JAMMED LIBRARY & RESOURCES BLOG

Slavery now has a new face - Brandi

2009-03-17T18:07:00.000-07:00

Modern-day slavery

Published Monday, March 16, 2009 7:00 am
by Jessica Williams-Gibson, The Indianapolis Recorder

INDIANAPOLIS - Slavery as blacks know it is permeated with images of Africans stuffed in ships, whipped and beaten beyond recognition, hung on trees and picking cotton. Slavery now has a new face – human trafficking.

INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER
Nykita Hurt holds a photo of her daughter Brandi who became a child prostitute at the age of 14. Experts say more than 300,000 children are being sexually exploited in the United States.

Human trafficking is often confused with smuggling, extortion or simple prostitution. When a person is a victim of human trafficking they are mandated to work under specific conditions by force. The U.S. is one of the top “destination” countries for human trafficking.

“I don’t want to devalue the legacy of slavery in this country with real shackles. For people to understand the kind of control someone is under, it's useful to think of this as a modern day form of slavery,” said Mark Lagon, executive director of Polaris Project, a national organization aimed at ending human trafficking.

Forced labor continues to be a substantial portion of human trafficking yet commercial sex dominates. According to Gayle Helart, assistant United States attorney, for the Southern District of Indiana, the crime isn't about the violence or the labor itself, but the money - especially commercial sex.

Unlike African slaves, victims of human trafficking oftentimes come to the U.S. on their own. They are promised lucrative opportunities such as a job in a hotel or education. Seduced by American culture and the idea of the U.S. as a land of opportunity, victims agree and follow the offender. Once in the states, victims are moved around to different locations, forced to sell their bodies and turn over all of the money to a male or female pimp.

Helart states that due to the glorified lifestyle of the pimp/whore culture, human trafficking isn't taken as seriously as it should be. Victims are in grave danger as many suffer violent acts, or simply threatened to be abused. To the trafficker, victims are disposable and very little care is taken for their wellbeing.

The control – the desire to “pay off their debt” to the pimp, or the need to help families in their native country – keeps victims selling their bodies. Victims' families also may have taken out loans to send their child to the U.S. or must pay back a wavering smuggling fee.

“What keeps victims staying is the promise of something better, the carrot in front of their face,” said Helart. “Human trafficking is all about the ‘work here, under these conditions, or else.’”

The issue of human trafficking goes even deeper being that young girls are often affected by labor but mostly sex. Black girls are a large part of this growing trend. Girls constantly move around to human sex trafficking hubs most notably Atlanta and Dayton, Ohio. Truth is, human trafficking could be in any neighborhood.

“This crime could literally be anywhere and we wouldn't know it. I'm not saying it's not here (in Indianapolis); I don't know. We do get a lot of leads and that's good,” said Helart. “For some reason a lot of offenders let their victims go to church to subdue and keep them from getting rebellious. We try to get with faith-based communities and leaders on this.''

Lagon states human trafficking sounds like it requires someone crossing a border yet there are increasing trends among American-born victims of human trafficking. Law enforcement believes when it comes to juveniles, there's not really a juvenile out there by themselves; a pimp will almost always handle her.

“Studies have indicated that children who are runaways or throwaways, when they try to make their own life on the streets, a huge proportion of them within 48-72 hours fall under the control of pimps,” said Lagon.

To curb this trend authorities state it's not enough to say “where have you been for the last few weeks'' when runaways return. Parents should probe further asking questions such as how old is your boyfriend and are there other girls there at his home. If the offender is of an inappropriate age and/or has multiple girls in his home, it's almost certain to be human trafficking.

Parents should also be on the lookout for expensive gifts she can't afford and should watch for the adults in their lives who are showering attention and affection on their kids. Talking to kids and teens about healthy relationships and sexual behavior will further reduce human trafficking.
Furthermore, authorities are taking actions on the financial worth of human trafficking. Because human trafficking is difficult to detect and often rely on the testimonies of the victims, authorities are taking down pimps and Johns. They have also found victories in unofficial ledgers.

“In the blackjack case in Florida, the John would be given a playing card after payment. They'd turn that over to the girl so she'd know services had been paid. In this case, men would wear condoms so the girls were keeping track with condom wrappers. They were told that $20 would get taken off their debt with every sex act,” Helart said.

