government office will persuade the State Department to upgrade Israel's status in its annual report. But, it will have to prove not only that it has established new instruments to fight trafficking in humans, but also that these instruments have the necessary teeth.

Adapted from: Dan Izenberg. "Analysis: Israel has stepped up the fight against human trafficking." The Jerusalem Post. 13 March 2007.

University of New Haven Professor Studies Human Trafficking

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 08:45:00 GMT

What keeps Professor Mario Gaboury going are the survivor stories.

"The level of human suffering is mind numbing and emotionally draining at times," said Gaboury, who has spent a career studying the victims of crimes and most recently, the problem of human trafficking.

The University of New Haven professor and chairman of the department of criminal justice was named this year as the university’s first Oskar Schindler Humanities Foundation endowed professor. He will hold the post for three years, during which he will involve graduate students in research projects on victimology, in general, as well as human trafficking in South Africa.

"There are people I have worked with who have taken horrible tragedies and somehow through their great personal spirit or their faith ... they have actually turned tragedy into something good," Gaboury said. He hopes to try to understand how these people get the strength to refocus their energies on a positive resolution.

Gaboury, a former deputy director of the Office for Victims of Crime at the U.S. Justice Department, is proposing a study he hopes will get a better handle on how this happens. "I want to see if we could learn from it to encourage good human behavior more broadly," Gaboury said.

Schindler was the German industrialist who saved some 1,200 Jews who worked in his factories during World War II from being shipped to the death camps in Poland. The professorship is funded with a $100,000 gift given to the school in 2005 by Jeanne and Irving Glovin, the mother and stepfather of UNH President Steve Kaplan.

Irving Glovin, who had befriended Schindler and was moved by his heroism, wanted to establish a way UNH could use its academic resources to advance such altruism. Gaboury, who holds a law degree, as well as a doctorate in human development and family studies, and is president of the American Society of Victimology, was seen as the perfect candidate for the initial award.

He has written about and seen the suffering of child abuse victims, young girls dragged into prostitution and people desperate to get out of poverty, unwittingly ensnared by human traffickers. While some professors in the field are totally focused on the academic end, he said the best approach "is a marriage between academics and practitioners" that uses theory, but takes it to the next level and applies it to policymaking.

Gaboury has worked with numerous federal investigative and prosecutorial agencies in designing victim and witness assistance programs and has been a consultant on community policing and problem-solving policing methods. At a conference on victimology held in South Africa in 2003, he struck up a friendship with academics there fighting human trafficking and now he will be able to provide some research to determine the extent of the problem.

South Africa is on the Tier 2 Watch List of countries suspected "as a source, transit area and destination country for men, women and children trafficked for forced labor, organ harvesting and sexual exploitation," according to a paper put together by Gaboury. He will work with students at UNH to help develop interdisciplinary training for law enforcement, non-government agencies and the courts trying to deal with the victims of human trafficking.

Gaboury said South Africa has made progress in law enforcement, particularly at its international ports of entry, but a key concern are its porous borders with neighboring countries. And while it is cooperating with international agencies, its resources are insufficient to counteract the trafficking without more structured help.

To assist the victims, Gaboury’s plan is to work with other trainers from California State University at Fresno and Washburn University to assemble a culturally sensitive multi-disciplined group of mental health care providers, police, customs officials and clergy. Gaboury will act as the project coordinator along with Rika Snyman, a professor at the University of South Africa.

While he will have to wait to learn specifics of the problem in South Africa, his studies to date all point to poverty as the number one reason. "Poverty is a very powerful traumatic event. You have people who are looking for a way out. They are easy prey," Gaboury said of the unwitting decisions people make where they end up enslaved.

Adapted from: Mary E. O’Leary. "UNH professor to study human trafficking’s toll." New Haven Register. 13 March 2007.

United Arab Emirates Addresses Trafficking through Police Training

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 14:07:00 GMT

Seventy five per cent of human trafficking cases internationally involve women being forced into prostitution, an expert has said.

John Dillon, a British law enforcement expert, said of all human trafficking cases those involving women being forced into prostitution have the highest percentage internationally. Dubai Police investigated six cases which could have involved human trafficking. The matter was referred to the court, which ruled there was no human trafficking involved.

Training
According to a senior official from a Dubai court, over the past few years some cases were referred to by police as human trafficking, but judges ruled they were not. The first training course on human trafficking in the region was held for UAE officials on the new law and new methods of investigating human trafficking cases.

Hamed Attiyah, lecturer at the Dubai Police Academy and the coordinator of the training course, said the idea toof conducting the training emerged after the adoption of a new law to combat human trafficking last year. "We wanted investigation officers to recognise human trafficking cases and avail themselves of the latest methods used in investigating these crimes," he said.

Human trafficking is a global problem at present, giving urgency to the five-day course.

"The law was introduced in 2006 and we found that it is a good opportunity to start training officials from the CID, investigating officers and Interior Ministry officers," said Adil Abdul Hadi, Managing Director of Shield Security Services Company, the UK-based company which organised the course. "What we are trying to do is to pass the knowledge and experiences we have on human trafficking since we have been dealing with the issue for over 20 years," said Abdul Hadi. "With globalisation, crime crosses boundaries. Organised crime is everywhere and their aim is to make money through illegal activities," he added.

"The UAE is investing a lot of effort to combat this crime as well as organised crime," Dillon said.

Adapted from: Alia Al Theeb. "Majority of global human trafficking gangs target women." Gulf News. 13 March 2007.

Combating Human Trafficking in Bulgaria

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 14:15:00 GMT

There’s an old saying that it’s an ill wind indeed that blows no one any good.

The reverse also holds true: Communism was an ill wind, and its fall a good thing, but the system brought some good after all, and its fall has not been without problems. After the fall of communism, closed societies opened, planned economies collapsed and people looked towards the West for opportunity.

Unfortunately, many people seeking to immigrate to the West, as well as many others in more desperate situations and without such high aspirations, became victims of human trafficking.

I spoke recently with Antoaneta Georgieva, the executive director of Face to Face Bulgaria, about the problem, and about what her organisation is doing to help fix it. “From a very closed society,” she explains, “Bulgaria changed into democracy, which has its negative effect on young people who are unprepared for how to immigrate safely, for the different situations in which someone can be misled, and why he might be misled ... There was a sort of innocence in our society, which is normal and understandable” after 45 years of communist rule, but unfortunately makes exploitation far easier.

The extent of the problem was absolutely stunning – according to the information provided by Face to Face, every year the illicit trade in human beings brings in an estimated $7 billion to $13 billion. In Europe alone, more than 500 000 people become victims of human trafficking annually, the majority of them women and girls forced to work in the sex trade. According to 2003 statistics, more than 10 000 of these were Bulgarian girls involved in prostitution. Another study from 2003 says that 11.2 per cent of all women forced to be prostitutes in Germany were Bulgarians. However, even these figures might be somewhat low: “There are statistics, but I don’t personally believe in the statistics,” Georgieva says. “For me, when we talk about human trafficking and the victims of human trafficking, the statistics are like an iceberg – the tip of the iceberg. But the real number of young people who have become victims is the lower part.”

Combative Measures
Obviously this represents a huge problem, and Face to Face is working to help solve it. Face to Face Bulgaria was founded as a legal entity in 2002, and while technically distinct from Face to Face International, its parent entity founded by the UN, it maintains a close relationship and close contacts with them. For example, Walter Coddington, who is a board member of Face to Face International, is also on the board of Face to Face Bulgaria, and has been active in mentoring. However, Face to Face Bulgaria is financially independent of its parent organisation, relying mainly on corporate donations from companies wishing to engage in social responsibility.

According to their website, Face to Face Bulgaria was originally founded by Magdalina Valtchanova, a former Miss Bulgaria, and began work in earnest with the appointment of Georgieva as executive director in 2003. “We’ve been working seriously for about three years now ... progressing (in the area of) prevention of human trafficking and sexual exploitation,” she says. She sees the organisation’s central mission as “educating the community towards the end of arming the people with information on how they can protect themselves”, and raising awareness of the problem.

“We’re trying to educate young people ... and in different ways, but with the idea to inform them, to tell them about the methods with which traffickers deceive young people like them, why, and why this sort of thing happens in Bulgaria. It’s very important to understand the problem as a whole, why this is happening in Bulgaria.”

But the first step to understanding why it is happening is to understand that it is happening. I was personally shocked by the statistics that she mentioned – 10 000 Bulgarian girls transported cross-border to work in the sex trade per year, in addition to the other aspects of trafficking such as labour exploitation or organ selling. “We came to the conclusion that young people need to experience the tragedy of trafficking in some way so that they could become aware of the problem. Because as we were talking with them, we found that, somehow, it was something foreign to them. Somehow, they didn’t accept it as a real threat to them personally.”

Towards that end, Face to Face created the short film Svetlana’s Journey, a 40-minute movie based on the true story of a young Bulgarian girl sold into prostitution in Amsterdam. The film is exceptionally well made and very powerful in its portrayal of the horrors undergone by a victim of forced prostitution. In addition to being used by the organisation itself in their training and educational work, the film has also been aired on Nova Televisia, with a second airing being planned. So far, it has proved quite an effective tool in raising awareness of the problem of human trafficking in the groups most vulnerable to such atrocities. “(When children see the film), and really the film is especially heavy and emotional, and very effective, it shakes them up. This opens the door in their minds ...

I mean, they understand that there is a real danger when we talk about human trafficking. And they become ready to hear how they can protect themselves, what sort of things and situations should serve as alarm bells for them.”

As far as I can determine from my own work with orphanages, it has been effective in promoting awareness. I had seen posters for the film in a home for children in Blagoevgrad. When I asked about it, the children seemed to know what it was about, and to take it seriously, which is an encouraging sign. Someone who recognises that the danger exists is, by definition almost, far less in danger.

However, the danger is still very real, and is no more urgent than in the case of young girls in the all-too-numerous orphanages and children’s homes in the country.

Take Me; I’m Yours
“Children without parents are exceptionally vulnerable, especially once they get out of the home,” as they are by law required to do after age 18. However, “they leave without having any preparation, without being able to fend for themselves in an elementary tasks”, Georgieva says. Unfamiliarity with such basic tasks as shopping and cooking is “the least of their problems. They don’t have any place to live, they don’t have jobs, they don’t have any perspective, they have not been taught how to find perspective, they don’t have goals, they live day to day ... Their existence is at a very low place on the pyramid. They look for a way to satisfy their hunger and to find some sort of situation in which to live. Which is of course an ideal situation for them to be approached by traffickers – they follow them when they leave the homes. And they’re looking for girls, and for boys as well – when we’re talking about sexual exploitation we should not underestimate labour exploitation. And traffic in organs”.

I recall a rather surreal conversation I had with some children in a home in Roman: “Where is ‘Ivan’?” “They took him to Varna and sold his organs.” “What?!” The answer caught me off guard: I didn’t know what to make of it, and still don’t. But they believed in the story absolutely, and for all I know it might be true.

Where to start?
To combat this problem, Face to Face organised the programme “First Chance”, which, in its inception, intended to provide work for children coming out of the homes. However, “they lacked even basic knowledge. Even for a position like gardener – they just didn’t know what they had to do. They lacked even elementary qualifications for working and earning money”, she says. Through no fault of their own, one hastens to point out; however, the fact remains that the education that children receive in these institutions does not adequately prepare them for entry into the workplace, either in terms of marketable skills or work ethic.

“Few people know that one of the negative things for a child growing up in a home is that they have no sense of responsibility. The institution does not instruct him to be responsible. Because he receives his food ready-made: he doesn’t do anything to prepare it, there are cooks who do the cooking. There are women who clean. They don’t have their own places to store their things – at least in Bulgaria such is the case. Or they might have a little cabinet that is shared by three, four or five kids...”

Several orphanage directors have spoken to me of the problems that they have had with children who have to leave the orphanages at age 18, only to return a few weeks or months later, begging for a place to stay and something to eat. “I’ll even sleep in the hallway,” said one boy from a home in north-western Bulgaria. Unfortunately that sort of desperation is all too common, and all too easily exploited.

In an answer to this problem, Face to Face changed its “First Chance” programme to begin earlier. “We took a step back,” Georgieva says. “And we decided that we had to train these children. And to prepare them, to catch them around age 15, and to prepare them in such a way that, when they left the home, either they could find work or continue their education in a university, or, as we helped them to find work, they would have sufficient skills that we could proudly say, for example, ‘you are ready to be a secretary’. (To) have the skills and the basic knowledge, etc – everyone has to learn, but they would have a foundation on which their place of employment could then work to develop the quality of the work of this young person.” Which is a noble goal.

Unfortunately, no statistics exist on how many of the victims of human trafficking from Bulgaria are from such homes, however, the only logical assumption is that it is disproportionately high, especially when one combines the lack of education and cultural prejudices against people who had been institutionalised with the emotional trauma of being abandoned by one’s family and then shuffled around from institution to institution. It leaves one at once isolated from the world, and yet all too ready to latch on to the first person who seems to care. This, and any sort of emotional trauma or abuse, greatly increases vulnerability to human trafficking.

In addition to their work in schools and five different orphanges, Face to Face also maintains a peer-to-peer programme, which involves training the natural leaders in any given group of young people to educate their peers on the dangers of human trafficking.

They also have programmes designed to teach children moral values – patience, non-violence, and non-aggression among others – and are currently working on another programme designed to raise awareness among parents of the problems of human trafficking. The challenges are very great, though hopefully not insurmountable.

Adapted from: Andrew Ridgway. " READING ROOM: Face to face with human trafficking in Bulgaria." Sophia Echo. 12 March 2007.

Kentucky Legislature Approves Anti-Human Trafficking Bill

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 14:20:00 GMT

A bill to ban human trafficking in Kentucky won final legislative passage in the House, a victory for groups that say cases of forced labor or exploitation have begun to surface in the state.

"I think it's a step in the right direction to help get protection to all those who are affected, especially the most vulnerable, the children," said Sen. David Boswell, D-Owensboro, the sponsor of Senate Bill 43. The bill passed the House unanimously and goes to Gov. Ernie Fletcher, whose office said he will review it before deciding whether to sign it.

The bill would make it a felony offense to force anyone into labor, domestic work or the sex trade. The federal government and 27 other states already have laws against human trafficking, and the U.S. Justice Department has urged all states to adopt such laws.

Advocates said they don't have specific numbers of such cases in Kentucky. But they say they have been getting anecdotal reports through women's shelters, legal aid lawyers, charitable organizations and other agencies around the state. The bill is supported by groups that include the Catholic Conference of Kentucky, the Kentucky Office of Legal Services and the Kentucky Domestic Violence Association.

The original bill called on the state to provide services -- such as counseling -- to victims of trafficking. But Boswell said he agreed to drop that because of concerns about its potential costs. If there is a need for such services, Boswell said, he will propose funding for them next year.

Adapted from: Deborah Yetter and Tom Loftus. "House gives final passage to human trafficking ban." The Courier-Journal. 10 March 2007.

Human Trafficking Legislation Proposed in Maine

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 14:49:00 GMT

Proposed legislation in the state of Maine would make it easier to police cases of human trafficking through the New Brunswick border, its backers say.

State Representative Michael Dunn says since Maine sits on an international border, lawmakers will have to take human trafficking issues more seriously. "These things are starting to happen," Dunn said Thursday.

He said it's a problem a lot of people in Maine or in New Brunswick shrug off, "but … there's a market for it, people are trying to exploit it, and it's something we need to be looking ahead for." This week, a taskforce on human trafficking appeared before the Maine legislature's Judiciary Committee, bringing forward a bill proponents say would improve the investigation and prosecution of crimes.

Cases often involve people being taken across borders to work against their will. Human trafficking is a federal crime, but the new bill would make it a state crime in Maine, allowing law enforcement agencies in the state to pursue the cases. lt would also make it easier for victims to gain legal immigration status through a temporary visa, so they could help with the investigation and prosecution of crimes.

Last month, two New Brunswick men were before the courts on human smuggling charges, accused of attempting to bring two people from Guyana into the United States illegally. Beth Stickey, who is a non-profit legal aid provider in Portland, Maine, and specializes in immigration issues, said this legislation would give victims some much-needed empowerment.

"There's a tendency for them to stay put and stay quiet, even if they're in abusive working situations that wouldn't be tolerated by people born here who have full legal status." The new legislation, if approved, would take effect Jan. 1, 2008.

Adapted from: "Human trafficking legislation proposed in Maine." Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 9 March 2007.

New Zealand Rebuffs Child Trafficking, Prostitution Claims in US Report

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 14:52:00 GMT

The Government is disputing a US State Department report that claims New Zealand has a major problem with child trafficking and prostitution.

The Government has taken up the issue of the claim in successive annual State Department human rights reports since 2004, but it is again repeated in this year's report. The report, which includes sections on every country, said "commercial sexual exploitation of children was a problem", estimating up to 200 under 18-year-olds were working in the sex industry.

The comments were included under the report's trafficking section. The police rape trials, Algerian refugee Ahmed Zaoui's asylum case and the death in custody of Auckland teenager Liam Ashley also rated mentions in this year's report.

The figures are based on a 2004 report by the Prostitution Law Review Committee -- established by the Prostitution Reform Act. But a spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said the figures had been repeatedly misrepresented in the report, which had been discredited in previous years.

"In the past the Americans themselves have acknowledged it wasn't an accurate reflection, but once again the report seems to have been issued without any changes," the spokesman said. The issue would almost certainly be raised with the Americans again.

The report has been widely criticised in previous years, including by the Children's Commissioner.

Adapted from: "NZ rebuffs child trafficking, prostitution claims in US report." New Zealand Herald. 9 March 2007.

Human Trafficking Being Debated in Annapolis, Maryland, USA

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 14:55:00 GMT

Law enforcement officials say one of the fastest growing crimes in Maryland and the entire nation is the forced labor and sex trade of human beings known as human trafficking.

As Pat Warren reports, Annapolis politicians are now working on legislation to crack down on this illegal practice. Maryland's State House and Senate are considering bills that would increase penalties for those convicted of the crime that has been called a form of "modern-day slavery."

Law enforcement agents say in most cases, women and girls--often immigrants and/or undocumented workers--are virtually held captive for profit in the sex trade. One Maryland woman who chose to remain unidentified, told Eyewitness News she was taken out of state against her will and forced into prostitution.

While it is a felony to have sex with a minor in Maryland, it is only a misdemeanor to profit from providing the out to others. Baltimore City State's Attorney Patricia Jessamy is pushing for passage of a bill to make human trafficking and forced labor a felony.

But first, Jessamy will have to convince lawmakers that the existing law is inadequate. "You think they outlawed slavery over 200 years ago, well believe me it's going on right under our noses here in Maryland," said Jessamy.

Currently in Maryland, most cases of human trafficking rely on federal prosecution. Those who support a new state bill think Maryland law is letting down the victims and families who have been abused. The latest effort to pass new human trafficking legislation is the third time lawmakers have tried to get a bill through the House Judiciary Committee.

Some policymakers believe the existing law against extortion can and should be applied to human trafficking. Jessamy's office is also planning training sessions to educate local police and prosecutors on the issue of human trafficking.

Adapted from: Pat Warren. "Human Trafficking Being Debated In Annapolis." 8 March 2007.

Denial Reopens Wounds of Japan's Ex-Sex Slaves

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:18:00 GMT

Wu Hsiu-mei said she was 23 and working as a maid in a hotel in 1940 when her Taiwanese boss handed her over to Japanese officers.

She and some 15 other women were sent to Guangdong Province in southern China to become sex slaves. Inside a hotel there was a so-called comfort station, managed by a Taiwanese but serving only the Japanese military, Ms. Wu said. Forced to have sex with more than 20 Japanese a day for almost a year, she said, she had multiple abortions and became sterile.

The long festering issue of Japan’s war-era sex slaves gained new prominence last week when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe denied the military’s role in coercing the women into servitude. The denial by Mr. Abe, Japan’s first prime minister born after the war, drew official protests from China, Taiwan, South Korea and the Philippines, some of the countries from which the sex slaves were taken.

The furor highlighted yet again Japan’s unresolved history in a region where it has been ceding influence to China. The controversy has also drawn in the United States, which has strongly resisted entering the history disputes that have roiled East Asia in recent years. Ms. Wu told her story outside the Japanese Consulate here, where she and two others who had been sex slaves, known euphemistically as comfort women, were protesting Tokyo’s refusal to admit responsibility for the abuse that historians say they and as many as 200,000 other women suffered.

All three — Ms. Wu, who is now 90; a 78-year-old South Korean from Seoul; and an 84-year-old Dutch-Australian from Adelaide — were participating in an international conference for Japan’s former sex slaves here. Now, just days after Mr. Abe’s remarks, the three were united in their fury.

“I was taken away by force by Japanese officers, and a Japanese military doctor forced me to undress to examine me before I was taken away,” said Ms. Wu, who landed here in Sydney on Tuesday night after a daylong flight from Taipei. “How can Abe lie to the world like that?”

Mr. Abe, a nationalist who had built his career partly on playing down Japan’s wartime past, made his comments in response to a confluence of events, beginning with the Democratic victory in the American Congressional elections last fall. That gave impetus to a proposed nonbinding resolution in the House that would call on Japan to unequivocally acknowledge and apologize for its brutal mistreatment of the women.

Even as Mr. Abe’s closest allies pressed him to soften a 1993 government statement that acknowledged the military’s role in forcing the women into sexual slavery, three former victims testified in Congress last month. On Monday, Mr. Abe said he would preserve the 1993 statement but denied its central admission of the military’s role, saying there had been no “coercion, like the authorities breaking into houses and kidnapping” women.

He said private dealers had coerced the women, adding that the House resolution was “not based on objective facts” and that Japan would not apologize even if it was passed. The resolution calls for Japan to “formally acknowledge, apologize and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for its Imperial Armed Forces’ coercion of young women into sexual slavery.”

“Prime Minister Abe is in effect saying that the women are lying,” Representative Mike Honda, the California Democrat who is spearheading the legislation, said in a telephone interview. “I find it hard to believe that he is correct given the evidence uncovered by Japanese historians and the testimony of the comfort women.”

Japanese historians, using the diaries and testimony of military officials as well as official documents from the United States and other countries, have been able to show that the military was directly or indirectly involved in coercing, deceiving, luring and sometimes kidnapping young women throughout Japan’s Asian colonies and occupied territories.

They estimate that up to 200,000 women served in comfort stations that were often an intrinsic part of military operations. Yet although Mr. Abe admitted coercion by private dealers, some of his closest allies in the governing Liberal Democratic Party have dismissed the women as prostitutes who volunteered to work in the comfort stations. They say no official Japanese government documents show the military’s role in recruiting the women.

According to historians, the military established the stations to boost morale among its troops, but also to prevent rapes of local women and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases among soldiers. Demonstrators near Parliament in Tokyo with placards denouncing remarks last week by Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, denying the role of the country’s military in coercing the women into their plight.

Japan’s deep fear of rampaging soldiers also led it to establish brothels with Japanese prostitutes across Japan for American soldiers during the first months of the postwar occupation, a fact that complicates American involvement in the current debate.

In 1995 a private fund was set up to compensate the women, but many refused to accept any money because they saw the measure as a way for the government to avoid taking direct responsibility. Only 285 women have accepted money from the fund, which will be terminated at the end of this month. The most direct testimony of the military’s role has come from the women themselves.

“An apology is the most important thing we want — an apology that comes from the government, not only a personal one — because this would give us back our dignity,” said Jan Ruff O’Herne, 84, who testified to a Congressional panel last month. Ms. Ruff was living with her family in Java, in what was then the Dutch East Indies, when Japan invaded in 1942. She spent the first two years in a prison camp, she said, but Japanese officers arrived one day in 1944. They forced single girls and women to line up and eventually picked 10 of them, including Ms. Ruff, who was 21.

“On the first night, it was a high-ranking officer,” Ms. Ruff said. “It was so well organized. A military doctor came to our house regularly to examine us against venereal diseases, and I tell you, before I was examined the doctor raped me first. That’s how well organized it was.” In Japan’s colonies, historians say, the military worked closely with, or sometimes completely relied on, local people to obtain women.

In Pyongyang, now the capital of North Korea, Gil Won-ok said, she lined up outside a Japanese military base to look for work in her early teens. A Korean man, she said, approached her with the promise of factory work, but she eventually found herself in a comfort station in northeast China. After she caught syphilis and developed tumors, Ms. Gil said, a Japanese military doctor removed her uterus.

“I’ve felt dead inside since I was 15,” said Ms. Gil, who was 16 when the war ended. Like many comfort women, Ms. Gil was unable to bear children and never married, though she did adopt a son. She now lives in a home with three other former comfort women in Seoul.

Ms. Wu married twice, each time hiding her background. Somehow the husbands found out, and the marriages ended unhappily. Her adopted daughter is now angry with Ms. Wu for having spoken in public about her past, she said. As for Ms. Ruff, she returned to the prison camp in Java after her release from the comfort station. Her parents swore her to silence. A Roman Catholic priest told Ms. Ruff, who had thought of becoming a nun: “My dear child, under these circumstances it is wise that you do not become a nun.”

It was at the camp that she met her future husband, Tom Ruff, one of the British soldiers who had been deployed to guard the camp after Japan’s defeat. She told him her story once before they were married — long before they had two daughters and migrated to Australia. “But I needed to talk about it,” Ms. Ruff said, sitting at the kitchen table in her daughter Carol’s home here. “I could never talk to my husband about it. I loved Tom and I wanted to marry and I wanted a house. I wanted a family, I wanted children, but I didn’t want sex. He had to be very patient with me. He was a good husband. But because we couldn’t talk about it, it made it all so hard.”

“You could talk to Dad about it,” said her daughter Carol, 55. “No, this is what I keep saying,” Ms. Ruff said. “I just told him the story once. It was never talked about again. For that generation the story was too big. My mum couldn’t cope with it. My dad couldn’t cope with it. Tom couldn’t cope with it. They just shut it up. But nowadays you’ll get counseling immediately.”

“It’s a wonderful thing,” Carol said. “You don’t know how hard it was to carry this enormous burden inside you, that you would like to scream out to the world and yet you cannot,” Ms. Ruff said. “But I remember telling Carol, ‘One day I’m going to tell my story, and people will be interested.’ ”

Adapted from: Norimitsu Onishi. "Denial Reopens Wounds of Japan's Ex-Sex Slaves." The New York Times. 8 March 2007.

Child Trafficking a Concern in South Africa

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:25:00 GMT

The harrowing case of seven-year-old Sheldean Human of Pretoria Gardens, who disappeared two weeks ago and was found dead, has reignited public fears over the abduction of children and child trafficking.

Two Pretoria human rights law bodies have revealed that they are investigating allegations of children being trafficked into Pretoria from several African countries.

University of Pretoria Centre for Child Law (UPCCL) and Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) are working on separate cases involving children being trafficked into South Africa from central and eastern African countries. South Africa, which has no laws outlawing the trafficking of people, is facing a major problem, according to the International Organisation of Migration (IOM).

Thousands of abducted women and children are brought into the country every year. The organisation's Pretoria office said human trafficking earned the world's criminal syndicates between $8-billion (about R60-billion) and $12-billion (about R84-billion) a year. It was the third most profitable income source for crime syndicates, behind illegal arms and narcotics trafficking, the organisation said.

The IOM believes up to 1-million people a year are trafficked across the world's borders. Up to 800 000 of these cases involve women and children trafficked for sexual exploitation. It estimates that 400 000 of those trafficked are children.

'It is clear that human trafficking is a serious problem in South Africa'.
UPCCL's Carina du Toit confirmed that they were investigating a case of children being flown into South Africa from a central African country. "We believe that the children in this case are vulnerable to abuse," she said.

She declined to comment further for fear of jeopardising the investigation. Du Toit said there was a "huge problem" with child trafficking in South Africa. This problem, she said, was exacerbated by the fact that South Africa's legal system had not put into force legislation that deemed human trafficking as a crime for which those involved could be prosecuted.

She said people caught for human trafficking could only be prosecuted for common law crimes such as kidnapping or abduction, for sexual crimes such as assault or rape, or for smuggling. Claudia Serra, LHR's operations manager and training co-ordinator, said they were investigating a separate case of human trafficking, also involving children.

She said the children apparently were being brought from several African countries to Pretoria. Serra said that they had dealt with a case of child trafficking in the past and were still helping the victim. IOM information co-ordinator Karen Blackman also stressed the need for more action against human trafficking in South Africa.

However, she said, the country was moving slowly towards creating legislation that could help counteract this problem. "South Africa has ratified the UN protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children," she said.

Thereby South Africa was legally bound to the protocol, which compels the national government to develop anti-trafficking laws. The country was in the process of doing this, she said. Blackman said ongoing research, including interviews with 150 women and children assisted by IOM's countertrafficking assistance programme, showed just how severe the situation was in the country. "It is clear that human trafficking is a serious problem in South Africa."

Blackman said: "Groups involved in trafficking people are well-organised clandestine syndicates that earn money by selling both adults and children into forced labour and prostitution. "These syndicates operate without fear of repercussions from buying and selling people because they know that there are no laws in South Africa that they can be prosecuted under for trafficking in people," she said.

Blackman said that thousands of women and children were brought into South Africa from countries such as Mozambique, Angola, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, China, Bulgaria, the Philippines and Thailand. Many South Africans were also being trafficked to Macau near China, Ireland, UK and Israel.

Pamela Silolo, child rights NGO Molo Songololo's trafficking co-ordinator, said Gauteng, Cape Town and Durban were the primary destinations trafficked women and children were sent to. Most of them had been taken from small towns in their home countries.

Silolo said that procuring women and children was made easier by poverty and unemployment, family breakups, violence, lack of education and peer pressure. "The demand factors include changes in informal economies, an increased number of criminal syndicates becoming involved in the trade, increased demand for cheap labour and the increasing sexualisation of children," she said.

Blackman said the only way to stop this was to pass comprehensive human trafficking legislation and for the government, civil society and NGOs to conduct extensive awareness-raising campaigns. Du Toit said that they were hoping that the new Children's Act, which contained the UN protocol in one of its chapters, would be in force this year.

"We are really hoping that the chapter containing the UN protocol will be in force by early this year," she said. Silolo said until such legislation was enforced in full, the many victims of human trafficking would remain in purgatory.

Differences:
Smuggling refers to the illegal facilitation of border crossing between the smuggler and smugglee, which is complete once the smugglee has successfully entered the country of destination. Trafficking involves the recruitment, transportation and exploitation of an individual, whereby the recruitment contains an element of deception and entails a severe violation of the human rights of the victim by people involved in the trafficking process. Victims of trafficking are regularly exposed to physical and psychological abuse, denied legal and labour rights and medical care and are often forced into unwanted relationships of dependency with their traffickers.

South African Missing and Exploited Children Centre: 0861 647746

Crime Stop: 08600 10111

International Organisation of Migration: human trafficking hotline: 0800 555 999.

Adapted from: Graeme Hosken. "Human trafficking a 'huge problem' in SA." Independent Online (IOL). 7 March 2007.

Human Trafficking Police Manual for UN Developed in Canada

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:31:00 GMT

A UN training manual to help police around the world combat the scourge of human trafficking is being developed with the assistance of the RCMP.

The UN estimates that more than 700,000 people a year, mostly women and children, are victims of the crime. The police manual will help teach officers in 192 countries how to identify and interview victims of human trafficking, and how to protect them.

RCMP Cpl. Norm Massie, who was recently in Vienna to work on the project, said Canada has won praise for its protection of victims of human trafficking, an approach that includes consultation with communities working with victims. "Partnerships with non-governmental agencies are absolutely key. Faith-based groups throughout the country have come together and are each able to provide a certain facet of what is required for that victim to recover from the trauma that they've experienced."

Members of such NGOs applaud the idea of more training for police, who are often the first to encounter victims of human trafficking working in prostitution. Michelle Miller, executive director of Resist Exploitation, Embrace Dignity, a group that works with human trafficking victims in Vancouver, said she was unaware of the police manual under development.

"It disturbs me that I'm an NGO, on the ground, that works with women, and know nothing about this manual that's he's developing." Groups who work with human trafficking victims, she said, would make sure that victims' rights were explained in the teaching tool.

Three years ago an assault at a Vancouver massage parlour led to the first human trafficking charges to be laid in Canada. The final arguments in the case will be heard in court.

Adapted from: "Human trafficking police manual for UN developed in Canada." Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 5 March 2007.

Girls at UN Meeting Urge Action Against Sex Slavery and Trafficking

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:34:00 GMT

A 16-year-old Nepalese girl burst into tears describing her work in a match factory to help support her mother. A Jordanian teen spoke out about violence against girls in rural areas. A former child soldier from Congo cried when she recalled her suffering as a sex slave.

The three are among more than 200 young people attending a high-level meeting of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, which this year is focusing on discrimination and violence against girls. They spoke at a panel and a news conference about issues that concern them, ranging from rape, trafficking and prostitution to education, child labor and AIDS. "The most important message is that governments should ensure that every working child gets a free education," said Sunita Tamang, lamenting that in her community in Nepal "people think that if you educate a girl child, it will only embarrass you."

There was a time, she said tearfully, when she couldn't go to school because she had to work to help her mother, a single parent. But now, through a program supported by the U.N. children's agency, UNICEF, she attends classes in the morning and works in the factory making boxes for matches in the afternoon. In her spare time, Tamang started a club with other working children to campaign for education for youngsters who have to work and for an end to violence against children.

"What is unachievable if given an opportunity?" she asked at the crowded panel session. "Look at me -- I work in a match factory and today I have been able to come here and share my feelings and experiences with you all." Golfidan Khader Al Abassy, 18, of Jordan, described the discrimination against girls in families, schools and in the workplace in her country and the shortage of programs that focus on girls' participation.

"I hope it will be in the near future that we will have the same opportunities as boys," she said. "The most important message which I want to send for all over the world ... (is) that the girls have a lot of power ... so if we give them the chance to prove themselves, they will be great persons. ... We have to believe in them." Madeleine -- whose last name was withheld for security reasons -- was recruited at age 11 into the Mai-Mai militia, a ragtag group of impoverished fighters with varying loyalties who operate across huge swaths of eastern Congo. She spent two years with the militia, fighting on the front lines, and was demobilized in 2004.

At Friday's panel, she urged the international community to bring those responsible for crimes against girl soldiers in Congo to justice. "We regret we were forgotten by those who should help us in doing justice to us, especially regarding the unusual sexual exploitation that we endured, which was merely sexual slavery," the 15-year-old said.

"We regret the International Criminal Court has not so far taken into account this aspect which would help ease our pain," she said. So far only one Congolese warlord has been ordered to stand trial before the war crimes tribunal on a charge of sending children into battle.

Chinyanta Chimba, 17, raised by a single mother in Zambia who was determined that she go to school even if it meant no food on the table, is president of the Student Alliance for Female Education, a school club that seeks to change negative cultural and traditional practices and educate girls about HIV/AIDS, reproductive health and child rights.

"The main thing I would say to all the girls out there is that they should know that they have their own rights and it is time that we all stand up as young girls and speak out," she said. Chimba said there has been "great encouragement" for the girls from the older participants at the two-week conference, which has brought 6,000 men and women to U.N. headquarters from around the globe.

She said she had believed women would never stand up for their rights, "but looking at what is happening today, it really gives me courage." "I've got two ambitions," Chimba told the news conference. "The first one is to be a doctor ... and the second ambition is I want to become the first-ever female secretary-general of the U.N."

Journalists, diplomats and U.N. staffers in the room burst into applause.

Adapted from: Edith M. Lederer. "Girls at U.N. meeting urge action against sex slavery, trafficking, child labor, AIDS." North County Times. 3 March 2007.

Philippines Strengthens Capacity to Combat Human Trafficking

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:43:00 GMT

A new super body under the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) will help monitor, entrap, apprehend, investigate and prosecute persons involved in human trafficking or the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of people for exploitation.

Such body, the Task Force against Human Trafficking (TFHT) which President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo created this month through Executive Order (EO) 548-A, will also recommend to the Inter-Agency Committee Against Trafficking (IACAT) policies, programs and services that can enhance government's efforts in addressing the problem.

EO 548-A amends EO 548 which created the Task force Against Illegal Recruitment under CFO. In bolstering government's anti-human trafficking drive, President Arroyo ordered the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), Philippine National Police (PNP), Department of Foreign Affairs, Manila International Airport Authority, Office of the State Prosecutor, Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), Bureau of Immigration and other government agencies concerned to coordinate and cooperate with TFHT.

"To efficiently address increasing reports and cases of human trafficking, it's necessary to enhance coordination between and among agencies engaged in the human trafficking drive," she said. This, after authorities cited the Philippines as a source, transit and destination country for men, women and children trafficked for sexual exploitation and forced labor.

To help further boost government's drive against such activity, President Arroyo also ordered TFHT to provide legal, psychosocial and other forms of assistance to victims of this scourge. The task force will establish a databank on human trafficking by consolidating existing information on such activity and conduct a community-based information drive to increase public awareness about such problem.

"TFHT will also perform other acts as may be necessary for effective discharge of its functions and responsibilities," the President added. CFO will head TFHT and will determine number of task force members who will be detailed from NBI, PNP and other relevant public agencies.

President Arroyo ordered the Department of Budget and Management to identify funds available for budget of the task force which will operate for three years. In its report, the National Police Commission (NAPOLCOM) said majority of Filipino trafficking victims are females aged 18 to 27 years and come from the National Capital Region, Region 3 and Region 4.

Citing information from experts, the agency said, Filipinos are frequently trafficked and smuggled to Korea, Japan, Hongkong, Singapore, the Middle East, Malaysia, Brunei, Italy, the United States, Taiwan, Jordan and Europe. NAPOLCOM also identified recruitment for job placement abroad as the most common scheme to traffick Filipinos. Following TFHT's creation, President Arroyo ordered POEA to intensify its anti-illegal recruitment campaign.

She added IACAT, which was established through Republic Act (RA) 9208 or the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003, will remain as lead implementor of this law. RA 9208 penalizes with life imprisonment and a maximum fine of PhP5 million persons guilty of qualified trafficking as specified under Section 6.

Adapted from: "New super body to boost drive vs. human trafficking." bayanihan.org. 26 Feburary 2007.

Stronger Action Needed to Counter Child Sex Tourism in Thailand

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:46:00 GMT

Although awareness has increased concerning child sex tourism, too many governments were paying lip service to the issue and not taking enough action, said an NGO fighting the problem in Thailand.

Legal measures needed to be backed up with action to stop child sex tourism and other forms of child abuse, members of End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography & Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT) said at the release of their global monitoring report.

"It's not a static problem, something you know and it stays the same," but it adapts with new technology from the Internet and the proliferation of mobile phones, to low-cost airlines and the rise in international tourism, Carmen Madrinan, executive director of ECPAT International said.

There has been progress with countries introducing laws where their citizens can be charged with paedophilia for having sex with minors in foreign countries, but governments needed to do more to make a difference, Madrinan said. The issue requires international cooperation and laws that are enforced, Professor Jaap Doek, Chairman of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child said. "The whole human rights thing is trying to convince states to act on their commitments. Changing the law is easy. The implementation is the next step and it takes longer in some countries than others," he said.

Wanchai Roujanavong of the Thai Ministry of Justice said one challenge was that police didn't consider the problem to be as important as murder and other violent crimes. Child sex cases got pushed aside, he said. He said Thailand was on the right track but needed a special police force that concentrated on that particular crime. He said it was an international issue, too, and cited how many paedophiles had started going to neighbouring Cambodia when Thailand cracked down on them. That moved the problem elsewhere rather than solving it, he said.

Adapted from: "Stronger action needed to counter child sex tourism." playfuls.com. 19 December 2006. (Source: UNIAP Thailand)

Latin America's Secret Slave Trade

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:49:00 GMT

Sit by the swimming pool of the exclusive Iguazú Jungle hotel and you can watch the "contrabandistas" emerging from the undergrowth.

All day, an army of smugglers can be seen passing along the mountainous path that separates Argentina from Brazil. Locals know it as the "pique". It is just one of a dozen or more unofficial crossing points on the so-called triple frontier, the name given to the porous border area where Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil meet.

Everything from fake branded clothing to Class A drugs are ferried back and forth along these clandestine routes. The list of contraband goods now also extends to human beings. The human-trafficking business is estimated to be worth over £10bn a year, making it the world's third most profitable criminal activity after drug-smuggling and gun-running.

Many of those trafficked through the triple frontier are destined for the illegal labour market in Brazil or Argentina. The trade in babies for adoption is also widely reported. But a large proportion end up as sex workers. Many end up in brothels across the region, although a high number are destined for the triple frontier's own thriving sex industry.

Children are particularly vulnerable to human traffickers. Charities working with at-risk children in the border region estimate that as many as 3,500 young people could be involved. "Many girls are trafficked via the pique. It's all highly organised", explains Marcelina Antunez, director of Luz de Infancia, a children's care centre in the Argentine town of Puerto Iguazú.

Driving the trade is the flood of foreign tourists who come to visit the world famous Iguazú waterfalls. Much of the demand for prostitution is casual. Yet the region also attracts a hardened group of sex tourists. The region's reputation for prostitution is not new. In the late 1970s, around 40,000 workers flooded into the triple frontier to help build the colossal Itaipú hydroelectric dam. Around 97% of the new workforce were men. As the dam went up, so too did the demand for paid-for sex.

"The triple frontera is the Bangkok of Latin America...after the tsunami, many sex tourists started coming here instead of Asia," notes Cynthia Bendlin, director of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) for the triple frontier area. IOM runs a number of awareness programmes to highlight the dangers of the trafficking trade. But it is an uphill struggle. Many of the children most at risk either live on the street or come from very impoverished families, Ms Bendlin explains.

In some cases of extreme destitution, children are even contracted out by their parents. There is a blind beggar in Puerto Igazú, for example, who walks the streets hand-in-hand with a seven year-old girl. He makes his living by renting her out for sex. She is his neighbour's daughter. The situation is complicated further by the "recruiters". Often known to the victims, they promise the opportunity of work across the border. When the fictitious jobs never materialise, the victims finds themselves trapped and unable to return home.

IOM also works with local government agencies and the police in an attempt to develop coordinated strategies to stop the traffickers. Again, prgress is slow. In Argentina alone, there are at least five separate security agencies operating in the border zone. Between the three countries, the problem of coordination becomes triply complicated, Ms Bendlin admits.

At a national level, there are some signs of encouragement. This week, Argentina's lower house is scheduled to discuss a bill that would officially recognise underage human trafficking in the criminal code. Victim organisations welcome such measures, but remain sceptical about how much difference they will make on the ground. Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay all have separate laws and legal processes. Add to that the variety of municipal, provincial and national legislation and you have a complex legal web to navigate.

It is a journey that many victims would rather not undertake. In addition to the psychological and financial implications of pursuing a court case, many fear the threat of reprisals. "Although we know about more than 700 cases of child trafficking, we have only reported 40 in the last three years", confesses Benigno Cáceres, a lawyer with CEAPRA, a children's charity in the Paraguayan border town of Ciudad del Este.

Only one of these complaints resulted in a guilty verdict. The relative impunity for sex-related crimes is in keeping with cultural attitudes in the triple frontier. The region's strong culture of machismo holds that sex with underage girls is safer and a sign of male virility, says Norma Pereira, a child psychologist in Ciudad del Este.

In addition, the mothers of trafficked children are frequently themselves the victims of abuse or involved in prostitution, she explains: "Families often refuse to recognise the problem. It's as if this new form of slavery has become natural."

Adapted from: Oliver Balch. "Latin America's secret slave trade." Guardian Unlimited. 20 December 2006.

Human Rights Violations of Migrant Workers In Thailand

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:52:00 GMT

A significant number of young foreign migrant workers in Thailand face exploitation ranging from non-payment or low salaries, excessive working hours to even more serious violation of forced labour and trafficking, a study reveals.

"More than half of domestic workers (maids) surveyed and one in five migrant teens on fishing boats were either prohibited from ever leaving their workplace or forced to work as virtual slaves to the Thai employers," said study director Elaine Pearson. She said the in-depth report, believed the first of its kind in Thailand, had uncovered significant human rights violations of young migrants ranging from physical assault, forced labour, denial of freedom of movement, children in hazardous work and verbal abuse.

About 82 per cent of migrant domestic workers and 45 per cent working on fishing boats surveyed said they were required to work more than 12 hours per day and without leave, she added at the launching of the report. The "Mekong Challenge - Underpaid, Overworked and Overlooked: The Realities of Young Migrant Workers in Thailand" was conducted by the Mahidol University's Institute for Population and Social Research and the International Labour Organisation's Mekong Sub-Regional Project to Combat Trafficking in Children and Women.

About 1,000 migrant workers from Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia below the age of 26 working in agriculture, fishing/fish processing and small-scale manufacturing were interviewed in the study. Thailand was chosen as it has emerged as the major country of destination in the cross-border trafficking of women and children in the Mekong region and so far more than one million migrant workers have registered with the Thai government.

The study shows all of these sectors, with the exception of domestic help, rely on cheap labour as competitive edge which is why employing migrant workers is so popular. (Thais will not work for such low wages). Pearson said almost all the workers received wages below the legal minimum wage. For example, more than 40 per cent of domestic workers were paid only Bt1,000 per month or less and nearly nine out of 10 (89 per cent) received Bt3,000 or less.

More than half of the employers surveyed in agriculture, manufacturing and fishing/fish processing were of the view that migrants should not be allowed to leave the premises outside working hours without permission. "I worked for two years but never received any payment. I had to work all day...I couldn't go to bed until 2am, but would have to get up at 5am. My employer also slapped, hit and pinched me," said a 17-year-old female Cambodian domestic worker in the report. A 14-year-old fishing boat worker surveyed said he and his friends had to work all day and night, without time for rest. "Neither of us has been physically beaten, only yelled at. But we are scared because we had seen some crew members thrown off the boat or beaten with hooks and anchors that weighed close to one kilogramme and were as long as our arms," he said.

The study also contradicts a commonly held belief that "recruiters" or job brokers/agents are often traffickers as fewer than 10 per cent of all migrants surveyed claimed to have found a job via recruiters. The report has made 29 recommendations to overcome violations of migrant workers, including improved labour protection, an end to employers withholding workers' legal documents and better enforcement.

Adapted from: "Human Rights Violations Of Migrant Workers In Thailand." Bernama. 13 December 2006.

Humane Approach to Migrant Labour in Thailand

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:56:00 GMT

There have been positive changes in government policy, but Thai society needs to change its attitude as well.

Thailand is making slow but steady progress towards better protection of its hundreds of thousands of migrant workers while also combating human trafficking and the worst forms of exploitation against the men, women and children who come to this country in search of economic opportunity. But there is still much room for improvement in all respects to make sure that migrant workers, who provide valuable service to Thai society and make a positive contribution to the country's economy, enjoy the basic human rights and are accorded with the adequate protection that they deserve.

Earlier this year, the Labour Ministry introduced a quota system to try to regulate the employment of immigrant workers. Industrial employers are required to submit a quota of foreign workers they already employ or intend to hire. Once approved by the ministry, employers are then asked to register immigrant workers and have them undergo health screening and pay for their health insurance so that labour officials can monitor their working and living conditions.

Many employers have come forward to register migrant workers while other, unscrupulous business operators have refused to come forward, probably because they want to continue to take unfair advantage of foreign workers, most of whom are unskilled or semi-skilled labourers from neighbouring countries. The ministry should make good on its threat to crack down on these exploitative employers, who not only pay these workers way below the minimum daily wage but also force them to live and work under appalling conditions.

The findings of a recent study commissioned by the National Security Council on Thailand's need for foreign manual workers show that the country's reliance on imported labour has become a fact of life. Thailand needs an input of some 500,000 workers from Burma, Cambodia and Laos to keep its economy functioning smoothly, the report says. The number of registered foreign workers in the country at the moment is about 400,000, while the estimated number of undocumented immigrant workers may be more than 800,000.

Despite limited success in its registration drive, the government's move was considered a marked departure from years of neglect. In the past, the government could not care less about lax immigration control or monitoring of labour standards. Instead of regulation, control and the protection of immigrant workers, corruption-prone Thai authorities used to turn a blind eye to human trafficking - one of today's most despicable crimes against humanity.

But the Thai government's attitude towards human trafficking has also changed. Thailand is now working a lot harder to try to remove the stigma associated with being identified as a source, transit point and destination for human trafficking. Women, men and children from neighbouring countries, including Burma, Cambodia, Laos and China, are brought into Thailand by organised criminal groups and pressed into bonded labour and prostitution. Or they pass through the country to other destinations.

Creating a specialised body to lead and coordinate anti-human trafficking operations may be a good start, but unless the government follows through with sustained forceful action, Thailand's image as a responsible member of the international community will remain very much in doubt.

It must be said the change for the better thus far has been achieved largely through international pressure. But the Thai government needs to do much more. However, the next big push towards a lasting solution to promote fair treatment of immigrant workers and to eliminate human trafficking will require strong domestic public pressure. The problem is that the majority of Thais continue to be either too insensitive or too ignorant to care about the plight of immigrant workers, who deserve to be treated better and with respect for their human rights.

The Thai public needs to be educated that as a society we cannot ignore the suffering of any man, woman or child, regardless of their origin or ethnicity, at the hands of modern-day slave traders or exploitative employers, without compromising our public conscience and the moral values that we as a society claim to possess.

Adapted from: "Humane approach to migrant labour." The Nation. 17 September 2006.

Malaysia Not Doing Enough to Combat Human Trafficking

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:00:00 GMT

Malaysia has not done enough to combat human trafficking and needs to set up legislation and procedures to address this problem, said an official from the United States Department of State.

Ambassador John R. Miller, director of the department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, said: "I am very disappointed at the lack of effort to meet this challenge in Malaysia." "Malaysia may be in the big league economically but it is not in the big league in the worldwide fight against slavery," he told reporters on Nov 10, during a three-day visit to Kuala Lumpur.

The largest category is sex slavery or forced prostitution, followed by domestic servitude, including child slavery and farm slavery, he said. Malaysia is seen as a destination country. This is what happens to wealthier countries, and has happened in Europe and America, he said.

During his visit to Kuala Lumpur, Miller met officials from the Immigration Department, Attorney-General's Chambers, police, Human Rights Commission (Suhakam), Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Nazri Abdul Aziz and Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil.

He also met various organisations that work to combat the problem, such as Tenaganita, the Women's Aid Organisation and Datuk Michael Chong, who heads the MCA Public Service and Complaints Department. "I think there is a need for an anti-trafficking law," Miller said, adding that 41 countries had passed such a legislation last year.

He also observed that there was little effort by the authorities to identify the victims and take that information to prosecute the perpetrators. "We have read of people being arrested and deported but little of them being prosecuted. Countries need to find out if the people detained are victims of slavery and address the problem," Miller said.

Miller said these recommendations were consistent with those made in Suhakam's report, ‘Trafficking in Women and Children, 2004'. He stressed he was not against economic migration but pointed out that there had to be enforcement to prosecute human traffickers.

Adapted from: "Malaysia not doing enough to combat human trafficking, says ambassador." The Sun Daily. 23 November 2006. (Source: UNIAP Cambodia)

Protecting Young Women from Human Trafficking in VietNam

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:03:00 GMT

Nguyen Thi Phuong cherishes her new role as a mother. At 45, she’s older than most Vietnamese women raising their first child, but that hardly matters. She is happy to have her own family, now that she is no longer a prisoner in someone else’s. In 1991, Phuong was lured to the border by traffickers and taken against her will to China, where she was dragged to a house in a small town and sold to become an older man’s wife.

Phuong remained captive for more than two years. Then one night, the family forgot to lock her door. She escaped and found her way back across the border to Viet Nam. She is one of tens of thousands of Vietnamese women who have been trafficked to neighbouring China and Cambodia, or further to Taiwan, Thailand and South Korea. Many are forced into marriage or the sex trade, while some become bonded labourers and domestic servants.

UNICEF is working with the governments of Viet Nam and China in a joint programme to crack down on the trafficking of women and children.

Community-based approach
“We have been involved in analyzing law and policy, to make concrete recommendations to the government on how to better protect victims of trafficking,” said UNICEF Child Protection Officer Lo Hong Loan.

UNICEF also supports a community-based approach to the problem, including the establishment of women’s clubs that give comfort to former victims of trafficking and raise awareness to prevent future cases. The Cao Loc Women’s Union is one such club. “We include many women who are the victims of trafficking,” said the chairwoman of the Cao Loc club. “These women share with us the situation of many who are still in China. We also go to these women’s homes and talk with their family and encourage them, so they feel more integrated into the society.”

Warning to others
Phuong is an active member the Cao Loc Women’s Club. She often shares her story as a warning to others. “With what I learned from my experience, I can talk to young women in the community,” she said. “I tell them that if you are poor, the traffickers will take advantage of your situation and sell you, and you won’t even know you were sold.”

Words that may help save other women from a similar or even worse fate.

Adapted from: "Protecting young women from human trafficking in Viet Nam." UNICEF. 7 December 2006. (Source: UNIAP Cambodia)

More Companies in Thailand Using Child Labor

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:24:00 GMT

Immigrant child workers are the most sought-after by Thai employers because they make up a low-paid and controllable workforce, according to a recent study by Mahidol University's Institute for Population and Social Research. Sureeporn Panpueng, a researcher at the institute, said employers want to save production costs and avoid labour shortages, so they prefer hiring alien workers, especially young children. However, the young immigrant workers inevitably experience longer working hours and have poor access to the welfare they deserve and are hired on low wages.

According to the research, 82% of young migrant employees are domestic workers, 45% work in the fishing industry and 19% work in factories. All of those questioned said they have to work more than 12 hours a day and one in three said they work without a break.

Elaine Pearson, project representative for Anti-Slavery on Children and Women in the Mekong Region, said employers generally have the mistaken belief that alien workers should not be entitled to the same social welfare as Thai workers and should be under close control. Therefore, labour rights activists have suggested the government review an act on immigrant labour protection to cover the workforce in the agricultural, fishing and household sectors.

Sombat Niwetrat from the Employment Department said immigration authorities had arrested more than 130,000 illegal immigrants in recent years, which was seen as indicative of the higher demand for them to enter the country. Mr Sombat said 90% of those caught vowed to come back to Thailand no matter what happens.

Adapted from: "More companies using child labor." Bangkok Post. 15 December 2006. (Source: UNIAP Thailand)

IOM Launches a Unique Tool Designed to Combat Human Trafficking

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:45:00 GMT

A unique new tool designed to fight trafficking in persons around the world is being officially launched by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the U.S. Department of State.

The new package of training programs aimed at immigration and law enforcement officials, legislators and nongovernmental organizations represents a “milestone in establishing a comprehensive global counter-trafficking strategy,” said IOM spokesperson Jean-Philippe Chauzy. The training modules were developed by IOM, with funding from the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, and based on extensive experience in the field and feedback from participants in IOM pilot programs in Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America.

“The people of the United States view human trafficking as an abhorrent crime, and we are committed to combating and preventing it both at home and abroad,” Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration Ellen Sauerbrey said at a joint press conference with IOM and other officials in Geneva November 28. “This is 21st century slavery.”

The United States is a “world leader in the fight against trafficking in persons,” having contributed over $375 million over the past five years for counter-trafficking projects around the globe, she added. “The Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration has chosen IOM as our primary implementing partner for anti-trafficking programs because of IOM’s extensive expertise in the field.”

Richard Danziger, Head of IOM’s Counter-Trafficking Division, explained that one of the most basic challenges is training people to recognize trafficking victims. Confusion between smuggling, illegal immigration and trafficking persists. “Today, despite all the talk about trafficking, trafficked children are still being deported to their home countries, or even transit countries. Victims, slaves, are still being treated as criminals.”

The first aim of IOM’s new “Counter-Trafficking Training Modules” is to counter misinformation about trafficking in persons. The program seeks to debunk common myths, such as the idea that all victims of trafficking are women and children, or that only uneducated, poor people are trafficked.

IOM also strove to develop a methodology that would be international but flexible enough to be customized for specific local situations, Danziger said. “While trafficking is a global problem, trafficking is not the same in Afghanistan, as it is in Colombia or in Portugal.”

To ensure this global approach, IOM drew on feedback from successful pilot programs in the Netherlands Antilles, Jamaica, South Africa, Indonesia, Cambodia, Suriname and the Bahamas. To date, some 700 people in 25 countries have been trained to use the modules.

Each module is designed as a stand-alone two-day training program. The first day might begin with a session on the basic concepts of trafficking in persons, including how to identify victims. Participants learn about the different ways trafficking works and the methods traffickers use to control their victims through debt bondage, isolation, the removal of ID or travel documents, or the use of violence and the threat of reprisals against family members.

Later, participants move on to identifying potential problems in their own countries and working in teams to prioritize potential initial strategies. A key focus is on building partnerships and developing cooperative networks between government, law enforcement and civil society. “In many countries, police, border guards, do not work with civil society -- there is no trust between those two institutions. These modules are intended to address just those issues,” Danziger said.

“The counter-trafficking modules draw on IOM’s extensive experience in this field to develop a how-to approach for policy makers, service providers and others,” said Kelly Ryan, deputy assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration. “Their focus is comprehensive, providing information and instructions on the essential elements of an effective national strategy to combat trafficking, such as information campaigns, return and reintegration of victims, cooperation and networking, special needs of children, and direct assistance among other topics.”

Among the pilot countries that have been using the modules now for several years, is the Bahamas. “Whenever we recruit new immigration officers, we use part of the module for their training,” said Vernon Burrows, director of the Immigration Department of the Bahamas.

As an example, Burrows noted that it is essential to sensitize immigration officials “to ask the right questions” when they encounter unaccompanied minors or children traveling with adults who are not their parents. “When you ask these questions, you may get answers where they reveal themselves,” he explained.

Awareness of the problem of trafficking in persons has grown dramatically in recent years, Danziger said, and basic awareness is a big step toward addressing the issue. One simple example of progress, he noted, is the fact that many countries now place certain conditions on visas for children who are not traveling with their parents. “I think we will find soon that most if not all countries are doing more to protect unaccompanied minors.”

Adapted from: Wendy Lubetkin. "New Training Programs Will Help Fight Trafficking in Persons."
(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

Child Trafficking on the Rise in Indonesia

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:46:00 GMT

Indonesian authorities are battling a growing trade in child trafficking, including a recent case where hundreds of babies were sold overseas, a report says.

The report, by the Indonesian Ministry of Women Empowerment, found that efforts to retrieve the children in baby trafficking cases were flawed. It comes amid a three-day workshop on the commercial sexual exploitation of children, hosted by UNICEF and the Indonesian Ministry of Women Empowerment in Bali.

The gathering is attempting to devise a strategy for combating the growing industry. "The baby trafficking cases in Indonesia are not comprehensively handled as human trafficking crimes," the report said. "The cases in which the (perpetrators) were caught and brought to law were the cases where they were caught red-handed."

The report said one woman was caught in South Jakarta last year after having sold 880 babies abroad. A further 25 babies were saved. In another case, also in South Jakarta, one group admitted to selling more than 80 babies to foreigners, while a man in west Java had "exported" about 300 babies overseas, the report said.

UNICEF child protection officer Anna-Karin Jatfors said sexual exploitation of children was a "major and growing issue", with evidence of criminal syndicates operating throughout Indonesia, and Asia. "Because of the crimes involved and the personal nature of sex, the trafficking and exploitation becomes underground and difficult to monitor," she said.

"We only have to walk through Kuta or any other tourist area at night to see for ourselves the many young girls working in the street, or in many of the clubs, karaoke bars or even hotels operating in the area," she said. "Adolescent children who drop out of school are the most vulnerable.

"They are trapped by poor education, with little or no work opportunities. As such they are easy prey for traffickers." Ministry of Women Empowerment child protection assistant deputy Soepalarto Soedibjo said there had been a "significant increase" of sexual exploitation of children, with no significant improvement despite recent efforts to fight the problem.

"We hoped that if the project is succeeded, it can be an example for other areas, but we have problems, we have difficulties to raise awareness to people on this matter," Soepalarto said. Two Australians are currently facing child sex charges in Indonesia.

Donald Storen, 58, faces up to five years if found guilty of allegations of sexual acts with minors on the island of Lombok, while teacher Peter Smith faces up to 20 years if convicted of sexually abusing six street children in south Jakarta.

Adapted from: "Child trafficking 'on rise in Indonesia'" NineMSN. 4 December 2006.

Thais Receive Compensation and Visas in Los Angeles Human Trafficking Case

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:50:00 GMT

A group of Thais brought to the United States by a suspected labor trafficker accused of forcing them to live in squalor while working for little or no pay will be compensated under a consent decree reached between the federal government and a Northern California steel company.