Citizens are asked to be observant in their neighborhoods, jobs and places of worship for suspicious behavior, homes and businesses appearing to keep individuals inside, and individuals who are always accompanied by someone.

For more information, call Polaris Project at (888) 373-7888; the FBI's Innocence Lost initiative at (317) 639-3301; or Helart at (317) 226-6333

She came from Guatemala

2009-03-15T16:09:00.000-07:00

A woman in her early 20s smuggled into the United States for what she thought was a housekeeping job. See Jammed True Stories.

Carlos Andres Monsalve, 29, the smuggling gang ringleader, was arrested and sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. Henao served a short prison term and is scheduled to be deported.
But the investigation went much further. It connected with an international human trafficking network.
In total, seven people were indicted and six victims identified.

A Clearwater task force did much of the work that led to the arrests. The task force, formed in 2006 when the Clearwater Police Department won a three-year, $450,000 grant from the Justice Department, is now a model around the country.

Human trafficking plagues Florida, California and Texas, among other states. Unlike smugglers, traffickers don't just transport human cargo; they exploit the travelers for purposes ranging from manual labor to prostitution.

Clearwater Deputy Chief Dewey Williams, three Clearwater police investigators and a special agent from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement sat down with a St. Petersburg Times reporter to talk about the case.

Monsalve, the kingpin, owned houses across the state, including in Tampa and Pasco. Police said he lived a middle-class life. No gold chains. No fancy cars. A legal immigrant from Colombia, he helped run a clothing store in Tampa.

But his main business was more sinister. Monsalve made the circuit of Hispanic communities, passing out business cards offering women for prostitution. For years, his ring was composed of willing prostitutes. At some point in 2005, authorities believe, he began to use forced labor.

His operation set up in Pinellas, Pasco, and Hillsborough counties, as well as in Orlando, Jacksonville and Tallahassee.

The women would charge $30 per sex act. The organization skimmed half that amount off the top and applied the other half toward the women's debts. Victims fell back on tip money to pay for food, condoms and other expenses, authorities said.

Detectives said there were six to eight women in the ring, each bringing in as much as $6,000 per week. One woman became pregnant, according to a report from the FDLE. The organization made her have sex with clients until she was "too pregnant" and then kicked her out onto the street.

The story of Clearwater's involvement starts as early as 2004, when police got a tip about a Hispanic brothel at an apartment complex near U.S. 19 and Drew Street.

In these types of cases, police said, the tip often comes from people who think it is a drug house. A steady stream of customers comes in, staying for only minutes, all of them men.

Police managed to get an undercover officer into the brothel and bring about a raid, arresting one woman on prostitution charges.

Police learned she was a willing prostitute, but the brothel was part of a bigger operation that included forced prostitution. That led police to apply for the Justice Department grant.

Thanks to the grant, two people are assigned to work full time on human trafficking cases at Clearwater police headquarters: Detective James McBride of the Clearwater Police Department and Special Agent Cal Cundiff of the FDLE.

They came upon Monsalve's trafficking ring in a roundabout way.

One night in 2006, two young women were spotted running down the road in Tallahassee. Police determined they had been brought into the country and forced to work as prostitutes. They were running from the trailer where they had been held.

Police arrested the man who had delivered the girls to the trailer and began burrowing into the network behind this brothel. Monsalve's name emerged, but no one knew the organization's structure.

FDLE Special Agent Eric Yopp eventually learned Monsalve was based in Tampa Bay and told the task force in Clearwater.

As it happens, the local task force had come across business cards Monsalve was distributing at U.S. 19 and Drew Street. The cards said "Tacos and Gorditas" and included a cell phone number on the back. People in the know understood the code words for prostitution.

Authorities set up an undercover operation and arranged to have one of the women delivered to them on May 22, 2007.

Henao, the driver, was arrested and found to be working for Monsalve.

After months of interviews with the Guatemalan victim, whose name has not been released by police, authorities came to understand the inner workings of the organization.

The woman explained that the police and military had been bribed all the way through Central America. The traffickers warned her that if she did not go along with their plan, they would notify immigration officials or harm her family, including her 6-year-old daughter in Guatemala. They even told her that the police in the United States would show no mercy if they found her.

"When we came in and were taking the trafficker into custody she thought … we were going to kill her," McBride said. "She thought the police, we were going to kill her."

The woman explained that the prostitutes rotated each week through brothels in Tampa Bay, Orlando, Tallahassee and Jacksonville areas.

Police in Clearwater pooled their information with state and federal authorities, eventually leading to Monsalve's arrest in September 2007 in Houston. After pleading guilty, he was sentenced in the fall.

"Our very first meeting on the task force, we stated that we are not interested in stopping that transporter that brought that trafficking victim," said Clearwater Sgt. Steven Sears, "our goal was to take down the organization."

The Clearwater task force has been at work on other cases since then, some still ongoing. In all, this task force has dealt with five human trafficking victims. It is in the third and final year of its grant, but plan to reapply.

"In this area, nothing has been done like this (investigation)," Sears added later. "With these types of cases it's not something that is reported. It is not something that gets a lot of press. It is very subtle and low-key. For us to develop it from nothing into this, it was very satisfying."

And it's not just the police work. Sears said an organization called World Relief and other partners helped the woman. Among other things, they took her to doctor visits, set her up with educational services, provided her with transportation to church and helped her contact her family in her home country.

The woman was allowed to take up residence in the Tampa Bay area in exchange for her cooperation. She has since moved out of the area and is living somewhere in the southern United States. Police said she is hoping to be reunited with her young daughter.

Jonathan Abel can be reached at jabel@sptimes.com or (727) 445-4157.
More information is at the task force's Web site at www.catfht.org.

The Russian Mob

2009-03-15T15:43:00.000-07:00

Russian mobsters consort with terrorists, slave traders
March 15, 7:51 AM ·
Jim Kouri
Law Enforcement Examiner
From Himalayan villages to Eastern European cities, people — especially women and girls — are attracted by the prospect of a well-paid job as a domestic servant, waitress or factory worker. Human traffickers recruit victims through fake advertisements, mail-order bride catalogues and casual acquaintances. Upon arrival at their destination, victims are placed in conditions controlled by traffickers while they are exploited to earn illicit revenues. Many are physically confined, their travel or identity documents are taken away and they or their families are threatened if they do not cooperate.

Women and girls forced to work as prostitutes are blackmailed by the threat that traffickers will tell their families. Trafficked children are dependent on their traffickers for food, shelter and other basic necessities. Traffickers also play on victims' fears that authorities in a strange country will prosecute or deport them if they ask for help. A major purveyor of these de facto slaves is the Russian organized crime syndicate. Brutal, cunning and ruthless, these 21st Century mobsters present a new threat to US national security.

Over the past decade, trafficking in human beings has reached epidemic proportions. No country is immune. The search for work abroad has been fueled by economic disparity, high unemployment and the disruption of traditional livelihoods. Traffickers face few risks and can earn huge profits by taking advantage of large numbers of potential immigrants. Trafficking in human beings is a crime in which victims are moved from poor environments to more affluent ones, with the profits flowing in the opposite direction, a pattern often repeated at the domestic, regional and global levels. It is believed to be growing fastest in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

In Asia, girls from villages in Nepal and Bangladesh — the majority of whom are under 18 — are sold to brothels in India for $1000. Trafficked women from Thailand and the Philippines are increasingly being joined by women from other countries in Southeast Asia. Europe (European InterPol) estimates that the industry is now worth several billion dollars a year. Trafficking in human beings is not confined to the sex industry. Children are trafficked to work in sweatshops as bonded labor and men work illegally in the "three D-jobs" — dirty, difficult and dangerous. A recent CIA report estimated that between 45,000 to 50,000 women and children are brought to the United States every year under false pretenses and are forced to work as prostitutes, abused laborers or servants. UNICEF estimates that more than 200,000 children are enslaved by cross-border smuggling in West and Central Africa. The children are often "sold" by unsuspecting parents who believe their children are going to be looked after, learn a trade or be educated.