"No amount of money can compensate for what we have today, which is our freedom, our family and justice," said Sathaporn Pornsrisirisak, one of the victims. "Although I have seen the worst of America, I have also seen the best that this country has to offer, such as laws that can bring about justice for people who are so powerless and exploited that you can't imagine exists."

Details of the settlement were announced Friday at a federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles. Most of the Thai nationals will receive up to $7,500 as part of the deal, according to Chancee Martorell, executive director of the Thai Community Development Center, which reported the alleged abuse.

The discrimination case was investigated by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of 48 Thais who were subjected to human trafficking and slavery, authorities said.

"These workers were forced to live in cramped apartments without water, electricity or gas," said Anna Park, an attorney with the commission. "They had no light, they had no heat. They were constantly threatened with arrest and any attempts to escape they were told that the police and immigration would come and take them away."

A total of 49 Thai nationals were recruited by Yoo Taik Kim, who was tapped by Trans Bay Steel Corp. of Napa, Calif., to find welders, Martorell said. Kim managed to bring the Thais to the United States in December 2002 but he took away their passports, authorities said. "Mr. Kim recruited these workers and made all these false promises for things that never materialized," Martorell said. "They lived in horrible conditions and worked for hardly nothing."

Ten people were hired to work on the Bay Bridge retrofit by Trans Bay, a manufacturer of hinge pipe beams. Others worked in two Thai restaurants owned by Kim in the Los Angeles area. The restaurant workers were kept in safe houses where they slept on floors and were given scraps of food, Martorell said. Some of them were paid about $200 over three months, despite working seven days a week, 10 hours a day, she said.

It wasn't until one of them escaped and went to the Thai community center that an investigation was launched. The two restaurants were later closed and one of the Thai nationals has returned home. Kim's attorney, Dan Marmalefsky, told The Associated Press he had just learned about the accusations and his client was innocent. Kim, who is Korean but lived in Thailand and speaks the language, does not own any restaurants and did not take anyone's passport, he said.

Kim was helping out an acquaintance at Trans Bay who asked him to use his contacts with the Thai government to find some qualified welders, Marmalefsky said. "When Trans Bay didn't follow through on its commitments, Mr. Kim on his personal expense offered the workers free housing, provided them with food and brought them to the Thai embassy to help them," he said. "He tried to do a good deed and this is his reward I guess."

Authorities say they are still looking for Kim, who also has a business in San Jose. A man identified by Marmalefsky as Kim called on a cell phone in Los Angeles Friday and said he had never been contacted by anyone on the matter. He said he only learned of the accusations through an article in the Korean press after returning to California from a recent trip.

"I didn't do anything wrong," said Kim, adding that he did not receive any money from Trans Bay. A representative of the EEOC did not immediately return telephone calls.

Trans Bay has paid $64,000 in back pay to eight of 10 workers. The company also has given full-time jobs to some of the workers and found them housing, while others have received visas to remain in the U.S. or have immigration applications pending. Trans Bay "felt it should step up and do what it could to make the situation right," said attorney Doug Smith, who estimates the company has paid more than $500,000 in the case.

The real culprit, Smith contends, is Kim, who he alleges was paid by Trans Bay. Smith claimed the workers hired by Trans Bay were supposed to be paid about $18.80 an hour by Kim, but it turned out they were given only $6.75. Trans Bay broke its contract with Kim in mid-2003, Smith said.

"The company got completely swindled," he said. "It perceives itself as a victim of fraud by someone who turned out to be a labor trafficker."

Adapted from: Gred Risling. "Thai workers get money, visas in LA human trafficking settlement." Mercury News. 8 December 2006.

OSCE States to Intensify Efforts to Combat Sexual Exploitation of Children

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:53:00 GMT

Helsinki Commission Initiative endorsed in Ministerial Decision.

Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-NJ), Chairman and Co-Chairman, respectively, of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Commission) praised the decision of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) participating States to strengthen international efforts to combat sexual exploitation, in particular child pornography and sex tourism. This decision follows a July 2006 OSCE Parliamentary Assembly resolution championed by members of the Helsinki Commission that called for increased cooperation to combat such pernicious crime.

“This ministerial decision is a great step forward in recognizing the scope of the war we are fighting to protect our children,” said Senator Brownback. “The blight of child pornography cannot be erased until each country does its part to shut down safe havens for those who exploit the most vulnerable among us.”

The high-level decision, adopted in Brussels at the meeting of the foreign ministers of the 56 OSCE countries, provides political impetus for enhanced cooperation between these nations as well as intensified work by the organization. The decision recognizes that the sexual exploitation of children is a “grave and large-scale problem throughout the OSCE region.” It calls on the participating States to conform their legislation to international norms and to take all legal measures to prosecute the sexual exploitation of children.

“I want to thank the countries of Belgium and France who worked closely with the United States in developing a comprehensive package to combat these forms of exploitation,” commented Rep. Smith. “In addition, this work would not have been possible without the vital contribution of the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC).”

The Helsinki Commission initiative was introduced based on a new study of child pornography released by the ICMEC, surveying laws in 184 Interpol member countries produced alarming results: more than half of these countries (95) have no laws addressing child pornography and in many other countries, the existing laws are inadequate.

A survey of the OSCE countries based on the report, Child Pornography: Model Legislation & Global Review, finds that --

• 6 countries lack any laws criminalizing any aspect of child pornography
• 32 countries lack any legal definition of child pornography
• 16 countries have failed to make the possession of child pornography a crime
• 20 countries lack laws criminalizing the distribution of child pornography via computer and the Internet
• 50 do not require Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to report suspected child pornography to law enforcement

To date, Belgium, France and the United States are the only OSCE countries to have enacted comprehensive laws addressing all 5 of these areas.

The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission, is a U.S. Government agency that monitors progress in the implementation of the 1975 Helsinki Accords.

December 8, 2006
234 Ford House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515-6460
Sen. Sam Brownback, Chairman
Rep. Christopher H. Smith, Co-Chairman
For Immediate Release www.csce.gov
Media Contact: Sean Woo
+1 202 225 1901

Child Trafficking Cases on the Rise in The Philippines

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:55:00 GMT

The government should exert more effort in combating child trafficking cases as it continues to rise every year.

For 2006, there are only ten convictions relative to child trafficking cases. Regina Florendo of the Asia Against Child Trafficking (Asia ACTs) said the ten convictions come from the different parts of the country.

Florendo was in the city yesterday (Tuesday) for the 3rd Annual Commemoration of the International Day Against Trafficking hosted by the Regional Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (RIACAT) 6. She is also the coordinator of the Philippine Against Child Trafficking (PACT) which is attached to the Asia ACTs.

Asia ACTs is part of the International Campaign against Child Trafficking (ICaCT) coordinated by Terre des Hommes (TDH)-Germany and the International Federation of Terre des Hommes. They got their funding from the United Nations Children's Fund formerly United Nations International Children's Fund. TDH launched the International Campaign against Child Trafficking (IcaCT) in 2001. Its objective is to provide better protection for children and to ensure that child traffickers are prosecuted. "Child trafficking is a blatant violation of children's rights."

Through, its regional campaign, the Asia ACTs discovered that trafficking in people, especially in children is increasing because of its highly lucrative nature. It is easy to make profits in selling and exploiting children because children can be sold several times, unlike drugs or weapons. An Asia ACT's report showed that a "trafficked child is a chattel to be used, exploited or sold." Even infants are in demand by illegal adoption rings like those operating in Vietnam and the Philippines. Girls are trafficked for marriage, and later forced into prostitution, like those girls from Indonesia, Cambodia and Vietnam.

The same Asia ACTs report said "rural children are trafficked to the cities to become factory workers, construction workers, domestic servants, prostitutes, beggars, drug couriers or drug sellers. Children may leave their respective countries willingly or unwillingly through cross-border trafficking." Luckily, Iloilo City is not one of the areas where cases of child trafficking cases thrive.

Child trafficking cases are imminent in Cebu, Zamboanga del Sur and Bukidnon. Child trafficking case is a "continuing crime, " said Florendo. She added child trafficking cases will happen as long as people lacks the awareness about the crime. It is not only young children who are victims of child trafficking but adults too. There are two types of trafficking, large scale and qualified trafficking.

In an interview, Florendo said they have encountered cases where the victims are more than 18 years old yet most of the victims are children. And not one of these rescued individuals came from poor family. There are individuals who are lured because of the juicy promises of the recruiters. The conviction for trafficking involving children is much easier than to convict traffickers of adult. There is nothing to prove if the victims is a child. However, in cases where the victims are adult, the prosecution should present evidences how the victims are "exploited, " said Florendo.

She added that they have also encountered "cross-border cases," where children from the different places are transferred from one place to another. Recently, they have pinpointed several areas in the Philippines where victims of child trafficking came and rescued. Based on the Asia ACT records, children from Davao where rescued in Iriga City; children from Quezon City where rescued in Singapore; children from Tarlac where rescued in Malaysia; children from Zamboanga del Sur were rescued either in Manila or Nueva Ecija and children from Camarines Norte were rescued in either Bulacan or Pampanga.

Child trafficking situation in the country, with more detailed information about trafficking routes, recruitment practices, characteristics of victims, profile of key actors involved, working conditions of victims and the state of anti-trafficking legislative measures is contained in a Philippine research entitled "Endangered Generation: Child Trafficking for Sexual Purposes in the Philippines."

Adapted from: Maricar M. Calubiran. "Child trafficking cases keep on rising." The News Today. 13 December 2006.

Trafficking of Burmese to Thailand

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:58:00 GMT

International migration is likely to be with us as long as human societies continue to develop,” outgoing UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan stated in a global migration report released this year.

He urged governments to promote the rights of migrants. “In all probability, it will continue to rise in the decades ahead,” Annan predicted. According to a UN survey, there are currently an estimated 191 million people living outside their country of origin and half of them are women. Throughout history, people have migrated to find better lives.

Many migrants are desperate. They risk their lives and invest all they have or can borrow to seek a better life, oftentimes in an unwelcome environment. Impoverished Burmese are no exception. In Thailand alone, it's estimated there are 1.3 million migrant workers, mostly from neighboring Burma, and many more are pouring in. Many of them are caught up in exploitation by human trafficking rings.

In the past, the Burmese exodus has been mainly regarded as result of the repressive military government’s human rights abuses and economic mismanagement, putting many Burmese below the poverty line. Critics constantly noted the regime’s failure to address the migrant issue. This year, however, saw Burmese authorities issue passports for Burmese migrants who want to work in Thailand. Still, many migrants, who are already working in Thailand, suspect the government’s move and regard it as nothing more than an attempt to try to squeeze revenue out of their sweat. Despite lack of statistics, experts believe that remittance from Burmese overseas is a major source of stable income for many Burmese at home who live under economic hardship.

The Burmese government recently claimed success in cracking down on human trafficking with more arrests and severe punishment for scores of offenders. The US State Department, however, ranks Burma as a “source country for women and men trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation.” Its report stated that Burmese citizens were trafficked to Thailand, China, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Korea and Macau for sexual exploitation, domestic service and forced labor.

Last week, 41 Burmese, who hid in a gasoline truck while trying to sneak in Thailand, were arrested. They will be charged with illegal entry and deported home, where they will face punishment for unlawfully leaving the country. Both Burma and Thailand could help solve the illegal trafficking problem by focusing more efforts to crack down on the well-organized human trafficking rings which sometimes involve influential gangs and government officials, often the same people who are on watch for human trafficking along the border.

Human trafficking must be confronted on moral and legal grounds as a gross violation of human rights. As long as governments overlook and fail to crack down on those responsible for human trafficking, the fate of many desperate migrants will be subject to the whims of criminals and corrupt government officials.

Adapted from: "A Cure for Human Trafficking of Migrants." The Irrawaddy. 18 December 2006.

Police in Durban, South Africa Use Unique Tactics to Combat Sex Trafficking

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 17:00:00 GMT

Police have appealed to the clients of a Durban brothel, suspected of being part of an international human trafficking syndicate to assist them, or face an embarrassing public visit.

This follows a raid at "exclusive gentlemen's club" After Dark, in Cato Street, at the weekend when 26 young women, believed to be of Thai origin, and four men suspected of being pimps were arrested. Interpol and members of other international police agencies are working closely with the Organised Crime Unit on the investigation.

Owners of the club, who have been identified by police, could soon face charges and police are confident that they will make arrests soon. The Organised Crime Unit's Supt Willie Louw related how he saw terror on the faces of the young girls as they raided the club.

He said during the raid documents containing names, car registration numbers and phone numbers of the club's clientele were seized. The data collected named many high-profile individuals, including well-known businessmen, who would be visited by police for information. "We are appealing to these men to come forward and help us out with our investigations, or risk being embarrassed when we visit you at your homes or place of business," said Louw.

"Clients at the club witnessed and participated in illegal activities by being at the club, and in terms of the Criminal Procedures Act they have to co-operate with us." Louw said most of the arrested women were very young, probably in their late teens, and couldn't speak English. Another building in Pinetown, also linked to the club, was also raided.

Anyone with information can call Inspector Mandla Mkhwanazi at 072 507 9690 or 033 333 8000.

Adapted from: Bhavna Sookha. "Cops in trafficking case appeal to brothel." Independent Online (IOL). 18 December 2006.

Advocates Pushing for a New York State Law on Human Trafficking

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 21:21:00 GMT

A coalition of women's and human rights advocates are pushing New York state legislators to quickly pass a law against human trafficking. From VOA's New York Bureau, correspondent Barbara Schoetzau reports advocates say the sex trade is a flourishing industry in the United States, and New York is a major port of entry.

Twenty one states have laws against human trafficking. But the New York State Anti-Trafficking Coalition says that although state legislators have approved weak measures, they have yet to enact one into law in New York.

Janet Manning of the group Equality Now says human trafficking is simply a trade in human beings, something most Americans think is illegal. "It means taking a person with a heart and soul and hopes and plans and trapping that person in a position of servitude against his or her will," said Janet Manning. "It happens in the sex industry, mostly to the young, mostly to girls and very young women. It happens in labor settings in sweatshops, on farms, in delis and restaurants."

Advocates says laws against rape and kidnapping do not usually apply in human trafficking situations because the laws require victims to prove the use of imminent force or show that they were abducted and held in a place where they could not be found. Many of the victims are forced into prostitution and often find themselves prosecuted rather than protected. They are often lured with promises of jobs as domestics or marriage proposals.

Kika Cerpa knows from firsthand experience. She was brought from Venezuela to New York by a boyfriend who took her passport and sent her to work in a brothel. "When I was in the burdel [brothel], I met a lot of women that were trafficked also," said Kika Cerpa. "Also when I was working my friend Annie died. She was killed by a customer because she did not want to be with him. I am standing up not only for me because whatever happened to me is in the past, but to build my future I have to face it. And this is how I want to face it. I want New York City to make a strong law to help women going through trafficking to rebuild their lives and also to punish the customers in trafficking."

According to the US Justice Department, New York's John F. Kennedy Airport is the hub of cross-border trafficking in the United States. Ken Franzblau of Equality Now says the victims come from everywhere, including the United States. "There is virtually no part of the world now where we do not see trafficking victims from, certainly from Asia, from Latin America, particularly Mexico, Central America, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, from Eastern and Central Europe," said Ken Franzblau. "There are brothels throughout New York with trafficked Chinese girls and women in them. And we should not overlook also that there are a lot of trafficking victims in New York from throughout the United Sates. That is a huge problem. I would guess there are probably more trafficked American girls in the United States than there are women and girls trafficked from outside the country."

Organized crime is often involved in operating large prostitution rings, but advocates say many of the operations are small, sometimes run by families who send unsuspecting girls to relatives in the United States, who run brothels that can be found through newspapers and on the Internet. Federal law enforcement agencies have played a major role in calling attention to the problem. But Sonia Ossorio of the National Organization of Women says prosecutors and law enforcement officials need strong state laws to help them do the job.

"New York is like a bonanza to them [the traffickers]," she said. "They come here, they set up shop. They have their marketing arms. It is part of our economy and we cannot take any further steps without a law that says it is a crime." Advocates say trafficking in the sex industry will not stop until the demand decreases. They are calling for laws that penalize patrons rather than prostitutes.

Members of the New York State Anti-Trafficking Coalition are planning weekly rallies to pressure the state legislature to pass a strong law - quickly.

Adapted from: "Law Against Human Trafficking Urged for New York State." VOA News. 5 January 2007.

Poll Highlights Need for Better Understanding Among Thais of the Importance of Migrant Workers to Their Economy

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 09:53:00 GMT

Migrants help economy but only one-in-two Thais agree they should enjoy the same working conditions.

18 December 2006, Bangkok, Thailand

A new ABAC poll released revealed the need for better understanding among Thais of the important contribution made by foreign migrant workers to the Thai economy.

To mark International Migrants Day,the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) commissioned a random household survey of 4,148 Thais, conducted by Assumption University between 25 November and 1 December, to get a better idea of Thai attitudes toward the increasing number of foreign migrants who arrive in the Kingdom from neighbouring countries and take on low-paying, low-skilled jobs in many sectors of Thailand’s expanding economy, including domestic work. The poll results will be used to help raise awareness in Thailand of the benefits gained through these workers and the need to protect their rights, if Thailand is to remain an attractive country of employment.

It’s well-recognized today that Asia’s growing economies are increasingly reliant on migrant workers and this market for labour is likely to become increasingly competitive in the future. Today, about half those migrating for work in this region are women. While Thai workers are joining the trend of labour migration to Asia’s more developed economies, Thailand’s own expanding economy is also in need of more foreign workers.

Figures from the Ministry of Labour suggested rising demand for unskilled migrant workers. Last year, local employers requested 1.8 million unskilled migrant workers from Myanmar, Lao PDR and Cambodia for various occupations. The demand led the Cabinet to approve the idea of importing 200,000 low-skilled workers from the three countries.

Despite this official recognition, the ABAC poll, released to coincide with International Migrants Day, indicated that most respondents believed Thailand does not need migrant workers for sustaining the industrial and agricultural economy and about 58.6% of respondents said the Thai government should not admit more foreigners to work in Thailand compared with only 9.7% that believed otherwise. The respondents believed that hiring more migrant workers will have negative impacts on Thai workers, such as making it more difficult for Thai workers to find a job, making employers value them less and forcing them to settle for lower wages.

However, many Thais today are less willing to take up the low-paid, ‘3D’ jobs - those seen as ‘dirty, degrading and dangerous’. Migrant workers are filling that gap, rather than competing with Thais. The poll also revealed that Thais were divided over the issue of equal pay for equal work, working conditions and whether migrants were entitled to freedom of expression – a basic human right.

When asked about equal working conditions for migrant and Thai workers, Thais seemed to agree on equal working hours and holidays, but not on equal wages. Compared with more than 75% of the respondents who agreed on equal working hours and holidays, only 40% of the respondents agreed on equal wages. The respondents justified their response, in part, by adding that the wages migrants received in Thailand, even though lower than those of Thai workers, were still better than what the migrants earned in their home countries.

According to the poll, 67.3% of the respondents said migrant workers should not be able to apply for any job available in Thailand, and roughly one-in-two respondents (50.3%) said migrant workers should not be provided with the same legal working conditions as Thais. More than half (59.7%) said migrant workers should also not be allowed freedom of expression. About 77.3% agreed that migrant workers should not have the right to form unions.

Most of the ABAC poll respondents, especially those who have been personally acquainted with migrant workers, indicated their belief that migrants are hard working, but not honest and loyal.
The findings from the ABAC poll largely support the results of a year long research study jointly conducted by ILO and the Institute for Population and Social Research, Mahidol University. The results of that research found that Thai employers were also of the view that migrant workers were not entitled to the same rights as Thai workers.

In addition, the poll indicated that 84.4% of the respondents were aware that all migrant workers must have legal status through the registration process, despite the fact that large numbers of Thai employers willingly employed unregistered migrants. These include women from neighbouring countries who migrate to Thailand to find employment as domestic workers. Thai employers appear to prefer hiring unregistered migrant workers because they can pay them lower wages and avoid compliance with labour standards.

In the Asian region, where the market for even low-skilled labour is likely to become increasingly competitive, there is clearly a need for greater public awareness in Thailand of the positive role played by migrants in economic development and a need to change public attitudes to the pay and conditions offered to these workers. To be an attractive employment destination, providing protection under Thai labour laws with pay and conditions equivalent to those received by Thais, would be a good starting point.

Importantly, the poll reaffirms that the media plays an important role in shaping public views and knowledge about migrant workers. Four out of five people (79.9%) who remembered media reports recalled reading about migrant workers who had committed serious crimes in Thailand while only 41.4% recalled reports where migrants had been cheated or abused by employers in the industrial and agricultural sectors and only 29% had read about domestic workers being cheated or abused.

On a positive note, the poll showed that Thai people do have sympathy toward migrant workers when they are abused by employers. Most of the respondents said they would report abuse to the police, relevant government agencies and organizations and the media. Only 15.1 % of the respondents said they would do nothing. Greater awareness of the full plight of migrant workers in Thailand may encourage Thais to increase their support for the protection of migrants.

For further information, please contact:
Khun Nattha Keenapan
UNIFEM East and South-East Asia
Regional Office, Bangkok
Mob: +66 (0) 86 616 7555
E-Mail: nkeenapan@gmail.com

Khun Siripan Kijraksa
ABAC Polling
Tel: +66 (0) 2 719 1074 or +66 (0) 2 719 1550
Mob: +66 (0) 81 313 7509

Khun Rakawin Leechanavanichpan
ILO Bangkok
Tel: +66 (0) 2 288 2629
Mob: +66 (0) 81 682 3839
Email: rakawin@ilo.org

Agreement Signed Among Southern Provinces in Thailand to Combat Human Trafficking

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 10:52:00 GMT

The Ministry of Social Development and Human Security together with UNICEF, Plan Thailand organization, and six provinces along the Andaman coast signed an agreement in a joint effort to help the victims of human trafficking. The signing ceremony was held at Royal Phuket City School on 10 January 2007.

Dr. Saisuree Jutikul, the president of the subcommittee responsible for coordinating with involved units to solve women and children trafficking, stated that human trafficking is a problem that clearly violates human rights, and the problem has become more violent and complex.

The government however has announced that human trafficking is a national agenda that needs to be addressed. The government has allocated a budget of 500 million baht to help the victims of human trafficking in many as forms.

The agreement being made will help national and international agencies at all levels to work together to solve human trafficking in Thailand, especially in the six western provinces of Krabi, Satun, Trang, Phang Nga, and Phuket. The agencies will also be able to integrate and determine the working methods together.

Adapted from: "Social Development and Human Security Ministry, UNICEF and relevant units signed an agreement to jointly solve human trafficking." thaisnews.com. 10 January 2007. (Source: UNIAP Thailand)

Thai Women in Deadly South Africa Sex Ring

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 11:57:00 GMT

Police are investigating the role of fellow officers in an alleged human trafficking case involving 26 Thai women who were arrested in a dramatic raid on Durban's After Dark "gentlemen's club", according to South African media reports.

According to a special report by Sibusiso Ngalwa in the Sunday Tribune, investigations by the Tribune have revealed that some members of the South African Police Service had used their houses to keep Thai women. The report alleged that brothel owners would use the corrupt police to scare the girls, telling them that if they refused to obey their orders they would be thrown into jail for being in the country illegally.

Last week 26 women and four men were arrested in two raids. The raid led to the closure of a club called After Dark, and the discovery of other women at a private property in Pinetown. They appeared in court on Monday on charges of prostitution and being in the country illegally and their case was postponed to Jan 12 for further investigation.

The Tribune report quoted "sources" who said the Thai girls were lured into the country by false promises of abundant employment opportunities in South Africa. Once here they were sold into prostitution and their passports confiscated.

The sources said that three kingpins - who were now in hiding - had been identified, and warrants for their arrest had been issued. One kingpin is said to have direct links to human trafficking syndicates in Thailand, the report said.

Unconfirmed reports state that the police, as part of their ongoing investigations, have uncovered a money trail between South African criminals and their Thai counterparts, running into millions of rands (dollars). The Thai syndicates are allegedly paid 60,000 South African rand (about 308,000 baht) for each girl.

Adapted from: "Thai women in deadly S Africa sex ring." Bangkok Post. 28 December 2006. (Source: UNIAP Thailand)

Some in UK Demand Action on Trafficking

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 12:04:00 GMT

The UK should sign up to a European convention tackling the "hideous trade" of human trafficking, the Tories say.

Shadow home secretary David Davis said not enough was being done to tackle the modern slave trade" which, he said, was "spiralling out of control". The European Convention Against Human Trafficking covers a range of measures including the one to provide temporary, 30-day residence permits to victims to recover from their ordeal and reflect on whether they will help police prosecute offenders.

There are some fears this aspect of the convention may be open to abuse by people making false claims of being trafficking victims in a bid to remain in the country. But Mr Davis denied this would be a "pull factor" for those seeking residence in the UK. "They are not going to take up a life of being brutalised in the sex trade in order to get residence here," he said.

"The people who make the decisions in this trade are not the victims, but are the criminals. The way to change that decision for them is to catch them, to prosecute them and to punish them and to make sure we protect their victims at the same time."

Mr. Davis said trafficking should be the Serious Organised Crime Agency's "top priority", and added that there should be more international police co-operation to chase down criminals, and victims should be offered a helpline and more safe houses. A border police force should be set up to look for suspicious signs - like swift return tickets or those bought for cash, and to interview adults and children separately to ensure their stories match up.

Adapted from: "Tories demand trafficking action." news.bbc.co.uk. 3 January 2007. (Source: UNIAP Thailand)

US Justice Department Names Las Vegas Among 17 Most Likely Destinations

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 12:20:00 GMT

The US federal government believes Las Vegas is a top destination for "human trafficking" victims - from indentured servants to massage parlor workers and prostitutes held captive and forced to commit sex acts.

This belief has led the Justice Department to grant hundreds of thousands of dollars to Metro Police to tackle the problem.

But first, the Anti Trafficking League Against Slavery (ATLAS), an office within Metro that opened last month, needs to try to answer a basic question: Is there a human-trafficking problem here, and if so, how big is it? Terri Miller, ATLAS's civilian director and long one of the top Nevada activists against the sexual exploitation of women and children, and her boss, Metro Capt. Terry Lesney, say the need for the group is clear: There is a "huge" and growing sex-oriented trafficking problem in Las Vegas. Yet they quickly add that no statistics have ever been gathered and law enforcers never before have made it a top priority - so the scope of the problem still needs to be determined. Police in the past haven't paid sufficient attention to the signs that the prostitutes or others they're investigating may also be trafficking victims, they say - meaning the problem has gone underreported for years.

Miller says the problem has been made worse by Las Vegas' aggressive advertising promotions that encourage tourists to come here and sin all they like. "We're basically giving a green light for people to come here and exploit women and children," Miller says. ATLAS was formed as an extension of the ad hoc Nevada Human Trafficking Task Force, an interagency group set up by the U.S. attorney's office in Las Vegas in 2004.

The task force's first task was to determine whether, in fact, there was a human-trafficking problem, Lesney says. But because of the lack of hard data, she says, "we were struggling to quantify what we're dealing with." Federal law defines trafficking as what happens when children, teens, men or women are subjected to "force, fraud or coercion" for the purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labor.

Human trafficking is different from smuggling in that people who are smuggled voluntarily pay the smuggler, and when the person arrives, he or she is free, or is required to work under a job arranged by the smuggler until the debt is paid. Trafficking victims are enslaved, and if they are in debt to the trafficker, it's most often at rates too high to ever be able to pay. Victims are often lured by false promises, and are sometimes physically forced.

Sex trafficking victims can range from massage parlor workers brought in from overseas to prostitutes trafficked here from California or Arizona. Labor trafficking, including domestic servitude, agricultural or sweatshop labor, involves victims forced to work against their will, sometimes under the threat of violence.

Often, Miller and Lesney say, victims or their family members have been threatened by the traffickers and are afraid they will be deported if they come forward and cooperate with police. Between 17,000 and 20,000 people are trafficked into the United States annually, according to State Department estimates. Of those, it is unknown how many are brought to Nevada.

Rarely have defendants in Las Vegas been prosecuted as human traffickers, Lesney says, though there is a tough federal law passed in 2000 and even newer state laws that target those crimes. Until this month, she said, Metro didn't even have a booking code for alleged human trafficking violators. The largest human trafficking bust in the area in recent years was Operation Jade Blade. A national sting in 2000 netted five Las Vegas Valley residents, who were arrested for trafficking Asian prostitutes into the city. The women had been smuggled into the country for a fee, then were forced to pay back their debt by working as prostitutes.

In the last six years federal prosecutors have brought nine additional cases with strong trafficking elements into federal courts, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Las Vegas, including cases in which pimps brought girls or women into the region from other states to work as prostitutes. Each of those cases was smaller in scope than the Jade Blade bust, Nevada U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden concedes. Although he wouldn't comment on any ongoing investigations, he says there has been little funding to pursue deep investigations into trafficking cases. Bogden says he believes the work of the task force and Miller's office will change that.

"Any time you essentially enslave a human being and deprive a human being of their rights, that has to be a top priority," says Bogden, who will be stepping down from his post at the end of next month. Locally, there have been even fewer human trafficking cases charged and prosecuted in the last few years. According to District Court records, only one trafficking case has been prosecuted locally since 2005, when the Legislature put two new anti-trafficking laws on the books.

In that case, a woman was indicted by a Las Vegas grand jury on Dec. 12. Personna Coleman is alleged to have committed involuntary servitude - as well as kidnapping and several other crimes - when she restrained and threatened another woman, demanding that the woman earn her at least $1,000 by engaging in prostitution. Clark County prosecutors confirm they are pursuing at least two other trafficking cases , but the details and status of those cases were not made available.

Identified by a Justice Department risk analysis study as one of 17 cities nationwide most likely to be the top destinations for trafficking victims, federal officials gave a $370,000 grant to Metro officials late last year - as well as a smaller one to the local Salvation Army office. With it, ATLAS was born, with Miller serving as director. She started early last month and has a three-year contract with Metro. Miller, 48, worked with the Nevada Coalition Against Sexual Violence, and she has long been involved with a New York-based nonprofit group called SESAME, or Stop Educator Abuse, Misconduct and Exploitation.

Miller - a mother of four who describes herself as an "M.O.M., a Mom on a Mission" - began working against teacher abuse of students while living in Pahrump, including the investigation of a teacher who is serving a life sentence for sexual assault against a 17-year-old student. Miller said her efforts split the Pahrump community: "I was 50 percent vilified, and 50 percent hailed me as a heroine," she said. After 20 years in Pahrump, she and her family moved to the Las Vegas Valley in 2002.

Though a year younger than Miller, Lesney says she's finishing up her work after a 25-year career with Metro. She retires from the force in September, set to move back to her native Minnesota to be closer to family and to finish up her work on a doctorate in forensic psychology. Lesney says she finds satisfaction working on trafficking cases for the same reason she likes handling sexual assault and domestic violence cases: "You're dealing with real victims," she says. Miller and Lesney said they have three main goals for their new anti-trafficking office within Metro - to raise public awareness about the issue; to increase law enforcement's reporting of trafficking cases and then help coordinate investigations; and ultimately, to establish a service network for trafficking victims.

Earlier this month they instituted a mandatory, two-hour online training course on human trafficking for all Metro commissioned officers below the rank of deputy chief. More than 600 have taken the course so far, they said. Miller and Lesney, joined by other local and federal officials and victims' advocates, will hold a press conference on Feb. 6 to highlight the work of the new office. "I'm like a magnet right now," Miller says of her first eight hectic weeks on the job. "They're coming at me from all over to join the task force. I'm really in awe at how fast we're progressing."

Adapted from: Sam Skolnik . "Do we have a human trafficking problem? Justice Department names Las Vegas among 17 most likely destinations." Las Vegas Sun. 29 January 2007.

First China-Myanmar Border Liaison Offices Meeting on Anti-trafficking and Joint Border Visit

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 14:26:00 GMT

According to the bilateral cooperation framework agreed between China and Myanmar police and the expansion of the Border Liaison Offices (BLO) to include human trafficking, the first local cross-border meeting and joint border field visit to combat human trafficking were taken place from February 6 to 8, 2007 in Ruili, China and Muse, Myanmar.

Around 35 Senior officials from two governments both central and local, and 16 representatives from UN agencies and INGOs joined these very improtant activities. The meeting and field visit were supported by UNICEF, UNIAP, UNODC, ARTIP, World Vision and Save the Children.

Chinese participants were from Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of Ministry of Public Security (MPS), Department of International Convention, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Yunnan provincial Bureau of Public Security (BPS), Dehong Prefecture BPS, Ruili City BPS. Myanmar Participants were from Central Body for Suppression of Trafficking in Persons, Department against Transnational Crime, Myanmar Police Force, Myanmar Women’s Affairs Federation, and others from Muse Distric.

In Bilateral meeting was focus on the three following topics:

Rescue and repatriation of Myanmar victims: how both parties can cooperate to ensure safe and timely repatriation and apprehension of perpetrators;
Extradition of Myanmar nationals convicted of trafficking in China;
Efforts by the two sides to control illegal cross-border migration.

For field visiting included following activities:

(1) in China side:

Border check point and unofficial border path
Yinjing Village on the border line
Jiegao border trade market
Proposed venue of BLO in Police Station

(2) in Myanmar side:

Sin phyu Check point
Anti-Trafficking Task Force Office
Nan Taw Check point
Proposed Venue of BLO in Police Station
Unofficial border path
105 Border Trade Zone

The purpose of Establishing multiple BLOs in strategic locations along the border is to strenghten information sharing, intelligence exchange, the arrest of traffickers, prosecution and mutual assistance in rescuing and repatriating victims.

The 2007 work plan for China-Myanmar Cooperation activities as below (will be discussed again):

(1) Establish BLO in Muse (January 2007) and Ruili (before June 2007)
(2) Monthly information exchange meetings (alternate between Muse and Ruili)
(3) Visits to share experiences and good practices
(4) Meeting on the development of child & women friendly repatriation mechanisms
(5) Joint training and study tour on international instruments and best practices
(6) Local meetings to be held as part of BLO mechanisms
(7) Organise a bilateral annual review meeting to discuss progress under the Cooperation Framework and plan 2008 activities
(8) Conduct joint audience analysis and develop communication strategies
(9) Expected result: develop quality IEC materials as part of an awareness campaign
(10) Joint training and study tour on relevant issues

(Source: UNIAP China)

UNICEF Outraged By Cambodian Child Porn Trade

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 14:34:00 GMT

The UN Children’s Fund expressed outrage that Cambodian children are being used in pornography and called on the public to report child porn. The UN agency, however, admitted “that there is presently no specific law penalizing child pornography in Cambodia.”

Unicef’s statement followed revelations Wednesday that child pornography, depicting children possibly as young as 7, is freely available from VCD vendors opposite Phsar Thmei and in several other areas of Phnom Penh.

The child sex VCDs-sporting Khmer-language titles such as “Luring Underage Child,” and “70-Year Old Grandfather Rapes 9-Year –Old Girl,”- includes scenes of bondages and sexual torture of very young girls.

Police reported Tuesday that one of the videos was shot in the notorious brothel village of Svay Pak on the outskirts of Phnom Penh by foreigner pedophiles.

“Unicef is outraged that children in Cambodia are being used in pornography,” Marc Vergara, Unicef spokesman in Cambodia, said in an e-mailed statement. Any form of child pornography is simply not acceptable,” Vergara wrote.

Cambodia ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1992, which deals with the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.

This, Vergara wrote, “makes it an obligation to protect children children from all forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse”. But, he added, there is no specific law in Cambodia penalizing child porn distribution, sale and display.

Apart from a few government regulations and instructions on administration and control of film and video, there is presently no specific law penalizing child pornography in Cambodia.” Unicef calls on the public to be vigilant and to report incidents of child pornography and other forms of child abuse and exploitation.” he added.

Keo Thea, deputy director of the municipal anti-human trafficking police, who has led a slew of arrests of foreign pedophiles in recent months, said Tuesday that authorities have cracked down on child porn in the past. But the city’s VCD vendors keep re-stocking and re-selling, he said.

There is a sub-decree that can be used to fine offenders, he said, though he could not remember how large the fine was. Keo Thea said Wednesday that he was out of town and unable to speak to a reporter.

Government Spokesman and Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith said he was also too busy to speak to a reporter. Interior Ministry spokesman Lietenant General Khieu Sopheak could not be contacted. Phnom Penh Municipal Police Chief Touch Naruth hung up his phone on a reporter.

Sun Ro, deputy director of the Interior Ministry’s anti-human trafficking department, said he was unaware of Phnom Penh’s thriving child porn market and referred question back to Keo Thea. Phan Pheng, police chief of Daun Penh district – where the Phsar Thmei VCD vendors are located – said he was unaware of the area’s child porn business and referred questions to the Culture Ministry.

Culture Minister Prince Sisowath Panara Sereyvuth could not be contacted for comment. Mom Soth, director of the municipal culture department, said he was also unaware of the child porn problem but he said he would order Daun Penh district’s culture office to investigate.

Kek Galabru, founder of local rights group Licadho, said the trade sickened her. “The government should really take this issue seriously. They should not allow the sale of these videos,” she said.

Cambodia already has a bad reputation concerning trafficking and drugs and child labor and child prostitution,” she added. On Wednesday, a VCD vendor on the west side of Phsar Thmei offered child porn unsolicited to potential customers from a plastic bag as a policeman patrolled nearby.

The female vendor, who would not give her name, said police have raided her shop on several occasions, but that this has not discourages her from selling child sex films. I know it is illegal and I am afraid the police will crack down, but I just sell in secret,” she said.

At the nearby Phnom Penh CD shop, where child porn was openly on sale Monday, staff said they were no longer selling the VCDs. Several street stalls offered child porn Monday and Tuesday said they had stopped selling it too, and declined to comment further.

At Olympic Market in Chamkar Mon district, a 52-year old VCD vendor said she had previously been approached by child porn wholesalers, but had refused to stock their material. Ï have daughters, I don’t sell it,” she said.

Adapted from: "UNICEF Outraged By Cambodian Child Porn Trade." Cambodia Daily. 11 January 2007.

USAID Cuts Anti-Human Trafficking Funding

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 14:39:00 GMT

USAID is reducing funding for anti-human trafficking NGOs in Cambodia over the next 20 months from $4.5 million to $2 million, the US Embassy said.

Embassy spokesman Jeff Daigle wrote in an email that USAID will now focus less directly on combating human trafficking and more on governance issues, anti-corruption, and strengthening the rule of law. He said the decision was made in Washington, and was related to “budget constraints.”

“The root causes of [human trafficking] are poverty and poverty is linked directly to poor governance,” Daigle wrote in a recent email. “USAID programs focusing on anti-corruption and more engagement with the judiciary will address these governance problems, and thus, to some extent, trafficking issues,” he said.

Daigle said the funding cut does not indicate that USAID is unhappy with the way its funds have been used. USAID has no plans to directly fund the Cambodian government to combat trafficking, he added.

USAID referred questions to the US Embassy. The NGOs who had been set to receive the USAID funding between January 2007 and October 2008 include World Vision Cambodia, Catholic Relief Services, International Justice Mission, Hagar and World Hope. The Asia Foundation, the organization responsible for distributing the funds, has been tasked with informing the other NGOs that their funding will be reduced or eliminated completely, said Roderick Brazier, Asia Foundation country representative.

An official at IJM said it would no longer be receiving any USAID funds, but still has private donors to fund its work. “The Asia Foundation funding was great, but it was not needed,” the official said. He declined to reveal how much funding the NGO has previously received from USAID.

Gorsalo Salares, acting country representative for Catholic Relief Services, said his NGOs proposed anti-trafficking program will now not be going ahead because of the USAID funding cut. Talmage Payne, CEO of Hagar, said his NGO had been expecting $240,000 from USAID, but pulled out of the Asia Foundation program after hearing funds could be cut.

Payne said it seemed strange that USAID was cutting funds for NGOs, particularly as the US State Department has made such a big issue of human trafficking in Cambodia in recent years.

Adapted from: "USAID Cuts Anti-Human Trafficking Funding." Cambodia Daily. 6 February 2007.

Agreement on Guidelines for Practices and Cooperation between the Relevant Government Institutions and Victim Support Agencies in Cases of Human Trafficking

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 14:47:00 GMT

The Cambodian Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation, and the Ministry of Health signed an agreement on 6 February 2007.

These ministries signed the agreement with Victim Support Agencies outlining Guidelines for Practices and Cooperation between the Government and NGOs in cases of human trafficking. The NGO signatories include Cambodian Women’s Crisis Centre, Komar RikReay, Wathanakpheap, Protection of Juvenile Justice, Healthcare Centre for Children, Cambodian Women’s Development, Cambodia Children against Starvation Violence Association, Child Assistant for Mobilization and Participation, Legal Support for Children and Women, Punleu Komar Kampuchea, Association Support New Cambodian Children, Mlop Tapang, Goutte D' eau, Street Families Center, Children and Love Association, AIDeTouS, Cambodia Center for the Protection of Child Rights, ECPAT, Cambodia Hope Organization, Legal Aid of Cambodia, Kumar Ney Kdey Sangkhem, Kokkyo naki Kodomotch, Anakot Komar and Poipet Transit Center.

The event was organized and sponsored by COSECAM, the Australian Government, ARTIP, and Cardno Acil.

The signing of this agreement is a great achievement toward achieving better government and NGO cooperation and, most importantly, to ensuring that appropriate and effective support is provided to victims of trafficking.

Indonesian Legislature Approves Harsh Bill to Combat Human Trafficking

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 15:18:00 GMT

The House of Representatives has passed a long-awaited bill on human trafficking carrying a maximum 15-year jail sentence and/or a maximum fine of Rp 5 billion for involvement in the human trade.

The bill requires traffickers to pay compensation for victims' material and immaterial losses suffer. All 10 factions at the legislature registered their full support for the bill in a plenary session presided over by House Deputy Speaker Muhaimin Iskandar. Legislators emphasized that the bill criminalized all kinds of human trafficking at home and overseas. The bill stipulates ordinary people, public officials, corporations and syndicates that recruit and transfer people by force, abduction or deceit in order to exploit them face three to 15 years imprisonment and/or fines of Rp 120 million to Rp 600 million.

It also threatens similar sanctions on anyone bringing foreigners here for exploitation or adopting children for a similar purpose. The bill raises the punishment by one-third for crimes that cause victims severe injuries, death, pregnancy or loss of their reproductive functions. In cases of the victim's death, the fine ranges from Rp 200 million to Rp 5 billion. Latifah Iskandar, chairwoman of the House special committee that prepared the bill, said it would protect millions of women and children from abuse.

"With the bill's endorsement, we are sending a very important message to those involved in human trafficking to halt the exploitation of vulnerable groups such as women, children and the poor," she said after the plenary session. Latifah, a legislator from the National Mandate Party (PAN), called on the nation to crack down on all forms of trafficking.

"Law enforcers must be consistent in eliminating these rife practices which are inherently forms of human exploitation," she said. "With such an emphasis, there will no more excuses and reasons for agents involved in the human trade to hide behind official licenses to employ migrant workers overseas or send cultural delegations overseas, marriages of couples of different citizenships and adoption of children."

The labor export program has frequently been manipulated by unauthorized labor exporters to traffic women and children as sexual workers in other countries. "The government-sponsored labor export program, which sends around 450,000 migrant workers annually, is quite prone to human trafficking," said Latifah.

The country's largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, recently found that loan sharks in East Java were forcing people to work under unfair conditions to pay off their families' debts. Minister for Women's Empowerment Meutia Hatta hailed the bill, saying it gave legal protection to victims. "Besides threatening harsh sanctions, the bill requires anyone, corporations, public officials and syndicates involved in human trafficking, to pay compensation for material and immaterial losses suffered by victims," she said.

Adapted from: Ridwan Max Sijabat. "Legislature Approves Harsh Bill to Combat Human Trafficking." The Jakarta Post. (Source: Migrant Care migrantcare@nusa.or.id)

Young Trafficking Victim in the Marianas Tells Her Story

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 12:22:00 GMT

When Kayleen Entena was offered a chance to leave the rural Philippines for work as a restaurant waitress in far-off Saipan, in the Marianas Islands, she jumped at it.

“I was excited about the opportunity to work abroad,” she told a Senate Energy and Resources Committee hearing here today. At 21, the eldest of five children of a widowed mother, she was told she would earn $400 a month, enough to support her family at home and go back to college herself.

Instead, she and another young woman from the Philippines were forced to work in a brothel. They became two of the countless young women who have come to the mid-Pacific Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory, in search of work and better lives over the past 20 years. If they are lucky, such women work 20 hours a day in sweatshop garment factories, living in shacks or barracks and earning $3.05 per hour, far below the U.S. minimum wage. But the clothes are for top-tier U.S. brands and are often labeled “Made in the USA.” If the women are not lucky, they end up like Kayleen and her friend.

The brothel owner, a woman they called Mamasong, took away their documents and told them they had to work to pay off their tickets or their families at home would suffer. On her first day in Saipan, Kayleen was raped by four men. “We tried to run away twice, but they were always at the front….Mamasong told us if we tried to leave she would call the police. We were very scared. We begged her to give us the jobs that they promised us in the Philippines.”

Eventually Kayleen and the other young woman were befriended by young clients who helped them escape and took them to Karidat, a Catholic shelter for battered women run by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd. “I’m not sure what would have happened to me if all these people didn’t help me,” she said.

The Senate committee is considering legislation to bring the Marianas under U.S. labor and immigration law enforcement jurisdiction, an idea Kayleen supported. “I am hoping that this kind of illegal system will stop,” she told the senators. “I do not want this to happen to anyone else.” Committee chairman Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) commended Kayleen for her “courage to endure” what she had suffered.

In an interview with Ms., Kayleen said she has obtained the T-visa that will allow her to live in the United States and apply in three years for permanent residency. “I want to find a job and to save money for my family,” she said, and to return to school. She hopes eventually to become an English teacher. “I’m not afraid any more,” she said.

Adapted from: Joanne Omang. "Young Trafficking Victim in the Marianas Tells Her Story." Ms. Magazine. 12 February 2007.

Experts in Washington, DC Discuss Labor Trafficking

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 12:19:00 GMT

Activists, US government representatives and scholars gathered in Washington to discuss human trafficking, not sex-trafficking, which is the most talked-about aspect of the industry, but the more prevalent one: forced labor.

The United States says hundreds of thousands of people around the world are victimized by human traffickers each year. It is more common in some nations than others, but panelists said not even the United States has conquered the problem.

A representative for the group Human Rights Watch opened the one-day conference with a narrated slide show explaining the plight of Asian women who migrate illegally from poor nations such as Indonesia, Burma, and Laos to wealthier nations like Thailand and Malaysia to find work.

Nisha Varia, whose job puts her in contact with these women, said many get trapped in their jobs because their employers threaten to deport them if they complain about the conditions, such as long hours, forced confinement, and even physical or sexual abuse.

Varia said forced laborers need more protection. She said she wished she could use the United States as an example of a place where human trafficking doesn't exist. But despite increased efforts by the Bush administration to fight the problem, it still exists in north America -- partly because of the healthy job market in the United States.

Andrea Bertone, director of the U.S.-funded HumanTrafficking.org, also concentrates on human trafficking in Asia. She said migrant workers are often viewed as second-class citizens, as evidenced by a recent poll of employers in Thailand. "About half of them do not believe that migrants should have the same rights as Thai workers. They don't believe that they should have freedom of expression, they don't believe they should be able to form unions. This kind of research, I think, starts to open windows for us to understand why there is labor exploitation," she said.

The activists on the panels suggested solutions such as better worker protection laws and job creation in poor countries where the workers migrate from.

Adapted from: "Experts: Human Trafficking Increasing Every Year." voanews.com. 9 February 2007.

Sri Lankans in Difficult Jobs in Iraq

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 15:43:00 GMT

In Sri Lanka's war-torn north and east, where killings happen every day and work is nearly nonexistent, it doesn't take much to entice a man to leave.

So when an employment agency offered a steady paycheck for laboring amid Dubai's soaring glass and steel towers, 17 young Sri Lankan men paid their fee to the job brokers -- US$2,000 -- and signed up.

But instead of going to work, they were locked in a room guarded by a man with a pistol. They had been sold to another agency, they were told, for US$1,200 apiece. It took them two weeks to realize where they were: Iraq.

"We knew Iraq was dangerous, and Sri Lanka was dangerous, but at least we thought our parents will get to see our corpses if we die here," said Krishnan Piraitheepan 32, shortly after returning to Sri Lanka this month with the help of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Thousands of Sri Lankans, and tens of thousands of other people from such poverty-battered countries as the Philippines, India and Nepal, go to the oil-rich Middle East every year to work. The pay, usually US$200 to US$400 a month, can be many times what they would earn at home. So they become maids in Kuwait, and drivers in Saudi Arabia. They work as nannies in Dubai and Bahrain. Some, like the 17 Sri Lankans, end up in Iraq.

Pratap Chatterjee, executive director of the California-based corporate watchdog CorpWatch, estimates only a small percentage of the 30,000 to 50,000 migrant workers in Iraq are there against their will -- but many more may not have realized what it means to work in a war zone.

“Many people have claimed to be trafficked,” Chatterjee said. “Probably many were, probably others discovered a situation that was dangerous.”

He worries more about workers' inability to leave. With some employers still holding employee passports -- a practice the US Defense Department has forbidden for its contractors since mid-last year -- leaving a job can be extremely difficult.

When the Sri Lankans arrived in Dubai in mid-December, they were met by a representative of Arabian Express, the Colombo-based company that arranged their jobs. The man told them they would be working elsewhere in Duabi, and put them on another plane. There was a sign on arrival saying they had landed at Irbil Airport. “I had no idea what country Irbil is in. The only city I knew in Iraq was Baghdad,” said Karunapandy Jeyaruban, 24.

The Sri Lankans’ story is not uncommon. Since 2003, the IOM has evacuated more than 6,000 foreigners “in difficult situations” from Iraq.

Adapted from: "Vulnerable foreigners forced into labor in Iraq." taipeitimes.com. 19 February 2007.

Gangs Control Beggars in Thailand

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 15:45:00 GMT

Before you give beggars spare change do you stop to think if you are helping or hindering?

According to the Mirror Foundation missing-persons centre and police it is probably the latter. The lucrative profits from street begging have led to toddlers being kidnapped while some children are bought or rented from parents in neighbouring countries.

Mirror Foundation official Ekkalak Lumchumkhae says that of 400 children and adults who have gone missing in the past year just 17 children have been found. The foundation searches for missing persons and campaigns against begging in a bid to stop child trafficking. Ekkalak said that most child abductions were by beggar gangs or sexual predators or for adoption by foreigners.

A foundation study last year in Bangkok, Aranyaprathet, Mae Sai, Mae Sot and Pattaya found beggar gangs rented children by the day or month from neighbouring countries. Rented beggars are in evidence at Mae Sot's Islam Bumrung community, he said. Children are forced to sell flowers or tissues at roadside restaurants and entertainment venues when they turn five and elicit less sympathy as beggars.

Many children are transported from the border to Makkasan and Klong Tan in Bangkok, where they join other beggars in crowded communities such as Sai Thong, Jarurat, Klong Saen Saeb near Central World Plaza or Rangsit, Samut Prakan, and Samrong.

The exact number of beggars in Bangkok is unknown, but Ekkalak believed more than 100 child beggars had been rounded up last year. He said many beggars from neighbouring country who were deported sneaked back a few days later.

Ten per cent of 5,000 illegal immigrants deported each month via Aranyaprathet are children, most of whom have been rounded up as street beggars, the report said.

The report found child beggars or their families got Bt80 a day or about Bt500 to Bt2,000 a month and gangs preferred disabled children and toddlers. Children aged 13 or over are used as minders for the younger beggars or turn to selling flowers.

As of 1999 there were 6,903 beggars, Police young people’s and women’s protection division Lt-Colonel Jak Yanghaipol said, adding that police faced difficulties in arresting them because there was no direct law banning begging. Police are waiting for legislation on begging to be passed.

Social Development and Human Security Ministry women's and children's division director Saowanee Khomepatr is worried begging is growing. The division collects the beggars who have been rounded up by police, and adult males are deported immediately while women and children are sent to special homes where they receive physical and mental rehabilitation before returning to their families, she added.

While the government and rights advocates are worried about begging and the gangs that run it, people still give money freely. Shop assistant Kwandao Kamnerdrat, 26, said she sometimes gave small change to a woman who begged at the pedestrian overpass at a Samrong shopping mall. The woman is often with a disabled child.

First-year university student Budsara Uthaisri gives small change to beggars at a Rangsit shopping mall. It makes her feel charitable. She once saw a pickup truck crowed with beggars being taken "home". Seeing how organised it is has changed Budsara's view. "I thought they were disabled and this was the only way they could feed themselves."

If people's attitudes are not changed the vicious circle of begging and child trafficking will never stop.

Adapted from: "Beggar kings are the real choosers." The Nation. 18 February 2007.

ILO Efforts to Combat Forced Labour in Burma Unrealistic

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 15:50:00 GMT

Thai labour experts and non-governmental organisations are sceptical that a recent memorandum of understanding struck between the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Burmese junta enabling victims of forced labour to seek redress will deliver results.

The ILO announced that it had reached an understanding with the Burmese government in which victims of forced labour could now file complaints with its officer in Rangoon. The ILO officer will then investigate any alleged abuses and push for concrete action with the Burmese government, including punishment for perpetrators and redress for the injured party. According to the ILO, the understanding also guarantees that no retaliatory action will be taken against complainants.

However, Kritiya Achavanichkul, director of the Institute for Population and Social Research of Mahidol University, who monitors the labour situation in Burma, said that the MOU was impractical. She said forced labourers would not have the channels or the capability to lodge any complaints, even if they wanted to. And despite the ILO's claims that complainants would not face any repercussions, she said there was no real way of giving assurances that they and their families would be safe.

Ms Kritiya said she had no idea what the Rangoon government's intentions were in entering into the agreement.

Pranom Somwong, of the MAP Foundation for the Health and Knowledge of Ethnic Labour, said non-governmental organisations viewed the MOU as a joke. The Burmese junta could not guarantee justice and its leadership was the very cause of forced labour, she said.

The MOU provides that alleged victims of forced labour will have the freedom to submit complaints to the ILO Liaison Officer in Rangoon. The officer will then make a confidential assessment as to whether a case involves forced labour to facilitate an investigation by the Burmese authorities. The system will be implemented on a 12-month trial basis and may be extended by mutual agreement.

Adapted from: "ILO efforts to combat forced labour in Burma 'unrealistic'." Bangkok Post. 1 March 2007.

Vietnam & Cambodia Discuss Fight Against Human Trafficking

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 14:43:00 GMT

Vietnam and Cambodia considered closer cooperation to prevent the rising cross-border trade in women and children at a meeting in Ho Chi Minh City.

A Vietnamese report said that police had arrested over 450 traffickers in 2006 and rescued 966 women and children. Another 750 victims had been rescued in other countries or had escaped themselves.

The crime was most rampant in southern Vietnamese provinces bordering Cambodia, including An Giang, Tay Ninh, Dong Thap, and Binh Phuoc. Cambodia’s Deputy Minister of Women’s Affairs You Ay told the meeting that many of the trafficked victims were forced into sex work.

Cambodia had also become a transit camp from where trafficked victims were sent to neighboring countries and, in some cases, even to Europe and America. He stressed collaboration by all countries involved – home, transit, and destination – was essential for fighting this scourge.

Maniza Zanan, UNICEF Deputy Representative in Vietnam, who present at the meeting, praised cooperation between Vietnam and Cambodia in the battle against human smuggling. She promised her organization would step up assistance to them in this fight and urged their governments to work more closely to eliminate this crime.

Adapted from: "Vietnam, Cambodia discuss fight against human trafficking." 14 January 2007. Source: Sai Gon Giai Phong – Translated by The Vinh

Statement on Language from Ambassador Miller

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 17:06:00 GMT

Language is as important in fighting modern-day slavery, also known as human trafficking, as it was in fighting historic slavery.

A STATEMENT FROM AMBASSADOR JOHN R. MILLER
(now former) Director, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons
December 15, 2006

Language is as important in fighting modern-day slavery, also known as human trafficking, as it was in fighting historic slavery.

In earlier centuries to avoid facing up to the suffering of slaves, words such as "houseboy," "field hand," and "servant" were used. Today, words such as "forced laborer," "sex worker," "child soldier," and "child sex worker" are commonly used.

Those words require scrutiny. Laborers forced to work on a plantation, or in a factory, may be "forced laborers" but they are also victims of slavery. Children kidnapped and forced to be killing machines may be "child soldiers" but they are also victims of slavery. At least there is some legal foundation for the previous words, although, they verbally anesthetize the abuse to the victim of slavery.

The most egregious use of language, however, is "sex worker" and "child sex worker." People called "sex workers" did not choose prostitution the way most of us choose work occupations as pointed out by President Bush's Directive issued four years ago. After all, who would freely choose an "occupation" in which the death rate from murder and disease is scores of times the norm? Clinical research shows vast majroirites of people in prostitution are subject to trauma, violence, rape and 89 percent want to escape. These 89 percent are victims of slavery. As for "child sex workers," under international laws as well as laws of almost every nation, children are not old enough to consent to or choose prostitution. And children, many not even teenagers, by some estimates, make up almost 50 percent of those in prostitution in the world.

Of course one can rationalize words such as "sex worker" and "child sex worker" in an effort to avoid a demeaning label such as "prostitute"; however, there are other substitutes such as "women used in prostitution" or "sexually exploited children" that are neither pejorative nor pretend that violence to women and children is "work"!

What is occuring is the use of language to justify modern-day slavery, to dignify the perpetrators and the industries who enslave, Governments, non-governmental organizations, and citizens who care about fighting human trafficking and want to break the cycle of stigmatization and victimization should not use words such as "sex worker" or "child sex worker." For these reasons, I am directing the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons to encourage grantees and contractors to avoid use of the terms "sex worker" and "child sex worker" and I am advising all U.S. agencies issuing anti-trafficking in person contracts and grants to do the same. To abolish modern-day slavery we must not be afraid to call slavery by its real, dispicable name.

USG Says that Taiwan Making Progress on Human Trafficking

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 18:40:00 GMT

Taiwan has made "moderate progress" in combating human trafficking since it was put on the Special Watch List in June 2006, according to an interim assessment released by the US State Department.

The assessment evaluates the performance of 39 countries placed on the Special Watch List in the department's 2006 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report published last June.

In last year's report, Taiwan was placed on the "Tier 2 Watch List" for failing to show evidence of increased efforts over the past year to address human trafficking, particularly forced labor and sexual servitude among legal Southeast Asian contract workers and brides.

According to the 2007 Interim Assessment, Taiwanese authorities failed to prosecute any offenders for trafficking for forced labor or domestic servitude, despite evidence of a significant problem among the 350,000 Thai, Indonesian, Vietnamese and Filipino workers in Taiwan. It said Taiwanese authorities failed to make progress in developing a system to identify and protect foreign workers subjected to conditions of forced labor or involuntary servitude.

However, it mentioned significant improvements made by the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) in policies and regulations governing the terms and conditions of work for foreign laborers in Taiwan. These include bilateral agreements reached with Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam to allow foreign domestic workers to apply directly to the CLA for work instead of going through Taiwanese labor brokerage agencies known for their exploitative practices, the report said.

Meanwhile, in an effort to prevent trafficking of women through sham marriages, the Ministry of the Interior has banned the registration of new international marriage brokers based in Taiwan and strengthened regulations and monitoring of existing firms. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also tightened the screening of Southeast Asian women applying for visas as "brides" of Taiwanese men, the report said.

Adapted from: "Taiwan making progress on human trafficking, says US." taipeitimes.com, 21 January 2007.
Source: UNIAP Thailand

Thousands of Stateless Children to Get Temporary ID Cards in Thailand

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 18:53:00 GMT

Thousands of stateless children at schools in Chiang Rai are to receive temporary identity cards - a vital document that can be used to prove their Thai citizenship, a member of the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) said.

Tuenjai Deetes, chairman of the NLA's committee on solving the problem of stateless people living in Thailand, said the students in Chiang Rai have been chosen for a pilot project aimed at granting 13-digit ID cards to about 33,000 stateless students across the country as a gift on the occasion of Children's Day.

The project is part of a plan by the Interior Ministry to give away 200,000 identification cards to stateless people - most of them ethnic minorities living along the Thai-Burmese border.

According to Ms. Tuenjai, students with the temporary ID cards will be entitled to education in Thailand and will be given permission to travel to study at education outlets in other provinces for up to six years.

Interior Ministry officials have called on the government to issue guidelines for dealing with the issue, she added. She said officials will be sent to survey and register the birth of every child born in Thailand, Thai or alien, to prevent any ambiguity concerning their status. In addition, she urged the government to allow communities to have a role in verifying stateless people.

She said the ministry should encourage villages under the project to set up committees to help the state verify the background of stateless people. Without that help, illegal labourers and human traffickers would exploit the loopholes, she said.

Amporn Prasit, an official at the ministry's Civil Registration Division, confirmed a survey was underway to classify stateless people before the 13-digit temporary ID cards were handed over.

The project, to be carried out between March and June 2007, follows a cabinet resolution issued on Januar 18, 2005 by the then Thaksin Shinawatra government that instructed the Interior Ministry to give ID cards to stateless people who can prove they were born of Thai parents or had stayed in Thailand over a certain period of time.

Adapted from: "Thousands of stateless children to get temporary ID cards." Bangkok Post. 15 January 2007. (Source: UNIAP Thailand)

Thai Women Probably Forced into Prostitution in Middle East

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 18:56:00 GMT

A suspected human trafficker has been arrested for allegedly luring women to the sex trade in the Middle East, police said.

Officers of the Suppression of Crimes Against Children and Women Monday arrested La-iad Kaewdee, 32, in Muang Samut Prakan. She has been charged with being a member of a gang procuring women for prostitution. Police said La-iad had admitted the charges but claimed she had only been involved in duping one woman.

Division deputy commander Colonel Jaruwat Vaisaya said a victim who escaped from a brothel in an unnamed Middle Eastern country reported La-iad after being assisted back to Thailand by the Foreign Ministry. The victim alleges La-iad lured her to the Middle East with the promise of a well-paying job in a restaurant.

When she arrived her passport was seized and she was forced to work as a prostitute. The gang claimed she owed Bt100,000 for transport costs. "We estimate up to 100 women remain in the Middle East being forced to work as prostitutes," Jaruwat said. Most of the victims are from the North and Northeast.

"The Middle East is becoming a popular destination for human trafficking, however, the most popular are the neighbouring countries of Thailand," Jaruwat said.

Adapted from: "About 100 Thai women probably forced into prostitution in Middle East." The Nation. 15 January 2007. ( Source: UNIAP Thailand)

CSR Directory Adds New Category on Human Trafficking

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 19:07:00 GMT

The move by the Directory, published on CSRwire (Corporate Social Responsibility) reflects the rising relevance of this issue on the CSR radar screen.

Michael Kane, managing editor of the CSR Directory, has added a new category called "Organizations with Human Trafficking Programs."

Selecting this category in the Directory's search tool yields contact information for more than 150 organizations worldwide, including nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), corporate leaders, media companies, universities, national governments, and international organizations.

The idea for this expansion came last summer, when Dave Batstone discussed his research for a book on human trafficking in the WAG, a weekly e-zine covering CSR-related issues. The book, entitled Not for Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade--and How We Can Fight It, hits shelves next week, and Batstone recently revisited the issue of human trafficking in the WAG.

The discussion centered on the work of David Arkless of Manpower to sign up 1,000 companies to the Athens Ethical Principles that call for zero tolerance of human trafficking. The CSR Directory lists Arkless as the contact person in its entry on End Human Trafficking Now! and the Athens
Principles, which also links to Manpower's site on trafficking--demonstrating the usefulness of the Directory in tracking CSR issues.

Visit CSR Wire Directory

Survivors of Human Trafficking Left in Limbo in the US

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 19:15:00 GMT

The sixth anniversary of the signing of the Trafficking Victims Protection Authorization Act of 2000 (TVPA) took place on October 28, 2006. Among other things, this important law allows victims of trafficking to obtain a T-visa and become a permanent resident of the United States and therefore become eligible for much needed benefits and services under state and federal programs. After the conclusion of their criminal case or ninety days prior to the three year anniversary of the issuance of their T Visa, U.S. law provides that T-Visa holders can apply for permanent residence in the United States.

Although to date over 500 T Visas have been issued by the U.S. government, permanent residency has not been forthcoming. Survivors of trafficking and their advocates across the country have been applying for Legal Permanent Resident Status for their clients, as is provided for under the TVPA, however they have been told that their applications cannot be processed until the regulations are issued. Human trafficking survivors are deeply troubled by the expiration of their T Visas and their legal limbo, not knowing if they will gain this legal status and attain other very important rights such as, voting, international travel to finally see their families and loved ones, and achieving the ultimate goal of becoming a U.S. citizen.

It's hard for survivors to understand why the government has not granted them their full rights. As one trafficking survivor explained: "I feel...unbalanced. I don't know how long I have to wait. I have not been able to see my family for nine and a half years. If they issued the regulations, I could see my family again.

It is crucial that the U.S. Government keep its promises to victims, and complete the commitment that was codified in the TVPA.

Here's how you can help:

1. Telephone, fax, email, and/or write a letter to President Bush as well as your Senator or Representative requesting that fair T Visa adjustment regulations be issued immediately.

2. Telephone, fax, email, and/or write a letter to Mr. Emilio Gonzalez, Director, Citizenship and Immigration Services, Department of Homeland Security and/or Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff requesting fair T Visa adjustment regulations be issued immediately.

3. Assist in gathering signatures for a petition requesting the Department of Homeland Security to issue fair T visa adjustment regulations immediately. Please contact Stephanie Richard at +1 213 365 1906 ext. 115 for more information about the petition.

4. Donate critical funds and/or your time to organizations that are advocating on behalf of survivors of slavery and human trafficking.

Kay Buck
Executive Director
Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST)

Northern Florida Task Force Educates Community About Human Trafficking

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 19:33:00 GMT

Law enforcement agencies, as well as community groups, joined together to hand out pamphlets, hoping to educate the public about human trafficking during a week of awareness and prevention.

According to officials, human trafficking is one of the fastest-growing crimes in the world. They want people to be able to spot trafficking, or its victims, who are brought into the United States for sexual exploitation or forced labor.

More than 10 years ago, 20-year-old Given Kachepa was a victim of a crime that goes relatively unnoticed in the United States. When he was 9 years old, Kachepa, a member of a chorus, came to the U.S. believing he could use his voice to help build schools in his native country.

It turned out that the organization that brought Kachepa to the country had no intention of paying him or the other chorus members. Instead, the group profited on the chorus' talent, telling Kachepa that no one could help them. "First of all, you are in a different country, you don't know how to speak the language. Then, you want your freedom so bad but you just don't know who to run to," Kachepa said.

Kachepa and his friends were not alone. Channel 4's John Dunlap reported that human trafficking has grown to a $10 billion per year industry worldwide -- $3.5 billion of that is made in the United States through forced labor or sexual exploitation.

The Northeast Florida Human Trafficking Task Force said it has seen a rise in what they call modern-day slavery. "This is a type of slavery that cannot be tolerated in the United States," said FBI Special Agent Michael Folmar. "We deal primarily with the victims when we get involved with these kind of cases."

He said the more information they receive from the community, the more likely the task force would be able to shut down the trafficking industry. "Our main goal is to investigate it, to identify the individuals who are causing this slavery and bring those individuals to justice," Folmar said.

Seven years ago, Kachepa and his friends were rescued from their situation. He said he believes his story might be able to help others realize that the problem is real. "I think if we can educate as many people as we can, then we have better hopes of stopping the problem," Kachepa said.

Kachepa is currently a student in Texas. He has been in college for two years, and travels around the country to get the word out about human trafficking.

Adapted from: "Task Force Educates Community About Human Trafficking." News4Jax.com. 22 January 2007

Trafficking Victims Detained for Protection in Taiwan

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 10:18:00 GMT

Deputy Director of National Immigration Agency (NIA) in Taiwan, Steven Wu, said that placing victims of human trafficking in detention centers is to protect them from criminals.

Wu made the remarks during yesterday's digital video conference on "Protection of Trafficking Victims" organized by the American Institute in Taiwan. Wu was responding to comments by Father Peter O'Neill of the Catholic Hope Worker's Center, which operates shelters for migrant workers and human trafficking victims, that the government should not keep the victims that they have identified in detention centers.

O'Neill said that the government should send the victims to shelters operated by non-governmental organizations such as his, citing U.N. protocol. The United Nations' recommended guidelines on the rights of human trafficking victims was presented during the conference by American University, Washington professor Janie Chuang from Washington D.C. According to the guidelines, governments should provide shelter to protect victims of human trafficking at the identification stage, but not in immigration detention facilities. Wu said that the government will work on persuading the victims to stay in Taiwan to help the prosecution of human traffickers in order to prevent further flow of human trafficking.

Wu said that the government will take a "social worker" attitude rather than that of a police when investigating possible cases of forced marriages involving foreign brides. Taiwan has been a common target of human smuggling operations originating from countries in southeast Asia and mainland China, often under the guise of marriages to Taiwan citizens.

On Wednesday, 51 suspects were arrested in Keelung for smuggling Indonesian girls into Taiwan using false marriage certificates. Police rescued 35 Indonesian girls, who were arranged by the human smuggling ring to work in small restaurants and as caregivers for families who could not hire legal foreign caregivers. The girls said that they had to work 18 hours a day with no days off, and said that they were beaten when they did not obey orders from the ring leaders.

An organization for the protection of human trafficking victims said that in that particular case, the group had to request that the newly established National Immigration Agency make arrangements on providing shelter for the Indonesian girls. O'Neill said that his organization has met with officials in Thailand and that the Thai government has set up a program preventing underground labor trafficking and sex trafficking to Taiwan. NIA will hold an international conference for human trafficking on April 12, 2007.

Adapted from: Stephen Che. "NIA: Trafficking victims detained for protection." The China Post. 24 March 2007.

London Olympics a Possible Target for Sex Trafficking and Illegal Workers

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 10:25:00 GMT

The London Olympics are being targeted by criminal gangs behind the multi- billion pound international trade in sex slaves and illegal workers, police have warned.

They fear huge numbers of foreign women could be smuggled into the country to work against their will as prostitutes. The building contracts on offer could also lure employers prepared to boost profits by exploiting illegal foreign workers.

Police sounded the warning as the Home Office set out plans to tackle sex trafficking, believed to cost Britain £1bn a year. An estimated 4,000 women are brought into the country every year, most ending up in prostitution, while others are forced to work for a pittance. Unknown numbers of children and illegal workers are also brought into the UK.

John Reid, the Home Secretary, signed a European convention that gives trafficking victims temporary permission to remain in Britain. The Home Office also published an action plan for training immigration teams at ports, creating a national victim-support system and setting up a child trafficking telephone advice line. The department said criminal gangs would try to exploit the opportunity of the Olympics by establishing themselves in London and said plans had already been drawn up to put them out of business.

Grahame Maxwell, of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: "There is a possibility for labour exploitation and a possibility for sexual exploitation. There will be huge construction projects taking place and people will be putting in some very competitive tenders. We will be working very closely to ensure that the right people are making the right things." Mr Maxwell added: "You will have young men together who earn considerable amounts of money. If they spend that money paying for sex, we must make sure they are aware there are women held against their will." He said the prices paid for sex slaves ranged from £8,000 for a 15-year-old virgin to £500 for a woman forced to work in a restaurant and have sex with her co-workers.

Vernon Coaker, a Home Office minister, said all men who knowingly had sex with a woman who had been trafficked should face rape charges. He said: "Frankly, what else would anybody call it? I think if you have got a situation where a man knowingly has sex with a woman who he knows is not freely consenting to that, then I think that that could be considered as rape."

Poonam Joshi, a women's rights campaigner for Amnesty International, said: "Today is a great step on the road to eradicating trafficking in Britain. Trafficking in people is a vicious and well-organised crime which is causing untold human misery around the world and right here in the UK."

Adapted from: Nigel Morris. "London Olympics targeted by trade in sex trafficking and illegal workers." The Independent. 24 March 2007

Yorkshire, UK Tackles Human Trafficking

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 11:06:00 GMT

THE UK Government is to make new money available to tackle the criminals responsible for people trafficking.

The UK Human Trafficking Centre, which was set up in Sheffield last year and has already gained an international reputation for its work, will play a pivotal role in the Government's new action plan on human trafficking, being unveiled by Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker today in London. That means the centre's future is secured beyond 2008, when its initial funding will be exhausted.

The plan will also involve condensing the role of a series of national police "reflex" teams which currently investigate a broad range of immigration and other related matters to focus solely on people trafficking, with Ministers committing more money to that work. Changes will also be made to include all Government departments with a potential role to play, such as health and education, into the strategy.

Yesterday, senior figures at the centre were in Brussels to lead work aimed at creating better links between law enforcement agencies throughout Europe. That should make it harder for criminals to operate because the authorities will be ready to close in from both ends of their operations. It is also looking to recruit academic establishments on the continent to help with research into the issue as a lack of reliable information about the scale of the problem and how traffickers operate is an acknowledged weak spot for the authorities here and abroad.

South Yorkshire Police Deputy Chief Constable Grahame Maxwell said: "Our region is clearly at the forefront of tackling this heinous crime. All four chief constables are interested in making sure we have the right type of specialist investigators we require. "This is a monumental change in terms of direction. It lays out very clearly what we have to do and it will be monitored in terms of delivery."

A new focus should also mean even police working at grass roots on neighbourhood policing teams taking an active part in dealing with trafficking issues.

Yorkshire police forces have been recognised as some of the most active in the country against people trafficking, which is thought to have played a part in the decision to base the UK Human Trafficking Centre in South Yorkshire. Investigators who discovered four Brazilians masquerading as Portuguese in Sheffield, using false EU documents, triggered an investigation which led to 13 addresses being raided in London yesterday, with 22 arrests and £40,000 cash recovered.

Officers from South Yorkshire and the Metropolitan Police were involved in the operation. At this stage, police believe they have closed down a forgery workshop and undermined a gang responsible for bringing many Brazilians into Britain to work illegally. Many Brazilians speak Portuguese and that country is an EU state, meaning its citizens have a right to work in the UK.

Adapted from: Paul Whitehouse. "Yorkshire centre at heart of new drive on people trafficking." Yorkshire Post. 23 March 2007.

US State Department Releases 2006 Human Rights Report

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 11:10:00 GMT

The US State of Department has released the 2006 Human Rights Report. The state of human rights is reported for 193 countries, covering a range of issues such as:

Respect for Human Rights
Respect for Civil Liberties
Societal Abuses and Discrimination
Governmental Attitude Regarding International and Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations of Human Rights
Discrimination, Societal Abuses, and Trafficking in Persons
Worker Rights

There is separate section for Trafficking in Persons for every country.

Australia
Burma
Cambodia
China
East Timor
Hong Kong (SAR)
Indonesia
Japan
Lao PDR
Malaysia
Mongolia
New Zealand
Philippines
Singapore
South Korea
Taiwan
Thailand
Vietnam

UN Fund to Combat Human Trafficking

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 12:39:00 GMT

The United Nations proposed a new global fund Monday to fight international human trafficking and forced labor, a problem that it said had grown to epidemic proportions and was rarely effectively prosecuted by governments.

About 50 percent of people smuggled and sold into forced work are minors and 80 percent are women and girls, according to a 2006 State Department study. Most end up working in the sex trade. In China, for example, they are often lured from poor villages with promises of factory jobs in coastal boomtowns, only to discover themselves destitute and sold into prostitution.

During the World Cup in Germany last summer, international women's groups estimated that thousands of trafficked women were brought into the country, where prostitution is legal, although German investigators denied the validity of such numbers. But there are increasing reports of men being trafficked for labor as well. Last summer, Italian police in the southern region of Puglia freed nearly 100 Polish workers who said they were working as virtual slaves, picking tomatoes.

A recent UN report listed Germany, Italy, Belgium and Greece as the most common destinations for slave labor in Europe, with former East Bloc countries like Bulgaria, Albania and Belarus the most common sources. While such laborers are sometimes paid a minimal wage, it is not enough to fill basic needs - or to return home - and they are often effectively prisoners of their employers. The trade in humans is now a market worth $30 billion to $40 billion, often with links to organized crime, Costa said. The rapid rise in trafficking is largely a result of globalization, experts say. Better communications makes it easier to lure poor people with unrealistic promises. Open borders in Europe make it easier to send them to wealthier countries, as they are often transported claiming to be students or people with legitimate work.

The UN Protocol Against Trafficking in Persons, which was ratified in 2003 and has been signed by 117 countries, makes trafficking an international crime. "But law enforcement in countries is weak and punishment tends to be light," Costa said. The German authorities place the number of victims trafficked into that country at between 2,000 and 20,000 each year, but in 2004 only 972 victims were registered.

Adapted from: Elisabeth Rosenthal. "UN fund to combat human trafficking." International Herald Tribune. 26 March 2007.

Julia Ormond Speaks Against Human Trafficking

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 12:44:00 GMT

Julia Ormond appealed to police agencies worldwide Monday to share information and resources in hopes of combating human trafficking.

The 42-year-old British actress, who co-starred with Harrison Ford in 1995's "Sabrina," spoke in London to help publicize a new U.N. campaign to combat 21st-century slave trade. The initiative came a day after the 200th anniversary of the passage of Britain's anti-slavery law. The goal is to improve enforcement of a 2003 U.N. treaty against human trafficking - a crime Ormond described as being largely hidden.

"What we do know is that the statistics are the tip of the iceberg," she told The Associated Press. The campaign will improve coordination between governments and organizations that work to fight the problem, said Eva Biaudet, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's special representative on combating trafficking in human beings.

Efforts to fight human trafficking have failed to win broad support because of the difficulties in counting the number of victims, many of whom are unable to seek help, Biaudet said. "It's sometimes an excuse that 'we don't have the data, so we can't do anything about it,'" Biaudet said.

Police worldwide need to apply anti-trafficking laws equally - and with the same technology - for the networks to be dismantled, Ormond said. "That's the crucial part," she said.

Adapted from: ALEX BRAUN Alex Braun. "Ormond speaks against human trafficking." The Witchita Eagle. 26 March 2007.

Nigeria Threatens to Withdraw Licence of Airlines if Found Trafficking or Smuggling

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 12:52:00 GMT

Minister of State for Air Transportation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode warned yesterday that the Federal Government would withdraw the licence of any airline operator, be it domestic of international, which allows its aircraft used for trafficking, smuggling or abduction of human beings.

Fani-Kayode, who yesterday in Abuja issued the stern warning to all domestic and international airline operators and officials at a briefing on the alleged abduction and smuggling of a 13 year-old girl out of Nigeria by a yet-to-be-determined kidnaper, through Virgin Atlantic Airlines’ plane, vowed that the Federal Government would not tolerate such nefarious activity in the aviation industry and would therefore impose the ultimate sanction on any airline, which intentionally or otherwise, involve itself in such an act.

According to him, “I as a minister of aviation would not accept a situation where our children, when I say our children, I mean any child that is within the confine of the borders of Nigeria is put on a plane, whether it’s a domestic one or international and flown out of this country without the consent of the parents or the relevant person. Its something that we need to put a stop to and we will definitely put a stop to it.

A 13 year-old daughter of Mr. Patrick George, a Nigerian and Managing Director of Advanced Business Technologies Limited was allegedly abducted and smuggled to the United Kingdom from Nigeria on December 13, 2004 on a Virgin Atlantic aircraft.

The girl, an only child of George was found in France after two years but not without a lot of painful efforts and a high-level international network. George said his counsel, Chief Ladi Rotimi-Williams, was pursuing the case and has filed a suit against the appropriate parties adding that he wanted to ensure that his would be the last that would ever happen in Nigeria.

Fani-Kayode blamed everybody in the aviation sector for the unfortunate incident that happened to George and apologised on behalf of the Federal Government. He however assured that he would see to the logical end of the case and ensure that such thing does not happen again in Nigeria. “I want to apologise to you on behalf of the Government that this could have ever happened at all. And I want to assure you that I would personally see the Inspector-General of Police and ask him how far he has gone and we would see to it that this sort of a thing never happens again,” he said.

General Manager, Virgin Atlantic Airlines, Mrs. Samantha Olson acknowledged that the incident occurred through the airline and stated that her airline was helping the Police in its investigations to bring the perpetrator(s) to book.

“We are not denying that it happened. Investigations have not been closed yet. We will continue to support police investigation and we would continue to work with the Police, the Ministry and the Immigration on this matter,” she said.

Adapted from: Kunle Aderinokun. "Trafficking: FG Threatens to Withdraw Licence of Airlines." This Day Online. 27 March 2007.

Young Moldovan Mother Who Survived Trafficking Struggles to Recover

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 13:01:00 GMT

As the world marks the 200th anniversary of Britain’s abolition of the slave trade, the struggle against human trafficking, bonded labour and forcible military recruitment continues. Here is an account of one woman’s experience as a victim of trafficking.

Beaten throughout her childhood in Moldova, Ana, now 21, left home in despair at the age of 12. As a result, she became a victim of trafficking. “If my father was just a little kinder, I would not have gone through this situation,” says Ana. “One day, when he severely beat me, harsher than usual, I decided to run away from home. I did not care where to. I just wanted to get away from pain. I was ready to work day and night, to live in the most difficult conditions.”

Years later, when Ana was pregnant, she still could not escape abuse. Even now, as the mother of a year-old daughter, she desperately fears being beaten.

Forced to beg on streets
Those who ‘helped’ her run away to a supposedly better life were traffickers. Seeing how helpless Ana was, several people from a neighbouring village offered her a job abroad. She was 12 at the time. “I did not even ask where I was going,” recalls Ana. “I was promised a job and money for food. I was sure I was getting away from trouble. I even thought that I’d make some money, return home and help everyone, including my father.”

As soon as she arrived at her destination – which turned out to be Poland – Ana realized that none of the promises would be fulfilled. The traffickers forced her to beg on the streets. There were other girls from Moldova, Ukraine and Romania, as well. Every day they had to earn $100 dollars. They were severely beaten if they got less. “I was beaten up even worse than at home,” says Ana. “I thought I would never escape violence.”

‘Any slap is followed by another’
Ana spent five years begging in Poland. She finally managed to escape and was returned home by the local police. Out of pity, her father did not beat her for a year. Gradually, her life improved, and she met the father of her future child. “I was very happy when I found out that I was pregnant,” says Ana. “But he left me when I was six months pregnant. He never came back. My father started beating me up again. The fact that I was pregnant did not stop him. This is what hurt me most.”

After all she has been through, Ana has decided to bring up her daughter alone – and most important, never to let anyone abuse her again. “Any slap is followed by another one. If you accept the first slap, you accept all of them,” she asserts.

Family violence leads to trafficking
Ana’s story is like those of thousands of women in Moldova who have experienced domestic violence. In most instances, the ones abusing them are people they love – fathers, brothers, husbands or sons. According to UNICEF studies on violence, beatings of children and women are a common practice used in many countries around the world to ‘keep order’ in the family.

In Moldova, 27 per cent of women over 15 years of age have experienced violence in the home at least once, according to the 2005 Demographic and Health Survey. Out of 1,706 victims of trafficking identified and assisted in Moldova between 2000 and 2005, 10 per cent were children and 70 per cent had experienced family violence.

Such violence is often a precursor to trafficking and exploitation.

Assistance to victims
For several months now, Ana and other women in similar situations have received assistance at the Materna Centre, in Chisinau. This UNICEF-supported service helps them rebuild their lives. Here Ana can bring up her daughter in peace and benefit from free food and accommodations. Meanwhile, child protection specialists are trying to find a long-term solution for the young mother – including a home and a job.

“Victims of violence within the family are not aware of complaint mechanisms available to them. Specialized services for them remain limited,” says UNICEF Project Officer Viorica Cretu. “UNICEF is supporting the Government of Moldova's efforts in strengthening the system’s capacity to prevent and combat violence against children and women – and to provide necessary protection and assistance to victims.”

Adapted from: Tatiana Tibuleac. "Young Moldovan mother who survived trafficking struggles to recover." UNICEF. 26 March 2007.

Mozambican Counter Trafficking Drama

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 16:00:00 GMT

Combating Trafficking from Mozambique to South Africa.

PROJECT- Mozambican Counter Trafficking Drama
Khuluma Africa!

To support the International Organization for Migration's Southern African Counter-Trafficking Programme's outreach to raise awareness of trafficking issues in South Africa, CMFD has been contracted to create a community theatre production t hat raises awareness about human trafficking issues in South Africa, as well as direct victims of trafficking to the IOM helpline.

The production is being performed in Portuguese by the Alertos Da Vida youth group, with some dialogue in Shangana, English, and Zulu. Though the production focuses on trafficking and migration, it incorporates a variety of related issues such as women’s rights, gender and migration and HIV/AIDS. This unique and dynamic show combines music, drama and dance, and discussion It will b e performed in 20 diverse venues, including mine hostels, clinics and public parks.

EYE on Human Trafficking December 2006

For more information, contact:

Deborah Walter, Director
Community Media for Development/
CMFD Productions
South Africa
deb@cmfd.org
http://www.cmfd.org

US Lawmakers Consider Strengthening Measures to Fight Human Trafficking

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 16:44:00 GMT

US lawmakers are considering strengthening a law aimed at fighting human trafficking.

Senator Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat and chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee that deals with human trafficking issues, underscored the seriousness of the problem. "It is estimated that one million people are trafficked across international borders each year, pressed into labor or servitude or commercial sex by the use of force, fraud or coercion. Human trafficking represents commerce in human misery," he said.

The United States is a signatory to the UN Protocol Against Trafficking in Persons, and it passed its first major anti-trafficking law in 2000. Some provisions of the law are set to expire this year, and Durbin wanted an update from the Bush administration on how effective the measure has been as lawmakers consider proposals to renew it.

Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Grace Chung Becker says the law has been very successful. "In conjunction with the U.S. attorney's offices around the country, the civil rights division has increased by 600 percent the number of human trafficking cases filed in court in the last six years. From 2001 to today, we have initiated some 725 investigations. Last year, we received one of the highest sentences ever in a sex trafficking case for two of our lead defendants, 50 years of imprisonment," he said.

But Katherine Kaufka, supervising attorney at the Counter-Trafficking Services Program at the National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago, says the law fails to protect trafficking victims. "Approximately 15,000 to 18,000 men, women and children are trafficked in the United States every year. However, since the passage of the TVPA [Trafficking Victims Protection Act] six years ago, almost 400 cases have been prosecuted on human trafficking charges, and approximately 1,500 trafficking visas have been issued. While it was the intent of the statute to punish traffickers and protect victims, these statistics show that we have failed to fulfill our goals. We believe the principal cause of this failure is that the burdens placed on victims is just too high," he said.

Kaufka called on Congress to include provisions aimed at protecting trafficking victims when it reauthorizes the law. Senator Durbin agreed that human trafficking cases can be difficult to prosecute because victims are often reluctant to talk to law enforcement out of fear of arrest or deportation.

Adapted from: Deborah Tate. "US Lawmakers Consider Measures to Fight Human Trafficking." Voice of America. 26 March 2007

UN Highlights Human Trafficking

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 17:12:00 GMT

The UN has launched a campaign to highlight human trafficking, an issue it says has reached epidemic proportions over the past decade.

It comes as the UK marks 200 years since abolition of the slave trade. The campaign, entitled "The Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking," brings together a raft of UN agencies and NGOs.

He said the campaign aimed to tackle human trafficking "both on the supply side, in making people less vulnerable and more aware, and on the demand side by showing people some of the services they ask for are forms of exploitation". He also called for greater commitment from countries to legislate against the human trade and to prosecute violators.

Sex trade
According to a report last year by UNODC, countries that were major sources of trafficked persons included Thailand, China, Nigeria, Albania, Bulgaria, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine. Thailand, Japan, Israel, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Turkey and the US were the most common destinations, the report said.

There are no exact statistics on the number of people affected globally. But according to UNODC, experts believe that some 2.5 million people throughout the world are at any given time the victims of human trafficking.

Many of these are women and young girls forced to work in the sex industry, while others are men forced to work as labourers in dangerous conditions for little or no pay, the UN agency said.

Adapted from: "UN highlights human trafficking." BBC. 26 March 2007.

Thai and South African Officials Meet to Discuss Victims of Trafficking

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 17:35:00 GMT

Officials from the Royal Thai Embassy in Pretoria have arrived in Durban after the arrest of 26 Thai women who are alleged to have been brought into the country to become sex slaves.

High-level discussions are under way between the embassy's Second Secretary, Jeerasak Pomsuwan, and officials from the Organised Crime Unit. Pomsuwan, who arrived in Durban late on Monday afternoon, said investigations were still ongoing and that they needed to establish whether the women arrested were indeed victims of human trafficking.

"The women need to be categorised and, if found to be victims, then it will be our duty to assist them via the proper channels," he said. The arrests occurred over the weekend when members of the Organised Crime Unit swooped on a gentlemen's club called After Dark in Cato Street, Durban,
and a brothel in Pinetown at the weekend.

Organisations dealing with women trafficking have reacted with concern to the arrest of the women. Joan van Niekerk, the director of Childline, said the arrests were shocking and very sad.

"People are not aware of the extent to which children and women are trafficked in South Africa and across international borders," she said. "Corruption is the biggest problem fuelling trafficking, as people are moving across borders without any relevant papers. "It's difficult to measure the problem as it is hidden and run by an illegal underground operation using forged documents."

She said trafficking was not like abuse. In many cases these people were from different countries, rarely spoke English, were powerless and did not know where to go for help. She said this particular case had attracted prominence because the case involved Thai women, but we needed to realise that we had a problem inside our country as well.

"Children are being moved from rural to other rural areas, or to urban areas inside the country," said Van Niekerk. Rebecca Pursell, a social worker with the Reducing Exploitive Child Labour in Southern Africa project, shared the sentiments. She said women and girl children from neighbouring countries like Mozambique, Swaziland and Zimbabwe as well as girls and women from international countries were trafficked to South Africa for sex work.

"These women are not made to work in public places like sex clubs, but rather in clandestine brothels - or they are sold off to one individual," said Pursell. "It is commonly known that these women are lured out of their countries by promises of employment. They come not knowing that they are going to be involved in sex work."

Adapted from: Bhavna Sookha. "High-level talks after 26 'sex-slave' arrests." http://iol.co.za. 19 December 2006.

Trafficking of Women and Children from Vietnam

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 17:35:00 GMT

Over the past five years, thousands of women and children have been trafficked over the border for sexual and labour exploitation abroad, according to a report by the border police in Vietnam.

The situation has worried authorities with their top concerns being the increases in terms of the number and sophisticated operations of trafficking rings as well as overseas market expansion. In 2001, the investigation team uncovered 230 cases and captured 580 criminals; however, the corresponding figures in 2005 showed a sharp increase, with over 300 cases and 800 criminals.

Several years ago, the human labour markets were only China, Laos and Cambodia, but they are now expanding to Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan.

To become rich overnight is the core reason that more and more criminals fall into the illegal business. For example, they can earn around 7,000 -9,000 Chinese renminbi for the successful sale of a beautiful girl.

The slave traders usually rush into the poor countryside in search of young women and girls who are illiterate or unemployed with very little social background understanding. Those target groups are easily lured with fantastically concocted stories full of ideal jobs in a big city at a high salary and little hardship. Currently, criminals also organise overseas tours at unexpected low costs and then send victims to brothels for sexual tour purposes.

Most awfully, a girl may become the wife of all men in a whole family in a rural and far-flung area. Due to their destitution, all the men in such family have to pool money so that they can buy a shared woman to serve their sexual appetites, give birth and take care of the big family. The victims are tightly guarded so it is unlikely they can ever escape. According to a survey, most of the victims saved and brought home show evidence of mental shock due to the inhuman tortures they had to suffer. They are imprisoned with no conveniences and forced to have sex many times a day. Those who resist or try to run away are often beaten ruthlessly and may even have their leg tendons cut.

Adapted from: "Women and children trafficking over border alarming." VietNamNet Bridge. 25 December 2006.

Vietnam and Cambodia Discuss Fight Against Human Trafficking

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 17:31:00 GMT

Vietnam and Cambodia considered closer cooperation to prevent the rising cross-border trade in women and children at a meeting in Ho Chi Minh City.

The Vietnamese officials at the meeting put forth a number of measures, including the establishment of a joint working group to monitor execution of a 2005 agreement on preventing trafficking of women and children. A Vietnamese report said that police had arrested over 450 traffickers in 2006 and rescued 966 women and children. Another 750 victims had been rescued in other countries or had escaped
themselves.

The crime was most rampant in southern Vietnamese provinces bordering Cambodia, including An Giang, Tay Ninh, Dong Thap, and Binh Phuoc. Cambodia's Deputy Minister of Women's Affairs You Ay told the meeting that many of the trafficked victims were forced into sex work.

Cambodia had also become a transit camp from where trafficked victims were sent to neighboring countries and, in some cases, even to Europe and America. He stressed collaboration by all countries involved - home, transit, and destination - was essential for fighting this scourge.

Adapted from: "Vietnam, Cambodia discuss fight against human trafficking. 14 January 2007.
Source: Sai Gon Giai Phong - Translated by The Vinh

Human Trafficking in Boston, USA

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 17:36:00 GMT

On the fast-moving circuit of international sex trafficking, say police, women regularly shuttle in and out of Boston

They are women of the world, born in China, Thailand, Korea; Mexico, Colombia, El Salvador. They are women now scattered across the United States, listing addresses in California, Texas, North Carolina, New York. They are women who, over the past two years, have traveled here in waves,holing up in such places as Allston/Brighton apartment buildings, East Boston homes, and a flat in the South End, records show.

In preparation for their day's work, the women slip into the personas of "Sasha" and "Susie" and "Sweet Blossom," or simple anonymity. Then they perform their passion ploys : making money for their masters by selling their sexual services to area men. Police and immigration specialists believe that many of these women are being rotated in and out of this and other U S cities by national networks of human traffickers, who employ local middlemen to manage Boston brothel franchises set up in Hub neighborhoods.

"People think it happens in Cambodia or Nepal," Kelley O'Connell, a Boston police sergeant detective, says about human trafficking. "It's quite evident it's right under our noses," says O'Connell, who is assigned to the two-year-old state wide task force on human trafficking.

In a city of "New Bostonians" where more than 100 languages are bandied about, these foreign-born prostitutes are forced to live on the heartsick, sullen side of the Hub's immigrant experience, advocates and law enforcement officials say. Over the past two years, Boston police and task force members have conducted a series of undercover stings in Allston/Brighton and East Boston meant to topple the traffickers and free the women.

The ethnic populations of Boston provide some customers -- and cover for the trafficking operations' reputed middle managers, who moonlight from regular jobs such as restaurant workers or truck drivers, court records show. In Allston/Brighton, it's Asian men controlling the brothels of mostly Asian women, records show; in East Boston, it's largely Colombian males lording over Latinas.

In Boston, authorities know that to bring a federal trafficking case could inflict harsh penalties upon the bosses -- two leaders of a Mexico-to-New-York ring last year were sentenced to 50 years in prison -- and bestow upon the victims access to benefits such as medical care and housing to help rebuild their lives.

But the trafficking threshold, except when children are involved, requires proof of force, fraud, or coercion, and to the dismay of O'Connell and others, local investigators have not been able to meet that burden without the cooperation of the women in Boston. And, other than one instance that has the potential to be developed, the women weren't talking. Despite evidence that many had been selling their bodies against their will, O'Connell and others say, the women stuck to their scripted lives, some telling authorities even after their arrests for prostitution that they were only giving legitimate massages, and were doing so voluntarily.

'A modern form of slavery'
Last month, task force members discussed shifting strategies to try to untangle the local-national connections and break the women's bondage in Boston. Now, they vow to marshal money and manpower to snare the trafficking sources directly through higher-powered methods such as wiretaps and surveillance.

"This is the underserved victim population of our time," says task force director Karen McLaughlin of those who are trafficked. US officials estimate that up to 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders every year, put to work in places ranging from family homes to sweatshops to brothels. "Trafficking in human beings is nothing less than a modern form of slavery," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said. The passage to the dark sections of immigrant cities like Boston can be veiled, yet vile. In one typical scenario, advocates say, the international journey begins with commercial-sex headhunters who use phony promises of jobs in restaurants or health spas to prey on women from impoverished locations desperate to find an American payday to help their families back home.

After being smuggled illegally onto US shores, the women are hit with the tab: thousands of dollars in fees. With no real English or true documentation -- and the bosses' boots on their necks -- they have no chance of paying off the debt unless they divert from the common immigrant arc of toiling in entry-level jobs and join the traffickers' underground sex syndicates.

Queens a staging area
On the East Coast, the ethnic enclaves within the New York City borough of Queens such as Flushing and Jackson Heights have become major recruiting centers for traffickers, according to law enforcement officials and advocates. In August, federal authorities charged more than 30 Korean nationals with operating a sex-trafficking operation along part of the Northeast Corridor: New York, Philadelphia, Washington. A chain of brothels, and a transporter for the enterprise, were based in Queens.

Two years before, members of the Carreto family of Mexico were indicted on charges that they lured young women from that country to work in brothels around New York City, including Queens. One of the men likened his job to "recruiting fillies for a race," according to court records. One of the women was forced to service more than 20 men a day, the records show.

In Boston, authorities say a proliferation of similar-looking sex-for-a-fee and related transgressions over the last several years raised their suspicions that women are being trafficked here. In the more than 40 arrests in Allston/Brighton alone in 2005, records show, the aberrant morphed into the widespread: foreign-born women, listing far-away home addresses -- including many in Queens -- arrested for prostitution in illicit massage ventures and needing interpreters in court because they could not speak English.

Court records show their residences as Smithfield, N.C. Queens, N.Y. Amarillo, Texas. Flushing, N.Y. Long Beach, Calif. Jackson Heights, N.Y. One who appeared in Brighton District Court is a 39-year-old Hong Kong native who lived in Flushing and has a lawyer in Miami. Another is a 37-year-old Colombian woman from Jackson Heights who had her case dismissed last month in East Boston District Court. Meanwhile, a 24-year-old woman from New York via China is due back in Boston Municipal Court tomorrow on a charge of being a prostitute in a South End den. Police point to their seizure of bank receipts of $19,000 from that East Berkeley Street site to show how lucrative the business can be.

In Allston, another 'menu'
To investigators, these did not bear the fingerprints of ordinary homegrown commercial sex transactions. For them, another clue came from the advertisements on the Internet that referred to the women in one Allston locale as "menu" items -- "We line them up and you decide who you want."

Inside that Quint Avenue haunt, records show, a Beijing-born woman conveyed to an undercover cop the price of sex by tracing the numerals in the air: $160. In addition, the ads boasted: "We change masseus es each week!"This was not only a way to offer customers fresh faces and bodies, law enforcement officials and advocates say, but was a sign of a national chain trying to prevent the women from getting comfortable in one place lest they ponder talking to the authorities, or fleeing before paying off the traffickers' carrying charges.

In East Boston, police say, turnover is so constant that Mondays there are known as travel days, as some women ship out while others arrive. "It's a lonely, isolated experience," Carol Gomez, founder of the Boston-based Trafficking Victims Outreach & Services Network, says of those trapped inside a loop of exploitation.

Money flows from the women to their handlers, advocates say, to pay for food and rent and debt service and transportation to different cities where phone numbers in their pockets connect them to another string of strange addresses in which they are put right to work. If they miss a day of labor, Gomez says, the money comes out of their earnings.

Or worse. In court records, prosecutors in the Carreto case described the physical hold the traffickers held on the women, through rapes, forced abortions, beatings with belts and beer bottles. "Vicious," says sergeant detective O'Connell.

A hold on bodies and minds
Other times, advocates and law enforcement officials say, the shackles are psychological: threats to turn the women over to immigration authorities and have their stories splashed across international headlines. "They inculcate a fear about being reported, of being humiliated," says Dr.

Jose Hidalgo, who has studied Boston-based human trafficking. The warnings can get even more cutthroat, such as pledges to kill the women or their families. During the successful 2004 Boston prosecution of an Estonian man who federal authorities said imported women to perform erotic massages in Allston/Brighton and kick back the proceeds to him, it came out that Roman Valdma tried to keep his workers in line by boasting of his connections to the "Russian Mafia," court records show. The authorities infiltrated his organization, anyway.

Boston's apparent presence on the sex-slave circuit is less a testament to the city's unique qualities than the traffickers' desire for more money-making avenues, advocates say. "Trafficking is present, to some degree, in every urban center in the United States," says Derek Ellerman, co-executive-director of Polaris Project, an international group combatting human trafficking.

The alleged Eastie trafficking enterprises are more insular than those in Allston/Brighton, police and advocates say. Rather than solicit business in cyberspace, the Eastie M.O. includes having operatives distribute business cards containing phone numbers but no addresses on car windshields and to passersby in busy spots like Maverick Square -- a promotional scheme used in other US cities, advocates say.

For example, prospective johns in the know understand they can receive a sexual spark by responding to the phone number on business cards promoting "Servicios Electricos " -- literally, electric services -- according to court records. The card also serves as a pass into the dwelling.

In a 2004 East Boston case, an undercover officer calling that number was directed to a Sumner Street apartment and was assured "a 24-year-old Venezuelan girl just in from New York," records show. The year before, court records show, a 40-year-old Dominican woman carrying a new Florida address told a cop after an undercover sortie on a house of prostitution in East Boston that she'd been arrested in New York for solicitation of sex. She was busted for the same thing here, too.

In March of last year, an East Boston undercover officer was told in Spanish that he could have a "hot" and "sexy" 18-year-old girl from Mexico, court records show.

The case of the $30 marble
In another instance last year, an Eastie cop was working in plainclothes to pierce a reputed Bennington Street brothel. He was told the doors opened at 11:15 a.m., court records show. Once in, he handed over $30 to a 47-year-old tattooed man from Colombia, who recorded the transaction in a notebook.

From a small plastic bag, the Colombian then gave the officer a marble, which the cop was to pass on to the reputed prostitute, a 24-year-old Dominican woman up from New Jersey. Law enforcement officers and advocates say the use of marbles, poker chips, or playing cards is a notorious accounting system that national traffickers use to keep track of the womens' johns.

In alleged Eastie trafficking spheres -- as in Latino brothels elsewhere in the United States, advocates say -- the base equation for sex is: "$30 for 15 minutes," according to court records. Then a buzzer goes off, or a chime sounds, and it's time for the woman to serve the next in line.

Adapted from: Ric Kahn. "Bound for misery." The Boston Globe. 7 January 2007.

Trafficking in Persons Interim Assessment - US State Department

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 17:52:00 GMT

Trafficking in Persons Interim Assessment, Released by the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, January 19, 2007.

The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, passed by the Congress and signed into law by the President in December 2003, requires the Department of State to submit to the Congress an Interim Assessment of the progress made in combating trafficking in persons (TIP) by those countries placed on the Special Watch List in September 2006. The evaluation period covers the six months since the release of the June 2006 annual report.

This year, 39 countries are on the Special Watch List. These countries either (1) had moved up a tier in the 2006 TIP Report over the last year's Report, or (2) were ranked on Tier 2 in the 2006 TIP Report, but (a) had failed to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat TIP from the previous year, (b) were placed on Tier 2 because of commitments to carry out additional future actions over the coming year, or (c) had a significant or significantly increasing number of trafficking victims. Thirty-four of the 39 countries on the Special Watch List are in the second category--ranked as Tier 2 Watch List--including two countries initially ranked as Tier 3 in the June 2006 TIP Report, but reassessed as Tier 2 Watch List countries by the State Department in September 2006 (Belize and Laos). Attached to this Interim Assessment is an overview of the tier process.

In most cases, the Interim Assessment is intended to serve as a tool by which to gauge the anti trafficking progress of countries which may be in danger of slipping a tier in the upcoming June 2007 TIP Report and to give them guidance on how to avoid a Tier 3 ranking. It is a tightly focused progress report, assessing the concrete actions a government has taken to address the key deficiencies highlighted in the June 2006 TIP Report. The Interim Assessment covers actions undertaken between the beginning of May--the cutoff for data covered in the June TIP Report--and November. Readers are requested to refer back to the annual TIP Report for an analysis of large scale efforts and a description of the trafficking problem in each particular country.

For more information, visit Trafficking in Persons Interim Assessment

The Stark Reality of Human Trafficking in the Philippines

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 17:17:00 GMT

The modus operandi is almost always the same - sweet-talking recruiters entice parents to allow their young daughters to leave the provinces and work in Manila as domestic helpers with promises of huge salaries. But once the girls arrive in Manila, the story turns sour with many of them ending up in forced labour or prostitution. Worse, they are “trained” for “export” to other countries to work as prostitutes.

“Trafficking in the Philippines has two faces - one is for local consumption and the other for abroad,” said Cecilia Flores Oebanda, president of Visayan Forum Foundation, a non-governmental organization working for the welfare of migrants. “Women are first recruited to Manila, where they are trained for deployment abroad,” she said. “They are taught how to undress, they are bleached, beautified, then initiated into the sex trade with foreigners as their first customers.” “That’s what they call on-the-job training while their papers are fixed for travel abroad,” she told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa in an interview. As the government and such organizations as Visayan Forum step up the fight against human trafficking, the lure of a better life, a culture that accepts child labour as long as parents consent to it, abject poverty and the government’s labour-export policy still fuel the modern-day slavery and lead to estimated tens of thousands of Filipinos, mostly women and children, being trafficked every year.

Due to its continued notoriety as a source, transit and destination country for trafficked persons, the Philippines has remained on the US State Department’s tier 2 list of countries that do not fully comply with international standards against human trafficking but are making significant progress to fight the problem. The Philippines used to be in the tier 2 watchlist but saw its status improve in 2006 after seven of 186 legal cases filed from 2003 to 2006 resulted in convictions. Oebanda said the Philippine government’s continued deployment of Filipino workers, mostly as domestic helpers, around the world, whose wages are a much needed source of revenue for the country, was exposing Filipino women and children to the dangers of trafficking. She noted that even Filipinos with overseas work permits could end up being trafficked. “Some of them secure work permits, but is their job really the work that they asked the permit for?” she asked. “We are worried and alarmed that our major source of income is people that we send out as migrants. We lack protective mechanisms and this adds to the vulnerability of people.”

The Victims
Oebanda said recruiters often prey on young women between 12 and 22 years old. The victims are usually school dropouts, looking for jobs or a way out of the provinces. “Some women just want to get out of the provinces,” she said. ”They want to come to Manila or any urban centre. They flock to urban centres, where there is a perceived notion of better opportunities waiting for them.”

Gladys, 19, left her home province of Surigao del Norte in the southern Philippines for the central city of Cebu in the hopes of finding a job to help her poor family. The youngest girl in a brood of five said she was recruited by a relative to work as a domestic helper but ended up as a waitress in a nightclub frequented by foreign tourists in a red-light district in Cebu City. “I wanted to experience life in a city and how it is like to have a job,” she told dpa. “I also thought that if I can work, it would be a great help to my parents.” Dressed in skimpy attires every night, she often receives indecent proposals from customers who grab and touch her even without her consent while serving drinks or food at their tables. For three months, the advances escalated, and she said she feared she would end up like other girls in the bar who not only work as waitresses but also dance half-naked and perform sexual services. Unable to stand the exploitation, she approached Visayan Forum and asked for help. She is now undergoing computer training to help her achieve her goal of becoming a teacher.

Other girls are not as lucky as Gladys. In some cases, Visayan Forum has rescued young women locked up in rooms where they are forced to have sex with as many as 20 men every night. “The operator of the prostitution house counts the men the girls had serviced by the number of condoms on the floor,” Oebanda said. Even women who end up working as domestic helpers also sometimes face sexual abuse from their male bosses. Elena was only 15 when her parents traded her for 500 pesos (10 dollars) to a recruitment agency in the southern province of Misamis Oriental. In one of her many jobs as a domestic helper, Elena was raped repeatedly by her male employer when his wife went on vacation to the United States. The abuse continued for quite some time until she was let go by the couple and returned to the recruitment agency. “When I asked for help from my recruiter, I was merely told that since I was no longer a virgin, I might as well become a sex worker,” she told Visayan Forum. “I was so furious, I escaped, not knowing where I’d end up.” While most of those rescued were grateful for the help, Oebanda said some of the women and children had been so hardened by their ordeal that they get angry at social workers like her. “They see us as getting in their way, that we’re taking away their jobs and opportunities,” she said. “Some of them even vandalize our shelters. But eventually they appreciate it.”

Adapted from: Khaleej Times. March 1, 2007.

Creation of Human Trafficking Prosecution in the United States Department of Justice

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 19:01:00 GMT

Attorney General Alberto R Gonzales announces creation of Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit within the Civil Rights Division.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, Wan J. Kim, announced today the creation of the Human Trafficking Prosecution (HTP) Unit within the Criminal Section of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. The Unit is designed to develop new strategies to combat modern-day slavery by focusing the Division's human trafficking expertise and expanding its anti-trafficking enforcement program to further increase human trafficking investigations and prosecutions throughout the nation.

"The Justice Department is proud to be at the forefront of the Administration's efforts to combat the heinous crime of human trafficking," said Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales. "With the creation of the Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit, we will expand and enhance our ability to fight this crime by working together with federal, state and local investigators, and NGOs, to tackle the enormous challenges posed by this evil. We will continue to develop new ways to help victims and to bring their captors to justice."

The HTP Unit will work to enhance the Department's investigation and prosecution of significant human trafficking and slavery cases, such as multi-jurisdictional cases and those involving financial crimes. The Unit will also engage in training, technical assistance and outreach initiatives to federal, state and local law enforcement and NGOs.

The HTP Unit will be headed by noted anti-trafficking prosecutors who have prosecuted traffickers and freed hundreds of foreign and domestic victims from sex trafficking in brothels and forced labor in fields, homes and factories. Robert Moossy will head up the Unit, and is joined by Chief Counsel Lou de Baca and Special Litigation Counsels Hilary Axam and Andrew Kline, who bring significant anti-slavery experience to this effort and have been leaders in developing the modern victim-centered approach to human trafficking investigations and prosecutions. They will be joined in the coming months by additional federal prosecutors, a victim/witness specialist, and support staff.

Attorney General Gonzales has made combating human trafficking a top priority of the Justice Department. In the last six fiscal years, the Civil Rights Division, in conjunction with U.S. Attorneys' Offices, has increased by six-fold the number of human trafficking cases filed, quadrupled the number of defendants charged, and tripled the number of defendants convicted. In FY 2006, the Department initiated 168 investigations, charged 111 defendants in 32 cases, and obtained a record number of convictions totaling 98.

Press Briefing

FACT SHEET

New Prosecution Unit

Announced:
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2007
Phone: +1.202.514.2008
http://www.USDOJ.GOV

United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Trafficking Regional Project Manager Visits China

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 17:35:00 GMT

Mr Matthew Friedman, the Regional Project Manager of a UN Inter-Agency Project in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region visited China from the 4-9 March 2007 to assist the UNIAP and COMMIT in their work on combating trafficking.

During his visit Mr. Friedman had meetings with key leaders in the National Working Committee for Women and Children (NWCCW), the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during which he introduced the UNIAP stratagem for phase III and discussed IMM2 and SOM5 events with the Chinese leadership. The Chinese leaders all reiterated the government’s commitment to the resolution of the human trafficking issue.

IMM2 and SOM5 will be held in China this year, the Ministry of Public Security will host the meeting with the support of the NWCCW, the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The specific details of IMM2 and SOM5 will be arranged by the MPS.

The MPS regards trafficking as one of its priorities and as a result of cooperation with the NWCCW and UNIAP it has uncovered 2,500 cases of trafficking in women and children in 2006, this is a decrease of 11% in comparison with 2005.

The NWCCW has been cooperating with the UNIAP on trafficking from its inception and it will continue to support the project and the COMMIT process. As a “big sister” to other Mekong countries China will set an example, this will involve mentoring and coaching other nations.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is currently drafting a plan of action to combat human trafficking. Both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the UNIAP believe that cooperation with other countries is key to the resolution of this problem. It was agreed that this issue should not be politicized as this would only serve to make it more complex. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has offered any assistance necessary to the UNIAP.

A task force meeting was held on the first day of Mr. Friedman’s visit, this involved representatives of the Criminal Legislation Department of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, the Criminal Investigation Department fo the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the International Department of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, and NWCCW. The progress which had been made so far was discussed as well as the future direction the task force would take in combatting of trafficking.

The meetings were very fruitful and all parties believe that the IMM2 and SOM5 in China will be very successful with the UNIAP’s support.

Source: UNIAP China

Child Porn Market Is Thriving in Phnom Penh

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 17:42:00 GMT

Child Pronography depicting children possibly as young as 7 years old are freely available at shops and stalls around Phnom Penh’s Psar Thmei, a two day investigation by the Cambodia Daily has found.

The VCDs, which include scenes of bondage and torture, are being sold for 50 cents uner such Khmer-language titles as “Luring Underage Child,” “Old Grandafther Forced Underage Child To Have Sex,”and “70-Year-Old Grandfather Rapes 0-Year Old Girl,” At O’Russei market, two VCD vendors said they sold child pornography, while on Street 169 opposite BakTouk High School, two computer stalls offered child porn video footage downloads to mobile phones. One of the VCDs purchased at the Phnom Penh CD shop opposite Phsar Thmei, which was apparetntly shot at the Svay Pak brothel village on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, was handed over to anti-pedophile NGO International Justice Mission on Monday. The footage depicts several very young girls with two Western men and includes scenes of sexual torture.

An IJM official who asked not to be named said the organization will assist Cambodian police in a subsequent investigation. Keo Thea, deputy chief of the municipal anti-human trafficking and juvenile protection bureau, said Tuesday that he is aware of the footage being sold under the title “70-Year-Old Grandfather Rapes 9-Year-Old-Girl,” The filed abuse ïs a case from about three or four years ago. We are doing the investigating, but the suspects didn’t return to the country,”Keo Thea. ‘The authorities used to crack down once, but they still sell it,” Keo Thea said of the city’s free-wheeling child porn business.

Police efforts to combat the trade in child porn are like “a dried fish trying to lay eggs,”he added. Keo Thea said people who distribute and sell child pornography are only subject to a minor fine, the amount of which he could not remember. “there is no law (against distributing child pornography),”he said. “But there is a subdecree, which has no jail term,”he added. At Phnom PenhCD, where child porn VCDs are kept in stacks at the back of the shop, a staffer handed a reporter 10 different child porn titles including “Forced Sex” and “Sex Under 13.”

Muong Sokchea, 52, who identified herself as the shop’s owner, said that she does not openly display the child porn for fear of the police. Asked if she had any qualms about selling the footage of children sexually abused and tortured, she responded: “They’re not our nationality.” A 30-year-old VCD vendor at a stall on the pavment opposite Phsar Thmei had a staggering range of child porn VCDs for sale Monday which appeared to feature Thai and Chinese children. She refused to give her name, but she said she has no scruples about selling it because so many other people are doing the same, and because the abused children were not Cambodians. Everyone sells it,”she said.’They are not Khmer children. They are Vietnamese.” Both foreigners and Cambodians but the VCDs, she said. Ït is illegal, but it is sold everywhere,”she added. Ros Sothy, a police officers standing two meters from the woman’s stall, said he patrols the area around Phsar Thmei and was unaware of the thriving child pornography market on his beat.

Opposite Baktouk high School, a vendor who downloads ring tunes and graphics to mobile phones, also provided child porn footage to a reporter. He said he didn’t know the origin of the footage, but that most of his customers are Cambodian. Although he makes money from the footage, 25 cents for each download, he said he does not approve of pedophilia. It is bad to watch, it is a crime against children,” he admitted.

Mu Sochua, former minister of women’s affairs and current SRP secretary-general, said the trade in child porn widespread, “This business of making money from child pornography is spreading throughout the country even to small distant remote villages,”she said Monday. Interior Ministry spokesman Lieutenant-General Khieu Sopheak said he was aware of the distribution of child pornography and that police are doing their best to shut down the vendors. It is illegal and it will be punished,”he said. “They are selling these kinds of VCDs in secret,”he said.

In a speech to mar International Children’s Day on June 1, 2002, Prime Minister Hun Sen said Cambodia was one of the first 10 countries to ratify the UN convention on child trafficking, sexual exploitation, prostitution and the distribution of child pornography, It is every Cambodian’s obligationto help make our beloved country a better place for children – a place where every child can grow to adulthood in health, peace and dignity,” he said. Information Minister and Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith is illegal and must be confiscated. He referred reporters to the Minisryt of Culture. Minister of Culture Prince Sisowath Panara Sereyvuth could not be contacted for comment.

Adapted from: Cambodia Daily. 10 January 2007.
Source: UNIAP Cambodia

Cambodian Officials Battle Child Porn in Phnom Penh

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 17:49:00 GMT

When Thomas Reedy was convicted in August 2001 of possessing and distributing child pornography, a judge in Texas sentenced the US national to 1,335 years in prison. Before his arrst, the 37-year old had made millions from his notorious “Landslide”Web site, where subscribers paid to see child porn produced in Easters Europe and Asia. Even when the computer programmer appealed his sentence a judge would only reduce it to 180 years behind bars. A

mid revelations that child pornography is freely and cheaply available at a central Phnom Penh market, Cambodian officials Thursday expressed either resignation or apathy toward the city’s child porn vendors, who merely risk having their VCDs confiscated and, at most, a fine. Phnom Penh Police Chief Touch Naruth questioned whether the pornographic VCDs sold around Phsar Thmei actually features children, or adults pretending to be children. I have not seen it yet” he said. It could be fake. We don’t know if it’s real or not,” And if there really are children in the short sick films, they are probably not Cambodians, Touch Naruth added. I don’t believe that Khmer children are even like that. Maybe they are Vietnamese,” he said.

Touch Naruth said the Ministry of Culture is the body responsible for combating child porn, but he felt that producers and distributors of such material chould be punished equally. If we don’t punish them, they will sell it in secret again,”he said. But punishment for child pornography distributors, sellers and buyers is precisely what Cambodia lacks. Unicef expressed outrage Wednesday that Cambodian children are being used in pornography and, in the absence of legislation in Cambodia outlawing child porn, called on the public to report such material. But to whom to report it?

Ministry of Culture Undersecretary of State Sam Sokun said he was unaware of the availability of child porn. So did Prince Sisowath Kola Chat, a secretary of state at the ministry. Sam Sokun said that if it did exist, it should be investigated, while Prince kola Chat declined to comment further. Sam Sokun gave a telephon number for another ministry official who heads a committee to fight pornography. Secretary of State Khim Sarith, however, could not be contacted by telephone Thursday. The child sex films sold at Phsar Thmei this week included the Khmer language titles as “Luring Underage Child,” and “70-Year Old Grandfather Rapes 9-Year –Old Girl.”

One of the films featured very young girls being abused by two middle-aged Western men at Phnom Penh’s Svay Pak village, and included scenes of sexual torture and a child bound wrists to ankles with silver duct tape as she is raped. Government spokesman and Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said it is more important for authorities to focus an catching the producers of child porn, rather is a cub-decree that allows for all porn to be confiscated, he said.

Khieu Kanharith referred further questions to Culture Minister Prince Sisowath Panara Sereyvuth, who could not be contacted. Police officers could not find child pornography during a visit to Phsar Thmei on Thursday morning, said Keo Thea, deputy director of the municipal anti-human trafficking police. Though reporters obtained a dozen differenct child sex films between Monday and Wednesday – and were offered scores and scores more- Keo Thea said his officers’visit to the market proves that child porn is not freely available in the capital. “We were walking to try and find it, but there was none,”he said.

Child pornography produced outside Cambodia was not his department’s concern, Keo Thea added. ‘There is only one VCD involving Svay Pak,”he said of the dozen child sex films obtained by journalists this week at the market. “For foreign VCDs, we don’t know where to find the criminals and children. It’s like finding a needle at the bottom of the sea,”he added. Porn dealers may have down-loaded the foreign child sex films from the Internet, Keo Thea added. He would not comment, however, on how the Svay Pak child abuse footage made it into the local market as packaged child porn movie.

Adapted from: "Officials Resigned to Child Porn Presence in City." Cambodia Daily. 12 January 2007. (Source: UNIAP Cambodia)

Sex Industry in Cambodia

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 17:55:00 GMT

Young children are rehabilitated in a shelter run by activist and former prostitute.

At an age when most children might be preparing for their first day of school, Srey, 6, already has undergone trauma that is almost unspeakable. She was sold to a brothel by her parents when she was 5. It is not known how much her family got for Srey, but other girls talk of being sold for $100; one was sold for $10. Before she was rescued, Srey endured months of abuse at the hands of pimps and sex tourists. Passed from man to man, often drugged to make her compliant, Srey was a commodity at the heart of a massive, multimillion-dollar sex industry in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. "It is huge," said

Mu Sochua, a former minister of women's and veteran's affairs who is an anti-sex trade activist. The precise scale of Cambodia's sex trade is difficult to quantify. International organizations -- such as UNICEF, ECPAT and Save the Children -- say that anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 women and children are involved. An estimated 30 percent of the sex workers in Phnom Penh are under the age of 18, according to the United Nations. The actual figure may be much higher, activists say.