In the decade since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world has become the target of a new global crime threat from criminal organizations and criminal activities that have poured forth over the borders of Russia and other former Soviet republics such as Ukraine. The nature and variety of the crimes being committed seem unlimited — trafficking in women and children, drugs, arms trafficking, stolen automobiles, and money laundering are among the most prevalent. The spillover is particularly troubling to Europe because of its geographical proximity to Russia, and to Israel, because of its large numbers of Russian immigrants. But no area of the world seems immune to this menace, especially not the United States. America is the land of opportunity for unloading criminal goods and laundering dirty money. For that reason — and because, unfortunately, much of the examination of Russian organized crime (the so-called "Russian Mafia") to date has been rather hyperbolic and sketchy — many in law enforcement believe it is important to step back and take an objective look at this growing phenomenon.

As in the United States, there is no universally accepted definition of organized crime in Russia, in major part because Russian law provides no legal definition of organized crime. Analysis of criminological sources, however, enables one to identify some of its basic characteristics. These include organizational features that make Russian organized crime unique in the degree to which it is embedded in the post-Soviet political system. At the same time, however, it has certain features in common with such other well-known varieties of organized crime as the Italian Mafia. The latter has a complicated history that includes both cooperation and conflict with the Italian state. Much more than was ever the case with the Italian Mafia, however, Russian organized crime is uniquely a descendant of the Soviet state.

Russian organized crime has come to plague many areas of the globe since the demise of the Soviet Union just more than a decade ago. The transnational character of Russian organized crime, when coupled with its high degree of sophistication and ruthlessness, has attracted the world's attention and concern to what has become known as a global Russian Mafia. Along with this concern, however, has come a fair amount of misunderstanding and stereotyping with respect to Russian organized crime.

Trafficking is almost always a form of organized crime and should be dealt with using criminal powers to investigate and prosecute offenders for trafficking and any other criminal activities in which they engage. Trafficked persons should also be seen as victims of crime. Support and protection of victims is a humanitarian objective and an important means of ensuring that victims are willing and able to assist in criminal cases. As with other forms of organized crime, trafficking has globalized. Groups formerly active in specific routes or regions have expanded the geographical scope of their activities to explore new markets. Some have merged or formed cooperative relationships, expanding their geographical reach and range of criminal activities. Illegal migrants and trafficking victims have become another commodity in a larger realm of criminal commerce involving other commodities, such as narcotic drugs and firearms or weapons and money laundering, that generate illicit revenues or seek to reduce risks for traffickers.

With respect to organized crime, certain geographical or infrastructure characteristics, such as the presence of seaports, international airports, strategic border locations, rich natural resources, and so on, provide special criminal opportunities that can best be exploited by criminals who are organized. More so than common crime, organized crime is fed by the presence of ethnic minorities who furnish a ready supply of both victims and the offenders to victimize them. Organized crime also thrives in environments characterized by a relatively high tolerance of deviance and a romanticization of crime figures, especially where government and law enforcement are weak or corrupt (the history of the Sicilian Mafia illustrates this).

THE RUSSIAN MOB

Russia is one of those unfortunate countries that has the receptive environment in which organized crime thrives. Organized crime is deeply rooted in the 400-year history of Russia's peculiar administrative bureaucracy, but it was especially shaped into its current form during the seven decades of Soviet hegemony that ended in 1991. This ancestry helps to explain the pervasiveness of organized crime in today's Russia and its close merger with the political system. Organized crime in Russia is an institutionalized part of the political and economic environment. It cannot, therefore, be fully understood without first understanding its place in the context of the Russian political and economic system.

Unlike Colombian, Italian, Mexican, or other well-known forms of organized crime, Soviet organized crime was not primarily based on ethnic or family structures. To help understand the difference, we can look to the history of organized crime in the United States for a contrasting portrait. As a number of scholars have pointed out, organized crime provided a "crooked ladder of upward mobility" for some immigrants to the United States. Certain immigrants — sharing a common ethnicity, culture, and language, and, being on the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder, either having legitimate opportunities for advancement closed to them or rejecting the opportunities that were available — have turned to crime, and specifically organized crime, to get ahead.

Because organized crime is made up of criminals who conspire to carry out illegal acts, a degree of trust is necessary among those criminals. Co-conspirators must be able to trust that their collaborators will not talk to the police or to anyone who might talk to the police, and that they will not cheat them out of their money. A shared ethnicity, with its common language, background, and culture, has historically been a foundation for trust among organized crime figures.

Yet ethnicity did not play the significant role in Soviet organized crime that it played in the United States. Instead, the Soviet prison system, in many ways, fulfilled functions that were satisfied by shared ethnicity in the United States. In the Soviet Union, a professional criminal class developed in Soviet prisons during the Stalinist period that began in 1924 — the era of the gulag. These criminals adopted behaviors, rules, values, and sanctions that bound them together in what was called the thieves' world, led by the elite criminals who lived according to the "thieves' law." This thieves' world created and maintained the bonds and climate of trust necessary for carrying out organized crime.

Organized crime in the Soviet era consists of illegal enterprises with both legal and black-market connections that were based on the misuse of state property and funds. It is most important to recognize that the blurring of the distinction between the licit and the illicit is also a trademark of post-Soviet organized crime that shows its ancestry with the old Soviet state and its command-economy system. This, in turn, has direct political implications. The historical symbiosis with the state makes Russian organized crime virtually an inalienable part of the state. As this has continued into the present, some would say it has become an engine of the state that works at all levels of the Russian government.

Contemporary Russian organized crime grew out of the Soviet "nomenklatura" system (the government's organizational structure and high-level officials) in which some individual "apparatchiks" (government bureaucrats) developed mutually beneficial personal relationships with the thieves' world. The top of the pyramid of organized crime during the Soviet period was made up of the Communist Party and state officials who abused their positions of power and authority. Economic activities ranged across a spectrum of markets — white, gray, black, and criminal. These markets were roughly defined by whether the goods and services being provided were legal, legal but regulated, or illegal, and by whether the system for providing them was likewise legal, legal but regulated, or illegal. The criminals operated on the illegal end of this spectrum. Tribute gained from black markets and criminal activities was passed up a three-tiered pyramid to the nomenklatura, and the nomenklatura itself (some 1.5 million people) had a vast internal system of rewards and punishments. The giant state apparatus thus not only allowed criminal activity, but encouraged, facilitated, and protected it, because the apparatus itself benefited from crime.

These sorts of relationships provided the original nexus between organized crime and the government. From these beginnings, organized crime in Russia evolved to its present ambiguous position of being both in direct collaboration with the state and, at the same time, in conflict with it.
Jim Kouri

Sources:
US Department of Justice
United Nations Protocols
National Criminal Justice Reference Service
National Association of Chiefs of Police
Department of Homeland Security

Inside Melbourne's sex slave trade 2009

2009-03-12T15:41:00.000-07:00

Maris Beck | March 12, 2009 - 12:34PM

THE boss would kick her awake. Every time she opened her eyes, the nightmare began again. There was no escape from the men - their hair, their sweat, their predatory breath. Many were using amphetamines. They hit her. Sometimes one would hold a a gun to her head. But there was no choice, she says. She was owned by the mob.

"I was so scared of them.Even now I am still scared." Once, the boss took her for a drive into the bush. "She told me 'a girl like you, I can bury anywhere here.' If something happened to me . . . nobody would know."

For seven months, she was locked in a brothel, seeing 15 men a day, in around the clock shifts. As she speaks tears stream down her cheeeks and her breath shudders. More than five years later, the memories still haunt her. "It was like in prison," she says.

She calls herself "Mae" but that is not her name. She still fears the people who bought and sold her. She speaks softly, in halting English and in Thai. But she is not in Thailand. The prison-brothel she describes may sound like something from the slums of Bangkok or Mumbai, but the reality is closer to home. Mae was trafficked to Melbourne and the brutal things done to her took place in suburbs where we live.

Her story begins with poverty - and a plane ticket. Mae was born into a poor family in Thailand. Her mother worked three jobs, desperately trying to get enough money to pay for her daughter's education. When Mae was in her early 20s, a cousin offered her a restaurant job in Australia. Mae leapt at the chance. She thought she could send money back to help her mother.

But as soon as she got to Australia, her cousin deposited her with the madam of a Melbourne brothel. The woman took her passport and told her she owed $40,000 for her visa and travel costs.

Mae's English is broken, but her meaning is clear: she had been sold. "I didn't have no choice," she says. "The first day, I was so confused. I couldn't believe this was happening to me. The boss showed me how to use the room, how to use the condom, and how to use KY.

"Once the customer came in, he would wait in the waiting room and all the girls would have to take turns to come to walk in front of him. He would pick anyone and we would go to the room."