Global Sex Industry
Around the world, more than 1 million children are exploited in the global commercial sex trade each year, according to the U.S. State Department. The State Department believes Cambodia is a key transit and destination point in this trade. "Trafficking for sexual exploitation also occurs within Cambodia's borders, from rural areas to the country's capital, Phnom Penh, and other secondary cities in the country," the State Department wrote in a 2006 report. "The Government of Cambodia does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so." Sochua said that with millions of Cambodians struggling to live on less than 50 cents a day, many women turn to the sex industry. Poverty is also often what drives parents to sell their child or themselves on the streets. "Always a child is left behind, often a girl, who is preyed on by traffickers," Sochua added.

An Unlikely Savior
Srey was rescued from the life of a sex slave by Somaly Mam, a former prostitute who runs shelters for the victims of Cambodia's sex trade. Somaly has rescued 53 children, so far. Many of them have profound psychological trauma. Some clearly are mentally ill. "A lot of them, when they arrive, have psychological problems ... very big problems. ... And they never have love by the people, by their parents," Somaly said. One girl at Somaly's shelter appears especially disturbed. She was rescued after being imprisoned for two years in a cage, where she was repeatedly raped. She needs psychiatric care, but there is none available. Somaly says she does her best to give this girl love and support, but that it's not easy with so many other needy children around. Somaly herself suffered terrible ordeals when she worked the streets, including seeing her best friend murdered. She is determined to build something positive out of so much despair. Her work has caught the attention of world leaders, celebrities and religious figures.

Her office in Phnom Penh is adorned with photos of her meeting Pope John Paul II and messages of support from governments and charities. Despite the attention, Somaly said the situation on the street is not getting better. Gang rapes of prostitutes are becoming more common, she said, and many of the attackers don't use condoms. Instead, they share a plastic bag. "Poor women, they have been raped by eight, 10, 20, 25 men ... they hit them. They receive a lot of violence," she said. HIV/AIDS also remains a persistent, though declining, problem among Cambodia's female sex workers. About 20 percent of Cambodia's female sex workers are HIV-positive, according to Cambodia's Ministry of Health. This compares with the 39 percent of sex workers who tested positive in 1996, according to the Health Ministry. To help sex workers transition to a more normal life, Somaly is hoping to expand her refuge in the countryside outside Phnom Penh, where former sex workers attend school and learn skills like weaving and sewing. Asked what the future holds for Srey, Somaly stroked the girl's hair and paused. Srey is HIV-positive, she said.

In such a poor country, without decent hospitals or medical care, Srey's future is bleak. Somaly just hopes she can make this girl's life bearable for as long as it lasts.

Adapted from: "Girl, 6, embodies Cambodia's sex industry." CNN. 25 January 2007.

Clamping Down on Trafficking in Bahrain

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 21:23:00 GMT

A database of human trafficking victims in Bahrain will be launched with the support of the United Nations (UN).

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM), in collaboration with ministries and other stakeholders, will set up the database over the next nine months. It will contain information on the victims such as their job, age, nationality, abuse suffered, legal outcomes and other details.

The database is part of a UN-led project entitled Capacity Building and Awareness Raising on Counter-Trafficking in Bahrain.The nine-month project was launched alongside the opening of the new IOM office at UN House, in Manama.

It is the first project of its kind to be implemented in the GCC. "It's a big step in IOM's engagement in the GCC," said Middle East regional representative Dr. Shahidul Haque.

"The project will contribute to the government's efforts to address human trafficking. "On labour mobility issues, Bahrain has played a very active role.

"I'm grateful to the government of Bahrain because they have agreed to implement this project. "We will use this as a model for other GCC countries."

The anti-trafficking project will include training on law enforcement, shelter management and capacity building. There will also be training on the subject for the media besides raising awareness by distributing information.

"The target is to focus on countering trafficking in line with a law that was passed earlier this year," said Foreign Ministry legal directorate director Ambassador Dr. Yusuf Mohammed.

The IOM will hold a closed roundtable meeting with embassy and ministry officials to discuss how they can combine their efforts. A four-day law enforcement workshop for 35 Interior Ministry staff will also be held at the InterContinental Regency Bahrain.

It will be conducted by UK law enforcement expert Peter Bryant. Bahrain is the fourth country in the Middle East and North Africa region to open an IOM office. The other countries are Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

The IOM plans to hold more anti-human trafficking campaigns with the government and other organisations from its office at UN House. "IOM is not a human rights organisation, it's a service provider - this is how it has evolved and how member countries want it to remain," said Dr. Haque.

"We will be following up with ministries and see what we can do to make human mobility beneficial to all stakeholders." The IOM is an inter-governmental agency with 122 member states, 18 states holding observer status and offices in over 100 countries. It has assisted approximately 11 million migrants.

The IOM works in four broad areas of migration management: migration and development, aiding migration, regulating migration and addressing forced migration.

It will work together with counterparts including the Foreign and Social Development Ministries, embassies and non-governmental organisations to conduct training, workshops, initiatives and discussions on combating human trafficking.

The organisation is funded by member countries, while host countries also contribute to specific projects. "The government of Bahrain has promised to give our whole efforts to support this programme and we encourage administration support for all their activities," said Dr. Mohammed.

The Press conference was also attended by UN resident co-ordinator Sayed Aqa, UN Information Centre (UNIC) director Nejib Friji, Social Development Ministry representative Ameena Jalal and other ministry and UN officials.

Adapted from: Rebecca Torr, "Clamp on trafficking." Gulf Daily News. 12 March 2008.

Video, Including Pimp Interview, Warns U.S. Teens of Prostitution Dangers

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 11:03:00 GMT

A convicted pimp helped with the making of an educational video that will be distributed in 2007 by describing how he recruited girls at malls and clubs and lured them into selling their bodies.

Antoin Thurman said teen prostitutes are traded like cattle and beaten, don't keep their money and can be lured into the profession with sweet talk and designer handbags.

"I've realized I wouldn't want to see my daughter, my mother or sister in this predicament I had these girls in," said Thurman, a Phoenix resident serving a three-year sentence in the Arizona State Prison Complex-Douglas. "Not only did I mess up my life, but I messed up their lives."

The 20-minute video, the brainchild of Judge Lex Anderson of Lake Pleasant Justice Court , will be completed by the end of January. Anderson said about 1,500 DVDs are to be distributed, including to schools.

Besides the interview with Thurman, the video will include interviews with the Maricopa County medical examiner, a psychologist, a detective and parents of a victim, said Brad Michaelson, president of Brand Canyon Co., the Scottsdale company producing and creating the video for Maricopa County Superior Court.

Intertwined with that will be a letter read by a fictitious dead teenage prostitute, Michaelson said. "We want 14-, 15- and 16-year-olds to watch it," Michaelson said. "We took a dramatic approach so they will listen to it."

Anderson sought and received $42,000 from the Judicial Collection Enhancement Fund for the project. A case in his courtroom involving a teenage prostitute stirred Anderson 's interest and led to his discovery that child prostitution was not an aberration.

Adapted from: "New video, including pimp interview, warns teens of prostitution dangers." The Associated Press. 19 December 2006.

US-based Company to Pay Compensation for Enslaving Thai Workers

Mon, 18 Dec 2006 12:22:00 GMT

A steel company implicated in a slave labor scandal involving 48 Thai welders forced to work in squalid conditions will pay US$ 1 million (36 million baht) compensation, US authorities said.

The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) said in a statement it had reached a settlement with Trans Bay Steel Inc, which agreed to compensate the workers who were brought to the United States in 2002. The EEOC alleged the Thais had been held against their will, their passports confiscated and their movements restricted, while they worked without pay. Several of the workers were also housed in cramped apartments without electricity, water or gas after being forced into menial work by recruitment companies contracted by Trans Bay. Sathaporn Pornsrisirisak, one of the workers involved in the case, was paid only $200 for six months’ work in a restaurant.

The EEOC statement said Trans Bay hired the workers after receiving a sub-contract to provide services to retrofit the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in northern California. Two separate recruiting companies, Kota Manpower and Hi Cap Enterprises, were then hired to bring the workers from Thailand. Many of the workers paid recruitment fees of $ 12,000 to 15,000 to Kota and Hi Cap. However, only nine of the welders were sent to work for Trans Bay. The rest were sent to Los Angeles and Long Beach and forced to work without pay at Thai restaurants owned by Kota Manpower and Hi Cap. Federal investigators have been unable to locate the owner of Kota Manpower, identified as Yoo-Taik Kim.

Anna Park, a lawyer at the EEOC’s Los Angeles District Office said the plight of the workers came to light after several escaped. “A couple of the workers escaped at night and sought refuge in a Thai temple in Los Angeles. They were being chased down the street,” Ms. Park said.

Several of the workers have since returned to Thailand while others will continue with Trans Bay.

Adapted from: "Firm in Thai slave labor scandal to pay $ 1m." Bangkok Post. December 10, 2006.

Number of Victims of Trafficking from BiH Increasing

Mon, 18 Dec 2006 12:53:00 GMT

Bosnia and Herzegovina has successfully combated the trafficking of foreign women into its country, however, it is now dealing with an increased number of its own population being trafficked to other countries.

After the trafficking of women coming from foreign countries has been successfully prevented during the past 3-4 years, a new problem has now emerged - trafficking of girls and women from BiH, member of the State Coordinators Office for Fighting Human Trafficking and Head of the BiH Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Consular Department Borisa Arnaut said in Sarajevo.

Speaking at a press conference as part of the roundtable "Human Trafficking from the Aspect of Gender Equality" organised by OSCE, Arnaut warned that human traffickers are becoming increasingly ruthless, they have large sums of money and excellent equipment available, and they use corruption very successfully.

He said that the priority now needs to be placed on taking care of women victims of trafficking, protecting the victims and witnesses of trafficking.

Human traffickers are now going to BiH villages, they promise all and everything, and use the fact that newly born children are often not registered and do not attend schools, Arnaut said.

He said that girls from our country, especially Roma, are being frequently arrested in Italy. He added that traffickers take away their passports, beat and rape them.

Director of the BiH Gender Equality Agency Samra Filipovic - Hadziabdic stressed that gender equality issues are connected to the prevention of trafficking, because victims of violence are often victims of trafficking as well.

It is important to inform girls and women in BiH about this problem, because there is a growing number of BiH girls among victims of trafficking, Filipovic-Hadziabdic said.

OSCE official for the fight against human trafficking Mario Vignjevic said that the idea behind organising this conference was to integrate activities of the two institutions working on this problem.

He said that 2 million people worldwide fall victim to human trafficking every day and that this is the most lucrative illegal activity following the illegal trade of weapons and narcotics.

For more information, visit:
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina

Online Photo Exhibition of Women and Girls in Prostitution

Mon, 18 Dec 2006 12:58:00 GMT

The Daughters of Darkness by Shehzad Noorani. http://www.childtrafficking.com/Content/Gallery/

"No matter how hard you try, you won't even come close to understanding our grieves." Najma, a young sex worker. There are worlds within worlds, completely hidden from most of us. Bound by basic curious nature, every now and then, someone takes a peak and comes back with words or pictures, to speak about the strange hidden worlds. More often than not, this
results in impressions that seem exotic, foreign, beyond. In the case of prostitution, we either tend to see it as a bad element of society or treat them as people in vulnerable situations. Exactly because of this, we fail to give them a chance to be what they are - ordinary people. Their basic humane aspects and sensibilities are too often ignored. There are also tales that penetrate too deep into their lives and show gross images beyond the curtains - images depicting scenes from their personal or professional lives, leaving no room or respect for their privacy. Or we disguise their identities assuming we are protecting them and in the process, we take away their right to be. In our effort to protect the identities of the 'vulnerable,' we mask their eyes with black tapes, and whether intended or not, make them look like criminals. Sometimes these dark areas are actually dark, but at time we fail to open our eyes. We approach such issues with closed minds and try to fit every thing we see into pre-constructed boxes. Thus, in spite of all the efforts, the daughters of darkness remain in the dark." Shehzad Noorani.

The 39 photos of Shehzad Noorani - taken in Bangladesh, India and Nepal - give a deep insight about their lives.

Shehzad Noorani has worked as a freelance documentary photographer with a special focus on social issues since 1987, and has covered major crisis situations resulting from wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sudan and natural calamities in Sri Lanka (Tsunami), Iran (Bam Earthquake) and Bangladesh (Flood 1988 &1998 and Cyclone 1991 & 1993). He has edited pictures for numerous publications and multi-media presentations, and set up conventional and digital picture libraries for many United Nation Organizations across the World. His photo exhibitions have been held in Bangladesh, Denmark, France, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Switzerland, Thailand, United Kingdom and the United States of America. For his exemplary work he has been a recipient of prestigious awards such as Mother Jones International Award for Documentary Photography in 2000 and an honorable mention from National Geography All Road Photographer's Program in 2005. He has also made a contribution in the book titled "Fallen Angels," depicting gripping sex trade scenario in South Asia.

Yunnan, China Anti-Trafficking Training Workshop for Media Successful

Mon, 18 Dec 2006 13:21:00 GMT

The Yunnan Anti-Trafficking Participation Training Course for media staff was held from 7-9 December 2006 in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China.

This training course was supported by the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Trafficking and was hosted by Yunnan Provincial Women’s Federation.

This training course’s main content was: the definition of international and national trafficking: the definition of a victim, the principal strategies and policies, gender and society, China’s relevant anti-trafficking legislation, the moral principals of media reporting in order to keep the focus on the victims.

The Deputy Chairperson of Yunnan Provincial Women’s Federation’s, Yi Li gave a lecture to the class. Dr Feng Jiang from UNIAP China office, Jiyu Tong, a researcher from Yunnan Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, professor Jun Wang from the Communication University of China, Qiliang Wang and Rong Xiang associate professors from Yunnan University as well as some other specialists, separately gave presentations of different topics.

More than 30 reporters from Yunnan’s main news organizations and relevant units attended the training, they came from: the Yunnan Branch of the Xinhua News Agency, the Yunnan office of the Central People’s Radio Station, Yunnan Television, Yunnan People’s Radio Station, the Yunnan Daily, the Yunnan Legal Times, the Yunnan Newspaper of the Political Consultative Committee, the Yunnan Information Newspaper, the Kunming Daily, Chun City Evening News, the Wenshan Daily, the Yuxi Daily, the Simao Daily, the Lijiang Daily, Honghe Television Station, Qujing City’s Radio Bureau, Qujing City’s Women’s Federation, Qujing City’s Ministry of Public Security, Yunnan University as well as other places.

Adapted from: Yunnan Anti-Trafficking Training Workshop for Media Has Come to a Successful Close. The China Anti-Trafficking Information Centre Online. 11 December 2006.

Source: UNIAP China

Anhui’s First Anti-Trafficking Housing Project and Activity Centre is Set Up in Mingguang, China

Mon, 18 Dec 2006 13:26:00 GMT

Funded through the Women’s Federation’s Project for Anti-Trafficking in Girls and Young Women, the Women and Children’s Activity Centre in Qiaotou Town, Mingguang Municipality established the province’s first home, which was officially founded on 6 December 2006.

Through the platform of the activity centre, numerous women and girls from the countryside can join an anti-trafficking network and a posthouse to safeguard their rights and interests. This project is a cooperation between the International Labour Organization and the All China Women’s Federation, as well as the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Public Security. Eleven ministries are together planning the development for the four-year international project, aiming under the government’s guidance to use different means to participate in an anti-trafficking in women and children collaborative mechanism.

The activity centre is about to train female migrants in vocational skills, they are contributing training in manufacturing skills and education in legislation for women who stay in their hometowns, they are also educating and publicizing anti-trafficking awareness and safe migration to children.

Adapted from: Anhui’s First Anti-Trafficking Housing Project and Activity Centre is Set Up in Mingguang. The People Online. 6 December 2006.

Manpower Inc. Calls on 1,000 of the World's Leading Corporations to Join the Fight to End Human Trafficking

Mon, 18 Dec 2006 14:53:00 GMT

The fight to end modern day slavery enters a new phase with a call from Manpower Inc. (NYSE: MAN) to 1,000 of the world's largest companies to help end human trafficking.

In January 2006, Manpower Inc., a world leader in the employment services industry, was the first global corporation to sign up to the Athens Ethical Principles. The Principles declare a "zero tolerance" policy for working with any entity benefiting in any way from human trafficking, including clients, vendors and business partners. The Athens Ethical Principles are an initiative of the "End Human Trafficking Now!" (EHTN!) campaign, built on a partnership of corporations, organizations and committed individuals, and is championed by the Suzanne Mubarak Women's International Peace Movement. The campaign is endorsed by a host of global organizations including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Labor Organization.

"Trafficking human beings is now the third largest illegal industry on the planet, following only arms and drug smuggling," said David Arkless, Manpower Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Special Envoy for the EHTN! campaign. "It is a modern form of slavery and no matter where companies are operating, their supply chains could be benefiting from trafficking. We cannot ignore this exploitation and we encourage other companies to join us in standing against this industry."

An estimated 12.3 million people are forced into labor or sexual servitude every year worldwide. The International Labor Organization estimates that $32 billion is earned annually from forced labor, while sexual exploitation of women and children brings in $28 billion.

Companies can sign up for the Athens Ethical Principles and learn more about the End Human Trafficking Now! campaign by going to Manpower's website at http://www.manpower.com/mpcom/content.jsp?articleid=449 or the Suzanne Mubarak Women's International Peace Movement at www.endhumantraffickingnow.com.

In October 2006, Manpower Inc. expanded its social responsibility program to encompass a broader range of initiatives that build upon its heritage as the industry leader in workforce development for more than 50 years. The company's expanded social responsibility platform leverages Manpower's history of innovation in providing a bridge to employment for disadvantaged individuals and extends these efforts to additional groups of people in need of assistance. The four pillars of the company's social responsibility platform are: workforce development, disaster recovery, reaching out to refugees and combating human trafficking. For more information on Manpower's global social responsibility program, go to the Social Responsibility section on the company's corporate website, www.manpower.com.

About Manpower Inc.
Manpower Inc. (NYSE: MAN) is a world leader in the employment services industry; creating and delivering services that enable its clients to win in the changing world of work. The $16 billion company offers employers a range of services for the entire employment and business cycle including permanent, temporary and contract recruitment; employee assessment and selection; training; outplacement; outsourcing and consulting. Manpower's worldwide network of 4,400 offices in 72 countries and territories enables the company to meet the needs of its 400,000 clients per year, including small and medium size enterprises in all industry sectors, as well as the world's largest multinational corporations. The focus of Manpower's work is on raising productivity through improved quality, efficiency and cost-reduction across their total workforce, enabling clients to concentrate on their core business activities. Manpower Inc. operates under five brands: Manpower, Manpower Professional, Elan, Jefferson Wells and Right Management. More information on Manpower Inc. is available at www.manpower.com.

About The Suzanne Mubarak Women's International Peace Movement
The Suzanne Mubarak Women's International Peace Movement (SMWIPM) is a non-profit, non-governmental international association established in 2003. The first of its kind in the Middle East, it was created to harness the energy and creativity of all segments of society in the realization of a vision of peace. This vision is based on a spirit of solidarity between peoples, on shared values and a mutual understanding of their common destiny. SMWIPM is strongly committed to strengthening the involvement of women in peace-building initiatives by highlighting alternative perspectives, exploring various options and ensuring that all efforts are attuned to human needs. SMWIPM has translated its interest in achieving the ambitious goal of stopping Human Trafficking into a workable Action Plan, based on the Ethical Principles drawn up in cooperation with business community in Athens at the beginning of this year (2006).

For more information, contact:
Mr. Britt Zarling , Manpower, Inc.
414.906.7272
www.manpower.com
visit: http://www.csrwire.com/PressRelease.php?id=7015

Marriott Hotel Chain Combats Child Sexual Exploitation

Mon, 18 Dec 2006 15:01:00 GMT

Shareowner engagement by Boston Common Asset Management and the First Swedish National Pension Fund prompts Marriott to explicitly address child sex tourism in its human rights policy.

In 1999, Costa Rican courts sentenced a man to eight years in prison for aggravated pimping of minors in a child sex tourism (CST) network that included receptionists at the San José Marriott, according to a shareowner resolution filed late last year with the company. The filers--a cross-Atlantic coalition of Boston Common Asset Management and the First Swedish National Pension Fund (Första AP-fonden)--withdrew the resolution early this year when Marriott agreed to dialogue.

"Companies do not want to see a resolution on their ballot that raises the issue of child sexual exploitation because it is such an egregious violation of children's human rights," said David Schilling, program director on human rights at the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR). ICCR, a coalition of 275 faith-based institutional investors and socially responsible investing (SRI) firms that conduct shareowner activism with companies, is coordinating a broader campaign with travel and tourism companies on the issue.

The filers announced the results of their engagement--Marriott revised its Human Rights Policy to explicitly address the sexual exploitation of children. "It's fantastic that Marriott is making a commitment to address the sexual exploitation of children--trafficking in children has become a globalized industry," said David Batstone, author of Not For Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade and How We Can Fight It (HarperSF, February 2007). "Kids get moved across country borders so they can be more easily controlled, and sexual predators are traveling long distances to take advantage of defenseless children."

"The reason I am enthused about this corporate commitment is that most major hotel chains have dragged their feet to make a public stand against sex trafficking--it's almost as if they are afraid to draw too much attention to the crisis, and thereby be identified as a site of exploitation," Mr. Batstone told SocialFunds.com. "Their silence, however, is damning, as we will never offer serious resistance to sex trafficking if the tourist industry does not get involved in a major way--it's that simple, and urgent."

The Swedish fund had been trying to engage Marriott on CST since 2002 with no response. "Once the resolution was filed, Marriott was extremely responsive--by the time we met with them in March, they had formed a Human Rights Task Force of nine high-ranking executives and done a great deal of work internally," said Lauren Compere, Boston Common's director of shareholder advocacy. Boston Common answered the Swedish fund's call for a partner versed in US shareowner engagement approaches after hitting a brick wall with Marriott. "The pension funds in Europe have a conventions-based approach--they generally look at potential violators of international codes and norms, and Marriott fit the bill because of the Costa Rica case."

Carlson Hotels and Accor Hotels demonstrate industry best practice by adopting the Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel & Tourism (or "the Code.") The Code contains six elements, including establishing an ethical policy on CST, training personnel, requiring suppliers to repudiate CST, providing travelers information warning against CST, and reporting annually on code implementation.

"Marriott is a core holding for us, and we know the company has never adopted a 'off the shelf' code of conduct," Ms. Compere told SocialFunds.com. "Implementing the Code was our first ask, but we came to realize the company was going to make the policy their own, so we pushed as hard as possible to make sure they incorporated elements of the Code into their policy."

At the first meeting, Ms. Compere also asked what Marriott was doing on the ground to combat CST, and the task force members did not know. "One of the first things the task force did was send out an inquiry to their global operations seeking active models and initiatives to base their response on," said Ms. Compere.

As a result, Marriott partnered with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) combating CST both locally and globally--a strength of Marriott's policy, according to Rev. Schilling of ICCR. Other strengths include educational elements, according to Mr. Batstone. For example, Marriott is now training employees to recognize warning signs of potential CST activity. Marriott is also now including a brochure on CST developed by the United Nations World Tourism Organization in the 20 million pre-arrival messages it sends guests globally every year.

"Its weakness, on the other hand, is that it does not set up clear channels for monitoring and
reporting trafficking abuses," said Mr. Batstone. "It could go a step further to offer employee
training in the protocol for reporting sex trafficking first to the public justice system."

"Taken in isolation, corporate policies like the one that Marriott has developed in partnership with NGOs will not deliver the total solution to child slavery, but each advance in policy and public awareness builds an environment wherein kidnapping children from their homes and forcing them to heinous acts will not be tolerated," he added.

ICCR has launched a campaign to address CST by sending letters to a number of tourist industry companies. "In June, at our annual shareholder meeting, there was a real outpouring of interest for advocacy work on the commercial sexual exploitation of children," Rev. Schilling told SocialFunds.com. "We learned through our engagement with Marriott that we could have a real impact and a quick turnaround on this issue, and we anticipate that being the case with other travel companies."

"We want to address this in a systematic way giving companies--whether it's hotels such as Hilton or Starwood or cruise lines such as Royal Caribbean or Carnival--opportunities to respond," said Rev. Schilling. "If there's no response or if the response is insufficient, then we would move forward with a shareholder resolution."

Adapted from: Bill Baue. "Marriott Combats Child Sexual Exploitation." Social Funds. 11 December 2006.

Human Trafficking a Big Problem in Florida

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 18:28:00 GMT

She was forced into stripping at 14, prostitution at 15. Now 24, "Sue", not her real name, is a victim of human trafficking. It's a modern-day form of slavery. Police tell ABC Action News Investigative Reporter Matthew Schwartz that human trafficking is a big problem in the Tampa Bay area.

"Sue" says she ran away from a foster home at 13. She met a man in his 40's who promised her free rent, meals and a job. After a few months, "Sue" says things changed, drastically.

"He started beating me with sticks, poles, knives, hammers. It really got out of control. So besides fighting the street you had to fight this non-human.
i was told, if we left, he was gonna hunt us down, and, you know, kill us."

"Sue" was held at a house with other women. She escaped two years ago and is in hiding locally. Investigators say many victims are teenagers from broken homes. They move in with their traffickers because they provide food, shelter and a job. But eventually there's abuse...and sometimes, torture, like in another victim's case. We'll call her "Sara."

"Sara" says the traffickers who held her poured gasoline on her while they held a match. "They kicked and stomped on me. They dragged me by the hair. Fifteen guys circled me and stomped on me."

Many victims are immigrants who pay traffickers to smuggle them into the U.S., then are forced to work for them, fearing deportation or violence if they try to escape. The federal government says about 16-thousand victims are trafficked into the U.S. every year

Giselle Rodriguez is a victim advocate with the Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking, located in Clearwater.

Ms. Rodriguez told Matthew Schwartz, "It's becoming a huge problem. As of right now, Florida is the number two destination spot for human trafficking victims."

Rodriguez says the sunshine state is behind only California in the number of victims, and attributes that to the state's high number of transient workers, especially in the agriculture, tourist and restaurant industries. Victims are forced to work in strip clubs, restaurants, and on farms, among other places.

Human trafficking is a big enough problem that Clearwater Police Detective James Mcbride and Special Agent Cal Cundiff of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement work full-time on it, paid through a federal grant.

Det. McBride says of the victims, "a lot of 'em come over here fearing law enforcement, fearing deportation, not understanding the law and not looking at themselves as a victim of human trafficking."

Special Agent Cundiff says a lot of people don't realize that this is going on in the U.S. in 2007.

The Clearwater area human trafficking task force has rescued four victims over the past year. Investigators showed us two homes that used to be brothels run by traffickers. They were busted and deported back to Mexico. Investigators say cracking these cases is hard; they need help from the community to identify victims, like "Sue," who says, "we are very good at covering it up, because we try to be strong in this situation, but on the inside we're screaming out for somebody to come save us, come help uS.

Human trafficking is punishable by up to life in prison. Investigators say the laws aren't the problem, it's that both victims and witnesses are afraid to come forward. If you know anything about human trafficking, or think someone in your neighorhood may be a trafficker or a victim, please call your local police department or the Cleawater Area Human Trafficking Task Force immediately.

Adapted from: Matthew Schwartz, "Human Trafficking." Action news.com. 11 November 2007.

Danish Red Cross Vows to Fight Trafficking in Cambodia

Mon, 27 Nov 2006 14:37:00 GMT

The Danish Red Cross donates half a million DKK to the fight against human trafficking in Cambodia.

A third of Cambodia’s population live below the UN’s poverty limit. Consequently, many choose to either send their children away to the big cities or to the richer neighboring countries or to simply go there themselves in search of work and a better life. However, the rural hope of urban bliss is often built on a lack of knowledge about the realities of life in big cities like Hanoi or Phnom Penh.

It is hard to find a job, and there is a great risk of ending up in
prostitution or as forced laborers, explains Mettine Due, who is the programme coordinator for the Danish Red Cross in Southeast Asia.

In Cambodia and its neighboring countries, between 250,000 and 400,000 women are sold every year for prostitution and forced labor, the Danish Red Cross reports. And those numbers are growing. The demand is big among the tourists, of whom more than 20 per cent reportedly visit Cambodia for sex.

The Danish Red Cross is working together with the Cambodian Red Cross to develop a programme, which will inform people about trafficking – the official term for organized slave trading – in order for people to avoid the various traps. The programme is supported with 500,000 DKK, which the Danish Red Cross collected in the nationwide collection campaign in Denmark on 1 October 2006 this year.

One of the elements in the programme is to get former victims of
trafficking to tell others about their experiences when they return, thereby killing the myths concerning the attractive big city. In addition to this, police officers are being trained in how to take care of the women and children they come into contact with who have been victims of trafficking.

”When they escape their slave traders and go back to Cambodia, many are in need of help. That’s why we are working on setting up various booths at the Thai border, where local Red Cross workers will meet them and help them.

Some are in need of physical first-aid, others need a place to live, while others may need help to return to their village,” says Mettine Due.

You can read more about the activities of the Danish Red Cross at http://www.drk.dk and about the activities of the Cambodian Red Cross at http://www.redcross.org.kh.

Adapted from: ‘Danish Red Cross Vows to Fight Trafficking in Cambodia’, Press Release. Danish Red Cross. 7 November 2006.

Southeast Asian Government Officials Discuss Treaty to Provide Better Protection for Women Migrant Workers

Mon, 27 Nov 2006 14:41:00 GMT

In Bangkok senior government officials from Southeast Asia will discuss ways to help give better protection for women migrant workers in Asia through the establishment of an international treaty.

Every year, thousands of Burmese migrant workers come to Thailand looking for a better life. They cross the border through a combination of push factors (deteriorating economy, lack of employment, and human rights violations such as forced relocation, forced labour, high taxes) and pull factors (proximity, demand for cheap labour). Approximately 1.1 million Burmese workers are registered with the Thai authorities, but the actual number of migrants is likely to be double that.

One of the most pressing needs for Burmese migrants in Thailand is access to health care. For the last two years Medecins Sans Frontieres has been running health programmes to provide assistance to migrant workers in Phang-nga province. Since the beginning of last year the number of migrants increased in the province due to the increased workforce demands for post-Tsunami reconstruction. The rebuilding of the tourism infrastructure is an effort led largely by the migrant workforce. Currently, there are estimated to be around 50,000 migrant workers in Phang-nga, of which around 17,000 are registered.

For women, lack of access to reproductive health services are contributing to avoidable illness and death. With little or no access to family planning services, unwanted pregnancies are common and with them the risk of unsafe abortions, which can result in haemorrhage and serious infection. Giving birth in a safe hospital environment is virtually impossible for the uninsured, who are charged between 5,000 and 20,000 baht for a hospital delivery. Once born, children are placed at high risk of disease due to lack of vaccination (a survey done last year among rubber plantation and construction site workers found that 80% of children were not adequately vaccinated).

To be eligible for health insurance, migrants workers first have to be registered. This is often not possible for a number of reasons. First, the conditions of registration change almost every year, creating a climate of constant confusion.

A second issue is the cost. In order to obtain a health insurance card migrant workers must first obtain a temporary work permit and a temporary ID card. The total cost for all three cards is around 4,000 baht -- around a month's wages which, on top of debts incurred to travel to Thailand, is unaffordable for most.

Third, some important conditions are excluded from the health scheme for migrants. For example, anti-retroviral therapy is not provided even though the vulnerability of female migrant workers places them at high risk of contracting HIV.

Finally, newcomers and their followers are currently unable to register because the registration process has been closed since March 2006. We know of several migrant women who arrived in the last six months and are currently pregnant. They are unable to register but are also unable to pay the hospital fees when it comes time to give birth. Newly arrived migrants who fall ill today are supposed to wait months before their eligibility for registration access to health care will be considered, according to a system which remains unclear.

There are many issues that need to be addressed to improve protection and reduce vulnerability among migrants. There is a simple way for the Thai government to demonstrate its serious commitment to this important issue: simplify the registration process, open it up for all migrants, and reduce the cost. This will do much to improve the health of migrant women, and men, who are contributing so much to Thailand's economy and society.

Paul Cawthorne is the country director and David Wilson is the medical co-ordinator for Medecins Sans Frontieres.

Adapted from: ‘A chance for Thailand to show leadership.’ Bangkok Post. 7 November 2006.

Bangkok Is a Destination for Many Asian Migrants

Mon, 27 Nov 2006 14:55:00 GMT

Many people migrate to Bangkok in search of work that they cannot find in their own province or country.

From early childhood, Bo knew what she wanted to do with her life - leave her Burmese village and cross the border to Thailand.

"There are no jobs and nothing to do where I come from. My only option was to move here," said Bo, who arrived in Bangkok at the age of 18.

She is far from alone in her desire to come to Thailand. The government estimates that 2.3 million migrants are now living in the country - though given the difficulties of documenting illegal workers, the actual figure could be much higher. Many are based in the capital, Bangkok, which is rapidly becoming known as one of the world's major hubs for migrant workers.

Some are skilled professionals - mainly from Western countries, Japan, China and India. Given the relatively inexpensive cost of living, they can live at a standard of luxury that is beyond their reach back home. But the vast majority are from Thailand's poorer neighbours - Burma, Laos and Cambodia.

According to Supang Chantavanich, at the Asian Research Centre for Migration in Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University, these migrants are Thailand's "invisible" workforce - the people who build Bangkok's many new skyscrapers as well as cook, clean and work in the fisheries and rubber plantations.

Unlike in the West, where migrants are often accused of taking jobs away from local people or draining the public purse by living off social security, there is a broad recognition that migrant workers in Thailand have an important role to play.

"These people are cheap labour, and a lot of employers see them as very hardworking," said Chris Lom, from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). "There is also very little evidence that they're taking jobs away from Thais, because the jobs they're doing aren't the kind of jobs Thais want anyway."

But despite the evident benefits, migrants can often be the first people blamed when things go wrong. Burmese communities were frequently accused of looting in the aftermath of the 2004 Asian tsunami, despite little evidence. According to Mrs. Supang, outbreaks of dengue fever are also often blamed on migrants. With no minimum wage, and no protective legislation, life for unskilled migrant workers is far from easy.

Mrs Supang recently visited a Bangkok construction site which is almost exclusively staffed by Cambodians, who have been living for years in temporary shelters with no adequate system of sanitation. "Living standards there are very basic - it's like a slum," she said.

Illegal workers have an additional problem - trying to avoid being sent back to where they came from. "The police caught me once, and took me to the border, but I managed to escape back to Bangkok," said Bo, who works as a live-in maid.

Despite these problems, the vast majority of migrants choose to stay in Thailand - mainly for economic reasons, but also, in the case of the Burmese, because of the repressive military regime back home. "I am still afraid, all the time, that I'll be found and sent back," said Bo. "But if I am, I'll just come straight back here."

Another challenge facing all migrants is assimilation into the Thai lifestyle. According to Mr. Lom, Lao nationals find this the easiest, as their culture and language is the most similar to that of Thais.

As is the case throughout the world, migrants to Thailand also bring their own cultures with them. Mrs. Supang spoke of attending a Khmer wedding at the construction site she visited, and different parts of Bangkok reflect the different migrant communities: there is a vibrant Chinatown and even an Arab quarter.

"When I left Burma I thought I'd never experience the Burmese way of living again," said Bo. "But I've seen people from every part of the country here, and I've learnt a lot about my own people even though I'm not there anymore." In many ways, the bright lights of Bangkok can seem just as alien to the huge waves of people from the poorer areas of the south and the north-west of Thailand, as it can to Cambodians or Burmese.

"When I first came here, I was overwhelmed," said one girl from the region of Isaan. "It was nothing like I'd experienced before." The girl, who did not want to give her name, is a sex worker in one of Bangkok's many brothels and nightclubs - a common place of employment for young girls arriving in Bangkok.

"I didn't feel there were any other jobs I could do when I got here," she said. "I was new to Bangkok, I didn't know the city and I didn't know how to find any other work."

Various organisations are trying to change this - so that the city's new residents have the information they need to make informed choices. "We're trying to propose a hotline so that people can call if they need help," said Mrs. Supang's colleague Premjai Vungsiriphisal.

"It would also be good to give people information on how, where and when they can get work, as well as details on how to protect themselves." It seems a sensible approach to take. Like it or not, migrants are becoming an increasingly important part of Bangkok's social fabric - and ensuring they fit in will not only help the migrants, but will also help everyone in Thailand live peacefully together.

Adapted from: ‘Bangkok a haven for Asian migrants.’ BBC News. 8 November 2006.

Hundreds of Women from Malaysia were Lured to UK; Traffickers Sentenced

Mon, 27 Nov 2006 15:00:00 GMT

They lured hundreds of women from Malaysia with promises of high-paying jobs. Then they forced these women into prostitution. While the women suffered hell, the gang members lived like dukes. The law has now caught up with them.

Five Malaysians and a Vietnamese pleaded guilty to trafficking in women from Malaysia into the United Kingdom for prostitution. The Southwark Crown Court sentenced Kenny Low, 50, to three and a half years in jail for controlling prostitutes for gain and conspiracy to traffic in women for the purpose of prostitution. He is said to be the number two in an organisation managed by Vietnamese Thanh Hue Thi, 46, who is married to Malaysian Mee Yoke Pang. Hue Thi, who pleaded guilty to the same charges, was sentenced to five years imprisonment. Three others, Hoh Kwok Leong, 26, Lo Choon Fong, 64, and Loh Leng Wah, 39, were jailed 15 months each for controlling prostitutes for gain. Godfrey Wong, 25, a student, was sentenced to 12 months’ jail for the same offence.

According to a police spokesperson, surveillance on the syndicate started five months ago. The gang was busted in raids in Bayswater, London and Birmingham on 10 May 2006. During the raid, police arrested 14 men and rescued 21 women. They also recovered more than £115,000 (RM796,330) in cash from their addresses and safety deposit boxes.

But police estimates suggested that the gang was making in the region of £2 million a year.The gang members led lavish lifestyles including the use of a house in St. John’s Wood with a swimming pool. Police searches recovered betting receipts from one address totalling £13,000 spent over a 10-day period, including some single bets of £1,000 each, with the total betting account running into some £36,000. Rent on the swanky Bayswater four-storey address alone was £6,000 a month, said police. Detective Chief Superintendent Ian Dyson said, "The women that we were able to rescue were only the tip of the iceberg.

"This criminal gang trafficked hundreds of Malaysian women into the UK, many of whom believed they were going to work in legitimate professions but found themselves forced into brothels. "Rather than leaving the UK with the money they had hoped to earn, they have returned home abused and mentally scarred." Eight other men who were arrested with the six have since been released.

Last year, a swoop on members of another gang with Lithuanian connections resulted in the imprisonment of Malaysian Jason Tai, 39, for 15 years for conspiracy to traffic in prostitutes, rape and living on prostitution. Salina Abdul Rahim, 40, was sentenced to three years for money laundering and exercising control over prostitutes.

According to police, hundreds of women are believed to have been brought in from Malaysia since the middle of 2004. On arrival at Terminal 3 of Heathrow Airport, they were picked up by gang members who seized their passports and tickets. They were then taken to brothels in some of the high-class areas in London such as Bayswater and Hyde Park.

This seems to be the modus operandi of sex slave operators who have been grabbing headlines here recently. Others have connections with Lithuanian gangs but the method of bringing in the girls remains the same. According to a statement from the Metropolitan police, the girls are then forced to work to pay off their fares and expenses. They are moved from one brothel to another and sent home after two or three months. As many as 20 girls are forced to live in one place and service up to 50 clients a week.

Adapted from: "Malaysian sex slave gang jailed." New Straits Times. 5 November 2006.

Malaysia Top Destination for Indonesian Victims

Mon, 27 Nov 2006 15:05:00 GMT

Malaysia is the No 1 destination of Indonesian victims of human trafficking, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

Out of 1,231 Indonesians who were trafficked from March 2005 to July 2006, 929 of them (75.5 per cent) were taken to Malaysia, where they were forced into prostitution or work as domestic maids.

John Miller, director of the US Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, who attended the Bali Process workshop on victims’ support, called human trafficking "a modern-day slavery", a scourge which governments and non-governmental organisations should work together to eradicate.

"We’re talking about slavery that goes on everywhere in the world, including the United States and Indonesia. Some countries are source countries. Indonesia is a source country," he said. Also, young children between the ages of 13 and 14 from Cambodia, Thailand, Burma and Vietnam are being trafficked to Johor, where they are forced to become sex workers.

"We are against child sex trade. We want governments to punish the perpetrators," said Sally Neumann from the Trafficking in Persons Office. Paedophiles travel to poor third world countries like Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam in search of sex with children.

Miller said many of the paedophiles came from developed Western and Asian countries. To encourage foreign governments to crack down on perpetrators, the US passed laws 2½ years ago to prosecute and jail Americans who are found to have engaged in sex with children overseas.

"If an American tourist goes overseas and engages in child sex tourism, then, when he comes back, he can go to jail for 20 to 30 years," said Miller. We’ve had 15 to 20 Americans extradited from Cambodia and jailed." In Kuala Lumpur, Federal Criminal Investigations Department deputy director II (Administration) Datuk Syed Ismail Syed Azizan said the police and government were aware of the human trafficking trade.

"We are doing our best, but we don’t have the expertise to identify human trafficking victims," he said. "We are working with Interpol and intelligence from different countries to help us combat the menace." Ismail said it was the practice for police to hand over the perpetrators or victims to the immigration department, and these people were deported home. "Sometimes it is hard for us to know if they are perpetrators or victims."

Ismail said Malaysia needed an Anti-Trafficking Act to punish those involved in trafficking human beings. "The culprits get away as they are let off easily under the Penal Code, Immigration Act and Child Act. As a result, only victims are punished while traffickers, perpetrators and ‘clients’ escape punishment."

Police statistics showed that about 5,000 foreign women were arrested for prostitution between November 2003 and 2006, mostly Indonesians, Chinese nationals, Thais, and Filipinos.

Adapted from: "Malaysia top destination for Indonesian victims." New Straits Times. 5 November 2006.

Downward Mobility for Women Migrants in Thailand

Mon, 27 Nov 2006 15:09:00 GMT

For many female migrant workers in Thailand, there's only one way to go - and it's not up.

The MAP Foundation is working to make a difference by educating migrant workers and fighting for their rights. By 10 o'clock on a fine Sunday, several young Shan women have begun to arrive at an old two-storey house situated deep inside a narrow soi - Wat Umong - in Chiang Mai province.

Most work as servants; every other Sunday is their only holiday. But instead of going to a cinema or shopping, they choose to be where they no longer feel alone in a hostile land.

The house may be simple and small, but for them it is where they can feel safe talking about their lives in servitude, their innermost feelings, the problems they cannot speak of elsewhere, like sexual harassment, rape and unplanned pregnancies. It's also a place to get help.

"These domestic workers are the lucky ones. Most never have any days off. They have no information about their rights. They don't know anyone except their employers and they don't know where to seek help," says Pranom Somwong, co-ordinator of the MAP Foundation, which has been running a workshop once every month since July 2006 for female migrant workers in Chiang Mai.

"Domestic workers are very hard to get in touch with as they live inside private households and rarely see anyone but their employers. It is very hard to know their condition, whether they are abused or not. The workshop is one way to reach them," she said.

At the workshops they share stories from the day when they fled poverty in their hometown in Shan State to seek jobs in Thailand. Many stories are tragedies. One was raped by her employer, another worked for free for 10 years but finally escaped and fought for her back wages. Some complain about working more than 12 hours a day, being scolded by employers, not having enough holidays.

Domestic work is one of the few jobs not protected by the national labour law for minimum wage, working hours, type of work, working conditions, leave days and annual holidays, let alone medical and other benefits. Working in isolated environments like private homes makes them even more vulnerable to all forms of abuse and exploitation.

As of May 2005, there were 126,343 migrant domestic workers from Burma, Laos and Cambodia given work permits in Thailand. The number ranked only second after migrant workers who worked in the agriculture and livestock sector, according to the Ministry of Labour.

If unregistered migrants are taken into account, however, the number of female foreign workers may be between 150,000 and 200,000, according to the International Migration in Thailand 2005 report, which was published by the International Organisation for Migration.

The need for Thailand and other countries in the region to provide better legal protection to female migrant workers who work as servants will be addressed at the two-day high-level government meeting in Bangkok.

Organised by UNIFEM, the meeting will see senior officials from eight countries in Southeast Asia discuss how to use CEDAW, or the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, to better protect female migrant workers.

Adapted from: ‘Downward Mobility.’ Bangkok Post. 6 November 2006.

Police in UK Launch Web site of Wanted Pedophiles

Mon, 27 Nov 2006 15:17:00 GMT

Photographs and details of five child sex offenders were posted on the Internet for the first time 17 November 2006 as part of a British police initiative to track down pedophiles who have disappeared.

All five men have been convicted and served sentences but have gone missing after their release from prison and are in breach of a reqirement to notify the authorities of their current whereabouts. Failure to comply is an arrestable offence and carries a maximum five years jail term.

The website - http://www.ceop.gov.uk/wanted - which was an initiative by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (Ceop) Centre, includes photographs, physical descriptions and additional information. However, it does not give details of the men’s convictions.

Unlike the United States, British authorities do not alert the public about the convicted child sex offenders living in the community, although a government review into disclosure of information on offenders is under way. The Ceop, which said the website is not about “naming and shaming” pedophiles, is running the initiative with an American-style police website on the country’s “most wanted” criminals.

The Crimestoppers site has had nearly 40 million hits and led to 24 arrests since it was launched November 2005.

Adapted from: "Police launched website of wanted pedophiles." Bangkok Post. 18 November 2006.

Malaysia Top Destination for Indonesian Victims

Wed, 15 Nov 2006 09:11:00 GMT

Malaysia is the number one destination of Indonesian victims of human trafficking, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). Out of 1,231 Indonesians who were trafficked from March 2005 to July 2006, 929 of them (75.5 per cent) were taken to Malaysia, where they were forced into prostitution or work as domestic maids.

John Miller, director of the US Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, who was in Indonesia to attend the Bali Process workshop on victims’ support, called human trafficking "a modern-day slavery", a scourge which governments and non-governmental organisations should work together to eradicate. "We’re talking about slavery that goes on everywhere in the world, including the United States and Indonesia. Some countries are source countries. Indonesia is a source country," he said.

Paedophiles travel to poor third world countries like Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam in search of sex with children. Miller said many of the paedophiles came from developed Western and Asian countries. To encourage foreign governments to crack down on perpetrators, the US passed laws two and a half years ago to prosecute and jail Americans who are found to have engaged in sex with children overseas. "If an American tourist goes overseas and engages in child sex tourism, then, when he comes back, he can go to jail for 20 to 30 years," said Miller. We’ve had 15 to 20 Americans extradited from Cambodia and jailed."

In Kuala Lumpur, Federal Criminal Investigations Department deputy director II (Administration) Datuk Syed Ismail Syed Azizan said the police and government were aware of the human trafficking trade. "We are doing our best, but we don’t have the expertise to identify human trafficking victims," he said. "We are working with Interpol and intelligence from different countries to help us combat the menace."

Ismail said it was the practice for police to hand over the perpetrators or victims to the immigration department, and these people were deported home. "Sometimes it is hard for us to know if they are perpetrators or victims." Ismail said Malaysia needed an Anti-Trafficking Act to punish those involved in trafficking human beings. "The culprits get away as they are let off easily under the Penal Code, Immigration Act and Child Act. As a result, only victims are punished while traffickers, perpetrators and ‘clients’ escape punishment."

Police statistics showed that about 5,000 foreign women were arrested for prostitution between November 2003 and 2006, mostly Indonesians, Chinese nationals, Thais, and Filipinos.

Adapted from: "Malaysia top destination for Indonesian victims." New Straits Times. 5 November 2006.

Guangdong, China Initiating Anti-Trafficking Action

Mon, 13 Nov 2006 14:04:00 GMT

Foshan Women's Federation is reporting that as Foshan is one of Guangdong’s four areas carrying out a pilot anti-trafficking initiative, it is already setting the relevant anti-trafficking actions in motion in Shundedaliang.

They anticipate that in the near future they will fully promote this programme in other areas and towns in Foshan.

According to statistics, Daliang District’s migration population is close to 200,000, women and children form the weakest groups in the migrant population, therefore they are often the main targets of abduction and exploitation. It is essential to improve women’s awareness of trafficking and their ability to prevent and respond to it, in order to achieve this anti-trafficking work will be assimilated into the management, social services and work in other areas involving migrant women. The trafficking project will not attend or monitor trafficking activities next year so that it can concentrate on carrying out anti-trafficking knowledge training for the girls and young women in the district. The aim is for girls and young women who are faced with the risk of being trafficked to be provided with education, safe employment, legal advice and other such services. This pilot project will increase the direct assistance for these girls and women.

Activities are introduced into the plan of action for direct assistance, the leader of this new initiative said that women who attend pilot activities are briefed on the project for the prevention of trafficking, they interact and are advised on aid, employment, the purpose of training, they also fill out evaluation cards. A young migrant woman gratefully said: “Before we had never heard of trafficking and we didn’t know that when we were looking for a job we could be trafficked, or that so many actions constitute trafficking. This activity has allowed us to understand these principles.”

Adapted from: "Migrant Women Are Targeted, Guangdong’s Foshan Daliang District is Initiating “Anti-Trafficking” Action." Guangzhou Daily. 7 November 2006. http://gd.dayoo.com/gb/content/

U-Visa in the United States Places Abuse Victims in a State of Uncertainty

Mon, 13 Nov 2006 14:35:00 GMT

After Lilian Ibeh's husband left his job at the Nigerian Embassy in Washington under the threat of criminal charges, the mother of three faced two bleak options.

She could stay in the United States illegally with the children or return to Nigeria, where she feared her husband would hurt her for accusing him of battery -- a charge that cost him a coveted diplomatic post. In 2002, however, Ibeh found what initially seemed like a miraculous lifeline. She applied for a type of visa for victims of crime established by law in 2000 in an effort to foster trust between law enforcement agencies and immigrants. The initiative was warmly received by immigrant advocates concerned about the reluctance of some immigrants to report crime and cooperate with prosecutors.

Although Ibeh's application for what is called a U visa was approved temporarily, the actual visa remains unavailable because Department of Homeland Security officials have not drafted final regulations spelling out eligibility requirements and future options for visa holders. That has left Ibeh, her children and thousands of other foreign-born crime victims in limbo and has frustrated immigrant activists, who say the visa category has failed to live up to the lawmakers' vision.

"Other women are afraid to speak out because they are being called illegal immigrants, and they are afraid of being sent back to their abusers," Ibeh, 40, said during a recent interview at her Rockville apartment, as her children watched her fight back tears. "That's my fear. I'm just dancing in the air. They make you feel like you're neither to the right or to the left. You're in the middle -- stuck."

The U visa was a key provision of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act. The new visa elated immigration advocates, even though its main impetus was to give law enforcement officials a tool to keep undocumented victims and witnesses of serious crimes in the United States to testify or otherwise cooperate with authorities. Legislators designed the visa for foreigners who could prove that they had been victims of a crime in the United States, had information about the crime and had helped or were willing to help authorities investigate or prosecute the case. Applicants have to submit a personal statement that is backed by a form signed by a local or federal law enforcement official.

Congress set a yearly cap of 10,000 U visas for principal applicants -- spouses and children are eligible for derivative visas -- but left key decisions about eligibility and the application process to immigration officials. "All we act on right now are memos from headquarters," said Jeff Joseph, a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, referring to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the division of the Department of Homeland Security that handles immigration benefits. "There are so many unanswered questions."

For example, it is unclear whether people who are in deportation proceedings or have an unexecuted deportation order qualify and whether applications from people who entered the country illegally would be treated differently than those submitted by people who entered legally but stayed beyond their authorized time. It is also unclear for how long the visas would be issued and whether they would be renewable. U visa holders would not be eligible for permanent residency unless they qualified for a green card through other means.

Lawmakers initially set no deadline for final regulations. But last year, they attached a provision to an unrelated bill mandating immigration officials to establish guidelines no later than this past June. Chris Bentley, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said final regulations are pending because the process is complex and involves numerous agencies. "Our commitment is to make sure that the final regulations are all-encompassing and are well thought out," he said.

Immigration officials had granted temporary approval -- which essentially means they held off on initiating deportation proceedings -- to 7,163 U visa applicants as of last month. They denied 1,644 applications. An immigration lawyer in the District took Ibeh's case for free when she knocked on his door in 2002. He was moved by Ibeh's story, which she tells in painstaking detail, nonchalantly rolling up her pant legs to show her scars.

Ibeh, born into a comfortable Nigerian family, fell in love with a young, dashing government official. She said she later discovered he had a dark and terrifying side. Efforts to reach her ex-husband, Bede Uchenna Ibeh, through the Nigerian Embassy, were unsuccessful.

Ibeh said the abuse began shortly after her daughter, who is now 15, was born. She said her husband became violent when the couple fought, including two instances, in London and Nigeria, in which she ended up at a hospital. She forgave him each time, she said, because he was the breadwinner, she has completed only high school and the thought of raising three children by herself was daunting.

In May 2000, her husband was transferred to the Nigerian Embassy in Washington, and the couple moved into a large house in Silver Spring. But soon after that, Ibeh said, her husband told her he intended to live with another woman and gave her a deadline to find another place to live. She resisted and, she said, he became violent again, prompting her to get a restraining order and drawing the interest of Montgomery County police.

Officials with the Montgomery state's attorney's office notified the State Department that they intended to charge Bede Uchenna Ibeh with assault. The federal agency asked the Nigerian Embassy to waive his diplomatic immunity. He left the country before the charge was filed, but an arrest warrant charging the 45-year-old man with second-degree assault awaits if he returns. After his departure, Ibeh moved into a domestic violence shelter in Montgomery. She, like others whose U visa applications have been provisionally approved, is eligible for a work permit that must be renewed yearly and costs $180. Because she also must apply for permits for her children, the family has spent nearly $3,000 in immigration application fees.

She has held numerous odd jobs, mostly through temp agencies, but said that most prospective employers lose interest when they learn that her work permit is valid for only a few more months. She has struggled to explain to employers the complexity of the U visa situation and can make no earnest assurances that she will become a permanent resident. Having faced eviction numerous times, Ibeh, who retains the poise and wardrobe of a diplomat's wife, has found herself begging for menial jobs, including a job mowing lawns.

She said the prospective employer was stunned when she expressed interest in the job. "Are you crazy?" she recalled him asking. The Montgomery state's attorney's office this year certified about 15 U visa applicants, a tool it said has been useful in domestic violence cases such as Ibeh's. But immigration advocates said many law enforcement agencies have been far less enthusiastic.

Vanna Slaughter, director of the immigration benefits division at Catholic Charities in Dallas, said she routinely scours the crime blurbs in her hometown newspaper, looking for prospective applicants. But she said many law enforcement officers have been reluctant to sign off on applications. "They think they're helping an illegal alien," she said, describing the response she has received from some investigators. "Some of them don't get it. This was a tool designed for them. It was created with law enforcement in mind. It was not intended to be this benevolent program."

Adapted from: Ernesto Londoño. "Visa Places Abuse Victim In State of Uncertainty." The Washington Post. 13 November 2006.

Japan Is Tackling Sex Trafficking, But Challenges Remain

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 10:53:00 GMT

Urairat Soimee's journey began with an invitation from a wealthy neighbor -- her mother's childhood friend -- in her small Thai village to come and work at a restaurant she claimed she owned in Japan. It ended with her in a Japanese prison, serving a sentence for murder.

Peep-show signs beckon customers in Tokyo's Kabukicho area. Japan's thriving sex trade has made the country a haven for sex trafficking. Like many poor and uneducated women from Thailand, Urairat came to Japan, moving to Yokkaichi, Mie Prefecture, nearly seven years ago in the hope of earning enough to provide for her children and disabled husband.

Instead, she was saddled with a large debt and told that she would have to prostitute herself -- or face serious injury, even death -- if she did not comply. It was after months of horrific abuse that she solicited assistance from her Thai friend to help her escape -- an escape that led to the killing of her pimp and her conviction for murder.

Thailand is one of the primary source countries of women trafficked as sex workers in Japan, along with the Philippines, Columbia, and increasingly China, South Korea and Indonesia. For years, there was resistance by the Japanese government in taking significant steps to reduce human trafficking. While Japan was a signatory to the U.N. protocol against human trafficking, it could not ratify it due to Japan not having a law outlawing human trafficking.

In June 2004, Japan was placed on the "Tier 2" watch list in the U.S. Department of State's Trafficking in Persons report, which stated that it was not complying with the minimum standards toward the elimination of human trafficking. "The Japanese government was very shocked to know that they were placed on that list," said Nobuki Fujimoto of the Asia-Pacific Human Rights Center in Osaka.

That same year, the Japanese Foreign Ministry adopted an action plan outlining measures to combat human trafficking. Many of the measures have been adopted, among them being the passage of a criminal law against human trafficking and the revision of immigration procedures that allow victims to stay in Japan for their own safety and to assist the government in prosecuting traffickers.

However, this temporary visa does not allow them to work, thus denying victims much needed resources to support themselves through the long process of a criminal trial. Shelters and other nongovernmental organizations often support victims, but such organizations are almost entirely dependent on support from the general public as they receive little in the way of funding or tax breaks from the government.

"The government should go further in securing victims' testimony against traffickers," said Fujimoto. "Now there is no institutional support to do this." An Organized Crime Control Department was established in the National Police Agency in 2004 to carry out antitrafficking activities. Last year the National Police Agency reported 81 arrests for human trafficking -- a record number for the second straight year. Yet while there have been increased law enforcement resources committed to fighting human trafficking, many convictions result in light sentences and few traffickers have done any hard time. Only five cases have been prosecuted under the new law so far, all of which resulted in suspended sentences.

"The NGOs are becoming more vocal," said Andrea Bertone, director of HumanTrafficking.org, a clearinghouse for trafficking-related issues. "But the primary motivation for the Japanese government is the U.S. pressure. Laws are wonderful, but you need to implement them."

There is a common misconception that most of the victims of trafficking are poor, uneducated women duped into prostitution and kept under close guard, though this is not completely accurate. "Most
cases are not that simple," says Fujiwara of the Polaris Project.

She tells a story of one woman from an East Asian country who had a degree from a vocational school, was making a decent living in the social welfare field, but wanted to change careers and save enough money to study in Japan. She read an advertisement for a position in a cafe in Tokyo that would provide her with transportation and a free place to stay.

The mama san in charge of the bar even flew from Japan to meet her and interview her in person. Although her friends said it sounded sketchy, she decided to take the job and flew to Japan. However, she soon realized that the cafe where she was to work was really a hostess bar. Soon after she started working, the mama san closed the bar, citing financial troubles. She provided her with a high-interest loan, and referred her to another hostess club, but her new club required "dohan," which is "dating" clients, and usually includes sex. Other women working at the bar advised her to do it, as it would be "dangerous" for her to refuse.

Two years later, unable to pay off her debt, she contacted Fujiwara. She was identified as a trafficking victim and the authorities were contacted. However, soon after she vanished and her whereabouts remain unknown. The club she worked at is still in business. Many trafficking victims come to Japan on entertainment visas, with Filipinos being the largest group. The number of entertainers from the
Philippines has steadily increased over the last 30 years, and reached over 82,000 in 2004. Most wind up working in hostess bars, where the working conditions are usually much different than they had been expecting, and they are often forced to perform work that was not stated in the contract -- such as "dohan" -- for lower wages than they had been promised.

Although foreign entertainers are forbidden by law to work as hostesses, the government often turn a blind eye to the practice. Hidenori Sakanaka, retired head of the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau, attempted 10 years ago to enforce the law by investigating establishments that hired women on entertainment visas.

In one year, to 1996, the number of women entering Japan on entertainment visas dropped from about 90,000 to 55,000. In response, Sakanaka received threatening phone calls and pressure from lawmakers to back off, and he was eventually transferred to the immigration bureau in Sendai. By the time of his appointment to the Tokyo bureau in 2002, the number had shot up dramatically to 120,000.

Under international pressure, however, the government has begun to crack down, starting last year with the tightening of procedures under which Filipinos could be issued entertainment visas, which has greatly reduced the number of such visas issued. The Ministry of Justice last June also imposed stricter requirements on club owners, prohibiting those with a record of trafficking, as well as those who have engaged in illegal employment or the forging of immigration documents within the last five years, from hiring foreign entertainers. The drop in visas issued to Filipinos has led to an increasing number of Indonesian women being recruited to fill their role, according to several NGOs. In addition, there is the risk that the crackdown could push the issue further underground, given the demand for foreign hostesses and the large number of Filipino women wanting to work in Japan. "The Japanese and the Philippine governments and the NGOs should closely monitor the situation," Fujimoto warns.

While Japan was removed from the U.S. State Department watch list the year following its placement, in recognition of its efforts to fight human trafficking, it still remains in the list of "Tier 2" nations, according to the most recent report released in June of this year. The report lauds Japan's "remarkable progress," particularly with regard to the tightening of restrictions on entertainment visas as well as other antitrafficking reforms. The report also notes that Japan has provided funding to the U.N. and the International Labor Organization for antitrafficking and rehabilitation programs in Thailand and the Philippines.

While it states that Japan is beginning to address the demand for trafficking through education programs in secondary schools, it also chastised the Japanese government for failing to criminalize demand for prostitution. "Prostitution and sex trafficking are linked together," says Fujiwara, arguing that "johns" must be made aware that they are participating in a crime.

"Society accepts this kind of exploitation," says Fujiwara. "The demand remains the same -- booming."

Adapted from: Steve Silver. "The trafficking scourge." Japan Times. 15 August 2006.

Advocates for Migrants' Rights in Thailand Call for Better Health Care

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 11:37:00 GMT

Labour advocates have called on the Thai government to improve alien labourers’ access to medical treatment following a recent report on rising health problems and infection rates among migrant workers.

Surapong Kongchantuek, member of the Lawyers Council of Thailand sub-panel, said the government should review its healthcare policy for alien workers as they too pay 1,300 baht each in health insurance fees upon registration. However, these workers receive poor healthcare services from concerned agencies, which spend only a total of 300 million baht annually for their medical care.

His comment was consistent with a recent report showing that health problems were on the rise among alien workers as they had limited access to medical care. The report was drawn up by the Global Alliance Against Traffick in Women (GAATW). The Study was based on interviews with 956 female migrant labourers working as housemaids, sex and factory workers in Samut Prakarn, Tak, Rayong, Sa Kaeo, and Ubon Ratchathani provinces. Chiraporn sae Tang, a GAATW representative, said these workers were encountering many kinds of illnesses including ulcers, asthma and sexually transmitted infections. They are also suffering from chronic stress problems caused by various forms of pressure from their employers. Seven of the 10 surveyed Cambodian maids had attempted suicide, said Ms Chiraporn.

Top illnesses among the female workers included abnormal menstrual periods due to improper use of birth control medication, ulcers and cystitis, as labourers are forced to work long hours without breaks.

In addition, 66% of the surveyed migrant housemaids were subject to abuse at the hands of their employers, both physical and mental, and given no access to healthcare information. The language barrier made it even more difficult for them to receive the necessary information or their right to medical care, she said.

Adapted from: "Migrant workers ‘should have better access to medical care." Bangkok Post. 30 October 2006.

Taiwanese Government to Crack Down on Officials Involved in Trafficking Women from China to Taiwan

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 11:47:00 GMT

Minister of the Interior Lee Yi-yang reaffirmed his determination to get to the bottom of alleged corruption involving collaboration between ministry officials with a human trafficking ring to bring Chinese prostitutes into Taiwan. Lee also said that a judicial probe into the case has begun and noted that the ministry will not condone any illegal practices.

Lee said he had contacted National Police Agency Director-General Hou Yu-ih and that he would not let anyone involved off the hook. "Chinese women coming to Taiwan have to follow due procedure, " Lee said, adding that the ministry will review this procedure. "The ministry will also pursue the ministry officials involved, no matter how high their rank may be," he said.

Meanwhile, investigators turned over Lee Jo-ling, a senior clerk at the Bureau of Immigration, and human smuggling ring leader Chung Jui-chih, as well as eight others, to the Taipei Prosecutor's Office for further questioning.

Investigators a day earlier searched Lee's office and residence as well as a brothel run by Chung. They also questioned a dozen immigration officials, including Lee, as well as Chung, Chinese women and local men who had agreed to enter marriages of convenience with the women.

The agents said Lee is familiar with the procedure for Chinese women coming to Taiwan and knows that immigration officials are usually more lax when handling cases that legislators have requested should have speedy treatment.

Lee therefore attached the entry applications from the Chinese women to the "speedy cases" to make it easier for them to enter Taiwan, the agents added. The women were also told to fake pregnancy so as to get an early interview by immigration officials upon arrival.

The agents found that the trafficking ring has been able to bring over around 80 women through marriages of convenience. For each case, Lee received between NT$30,000 and NT$80,000, and she is estimated to have received around NT$2 million in bribes.

The agents said the Chinese women paid back the expenses of between NT$200,000 and NT$300,000 for coming to Taiwan to the smuggling ring by engaging in prostitution, and also have to pay the "local husbands" hired by the ring around NT$30,000 per month.

Adapted from: "Government To Crack Down on Officials Involved in Trafficking Ring." CNA. 28 October 2006.

Migrants Report Abusive Conditions in Taiwan

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 11:57:00 GMT

Allegations of mistreatment and abuse of migrant workers surfaced with a Vietnamese woman saying she was paid less than NT$2,500 (US$75) a month, while a social worker said two Filipino laborers recently died of overwork.

Two migrant workers related their sad experience working in the country in a press conference held by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Joanna Lei. "I have been sold [by brokers] to six different employers since coming to Taiwan and my identification card has been confiscated," said "A-ming," an alias used by a caretaker from Vietnam. Weeping, A-ming said she could hardly survive on her meager salary of NT$2,500 per month, not to mention repay her broker's fee and send money back home.

The caretaker came to Taiwan as a migrant worker through the introduction of a legitimate broker, but she was asked to work for employers who have no permit to hire foreign caretakers. "They told me that I can't go out, saying that I would be seized by the police, and asked me to work every day. The work is hard," she said.

Lee Li-hua, a social worker with the Catholic Hope Workers Center, said at the press conference that two Filipinos who were hired to work in a paper factory in Taoyuan County recently died of overwork. Lee also added that the Filipino workers were forced to work more than 16 hours a day and were not allowed any days off in an entire year.

In an annual report on global human trafficking released by the US State Department in June 2006, Taiwan was downgraded to the "Tier 2 Watch List" for failing to increase its efforts and lacking the political will to address the problem. The US report also said that a "significant share" of foreign workers, mainly from Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines, who are lured to the country for low-skilled jobs, end up in forced labor or slavery by labor agencies and employers.

"The foreign labor broker's system has a lot to do with the trafficking problem in Taiwan," Lei said, urging the government to abolish the broker system. While the Council of Labor Affairs has said that brokers are allowed to charge the worker's first month's salary as the broker's fee, Lei said that "this is not the real situation." "I know that some migrant workers use the first three months of their salary to pay their brokers. Some even pay up to 20 months of their salary," Lei said. "Many brokers also `detain' the migrant workers' identification cards on the pretext that this is a safeguard to prevent them from running away," Lei said.

Adapted from: "Migrant workers relate stories of abusive system." Taipei Times. 18 October 2006.

Preventing Trafficking and Protecting Victims from Nigeria to Europe

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 14:00:00 GMT

Three groups/projects in Nigeria and in Italy run by Catholic sisters target the protection and rehabilitation of girls who have been trafficked from Nigeria to Europe, as well as try to prevent the initial trafficking.

1. Committee for the Support of the Dignity of Women (COSUDOW), Benin City, Nigeria
Leaders of the religious women of Nigeria established the Committee for the Support of the Dignity of Women (COSUDOW) in 1999 as a counter-trafficking project. COSUDOW works to prevent human trafficking, protect and rehabilitate those who are already victims, and seek out and prosecute traffickers. COSUDOW has its office in Benin City, Nigeria. Read more about COSUDOW's work below.

2. Casa Santa Maria Dell'Accoglienza, Castel Volturno, Italy
Casa Maria Dell’Accoglienza is a house of welcoming established by the Catholic Archdiocese of Capua, in Italy and run by the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a Congregation of religious women from Nigeria. The house was open in June of 2000 to be a place of love and compassion for women who have been trafficked into Italy from various countries of the world. They work in collaboration with Combonian Priests. Read more about Casa Santa Maria below.

3. Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Benin City, Nigeria
The Sisters have established in Nigeria projects that will give young girls marketable skills and prevent them from being trafficked. They work in collaboration with COSUDOW and Casa Maria dell’ Acoglienza. The Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus run these two projects. Read more about the Sisters' projects in Nigeria.

Inter-Agency Effort in Vietnam Provides a Boost to Anti-Trafficking Efforts

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 14:54:00 GMT

The Asia Foundation and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has provided almost US$40,000 to the fight against women and children trafficking in the Mekong delta province of An Giang.

The project, carried out by the provincial Women's Union, focuses on 12 border communes from now until to 2009. The union has provided loans, worth 1 million VND each, to 840 women in order to set up business and production.

In addition, it mobilised more than 11,400 others to take part in clubs where they are informed of the Party and State's policies and information about human trafficking through the border at their monthly meetings. The union has also distributed 12,000 leaflets to women, children and students for whom it cannot organise clubs on the issue. An Giang police has so far this year detected 35 cases of women trafficking which helped release 93 victims.

Adapted from: "Mekong delta province boosts fighting trafficking of women." Vietnam News Agency. 10 October 2006.

UN Probes Abuse of Migrant Workers Worldwide

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 15:19:00 GMT

Responding to a flood of complaints from migrant workers worldwide, the United Nations is investigating a rash of human rights violations, including abusive working conditions, non-payment of wages, arbitrary detentions and collective illegal deportations.

The complaints received were transmitted to the governments concerned as urgent appeals or letters of allegation," says Jorge Bustamante, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights of immigrants.

Although he did not single out any countries by name, Bustamante has formally requested visits to Australia, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, Mauritania, South Africa, Canada, the Philippines, the United States and Spain.

These include a mix of countries that either send migrants overseas or receive migrants, mostly from developing nations. The catalogue of allegations also include ill-treatment at border controls; deaths as a result of excessive use of force by police and security forces; summary expulsions; gender violence; forced labour bordering on slavery; withholding passports; restrictions on the freedom of movement; and denial of the right of association and assembly.

Of the 191 million international migrants last year, about 115 million lived in developed countries, according to U.N. figures. Three-quarters of all migrants lived in just 28 countries in 2005, with one every five migrants living in the United States. The United States also leads the world as a host country, with over 38 million migrants in 2005, constituting almost 13 percent of the country's population.

The United Nations also says that "a major challenge is to prevent irregular or unauthorised migration". The United States has an estimated 11 to 12 million irregular migrants; South Korea about 140,000; Japan 221,000; Australia 60,000; and New Zealand 20,000. In a report to the 192-member U.N. General Assembly, Bustamante says he is "seriously concerned about the alarming number of reports received in the course of 2006 concerning migrants who lose their lives at sea"-- mostly from Africa and Asia.

"The Migration Policy Framework for Africa", adopted by the executive council of the 54-member African Union (AU), points out that "a growing concern for states is the rise of discrimination and xenophobia against migrants." "Discrimination against migrants creates social tensions in both origin and destination countries; hinders the successful integration of migrants into host societies; and prevents the enjoyment by migrants of their fundamental rights," says the AU.

Combating racism and xenophobia is consequently an essential element of comprehensive national policy on migration, it adds. Asked if developing countries were justified in accusing rich nations of covert racism in their decision to be selective in controlling the flow of migrants into their borders, Peter Sutherland, the U.N. Secretary-General's Special Representative on International Migration and Development, said the Geneva Conventions correctly oblige signatories to offer permanent shelter to those with legitimate fears of persecution in their home countries.

This is an incontrovertible right that all European and other signatory nations must respect, he added. "The international community has invested heavily in developing a system of asylum conventions, policies, and practices that give life to the promises made in Geneva in 1951. It's not a perfect system, by any means, but it is being constantly improved," Sutherland told IPS.

He also said that the 25-member European Union (EU), in particular, has developed robust legislation since the late 1990s to create a common approach to asylum and refugee policies. Beyond legitimate asylum cases under the rules of Geneva, however, countries are not generally obligated to allow economic immigrants into their borders.

"Certainly, there is a great deal of legislation that has extended immigration rights well beyond Geneva's bounds -- for instance, the right to family reunification is accepted by most of the developed world. Likewise, there are relatively liberal regimes for those who seek to study or train in other countries," Sutherland said. "And I believe that those who come to the developed world either under family reunification programmes or as refugees should be given the right to work immediately upon their arrival."

But, he asserted, economic migration is not a right. Nations still retain sovereignty in deciding which economic migrants enter their borders. It is not unreasonable for this decision to be made based on a country's economic needs --that is, countries should be allowed match up who comes into their territory based on how well they fill gaps in the labour market, Sutherland said.

"In fact, I would argue that if countries were more open and honest about doing this and if they developed the means to match job-seekers with employers, public support for immigration might well increase," he said. Sutherland said much of the popular reaction against immigration can be traced to the unregulated, lawless nature of migration flows today -- criminals and smugglers are essentially making immigration policy in many cases, and also reaping immoral profits in doing so. This must change, he believes.

Finally, it should go without saying that any efforts to select migrants should be based on the skills economic migrants have and certainly not on their race, gender, religion, or ethnicity. So selection systems in themselves are not bad -- quite the opposite -- and in fact they can be a great help for both host countries and migrants. "But selection systems, just like anything else, can be abused. We need vigorously to guard against this," he added.

Addressing the U.N.'s Economic and Financial Committee last week, Brazilian Ambassador Ronaldo Mota Sardenberg told delegates that states had a right to control their borders but should not make irregular migration punishable by law. Doing so, he said, was thought to open an avenue to unjustified mass deportations and illegal mass detentions.

The rising tide of migration -- both legal and illegal-- is also having an impact on European nations that are seeking to restrict the flow of migrants into their countries. John Reid, Britain's home secretary, announced Tuesday that with the proposed entry of two former East European countries, Bulgaria and Romania, into the 25-member European Union (EU) early next year, the British government plans to impose strict criteria for employment by migrants from both countries.

Although studies had shown the positive impact of migrants, Reid said the influx of people (including those from Poland after its entry into the EU last year) has put a strain on housing and schools where many immigrants live in England.

Adapted from: "UN Probes Abuse of Migrant Workers Worldwide." Inter Press Service News. 27 October 2006.

Australia Provides Compensation for Victims of Trafficking

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 15:23:00 GMT

Women trafficked as sex slaves will be given assistance worth more than AUS$350,000 as part of a State Government program. The program will support about 30 women a year for the next three years.

"It will provide safe and secure accommodation for victims of sex trafficking, and help them access legal and migration advice," Attorney-General Rob Hulls told The Age. The announcement follows the first jury conviction of a person under new criminal code provisions in June 2006.

Wei Tang, a former Fitzroy brothel owner, was sentenced to a minimum six years' jail for keeping five Thai women as sex slaves. Each had to work off debts of up to $45,000. United Nations research indicates that most women trafficked into Australia are from South-East Asia and China.

Like Tang's victims, most victims of sex slavery are tricked into travelling to Australia with promises of jobs — which may be in the sex industry — but then have their freedom restricted. Tang's victims had their passports taken from them and were forced to perform sex acts to cover the costs of air fares, visas, passports and living costs.

While exact numbers of trafficked women in Victoria are not known, Mr Hulls hoped the program would help establish the extent of the problem.

Adapted from: "$350,000 for sex slaves." The Age (Australia). 26 October 2006.

IOM Appraises Belarus’ Efforts Aimed to Fight Against Human Trafficking

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 06:39:00 GMT

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) appraises Belarus’ efforts aimed to counteract human trafficking, head of the counter-trafficking department of the IOM headquarters in Geneva Richard Danziger told a press conference in Minsk on 25 October 2006.

He has noted that the work of the government of Belarus in the field of fight against human trafficking meets the world standards and is very efficient. According to Richard Danziger, Belarus has forged “a comprehensive regulatory framework”, which takes into account the IOM recommendations and international experience. He has noted that Belarus will have to do a lot to implement the legal enactments it adopted, as human trafficking is a serious problem.

The press conference, which was held in the interior ministry of Belarus, was dedicated to the international conference on human trafficking. The forum will open in Minsk on October 26 and will gather together representatives of 40 states and 13 international organizations including the OSCE, International Labor Organization and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). According to Richard Danziger, the conference should repeatedly underline that no countries can fight against trade in people alone. The organizers tried to invite representatives of so-called countries of destination and origin of human trafficking to determine cooperation avenues. In particular, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Qatar and Finland will be represented at the forum.

In turn, permanent representative of the Republic of Belarus in the UN department in Geneva Sergei Aleinik stated that by adopting a resolution on fight against human trafficking on October 19 initiated by Belarus the UN General Assembly appraised this country’s efforts in this field. Besides, Belarus warmly welcomes a special UN reporter on fight against human trafficking in Minsk, Sergei Aleinik noted.

Adapted from: IOM appraises Belarus’ efforts aimed to fight against human trafficking. 26 October 2006

Human Trafficking Crimes Exposed in Belarus in 2006

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 06:40:00 GMT

Some 500 crimes of human trafficking were exposed in Belarus in the first nine months of 2006, including more than 160 cases when the victims were taken abroad.

The figures were cited at an international conference over ways to boost the effectiveness of cooperation between law-enforcement bodies in counteracting illegal migration and human trafficking, which opened in the Belarussain capital on Thursday.

Taking part in the forum organized by the international organization for migration and the Belarussian Interior Ministry, together with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the Untied Nations Children's Fund, are representatives of 13 international organizations, about a dozen non-governmental organizations and law-enforcement bodies and other government agencies from 40 countries from all over the world.

According to Belarussian representatives, the problem of recruiting citizens for sexual or labor exploitation abroad remains quite acute. According to an analysis of criminal cases, Byelorussians are taken to 30 countries of the world for sexual or labor exploitation - Poland, Germany, Greece, the United Arab Emirates, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Israel. Whereas earlier girls were cheated into leaving the country, many of them now know that they will be working as prostitutes.

The problem of labor exploitation of Belarussians at construction sites in Russia has also became topical recently. They are promised high pay, but, upon arriving at the point of destination, Russian employers take away their passports and force them to work 12 to 14 hours a day, using physical violence on those who resist.

The conference underlined the necessity of launching close cooperation between the countries of origin and the countries on the receiving end of human trafficking. Belarussian Interior Minister Vladimir Naumov told reporters how effective such cooperation might be.

Two Belarussian citizens were arrested in a joint operation with German police a few days ago, who were intermediaries in human trafficking. Law-enforcement bodies freed 20 sex slaves. Also, Spanish police, acting on information from their Belarussian colleagues, carried out an operation earlier this month in which six criminals were arrested and 32 girls were freed.

Adapted from: "500 human trafficking crimes exposed in Belarus this year." Itar-Tass. 26 October 2006.

Human Rights League in Mozambique Insists that Trafficking in Human Organs is Real

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 06:44:00 GMT

The Mozambican Human Rights League (LDH) has revived claims that trafficking in human organs is a reality in the country, but now says it is done, not through exporting the organs themselves, but through trafficking in human beings who are still alive. LDH chairperson Alice Mabota admitted that there is no clear evidence for trafficking in human organs in the normal sense of the term, which would imply extraction of the organs, storage and later export under carefully controlled conditions.

Instead, she claimed, this is achieved through the trafficking in children, who are taken abroad where they are used for various purposes, such as organ transplants, prostitution and child labour, among others. She was speaking at a ceremony launching the delayed 2004 issue of the LDH's annual report on Human Rights in Mozambique.

She alleged that the trafficking in children is still continuing, and this is "a very profitable business", but had no figures to back up these assertions. She said that the 2005/06 edition of the report, to be launched by mid-2007, will include data indicating how serious this problem is in Mozambique. The report declares that trafficking in people and human organs needs "special treatment" on the part of the government, including "research to determine the motivations for such practices".

But, despite the more moderate line taken by Mabota at the launch ceremony, the report itself rehashes the entirely discredited claims of trafficking in body parts made in 2003 and 2004 against a South African investor, Gary O'Connor and his Danish wife Tania Skytte, who are running a poultry project in the northern province of Nampula.

The sole source for these tales was a Brazilian fantasist, Elilda dos Santos, a catholic lay missionary, living at the time in the Mater Dei convent, which the LDH report admits is the only civil society body in Nampula that it bothered to contact. Dos Santos was exposed as a fraud by the weekly paper "Savana" in March 2004, yet the LDH report, published over two years later, still leans heavily on her unsubstantiated claims in order to make libellous allegations against O'Connor - such as the utterly fantastic suggestion that light planes landed at Nampula airport to pick up human organs from his farm.

Dishonestly, the report fails to mention that behind the assault on O'Connor's reputation lay a dispute over land. Self- styled "community leaders" had helped themselves to some of the land that lay within the concession that the government had granted to O'Connor's company, GETT, and were illegally renting the land out to peasant farmers.

Among the witnesses whom Elilda dos Santos claimed could testify to the supposedly macabre behaviour of O'Connor were four of these "community leaders" whose racket had come to an end. It is a shame the LDH did not ask certain other catholic figures in Nampula what they thought of the Brazilian - such as Mario Maloquiha, the priest at Namaita parish, where dos Santos once worked, who declared she had "no credibility whatever", or the Italian priest Guiseppe Brunelli, who dismissed the stories of organ trafficking as "missionary fiction".

Demented stories about investors trafficking in human organs will clearly detract from the rest of the LDH report, much of which looks at genuine police abuses, including cases of torture and summary execution. Among these incidents of police brutality is the case of Domingos Dausse, who was hospitalised for 48 days, after a savage beating by policmen in Nharitanda, in the western province of Tete, simply because he was not carrying an identity card. The case went to local prosecutors in August 2004, but it seems that by the time the report was printed no measures had been taken against the police officers involved.

The LDH comments that in most cases, when members of the police force commit such abuses they "go unpunished, even after it has been concluded that they broke the law and the police code of conduct". "This impunity contributes significantly to encouraging certain offenses against innocent citizens", added the report. As for access to justice, the report says that there is no guarantee, because fine words on the matter have not been followed by measures to improve access to justice on the part of the public.

Adapted from: "Mozambique: LDH Insists That Trafficking in Human Organs is Real." Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo). 25 October 2006.

Fighting Child Trafficking in Ghana

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 06:49:00 GMT

A year ago, the Government of Ghana passed a law that made it a crime to traffic in people - that is, to sell adults and children into a modern form of slavery.

The Human Trafficking Act aims to prevent, reduce and punish human trafficking, and to rehabilitate and reintegrate people who are trafficked. To be able to achieve some of the goals set up in the Millennium Development Goal there is the need to combat these practices, especially when they target children.

However, in this era of civilization and development, Ghanaian children, through no fault of their own, are still being given out or sold to people, being deprived of their rights to enjoy life to the fullest. These children often live in terrible conditions, working during unfavourable weather, eating non-nutritious foods, and wearing shabby clothes. Many grow up with no formal education or moral training, thereby leaving them illiterate and lacking discipline.

The International Organization of Migration (IOM) is one organization working to fight this scourge and put the new Human Trafficking Act into practice in the country, especially among children working in fishing communities. Last week, the IOM held a workshop to help implementation partners in the community - including partner organizations and agencies and members of the media - to understand how the IOM helps trafficked children and how the partners could help in the organization's work.

In December 2002, the IOM launched a programme on migration in three fishing communities, namely Yeji, Mfantesiman and North and South Tornu District, all falling on Volta-area lakeshores. The aim of this project was to fight the child trafficking situation in these various communities and rescue these captured children. Together with its implementing partners such as the Department of Social Welfare, Ghana Health Service, Ghana Education Service and the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, the IOM has been able to rescue over 500 children and reintegrate them into society.

Kwasi Opoku Mensah, a programme officer at Friends for Human Development, one of the IOM's implementation partners, explained to Social Justice how the child-rescue program began. While working in his former job in the fisheries, Mr. Mensah said, a ban was made on the use of certain gears for fishing. To make sure that this law took effect, officers were brought in to secure the place.

Whilst there, the officers noticed large number of children on the sea. After investigating, they realized that these little ones were trafficked. This they reported, and research began as to how the children found their way into such places. Since then, Mr. Mensah and his organization have helped rescue trafficked children from their situations, and in partnership with the IOM, they have rescued about 537 children over the past few years.

The IOM's officers visit fishing communities and have meeting with chiefs to educate the communities on the Human Trafficking Act, and the dangers in using children in fishing. A lot of people do not know the crime they commit when they use these children to fish, the IOM said. The implementation officers inform the people in the community about the project and the need to release the children, after which, they are left to decide what to do.

Later, the officers return to the community for response and begin to register these children whom the fishermen are ready to release. "Rescuing these children is not aimed at destroying the fishing business. These fishermen are supported with micro-finance compensation, which is often fishing nets, to enable them continue their work without the help of these children," said Mr. Mensah.

After the children are rescued, they are camped at Yeji for month before they are brought down to Accra to be rehabilitated. They are then reunited with their parents if it is possible and in the child's best interest. People give out their children to these fishermen out of poverty and by doing this they are rewarded with some money either monthly, quarterly or yearly by the new masters of their children.

To enable them solve or curb this menace, the IOM provides micro-finance assistance to parents of these rescued children to enable them start a business of their own and provide for their families. The implementing partners do follow-ups later on to ensure the people are using their benefits profitably. Mr. Mensah has a target to help rescue, if not these all trafficked children, a majority of them in the years to come. "Now that the law has been passed, I hope to involve both the law and IOM policy to rescue these children," he said.

Adapted from: Florence Gbolu. "Ghana: Fighting Human Trafficking - Ghana's Youngest Victims." Ghanaian Chronicle. 25 October 2006.

Rise in Human Trafficking Tied to Poverty

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 09:48:00 GMT

Rise in human trafficking tied to poverty, international church conference participants say.

The increase in human trafficking is connected to poverty and an increase in women migrating under dangerous circumstances, said participants at an international conference. Torsten Moritz, project secretary for the Conference of European Churches' Commission for Migrants in Europe, said that "more and more people are migrating under increasingly dangerous circumstances because more and more rich countries are closing their borders."

"More women are migrating nowadays, and we know that for a variety of reasons women are those often most desperately affected by poverty and those most in danger when they migrate, becoming an easy target of the traffickers," said Moritz, whose organization represents Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox and Old Catholic churches. Some 50 experts from 11 countries met in Vilnius to discuss "New Challenges in the Area of Human Trafficking: The Spread of Information." The conference was organized by the Commission for Migrants in Europe and included foreign experts, local governmental agencies and police, as well as representatives of Caritas Lithuania, the Catholic Church's charitable arm in the country.

Moritz said new challenges are emerging as new aspects of the human trafficking phenomenon are discovered. "Over the last decade we have been discussing the trafficking in human beings mainly for the purpose of sexual exploitation," he said. "However, what we are becoming more and more aware of is that trafficking is taking place in other areas as well ... men are forced on building sites, on ships, in agriculture and held like slaves; children are trafficked for pickpocketing or begging."

Moritz said that one of the responses to human trafficking is to spread information to consumers behind the demand for products made by victims of human trafficking and other forms of modern slavery. For example, he said that Norwegian Church Aid, which is fighting labor exploitation in sweatshops by organizing an information campaign, asks the public, "Are you sure your T-shirt was not produced in slave-like conditions?"

Ivonne van de Kar, executive secretary of the Dutch Foundation of Religious Against Trafficking in Women, said people trying to support their families would raise money by other means if other means were available. Easy targets keep coming from poverty-stricken countries -- the former communist East European countries and other countries outside Europe, she said.

Father Robertas Grigas, director of Caritas Lithuania, said it was a sign of hope that more than half the conference participants were representatives of the Catholic Church and other Christian organizations. He called the Christian representation an "obvious sign that in Europe, this sphere, where a human being is humiliated and trampled, is the area of primary concern."

Father Grigas said that because of the efforts of Caritas and other nongovernmental organizations the problem of human trafficking currently is treated with a prompter response from governments and police. Since 2001, Caritas Lithuania has been providing support for the victims of human trafficking, including direct help in crisis situations and a program of social integration, as well as medical and legal services. Support centers are functioning in the largest cities of Lithuania, while smaller centers with a network of social workers and volunteers operate in smaller towns and rural areas.

Adapted from: Ruta Tumenaite. "Rise in human trafficking tied to poverty, int’l church conference participants say." Catholic News Service. 23 October 2006

Israeli Knesset Passes Human Trafficking Bill

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 09:55:00 GMT

In a unanimous vote on 17 October 2006, the Knesset approved a law to strengthen and broaden laws against human trafficking.

The bill, which was drafted by MK Zehava Gal-On (Meretz) and supported by the government, increases the time served for involvement in human trafficking to 16-20 years. It also broadens the definition of trafficking in men, women and children.

Over the summer, a US report on human trafficking listed Israel as "in danger" of falling into the top 100 countries where human trafficking takes place. Estimates of the scope of human trafficking vary widely. In labor trafficking, NGOs estimate that there are more than 15,000 victims in the country, while government officers say there are only isolated incidences. In the area of sex trafficking, NGOs say there are thousands of victims, while the government claims only hundreds.

"We are talking about an innovative, revolutionary, and precedent-setting law which deals harshly with traffickers of people and body parts. The law will provide law enforcement officers better tools to combat the phenomenon," said Gal-On. "We knew that if we didn't act now the problem would only grow to the point where we could not longer hope to battle it."

In a recent meeting of the Committee on the Status of Women, chairman MK Gideon Sa'ar (Likud) listed the many problems with trying to stop the human trafficking movement. The challenges include the lack of funds and the lack of communication with neighboring countries so that cross-border information can be accurately logged.

Adapted from: SHEERA CLAIRE FRENKEL. "Israel - Knesset Passes Human Trafficking Bill." www.jpost.com. 18 October 2006.

Finnish Politician Named OSCE Envoy Against Trafficking

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 09:56:00 GMT

Seasoned Finnish parliamentarian Eva Biaudet has been named as the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe's (OSCE) next special envoy for combating human trafficking.

Biaudet told public broadcaster YLE that the appointment was "a big challenge" and the assignment focused on very important issues. The post has been vacant since last May when Helga Konrad of Austria stepped down after a two-year term.

Hundreds of thousands of people, mainly women and children, are estimated to be victims of human trafficking that experts estimate generates billions of dollars. The victims are often subjected to forced labour and prostitution.

Biaudet, 45, has been a member of parliament for the Swedish People's Party since 1991, and since 2004 has been a member of the foreign affairs committee. She has also held the post as minister of health and social services. The OSCE groups 56 states from Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia and North America.

Adapted from: "Finnish politician named OSCE envoy against trafficking." dpa German Press Agency. 20 October 2006.

Human Trafficking Training Mandatory for US Overseas Troops

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 10:10:00 GMT

US troops abroad are receiving training on how to avoid being involved in human trafficking.

If you take nothing else away from the military’s Trafficking in Persons training, remember this: “No buying, selling or renting people,” said Yokosuka Seaman Nicole Katic.

She hears about human trafficking in every foreign port as a U.S. sailor with Navy’s 7th Fleet. And she has taken the 45-minute course mandated for all overseas personnel. Some 450,000 servicemembers and civilians with the Defense Department had taken the online TIP course as of June 2006, according to Maj. Stewart Upton, a spokesman for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs.

The course hits four major points: origins, detection, U.S. and DOD policies, and regulations governing human trafficking, he said. The practice has been called “modern-day slavery” and is defined as the “recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion, for the purpose of subjecting that person to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.”

The State Department estimates 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked annually, with 80 percent of them women and girls — up to 50 percent are children — as of 2006. And the majority of transnational victims were trafficked into a growing, global commercial sex trade. “Whether people realize it or not, most women involved in prostitution are there against their will,” said 7th Fleet spokesman Cmdr. Ike Skelton.

“Even by going to a strip club or bar that is a front for prostitution supports the worldwide human trafficking industry. If you spend money there, you may be giving money to the traffickers, and traffickers are criminals.” TIP training is a way of “looking our folks in the eyes and reminding them what behavior is acceptable and what is not,” Skelton said.

For the most part, servicemembers say the training is working. Staff Sgt. Mark Freeman of the 374th Maintenance Squadron at Yokota Air Base, Japan said he went through the Web-based training several months ago. He encountered a few real-life training scenarios during a Thailand stop on his way back from a recent deployment to Kuwait, he said.

“You run into a lot of those situations there,” Freeman said. “There’s not quite as many in Japan.” He said he believes the training, if conducted periodically, can help guide servicemembers’ behavior outside the gates. Sgt. Michael Mitchell, who organizes training for his battalion on Camp Kinser, Okinawa, said he thinks the training is helpful “especially for Marines deploying to places like Korea and the Philippines and Singapore.”

The class would have the most value if done as part of pre-deployment training, he added. Seaman Benjamin Saylor, assigned to the USS Blue Ridge, said he’d like to see more situations presented in training that mirror the average servicemember experience. “It makes it seem like the all the women are being held hostage,” Saylor said. “The reality is more like prostitutes at the bar.”

Adapted from: Allison Batdorff. "Human trafficking training mandatory for overseas troops." Stars and Stripes. 22 October 2006.

Italy Urges Action on Slave Trade

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 10:16:00 GMT

Human slavery and trafficking is a growing problem in Europe, which must be tackled at a Europe-wide level, said Italian Equal Opportunities Minister Barbara Pollastrini.

Addressing a two-day seminar in Rome, organized jointly with the Council of Europe's Campaign to Combat Trafficking in Human Beings, she said joint action was the only way to fight the problem. "Human trafficking is a repugnant practice that has become an enormous problem in Europe," she said . "The battle cannot be fought alone but must instead be conducted at a European level and with other countries around the world."

According to statistics published at the conference, more than 2.45 million people are trafficked around the world, the majority of them women and children. Most victims are either put to work in the sex industry (43%) or else as labourers (32%). The head of the Council of Europe's campaign, Jan Kleijssen praised Italy for its support in fighting the problem but said that countries around the globe needed to take tougher action.

The Council's 2005 Convention on Action in Trafficking in Human Beings was signed by 30 countries, including Italy, but Austria, Moldavia and Romania are the only three states to have ratified it so far. The convention provides for greater inter-state cooperation, compensation for victims and tougher fines for traffickers.

"But above all, it requires authorities to treat these individuals as victims rather than foreigners present in the country illegally," said Kleijssen. The conference comes a week after the Italian cabinet approved a decree implementing tougher penalties for traffickers bringing people into Italy. It raises jail terms from five to 15 years and abolishes fast track trials for traffickers, giving police more time to collect evidence and meaning a greater chance of securing a conviction.

Traffickers who exploit their victims for long-term gain, such as tricking them into prostitution or forcing them to work as slave-labourers, face much tougher penalties. "Italy is at the forefront of [anti-trafficking] legislation," Kleijssen commented. "It has always supported us and continues to do so." According to government statistics, between March 2000 and April 2005 nearly 10,000 trafficking victims benefited from Italian laws providing protection and assistance for individuals who turn in their exploiters. Around 7,000 have participated in training, work or education courses, while some 4,600 have been given work. But Catholic charity Caritas has stressed that many such initiatives fall short of their praiseworthy goals.

A key problem, in its opinion, is the small number of residency permits eventually issued to women who escape the sex trade. It estimates that traffickers smuggled more than half a million women into Italy to work as sex slaves between 2001 and 2005. Of these, almost 30,000 escaped and managed to contact authorities but fewer than 5,000 received residency permits. It also claims that a third of all women receiving social assistance are not accorded legal protection, leaving them liable to deportation and uncertain about their future.

The lack of safeguards means many are too scared to come forward, fearing they won't be protected from their exploiters and terrified about the treatment they may receive if they are sent back home.

Adapted from: Karma Hickman. "Italy Urges Action on Slave Trade." ANSA. 19 October 2006.

Russia and Israel Asked to Stop Human Trafficking

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 10:20:00 GMT

Israel and Russia are urged to work more closely together to prevent trafficking.

Israel and Russia must work more closely together to shut down all trafficking routes used to transport humans around the world, especially those that bring thousands of individuals into Israel each year, said Rita Chaikin, coordinator of Isha L'Isha's Anti-Trafficking project and its hotline for trafficking victims.

Chaikin's comments came as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin, one day after the Knesset passed a bill aimed at cracking down on traffickers who trade in humans. The new law will also award compensation to victims of forced labor, slavery, sexual exploitation and black-market organ sales and hand out stiffer prison sentences to the perpetrators.

"Routes into Israel need to be stopped at the source," said Chaikin, who received an award in April from Vital Voices, a Washington-based non-profit organization, for the work she has done in combating trafficking in Israel. "Putin must put more of an emphasis on tackling the problem of trafficking and follow the lead of Israel."

According to Shevy Korzen, executive director of the Hotline for Migrant Workers, while most trafficking victims in Israel are not from Russia, it is a transit country. She said many of the victims were first brought to Moscow and from there to Egypt, where they were then smuggled across the border into Israel. Attorney Rachel Gershoni, Israel's national coordinator in the battle against trafficking, also said Wednesday that there needed to be more cooperation between the two countries.

"We need to work together on law enforcement to see where these networks are forming. We need to have cooperation on the level of non-governmental organizations and the welfare system," said Gershoni, who helped draft the new law - a consolidation of a bill proposed by MK Zehava Gal-On (Meretz) and a government bill. Gershoni, whose job is to connect the Israel Police, government ministries and human rights groups with foreign governments and international bodies, said the new law was a big step forward in the battle to stop human trafficking and protect migrant workers.

"It does not just deal with prostitution but also with slavery, forced labor, pornography and organ donations," said Gershoni, adding, "this will also allow Israel to ratify two important international treaties on trafficking." Gershoni also said the new law would provide the legal system with an entire array of crimes and criminal behavior that could be prosecuted.

The new law was well received by the various NGOs, many of whom shared their knowledge of the subject with legislators. However, they all said Israel still had a long way to go in solving the problem. "Now the discipline is definitely more comprehensive and in line with the rest of the world," said Korzen. "However, while it is an important step, we still feel the Knesset did not go all the way with this law."

Roni Aloni-Sadovnik, spokeswoman for the Task Force on Human Trafficking (TFHT), a project of the non-profit organization ATZUM, added, "the law is fine, but what is missing is the question of citizen responsibility. With child abuse cases, there is a law that demands those who know about it tell the authorities; there is also a 'Good Samaritan' law whereby citizens must help others they know are in trouble. But with this situation, how will the authorities know about abuses and slavery unless individuals raise awareness to this practice?"

"It is an excellent law compared to the old one," said Ayelet Lahmi, Anti-Trafficking in Women coordinator at Amnesty International's Israel branch. However, she said many of the victims were returned to their former countries where they were killed or drawn back into the trafficking cycle. All of the NGOs highlighted the concern that the system of issuing visas to victims of trafficking crimes needs to be improved.

Adapted from: RUTH EGLASH. "Russia, Israel asked to stop trafficking." Israel.jpost.com. 19 October 2006.

A Joint Project between European Women's Lobby and the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW)

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 13:59:00 GMT

A Joint project between European Women's Lobby and the Coalition against trafficking in Women (CATW) to promote preventative measures in combating trafficking in human beings for sexual exploitation.

The purposes of this project are to address gaps in current anti-trafficking programs and policies that avoid focusing on gender equality, the demand, and the links between trafficking and prostitution. It will support women's NGOs working on these issues in 14 countries: Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Kosovo/Albania, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro in actions/projects.

Framework of the Project:
The lack of a gender equality perspective in national policies is reinforced by the under-representation of women in decision-making positions, which means women's views and specific concerns are not taken into account in all areas of life.

Gender-based violence takes multiple forms, all of which are the result of the imbalance of the power relationships between women and men. The promotion of women's dignity is central to eradicate violence against women and to reinforce women's human rights. It is important therefore to address the political will of governments as they attempt to create measures against trafficking in human beings and sexual exploitation.
The least discussed part of the prostitution and trafficking chain has been the men who buy women and children for sexual exploitation in prostitution, pornography, sex tourism and mail order bride marketing. All too often, the common view has been to shrug one's shoulders and say "men are like this," or "prostitution has always been in existence," or "boys will be boys." These messages, in reality, tell women and girls in prostitution that they must continue to do what they do because prostitution is inevitable. This project challenges this message.

This project also challenges the message that prostitution and trafficking are not connected. Over the last decade, certain UN agencies, various governments, and some NGOs have promoted the policy that prostitution is voluntary and sex trafficking is forced. Yet, the reality is that prostitution and sex trafficking are habitually co-dependent. In countries that prohibit trafficking but decriminalize the sex industry, prostitution, sex trafficking, organized crime and child prostitution all expand.

Finally, this project challenges the notion that prostitution is "sex work." Some countries have legalized or decriminalized pimps and brothels, have set up "tolerance zones," and are living off the earnings of women in prostitution by levying taxes on the women and the sex industry. They claim that State control of prostitution helps protect women and reduce trafficking. But this is not true. State-legitimated prostitution creates a safe haven for traffickers and pimps, and does nothing to lessen the routine abuse, violence and degradation experienced by women in prostitution.

Each country project will devise action points concrete steps that individuals, organizations and governments can take to tackle male violence and sexual exploitation and other measures that will strengthen the position of women in society.

Resources and Research:
The project has prepared a Resource Pack on trafficking and prostitution to assist project partners with clear and accessible information to enable them to carry out the project philosophy and goals: Briefing Handbook

Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation in Conflict and Post-Conflict Situations:
Civil and military conflicts are often the cause of gender-based violence during and after conflicts. Mobilisation of male soldiers and arrival of peacekeepers contribute to the growth of rape, prostitution and sexual abuse around military installations. Additionally displacement of citizens and the ravaging of local economies encourage migration (domestic and international), discourage sustainability, and lead to even greater incidences of women's exploitation. The CATW-EWL project also promotes a safe environment and a democratic society that includes the participation of women on an equal footing with men in decision-making processes. A seminar has been organised in Zagreb, Croatia on Preventing Trafficking in Conflict and Post-Conflict Situations: Who is Responsible? Resolutions on the conference

Project Partners:
This project is jointly coordinated by EWL and CATW, 2 key international NGOs. Both CATW and the EWL have long campaigned for gender equality, women's human rights, and combating violence against women in all its forms. In the past, they have worked together to combat trafficking and prostitution, and both contributed to and influenced the provisions that have become the UN Protocol on Trafficking.
This project is funded by the U.S. and Swedish governments.

Anti-prostitution Spots to be Aired by Air France

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 14:15:00 GMT

In an effort to curb sex tourism involving minors, Air France will show a graphic video on child prostitution on all its long-haul flights starting in October 2006.

The 90-second video shows young girls in discos, on streets and in hotel bedrooms, with graphics displaying their ages: "13 years," "16 years." To the sound of handcuffs clicking shut, the video then shows a middle- aged man with a censor bar across his eyes reading "10 years." Unicef says that about one million children are sexually exploited every year in the multibillion-dollar sex industry.

Adapted from: "Anti-Prostitution Spots to be Aired by Air France." Agence France-Presse, Reuters, The Associated Press. 15 September 2006.

Commune in Vietnam Fights Human Trafficking

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 14:18:00 GMT

Once known for high numbers of human trafficking victims, Bao Son Commune has nearly eliminated the problem through education efforts.

Ngo Thu Phuong gives them props for addressing a taboo topic. While most of the Mid-Autumn Festival centres on the idyllic days of childhood with moon cakes and lion dances, adolescents in the mountainous commune of Bao Son in northern Bac Giang Province celebrated by testing a very important knowledge. "What will you do if a strange woman asks you to go with her to Lang Son with promises of a good job?" a child in the jury asks of another contestant of the same age. "I would say no definitely," responds the other side.

The community has dedicated its time to fighting human trafficking, a topic not discussed much in the past, with the best possible weapon: an education. Under the moonlight and amid the din of the festival, children play together while sharing what they all know about their rights. Neighbours and local authorities in charge of the festival outline common tricks used by traffickers to raise public awareness. To award the children for correct answers, school supplies and moon cakes (which have been donated by Save the Children UK (SCUK) and Melia Hotel in Ha Noi) are doled out to eager hands. "The most significant award is that they know how to protect themselves from this social evil," deputy chairman of Bao Son People’s Committee Hoang Cong Bay says.

Startling figures
Bay considers human trafficking the headache that pains every community member – from top leaders to each rural family. "The trafficking of women and children has been an issue in Viet Nam for ten years now, but it’s only recently been brought out in the open," says Duong Thi Xuan, the head of Viet Nam Women’s Union’s propagation department. "Its far reaching and serious consequences worry everyone." Statistics from the General Department for People’s Police show that police have uncovered 2,260 human trafficking cases and apprehended 3,780 smugglers since 2000.

Between 2002 and 2004 alone they brought over 1,300 cases with 2,300 criminals to court. In 2005 police arrested 344 traffickers and rescued 449 victims. On average, the country loses 500 women and children each year who are sold to other countries, the department says. The major destinations of human traders are mainland China, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao. Xuan foresees the situation worsening when the country integrates into the global economy. "International economic integration will increase business exchanges and migration. People with low levels of education will be easily enticed by promises of better jobs," Xuan predicts.

She also believes the problem will further complicate since the human traders tend to use more sophisticated tricks learned through international trading experience. It’s an overwhelming evil because human trafficking does not only involve Asia – it extends to Europe and the Americas, Xuan says. According to the Viet Nam Women’s Union, most of the victims were sold abroad to be prostitutes, illegal wives or adoptive children.
Illegal immigration also makes them immediate criminals in their new countries, forcing them to live underground lives. Innate freedoms are stripped, human dignity trampled on and labour exploited, a union employee says.

Many of them return home empty-handed and in bad health. "The psychological damage is irreversible and inferiority complexes become static from the abuse they’ve suffered," Xuan says. In turn, the Government has enacted a series of laws on the issue to counter the damage, including the law on family and marriage, and the law on children protection, care and education. Most notably, a national action plan against the trafficking of women and children from 2004 to 2010 was approved, assigning ministries and agencies to execute four projects in their specialised areas.

The Viet Nam Women’s Union is currently in charge of promoting public education while the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs focuses on assisting victims with repatriation and reintegration. The Ministry of Justice was assigned to complete related law documents. A task force unit called Unit 130 was also set up in 62 provinces and cities. While these organisation try to help victims, Xuan says the crucial mission is to raise public awareness so even the most vulnerable people will be on high alert. "This issue is all about prevention," she says. "We can help by creating jobs, offering vocational training, and providing people with financial credit so they aren’t tempted by false offers."

Community initiatives
Educating the public during celebrations like the Mid-Autumn Festival is part of a project on community-based initiatives jointly implemented by SCUK and its local partners. The 2003-2005 project, executed in cross-border provinces of Bac Giang, Lang Son and Quang Ninh, involved an equal number of child and adult volunteers.
The kids were mobilised to work as volunteer educators to disseminate social knowledge and ways to protect themselves to their peers, families and community. "The project has had a very positive impact on the community, particularly in raising public awareness," says deputy chairman of Bao Son People’s Committee Hoang Cong Bay. "It’s remarkable – we haven’t uncovered any new cases over the past three years, even though our locality was once known for its high numbers of victims," the official adds. SCUK says the result is seeing similar progress in all localities thanks to the project. Bay, however, says that villagers need more work incentives to help prevent them from moving to other places to earn higher wages. "The rest depends on each person’s responsibility and awareness to protect themselves."

Mail Order Brides Face Exploitation in Canada

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 14:23:00 GMT

Nika thought her future was bright when she came to Canada from the Philippines as a bride to the owner of a booming taxi business.

She was following in the footsteps of her sister, Nela, who had herself immigrated as a mail-order bride and was living comfortably with her husband and two young children. But soon after Nika arrived thanks to the sponsorship of her husband Tom, things began to fall apart. For one, she learned she was his fifth wife. He beat her, restricted her right to use the phone, stopped sending money to her family and even controlled her diet. Nika fled to a transition house after a month.

A new study by Simon Fraser University's Jen Marchbank says the scenario is not unique. Mail-order brides coming to Canada have little knowledge of their rights and face exploitation at the hands of unscrupulous husbands. And the business in Canada is thriving, thanks in part to the Internet. She details the situation Mail Order Brides: Causes, Experiences, and Policy Responses in North America.

Many of the problems such women face in Canada come as a result of changes to this country's marriage laws as they relate to immigrants. "Unlike many U.S. states, the industry is unregulated in Canada," says Marchbank. "In this country, there are no specific rules to control agencies, which work transnationally, and no specific provisions to ensure that brides know their rights."

Recent changes in Canadian marriage law regarding common-law spouses could also have implications. "This might aid unscrupulous men in deceiving women into entry to Canada with a promise of marriage -- then not being able to leave the man without threat of deportation."

The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act changed the definition of a spouse in 2001 so that certain common-law marriages are recognized under the family section of immigration rules. Under those rules, a woman can come to Canada as a common-law spouse without being married elsewhere. That, however, puts a women at the mercy of her husband. Should the relationship fail, she could be deported.

"Before, for anyone to enter Canada, they had to be married overseas prior to coming to Canada and their marriage had to be a marriage that would be recognized under Canadian law," Marchbank said. The situation has caught the attention of Canada's Green Party, which has been busy expanding the depth of its platform beyond environmental issues. The Greens are calling for changes to the laws permitting mail order brides.

Party Leader Elizabeth May says the situation is akin to "human trafficking." May said women coming from countries outside of western cultures suffer due to their lack of language skills and support systems.

"All the more so in this particular group where women come in, potentially as mail-order brides without any support and are subject to abuse," May said. "We've heard about situations where it's really not a marriage; it's actually sexual exploitation." Marchbank said mail-order bride situations are generally only heard about when something goes wrong. They get media coverage when women seek out social work or legal services. The successful ones never make headlines.

There are, however, other reasons why those in mail-order marriages might not come forward. "The very title `mail-order bride' (is) pejorative," Marchbank said. "Why would a couple want to put themselves up and say this is what we did because there are so many stereotypes around this that women are always victims and the men are somehow lacking in something because they couldn't get a Canadian woman to marry them.

"It has a lot of cultural myth around it and stereotypes around it." There's no good data on how many mail-order brides there are in Canada, Marchbank said. Most arrive through the family section of federal immigration policy. The practice has become an option for third-world women due to the structure of immigration into Canada. In some cases, mail order marriages are "easier for these women than to meet the education and qualification standards required by Canada's immigration laws," Marchbank said.

The growth of the business can be traced to the explosion of the Internet in recent years - and the cost-effectiveness of running a website. They're cheap to keep updated and simpler to manage than paper catalogues. It's estimated there could be as many as 10,000 Internet sites worldwide offering mail-order brides. One such site listed 128 countries. "It is a commodification of women," Marchbank said, "This is about women as a commodity to be purchased. This is to me very much about international inequalities in economics."

But, she adds: "These women are making choices. They are not just victims. Many of these women are making choices about their lives. They may be making very restrictive choices compared to women in the West but they are making choices."

Adapted from: Jeremy Hainsworth. "Canada - Mail Order Brides Face Exploitation in Canada - Research." 8 October 2006.

Part I: San Francisco is Hub for Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 15:47:00 GMT

Many of San Francisco's Asian massage parlors -- long an established part of the city's sexually permissive culture -- have degenerated into something much more sinister: international sex slave shops.

Once limited to infamous locales such as Bombay and Bangkok, sex trafficking is now an $8 billion international business, with San Francisco among its largest commercial centers. San Francisco's liberal attitude toward sex, the city's history of arresting prostitutes instead of pimps, and its large immigrant population have made it one of the top American cities for international sex traffickers to do business undetected, according to Donna Hughes, a national expert on sex trafficking at the University of Rhode Island.

"It makes me sick to my stomach," said San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. "Girls are being forced to come to this country, their families back home are threatened, and they are being raped repeatedly, over and over." Because sex trafficking is so far underground, the number of victims in the United States and worldwide is not known, and the statistics vary wildly.

The most often cited numbers come from the U.S. State Department, which estimates that 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked for forced labor and sex worldwide each year -- and that 80 percent are women and girls. Most trafficked females, the department says, are exploited in commercial sex outlets. Relying on research from the Central Intelligence Agency, the State Department estimates there are 14,500 to 17,500 human trafficking victims brought into the United States each year -- but does not quantify how many of those are sex victims. Some advocacy groups place the number of U.S. victims much higher, while others criticize the government for overstating the problem.

"The number will always be an estimate, because trafficking victims don't stand in line and raise their hands to be counted, but it's the best estimate we have," said Ambassador John Miller, director of the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. The CIA won't divulge its research methods, but based its figures on 1,500 sources, including law enforcement data, government data, academic research, international reports and newspaper stories.

Women trafficked for the sex industry are predominantly from Southeast Asia, the former Soviet Union and South America -- lured to the United States by promises of lucrative jobs as models or hostesses, only to be sold to brothels, strip clubs and outcall services and extorted into working off thousands of dollars in surprise travel debts to their new "owners."

Federal investigators say that even those who come to the United States with the idea of working as high-society call girls cannot imagine the captivity and the degrading workload they face. "Human trafficking is a multibillion-dollar business. In terms of profits, it's on a path to overtake drug and arms trafficking," said Barry Tang, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement attache with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in South Korea. "There's a highly organized logistical network between Korea and the United States with recruiters, brokers, intermediaries, taxi drivers and madams."

The United States is among the top three destination countries for sex traffickers, along with Japan and Australia. Once in the United States, traffickers most often set up shop in California, New York, Texas and Las Vegas. It's an underground world, but in more than 100 interviews with federal agents, experts and sex trafficking victims in California and South Korea, a picture emerges about how international traffickers buy and sell women between Asia and the West Coast.

Overseas, the trafficker is usually a woman. She recruits from clubs, bars, colleges, pool halls and restaurants, said Deputy Special Agent Mark F. Wollman, who oversees San Francisco for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Recruiters fill the want ads in papers and the Internet, targeting vulnerable young women with fake job offers for waitresses, models and hostesses in America. Traffickers fly the women to Canada or Mexico, and walk or drive them into California. In Canada, they slip through Indian reservations off-limits to the U.S. Border Patrol, often at night, and sometimes along snow-packed trails.

In Mexico, the traffickers lead the women over the same treacherous desert paths worn down by migrants heading to "El Norte" for work. More women come through airport customs in San Francisco and Los Angeles, using fake passports and student or tourist visas made for them by their traffickers. It's relatively easy for traffickers to evade authorities at the checkpoints -- land, air or sea -- because women still don't realize at that point that they are being tricked. "It's not like the movies where you open a trunk and you interview them and they tell you everything," said Lauren Mack, special-agent-in-charge with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Diego. "They aren't going to tell you they're victimized because they aren't -- yet."

Once in California, the women are taken most often to Los Angeles or San Francisco, where they are hidden inside homes, massage parlors, apartments and basements, only to learn that the job offer was just a ploy. Typically they are locked inside their place of business, forced to have sex with as many as a dozen men a day. Sometimes victims are forced to live in the brothel, too, where five or six "co-workers" are crammed into one room. Their "owners" confiscate their travel documents until the women pay off exorbitant sums. Often captors will ensure the women never pay off their debts, by tacking on fees for food, clothing or rent. Some fine the women for displeasing customers, being late to work, fighting or a host of other possible transgressions.

Yuki, 25, who fears for her safety and only gave her first name to The Chronicle during an interview in Seoul, said she was trafficked from South Korea to a karaoke bar in Inglewood (Los Angeles County), where she was assured that she would simply be serving drinks to men. Once there, she was ordered to sell $3,000 worth of drinks each month. When she failed, she was sent to the "touching room," a private suite where men could have their way with her for $400.

Sex slaves who work in massage parlors and bars are often locked in their place of business by double security doors, monitored by surveillance cameras and only let outside under the guard of crooked taxi drivers who ferry them to their next sex appointment. Women report being beaten, raped and starved by their keepers. Kim, who also withheld her last name, told The Chronicle in an interview in South Korea that she was forced to pay $4,400 for plastic surgery to open her eyes and make her nose thinner and pointier, "like Marilyn Monroe." Both women eventually escaped their captors and now live as shut-ins in Seoul, spending their time on the phone or the Internet or watching TV, too afraid to go outside and cross paths with someone from the network that trafficked them.

They are scared because sex trafficking rings are often run by criminal organizations that aren't afraid to use violence to protect the billions they generate. Although it's not known how much money the San Francisco market generates for sex traffickers, federal agents confiscated $2 million in cash from 10 Asian massage parlors during a San Francisco raid in summer 2005. Local police say the bust didn't make a dent in the illegal sex trade. "The number of Asian massage parlors has doubled in San Francisco in the last two years," said Capt. Tim Hettrich of the San Francisco police vice unit. "Profits are huge. I have nine people working on this. I need three times that many to keep up."

There are at least 90 massage parlors in San Francisco where sex is for sale, according to the online sex Web site myredbook.com. The site has been around since 1997 and has more than 55,000 reviews of Northern California sex workers. It is used by johns, yet is also a main monitoring tool for law enforcement. On average, there are about eight women working in a massage parlor, police say. That would mean more than 700 Asian sex masseuses working in San Francisco, based on 90 illicit parlors listed on sex Web sites and on police interviews. But the scope of sex trafficking in San Francisco is much larger -- women are also forced to work as escorts, outcall girls, erotic dancers and street prostitutes. Women are also placed in "AAMPs" -- Asian apartment massage parlors -- which are little more than apartments rented by traffickers who staff them with one or two sex workers. Business is done by word of mouth, and only customers approved by the owner are allowed in.

Police in Livermore, Concord, San Mateo and Santa Clara have all found residential Asian brothels in their neighborhoods in 2004 and 2005. "There are thousands of trafficked women in San Francisco," said Norma Hotaling, who advocates for victims as director of the Standing Against Global Exploitation Project in San Francisco. She can watch men come and go at all hours of the day to a massage parlor across the street from her office. "In looking at the city, I've never seen it like this before in terms of the number of massage parlors. No one is going after the johns." The city may even be unwittingly contributing to the problem. Thirty-seven of the erotic massage parlors on My Redbook's list have massage permits issued to them through the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

When asked about the city giving permits to illegal massage parlors, Johnson Ojo, principal environmental health inspector for San Francisco, said part of the problem has to do with a big backlog that was created when jurisdiction over massage parlors was moved from the Police Department to the Department of Public Health in 2004. "We are catching up and inspecting each one," he said. "But prostitution is a police matter -- we are looking for health and safety violations. If we find anything suggesting trafficking, we talk to police." When told by The Chronicle of the scores of erotic massage parlors with city permits, Newsom said, "We aren't doing our job. We should take these Internet lists and go down them one by one."

In July 2006, Newsom waited with city inspectors one afternoon outside Sophia's Spa, an alleged brothel in an alley between an ultra-modern cocktail lounge and a sex shop on Geary Street. A decoy, an Asian police officer in jeans and a T-shirt, stood in view of the security camera over Sophia's front door and pressed the buzzer. The metal security door opened. He duct-taped the lock so Newsom, the inspectors, police, a social worker and a reporter could get in.

It was a rude awakening for the half-dozen men inside, one of whom was in the middle of a sex act with a masseuse on the lobby couch. While sex between adults on the lobby couch indicates that Sophia's is not a holistic massage establishment, it's not a crime unless the police see money change hands. Inspectors cited Sophia's for using the premises as a living quarters, for inadequate ventilation, for improperly attired employees and for using a bed instead of a massage table in one room -- enough to land the owner in a permit revocation hearing before an administrative judge.

Although Sophia's has a massage parlor license from the Department of Public Health, the establishment is emblematic of a booming Asian sex-trafficking business that operates with near impunity in the city, Newsom said. It thrives because it's so hard to prosecute -- the same women who are needed on the stand to help win cases are the ones who are being threatened into silence by their captors, said Heidi Rummel, a former federal prosecutor with the sex trafficking unit in Los Angeles. "We have to explain the woman's mind-set -- that she's often unsophisticated, comes from a country with a corrupt government and would believe her captors' lies that if she flees she could get arrested by police," she said. "Juries have a hard time. They wonder: If the door was open, why didn't she just run?"

Sex traffickers who get caught are rarely convicted of sex trafficking -- and they know it. It's a frustrating cat-and-mouse game for federal investigators and prosecutors, who spend a year or more keeping a sex slavery network under surveillance, and then none of the women held in captivity is willing to testify.
Local police face the same problems.

"Our undercover officers arrest women for prostitution weekly in the massage parlors," said Hettrich of the San Francisco vice unit. "We let her know if she cooperates with us, she won't go to jail. But she is more afraid of her traffickers than us." Women are scared for good reason. Those who have become witnesses have been burned with acid, have disappeared, or have had their homes ransacked and their families harmed or threatened in their home countries, said Dong Shim Kim, head counselor at Du Re Bang (My Sister's Place), a shelter for sex trafficking victims in South Korea.