Mae says she had never seen the inside of a brothel before. For the next seven months, it was all she would know. "I could not get out of the brothel, even to get fresh air."

Mae had to work seven days a week, often 24 hours a day. She lived in the brothel, sleeping on the couch or in the "working room", if it was free.

The boss' husband was allegedly a drug dealer, heavily involved with organised crime. Mae says many of the women in the brothel took speed and ecstasy. Soon, she was taking drugs, too. "We couldn't put up with the situation . . . 15 customers a day and 24 hours a day. We couldn't do it without drugs."

It took its toll. For a time, Mae was so sick that she could not walk. "I thought I wasn't a human," she says.

For seven brutal months, Mae was never paid. When she finally bought back her freedom, she had paid with $40,000 worth of sex.

Mae is not the only one to have done this. The United Nations ranks human trafficking as the third largest transnational crime, after drugs trafficking and the arms trade. Melbourne is a "major destination" of trafficked women in Australia, says federal policewoman Jennifer Cullen, national co-ordinator of the Australian Federal Police's anti-trafficking team.

Some 258 suspected cases of sex trafficking have been referred to the AFP since 2004. During this time,the Federal Government has identified 112 victims, 60 per cent of them from Thailand, and another 20 per cent from South Korea.

Thirty-two of these victims have been found in Victoria, and according to Tanya Plibersek, Minister for the Status of Women and co-ordinator of the federal victim support program, the number is likely to be much higher.

A spokesperson for anti-trafficking organisation, Project Respect, says the group helped seven trafficked women in Melbourne during 2008, only two of whom are included in Federal Government statistics.

The key element of trafficking, says Jennifer Cullen, is "removing the right to choose". Trafficking contracts are illegal, she says, because they involve threat, force, and deception. The exploitation ranges from debt bondage through to literal slavery. (Last August when the High Court upheld the conviction of Wei Tang, a Brunswick Street brothel owner, for keeping five Thai women as sex slaves.)

While some women are rescued by AFP or Department of Immigration raids and others escape, or are freed after they pay off their whole "debt", for many, the ordeal does not end when they leave the brothel.

Kathleen Maltzahn, former brothel outreach worker and founder of Project Respect, says trafficking "is about erasing a person. It is about saying you are an animal, you're not a person. You don't count for anything. The psychological and physical impact of that is very profound.

"When I talk to women years later, they talk about the change in their lives and how hard it's been to recover, how they lost their sense of who they were."

One way in which the ordeal continues for some women is the Federal Government's response to trafficking, which has been widely criticised for failing to take a more human rights-based approach to victims. At present ongoing assistance is linked to the victim's role in a viable prosecution of a trafficker.

Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick says: "At the minute, the main thrust of Australia's response to human trafficking is around law enforcement. But with that approach, when we look at the person who has been trafficked we see them just as a witness in the case against the trafficker."

Victim support and visas enabling them to remain lawfully in Australia are only available to those women who are "of interest" to law enforcement agencies. These victims receive a 30-day visa and support while law enforcement agencies decide whether their presence in Australia is necessary to assist in a prosecution or investigation. If the trafficker has vanished, or if victims are too afraid to speak to police, they face deportation.

Those who do help police, often feel as though they have moved from "debt bondage to witness bondage", says David Manne, a human rights lawyer who has represented several allegedly trafficked women in Melbourne.

They feel forced to testify, he says, so they can stay in the country. In cases he worked on he says, "the human rights of the women involved were ignored".

A Department of Immigration spokesperson says that following discussions with community and government agencies, the Federal Government is considering changes to visa framework for trafficked women to make it simpler and more flexible.

For Mae, the road out of the brothel has been long and hard. For several months after she finished her "contract", she had little choice but to stay in the brothel. She was addicted to drugs, and trying to save money to return to Thailand.

Although the conditions were better than before, she says she still felt trapped. She was only able to give up prostitution when a client offered to support her and gave her a place to stay.

Since then, she has met a loving husband, and has children she describes as "the hope of my life". It is because of them that she quit drugs. But unless she is granted a humanitarian visa that will enable her to stay in Australia, she will be sent back to Thailand without them. She is not eligible to receive victim support or a witness protection visa, she says, because she is too afraid to speak to police.

"My life is better now but it is still not the same as other people," she says.

The memories of life in the brothel are still too real, and she is haunted by the thought of those she left behind.