Newsom admits that city inspectors alone can't shut the illicit massage parlors down, but he says City Hall is starting to regulate an underground industry that it's never inspected before. Newsom put together a team of health and safety inspectors in summer 2005, shortly after California's largest sex-trafficking bust -- Operation Gilded Cage -- made it clear that a lot of the sex in the massage parlors was not consensual. City officials were taken aback that all 100 masseuses removed from the 10 parlors in San Francisco were Korean, just like the 45 others arrested statewide on charges of running an international sex trafficking ring. The federal case is pending.

Since the federal raid, just one of the alleged sex parlors targeted in Gilded Cage has been shut down by the city. Golden Dragon Spa was ordered to surrender its massage permit on Aug. 31, after a city administrative judge deemed the business a nuisance and house of prostitution. Two others targeted in the federal raid closed when their buildings were sold. The city attorney's office has prosecuted several other massage parlors, but the punishments have been "sorely disappointing," said Julian Potter, Newsom's public policy chief. A handful of problem massage parlors have been fined $2,500 and threatened with 60- and 90-day permit suspensions if more violations are discovered.

In a three-part series, The Chronicle will tell the story of You Mi Kim, a debt-ridden college student from South Korea who reveals how she was trafficked into sexual slavery in California. Providing a rare glimpse into a shadowy world, "Diary of a Sex Slave" chronicles You Mi's harrowing journey from South Korea to Los Angeles and San Francisco.

This year, the U.S. government granted You Mi a special visa for trafficking victims, given only to those who can prove they were enslaved by "force, fraud or coercion." Now she hopes that by talking, she will help people understand that some Asian masseuses are the property of international traffickers.

Adapted from: Meredith May. "Part I: San Francisco Is A Major Center For International Crime Networks That Smuggle And Enslave. San Francisco Chronicle. 6 October 2006.

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part II: San Francisco is Hub for Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation

Fri, 25 May 2007 23:03:00 GMT

A young woman's youthful mistake in South Korea led her to be deceived to come the United States, only to be caught in forced prostitution.

At 1 a.m., the bell rang. You Mi Kim rushed with eight other Korean masseuses to the barren front lobby of Sun Spa in San Francisco. The women lined up on an L-shaped couch in their lingerie and waited for the customer to choose.

"Don't pick me, don't pick me," You Mi thought, forcing a smile. Less than a year earlier, she'd been a college student in South Korea, only to be tricked into leaving her home by sex traffickers offering promises of a high-paying hostess job. Desperate for a way out of her $40,000 debt, You Mi bit. Now, she was at the end of yet another 15-hour shift of forced sex. The man examined You Mi's petite frame, her brown eyes and her dark hair, which fell like silk to her shoulders. He pointed at her. You Mi led him from the lobby to one of the four upstairs massage rooms and told him to shower in the bathtub behind a curtain in the corner.

"This is my first time," he said. It was a line You Mi heard daily inside Sun Spa. The man was athletic, muscular. After showering, he led her to the bed and stretched out on his stomach. You Mi began massaging his shoulders. Suddenly, he jumped off the bed, declared he didn't need a massage and yanked off her white camisole. He threw her to the mattress and forced himself on her, pulling her hair and twisting her small body in so many ways that she screamed in pain. Then the man's eyes went blank. He began choking her. She heard sounds of pleasure escape his throat. He seemed to be enjoying it. The manager burst through the door. "What's going on?" she shouted in Korean. "Help me!" You Mi gasped. The man released his grip. The manager turned her attention to the customer. "I'm sorry she disappointed you," she said, refunding his $50. A disgruntled john might tip off the police. The man pocketed the money, turned and walked out the front door.

Of all the degradations You Mi endured while forced to work as a California sex slave in 2003, this was the worst. In an instant it became clear: Her life amounted to $50. The manager ordered her back to work. After her attack, You Mi did the only thing she could think of to survive. She wiped away the tears and smiled for her next customer.

For nearly a year, You Mi was caught in a sex-trafficking triangle -- starting in South Korea, one of the world's leading importers and exporters of sex slaves, and stretching to the exploding Asian outcall market of Los Angeles and then to the Asian massage-parlor mecca on the West Coast: San Francisco. She would be forced to have sex with dozens of men a week in seedy massage parlors, apartments and hotel rooms. She would live under the watchful eye of guards and surveillance cameras, reminded constantly that her family back in South Korea would be harmed if she ran.

She would work in brothels with blacked-out windows and double metal security doors, allowed outside only under the escort of crooked taxi drivers working for the traffickers who drove her to sex appointments. She would also be trapped culturally, unable to speak more than a few basic sentences in English, unaware of where she was and dependent on her captors for food and shelter. To traffickers, 22-year-old You Mi was the perfect victim: a small-town girl in financial trouble. She gave her trust, and in return her life went horribly wrong, terribly fast.

Along a crooked hillside market in the South Korean port city of Busan, vendors gut fish and wash chicken feet, getting ready for the morning shopping rush. This is You Mi's hometown, also known as the San Francisco of South Korea. Situated on the southeastern tip of the country, Busan also has steep streets, summer beach tourists and even a white version of the Golden Gate Bridge. Busan is also the birthplace of South Korea's sex industry, where Japanese troops built the first brothels after invading the country in 1904. But the selling of Korean women goes back to the 15th century, when wealthy men bought educated Kisaeng girls to live in their homes and entertain them with song, dance, cooking and sometimes sex. Today, sex work accounts for 4 percent of the country's gross domestic product, according to government reports. Prostitution brings $21 billion a year -- more than electricity and gas combined. There are an estimated 330,000 sex workers, 80,000 brothels and 69 red-light districts in a country the size of Indiana.

Busan is infamous for Wan Wol Dong, a maze of dark alleys where women are on display in row upon row of "glass houses." A peculiar Korean invention, a glass house is about the size of a parking space, with glass walls on three sides and a mirrored back wall concealing a private bedroom. Women sit on chairs or chaises or on the floor inside, illuminated by red lights that cast a pink glow.

For about $75, men strolling or driving by have their pick of older women in silk bathrobes, younger women in hot pants and even preteens in ballerina skirts and heart-shaped bodices. Glass houses are just one item on South Korea's sexual menu. Sex is sold out of bars, restaurants, coffee shops, barbershops, tearooms, karaoke bars, saunas, massage parlors, over the Internet, in skin-care shops and hair salons, in computer rooms called PC bangs, in "love motels" and in nightclubs near U.S. military bases. Even something as simple as ordering coffee has been sexualized. "Ticket tabang" girls make home deliveries with thermoses of coffee to sex-seeking callers. While a 2004 South Korean law targeting pimps and buyers has slowed foot traffic in the open-air sex markets, early signs indicate that the crackdown has had the unintended effect of fueling international sex trafficking. Pimps simply go online or overseas -- mainly to Australia and the United States -- where demand is high and risk is low. They recruit in cities like Seoul and Busan, where most of the country's universities are located.

When You Mi was a little girl, her family -- like many others -- partly supported itself on the sex trade. For one year, her mother managed a room salon, where women in skirt suits pour drinks, sing karaoke, dance and, if asked, retreat to a private room to have sex with customers. Considered playpens for the wealthy, room salons attract businessmen who spend the equivalent of $1,000 for a few hours at a table, and seal their corporate deals with sexual entertainment instead of handshakes.

The room salon was off-limits to You Mi and her younger sister, although sometimes her mother would ask her to fetch dried squid and other snacks for the family business. Mostly You Mi spent her days at elementary school and her afternoons perfecting her skill at a Korean version of double-Dutch jump rope. She spent so much time jumping over two elastic ropes stretched by two of her girlfriends that she developed large calf muscles and the nickname "Drumstick." She dreamed of becoming a policewoman.

You Mi's family lived in one of the poorer neighborhoods of Busan. The family budget got even smaller when her mother's room salon went out of business, and all they had was her father's carpentry income. Her mother tried opening a restaurant, selling boiled eggs and sticky rice as a street vendor, and running a karaoke bar, but those ventures also failed. You Mi and her sister knew never to ask their parents for spending money because there never was any to spare. Money was tight for all the families in her neighborhood, so You Mi never felt deprived. But in 2001, when her family had to struggle to come up with nearly $6,000 to send her to a university closer to the city, she realized her family was poor. At college for the first time, she was surrounded by friends who came from the glittering beach high-rises. They knew things, like how to wear makeup, which bars poured the strongest soju -- the Korean version of vodka -- and which hairdressers had the longest waiting lists. And they had something You Mi had never seen before -- credit cards.

A friend explained to You Mi that she could buy things without cash. A magic card, You Mi thought. She had to have one. After school, You Mi took the bus to Seomyeon, a shopping district jammed with neon-covered multistory department stores and an enormous underground mall beneath eight lanes of traffic. A street vendor was eager to sign her up for a Samsung credit card. She filled out the application truthfully, except for the part about her home address. She knew her mother would not approve, so You Mi put down her friend's address instead. The vendor didn't explain debt accrual and interest rates to You Mi.

As she waited for her card to arrive, she began to fantasize about a future with buying power. She dreamed of changing from a caterpillar to a butterfly -- from an awkward girl in a school uniform to a glamorous sophisticate wrapped in fashionable clothes, jewelry and perfume. Getting a credit card would make her a woman. The clock wouldn't move fast enough. Finally, at 3 p.m., You Mi bolted out the university doors and headed for the subterranean shopping mall, her new credit card in her pocket. She and five friends from school descended a staircase from the sidewalk down to the mall. Hundreds of girls walking arm in arm crowded the halls, laughing, shopping and talking on cell phones. Store upon store, no larger than walk-in closets, offered a paradise targeted at You Mi's generation: metallic handbags, low-rise jeans, high-heeled boots, skin-care creams, digital cameras and American-style sneakers.

You Mi wasted no time. She bought a handbag, shoes and a new jacket. She went to a wall of ATM machines and pulled out a couple of hundred more so she could get her hair done at a salon. She felt grown up. She felt popular. When she invited her group of friends to dinner and drinks at a soju bar, they all said yes. By the day's end, she had spent the equivalent of $600. She felt a pang of worry about how she would pay the money back without a job. But a week later, the pang had subsided. It was Friday, and her friends wanted to go out again.
Soon, the Friday outings became a regular habit for You Mi and her companions. Her wealthy friends rarely offered to pay after the pork cutlets and kimchi were eaten, but You Mi relished her newfound generosity and didn't complain.

It was easy for her to get sucked into the shopping culture in Busan. Fashion is a major cultural preoccupation for South Koreans, who crowd the glittering neon shopping districts at night to window-shop and people-watch. Designer labels create the dividing lines among social classes, and women dress in fur, cashmere and heels just to run errands. Street beggars are nonexistent, and poverty is considered a mortal sin. Such intense pressure to acquire "American luxury goods" puts the average South Korean family in $30,000 credit card debt.
Once You Mi started wearing nicer clothes, she noticed people were more willing to be her friend.

She bought so much that she had to sneak her purchases into her room at night. When her mother questioned some of the new clothes, You Mi explained that her new college friends were letting her borrow them. She could keep her mother at bay, but not the Samsung credit card division. In South Korea, cardholders can be taken to court if they are 90 days late on a payment. It's not uncommon for credit card companies to enter homes and red-tag the possessions, even repossess the home itself.

After a year, in 2002, You Mi owed $10,000. Samsung cut her off. So You Mi called one of the dozens of moneylenders advertising quick cash in the free weekly newspapers, and he gave her $2,000 at 25 percent interest, plus $140 monthly fees. You Mi was stuck. She quit school to get a job selling tokens and drinks in Lucky 7, a gambling hall, so she could start making payments on the card. You Mi told her parents she was taking a year off to raise money for tuition. Her younger sister was starting college that year, and her parents couldn't afford to send both girls. They were proud of their eldest daughter for being so responsible. Although You Mi earned $650 a month during her year at Lucky 7, she was still spending. She turned to moneylenders five more times to get increments of $2,000 to finance shopping trips and nightclub outings with her friends. She knew her behavior was reckless, but she was addicted to money's power -- the attention it drew from friends and the feeling of generosity it gave her. With each passing day, she worried that Samsung would take her family's house.

Then You Mi took out a second credit card to pay off all the loans. She was too ashamed to tell her friends or family about her mounting debt. She wanted to fix it herself without burdening anyone. Two years after getting the original credit card, her combined debt hit $40,000. You Mi found an empty table at a downtown cafe and opened to the job pages of the free weekly newspapers. It was January 2003. Before her were hundreds of ads for sex workers: escorts, room salon girls, masseuses, exotic dancers and outcall services. Some offered jobs in America, Japan and Australia as "waitresses and models."

A year at the gambling hall had done little to erase her debt. High-paying jobs are limited for Korean women, and nearly nonexistent for young women without a college degree, like You Mi. The idea that college is a place for women to meet eligible husbands is still widely held in a country where it's rare to see a female politician, judge or professor. It's common knowledge that the sex trade employs many women in Korea, yet people rarely speak of it. By middle school, some girls are already financing their wardrobes by selling themselves over the Internet. So by fall 2002, You Mi began to wonder whether she was willing to do the unthinkable: sell her body. Like most girls in South Korea, You Mi knew not to answer the ads for "coffee delivery girls" who work in ticket tabangs, the dreariest and lowest-paying job in the sex industry. The ticket tabang, the poor-man's sex outlet in rural farmland areas, attracts teenage girls who are just starting in the sex business, and who can be bought for as little as $20 an hour.

She also didn't want to be a "juicy girl," forced to live and work in one of the many nightclubs that cater to the 36,000 American soldiers in South Korea. If the juicy girls don't persuade soldiers to buy them enough $20 drinks in a night, the club owner requires them to have sex with customers -- the equivalent of five drinks. You Mi looked over the ads for room salons. She knew that the first round inside a room salon, pouring drinks, is never enough. Women always have to go to the second round -- having sex -- if the customer asks for it. And the customer always does.

The longer You Mi searched, the more it became clear to her that she couldn't stomach the thought of having sex with strangers for money. After looking for a week, You Mi found on the Internet what appeared to be the perfect solution. "Work in an American room salon. Make $10,000 a month. Very gentle. No touching. No second round."

She was dubious. She had never heard of a sex-free room salon before, but maybe in the United States things were different. You Mi did the math. She could work for six months, pay off the credit card and moneylenders, and use the remaining $20,000 to fly back to Korea and re-enroll in college, maybe even get her own apartment. Easy. The man who answered the phone said he needed to meet her in person. At a coffee shop in Busan, the broker looked at her body and face and said she could have the job if she wanted it. He was short on details, but told her she would pour drinks for men in room salons in Koreatown in Los Angeles. "Is it gentle, no touching with customers like the ad says?" she asked. "Yes, this is an American room salon; it's different than the ones in Korea, there's no sex," he assured her.

You Mi wanted it to be true. She needed it to be true. She didn't have a visa or a passport. And she certainly didn't have the $7,000 fee the broker told her it would take to get her to Los Angeles through unofficial channels. "Don't worry about that," he said. "You can pay it back later from your earnings." You Mi was frightened about leaving home with underground travel brokers. Her mind, though, was consumed with her mounting debt. The next day, she called the broker and said yes. She told her younger sister she was going to America for work, but to keep it a secret from her parents, who would never grant her permission to work abroad. You Mi told her parents she was going to Seoul to be a golf caddy -- one of the few legal women's jobs that bring hefty tips from rich men. She planned to tell them the truth after she paid off her debts.

You Mi was instructed to take passport photos and give them to a man named Kevin in Seoul. The broker drove her to the city, and two days later, You Mi had her passport. A different broker took her to the airport in Incheon, where she joined another Korean woman, a room-salon worker on her third trip to America. The broker handed them tickets to Mexico City. "You told us we were going to America," protested You Mi, who did not know a stopover was part of the plan. The broker was exasperated. "Didn't the broker in Busan explain this to you? Why are you asking me all these questions?" You Mi felt something wasn't right, but the promise of financial freedom beckoned. She swallowed her worry and boarded the plane.

You Mi buckled her seat belt and turned to her flying companion. The older woman looked the other way and said nothing. The plane stopped in Japan, Los Angeles and finally Mexico City. It was February 2003. You Mi had been up for more than 24 hours, and everything seemed blurry. She had never been on a plane, she had never heard Spanish spoken, and she was starting to doubt her decision to come in the first place. At the airport, a Korean man was waiting for You Mi and her flying companion. He treated them to a meal, and gave them $500 each. You Mi didn't realize it, but that spending money would be added to the debt she owed her traffickers. Then he went to the ticket counter and asked in Spanish for two tickets to Tijuana. A second Korean man met the women at the Tijuana airport, drove them to a hotel on the border and checked them into the same room. He took their passports and told them to stay in the motel.

You Mi did as she was told. Four days later, the second Korean man returned to the motel and handed You Mi a visa with a photo of a woman who looked a lot like herself. "Memorize her name and information," he ordered. The man said they were going to be driven through the San Ysidro border checkpoint with the fake documents. Two drivers were ready -- one for You Mi, and one for the other woman. "It's dangerous," he warned, "so be careful, and don't shake or look nervous because you'll draw suspicion from the customs agents." He told You Mi to take only a few outfits from her suitcase and carry them in a smaller bag so it would appear that she was returning from a brief Mexican vacation.

You Mi was confused. She turned to her traveling companion and tried again to figure things out. "Why do we have to cross illegally if we have passports?" she asked, referring to the passport that traffickers in Seoul had created for her. The woman explained that Koreans need visas to get into the United States, but not into Mexico or Canada. Because it's difficult to obtain legitimate U.S. visas in Korea, it's easier to fly just outside the California border and sneak in. "You've come this far," the woman said. "Why don't you just cross?"

How the series was reported:
San Francisco Chronicle reporter Meredith May and photographer Deanne Fitzmaurice reported this story from South Korea, the U.S.-Mexican border, from Koreatown in Los Angeles and from San Francisco. The story was told by You Mi Kim to May through a Korean interpreter and is You Mi's version of events. The shadowy nature of the sex-trafficking industry made it difficult to locate traffickers and co-workers who were willing to go on the record to corroborate You Mi's story.

The Chronicle verified the locations of the apartments and brothels where You Mi said she worked. May and Fitzmaurice also went to her hometown in Busan, South Korea, and spent time in her neighborhood, at her university, the casino where she worked and in the shopping malls where she went into credit card debt. You Mi's attorney shared her knowledge of You Mi's case.

You Mi also recounted her story for the U.S. government, which granted her a special visa for trafficking victims, given only to those who can prove they were enslaved through "force, fraud or coercion." The government's decision was based on interviews with You Mi's attorney, and on You Mi's written story, which was translated into English by the same interpreter who worked with The Chronicle. You Mi's story was bolstered by May's interviews with more than 100 people over a 10-month period, including female sex-trafficking victims, current and former sex workers, men who pay for sexual services, federal sex-trafficking investigators, owners of sex establishments, U.S. Border Patrol agents, customs agents, U.S. and Korean government officials, university researchers, attorneys and numerous social workers who provide shelter, support and legal aid to trafficking victims.

May's reporting was supplemented by numerous court documents and research papers. She attended sex-trafficking conferences, sat through court hearings and attended a Bay Area police-training seminar on human trafficking. She went inside five alleged San Francisco brothels with Mayor Gavin Newsom and city health-and-safety inspection teams, and witnessed customers, brothel managers and sex workers answering police questions.

May met You Mi Kim in September 2005. Over the course of 10 months, May interviewed You Mi with the help of a professional interpreter provided by Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach in San Francisco. To research the sex culture and trafficking industry in South Korea, May interviewed Bong Hyup Chung, the government's top sex-trafficking official at the South Korean Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. May and Fitzmaurice met women in sex-worker shelters, and visited with more than a dozen agencies that offer sanctuary and social support to trafficked women. In South Korea, May interviewed two women who had been trafficked to California and one to Japan. She spoke with a woman from the former Soviet Union and several from the Philippines who were trafficked into South Korea. She also interviewed six South Korean women who had been forced into the sex trade within South Korea.

May and Fitzmaurice reported from the red-light districts of Seoul and Busan, where women are on display in glass rooms. There, they spoke with Korean military police on patrol, and "fishers," elderly women who beckon customers into the rooms. They interviewed U.S. soldiers in sex clubs near the demilitarized zone, and spoke with the "juicy girls" inside who are hired to entice men to buy them $20 drinks and pay for sex. May and Fitzmaurice visited businesses that secretly offer sex, including a male-only drinking club called a "room salon," a coffee shop with delivery service called a "ticket tabang," and a "PC bang," an adult-only computer center with private rooms where men have online sex or make arrangements to meet women in person. They spoke with the owners, workers and customers.

At the Korean Institute of Criminology, May tracked down reports depicting the size and scope of the South Korean sex trade and trafficking industry, which were translated with the help of an interpreter. Translators helped May peruse the want ads in Korean newspapers that are used by sex traffickers to lure women. Like most of the women May interviewed, You Mi was able to recall the exact wording of the newspaper ad that prompted her to seek employment in America. Conversations that You Mi had with traffickers and her traveling companion were based on You Mi's recollections.

In Korea, May interviewed attaches with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office, who investigate and help prosecute Korean sex-trafficking rings linked to the United States.

Adapted from: Meredith May, Deanne Fitzmaurice. "Part II: A YOUTHFUL MISTAKE." San Francisco Chronicle. 8 October 2006.

Part I

Part III

Part IV

Part III: San Francisco is Hub for Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 15:55:00 GMT

Young woman is put into debt bondage and life becomes an endless cycle of sex with strangers.

A small sedan pulled up to a run-down motel in Tijuana just before midnight, and a middle-aged Korean American woman behind the wheel ordered You Mi Kim into the backseat. It was time to "jump" over the border. Since arriving from South Korea four days earlier, You Mi had been holed up in the motel, waiting to slip into the United States and start what she had been told was a high-paying hostess job in California. She hoped to earn enough to get her out of the $40,000 shopping debt she had recently piled up while a university student. You Mi had not anticipated an illegal border crossing when she signed up for the job. Worse, she didn't know that she was a pawn in an international sex-trafficking ring -- and that someone was waiting in the United States to buy her.

You Mi got into the car. The driver headed north toward the checkpoint, blending into the 24 lanes of idling traffic inching toward the United States. Unbeknownst to You Mi, the driver was a "jockey," hired by South Korean sex traffickers to drive women through the busy San Ysidro checkpoint with fake travel documents. It was February 2003. By then, agents with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security were already on the lookout for Asian drivers, after recording an unusual spike in Koreans coming through border crossings in California, Texas and Washington state. It was another sign that Asian sex-trafficking networks were becoming increasingly global, branching out from the shadows of sex tourist hot spots in Bangkok and Seoul to install big operations in American cities, particularly Los Angeles and San Francisco. If You Mi were discovered, agents would handcuff her and take her to a holding cell beneath the road. They would take her fingerprints and deport her. About 300 feet from the yellow Border Patrol booths, You Mi felt eyes on her.

Roving agents with long screwdrivers, flashlights and guns approached the Korean women in the long line of travelers. You Mi tried to focus her gaze on vendors selling sombreros, guitars and frozen fruit-juice bars to passengers in the cars. The agents leaned through the window near You Mi. "I.D.! I.D.!" they demanded. She froze, forgetting the information on the fake visa given to her by sex traffickers masquerading as job brokers.
One agent ordered You Mi's driver to pull out of line for a more thorough search in the secondary inspection portico, near the deportation processing offices. You Mi watched in terror as agents ordered passengers out of the cars ahead of hers to search their luggage and travel papers. While waiting, You Mi's driver made a cell phone call to the trafficker who had delivered You Mi to the Tijuana motel. "Is she still carrying the visa?" he asked. "Yes, we have it," the driver said. "If possible, get out and run back toward Mexico. Is there someone watching you guys?" The driver hung up in a panic. She was cursing herself for accepting a job that she thought was easy money. By now, You Mi was crying with fear. You Mi's driver ignored the broker's advice. She turned on the ignition. Slowly, she pulled out of the secondary area and headed for the United States. She chose the only exit booth with a female guard, and drove through with nonchalance, as if she had been given clearance to go. Nobody stopped them. Ten minutes later, the driver pulled off the freeway to a gas station just inside the U.S. border, where a Korean man and a black car awaited.

You Mi had made it to the United States, yet she was anything but free. At the gas station, the driver took You Mi's fake visa back. "Good luck," she said, and sped off. The man at the gas station summoned You Mi to his car, and they headed for Koreatown in Los Angeles, to meet her future boss. But first, the driver told You Mi, he wanted to stop at a motel and have sex with her. All the lies and confusion of her journey thus far had You Mi primed for a fight, but she controlled her anger and came up with a strategy. She threatened to report him to the boss if he made any trouble. Her ploy worked. At 4 a.m., they arrived in Los Angeles, and the man called the boss. Awakened from sleep, he instructed them to go to a motel and call back in five hours. Although You Mi insisted on two hotel rooms, the driver reserved only one, promising not to touch her. He slept. She stayed awake, bracing for him to attack her. Finally, the boss called at 9 a.m. and said it was time to meet. On the way, You Mi got her first glimpse of Koreatown in daylight. There were no high-rises, no neon jungle, no fashion plates crowding the sidewalks. The short, squatty architecture reminded her of South Korea's most outdated neighborhoods. She saw broken-down cars in front yards, garbage in the gutters and homeless people passed out in doorways.

The room-salon sex bars common to South Korea were there, only tucked away behind barbershops and other stores, accessible only to those in the know. There were no glass windows with women on display, like those in You Mi's hometown of Busan. Rather, the women were advertised in the free Korean-language newspapers available on nearly every corner in Koreatown. Koreatown's sex industry pulsed just as strongly as Busan's, but you couldn't see it from the street. Most of the women in Los Angeles worked in something called an Asian apartment massage parlor, a scaled-down, secretive version of a brothel, where a trafficker operates a massage parlor out of an apartment with one or two masseuses.

At a coffee shop, You Mi looked at her new boss -- round face, round stomach and pudgy fingers stuffed into gold rings. He said she owed him $11,000 for her journey -- $4,000 more than she agreed to in South Korea. You Mi was tired, beaten down. But she figured that she would be making money pretty fast, so $4,000 more wouldn't be too much of a burden. She agreed. The boss brought her to an apartment in a cream-colored building with palm trees out front. He told her that she would be sharing an apartment with women who worked for his wife's underground company, Jenny Outcall, which sent women in unlicensed Korean taxis to meet with men who called for sex. He assured her that her hostessing job would be different. Even though You Mi had to share a bedroom with two other women, the apartment seemed enormous compared with her family home in South Korea. She had never seen a home with two bathrooms, and was awed by the view of the hills from the balcony. Finally, she was a woman on her own in the big city. Although she'd had some bad experiences on her trip, she felt she had gotten through the worst of it and was finally going to begin correcting the mistakes of her youth.

She changed into a skirt suit to get ready for job interviews. She used makeup to try to cover her acne, which had broken out from the stress of the trip and her money troubles. Her boss drove her to meet several room salon owners, but they all turned her down, saying she was too awkward, too nervous, too pimply. The boss sent You Mi to a dermatologist, and added the $500 worth of acne creams to her debt. After four days, he let down the hammer, telling You Mi she wasn't going to find a job in a room salon with her acne and her naivete. He offered her a job in his wife's outcall service, and warned You Mi that she was getting into serious debt trouble and needed to figure something out fast. You Mi felt queasy. The thought of outcall work terrified her. In South Korea, she had had only a few clumsy sexual experiences with boyfriends, so she didn't know what the men would want her to do. After weeks of ignoring the warning signs, after hoping against hope that the job she signed up for was nonsexual, You Mi was forced to accept the truth. She sobbed.

Her credit card debt was $40,000 and her trafficking debt was $12,000, and she had no money to get back to Korea. She didn't want to burden her family for a bailout. She didn't even know where she was in California, or who could help her. An outcall worker sharing the same apartment with You Mi, a 28-year-old married woman on her third trip to the United States for sex work, held You Mi to comfort her. "Why are you here?" she asked, confused by You Mi's turmoil. You Mi explained she thought she'd be pouring drinks as a hostess in a Korean room salon, making lots of money. "What if I don't pay my debt?" You Mi asked. "If you go back, they will try to find you. ... Things may not get better for you," the woman warned. "I make $15,000 in a month -- so you will be here for only three or four months and you can get out. Think only of that."

You Mi couldn't bring herself to knock on the door of the Koreatown hotel room. She stood there, in a pantsuit she borrowed from her roommate. She walked back to the elevator. But she couldn't press the call button, either. Where would she run? How would she repay the criminals, the credit card company? How could she face her family if the house got taken away? You Mi retraced her steps. She took a deep breath and knocked. A Korean businessman in his 40s with a forgettable face opened the door. He was wearing a towel. "Bop mu gut ni?" he said, using the common Korean greeting, "Have you eaten rice yet?" Trying to stall him, You Mi said she needed to take a shower. Under the water, she started to tremble. She stayed in the bathroom for 10 minutes, cutting into the hour he had purchased. Fearing her dawdling would raise his ire, she finally emerged in a towel, and sat on the bed. He noticed she was shaking. "How long have you been working?" he asked. You Mi told him the truth, hoping he would take pity on her and let her go. He listened intently, then gave a four-word answer:
"Don't worry, I'll lead." You Mi stared at a spot on the ceiling and tried not to move -- or think. It was over in five minutes.

Afterward, he said it wasn't very good, but it had a naive quality he enjoyed. He gave her two $100 bills and told her she could leave early. An underground taxi driver who worked for the outcall service fetched You Mi just before 10 p.m. and took the $200. Half would go to her boss to pay off her trafficking debt, and the other half went to the outcall service. You Mi kept nothing.

Less than two hours later, the "silver taxi" brought her to the next call, a rundown hotel in Koreatown. When she entered her customer's room, he was snorting lines of cocaine on a bedside table. He wanted her to get high with him but You Mi refused. She had never used drugs and didn't have any interest in them. He became so insistent that it frightened You Mi, and she called the boss' wife and asked what she should do. She instructed You Mi to ask the man whether he'd like a different girl sent to his room. "No, it doesn't matter," he said, "I'm just going to call for a second one after you leave anyway." You Mi ended the call, and within minutes he was having his way with her. He was so high, that after 80 minutes, he still hadn't reached orgasm. You Mi was in pain, and pleaded with him to tell her what else she could do to get him to climax. But he ignored her cries.

The savior was her cell phone. The boss' wife called to ask what was taking so long. She relieved You Mi and told the man she'd send a second girl. You Mi rode back to her apartment in another silver taxi. It didn't matter to her "owners" that she was traumatized and sore -- three hours later she was sent out again. It took the taxi an hour to get to a home somewhere in the Los Angeles foothills. When You Mi arrived at 3 a.m., there were four men and three women from another outcall service in the home, sharing cocaine and flirting. Two men were Korean American and spoke English, and two were from South Korea and spoke only Korean. Their intention was to have group sex -- something You Mi had never imagined. They paired up and began to kiss and undress. You Mi whispered to the man with her, asking whether it would be OK if they went into a private room. He, too, was uncomfortable and agreed.

You Mi was delivered home by a taxi at 7 a.m. Back in the apartment, You Mi learned from her roommate that group sex and drugs were common in outcall work. The woman had a few survival tips: "Never use drugs with a customer. Follow the one-hour rule. Always use a condom. In group sex situations, close your eyes."

Over the next two months, You Mi watched a flow of women come and go through the apartment, paying off their trafficking fees in a matter of weeks. But You Mi couldn't get out. She didn't realize that the way outcall girls pay off their debts quickly is by developing a list of regulars. By flirting, by specializing in various sexual techniques. Customers said You Mi made them feel uncomfortable. She wouldn't smile. She insisted on using the most formal of the three Korean syntaxes when addressing men, not the casual kind reserved for friends and lovers. She was stiff, detached. You Mi didn't know what to do. She called her sister, borrowing a call girl's cell phone. The news wasn't much better back home. Samsung had sent a letter to You Mi's parents, threatening to repossess the house. You Mi's mother had taken out a bank loan to pay off the credit card, but the moneylenders were still calling, demanding tens of thousands. "You'd better not come home for a while," You Mi's sister said. "Mother is incredibly angry with you. She told the moneylenders you are dead." By April 2003, You Mi still owed $6,000 to the traffickers. They were getting impatient, too.

So her boss sold her. Another broker in Koreatown bought her for $7,200 -- the amount of her trafficking debt plus interest. The sale added $1,200 to her trafficking debt, and she hadn't even begun to address her $40,000 shopping debt from Korea. You Mi's new owner drove her to San Francisco, explaining there was a massage parlor near the North Beach strip clubs that accepted only Asian girls with trafficking debts. His plan was to sell You Mi to the madam for more than $7,200. You Mi would then owe her trafficking debt to the massage parlor. The broker told You Mi that massage work would be good for her because the turnover was faster and she'd pay off her debt sooner than if she stayed in outcall. The broker made his way toward the flashing peep-show marquees of Broadway, and pulled over by an adult video store. He led You Mi next door to a tiny white awning with two surveillance cameras, and pressed the buzzer on a metal security door leading to a two-story staircase.

You Mi was wary. Once inside, she was horrified. She saw the red lights, women in heavy makeup and lingerie, and immediately thought of the glass house districts of Busan and Seoul. "Don't leave me here," she begged the broker. The owner of the massage parlor asked You Mi whether she had ever worked in such a place before. You Mi, head down, shook her head no. The owner asked the broker to step into the hallway, and told him she didn't want You Mi. She was too immature and wouldn't be a good investment. The broker was furious. He drove You Mi back to Los Angeles, hardly speaking the whole trip. The next day, he handed her off to a third broker, a friend in the sex-trafficking ring who owed him a favor. The third broker, also Korean, said his name was Tony. He drove her to a residential house in Inglewood, a brothel without any signs out front. Its lobby was decorated as an aromatherapy center. Tony handed her a neon-orange tube top that covered only her breasts and a matching micro-mini skirt, and sped away. The owner of the brothel led her inside.

You Mi's mind raced through what was becoming a familiar cycle of panic: What should I do? Should I just sit down and refuse to work? Should I run? How would I run? Where would I run? If I escape, what about my debt? Do traffickers really find women in South Korea and kill them? The brothel had five rooms, each with a bed and a shower. There was a separate, larger shower where women bathed customers. The owner showed You Mi the kitchen at the end of the hall, and the empty milk carton in the fridge where she was told to hide the used condoms. "Each customer gets 30 minutes," the owner said. A second woman scheduled to work that day had called in sick, and men were already lining up in the lobby. The two-minute tour was over. "You're on your own," the owner said.

You Mi entered one of the brothel's private rooms. On a mattress, a white man in his 70s was lying on his back, wearing nothing but latex gloves. It made her think of a surgeon, and You Mi was afraid that he might have a sharp tool with him. She frantically waved her hands and shook her head, saying, "No English, no English." She saw him smirk and thought that her inability to understand him pleased him even more. He spoke to her in soothing tones, indicating he wanted her to lie down on her back. You Mi felt him examining her with his fingers like a gynecologist. But nothing about his curiosity had to do with her pleasure. His probing turned rough, increasing to an intensity that brought her incredible pain.

As she pleaded for him to stop, she sensed that he was becoming more excited. Finally, he reached orgasm and removed his fingers. You Mi had five minutes to wash up at a kitchen sink before returning to the lobby for the next customer. Her body ached. The men brought pornographic magazines to show You Mi what they wanted her to do. One wanted her to urinate in his mouth. Another wanted to ejaculate on her face. They wanted her to bend in yogalike sexual positions.

Each time she refused, even though she knew she was saying goodbye to a $40-$50 tip and prolonging her life as a sex slave. But in the war between her dignity and her freedom, her refusals were sometimes the only way she could exercise power over her own life. By the time her 12-hour shift ended on that April day, she had had sex with 14 men. She earned $800. She brought it to a nearby coffee shop, where Tony and her two prior owners were sharing some laughs at a table. Tony took the money, then asked her to describe her first day. "Painful -- literally," was all she said.

A man with a boyish face took off his clothes, then placed a $100 bill on the bedside table. It was May 2003, and You Mi had been working for a month in various Inglewood massage parlors. When You Mi came in the room, she spotted the money and looked away. One of the cardinal rules in a sex parlor is to never initiate a conversation about money, especially with a new customer who could be a cop. "How much for a full service massage?" he asked. She went through her list of safety checks: He wasn't muscular, he seemed nervous and he wasn't wearing underwear -- three signs he was probably a civilian. In fact, it looked like he could still be in high school. You Mi didn't answer him verbally. She held up two hands. "100?" he asked. You Mi nodded. As she was taking her skirt down, the man hopped off the bed and put his clothes back on. He called for backup on his hidden radio. Back in the lobby, a group of police officers rushed in.

"Don't say anything!" the owner whispered in Korean as the officers led You Mi to the kitchen for a private chat.
They wanted to know where the condoms were discarded. They told her they'd let her go if she confessed. She said she didn't know. Her dependence on the traffickers was too strong. In her mind, the brothel owner was helping her get out of her financial situation. If she got tangled in the American legal system, there'd be nobody to help her. On the side of the traffickers, she saw a light at the end of the tunnel. On the other, she saw a big question mark.

Her silence bought her a trip to the Van Nuys community police station, one of the few Los Angeles Police Department stations with a female-only holding cell. It was You Mi's first time in a police station. A Korean officer approached her and asked in Korean how she came into the country. Mistaking him for a social worker, You Mi saw an opportunity for help. She told him everything, from answering an ad for a hostess to her ordeal in Mexico and her sexual slavery in Los Angeles. She told him she didn't have any immigration papers or documents and had come to the country illegally. The police didn't have the surveillance resources to deal with sex trafficking networks -- that was a job for the feds -- but they could have referred You Mi to a hot line. A major help center for trafficking victims, the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking, was just 15 miles away. Instead, the only thing You Mi got was a charge against her for prostitution.

Tony, her trafficker, came to the station and paid You Mi's $1,000 bail, and added it to her debt. He brought her back to the apartment he provided her in Koreatown, and simply sent her to work in a different massage parlor the next morning. After she pleaded no contest, a Los Angeles Municipal Court judge ordered her to pay a $1,000 fine, attend an AIDS class and complete 180 hours of community service cleaning bathrooms and doing light typing. The judge told her to "stay away from all massage and aromatherapy businesses or any business requiring a female employee to be alone with male customers."

She would ultimately be saddled with $10,000 in legal fees, after one attorney deserted her and she had to hire a second. You Mi thought again about trying to escape, but the women sharing Tony's apartment with her warned that the organized crime rings in South Korea would know how to find her parents' house. She kept working.

In July, five months after You Mi arrived in California, Tony came by the apartment and told her that her debt was down to $500 -- an amount she settled in a day. But You Mi felt no relief. She had simply exchanged slave masters -- she still owed the moneylenders back home in South Korea. Tony said she was free to go, but offered her continued employment as a free agent in his operation in exchange for a small cut of her earnings.
You Mi turned to the other women in the apartment for advice. Although it had taken her five months to pay back $19,000 in travel debt, rent and bail money to her traffickers, the women promised that she could pay back $40,000 by working the same length of time in San Francisco. Plus, she still had $10,000 in legal fees to pay off.

Most of You Mi's girlfriends who worked independently in the sex industry lived in Koreatown, but worked in San Francisco because the pay was double the Los Angeles standard. Men were expected to pay from $100 to $150 for sex in San Francisco massage parlors, compared with $45 to $75 in Los Angeles. Moreover, the women could sleep in apartments above the brothels in San Francisco for a few days at a time, then return to Los Angeles during the rest of the week without anybody knowing they were sex workers. While Koreatown had dozens of Asian massage parlors, San Francisco was the mecca. The city has 150 licensed massage parlors. Many of them are among the 90 in San Francisco that offer sex with Asian women, according to Web sites where customers rank the parlors and the women inside. You Mi's girlfriends offered to introduce her to some of the massage parlor owners up north. You Mi had already had one bad experience in San Francisco, but she feared for her parents' safety in South Korea. She turned down Tony's job offer in Los Angeles. "I need to go to San Francisco," You Mi told him. Tony called an underground taxi for her.

Adapted from: Meredith May. "Part III: DIARY OF A SEX SLAVE: THIRD OF A FOUR-PART SPECIAL REPORT." San Francisco Chronicle. 9 October 2006.

Part I

Part II

Part IV

Part IV: San Francisco is Hub for Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 15:58:00 GMT

Young Woman finds way out of sex slavery, and pays a very high price.

Navigating past the junkies and hustlers in San Francisco's Tenderloin district, You Mi Kim found the metal security door she was looking for, and pressed the buzzer. Inside Sun Spa massage parlor, the manager saw You Mi on the surveillance camera and threw some sea salt over the threshold -- a Korean practice to ward off bad luck. It was July 2003. It had been five months since You Mi was lured from her home in South Korea by international sex traffickers, who had tricked the debt-ridden college student with promises of a high-paying hostess job in America. After forcing her into sex work to pay them nearly $20,000, the traffickers had finally let her go. But freedom was elusive. Traffickers had taken all her earnings, yet she still faced a $40,000 shopping debt back home -- the reason she left for an American job that promised big pay. Now, no fewer than six creditors were circling her family in South Korea. Any kind of job she could get as an illegal immigrant -- cleaning homes or washing dishes in a restaurant -- wouldn't pay her debts in time. She wanted to protect her family from the shame of bankruptcy. She wanted her life back. You Mi felt she had no choice.

On her first day of freedom, she took an unlicensed Korean taxi from Los Angeles to another illicit massage parlor in San Francisco. The door of the Sun Spa opened. The manager, a Korean woman in her 50s, led You Mi inside and quickly handed her off to the masseuse with the most seniority. For the next four months, You Mi would become a person she never imagined. She and five other sex workers would share a dingy apartment on O'Farrell Street across from the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre. She'd spend her waking hours at Sun Spa, having sex with more than a dozen men a day, six days a week, and scurrying into secret hideaways during police raids.

She would find the rumors about San Francisco to be true: It was a booming stop on the international sex-trafficking route. There was lots of money to be made. Customers plentiful, tips great. But first, she would have to surrender her last shred of dignity. The first stop on the Sun Spa tour was the five rooms on the bottom floor, used for the regulars. They were tiny, less than 50 square feet and bare except for a cot with one white sheet, a shower and a small painted nightstand in one corner. A mirror covered most of the wall near the bed. A fluorescent ceiling light cast a pallid green glow over the room.

Upstairs, You Mi saw four rooms decorated to look like legitimate Chinese acupressure and massage rooms. They were cleaner, with massage tables instead of beds. The condoms were hidden. "This is where we bring the new customers," You Mi's guide explained. Next was the kitchen. The woman showed You Mi an empty water cooler bottle where she was to dispose of the used condoms. Off the kitchen there was a changing room with lockers. You Mi put on a long, sleeveless Korean dress that sex traffickers had made her wear in Los Angeles. "That's not sexy enough," her new co-worker said, instructing her to put on a bikini top and a sarong slit all the way to the waistband. The last stop on the tour was the bell, in a back room off the kitchen, used to summon the women when customers arrived. Within earshot, You Mi saw a half-dozen Korean women lounging, watching TV and eating. Suddenly, a loud ring cut through the noise of the TV. The women dropped their chopsticks and hustled out to the lobby, arranging themselves on an L-shaped sofa so the customer could make his choice. You Mi followed the pack. She sat on the sofa, feeling like a dog that had responded to its master's whistle.

What You Mi knew of San Francisco was limited to the two blocks between Sun Spa and the cramped studio apartment she shared with her co-workers. It was in the heart of the Tenderloin, the end of the line for San Francisco's most desperate: the addicted looking for a street-corner fix, the homeless looking for a cheap motel, the men looking to buy sex. It's here where the bulk of San Francisco's 90 illicit massage parlors are concentrated, identifiable by double metal security doors, surveillance cameras and windows that are blocked out with aluminum foil, plastic garbage bags or paint. To You Mi, the area seemed grittier and scarier than the open-air sex markets in her South Korean hometown of Busan. You Mi worked until 1 a.m. each morning, and after eating a last meal at Sun Spa, walked back to the studio apartment, ignoring the "Hey, babys" and drug offers that came out of the dark. Inside the apartment, she'd find space on one of the floor mattresses and crash until about 10 a.m., with just a few minutes to spare until she was due back at the massage parlor. On her one day off a week, she slept.

At first, You Mi was not making much money. Her constant frown made it obvious she didn't like the work. None of the men chose her from the couch on her first few days of work. The money she earned in tips was also getting eaten away by little fees and costs structured into You Mi's working arrangement. Her share of the rent on her apartment was $300 per week. You Mi would also have to pay $50 a day for food, a $40 weekly tip to the cook, plus a $70 weekly tip to the Sun Spa manager. Sun Spa gave her a cell phone so her bosses and customers could reach her, and You Mi was responsible for the bill. She even had to pay for her wardrobe. Each week, an elderly South Korean woman came by Sun Spa with imported sex-worker clothes in the back of her trunk -- the kind worn by prostitutes in South Korea. The woman charged $100 per bikini top or bottom. You Mi spent $300 for an off-white wraparound skirt no bigger than an unfolded napkin, and a yellow and blue cheerleader-style skirt with matching halter top. The top had a logo, the word PORN spelled backward. She had no idea what the English word meant. Given all the incidental costs, sometimes You Mi walked home with as little as $100.

As the new girl, You Mi got most of the new customers. This was bad for two reasons: Newcomers sometimes didn't understand they had to tip at least $100 for sex. It also was risky, because an unfamiliar visitor could be an undercover cop. After several weeks on the job, You Mi heard an unfamiliar buzzer inside Sun Spa. It was the signal that police had made their way inside the massage parlor. You Mi followed the women running to the kitchen with boxes of condoms in their arms. They made their way to a secret door near the refrigerator and slipped into a dank basement of the adjoining apartment building, filled with bags of rotting garbage and broken furniture. They ran barefoot in their lingerie, dodging puddles and broken glass, and ducked into a musty alcove with a rusted boiler and a water heater. You Mi squeezed in with the pack behind a huge metal fan, and trembled in the sticky heat. She knew what kind of trouble could come from getting arrested for prostitution. When it happened to her in Los Angeles, she wound up in a jail cell and had to be rescued by her trafficker. She remembered telling her story inside the police station to a Korean-speaking officer, who made no effort to help her.

You Mi listened to the police officers searching Sun Spa, as she crouched in the ventilation room. Her feet were bleeding. Finally, the manager came to the hiding spot. "It's safe. Come back and get to work," she said. You Mi finally summoned the courage to call to her mother for the first time since she'd landed in California. Her mother was furious. By now she had figured out that You Mi was in the United States. You Mi suspected her sister couldn't keep the secret. "I'm so sorry about all the trouble I put you through," You Mi said. Her mother had been able to pay the Samsung credit card with a $10,000 bank loan. But You Mi still owed about $30,000 to the moneylenders, and now her mother was frightened the family might lose the house. "I've failed as a parent," she cried into the phone. "Come home." "Mama, don't worry, the U.S. is a rich country, and I can pay the debts working here," You Mi said.

There was silence on the other end of the line. Finally, her mother asked You Mi what kind of work she was doing. You Mi paused. "I have two jobs. I work in a restaurant in the day and a bar at night. I'm only getting five or six hours of sleep, but I'm making good money," she said. You Mi's mother didn't know very much about the United States, yet You Mi wasn't sure her mother had been fooled. Her mother didn't ask any more questions. You Mi didn't offer any more details. After You Mi said goodbye, she thought about her situation and got angry. She made up her mind to work as hard and fast as possible, even during her period, just so she could get out. After hearing her mother's voice, You Mi became an actress. She smiled at every customer from the couch, hoping to be chosen. She learned a little more English: "How is your wife, how old is your son, what did you do today?" to feign interest so the man would become a regular.

Gone was the sullen young woman who kept her eyes down and spoke only when spoken to. She told jokes. She flirted. She turned her brain off. You Mi asked for massage technique tips from the other women and learned how to give such good rubdowns that most of the customer's allotted 45 minutes would slip by before he would realize it and demand sexual attention. For the first time, she had repeat clients. They were divorcees, single men unlucky in love, married men having trouble with their wives, and men who simply preferred to pay for sex. They paid $50 to get past the front desk, and then tips ranging from $100 to $300, depending on whether they wanted to be stimulated manually, orally or through intercourse. Their requests sometimes struck her as perverted. Every once in a while, they were violent. Once, You Mi was saved only by her screams, when the manager interrupted a customer trying to choke her to death. The attacker was refunded his $50 and sent on his way, and You Mi was ordered to get back to work.

You Mi was thankful to the johns who were kind. Her most devoted visitor was an unmarried inventor in his 40s, an immigrant from India. He came every weekday night -- so often the manager gave him every fifth night on the house. You Mi pretended to enjoy the iced coffee he always brought in a thermos. She acted enthusiastic about his promises to patent a portable shower for surfers, and to use the riches to make her his pampered Presidio Heights wife. Soon You Mi was making money faster than she ever had in Los Angeles. The tips were much greater in San Francisco. In a month, she sent $10,000 home. You Mi charmed each man into thinking he was her favorite. Many considered themselves her boyfriend. They all wanted her cell-phone number. "Hey, You Mi, come check your score," said one of her massage parlor co-workers, beckoning her over to a computer screen. They were in the co-worker's apartment one evening in September. Like many of the women You Mi worked with, the friend was "independent," meaning she had paid off her trafficking debt and contracted out her sexual service, keeping most of the money for herself so she could afford things, like her own apartment and computer.

You Mi looked over her friend's shoulder and saw a Bay Area Web site -- myredbook.com -- dedicated to reviewing and ranking sex workers on a 1-to-10 scale. At Sun Spa, You Mi eventually learned that the Internet was a major player in San Francisco's sexual underground. The Bay Area's tech culture was good for the sex-trafficking industry, providing a fast, anonymous way for first-time customers to comparison shop before venturing out into a sex parlor. Sex workers relied on the Internet, too, to generate customers and develop a following. A good review could bring in more money; a bad one could put a girl out of business. You Mi couldn't believe it when she heard that some girls had sunk so low that they were even giving men free sex in exchange for good reviews. But to survive, You Mi had to learn the sexual code used on the Web site. Male bloggers, calling themselves "hobbyists," with handles such as "inthenameofsnatch," rated female "providers." One score for her body and one for her sexual technique. Each woman was described by her ethnicity, age, eye and hair color, height, build, tattoos and piercings. Even a woman's breasts ("34B, perky, implants") and "kitty" (shaved, trimmed or natural) were critiqued.

Used by sex customers and monitored by law enforcement since 1997, the site has more than 50,000 reviews of Northern California escorts and masseuses. The chat rooms are full of sexual braggadocio among men, and conversations about how to keep their "hobby" a secret from their wives. Some typical postings: "Adequate if you're horny." "With a little seasoning she'll be an all-star." "She took one for the team in five different positions."

A few clicks could pull up a list of 90 San Francisco massage parlors and descriptions of the kind of sex that can be had inside each. Maps are provided. Most of the city's illicit massage parlors are clustered in the Tenderloin and Chinatown, with a scattering in the Richmond District, Union Square, the Marina, the South of Market area and North Beach. Thirty-seven of the sex parlors described on myredbook.com are licensed as massage establishments through the San Francisco Department of Public Health. You Mi clicked on her brothel name, "Nana," and saw she had been ranked a 7 out of 10. She had only a few postings, describing her as cute, friendly and having a nice smile. As embarrassing as it was to have her body analyzed in a chat room, her overriding emotion was relief. A good review meant she could get out of the sex trade faster. Her body ached and her faith in humanity was gone. She was only 23, but she felt like an old woman. The backroom bell rang. The Sun Spa women hustled to line up on the couch for a customer who had just walked in from the October night. Moments before, the women had been laughing about who had the ugliest regular customer. You Mi was still suppressing a giggle when she sat on the couch.

The 28-year-old man, who had weaved in from a nearby bar where he was drinking away a bad breakup, thought her smile looked more genuine than the others. He pointed at You Mi. In private, the man's eyes softened. He was the first customer You Mi ever had who didn't grab at her. His touch was gentle, respectful. When he asked for her phone number, she gave it. He called, and asked whether he could take her to an Italian dinner in North Beach. Although it was against house rules to date a customer, North Beach was far away and You Mi picked a night she was the only woman off the schedule to minimize the risk of getting caught. At the restaurant, she pecked at the mussels on her spaghetti. She had never had Italian food, and thought he had said Thai food when he invited her out. But their conversation made up for what was lacking in the meal. Using an electronic Korean-English dictionary and the rudimentary phrases she had learned in Korean schools, she was able to talk with him about their families, their lives and what brought them to San Francisco. You Mi wasn't ready to tell him everything, but she knew she would someday. Another night they went to sing karaoke at Do Re Mi in Japantown. This time, You Mi skipped the makeup and the sexy clothes. He looked at her in her sweatshirt and baggy jeans, and thought she was simply beautiful. He asked her that night to leave Sun Spa.

In November, four months after her first day at Sun Spa, You Mi had enough money to pay off the credit card debt. She gave $30,000 -- plus a $1,200 fee -- to a Sun Spa manager who drove to Los Angeles every two weeks with bags of cash. Once in Koreatown, the Sun Spa manager gave the money to an underground Korean money changer, who called his people in South Korea and told them to deliver the cash to You Mi's mother. All the women working at Sun Spa sent money home this way. Within the sex-trafficking ring, the rule of thumb was to trust no one, but there were a few unbreakable codes of conduct. Trusting a stranger to send tens of thousands to your family in South Korea without stealing it was one of them. The day You Mi left Sun Spa, she had just her passport, some money and some clothes. The other women in the brothel assumed she was getting married -- the main reason most women left sex work.

The manager gave her $1,000 on her way out the door. While it could have been interpreted as a fleeting moment of kindness, You Mi knew better. Most girls don't make it on the outside and come back, to work as a masseuse or as a recruiter in their hometowns for the trafficking ring. It's a smart business strategy to leave on good terms. You Mi directed the taxi to drop her off at the home of the one person who had shown her some kindness during her ordeal -- the boyfriend she had secretly been meeting for dates outside Sun Spa. For the first time, she got to see what California looked like on the outside. He took her to the Golden Gate Bridge and Baker Beach, and bought her first pair of hiking shoes after she broke a heel on one of their nature walks.

You Mi couldn't believe she had been living amid such a breathtaking landscape for months, yet had never seen it. She had forgotten that beauty even existed. In South Korea, You Mi's mother went to court with the money, to settle with all the collection agencies. Then she called her daughter. "It's over," she said. You Mi wanted to believe her mother, but her heart wasn't in it. She now knew the cold truth -- that her life would never be simple again.

Epilogue
Inside a Korean restaurant in San Francisco, You Mi ran between the kitchen and the tables with little white bowls of appetizers. Korean dinner always starts with numerous small plates: kimchi, fish cake, daikon radish, black beans, anchovies, sesame-soaked cucumber and acorn jelly. It's sweaty apron work for minimum wage. With the Korean custom of not tipping, she was lucky to take home $30 a night from the customers.

But she was free. It was June 2006. It had been a little over two years since she stepped out of Sun Spa for the last time. Not long after You Mi quit sex work, two Korean women escaped from a brothel near the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and went to the police. Soon afterward, the people who trafficked You Mi into California fell under federal surveillance, and by summer 2005, they were in handcuffs. The men who arranged You Mi's trip from Korea, her brokers in Los Angeles, and the madams and taxi drivers who controlled her movements were among those named in Operation Gilded Cage, a federal indictment of 45 Koreans in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Although two dozen masseuses agreed to testify in San Francisco, none of the 29 people charged in connection with Korean sex trafficking in the Bay Area has gone to trial. Ten have pleaded guilty to lesser alien-harboring or money-laundering charges, and most of them were sentenced to less than a year in custody and fined less than $5,000. The woman who operated Suk Hee, where You Mi refused to work in North Beach, was ordered to forfeit $1.2 million.

The two suspected San Francisco ringleaders -- the only two charged with sex trafficking -- are still awaiting trial. News of Operation Gilded Cage spread quickly through the Korean community. You Mi learned that some of the women taken from the massage parlors might qualify for a T-1 visa for trafficking victims, allowing them to stay in the country for three years and then apply for a green card. Only those who could prove they were enslaved by "force, fraud or coercion" would receive the special visa. Congress created the T-1 visa in 2000 as part of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, along with 20-year prison terms for sex traffickers. Prosecutors have used the law to send 109 sex traffickers to prison nationwide -- compared with just 20 in the five years before the law.

On the victim side of the equation, only 1,000 T-1 visas have been issued, although 5,000 are available each year, in large part because victims must testify against their captors in exchange for the visa. You Mi wants to imprison the people who imprisoned her. She offered to testify for the government, but prosecutors turned her down because she was not part of the Operation Gilded Cage crackdown. Ivy Lee, an attorney specializing in human trafficking at Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach in San Francisco, helped You Mi apply for the T-1 visa. After a five-month investigation, the government concluded that You Mi was a sex-trafficking victim and granted her the visa on July 25. You Mi is ready for her new life in California. She has fallen in love with the landscape and the relaxed attitude about gender roles. It amazes her to see women running companies or running errands in ponytails and sweats.

And she has fallen in love. The relationship between You Mi and her boyfriend lasted outside the artificial environment of the massage parlor. (Her boyfriend asked to remain anonymous in this story so they can maintain a private life together.) But she never truly can escape her past. She keeps her head down when serving food at the restaurant, in case someone at the table is a former customer who would recognize her.
It's been hard for her to start over, to make new friends. She doesn't like to say much because even the most innocent questions about where she came from force her to change the subject.

Sex work has left her with lingering health problems. A gynecologist told her that she is at high risk for cervical cancer. And she knows the Korean criminal syndicate could easily find her. You Mi got a terrible scare earlier this year, when a moneylender in South Korea sent her a threatening e-mail, claiming that she still owed him $7,000 and that she'd better wire it immediately to a certain account. Whoever sent the note discovered her American e-mail address through her home page on Cyworld, the Korean equivalent of myspace.com.
You Mi wrote back, telling the sender that she would keep his threatening e-mail with her attorney. She hasn't heard from him since.

She goes out of her way to avoid certain streets in San Francisco where the trafficking networks operate.
Today, seven of the 10 alleged San Francisco brothels raided in Operation Gilded Cage are still open for business, including Sun Spa. Despite increased federal and local attention, sex trafficking still thrives in the Bay Area. Sex traffickers stay one step ahead of law enforcement by becoming more clandestine, taking their operations to suburban homes and apartments. Madams are accepting new customers only with referrals from regulars. "These sex traffickers are totally brazen," said Chuck DeMore, head of investigations for the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in San Francisco. "We arrest them, they stop for a few weeks and start up again. They have hundreds more waiting to take their place."
During the past two years, suspicious neighbors in Livermore, Concord, San Mateo and Santa Clara have tipped police to underground Asian brothels in their neighborhoods. The explosion of sex trafficking in California led lawmakers this year to make the state one of the few with its own human-trafficking law. So far, no one has been prosecuted under the new California law.

For You Mi, her time as a sex slave has left a permanent bruise on her soul. A year of her life was taken away. Her innocence is gone. Her trust obliterated. Tension is woven into her personality. You Mi misses her family. She misses her life before it went so wrong. The T-1 visa has given her a sense of justice, but she wants men to know what really goes on inside a massage parlor. "Most customers come into a massage parlor thinking nothing is wrong; that it's a job we choose," she said. "It doesn't occur to them that we are slaves."

Adapted from: Meredith May. "Part IV: DIARY OF A SEX SLAVE." San Francisco Chronicle. 10 October 2006

Part I

Part II

Part III

US Backs Deal on Anti-trafficking in Philippines' Ports

Sun, 05 Nov 2006 16:51:00 GMT

In a move to formalize the Republic of the Philippines-United States' stance on the Anti-Trafficking in Person (TIP) drive, the US granted US $250,000 to the Philippine Ports Authority-Ports Management Office (PPA-PMO) in Davao recently to intensify the anti-trafficking campaign nationwide.

Ambassador to the Philippines Kristie Kenney said, “It is really a model for all of us -– the kind of cooperation and collaboration we can have to protect our citizens. Trafficking in person is a global problem; it preys on our weakest citizens and people who do not know better.”

On the other hand, PPA assistant General Manager for Finance and Administration Aida Dizon said, “We laud the US Department of State and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) for the strong support in the advocacy against TIP.”

The said grant was handed to Visayan Forum Foundation, Inc. (VFFI), the non-government organization (NGO) partner of the PPA in the management of the halfway houses in major ports of the country. "This unique collaboration to address trafficking between government and VFFI as an NGO through the halfway houses in the seaports will also be replicated in the Philippine airports – a first in Asia and the world,” said VFFI President Ma. Cecilia Flores-Oebanda.

PPA, through its Gender and Development (GAD) Focal Point and in partnership with VFFI, is currently operating four halfway houses in strategic major ports, namely, Manila North Harbor, Batangas, Matnog in Sorsogon and Davao (Sasa). The halfway house project was conceptualized by Dizon as early as 1996, in response to the plight of stranded passengers in the ports.

Most of these passengers are women and children traveling without valid itineraries or reputable work opportunities to support themselves upon their arrival in their ports of destination. In July 2000, the first halfway house in Manila North Harbor was opened to the public and was later renamed as Bahay Silungan sa Daungan (BSD). It has since served as a temporary shelter of potentially trafficked persons.

Fleeing from poverty, majority of those recruited through trafficking are being lured into cities, urban centers or even countries with a promise of a better life and livelihood only to find out that they are pushed to forced labor, pornography, drug smuggling and other forms of illegal trade. Initially, trafficked persons often travel in groups and are accompanied by so-called “Kuya” and “Ate” who also serve as their recruiters. These unscrupulous recruiters would earlier brief them to give uniform or scripted answers to authorities and strangers alike about their true identity, age and the nature of their supposed future jobs.

Through the halfway houses, issues such as early detection, investigation, arrest, counseling, temporary shelter, repatriation, case filing/prosecution and reintegration of potentially trafficked persons can now be properly addressed. A network of government agencies (e.g. PPA police, Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, Local Government Units, Departments of Justice, Labor and Employment, Social Services and Development) and private sector that includes the shipping lines, porterage workers, VFFI, among others, also serve as the frontline defense against this social menace.

According to VFFI records, in Davao City alone, a total of 1,647, mostly women and minors, have already been given assistance and appropriate interventions through the halfway house at the Sasa Port from 2002-2005. (PNA)

Adapted from: "US backs deal on anti-trafficking in RP ports." Balita. 2 November 2006.

Human Trafficking in Bahrain

Sun, 05 Nov 2006 16:49:00 GMT

A significant number of human beings, including women, are trafficked into Bahrain. Unfortunately, their plight seems to remain unknown to significant parts of Bahraini society, perhaps because the victims tend to be foreign nationals or are considered to be of low social status," Sigma Huda, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Trafficking, has said.

The Bangladesh-born lawyer said: "Bahrain's victims of trafficking are often invisible victims because they suffer in places that remain hidden to the public eye, such as private homes, hotel rooms or labour camps."

Senior government officials also acknowledged that widely-held attitudes of discrimination on the basis of race, colour, ethnicity, and gender contributed to the prevalence of human trafficking, according to the activist who made her remarks at the end of a five-day visit to Bahrain. The statements were based on consultations with government officials, members of the judiciary, senior diplomats, UN officials, representatives of non-governmental organisations and civil society and victims.

Of particular concern, Huda said, is the significant number among the approximately 300,000 migrant workers, including 50,000 female domestic helpers, in Bahrain who become victims of human trafficking. "Their basic human rights remain inadequately protected as there are still gaps in the enforcement of the relevant laws by the authorities of Bahrain. In particular, I found that female domestic migrant workers are the most disadvantaged, in that they remain excluded from the protection of the current labour legislation," the lawyer said.

"It is largely left up to the benevolence and human compassion of the employers, whether the human rights of the workers are upheld or not." But Huda lauded the authorities for drafting an anti-trafficking Bill that, she said, appeared to be comprehensive and would be enacted after the new parliament takes office.

"I hope that the government will promptly take steps to bring the other related laws into conformity with the proposed law to ensure lack of ambiguity in the legislative framework. I also welcome the labour reform that the government has prepared, aimed at strengthening the protection of migrant workers," she said.

Civil societies should be more aggressive and persistent in their drive to put an end to physical and mental abuses, a senior United Nations special rapporteur has said. "The organisations should not give up easily and should explore all possible roads and seize all opportunities in order to garner public support and exert the necessary pressure to help people whose lives are being violated," Sigma Huda told Gulf News on the sidelines of her visit to Bahrain upon an invitation from the government to investigate human trafficking.

The human rights activist, who at the age of 21 became Bangladesh's first female lawyer, said bureaucracy and resistance by the people causing the abuses were formidable obstacles. But, she added, they could be overcome through persistent efforts. "When a public prosecutor does not follow through with a case, civil societies should not be deterred and should seek pressure from court officials who will set a binding timeframe," she said.

The media, particularly newspapers, could be used to highlight the case and the lagging pace, and put pressure on those who hesitate, either intentionally or through negligence, to implement the law, according to Huda. But the lawyer, who has been actively defending people for 36 years and regularly fought against the sexual exploitation and trafficking of women and children, insisted that watchdogs should not be intimidated by the seemingly insurmountable obstacles in their struggle or by the lack of immediate success.

"You do not win all cases right away, but you can stir stagnant waters and engage the people and boost their awareness."

Adapted from: Habib Toumi. "Invisible victims of trafficking." Gulf News. 3 November 2006.

Liberia: Task Force On Anti Human Trafficking Set Up

Sun, 05 Nov 2006 16:49:00 GMT

The Liberia government has set up a special task force that would prevent human trafficking in the country.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf appointed members of the commission in keeping with an act of the National Legislature enacted into law on June 14th, 2005.

Disclosing this to journalists on Monday at the Foreign Ministry, Presidential Press Secretary, Cyrus Wleh Badio, identified those appointed on the task force by the President as Labor Minister, Samuel Kofi Woods, Chairman, Cllr. Frances Johnson Morris, member, Foreign Minister, Ambassador George Wallace and Internal Affairs Minister, Ambulai B. Johnson as members.

Others appointed on the task force as members are Immigration Commissioner, Abla Gadegbeku Williams, Health Minister, Dr. Walter Gwenigale, and Police Inspector General, Beatrice Munah Sieh. According to the Presidential spokesperson, the task force is challenged with the responsibilities of developing a national plan for the prevention of trafficking in persons.

The body will also coordinate the implementation of its plan and to monitor and supervise member agencies, NGOs activities and partners to ensure a sound implementation of anti-trafficking plan. At the same time, he said the task force will further coordinate the collection and sharing of trafficking information and data among government agencies so as to prevent trafficking in persons and to detect criminal groups engaged in the act.

Also, Mr. Badio has disclosed that President Ellen Johnson has appointed a National Diamond Task Force that would work to ensure the country's compliance with the Kimberline Certification Scheme for the lifting of the United Nations sanctions on the country's diamond.

Members of the diamond task force are, Land Mines and Energy Minister, Eugene Shannon, Chairman, UNMIL boss Alan Doss Co-Chairman. Others are United States Ambassador Donald Booth, Chinese Ambassador Lin Songtian, ECOWAS Executive Secretary Special Representative to Liberia, Ambassador Ansumana Cesay, UNDP Representative to Liberia, Steve Ursino, the Minister of State for Economic and Legal Affairs, Morris G. Saytumah, Deputy Minister for Planning and Development at the Ministry of Land and Mines, A, KpandelFayia, MCSS Superintendent, Hester Williams-Catakaw, Mr. James Davies and Carney Johnson.

Adapted from: "Liberia: Task Force On Anti Human Trafficking Set Up." The Inquirer (Monrovia). 1 November 2006.

Trafficking Ring Broken in Taiwan

Sun, 05 Nov 2006 16:49:00 GMT

A Vietnamese woman is rescued from a situation of trafficking in Taiwan.

The National Police Agency in Taiwan raided a human-trafficking ring operating in Taipei City and county, rescuing a Vietnamese woman who had been sold to a labor brokerage company. The Foreign Affairs Police Corps launched two separate raids on 30 October 2006, arresting three suspects, including a woman surnamed Kuo and one of her employees, surnamed Lee. Investigators said Kuo was head of a labor brokerage company.

Police alleged that the third suspect, identified only as Tsai, sold foreign women to the company for NT$300,000 each. The police claimed that Kuo's company seized its victims' passports and forced them to sign contracts selling themselves to the company. Police allege that Kuo and Lee forced their victims to work at least 18 hours a day for NT$3,000 a month. An operation has been launched to nab the leader of the criminal ring, a Chinese-Vietnamese who lives in Ho Chih Min City, the police said.

Adapted from: "Taiwan Quick Take: Trafficking ring broken." Taipei Times. 1 November 2006.

Training Roma to Combat Human Trafficking

Sun, 05 Nov 2006 14:38:00 GMT

Through a contribution of the Norwegian and Finnish governments, the Council of Europe is organising training courses to prevent human trafficking of Roma from Albania, Moldova and Slovakia.

Excluded from preventive measures and other anti-trafficking initiatives – and the target of persistent prejudice and negative stereotyping – Roma women and children are particularly vulnerable to human trafficking.

The first Council of Europe Roma and Travellers Division training session will take place in Strasbourg on 2-3 November 2006. Organised within the framework of the Council of Europe Campaign to Combat Trafficking in Human Beings, it aims to create a pool of Roma mediators who will closely work in the Roma community, particularly with parents, to raise awareness of trafficking of children and young women.

Trained mediators will also provide families with information on the existing channels and networks of assistance for trafficking victims and their families, reintegration and tracing the identity of trafficking victims.

For more information:
Council of Europe Press Division
Tel: +33 (0)3 88 41 25 60
Fax:+33 (0)3 88 41 39 11
pressunit@coe.int
www.coe.int/press
http://www.noticias.info/asp/aspComunicados.asp?nid=236005&src=0

Zambian Government Address Human Trafficking

Sun, 05 Nov 2006 16:46:00 GMT

Zambia has become a hub for human trafficking in southern Africa, and authorities are beginning to recognize and address it.

Orphaned at the age of nine, Miselo fell into prostitution at 14, plying her trade in bars and clubs in the Zambian capital, Lusaka, sometimes waking up beaten, lost and dumped on the street. Now 18, she has an 18-month old daughter to care for. Hardly a charmed life – but it could have been much worse.

Last year, Miselo met a truck driver at a bar where she was working and they struck up a friendship that seemed truer than the usual quick-money relationships she was used to. "He was nice to me and would give me extra money and buy me drinks", Miselo said, clutching her baby in her arms. "One day he asked me if I wanted to have a nice job in South Africa and quit what I was doing. He said I could work in a restaurant or a shop and make lots of money and have a good life. Of course I said yes", she added, shaking her head at the memory.

Without a passport, travel documents or any form of identification, Miselo was bundled into a truck and driven south to the Zimbabwe border. While the driver – her 'friend' from the bar - waited for clearance, Miselo wandered to a café to buy some food. "I saw some friends I knew from Lusaka and they said they knew the man I was with and they told me he was bad", Miselo recalled. "They said he takes girls to South Africa and they never come back, or if they do they are very sick and then they come back to die".

Miselo hid in the café and, with help from her street-wise friends, eventually made her way back to Lusaka, escaping from a human trafficker who might have sold her into a grinding life of forced labour, domestic servitude, or, most likely, straight back into prostitution. "I know I was lucky", Miselo said. "I don't work in the bars anymore and I never will again. I want to go back to school for a better life".

Human trafficking is not a new problem in southern Africa, but governments like Zambia have only recently been willing to tackle the issue head on. With HIV/AIDS, food shortages, education and even military spending gobbling up vast amounts of the region's resources, little is left over to address the growing phenomenon of human trafficking, a process in which mostly older men recruit, transport and exploit mostly young, female victims by deception, coercion or force.

"Human trafficking is already a huge problem in the region and is second only to drugs as a profit-making business for the criminal underworld", said Olivia Kafukanya of the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) in Zambia. "After a few high-profile cases the [Zambian] government is finally taking the problem seriously, though it is hard to catch anyone because the victims are almost always too scared to talk", she added.

The tipping point that forced government action came in 2005 when a Congolese woman was caught trying to smuggle 14 children through Zambia into South Africa. The case received huge media attention when the Zambian government failed to prosecute the woman because the country had no specific law against the crime. "It was a real wake-up call", said American lawyer Jill Thompson, recently drafted in by the Zambian government to help develop a national framework to address human trafficking. "They are very keen to control this problem and to find legislation and there is a great groundswell of support from the government, but they don't have the money to do much about it", she added.

The IOM describes Zambia as a 'hub' for human traffickers operating in southern Africa. The country is in the geographic centre of the region and is seen as a major battleground in the fight to disrupt the illegal movement of people, usually from countries like Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo, to South Africa and beyond.

Recent cases uncovered by Zambian authorities include that of two Chinese girls being flown from Lusaka to Johannesburg on forged passports. The girls were recently repatriated to China, but the Chinese man accompanying them escaped. In another case, an Italian was caught trying to take eight Zambian girls to Australia, promising them lucrative careers as high-paid 'models'.

"Those cases are probably just the tip of the iceberg", said Thompson. "We really don't know how bad the problem is in Zambia or across southern Africa, but there is definitely a constant stream of stories, so we know the traffickers are out there". After the case of the 14 Congolese children, Zambia hastily enacted an anti-trafficking law, with a minimum penalty of 20 years in prison for a prosecuted offender and a life term if the case involved defilement of a minor. The penalties are harsh, but the government has yet to throw the book at a single trafficker.

"I have been travelling throughout Zambia holding workshops and raising awareness about human trafficking and some prosecutors don't know what the laws are", Thompson said. "The government is trying to write new laws that will address all the issues – victims rights, compensation, temporary citizenship, how to care for people. They need more of a framework, as do all countries in southern Africa. If the police stop 10 kids at the border, what are they going to do with them?"

For now, the IOM and the government are focussing on awareness. The IOM is running a series of radio spots – both in Zambia and Mozambique – warning young men and women not to give up their passports for promises of employment that seem too good to be true.

Miselo has also thrown herself into the fight against the traffickers, heading back to the bars where she once worked to warn others of the dangers of free drinks and whispered promises. "If I could help save one girl from being sent away, it would be worth it", she said.

Zambia is aiming to have a national policy in place by the end of the year.

"The problem will be implementing the new laws, prosecuting offenders and dealing with the victims", Thompson said. "They need training and capacity building...It's a long road ahead".

Adapted from: "ZAMBIA: Govt moves in to check human trafficking." IRIN News. 31 October 2006.

Traffickers Turn to Northeast India to Supply the Sex Trade

Sun, 05 Nov 2006 16:48:00 GMT

Human traffickers are increasingly turning to India's poor and insurgency-wracked northeastern states in their search for young girls to work in big city brothels, police and activists say.

Over the past five years there has been a rise in reports of missing girls from the remote region of eight states, an increase which authorities believe is due to trafficking. Police say at least 700 girls from the region have been reported missing over the last five years, 300 of whom disappeared in 2005 alone. But activists estimate thousands of northeastern girls disappear every year — most of whom are not reported by families due to the stigma associated with being part of the sex trade.

"Substantial trafficking of girls is taking place from the region. People in the northeast have recently realised what human trafficking is," said Ajit Joy of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in New Delhi. Traffickers are mostly women, often well-known in their respective villages, who promise poor, rural families good jobs for their daughters, most of whom are between 12 and 16.

But in reality, they sell the girls to brothel owners in towns and cities like New Delhi, Pune, Mumbai and Kolkata, earning between 20,000 ($440) and 40,000 rupees for each girl. Police estimate that around 20 percent of the girls in India's big city brothels come from the northeast.

At least one million Indian girls and women work in India's sex industry which is estimated to be worth around 400 billion rupees ($9 billion) annually, according to the UNODC. The rise in the number of girls disappearing from states like Assam, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh is partly due to tighter surveillance on India's northeastern border with Nepal, where most girls were being trafficked from before.

Authorities say increased security along the border to curb Maoist insurgencies in both countries has deterred many traffickers, and the number of Nepali girls being brought into India annually has halved from around 10,000 three or four years ago. Police, who are more used to fighting rebels in the troubled region, are now receiving training on issues ranging from dealing with traumatised victims to the legal complexities of investigating the crime.

"The police were not aware of such things earlier, they are still a little raw in dealing in dealing with such cases," said T Pachuau, director of the Northeast Police Academy. "We are training them to get better and investigate with full authority." Twenty-year-old Jaya Basumatary from the northern Assam district of Udalguri, was rescued after a raid on a Delhi brothel last year.

At the age of 16, she was taken by traffickers who promised her impoverished family that they would get her a job as a domestic maid.

Adapted from: Biswajyoti Das. "Traffickers turn to northeast India for sex trade." Guwahati. 30 October 2006.

Roman Catholic Bishops in Texas Hear Horror Stories of Human Trafficking

Sun, 05 Nov 2006 16:44:00 GMT

A 14-year-old boy who had been shackled to a wall and forced into slave labor shared his story this week with a delegation from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. This was only one of the accounts of human trafficking heard by the delegation of Bishops and the Catholic Legal Immigration Network during a weeklong border visit to cities that included Nogales, Ariz; Altar, Mexico; Houston and El Paso.

"All this happened here in our country, not in a foreign nation or under a legal system saturated with corruption," Bishop Gerald R. Barnes of San Bernardino, Calif., said during a stop Saturday at Sacred Heart Church in South El Paso.

"This boy represents one of thousands of victims of human trafficking who are not being identified and protected each day in this country," Barnes said. According to the U.S. Department of State, more than 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year. Between 18,000 and 20,000 of those victims are brought into the United States.

The issue was one of several that Catholic bishops, who visited El Paso and Juárez this weekend, highlighted during the border tour. Other topics included immigration reform, the decision for a border wall and the abuse of immigrants. "I have had people write me letters, leave nasty e-mails and voice mails saying, "you are all wet; you should not be in politics and I don't care what John Paul said; you are entering into politics'," Bishop Armando X. Ochoa said. "We don't see it as that. We see it as a really valid gospel value based on the teachings of the church and social concerns."

During the tour, the delegation met with immigrants, Border Patrol officials and faith-based organizations. Based on the information gathered, the group will make recommendations on how the system can better handle the immigration issue, Barnes said.

"Everyone agrees that the system is broken and in dire need of repair," Barnes said. "It appears, however, that more frequently, many individuals and politicians are disregarding the rich traditions and values that immigrants have offered - and continue to offer - our country. Sadly, many Americans believe that building walls and imprisoning foreigners is the only solution to the unprecedented immigration crisis we are experiencing."

Looking at the issue from a compassionate standpoint is necessary said Father Rafael Garcia of Sacred Heart Church. "As the pastor here, I am able to meet with a lot of people who probably prefer to stay with their family in Mexico, and it may not be pleasant to stay here because they feel isolated and lonely, but they come to support their families and to seek a better life. It is important that we do not look at this on a superficial level, but recognize that it is about survival."

Adapted from: Zahira Torres. "Bishops hear horror stories of human trafficking." El Paso Times. 29 October 2006.

Burmese Court Sentences Woman to 12 years for Human Trafficking

Sun, 05 Nov 2006 16:44:00 GMT

A Burmese court has sentenced a woman to 12 years in prison for selling two young Burmese women into prostitution in Malaysia.

The court in Tachileik, opposite the Thai town of Mae Sai, sentenced Nang Aye Naw, 41, on 3 October 2006 under the anti-trafficking in persons law, the New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported. The report said the woman enticed two young women with false promises of finding a job at a restaurant in Mae Sai but instead sold them at a border town in Malaysia for prostitution.

It did not say whether the two women were rescued or when the suspect was arrested. Many women from impoverished Burma are smuggled into Thailand and Malaysia, mostly for prostitution, and into China for forced marriages.

Burma's military government, which Western nations have accused of failing to curb human trafficking, passed an anti-human trafficking law in September 2005 which provides a maximum penalty of death. Under the law, victims of trafficking also are to be protected and aided. Burma formed the Preventive Working Committee for Trafficking in Persons in 2002, which the government says has taken action against more than 1,000 violators and rescued over 3,500 trafficked persons.

The U.S. State Department has placed Burma in its worst category for human trafficking, saying it has not complied with minimum standards for eliminating the problem. Burma's government rejected the US charges, saying the report failed to acknowledge the government's efforts and lacked objectivity.

Adapted from: "Myanmar court sentences woman to 12 years for human trafficking." The Associated Press. 28 October 2006.

End to human-trafficking UAE’s top priority

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 23:35:00 GMT

The UAE shares the core universal values that make the elimination of human trafficking a top priority, said Dr. Anwar Mohammed Gargash.

He is Minister of State for Federal National Council Affairs and Chairperson of the National Committee on Human Trafficking, in an exclusive interview with Khaleej Times.

Answering a question on the efficiency of the committee, he said the committee was still in the process of collating data from various agencies and emirates.

“However, according to preliminary indications, there are at least 10 cases pertaining to human trafficking registered so far this year. Five of these are related to instigating prostitution, two to threatening the life of children, and three cases are related to other issues,” disclosed Dr Gargash.

The Federal Law No.51 on combating human trafficking, which is the first of its kind in the Middle East was enacted last year with the aim of eradicating trading in persons and protecting and rehabilitating victims of this crime.

Regarding the tasks of the committee, the minister underlined that the committee is responsible for developing an implementation framework for the federal human trafficking law.

“The committee focuses on drafting legislation, assesses government implementation procedures, monitors cases, coordinates between government divisions, and promotes public awareness on human trafficking,” the minister added.

“Secondly, the committee seeks to ensure strict enforcement of the law and its provisions. The committee has also been designated as the official authority to receive and manage international enquiries and delegations related to human trafficking,” Dr Gargash clarified .

“The UAE has signed an agreement with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to provide up to Dh50 million to support the Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking .This demonstrates the country’s commitment to tackle the crime not only in the UAE, but globally as well,” Dr Gargash stated.

“Agreements have been signed with Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to regulate the flow of workers. All labour contract transactions will henceforth be processed by labour ministries or offices in the supplying countries to prevent unscrupulous private recruitment agencies from trafficking, or otherwise exploiting, workers,” the minister concluded

Adapted from: Nada S. Mussallam,"End to human-trafficking UAE’s top priority." Khaleej Times Online. 20 October 2007.

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 11:30:00 GMT

A communiqué was issue at the end of a human trafficking workshop in Nigeria in September 2006.

Workshop on “Towards the Elimination of Human Trafficking” organized by the Network for Justice and Democracy held at Young Women Christian Association Building (YWCA), No.29 Airport Road, Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria on Thursday, 28th September 2006.

PREAMBLE
The Workshop on Anti- Human trafficking sponsored by the United States Department of State- Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons in FY 2005 and organized by the Network for Justice and Democracy to raise awareness on the dangers of human trafficking, brainstorm on strategies to eliminate human trafficking and explore the laws and policies on human trafficking.

The Workshop considers human trafficking as an endemic social problem, pervasive and heinous crime and one of the most pressing human rights problems in Nigeria, which has received global attention.

The Workshop acknowledged the salient fact that there is a growing awareness in the international community about the gravity of the problem of trafficking in persons as well as the pressing need for sustained and concerted actions at the national, regional and international levels through the establishment of bilateral, regional and multilateral mechanisms to prevent, monitor and combat trafficking.

Having carefully considered the lectures, answers collated from the questionnaires and suggestions presented during the Workshop, participants in session :

1. Agreed that poverty, ignorance, illiteracy, unemployment, porous borders, widespread corruption, gender discrimination and economic conditions are major factors fuelling human trafficking.

2. Consequently, participants urged the government to improve the economy, empower girls and women with educational, economic, employment and necessary professional opportunities to resist the temptation of human trafficking. Increased opportunities for women renders them less vulnerable to human trafficking and ensure citizens’ well being and security.

3. Adequate prosecution of traffickers without compromising the rights of the victims to privacy, dignity and safety must be done by providing necessary assistance to trafficked persons during the pendency of criminal, civil or other legal actions against traffickers.

4. Protection of human rights of victims/survivors should be the basic and paramount consideration and not only crime prevention.

5. Victims of human trafficking should not be criminalized but the traffickers and their accomplices engaged in the illicit trade and exploitation must be severely punished to serve as a deterrent.

6. Legislation and law enforcement alone cannot provide sufficient prevention. The root causes that drive women and children into human trafficking such as poverty, ignorance, illiteracy, unemployment, porous borders and economic conditions must be addressed through measures such as raising public awareness regarding human rights and the risks of trafficking, providing women empowerment schemes, providing necessary protection, micro credit assistance and vocational training for better income generation possibilities, improvement of the economy etc.

7. In addition to legislation, the Workshop noted that concerted efforts against human trafficking by States, intergovernmental organizations and NGOs at the local, regional and international levels are critical in order to effectively address the hydra headed problem of trafficking in persons and to provide adequate redress for the victims. Governments and NGOs should more systematically partner with each other to ensure the implementation of anti trafficking policies, laws and action plans.

8. Collaborative efforts at both the local and national levels should include Religiousand community leaders, parents, teachers, other stakeholders e.g. Police,immigration, customs, National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons and other Related Matters, Law enforcement agencies, Judiciary, Media and Civil society organizations, etc.

9. Parents were strongly advised to send their daughters to school and resist the temptations of traffickers.

10. Participants called on the government to implement international agreements on human trafficking to prevent trafficking in persons and develop joint plans of action with other countries concerned. States are also called upon to take serious actions in cooperation with NGOs in the development of national plans of action in accordance with the 1996 Programme of Action for the Prevention in the Traffic in Persons and the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others.

11. Intensive Advocacy and Awareness programmes on human trafficking should be intensified to expose the dangers of human trafficking and improve knowledge of the anti human trafficking laws. The Workshop advised that public information campaigns against human trafficking should be extended to the rural areas where women and girls have less access to information and who are usually poorer and easier to influence with rituals.

12. Girls must gain access to the resources necessary to development such as education, credit, employment, justice and enjoy rights to bodily integrity, freedom from discrimination, torture, degrading and cruel treatment.

13. Effective data collection and information systems should be developed to coordinate progress and inform policies and laws on human trafficking and programming at all levels.

14. The Workshop acknowledged the fact that the problems of trafficking in persons could be effectively addressed through a multi-faceted, coordinated and integrated national and international plan of action.

15. Participants observed that the there is a need for international partnerships to address the root causes of trafficking in persons and urged donors and international agencies to support and fund researches, data collection and other proactive programs against trafficking in persons.

16. Participants commended the organizers (Network for Justice and Democracy) for organizing the Workshop and urged them to organize more of such workshops in the future.

17. Finally, the Workshop strongly advised that the general economy and social well being of the citizenry should be vastly improved by the government particularly in the rural areas where a large number of Nigerians live.

The Workshop wish to express gratitude to the United States Department of State- Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons and the United States Consulate, Lagos for sponsoring the Workshop.

The Workshop commended the Federal Government of Nigeria on the enactment of the Trafficking In Persons (Administration and Enforcement Act) 2004, which has led to the convictions of a sizeable number of offenders. Participants reiterated the need for the judiciary to hear and determine human trafficking cases more expeditiously as justice delayed is justice denied.

The Workshop also commended the Edo State Government on the Criminal Code Amendment Law 2004 which led to its introduction of sections 222 A and 223. It urged it to transform the Edo State Committee Against Human Trafficking into afull-fledged Agency and commit sufficient financial, manpower and sufficient infrastructural resources to enable it perform efficiently.

The members of the Communiqué Committee are :
1. Dr. Gloria Vincent Osaghae
2. Olaide Gbadamosi Esq
3. Eric Ifekawa
4. Dr. Bramwell Akomgbowa Amadasun

Vietnamese Woman Trafficked to Taiwan Tells Her Own Story

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 15:01:00 GMT

Dieu-Hien was approached by a matchmaker in her village with a marriage proposal.

The matchmaker told her parents that there is a rich Taiwanese man who has four children and is looking for a wife to start a new life with. His children will be her children, and will love and honor her as their new mom. Dieu-Hien and her parents accepted the matchmaker’s offer, although they did not receive any money from the arrangement.

Hien arrived in Taiwan as a hopeful bride, but was made to work as a servant from the very first day. That’s when she found out that her “husband”’s former wife had left him due to his drinking and abuse, and now she has to take care of his four children as well as his parents. Hien’s day starts at 5am, cooking and taking care of the household, then making tofu to sell at the store. During the day, she’s expected to make and carry 150-200 sets of tofu, each weighing 25 pounds. Throughout the day and late into the night, Hien has to cook and clean for the household in addition to taking care of the children.

All the while, Hien’s husband and mother-in-law yelled and beat her for every small infraction, real or imagined. After one month, she couldn’t take the abuse anymore and tried to commit suicide by hanging herself with a cloth. When she came to, she found herself lying out on the balcony, bloodied and bruised all over. That evening, she was allowed into the house to shower and change clothes, then was banished onto the balcony for two days.

After that incident, Hien called the marriage broker who came with an interpreter, but they weren’t willing to intervene. This happened over and over again, with the broker coming and going until one day, the interpreter asked her husband to take her to the doctor. That’s when Hien found out she was five weeks pregnant. But her husband and mother-in-law said they don’t want anymore kids, and made plans for Hien to have an abortion. When she refused, they began to systematically beat her, repeatedly punching and kicking her in the stomach for days on end.

Then Hien was again forced to live on the balcony for 5 straight days. After that, she was made to carry pails of water up the stairs to use for the toilet and to shower. When that still didn’t work, her husband called the broker and said he wanted a divorce. Hien was brought to the police station and signed all the necessary paperwork. But her husband took her home without signing any papers. After 11 days, Hien pressed her husband for an answer and was told that he has paid too much money for her to just up and leave. She asked her mother-in-law and was told the same thing, and received another severe beating for it. Her husband threatened to kill her if she ever left him.

Fearing for herself and her baby’s life, Hien ran away that afternoon – four months after she came to Taiwan - with a friend’s help. She contacted a relative in Canada and was given Fr. Nguyen Van Hung Peter’s, Executive Director of the Vietnamese Migrant Workers and Brides Office, phone number where she went to seek help. However, her ordeal did not end there.

Father Hung’s staff contacted the County’s domestic violence office (due to security concerns and following protocol) which runs a shelter with 24 hour security. When the county social worker arrived, in front of VMWBO’s staff, she admonished Hien for causing trouble and warned her that she will have to return to her husband after two weeks at the shelter. Upon a reminder of the law protecting domestic violence victims, the social worker claimed that foreign brides are causing social disorder by “running away all over the place”. She then took Hien to the police station, with VWMBO staff serving as the interpreter since neither her office nor the police station had one. At the police station, Hien was again admonished by the police officer for “making trouble in society”.

Unsatisfied with how the County office is treating Hien’s case, VWMBO helped her attain a pro bono lawyer to get a restraining order and sue her husband for abuse. During the first mediation meeting, her husband’s family threatened to counter-sue her. Also under Taiwan’s law, the children belongs to the father. Fearful that she may lose her baby if the child is born in Taiwan, and not wanting to stay in Taiwan any longer, Hien agreed to a settlement of US$600 as long as her husband sign the divorce papers right away so she can go home. VMWBO helped Hien with the airfare home, and its staff donated another US$300 to help soften her transition back to Vietnam.

Hien has bravely requested VMWBO write down her story as a warning to prospective brides.

For more information about supporing Vietnamese women trafficked to Taiwan, visit
Vietnamese Migrant Workers & Brides Office

US Promises Funding to Counter Human Trafficking in Cambodia

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 15:09:00 GMT

The United States would allocate 4.5 million U.S. dollars over the next three years to support the counter-human trafficking programs in Cambodia, said a press release issued by the U.S. Embassy here on Wednesday. "This project is a landmark approach in Cambodia. Government, civil society and international organizations are collaborating to identify trafficking trends so we can stop trafficking before it happens and fight trafficking where it takes place," U.S. Ambassador Joseph A. Mussomeli was quoted as saying.

This allocation was for the second phase of USAID's (the U.S. Agency for International Development) anti-trafficking projects which was started hereon Tuesday in conjunction with Cambodia's Ministry of Interior and the Asia Foundation. The project aimed to increase awareness about the demand for trafficked persons and promote safe migration alternatives, document the effectiveness of counter-trafficking programs and share practices, said the release.

It also aimed to establish a minimum standard of care at shelters and ensure continuity of care through the referral process, promote access to justice for victims, and support income- generating activities to protect vulnerable populations from exploitation. It was expected to broaden the scope of anti-trafficking work in Cambodia to address trafficking of adults and young children for sex, labor, begging and other forms of exploitation, it said. The U.S. government has spent some five million U.S. dollars for first phase of the project since 2003.

Adapted from: ‘US Promises 4.5 million USD to counter human trafficking in Cambodia,’ Xinhua, 6 October 2006. http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/data/usa.html

Migrant Workers in Taiwan Relate Stories of an Abusive System

Thu, 26 Oct 2006 15:35:00 GMT

Allegations of mistreatment and abuse of migrant workers surfaced again yesterday, with a Vietnamese woman saying she was paid less than NT$2,500 (US$75) a month while a social worker said two Filipino laborers recently died of overwork.

Two migrant workers yesterday related their sad experience working in the country in a press conference held by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Joanna Lei. "I have been sold [by brokers] to six different employers since coming to Taiwan and my identification card has been confiscated," said "A-ming," an alias used by a caretaker from Vietnam. Weeping, A-ming said she could hardly survive on her meager salary of NT$2,500 per month, not to mention repay her broker's fee and send money back home.

In an annual report on global human trafficking released by the US State Department in June, Taiwan was downgraded to the "Tier 2 Watch List" for failing to increase its efforts and lacking the political will to address the problem. The US report also said that a "significant share" of foreign workers, mainly from Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines, who are lured to the country for low-skilled jobs, end up in forced labor or slavery by labor agencies and employers.

Adapted from: "Migrant workers relate stories of abusive system." taipeitimes.com. 18 October 2006

Taxi Drivers in Cambodia on the Look Out for Abuse

Thu, 26 Oct 2006 15:39:00 GMT

Motorbike taxi drivers have been enlisted as the first line of defense for Sihanoukville's children. They have been trained to recognise dangerous situations and take the appropriate action.

Cambodia has a reputation as being a safe haven for sex tourists, but recently a number of child sex offenders have been successfully prosecuted. Earlier this week, a court in Sihanoukville jailed a German man for 10 years. Now the people of the town are taking further steps to make their community a safer place for children.

The ChildSafe scheme uses specially-trained moto taxi drivers to keep an eye out for any suspicious activity. The scheme's been started by M'lop Tapang - an organisation which looks after Sihanoukville's growing number of street children. Its director, Eve Saosarin, says ChildSafe will help to attract the right kind of tourists to the town: "When the bad tourists come to Sihanoukville, the good tourists will not be interested. So by protecting our children and letting the bad tourists know that Sihanoukville is not a place that's easy to do sex or to get to the children - then I think the good tourists will come."

Moto taxis are the main form of public transport in Cambodia's towns and cities. With their drivers protecting children at risk, it is like having a community worker on every street corner. And as more people join the ChildSafe scheme, the organisers hope they will eventually drive away sex tourists.

Adapted from: "Cambodia taxi drivers fight abuse." news.bbc.co.uk. 22 October 2006.

Experts at Trafficking Forum in Bangladesh Call on Media for Positive Reporting

Thu, 26 Oct 2006 15:46:00 GMT

Speakers at a discussion called on the media people to publish investigative and follow-up reports on human trafficking to raise awareness in the society in order to combat the menace. They also urged the media to play an advocacy role in reintegrating the victims of trafficking into the mainstream through positive reporting.

Nari Unnayan Shakti (NUS), Action against Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation of Children (ATSEC) and Bangladesh Journalists Forum against Human Trafficking (BJFAHT) in association with International Organisation for Migration (IOM), Academy for Educational Development and the USAID organised the discussion on 'Prevention of Trafficking' at the Reporters' Unity auditorium in the city on Wednesday.

Salma Ali, chair of ATESC, said that domestic violence is one of the main reasons behind children and women trafficking.

Farida Yeasmin, president of BJFAHT, in her keynote speech pointed out that inappropriate media reporting sometimes adds to the plights of the victims of trafficking. Kamal Uddin Ahmed, secretary to the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, attended the programme as chief guest.

Nishat A Chowdhury, adviser to the IMO, and Afroza Parvin, executive director of NUS, also spoke. The organisers announced that they would introduce media award for journalists for trafficking-related reports next year.

Adapted from: "Experts at a 'Prevent Trafficking' forum call on media for more positive reporting." The Daily Star. 20 October 2006.

Lao PDR Receives Help from UNODC in Counter-Human Trafficking Efforts

Thu, 26 Oct 2006 15:58:00 GMT

The Lao PDR and the United Nations last week signed an agreement in the capital city of Vientiane to strengthen the country's legal and law enforcement institutions in an effort to combat transnational human trafficking.

Recent study results show that Lao girls aged between 12 and 18 years are most likely to fall victims of human trafficking in Laos. They make up 60% of all cases, 35% of which end up in prostitution in neighboring Thailand.

The UN assistance, totaling some $440,000, is made possible by contributions by donors of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Adapted from: 'Laos Receives Help from UNODC in Counter-Human Trafficking Efforts', VOA. 17 October 2006.

Guangxi Women’s Federation Strengthens Cooperation with Neighbors in Mekong Sub-Region on Human Trafficking

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 07:39:00 GMT

The chairman of the Guangxi Women’s Federation, Jiang Peilan declared that from hereon Guangxi would further strengthen its interaction and cooperation with all the countries in the Greater Mekong Sub-region, in the field of opposing trafficking.

It will also crack down on the increasingly rampant trend of trafficking in women and children, in order to contribute as much as possible to the safeguarding of the legal rights and interests of women and children in the Greater Mekong Sub-region.

According to her presentation, since 2001 the Guangxi Women’s Federation, the UNICEF, UNIAP, Save the Children in the Greater Mekong Sub-region and the World Bank have been cooperating to develop a project to safeguard women’s legal rights and interests. They have secured assistance from nineteen domestic and foreign organizations for 36 initiatives, in addition to 261,794 Renminbi of free economic aid. The project will include, amongst other initiatives combating the trafficking of women and children, opposing domestic violence and guarding against AIDS, it covers 14 cities and 50 counties, nearly 300,000 people will benefit from the project.

To combat trafficking Jiang Peilan appealed for cooperation between departments and border managers, an increase in financial investment and for trafficked women and children to be given the necessary humanitarian assistance. At the same time cooperation with the relevant organizations and institutions must be strengthened, together they will build a defence line to prevent trafficking in women and children and eradicate this terrible phenomenon.

Adapted from: Zhongxin News Agency, Nanning. 11 October 2006.

Cambodia ACTs Holds a Consultation Meeting on the Guideline for the Protection of the Rights of Trafficked Children

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 13:45:00 GMT

On September 27, 2006, Cambodia Anti-Child Trafficking (Cambodia ACTs) in Collaboration with Cambodian National Council for Children (CNCC) conducted a Consultation Meeting on the Guideline for the Protection of the Rights of Trafficked Children at Ministry of Social Affairs, Veteran and Youth Rehabilitation (MOSAVY).

The meeting was presided over by H.E Nhim Thoth, representative of minister of MOSAVY and the secretary of states of MOSAVY and also the chairman of the working group to develop the draft guideline with the participation of representatives from relevant NGOs/IOs and government agencies.

The meeting was funded by Asia ACTs with the main purpose of finding good new points to fulfill in the draft guideline and to make the guidelines be a national instrument for the protection of the rights of trafficked children in more effective way.

The guideline was first introduced to Cambodia by Cambodia Anti-Child Trafficking (Cambodia ACTs) who is one of the partners among the seven countries of Asia ACTs. The first meeting to develop a draft regional guideline was first held in September 2004 in Bohol, Philippines with the participation of all members of Asia ACTs from the seven countries. This document known to partners as Bohol Document, become the basis for the development of the country level guidelines developed in Indonesia (April, 2005), Philippines (August 2005), Thailand (October, 2005) and Vietnam (March, 2006). The same document also became a reference document for the regional guidelines developed in Bangkok, Thailand, in which there were seven Cambodia delegates from both government and NGOs led by H.E San Arun, Under-secretary of States of Ministry of Women’s Affairs, it is known as Bangkok document.

The Bangkok document became the basis for the development of the country level guideline for the protection of the rights of trafficked children in Cambodia. The guideline sets out proposed principles and guidelines to promote the human rights of trafficked children in Southeast Asia which have been developed on the basis of relevant international human rights instruments including the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Optional Protocol to the CRC on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution, Child Pornography, the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Recommended Guidelines on Human Rights and Human Trafficking, the Guidelines for Protection of the Rights of Children Victims of Trafficking in Southeastern Europe.

The document not only reflects the experiences of service providers and caregivers both from government and NGOs in handling cases of trafficked children, but likewise reflects the sentiments and needs of the grassroots whom they work with.

During the meeting, there was also a presentation on the draft guideline developed by the 20 members of working group who are from 10 NGOs/IOs and government agencies led by H.E Nhim Thoth, secretary of states of MOSAVY as the chairman and H.E Chan Sotheavy, under-secretary of States of Ministry of Justice as the vice-chairman, presented by Mr. Chea Pyden, Country Focal Point of Cambodia ACTs. Then the participants were divided into groups for the discussion and feedback on the draft guideline. After the meeting, the second draft guideline will be developed by the working group in order submit to the council of ministers before submitting to the Prime Minister for approval as the national guideline.

AFESIP Opens New Center for Victims of Sex Trafficking in Vientiane, Lao PDR

Thu, 19 Oct 2006 13:50:00 GMT

Victims of sexual exploitation can now choose their preferred training skills at a new shelter for women and children, enabling them to start a new life after the horrors of the past.

The shelter opened in Vientiane on Thursday, 12 October 2006 and offers courses in weaving, garment making, and basic education, with a handicraft programme in the pipeline.

The Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Welfare, Mr. Le Kakanya, and the regional coordinator of Agir pour les Femmes en Situation Precaire (AFESIP), Mr. Georges Blanchard, cut a ribbon to officially open the shelter. "We are not going to tell people who come here what course to take; they can choose what they want to do from several options," said Mr. Blanchard.

The shelter not only provides training skills, but also helps women to find jobs as well as following up to ensure that past victims have a better life, according to the agency's Country Director of Lao operations, Dr. Didier Bertrand.

The shelter is able to accommodate 20 women and aims to provide protection and treatment for those who have suffered from sexual exploitation and human trafficking. The shelter works in partnership with the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, as well as various training centres and private enterprises where women can learn new skills and, in some cases, receive accommodation.

With the opening of this new shelter there are now three shelters in Vientiane that can provide accommodation for victims of human trafficking. The other two include one run by the Lao Women's Union, and the transit centre for victims of human trafficking repatriated from Thailand operated by the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare. The three shelters have different ways of assisting those in need, but working in close cooperation to provide the most appropriate service according the individual's needs.

AFESIP is a non-governmental, non-partisan, and non-religious organization established at the grassroot level in Cambodia in 1996. The dire situations of thousands of victims forced into sex slavery are the reasons why the organization exists today.

(Adapted from Souksakhone Vaenkeo, "Sexually Exploited Women Begin Life in Shelter.")

To read more, click on the link belwo.

Relationship between Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies and the European Network Against Trafficking in Women for Sexual Exploitation

Wed, 18 Oct 2006 11:31:00 GMT

The Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies (MIGS) is now a member of the European Network Against Trafficking in Women for Sexual Exploitation (ENATW).

ENATW is a network of organizations committed to the prevention of trafficking in women for sexual exploitation and to providing support and assistance to victims. ENATW is coordinated by Associazione Irene (Italy) for the South of Europe, by Stigamot (Iceland) for the North of Europe and by Le Nid for the Centre of Europe.

The main objective of ENATW is the promotion of a gender approach to the issue of trafficking, especially as far as prevention is concerned, that would also consider social and individual responsibilities that are connected to sexual exploitation and violence against women.

The member organizations/associations of the Network are united in their conviction that trafficking in women for prostitution and other forms of sexual exploitation is:

Gender- based violence against all women;
A violation of human rights;
A violation against the principle of equality between women and men.

The goals of the Network are to:

Exchange and spread experiences, sources and strategies at local, national and international levels, that are effective in the fields of prevention and assistance to victims of trafficking for prostitution and others forms of sexual exploitation;
Promote and support the development of norms and policies in compliance with the UN Convention and Trafficking Protocol and the Framework Decision of the Council of the European Union of 19th July 2002;
Construction of a diffused network of European NGO's and experts in the field of trafficking in women for prostitution and others forms of sexual exploitation.

The activities of the Network are:

Exchange of best practices on all the aspects concerning prevention and protection of women victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation;
Annual report on the effectiveness of national legislation and international conventions and adopted policies in the European region;
Recommendations addressed to political decision makers at local, national and European levels; Create an international-based portal on trafficking in women for sexual exploitation;
Mobilization and lobbying actions at local, national and European levels.

For more information, please contact:

Ms. Josie Christodoulou
Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies [M.I.G.S]
Nicosia, Cyprus
Tel: +357 2235 1274 (ext.115)
josie@medinstgenderstudies.org
http://www.medinstgenderstudies.org

US Says Zimbabwe Subject to Sanctions

Mon, 09 Oct 2006 10:12:00 GMT

THE White House said Zimbabwe is subject to US sanctions because of the government's failure to take steps to halt human trafficking. The impact is expected to be minimal because of the number of sanctions already imposed against Zimbabwe in recent years. Zimbabwe was on a State Department list published in June 2006 of 12 countries alleged to have done little to stop human trafficking. It was the first time that Zimbabwe had been named as a serious offender. U.S.-backed pro-democracy and health programs will not be affected by the White House finding. There was no announcement as to which programs will be suspended. Countries that appear on the list are given a 90-day grace period to take steps to combat trafficking and protect victims in order to avoid possible sanctions.

Of the 12 countries named, only Belize and Laos were deemed to have made good progress during the grace period and have been removed from the "worst offender'' list. The remaining countries have been on the list for a year or more and their status concerning sanctions remained unchanged. They are Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Iran, Laos, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Uzbekistan, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. The most common offenses against trafficking victims are sexual coercion and forced labor. In an interview, Ambassador John Miller said the main U.S. goal is not to impose sanctions against countries indifferent to trafficking but to encourage them to take the issue seriously. Miller, who heads the trafficking office, said Belize has rescued 62 trafficking victims in recent months and carried out a number of prosecutions of traffickers.

He credited Ecuador, Jamaica and United Arab Emirates with a serious effort to deal with the trafficking issue in recent years. He noted that 32 countries are ranked just below the worst offender category. Miller said the United States and Saudi Arabia plan official consultations next month on a broad range of issues, human trafficking among them.

Adapted from: George Gedda. "U.S. Says Zimbabwe Subject to Sanctions." Associated Press.
27 September 2006.

US Ambassador John Miller Releases Statement about Progress towards Combating Trafficking of Worst Offending Countries

Mon, 09 Oct 2006 10:16:00 GMT

Dear Friends in the Movement to End Modern-day Slavery:

As you are aware, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice delivered the 2006 Trafficking in Persons Report to Congress in June. The law governing the US Government's anti-trafficking efforts provides a 90-day reassessment period after the report's release, allowing time for countries rated in the lowest tier of the report to take steps to move out of Tier 3. (Tier 3 countries are those making little or no efforts to combat trafficking in persons.) The goal of this reassessment period is to stimulate action in the fight against modern-day slavery. I am pleased to report that Belize and Laos have taken real steps in the last 90 days against this global pandemic.

Examples of their actions include arresting and charging traffickers, sheltering victims, launching a nationwide awareness campaign, and training immigration officers to recognize victims. Due to this progress, President Bush has notified Congress that these countries will effectively move out of Tier 3 in accordance with the determination of the Secretary of State.

Unfortunately, other countries did not demonstrate significant efforts to combat trafficking in persons and will remain in Tier 3. We continue to encourage Burma, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe to end modern-day slavery.

As outlined in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, foreign governments that do not meet the minimum standards for action in fighting modern-day slavery are subject to non-humanitarian, non-trade related sanctions. While various sanctions will be applied to Tier 3 countries, the President has determined it is in the national interest of the U.S. to waive sanctions for Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Uzbekistan. This waiver will allow the funding of democracy and nation building programs, as well as continued security cooperation to effectively prosecute the war on terror.

The waiver will not deter our continued aggressive bilateral engagement with these countries to encourage them to better address the issue of trafficking in persons.

In addition, we are concerned about three countries - India, Mexico, and Russia - that are on the Tier 2 Watch List for the third consecutive year. We are encouraging India's government to acknowledge and address its substantial bonded or forced labor problem that enslaves millions of men, women and children - largely from low-caste communities - in labor-intensive industries in rural areas. We are working with Mexico's government to build a credible response to its serious problem of corruption among security personnel, which facilitates trafficking. With the Russian government we are working to foster legislative reform, raise public awareness, improve collaboration between the public and law enforcement, and enhance victim assistance.

We appreciate your continued interest in this important issue and we value your partnership.

Sincerely yours,

Ambassador John R. Miller
Director, Office to Monitor and Combat
Trafficking in Persons

Presidential Determination and Memorandum of Justification

UNIAP-Cambodia’s Information Centre on Human Trafficking

Mon, 09 Oct 2006 10:42:00 GMT

UNIAP-Cambodia is proud to announce the list of human trafficking publications available to the public at their Information Centre located at the Cambodian Development Research Institute (CDRI).

UNIAP-Cambodia has created an Information Centre on Human Trafficking by compiling and issuing over 300 documents on human trafficking and related issues to the Cambodia Development Research Institute (CDRI). In establishing an Information Centre on Human Trafficking UNIAP-Cambodia aims to expand the knowledge base of both specialists and the general public on the issue of human trafficking by substantially improving the accessibility of information on this issue.

CDRI library is an important focal point for academics, students, policy-makers, government officials and the employees of international development organizations and is one of Cambodia’s leading policy research institutes. CDRI library was established in the 1990s as a public resource centre for development-related research. According to the manager of the library, Mr. He Hin, the library currently offers over 10,000 books to its users including sections on human trafficking, migration and child labour. The library’s service also includes the provision of important international periodicals, such as The Far Eastern Economic Review, The Economist and Forced Migration, as well as local journals and newsletters. The library also receives all documents produced by the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, The Tonle Sap Initiative, and the UN Research Institute for Social Development.

Ongoing additions to the library provided by UNIAP Cambodia have further enhanced the value and use of the library. If you have any publications relating to human trafficking that are not listed in the collection, we would appreciate your contribution. Please give additional books to UNIAP to add to this collection.

Library visitors are allowed to borrow up to three books for one week, given they possess a valid membership card. Orientation sessions and introductions to the library can be arranged by the friendly library staff.

Address: Cambodia Development Research Institute (CDRI),
56 Street 315, Toul Kork, Phnom Penh

Opening Hours: Monday to Friday (7:30am-12noon and 2pm-5pm)

For more information, contact:
Ms. Kristy Fleming
kristy.fleming@undp.org

HumanTrafficking.org Spotlighted on Africa Journal, Voice of America

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 11:32:00 GMT

On 29 September 2006, Andrea Bertone, Director of HumanTrafficking.org, was interviewed on Africa Journal, Voice of America Television. .

The topic of the show is: Human Trafficking: Why is it Increasing in Africa?

Additional guests included:

Dr. Alan W. White
Former Chief of Investigations
Special Court for Sierra Leone

Sister Cecillia Dimaku
House of Welcome Rehabilitation Center
Casa Maria, Italy

Ms. Ibiduni Jones
Africa Regional Director
African Tourism Organization

This television show follows on Tackling Human Trafficking and Illegal Migration as a Development Issue in Commonwealth and Francophone African Countries conference held in Washington, DC on 28 September 2006 trafficking and illegal migration between Africa and Europe.

View the Program: Africa Journal: Human Trafficking, Why Is it Increasing in Africa?

Illinois Governor Awards Chicago Foundation for Women Grant for Anti-Violence Initiative

Thu, 28 Sep 2006 09:40:00 GMT

Chicago Foundation for Women asks, "What will it take to make Illinois the safest state for all women and girls?".

Chicago Foundation for Women announced today it will be receiving a $2 million grant from the State of Illinois to fund a yearlong anti-violence initiative to answer the question, “What Will It Take to Make Illinois the Safest State for All Women and Girls?”

The grant was put in the state budget and given to the Foundation thanks to the efforts of Gov. Rod Blagojevich and State Senator Carol Ronen (D-Chicago). Blagojevich made the formal announcement at the Foundation’s 21st Annual Luncheon and Symposium Thursday, attended by more than 2,000 people.

“Domestic violence and sexual assault are two of the worst crimes we see. And sadly, thousands of women and children face this kind of violence each year,” Gov. Blagojevich said. “That’s why it’s so important to invest in programs that help prevent violence against women, and ensure that women and girls can find safety and help when they need to escape violent situations. Chicago Foundation for Women’s anti-violence initiative is taking all the right steps to fight domestic violence and sexual assaults. And with these state and federal grants, Chicago Foundation for Women and other organizations across the state will help us strive to be the safest state in the country for women and girls.”

“We chose the Chicago Foundation for Women to lead this initiative because it has always been a leader in trying to help end violence against women,” said Ronen. “We know that the Foundation is a neutral organization able to bring together advocates, academics, politicians, community members and religious leaders. And it is willing to reach out to find those who haven’t yet been part of the discussion.”

“There is wonderful work already being done in Illinois to prevent violence against women,” said Mary Morten, associate director of the Foundation, who will lead the effort. “But still the problem is escalating. The numbers are not getting better. So, we need to roll up our sleeves and get much more creative with our approach. That’s what we intend to do.”

“This seems like such a simple question to ask,” said Hannah Rosenthal, executive director of the Foundation. “But we know from experience that simple questions often net the most complex and complete answers. And that is what we are looking for—answers. We thank the Governor for the confidence he has placed in us.”

The money will be used for grants and a public education campaign, as well as a complex statewide discussion. At year’s end, the initiative will publish a report that serves as a blueprint for violence prevention in Illinois. “The blueprint will not only show Illinois how to become the safest state for women and girls but also lead the way for other states as well,” said Morten.

Request for Proposals

What will it Take? FACT SHEET

For more information, please contact Susy Schultz , director of advocacy and communications, at (312) 577-2825.

UN Special Rapporteur Report on Human Trafficking - Call for Information

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 19:06:00 GMT

The next report of the UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons will be on the issue of forced marriages relevant to trafficking.

CALL FOR INFORMATION - QUESTIONNAIRE

English, French, Spanish

Please note that the Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children will devote her next thematic report to the aspects of the issue of forced marriages that are relevant to her mandate. She has prepared a questionnaire to gather information on this subject.

The questionnaire is attached below in English, French and Spanish. The Special Rapporteur would be grateful if responses could reach her no later than 31 October 2006, so that they can be reflected in her next report to the Human Rights Council.

Please send your responses to the questionnare as well as other relevant information to Ms. Rachel Rico-Balzan (rrico@ohchr.org) and Genevi Clottey (gclottey@ohchr.org) Fax: +41 22 9179006. Please also forward the questionnaire to your partners and other relevant organizations.

For more information, contact:
Genevieve Clottey
UN OHCHR/SPB
tel. +41 22 917 91 99
fax: +41 22 917 90 06

Update on the 4th Session of the ILO-Sub-Regional Advisory Committee (SURAC) of the Mekong Project to Combat Trafficking in Children and Women

Sun, 01 Oct 2006 14:20:00 GMT

Participants agreed to improve regional cooperation. .

50 participants of the 4th Session of the Sub-regional Advisory Committee of the ILO - Mekong Project to Combat Trafficking in Children and Women (SURAC) have unanimously agreed to improve regional cooperation to prevent and suppress exploitative brokerage practices in the effort to contribute to the COMMIT process in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) and to coordinate their efforts among Governments, Workers’ and Employers’ Organizations to maximize their impact.

The meeting from 8-9 May 2006 in Phnom Penh, hosted by the Royal Cambodia Government’s The Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training, followed a theme of “Collaborative Action against Human Trafficking: Promoting Safe Migration and Addressing Exploitative Recruitment Practices” and was opened with a strong commitment by Cambodia’s Secretary of State for the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training, H.E. Vong Saut. After two – day meetings, the participants reached to mutual recommendations on the following issues:

The Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative against Trafficking (COMMIT) process will pursue activities aimed at investigating and addressing exploitative migrant recruitment practices within the sub-region. Preliminary research conducted through the ILO-TICW project indicates that most recruitment of migrant children and young women into unskilled areas of work within the sub-region takes place through informal recruitment channels. Formal recruitment services are not yet fully developed to recruit unskilled workers, particularly women and young people who are more vulnerable to trafficking, forced labour and other forms of labour exploitation. Since the Memorandums of Employment Cooperation between and among Thailand, Cambodia and Lao PDR are now providing opportunities for legal movement for employment, it has become evident that formal recruitment channels need to be safe, cost effective, fast, easily accessible and clearly understood by migrants. With this in mind, the following ten recommendations were developed at the fourth session of SURAC to guide the Mekong Project to Combat Trafficking in Children and Women:

Law and Policy
1. Share individual country experiences of recruitment practices, to assist countries who are in the process of drafting recruitment related laws
2. Commission a comparative study to document the ways in which countries recruit migrant workers and monitor conditions for their workers in destination countries
3. Develop consistency in the migrant recruitment regulations between and among the five Mekong countries
4. Government, employers’ organizations and workers’ organizations to provide information to prospective migrant workers and employers on the Memorandums of Understanding on Employment Cooperation so that they understand how the provisions apply to them

Involvement of workers, employers and other concerned organizations
5. Workers and employers organizations have a role to play in gathering information through their informal networks on recruitment practices and reporting to the government and the media
6. Develop training programs for employers’, workers’ and other organizations to identify, monitor and report on recruitment practices
7. Employers’ and workers’ organizations to develop specific plans of action for implementing the Memorandums of Understanding on Employment Cooperation with Thailand and other bilateral agreements where appropriate

Awareness raising
8.Information services to migrants should be holistic, providing not only information on safe migration practices but also including components on better and sustainable employment opportunities at home.
9. The meeting highlighted the value of existing country specific awareness raising activities, particularly those involving government, workers’, employers’ and other concerned organizations. There were several proposals for immediate concrete measures on awareness raising targeting in-migrants, out-migrants and their agents
10. In addition, participants recognized the value of developing a sub-regional campaign with clear and consistent messages. The campaign requires increased cooperation among the different groups, governments, workers and employers.

By Nguyen Van Dao
ILO Vietnam

Brothel Raids Expose Problem of Slavery in US

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 19:18:00 GMT

Raids that uncovered more than 70 suspected sex slaves focused on 20 brothels in the East, but they illustrated a long-ignored national problem found in towns large and small, experts say.

"It's a very overwhelming subject for a lot of people to recognize that there is slavery at this time in our country," said Carole Angel, staff attorney with the Immigrant Women Program of the women's rights advocacy group Legal Momentum in Washington. "It's hard for us as humans to contemplate what this means," she said.

The concept of slavery in the 21st century is foreign to most people, agreed Jolene Smith, executive director of Free The Slaves, a Washington-based organization dedicated to ending slavery worldwide. "Americans are conditioned to believe that slavery was a thing of the past," Smith said. "We have to re-educate ourselves about this reality."

In mid-August, federal and local law enforcement raided brothels disguised as massage parlors, health spas and acupuncture clinics in New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Maryland, Rhode Island and the District of Columbia, arresting 31 people on trafficking charges.

Authorities said they freed more than 70 sex workers, taking them to undisclosed locations for questioning and basic services such as health care and food.

Authorities said it might take weeks for the Korean immigrants to trust them enough to discuss their ordeal. "Human traffickers profit by turning dreams into nightmares," said U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia in Manhattan, where most of the traffickers face prosecution.
"These women sought a better life in America and found instead forced prostitution and misery," Garcia said.

Angel said the raids should not suggest trafficking is limited to immigrants, who are often enticed into coming to America for legitimate jobs but forced to work in brothels, sweatshops and restaurants to pay off debts of up to $30,000 to their traffickers.

"There are so many faces on this," she said. "It happens in rural communities, big cities. It spans all education levels, different countries, different races."

Such forced labor also thrives in agricultural and domestic work, in sweatshops or unregulated industries, said Laurel Fletcher, law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, International Human Rights Law Clinic.

Fletcher was one of several authors of a 2004 report thought to be the first comprehensive study of forced labor in the United States. That study, by Free The Slaves and the Human Rights Center of the University of California, Berkeley, concluded that at least 10,000 people are forced laborers at any time across the United States.

The State Department estimates there are among up to 800,000 trafficking victims worldwide. The Berkeley study concluded victims came from more than 35 countries, with most from China, followed by Mexico and Vietnam.

It found reports of forced labor in at least 90 U.S. cities, mostly in areas with large immigrant populations. Fletcher cautioned that trafficking in smaller communities is likely harder to detect. The federal government has seized tens of millions of dollars from traffickers.