Traumatised and alone in a foreign country, many trafficked women like Mae struggle to escape the cycle of substance abuse and prostitution. But one remarkable woman, forced into prostitution in Sydney, is throwing them a lifeline.

Maria (an alias) was recognised as a victim by the Federal Government, and accepted into the victim support scheme. But she knows many others are not so lucky. So with the help of Project Respect, she is starting a Thai noodle bar in Melbourne to employ trafficked women. It will be a way out of prostitution, she says, and a place where women can regain their sense of identity.

Mae will be one of the first to work in the noodle bar, if her visa application is successful. Like Mae, Maria came to Australia thinking she would work in a restaurant.

The project has received $65,000 in funding from the Victorian Government, and Maria hopes to raise another $170,000 by the middle of this year. "I think women can help each other to run the restaurant and they won't need to work in the brothels," Maria says. "We don't want to do prostitution.

"A lot of people don't know this is happening. They don't know what is happening behind closed doors."

But a hint of what is happening is there for all to see. Every day the services associated with trafficked women are openly advertised in newspapers and online: "exotic", "new girls every week", "will do anything".

But even those who buy sex from these women them do not see the brutal reality of their imprisonment. "I didn't think this would happen in a civilised country like Australia," Mae says. "But it did. It happened to me."

Mae spoke to The Age with the help of an interpreter. See The Age online's multimedia presentation on sex trafficking in Melbourne at theage.com.au

Central High School holds human trafficking forum

2009-03-11T20:20:00.000-07:00

Friday, Mar. 06, 2009

By SANDRA ENGELLAND
THE KELLER CITIZEN
KELLERPIX/PHOTO CORRESPONDENT
Theresa Flores, a trafficking victim who wrote a book about her experience, addresses the crowd at the Feb. 25 forum at Central High School. From an upper-middle class family in suburban Detroit, she was forced into a sexual exploitation ring at age 15.

Human trafficking is not just something that occurs in third-world countries. Modern-day slavery occurs all over the world, including North Texas.

That was the message of the Eyes Wide Open Human Trafficking Forum at Central High School last week.

About 400 people attended the Feb. 25 program that featured speeches by law enforcement and human rights experts and trafficking victims. It was hosted by two student groups – Central Impact and the Junior World Affairs Council.

"It most impacts people our age," said Hayley Bupp, Central sophomore and a member of Central Impact. "I always thought it was other countries; I didn’t realize it was happening in the U.S."

Central teacher Steve Patty, a sponsor for Central Impact, a group that encourages students to become involved in global issues, said club members decided to make human trafficking their emphasis for the year after hearing some victims speak about the topic.

Human trafficking involves forced labor in a range of venues – from sweatshops to homes – and activities – from prostitution to farming. In many cases, victims are smuggled to different areas and work in servitude to "pay off" an insurmountable debt to their smugglers.

Human rights experts estimate that 27 million people are enslaved in such circumstances around the globe, as human trafficking is the second-most lucrative criminal activity, next to drug trafficking. In the United States, 300,000 children – many of them runaways – are at risk of sexual exploitation by traffickers.

Targeting runaways

Theresa Flores, a human trafficking victim who spoke at the forum, said she was an upper-middle class girl from a Catholic home in a Detroit suburb who was forced into a sexual exploitation ring at age 15. The perpetrators threatened to kill her family if she ever told anyone. She got out of the situation two years later when her family moved.

Flores wrote a book about the experience, The Sacred Bath, and now works as a counselor to help other women and children caught in human trafficking.

Today’s traffickers often target runaways. They sometimes kidnap children or lure them through Internet social sites. Most are not known by their future victims, but they can also be older boyfriends or even family members, Flores said.

"We have allowed it to happen by not keeping our eyes open for this," she said. "We don’t like to think it can happen here."

'Big profits’

Another former trafficking victim, Given Kachepa, came to the United States at age 11 as part of the Zambian A Cappella Boys’ Choir. Kachepa, an orphan living with his siblings in his aunt’s home in a poor rural village, was told that he would be given money, an education and help for his family if he would travel abroad with the choir.

Shortly after arriving in this country, the boys were singing four to seven concerts a day for no pay and were threatened with abuse and deportation if they reported their condition.