With increased investigations, the number of arrests has risen more than 400 percent in recent years, Myers said. And the amount of assets seized from human smugglers and human-trafficking organizations has gone from almost nothing in 2003 to nearly $27 million in 2005, she noted.

Myers said criminals look at the slaves as a commodity. "But we know that the victims of trafficking and smuggling are not cargo," Myers said. "They are human beings who often have been mentally and physically broken down in every way possible."

WORST OFFENDERS
A study by the Free The Slaves and the Human Rights Center of the University of California at Berkeley also concluded that prostitution and sex services accounted for 46 percent of the documented forced labor in the United States. This compares with:

Domestic service: 27 percent
Agriculture: 10 percent
Sweatshop-factory work: 5 percent
Restaurant and hotel work: 4 percent

LARRY NEUMEISTER. "Brothel Raids Expose Problem of Slavery in US." Associated Press. 3 September 2006

Immigration Issue Muddles Fight Against Human Trafficking

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 21:54:00 GMT

One of the region’s leading agencies in the fight against human trafficking in Florida is battling on another front as well — to raise enough money to continue its efforts.

Anna Rodriguez, founder of the Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking, said people are reluctant to publicly support her efforts because of fear that it might be construed as favoring amnesty for immigrants. This comes at a particularly bad time for the group, she says, because it is seeking sponsorship for a fundraising gala, at which the film “Lives for Sale” will premiere.

The documentary on human trafficking was partially filmed in Southwest Florida and includes the case of a Guatemalan girl who was freed from slavery in North Fort Myers. The News-Press first reported the girl’s ordeal in May 2005. The movie will air nationally this fall on the Hallmark Cable Channel and PBS.

Yet Rodriguez says that even though her group sent out more than 100 pleas for $1,000 sponsorship, so far, no one has offered.

“None, zero, nada. Plus, we sent out 500 invitations and only 90 tickets are spoken for — and 20 of those are courtesy,” she said. “What really bothers me is that we are doing outreach and we have had positive results. We’ve identified and rescued eight victims of trafficking throughout the state.”

Rodriguez is particularly bothered at the lack of support from the area’s Hispanic community and from the Southwest Florida Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

“The majority of the victims that we have been able to rescue are Hispanics. As the Hispanic Chamber they should have been supporting my work,” Rodriguez said. “This is not about supporting immigration reform — this isn’t even an immigration issue — this is about saving lives.”

Chamber Board President Veronica Culbertson said many more groups approach the chamber for support than they can help. “Right now we are working on a couple of projects that are taking all of our time and energy,” she said. “We wish we could just help everybody who came to us.”

But some groups still are committed to helping eradicate the crime with a reported 2 million victims in the U.S. annually. The Sanibel-Captiva chapter of Zonta International, the club that brought the focus on human trafficking to Lee County, is giving Rodriguez’s group $10,000 to continue its efforts, said Nola Theiss, president of the group.

Theiss, who also operates a similar cause to Rodriguez’s called the Human Trafficking Awareness Partnership, said politics should not enter into the fight against this heinous crime. “This is not an immigration issue. It occurs to Americans as well as immigrants who are legal and illegal,” Theiss said. “(If) they are subject to atrocities, then it becomes a human rights issue.”

Doug Molloy, chief assistant U.S. Attorney in Fort Myers and an expert in human trafficking, added that the support for anti-human trafficking campaigns in Southwest Florida has been “outstanding.” “One reason why we have seen more arrests here in Lee County than in some states is because the community is aware of the problem,” he said.

Amy Bennett Williams and Jeff Cull. "Immigration flap muddles human trafficking struggle." 1 September 2006. News-Press.

UN Calls for Better Protection for Women Migrants

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 19:28:00 GMT

Governments worldwide must do more to protect a growing number of women from exploitation when they venture overseas to work and earn money for their families.

Almost half of the world's 191 million migrants are women, mainly from developing countries in Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe, the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) said. These women send a larger chunk of their typically lower wages back home to support relatives than male migrants, making them a key factor in global poverty reduction, according to the UNFPA State of World Population 2006 study.

But policies designed to support migrants rarely account for the vulnerability of females to human trafficking and other forms of abuse -- a factor that must be changed to enable women to work safely and fulfil their earnings potential. "Migration can be a very positive win-win situation for both sending and receiving countries if it is well managed," UNFPA executive director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, told Reuters.

Women, who historically migrated for marriage or to join their families, are increasingly travelling abroad to work thanks to better transport and communication, said the report, which also highlights the plight of 10-24-year-olds who migrate.

UNFPA said overall remittances generated by male and female migrants came to an estimated 232 billion dollars in 2005, with the actual amount likely to be much higher because money transferred through informal channels was not counted.

Some 167 billion dollars of this goes to developing countries, making it the second largest source of external funding after foreign direct investment. This money helped to boost the local economy, improve child health care and reduce mortality rates. But UNFPA said more needed to be done to harness the long-term economic benefits.

Migration also carries risks, with many women ending up as prostitutes, over-worked domestic helpers or sweatshop workers. Another worrying trend was the number of professionals, such as nurses and doctors, from developing countries like Zimbabwe and Uganda -- where such skills are greatly needed -- who move overseas to find better-paid work.

Obaid said she hoped to raise awareness about the need for poor countries to educate people about their rights when working abroad. In return, nations on the receiving end should help immigrants to integrate smoothly. Contrary to fears that immigrants take jobs, drive down wages and are a burden on the state, UNFPA said the impact is often positive, with foreign workers filling the low-paying but essential roles that residents do not want.

Deborah Haynes. "UN calls for better protection for women migrants." Reuters. News. 6 September 2006.

What Do People in Bosnia & Herzegovina Think about Trafficking in Human Beings?

Mon, 25 Sep 2006 08:43:00 GMT

The OSCE Mission to Bosnia & Herzegovina (BiH) polled the public in several BiH towns to ask them how much they knew about the problem of human trafficking.

Some excerpts from the story:

Narcisa Gakovic, Architect, Sarajevo:

Trafficking in human beings is present in poor countries, countries in transition, where difficult material conditions and lack of education make victims vulnerable to trafficking, in their pursuit of a promised, better life. Most often, victims are forced into prostitution; their documents are taken away from them and their human rights violated. The saddest thing is that they keep quiet and comply with their present situation. They are silent because they are afraid. We need to educate people, because we can fall victims to trafficking, as well.

Irmela Brkic, Journalist, Sarajevo:

Trafficking in human beings, especially in women and children, is a lucrative business today. Little is being said about it and even less is being done to combat it. Poor living conditions in BiH contribute to the number of victims and lead many to look for salvation in the false promises of traffickers. Of course, a big part of this problem is caused by human naivety. Trafficking in human beings is usually connected to prostitution, and our media only focus on that aspect of trafficking. Child abuse is not frequently reported, even tough, as I see it; it is a much bigger problem.

For more information, read How Much Do You Know about Trafficking in Human Beings?

Official Launch Ceremony of the Regional Training Programme to Combat Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong Sub-region

Mon, 25 Sep 2006 16:22:00 GMT

Official launch ceremony of the Regional Training Programme to Combat Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong Sub-region was held at the Mekong Institute at Khon Kaen University on 28 August 2006.

SIX MEKONG COUNTRIES JOIN IN HIGH-LEVEL TRAINING PROGRAMME TO FIND WAYS TO FIGHT CRIME OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING TOGETHER:

The official launch ceremony of the Regional Training Programme to Combat Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong Sub-region was held at the Mekong Institute in the campus of Khon Kaen University on 28 August 2006. The Regional Training Programme is the first project under the COMMIT (Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative Against Trafficking) Sub-regional Plan of Action organized by the UN-Inter Agency Project on Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (UNIAP), who was appointed by the GMS governments as the Secretariat, and the Mekong Institute.

In her keynote speech, Ms. Joana Merlin-Scholtes, UN Resident Coordinator in Thailand, highlighted that the Regional Training Course “…reflects a recognition among all parties to the COMMIT process of the need to come together and learn, to review existing assumptions, to share best practices, and to fight this crime of human trafficking systematically.” Speaking on behalf of the GMS embassies, the Ambassador of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, His Excellency Mr. Nguyen Duy Hung expressed satisfaction on the progress currently made in the region to combat human trafficking but emphasized the need to do much more to make a difference. A key feature of the programme is the opportunity for participants to meet colleagues from neighboring countries, to share information and to build trust and relationships that will become important in fighting the crime of human trafficking in the region.

Ambassadors and senior officials from the Embassy of Cambodia, China, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam, senior officials of the Royal Thai Government, UN representatives, development partners from the Embassy of Sweden and the CIDA-funded SEARCH project were present on the occasion to commemorate the official launch of the highly regarded Regional Training Programme.

Altogether 29 middle to senior level government officials and International Non-government Organizations (INGOs) personnel from all six GMS countries will be attending this fourth training from 28 August to 06 September 2206.

For further information please contact:

Melissa Stewart
UNIAP Regional Information & Communications Officer
UN Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong Sub-region
Tel: 662-288-2575
Email: melissa.stewart@un.or.th

Ms. Sanda Thant
Program Manager
Mekong Institute Foundation
Tel: 664-320-2411/2 ext. 112
Email: sanda@mekonginstitute.org

For more information, see: http://www.no-trafficking.org/inet_newsmanager/news_detail.aspx?news_id=11

Lao Government Steps Up Efforts to Combat Human Trafficking

Mon, 25 Sep 2006 17:08:00 GMT

The plan to combat human trafficking is a priority of the Lao government. The objectives of a two-day national meeting on 21-22 August 2006 in Vientiane, Lao PDR were to review the implementation and achievements of measures taken against human trafficking over th epast years of various sectors relevant to combating human trafficking.

According to the Minister of Labour and Social Welfare, Mr.s Onchanh Thammavong, there are over 180,000 illegal Lao workers in Thailand, and the majority of them are young women and children who are lured for work.

To view full article:
Vientiane Times. Lao Government Steps Up Effort to Combat Human Trafficking. 23 August 2006.

Human Trafficking Mars a Generation in Lao PDR

Mon, 25 Sep 2006 17:16:00 GMT

Numerous young people illegally working in neighbouring countries are prone to become human trafficking victims, which is a big concern in Savannakhet province.

“Over 775 illegal migrants from Xonbouly and Atsaphangthong districts of Savannakhet province are illegally working in Thailand,” said the programme Manager of the Mekong Delta Regional Trafficking Strategy (MDRTS) under the World Vision, Mr. Detdaovone Ketavong. He added that in reality, the number might be higher because people are afraid to report what they know to local authorities. Nevertheless, the report indicates from the 775 illegal migrants, 430 are from 26 target villages of Xonbouly and 345 are from 15 villages of Atsaphangthong district. According to a survey, Savannakhet has the highest number of illegal workers in Thailand, and these people are at high risk of becoming trafficking victims, said Mr. Detdaovone.

The manager said that almost all the victims are young people, and more particularly children and women. “There are very few students attending schools in our target villages and the majority of people who stay there are old people,” observed Mr. Detdaovone. This is backed up by the facts: in 2003 the ILO found that 7.6 percent of the total female population of the provinces of Savannakhet, Khammuan, and Champassak have migrated to Thailand, and 6.2 percent of the male population. The majority of the migrants are younger than 25, with 16 percent being just 17 years old or younger.

He said that many of the victims are lured into the sex industry. Some of the typical reasons for these young people to leave their villages for Thailand include dysfunctional families, poverty, and misinformation about the labour market.

Some youngsters are lured into making the decision to illegally work in Thailand because they wish to have “attractive” clothes and other modern gadgets like those of friends who have returned back to the village. “Even if these young people are forced to work and are being taken advantage of by their employers there, when they come home they do not tell the truth; they just boast about ‘the good life’ they experienced abroad,” said the manager.

“There was a case in point of three victims that the AFESIP in Thailand sent us recently. The girls were tricked into going to Thailand. They were told that they would get a lot of money working there, but they were not told what job they would do,” said the manager. These three victims only realised once they were there that they had to work in a karaoke club where guests could take the girls out. They worked there for about ten days before the police raided the place and all the people were arrested.

A 2003 study by the ILO found that 62 percent of the migrant workers from Savannakhet to Thailand were female, and, perhaps more troubling, the study found that a disproportionate 31 percent of these female migrants were under the age of 18. Almost half of the female migrants from southern Laos will end up as domestic servants in Thailand, the ILO found, but more than 40 percent of the women described their employment vaguely as “special activities”. An unknown number of these young women will be forced into prostitution every year.

“The young people go to neighbouring countries seeking employment, and most of them go illegally.” Mr. Detdaovone said that not only the people who go illegally become victims, but also some of those going legally. “Some legal migrants just went once, so they do not know much information, and as a result, they are easily tricked by brokers to give away their passport,” explained the manager.

The victims often do not have any legitimate information on working overseas. The majority of them were told that working in neighbouring countries was more lucrative. “We cannot prevent all young people from going abroad, but the best thing we can do to help them is to raise awareness on the negative impacts and the dangers of this trafficking. Furthermore, we should mobilise ourselves so those youngsters can travel legally. Eventuallty, we should inform them so they know to protect themselves, such as advising them to keep their passport safe,” said Mr. Detdaovone.

Almost all the migrants go illegally because they are poor; they do not have enough money to get their documents processed legally. “I have heard that a state unit lent money for conducting document process, but those people might not access this information and they might not understand it clearly. Moreover, those people might not prefer to go through complex processes to obtain documentation,” said the manager.

The project’s activities cover raising awareness on negative impacts and dangers of human trafficking, gender equality, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, alcohol, drugs and laws on women’s development and protection, according to the manager.

The project works closely with various state sectors concerned to solve this issue, who organise activities to raise people’s awareness so that they would know where to go when they need help. The project is also coordinated with its counterpart network in Thailand to exchange information on migrants.

In order to implement these activities effectively, the project has organised training courses so that the trainees would later transfer the knowledge to communities in villages. “We choose literate people in the villages, but it is difficult to find them because about half of the residents are illiterates,” said Mr Detdaovone.

The project has worked closely with the AFESIP in Thailand to make the victims go back home. Manager said that these victims would face difficulties in their lives, particularly the entertainment women when they go back home because they are often cast out by society. He also said that to solve this problem, society must give them a chance.

In the near future, the province aims to establish shelter providing rehabilitation and assistance to victims. The project also aims to provide vocational training to the victims so that they are able to help themselves. Further projects plan to establish more networks with various sectors in Thailand including private and state sectors, foundations as well as state-enterprises whose responsibility involves to find missing people, according to the manager.

Adapted from: Souksakhone Vaenkeo. "Human Trafficking Mars a Generation in Savannakhet." Vientiane Times. 14 August 2006.

Sex Trafficking in Southeastern Europe Thrives, So Does the Effort to Combat It

Thu, 14 Sep 2006 18:55:00 GMT

Southeastern Europe's human-trafficking industry continues to thrive as it learns to adapt to new efforts to thwart its operations.

As Southeastern European countries move closer to their goals of EU integration, their images remain tainted by reports that sex-trafficking is thriving in the region. While greater local and international efforts are being made to stop human trafficking, the industry has not been abolished - rather, it has adapted and transformed itself. Reports from international organizations and law enforcement agencies confirm that human trafficking, particularly the sexual exploitation of women and girls, is still thriving in the region and the rest of Europe. However, the structure of sex trafficking is different now than a few years ago. While some changes have been positive, others have not, representatives of governments, international organizations, and nongovernmental organizations tell ISN Security Watch.

In recent years, states around the world have changed their penal codes and criminalized sex trafficking, or the sexual exploitation of people through coercion and deception.

One of the main trafficking regions has been Southeastern Europe. Women and girls who come from the region have been forced to prostitute themselves in Western Europe, often falling victim to false advertisements promising lucrative jobs abroad. Sex trafficking in Southeastern Europe has also been boosted by the presence of tens of thousands of international staff tasked with maintaining stability in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Macedonia. Most peacekeepers are men, many of whom visit the brothels in these countries - brothels in which some of the prostitutes have been victims of sex trafficking.

Stories of women and girls sold like chattel on "slave markets" across Europe, and then exploited, tortured and sometimes killed have transformed sex trafficking to a prime security concern.

Anti-trafficking laws, the training of police officers and border guards, campaigns alerting women to the danger of human trafficking and zero-tolerance policies of the UN, NATO and other organizations who have "internationals" on the ground have reportedly led to a decline in human trafficking.

There are no reliable figures on sex trafficking, given its clandestine nature and the fact that the distinction between voluntary and forced prostitution is often blurred. The 2003 European Security Strategy of the European Union (EU) asserted that Balkan criminal networks were responsible for some 200,000 of the 700,000 female victims of the sex trade worldwide. Such figures are not based on systematic empirical research. They merely reflect the hysteria over organized crime and the successful instrumentalization of the trafficking issue by an unlikely coalition of mainly US Christian conservatives and feminist groups who want to abolish all forms of prostitution.

While no one knows how many women and girls are trafficked, few observers see an emergency situation now, in contrast to a few years ago.

Criminologist Jana Arsovska, whose research focuses on ethnic Albanian trafficking networks, told ISN Security Watch in Skopje, Macedonia, that the situation in the country had improved. Zero-tolerance policies in Kosovo have lowered the number of internationals spending their weekends in brothels on Lake Ohrid. The termination of military and policing missions in Macedonia has additionally reduced demand. Trafficking has also become less visible since the 2003 arrest of a prominent trafficker in Macedonia.

According to Philip Gounev, a researcher at the Center for the Study of Democracy in Sofia, Bulgaria, with about 100 brothels, prostitution is thriving in Sofia, and “some internationals are coming from Kosovo to Sofia to visit strip clubs and brothels.” However, he says that the number of Bulgarian women trafficked has always been exaggerated, and that a drop in unemployment and poverty mitigate against trafficking since fewer women are pushed into prostitution or take risky migration decisions.

Moreover, falling birth rates means that traffickers will have a harder time finding Bulgarian women in the future. Last, the Bulgarian public no longer seems willing to blindly accept official corruption - an inevitable by-product of organized crime. Another positive trend in Europe is a change in the way the police forces, border guards, prosecutors and judges perceive trafficked women. A few years ago, governments saw trafficking primarily as an organized crime problem. Trafficked persons were seen as passive victims, deprived of their ability to make decisions, with no questions asked about their motivations to search for a better life abroad.

In Western Europe, trafficked persons were often deported to their home countries for illegal migration or for breaking anti-prostitution laws. Now, due to the pressure of international organizations and NGOs, anti-trafficking strategies take more of a human rights approach. Shelters, psychological and medical counseling services, the re-integration of women in their home communities, the granting of temporary residency permits in countries of destination and awareness campaigns help trafficked victims and prevent others from becoming victims.

Still, although Southeastern Europe has the most anti-trafficking programs anywhere in the world, the efforts remain unsatisfactory. Greater law enforcement pressure, better border controls intended to identify victims during the migration process and zero-tolerance policies deterring internationals from using the services of trafficked persons have not abolished the prostitution and trafficking industry. Instead, the industry has been transformed.

According to a senior Macedonian police officer speaking to ISN Security Watch on condition of anonymity, “Traffickers have changed their modus operandi: Now they push women into massage parlors and private houses. And they don’t advertise as openly as before.”

Moreover, a decline in reported cases of international trafficking goes hand in hand with a rise in internal trafficking. In Bulgaria and Macedonia, Roma girls are particularly affected, due to poverty and gender discrimination. In Kosovo, police profiling of foreign women between 2001 and 2004 “has shown to bar owners that foreign women are trouble because of higher risks of discovery,” Alma Begicevic of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) mission in Kosovo told ISN Security Watch in Pristina. An increase in the number of Kosovo-Albanian women and girls trafficked, as well as an increase in women coming from Albania who speak the same language and thus do not catch the attention of the police, may have been a response, she says.

Adaptive responses of criminals are inevitable by-products of law enforcement. Other shortcomings of counter-trafficking efforts, however, could be avoided. One of these shortcomings is a lack of coordination among international organizations, donors, government agencies and NGOs.

Dr Rossanka Venelinova, executive director of the Nadja Center in Sofia, which helps victims of trafficking and domestic violence, says the anti-trafficking landscape is “like a jungle.” Donor governments who want to show that they are active against human trafficking pursue short-term policies while they cut funding for programs against domestic violence, one of the prime causes of human trafficking.

Dobriana Petkova, who works for the NGO CARE in Sofia, told ISN Security Watch: “There is no overall strategy, only a large number of programs that are not properly coordinated. That means that there is no sustainability.”

Anti-trafficking experts in Bulgaria, Kosovo and Macedonia are particularly critical of the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration (IOM). They accuse the IOM, which, among other activities, helps to re-integrate victims into their home communities, of creating unhealthy competition for funding among NGOs by setting up their own NGO networks, sidelining existing networks.

The IOM also seems to be duplicating existing activities. An official at the Justice Ministry in Kosovo told ISN Security Watch that the IOM “has a lot of money and doesn’t know how to spend it.”

In December 2005, local and international authorities in Kosovo launched a campaign informing women and girls about the danger of sex trafficking. Two weeks later, the IOM, to general surprise, started a similar campaign, even though there are doubts about the effectiveness of such campaigns, and despite the mantra of anti-trafficking actors to inform each other and to develop common strategies.

IOM offices in the region have not responded to requests for interviews from ISN Security Watch. Still, alongside all of these problems, the socio-economic situation in Southeastern Europe remains the greatest obstacle to anti-trafficking efforts. In Bulgaria and Macedonia, average monthly salaries are less than €200 (US$256), and up to 30 percent of the workforce is without adequate employment. In Kosovo, 70 percent are unemployed or underemployed. Poverty affects particularly women. Add to this gender discrimination, which is particularly prevalent in rural areas and within Roma communities, and it is not surprising to hear Violetta Kandzhikova say that “many women here are desperate.”

Kandzhikova works for an NGO in Sofia that distributes condoms to prostitutes. “Very few women are in prostitution because they enjoy having sex. They do it for economic reasons.” But improving the region’s economy is a difficult and long-term task. In the short- and medium-term, the EU has important means at its disposal to prevent trafficking and re-trafficking: It can offer residency and work permits to actual and potential victims of trafficking. However, widespread migration fears within the EU and appeals by populist politicians means that Fortress Europe will remain inaccessible for poor women for the time being, at least without the help of human smugglers and traffickers.

During the negotiation of the 2005 Council of Europe Convention on Human Trafficking, EU member states opposed using the migration lever to help women from poor countries, despite pressure from international organizations and human rights groups. Often, prevention of sex trafficking is no more than cheap talk.

Cornelius Friesendorf. "Human trafficking thrives amid cheap talk." ISN Security Watch. 18 August 2006. http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?id=16551

Law in Taiwan is Causing Abused Migrants to Suffer Twice Over

Thu, 14 Sep 2006 19:00:00 GMT

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Joanna Lei and foreign worker rights groups yesterday urged the government to extend the work permits of foreign workers forced to seek shelter in protection centers.

According to current regulations, foreign workers are allowed to work in Taiwan for three years. If they seek refuge at governmental or NGO protection centers because of abuse or sexual assault by brokers or employers, they are unable to work until they receive a work transfer permit from the Council of Labor Affairs when the abuse or assault case is closed. The time they spend in the centers is also counted as part of their work stay in Taiwan. Lei said, however, that official investigations into abuse or assault can take up to a year, adding that the workers usually have limited or no time left to work for new employers after the conclusion of an investigation. Some of the workers may be unwilling to accept such a long period of time without earning any income and therefore choose to run away during the protection period, she said. "The council spends too much time investigating complaints, making victims suffer for a second time," Nguyen Peter Van Hung, executive director of the Vietnamese Migrant Workers and Brides Office, said at the conference.

He said the office had asked the council to take action but that it had so far not reached any decision.

A Vietnamese worker using the pseudonym "Chu" said that although she was able to take refuge at Nguyen's shelter and filed lawsuits against her employer, the council did not issue a work transfer permit to her after her eight-month stay at the center. "I do not understand Taiwan's laws. What I know is I have been physically and psychologically hurt by my employer, and now I am being hurt again by the Taiwanese government [because] I lost my right to work and suffer nonstop mental torment. I did not do anything wrong. Why should I be punished like this?" she said.

Lei said the current regulations were unreasonable and suggested extending work permits according to the time victims of abuse stay at shelters. The section chief of the council's Bureau of Employment and Vocational Training Chao Wen-hui said the council would like to safeguard workers' dignity at work, but it had to execute the law. Chao, who was also present at the conference, said the council held a meeting on Aug. 3 addressing the time it takes to probe allegations of sexual assault on foreign workers.

Chao said the council intends to further discuss the issue and that an amendment to the regulations may be possible in the future. He agreed to announce the council's decision by the end of next month.

Flora Wang. "Law is causing abused migrants to suffer twice over." Taipei Times. 22 August 2006.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2006/08/22/2003324286

Africa's Child Workers

Thu, 14 Sep 2006 19:10:00 GMT

Exploitive child labor in Africa is still a major problem in poverty stricken countries.

The boulders here are hard enough that the scavengers who have taken over the abandoned quarry south of downtown prefer not to strike them directly with their hammers. They heat the rocks first - with flaming tires, scrap plastic, even old rubber boots - so that the stones will fracture more easily. At dusk, when three or four blazes spew choking black clouds across the huge pit, the quarry looks like a woodcut out of Dante.

A boy named Alone Banda works in this purgatory six days a week. Nine years old, nearly lost in a hooded sweatshirt with a skateboarder on the chest, he takes football-size chunks of fractured rock and beats them into powder. Lacking a hammer, he uses a thick steel bolt gripped in his right hand. In a good week, he says, he can make enough powder to fill half a bag. His grandmother, Mary Mulelema, sells each bag, to be used to make concrete, for 10,000 kwacha, less than $3. Often, she said, it is the difference between eating and going hungry.

“Sometimes when he’s tired, I tell him to stop, but he helps me here most of the time,” she said. “We work every day, to make that powder. Sometimes we work Sunday, if we don’t go to church.” Across the globe, the number of children forced to work is in sharp decline. But sub-Saharan Africa, in places like Lusaka and for children like Alone, is the exception. Here, more than one in four children below age 14 works, whether full time or for a few hours a week, nearly the same percentage as the worldwide average in 1960. It is by far the greatest proportion of working children in the world. By the United Nations’ latest estimate, more than 49 million sub-Saharan children age 14 and younger worked in 2004, 1.3 million more than at the turn of the century just four years earlier. Their tasks are not merely the housework and garden-tending common to most developing societies. They are prostitutes, miners, construction workers, pesticide sprayers, haulers, street vendors, full-time servants, and they are not necessarily even paid for their labor. Some are as young as 5 and 6 years old. In Kenya, nearly a third of the coffee pickers were children, a 2001 World Bank Report found. In Tanzania, 25,000 children worked in hazardous jobs on plantations and in mines.

Their numbers in Africa grow even as the ranks of child laborers are dropping by the millions in every other region of the world. Child labor declines with prosperity, and so the region’s economic plight - 44 percent of sub-Saharan residents live on less than $1 a day, far and away the greatest share on earth - is a big reason. But so are social mores that regard hard work by children as the norm, and conflicts that scatter families and kill breadwinners.

So is the staggering H.I.V. rate, which has created millions of orphans who must work to survive, and has forced millions more to work to support dying parents. In Zambia alone, a 2002 study by independent researchers for the United Nations concluded that AIDS had boosted the number of child laborers by up to 30 percent. So is the region’s population explosion. Well over 4 in 10 people here are under age 15, compared with fewer than 2 in 10 in the developed world, according to the Population Reference Bureau, a nonprofit research organization. With economic growth lagging births, manual labor is often the only way the newcomers can feed themselves.

Worldwide, the number of children who were already “economically active” by the age of 14 fell roughly 10 percent from 2000 to 2004, to about 191 million, according to the International Organization for Labor, a United Nations agency. More impressive still, the number of young children laboring in the most dangerous jobs dropped by a third.

In Asia, the number of economically active children - meaning they worked beyond their chores, legally or not - dropped by five million in just four years. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the decline was even more drastic, nearly 12 million. Indeed, sub-Saharan Africa was the only region where the number of working children did not fall. “It’s like trying to empty a bathtub with a teaspoon while the tap is running,” said Birgitte Poulsen, the technical specialist for the International Labor Organization in Zambia. “If you want to tackle this, you have to recognize the magnitude of the problem, not just in terms of its size, but its complexity. It isn’t just due to instability and conflict and war. It’s poverty and H.I.V.-AIDS.”

Echoes of Oliver Twist
If the stereotype of child labor is an Oliver Twist world of sweatshops with youngsters hunched over sewing machines or metal presses, Africa’s reality is different. A handful of Zambia’s child workers are clearly exploited by adults - for prostitution in cities, and perhaps as miners in the emerald-rich north, near the Democratic Republic of Congo. The International Labor Organization says there are increasing reports of Zambian children being trafficked for work in construction and farming and as servants. Overwhelmingly, though, what drives children into work is not greed but privation. Young people here largely work to feed themselves or their parents, or both.

Alone - a family name, like many in this part of the world, drawn from the English language - and his grandmother rise at about 6:30 a.m. After washing, they make the half-hour walk to the quarry where they work, under a plastic tarp mounted on scavenged tree branches. Alone describes his day in the most basic English: “I break the rocks. I get up early in the morning, before the sun rises. For breakfast, I drink tea sometimes. This morning, I didn’t eat. I’m hungry.” After two hours, he walks to Tatwasha Basic School, a state-run institution near his home, for about four hours of classes. Tatwasha, a grid of cinder-block buildings set on a yellow dirt courtyard, has 3,000 students. About 300 work in the quarries.

Maureen Chinjenge, the school’s stern headmistress, has a word for the quarry children: disoriented. “Most of these children are orphans,” she said, “and in most cases, their performance is not good. For the most part, they don’t eat breakfast, and coming to classes they don’t concentrate. Things like clothing, they don’t have any, and the other children make fun of them.” Their attendance, she says, is spotty. Many are latecomers; some first-graders are as old as 11. Alone, a second-grader at age 9, fits that template well. Asked his teacher’s name, he fidgets for fully a minute, then answers ruefully, “I don’t remember.” After school, he returns to the quarry where, sitting cross-legged on the ground, he attacks his pile of rocks for five more hours, until sunset. A scab marked his left cheek, damage from a sliver of quartz-like rock that flew into his face after an especially hard strike. Other stone-crushers complain of broken fingers, impaired vision or a “heavy chest,” an early sign of silicosis, but Alone says he has suffered no serious injuries beyond some smashed fingers and cut eyes. “It’s a hard job; I hurt myself sometimes,” he said, but “I measure my size. I don’t break huge amounts. I do it according to my age.”

Beyond the physical cruelty and lost youth, sub-Saharan Africa’s child laborers are social and economic millstones on a region that can ill afford them. They are poorly educated, badly fed, inadequately supervised by adults and far more likely to become illiterates whose children, like them, will toil in fields, tend roadside stands or crush rocks. Already, a number of studies have documented increases in street children in sub-Saharan cities, many of them AIDS orphans forced into sidewalk vending, theft or selling sex to survive. In Lusaka, a city of 1.2 million,

“I don’t think it would come to more than 50,000, but the number is definitely growing,” said Yvonne Chilufya, a project manager for Jesus Cares Ministries, a Zambian organization that assists street children and other child laborers. “We see a lot of child-headed households as a result of H.I.V.,” she added. “In other cases, you find the parents are both alive, but doing nothing, chronically ill. So the children are taking care of the parents. The parents send the children out to find food.” The last time Zambia’s government counted, in 1999, it found nearly 600,000 child laborers between ages 5 and 17, roughly 9 in 10 of them on farms, the rest in the cities, working as vendors, domestics or laborers. Almost all were unpaid. On paper, at least, most were illegal: Zambian law forbids labor by children under 13, and allows those between 13 and 15 to engage only in light work. Zambia also has signed the two international conventions that set minimum ages for work and outlaw the most harmful forms of child labor. In recent years, its news media have begun to expose dangerous working conditions for children, and its government has started to move against the most outlandish forms of labor.

But as elsewhere in Africa, Zambia’s stifling bureaucracy, its poverty, the AIDS epidemic and the sheer size of the task all work against success. Ms. Poulsen, of the International Labor Organization, says the government’s efforts to weed out child labor would be reasonably good “if you have inspectors, cars and fuel.” Zambia has precious little of each. “We’ve got lots and lots of good policies in this country,” she said. “But there’s no coordination. It’s difficult to staff basic social services - schools, clinics - because people keep dying” of AIDS.

Choosing a Way to Die
Chola J. Chabala, the Zambian assistant labor commissioner and the official charged with reducing child labor, says the number of children who work is growing despite his government’s efforts, especially in rural areas where oversight is weak. “I do this job with a passion, but it is very depressing at the end of the day,” he said. “I’ve heard children who work as prostitutes say they would rather die from AIDS, because it is slower than dying of hunger.”

Crushing stone is ranked in international agreements as one of the worst forms of child labor, full of risks from flying rock fragments, misdirected hammers, repetitive motion injuries and years of inhaling dust. Like prostitution, it is a job undertaken for survival, not profit. Mrs. Chilufya, of Jesus Cares Ministries, says that in the last four years her group has taken close to 1,000 children from the quarries, placing them in the organization’s own schools and giving small loans to parents and caretakers to open more sustainable businesses, like roadside groceries. But Lusaka has three major quarries, and although hundreds of children have been rescued and sent to schools, hundreds more have taken their place.

The quarries are sprawling outcrops of limestone or quartz-like rock that are hand-mined by hundreds of itinerants armed with hammers, shovels and sledges. In places, they have dug as much as 20 feet below the surface, leaving lattices of surface paths between pits of algae-clogged rainwater, washbasins for the workers’ laundry. The quarries have their own economy. Men split boulders into smaller chunks, then sell them by the barrow to women whose families reduce them to gravel and powder. Homeless and unsupervised children, roaming the streets, hire themselves out at about 30 cents a day to help with the crushing. The output goes on display beside highways - waist-high piles of gravel; old cement bags packed with crushed stone or powder. Construction crews buy the rocks and powder, then sell the cement bags back to the rock breakers. It is a tiring, endlessly tedious task. Its practitioners work six and seven days a week, and they make almost nothing.

Fifty-year-old Ms. Mulelema and her grandson Alone live in Lusaka’s Chawama neighborhood, a slum of one- and two-room block houses linked by dirt paths, in a single room, perhaps 8 by 12 feet. A sheet draped over a rope separates a grimy foam sofa and two wooden chairs from a rudimentary kitchen. There is no electricity. Pencils of sunshine streaming through holes in the corrugated asbestos roof supply the only light. Nor is there a toilet; the stench of human waste wafts upward from bushes outside. Water is hauled in from a community tap. Mrs. Mulelema sleeps on the sofa. Alone sleeps on the concrete floor. Stenciled in black on the wall is a diamond, one word at each angle, comprising a homily: “God Bless Us All.” Alone has been living with his grandmother since his mother died in 2001. His father is a mystery. “I saw him once, but it was long ago,” his grandmother said. “It’s just Alone, and I am taking care of him.” Alone is a handsome boy, with large brown eyes and close-cropped hair, but clearly malnourished. He is short enough - a bit under four feet - to be mistaken for a 6- or 7-year-old. He has two pairs of pants, his skateboard sweatshirt and a pair of black leather shoes, which he reserves for school, the soles so worn that his toes hang out the front.

Hungry, but Paying the Rent
The two or three bags of rock powder that Alone can produce, at 10,000 kwacha per bag, are sold as a mixer for concrete, often to line swimming pools for Lusaka’s wealthier residents. They are the most lucrative products his grandmother offers, almost enough to pay the $11 a month she needs for rent and access to the community water tap. Sales of the gravel she produces earn barely enough money to buy corn meal and small, dried fish, called kapenta, that the two eat for dinner. For Mrs. Mulelema, Alone is literally the difference between profit and loss, and a hair’s-breadth difference at that. “We don’t eat breakfast every day,” she said. “At lunch we have sweet potatoes, and then we wait for supper. “If I decide to have my breakfast, it means I won’t have anything for supper.”

Mrs. Mulelema once tried to open a food stand in the community market, but could not raise the cash. Like virtually all the hundreds of Lusakans who crush stones, she says she does it because she has no choice. “The business has no profit,” said Mwila Zulu, a 40-year-old mother of three girls. She has been crushing stone at a quarry in Lusaka’s industrial zone since the police shut down her unlicensed vegetable stand in the city’s downtown in 2002. Mrs. Zulu’s husband died last year with symptoms that pointed to AIDS. Her daughters work at the quarry after school ends at noon, trying to fill the space he left. The youngest, Kunda and Mercy, break rocks with ball-peen hammers, the handles cut down to fit their hands. By day’s end, their deep brown arms and faces wear a film of white quartz-like dust. They are 7 and 8 years old. “She started working with me in recent years,” Mrs. Zulu said of Kunda. “She couldn’t do anything when she was young, but now she’s grown, so she’s helping me.”

For 50,000 kwacha, or $15, a passing construction worker can buy a chest-high heap of gravel that took them three weeks to render. But sales of that size are infrequent, sometimes once every two or three weeks, and money is short. Mrs. Zulu said she did not waste time fretting over her daughters’ fate. “If I feel pity for them,” she said, “what are they going to eat?”

MICHAEL WINES. "Africa Adds to Miserable Ranks of Child Workers." New York Times. 24 August 2006.
Gavin du Venage contributed reporting from Sedgefield, South Africa, for this article.

Taiwan Comes under Increased Scrutiny after US Issues Trafficking in Persons Report

Thu, 14 Sep 2006 19:45:00 GMT

The Council of Labor Affairs is criticized for failing to address human trafficking.

The Council of Labor Affairs has made very good use of a very bad week for the Chen administration. What better time to announce policy changes that stab foreign workers in the back than when everyone is busy being dazzled by tales of the first family's woe?

The council ought to have been embarrassed by a report from the US State Department that chided Taiwan for failing to address the "serious level of forced labor and sexual servitude among legally migrating Southeast Asian contract workers and brides." The report also expressed concern over the treatment of workers who then flee exploitative working conditions.

Yet the council seems to think that foreigners still have it too good, and are rewriting the rules to please big business, all the while defending token "measures" that defend the rights of workers who are being abused or otherwise taken advantage of. It is as if the Kaohsiung MRT riot never happened.

Speaking of which, it is instructive that the council is washing its hands of the 700 mostly Thai laborers who were here at the time of the riot and who have been or will be sent home, contracts not renewed. This is an act of retaliation by the Kaohsiung City Council, which has made sure that the workers got their comeuppance. Result? The MRT project is now short of labor to the tune of 400 workers.

We also note with disgust the council's intention to abolish the minimum monthly wage of NT$15,840 (US$483) for foreigners. This will increase mistreatment of workers -- many of whom are already forced to go into years of debt by thug labor brokers to have the privilege of working here.

But even by this council's standards, Minister Lee Ying-yuan's defense of the plan is laughable. He argues that this basic protection for workers should be removed because some (unidentified) employers complain foreigners are being paid more than locals. It seems therefore that Lee is beholden to the opinions of employers who mistreat locals as well as foreigners.

As if all of this weren't contemptible enough, the council now wants to issue new forgery-proof integrated circuit cards to foreign workers to prevent them from "committing crimes" and "ensuring national security." How a piece of plastic will stop a laborer from stealing a pack of instant noodles, let alone weaken the nation's borders, is beyond us.

More troubling, however, is the anticipated cost of the program: a cool NT$500 million (US$15.27 million). All of this is money that could have been spent on genuine improvements to administrative and emergency support for foreigners. It turns out that it was utter fantasy that such things could be expected of the council.

It should be noted that there is a definite bias against Southeast Asians in the council's operations. Nationals from Western and other wealthy countries have any number of informal resources at their disposal to dispute and contest mistreatment by employers. But what can one do for workers who are allowed to be confined to quarters courtesy of a council-backed curfew?

This is a non-partisan issue. It is clear that both sides of politics could not care less about the exploitation of foreigners by local industry -- because both sides of politics cherish their connections with big business. For this reason, it cannot be assumed that the situation will improve with the arrival of a new government and a new minister.

This is a pity, because once human rights have been dealt with, there is the niggling problem of quality control. The less you pay, the less you get, and this is no less true with foreign labor. This government -- and the Council of Labor Affairs in particular -- seems to be bereft of any understanding that good labor relations produce good product.

Editorial "Why not just call them slaves?" Taipei Times. 22 JulY 2006.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2006/07/22/2003319895

New Program in the US Offers a Way Out of Prostitution

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 10:27:00 GMT

Cincinnati, Ohio offers a place where women can exit a life of prostitution.

Call it the School for Prostitutes. It's not where women learn how to sell themselves. It's where women who already do might learn how to stop. Cincinnati Union Bethel, a 176-year-old, non-profit social services agency, started the "Off the Streets" program in April to help women break out of the cycle of selling sex, feeding drug habits and answering to pimps.

Off the Streets provides prostitutes with counseling. It tries to give them support, something many haven't had since they first sold themselves. It provides advice on careers and a place to live. Newcomers talk to women who successfully left "the life." "This program offers comprehensive assistance to women who want to make some changes, women who literally want to get off the street," says Mary Carol Melton, program director. It began after Cincinnati and Hamilton County criminal justice leaders started searching for a way to reduce prostitution arrests. They eventually focused on a program 2,300 miles away.

Idea is Spreading
Fourteen years ago, Norma Hotaling started SAGE (Standing Against Global Exploitation) in San Francisco after being in and out of jail more than 30 times on various prostitution, drug and petty theft charges. She wanted to escape life on the streets and wanted to help other women do the same thing. Cincinnati is the fifth city to emulate the program. St. Paul's version is called Breaking Free. Phoenix has Dignity House. Kansas City has Veronica's Closet, and Fresno has Marjaree Mason Center. Boston, Seattle and San Diego are looking to start programs, Hotaling said.

Vednita Carter, founder and executive director of Breaking Free, says the program has made a mark in St. Paul since it began in 1996. She says her greatest success isn't in numbers. "It's seeing people move into their first apartment, put their name on the mailbox and buy their first TV," Carter says. "It's a beautiful thing for them to say: 'I deserve this. I'm part of society.' Hotaling says, "It's a dream to watch the program being started elsewhere." That was part of her plan from the beginning, she says. "We wanted to develop the appropriate services for women all over who have been treated badly ... by institutions and services," Hotaling says. "I wanted to make sure what worked here, other places could pick up."

Andrea Bertone, director of a website run by the Academy for Educational Development, HumanTrafficking.org, praises programs that look at all the problems that trap people in a life of prostitution. "Prostitution is a very complex problem that isn't solved with one service," Bertone says. "Teams work best because people need to address a wide range of problems. It takes time and effort to change the thought process that got them there."

Addressing a Top Complaint
Cincinnati police Capt. Howard Rahtz says prostitution is second only to drugs as a top complaint of neighborhood leaders in the city. Johns looking for sex troll streets, sometimes mistaking residents for hookers, says Amy Krings Barnes, community liaison at Cincinnati's Community Police Partnering Center. They take prostitutes to abandoned buildings, she says, and drug dealers follow the women knowing they'll be customers. "Prostitution is the world's oldest profession," Rahtz says. "I'm sure police trying to do something about it is the second-oldest." In the past, the strategy for dealing with prostitution was basically arrest-and-release. At most, Rahtz says, prostitutes would get a short jail stay, and police would see the same women on the same corners and arrest them on the same charges. "For the first time, we really have an alternative," he says. "In the long run, I expect it will be really positive."

Since April, 21 women have come to Off the Streets, and success already is evident, Melton says. Six have not used drugs or alcohol since entering the program, and seven have not been involved in prostitution, she says. Melton says one woman, for the first time in years, did not use drugs after receiving her assistance check. Three women have gotten jobs, she says. Sheila Reisch, 44, came to the Anna Louise Inn, the downtown Cincinnati women's dormitory where Off the Streets is based, on May 25 looking for a place to stay. She got a room and a brochure about the program. Reisch, who had been trading sex for money since "somewhere in the '80s," says she had tried other programs without success. She thought she'd try again. "This one is different," says Reisch, whose short, groomed brown hair and pantsuit make her look ready for a day of work at the office. "No program before ever addressed prostitution, it was always just about drugs." Reisch says some days are harder than others, but she refuses to go back to the street. She says the program has taught her a lot about herself. "I'm a worthy person," she says. "Once you deal with the shame and guilt you're left with you. What I did out there is not who I am."

Adapted from: Sharon Coolidge. "Out of 'the life,' they learn to live." USA TODAY. 18 August 2006.

Human Trafficking Highlighted in China

Fri, 18 Aug 2006 11:49:00 GMT

As China opens up, people trafficking is emerging as a growing threat, but officials are reluctant to admit the scale of the problem. In Yunnan province, young women are being sold as wives or to brothels and sweat shops in Thailand. Life in the small Yunnan villages, close to the border with Myanmar, is very different from other parts of China where the economy is booming. This is a sleepy world of lush rice paddies, hillsides bursting with rubber trees and dotted with Buddhist temples. Many villages here contain ethnic minorities whose language and culture has more in common with northern Thailand than with the Han Chinese.

Local people say trade across the border with Myanmar has fallen. So too has tourism. So for young people growing up in these small hillside villages, there is little opportunity. Every year, thousands of them pack up and leave, heading for China's cities or crossing through Myanmar to Thailand in the hope of well-paid jobs. Some do make money and come back to the villages to show off their success. That only encourages more young people to follow suit. But for an unknown but perhaps growing number, it all goes horribly wrong.

'Tricked'
Trafficking is a hugely sensitive subject here. Officials do not really want to talk about it. And neither do victims. It took a lot of negotiating to find a young woman who was prepared to speak out for the first time and tell her story publicly. Qing-qing is 19 now but when she was just seven-years-old, she and her mother were sold. "A woman my mother knows came to our house with some men we hadn't seen before." "My mother was tricked. They sold her as a bride to a man in eastern China." The man beat her and her mother, she said, close to tears. At the age of 12, Qing-qing was forced to leave school and go to work. Their ordeal continued for eight years before they managed to escape and come home to their Yunnan village. I asked her if this trafficking of vulnerable women still went on. "Yes,"she said. "It's still going on in nearby villages." "I know people who went through the same experience as my mother. Later some of them came back to the village to trick other people in the same way. It's become a cycle."

Teenagers
It was very difficult to find officials who could give a clear picture of the scale of trafficking. One local Communist Party secretary told us it was certainly a potential threat, as more people migrated, but insisted it did not happen in his small community. But anecdotal evidence is widespread. Long Hai-yu has been studying trafficking in Yunnan's villages for the last two years. She took me to one small village which she asked me not to name. She talked to me about a case there involving two teenage girls who were recruited by strangers at the end of last year. They were promised jobs in a shoe factory in Thailand, she said. But once the men took them across the border, they were blindfolded. The men started to threaten them and demand money from their families. In fact, the two girls managed to raise the alarm and were rescued before they were taken any further, but Long Hai-yu said she thought they would have been sold into the Thai sex industry.

Not very much is known about who exactly the traffickers are. Long Hai-yu says they are Chinese people from another province, perhaps Sichuan province. They are not Thai, she explained, because it is too hard for Thai people to come to the villages to recruit girls. As for numbers, it is impossible to know. Once young girls leave for another country like Thailand, it is hard for their families to find out what has happened to them. Long Hai-yu said that at just one nearby border point about 2,000 people cross into Myanmar every year. "Many go to work in nightclubs and bars," she said, shrugging her shoulders. "Who knows how many are trafficked?"

'Can't happen here'
The Chinese authorities are just starting to take action. Here in Yunnan they have set up the country's first anti-trafficking programme. I watched two young women act out a play, one playing a cruel trafficker and the other a desperate trafficking victim who despairs and finally kills herself. But everyone in the audience got the message. "Trafficking is when your boss doesn't give you all the money he owes you when you leave," said one girl. A man sounded a reassuring note. "There's no need to worry," he said. "The government policy is good. Trafficking can't happen here." But despite the reluctance to talk about it, all the evidence on the ground suggests trafficking is happening. Researcher Long Hai-yu said she was extremely worried. "The pattern is already changing," she told me. "Traffickers are targeting younger and younger girls, as young as 16." As China opens up, its new freedoms are bringing new dangers. But they will be hard for the country's Communist system to address until it changes its culture of embarrassment and secrecy.

Adapted from: ‘China slow to wake up to human trade.’ BBC News, 9 August 2006.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/4775913.stm

Athens Ethical Principles for the Business Community

Fri, 18 Aug 2006 13:37:00 GMT

The Suzanne Mubarak Women's International Peace Movement (SMWIPM) Initiative launched a Campaign with the Business Community called The End Human Trafficking Now! Campaign to engage the worldwide business community to participate in anti-trafficking efforts.

At a roundtable in Athens, Greece, in January 2006, the participants declared and signed the Athens Ethical Principles.

The business community is a critical partner in helping eliminate human trafficking. In fact, there is a lot at stake for legitimate business if human trafficking continues to flourish. Most anti-trafficking initiatives have been undertaken by governments and non-governmental organisations, but very few programmes have engaged the business sector and harnessed their global reach and connections so far.

US Efforts Against Human Trafficking Criticized

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 08:11:00 GMT

The US government's $375-million effort to fight international human trafficking has lacked coordination and been plagued by an inability to determine which actions are actually working, according to a government study released Monday. The report prepared by the Government Accountability Office also said the United States doesn't have an effective method of estimating the number of people taken illegally across international borders annually. The GAO said the U.S. estimate of the global trafficking flow -- currently pegged at 600,000 to 800,000 people yearly -- is of doubtful reliability because it was prepared by one federal employee who wasn't able to document his work.

Human trafficking -- the migration of people who are forced to work as prostitutes, factory workers or domestic servants -- has been a growing concern in law enforcement, particularly in New York City, with its large immigrant communities. The Police Department is close to announcing creation of a human trafficking unit to uncover cases and work with federal investigators. Over the years, estimates of global human trafficking victims have gone as high as 2 million persons.

In 2000, a Central Intelligence Agency-commissioned report said about 45,000 to 50,000 trafficking victims came to the U.S. yearly, and that number drove policy debate and law enforcement priorities for years. Recent estimates put the number at around 17,000 trafficked persons annually. The GAO report was requested by Reps. James Sensenbrenner Jr.(R-Wis.), chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, and Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), chairman of the Committee on International Relations. In a statement, Sensenbrenner expressed concern and called for action by President George W. Bush.

"I am deeply concerned about the stark deficiencies highlighted by this report," Sensenbrenner said in the statement. He said preparation of the trafficking estimates should be taken from the intelligence community and given to a different agency. Special Ambassador John Miller, the State Department official in charge of anti-trafficking efforts, criticized the report. "I think this proves the office of Congress can come up with a bureaucratic report just as well as a bureaucracy," Miller said. He said the focus should be on helping trafficking victims and putting traffickers in jail.

Thomas Melito, director of the GAO unit that prepared the study, told Newsday the data collection process needs to be improved at the individual country level and subjected to some kind of academic peer review process. Melito said the GAO study lauded the U.S. government for the way it has taken the lead, through the Department of State, in putting trafficking on the international agenda and pushing other governments into action. The department is required by law to rank country efforts on trafficking. But Melito said the study found the annual report prepared by the department had no clear, consistent way of preparing the rankings.

Anthony M. Destefano. "U.S. Efforts Against Human Trafficking Criticized." NEWSDAY. 15 August 2006.

HUMAN TRAFFICKING: Better Data, Strategy, and Reporting Needed to Enhance U.S. Antitrafficking Efforts Abroad

Two International Sex-Trafficking Rings Foiled in the United States

Mon, 21 Aug 2006 13:23:00 GMT

A total of 40 charged in sex trafficking rings on East and West Coasts.

Nine charged in international sex-trafficking ring. [1]
Nine people were arrested Thursday following a two-year investigation into an international sex-trafficking ring that involved smuggling Asian women into this country in shipping containers, federal and local authorities said. The U.S. attorney's office in Seattle said the "highly organized national network prostitution ring" illegally brought women here from China, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan and Laos. Seven of the conspirators were arrested Thursday in Seattle and two in Los Angeles, according to a statement from the U.S. attorney's office. All were charged Thursday in U.S. District Court here.

Eight are accused of conspiracy to transport individuals in furtherance of prostitution and conspiracy to transport and harbor illegal aliens. Four also are charged with conspiracy to engage in money laundering. A ninth person is charged with conspiracy to transport individuals in furtherance of prostitution. If convicted, they face up to 20 years in prison. Details on the prostitution ring surfaced in April 2004, when the Eastside Narcotics Task Force raided the Apple Spa in Bellevue after determining it was a front for prostitution, federal officials said.

Investigators with the FBI, U.S. Customs and Enforcement, and Seattle police spent the next 21 months using confidential informants, court-approved wiretaps, and Global Positioning Satellite units to identify participants in the larger operation. According to court documents, Yong Jun Kang, 36, of Seattle, operated brothels in Portland, Ore., and Seattle, where he and others would bring Asian women, most of whom were in the United States illegally. After 10 to 14 days, the women would be taken to brothels in other cities, investigators said. In conversations with confidential informants, Kang said women were being smuggled into the U.S. in shipping containers after paying as much as $50,000.

Some of the women, investigators said, were brought into the United States by crossing the Canadian border. The women were forced to pay debts to smugglers by working in the brothels, the U.S. attorney's office said. Others accused in the operation are Zhenhua Liu, 51, of Seattle; and Penquan Xie, 48, and Zhen Qu, 49, both of Los Angeles, who court documents say worked for Kang as brothel managers. Lianchen Ning, 47, of Seattle, is accused of transporting women between brothels and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Rujng Jiang, 36, and her husband, Keshing Zhu, 38, both of Seattle, are accused of operating an escort service in Seattle as a front for prostitution. Also arrested were Thongyot Liamurai, 39, of Seattle, identified as a prostitute for both Kang and Zhu and a close confident of Kang's, and Bing Wang, identified as a manager at Liu's brothel.

[1] "Nine charged in international sex-trafficking ring." Associated Press. 10 August 2006.

31 Arrested in Reputed Korean Sex-Slave Trafficking Along East Coast. [2]
Federal agents broke up a sex-slave trafficking ring along the East Coast that coerced Korean women into working as prostitutes in massage parlors and spas, some in upscale Washington neighborhoods such as Cleveland Park and Glover Park, authorities announced yesterday. Agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the FBI arrested 31 people Tuesday, including 19 in New York and four in the District. They also raided 18 businesses, including one in Baltimore and five in Washington, three of them downtown.

In all, 23 Korean women in Washington and 44 in New York, Baltimore, New Haven, Conn., and Philadelphia were rounded up and interviewed to determine whether they were involuntarily part of the ring that forced some women into prostitution to pay off tens of thousands of dollars in fees for being smuggled into the United States, authorities said.

"This law enforcement operation successfully shut down an organization that cashed in human dignity for profit and greed," ICE Assistant Secretary Julie L. Myers said in a statement. Federal indictments unsealed in New York yesterday provided a glimpse into the highly profitable world of prostitution and slavery, which in this case, authorities said, stretched from South Korea to points along the East Coast.
The charges, including conspiracy to engage in human trafficking and interstate transportation of women for the purpose of prostitution, resulted from hours of wiretapped conversations.

According to court documents, recruiters in South Korea and the United States arranged travel to the United States for Korean women interested in making money for their families. The women were provided false immigration documents or were turned over to handlers in Canada or Mexico, who smuggled them into the country, the documents said. Once they arrived in the United States, the women often were transported to Flushing, N.Y., where they were told they would have to work as prostitutes to offset their costs for being smuggled into the country, authorities said.

According to the indictments, five middlemen in Flushing took orders from the East Coast for Korean women and charged for procuring and delivering the women. The business operators often asked for specific physical attributes, and some in Washington said that some of the women were "too tall" or "not satisfactory," according to recorded conversations. Owners took a big cut of the customers' fees and sent some of that money to South Korea to pay for the smuggling fees, authorities said.

Business operators often took away the women's identification and travel documents and led them to believe that they would be turned over to U.S. authorities or that their families would be harmed if they fled before paying off their outstanding smuggling fee. The businesses raided in Washington included the OK Spa, 2428 Wisconsin Ave. NW; 14K Spa, 1413 K St. NW; Downtown Spa, 1018 Vermont Ave. NW; Royal Spa, 520 10th St. NW; and Cleveland Park Holistic Health, 3520 Connecticut Ave. NW. Attempts to reach the businesses by phone for comment were unsuccessful.

Massage parlor operators in Washington who were arrested Tuesday included Tae Nam Thompson, 56; Eun Ja Park, 38; Seng Hee Ryan, 33; and Young Hui Kim, age unknown. More arrests were expected, authorities said. Investigators intercepted numerous phone conversations along the East Coast.
At the Downtown Spa in downtown Washington, the massage parlor operator told a middleman in New York that the workers "were tired because they served 15 customers the previous night" and "she only had six girls working at the time, but needed eight girls because she would get up to 70 customers on a weekend," according to court documents.

[2] Allan Lengel. “31 Arrested in Reputed Korean Sex-Slave Trafficking Along East Coast.” The Washington Post. 17 August 2006; Page B08.

Press Release on Trafficking from Nigeria to the United States

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 13:51:00 GMT

The Advocacy Project based in Washington, DC has recently released a Press Release on trafficking from Nigeria to the United States. :

US State Department Ignores Trafficking to the United States, Say Nigerian Anti-Trafficking Advocates

The US Department of Justice releases a separate, annual report on United States' efforts to combat trafficking:

2006 Attorney General's Annual Report to Congress on U.S. Government Activities to Combat Trafficking in Persons Fiscal Year 2005

ECPAT-USA launches the Protect Children in Tourism Project and the Code of Conduct in Belize

Thu, 17 Aug 2006 10:04:00 GMT

ECPAT-USA announces the kickoff of the Protect Children in Tourism Project (PCT) in Belize City, Belize, to promote the Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Commercial Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism.

International Chiefs of Police Recognize Police Departments for their Anti-Trafficking Work

Thu, 17 Aug 2006 11:18:00 GMT

The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) based in Virginia, USA has announced its 2006 Webber Seavey Award Finalists and Semi-Finalists.

The Webber Seavey Award for Quality in Law Enforcement promotes and recognizes quality performance by agencies around the globe. The award is named after Chief of Police Webber S. Seavey, the first president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP). Seavey exemplified the dedication to the profession and problem-solving that this award honors. The award is presented annually at the International Association of Police Chief Conference to agencies that have implemented an innovative project focused on enhancing quality in law enforcement. This award allows agencies to exchange and share ideas and solutions with others public safety agencies.

Two initiatives launched by the police in Andhra Pradesh, India, have won recognition from IACP, and have been selected as Finalists for the award. One of the initiatives, Project Aasara, is an anti-trafficking program which aims to check trafficking in women and rehabilitation of women rescued from brothels.

The El Paso Police Department's Human Trafficking Task Force initiative in Texas also was recognized as a Semi-finalist in the competition.

IACP's Web site

Thailand Tackles Illegal Immigration

Thu, 17 Aug 2006 15:00:00 GMT

There will be no illegal immigrants living or working in Thailand by the end of next year, caretaker deputy Prime Minister Chidchai Vanasatidya has stated. He said a new, integrated national mechanism would be fully operational by then. Immigration police would lead 10 other government agencies responsible for national security and civilian intelligence services in stamping out illegal entry, unlawful employment, and human trafficking. Chidchai made his comments at a Bangkok seminar aimed at tackling illegal immigration on 3 August 2006. The Thaksin Shinawatra administration has made ending illegal immigration a priority. Chidchai, a former police general, said Bt100 million would be spent on creating a database containing details of all foreigners entering, leaving and living and working in Thailand.

He said other measures needed to be adopted, such as the e-passport project and suppression of fake passports and travel documents. The fine for illegal entry would be increased to Bt500, he added. Immigration Bureau commander Pol Lt-General Suwat Thamrongsrisakul said he would ask for more staff. There are 3,800 immigration officers dealing with illegal immigrants that enter via more than 5,000 kilometres of border, he said.

Adapted from: "Illegal immigration should end next year." The Nation. 4 August 2006.

Orphanages Accused of Child Trafficking in Liberia

Thu, 17 Aug 2006 13:52:00 GMT

Liberian children are being sold for adoption in dubious circumstances and others are living in sub-standard orphanages, according to rights groups in the West African nation. Some institutions, while purporting to help orphans, are charging huge sums of money for adoptions, the National Child Rights Observation Group (NACROG) has stated. NACROG, comprising representatives of local and international NGOs, civil society, and several ministries, is asking the government to investigate three orphanages and calling for a halt to all adoptions from Liberia.

For more information, read:
LIBERIA: Orphanages accused of child trafficking