Kachepa and the other choir members were rescued by federal immigration authorities, and he was adopted by a family in Colleyville.

Kachepa, now a senior at the University of North Texas, wants to warn about trafficking.

"Traffickers get rich by exploiting innocent victims," he said. "It’s big profits and cheap lives. People become disposable."

Local trafficking

Fort Worth and Dallas police officials also spoke at the forum about local trafficking.

Kathleen Murray, a licensed social worker with the Fort Worth police’s human trafficking unit, said that in the last year the unit had found 24 victims, all but two of them women. Seventeen of them were involved in illegal sexual activities, six were forced laborers and one was both.

Dallas police Lt. Christina Smith, commander of the vice unit, said law enforcement officials are changing their approach to prostitution by looking at ways to help women get out of the sex trade.

"For many years, we put prostitutes in jail. We’re not going to arrest ourselves out of a problem," she said.

Smith said that Dallas police offer resources to victims to help them stop abusing drugs, find housing and learn job-interview skills.

Course of Study in the Curriculum of some schools in Chiang Rai

2009-03-11T19:34:00.000-07:00

A fountain of misery
Published: 7/03/2009 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: NewsTackling a problem at its source is obviously a better strategy than letting it grow to the point where it becomes unmanageable. With this in mind, the British Embassy this week donated some 20,000 brochures through Thai government agencies in an awareness campaign against international human trafficking and the 700,000 people around the world known to have fallen victim to it.

Similar motivation has seen human trafficking introduced as a course of study in the curriculum of some schools in Chiang Rai to discourage hilltribe girls from being lured into the flesh trade. In recent weeks, it has also focused media attention on rescuing abused child maids trafficked here from Laos and Burma, underage labourers on fishing trawlers and trying to help the Rohingya boat people who are not even welcome in their own country.

There is no doubt that women abducted into forced prostitution and men coerced into servitude undergo the most horrific of human experiences. Such a despicable trade can only be sustained by callously exploiting the desperation bred of poverty. There can never be too loud an outcry against such wrongs.

Last June a tough new law to combat traffickers came into force and extended its protection to all those in danger of becoming victims of prostitution, pornography, sexual abuse, forced labour or the trade in human organs. It increased the punishment meted out to traffickers, spared victims from prosecution and concealed their identities. It also frees high-ranking police officers from having to obtain search warrants when actively in pursuit of suspected human traffickers and while rescuing their victims.

Now, nine months later, it would be encouraging to see police and public prosecutors making proper use of this law. Thailand has long had to suffer the shame of being branded an international people trafficking hub because gangs illegally trading in sexual exploitation, domestic servitude and other forced labour activity are either based here or use the country as a transit route.

Collusion has long been suspected between the corrupt influential figures behind the trafficking and their equally corrupt law enforcement counterparts. The new law was intended to dissolve such relationships, put the culprits in jail and make it clear that any tolerance that ever existed was at an end. If these goals have been achieved the accomplishment has been shrouded in secrecy. If they have not, then why enact important legislation if it is not going to be enforced?

This law also targets the exploitation of job-hunters, who sometimes pay 200,000 baht or more to get employment overseas. With no cash reserves, these job-seekers mortgage their land with the job-brokers, who charge them extortionate interest rates on the money they borrow. Once in a foreign country and with no money or knowledge of the local language, these workers often find out that their job description has changed. Fearful of losing their land, they have no choice but to accept what the foreign employers give them. Sometimes they lose everything.

Last year, in a six-month anti-trafficking operation across the United Kingdom, 528 people were arrested in 188 police raids. The majority of the 167 victims were found to have come from Southeast Asia, with about 30% of the cases involving Thais, either as traffickers or victims.

At present, such a coordinated response is the best way to tackle trafficking on this scale. The future lies in getting the message across to the vulnerable before the trap springs shut and they become the victims.

BANGKOK POST

Capital Profile - Andra Ackerman

2008-10-13T12:04:00.000-07:00

Andra Ackerman
Director of Human Trafficking Prevention and Policy

Age: 37

Home: Cohoes

What she does: Since last year, Ackerman has worked at the Division of Criminal Justice Services training police agencies, prosecutors and state law enforcement officials on New York's new human trafficking law and how to use it. The law took effect in November 2007, boosting prison time for those convicted of trafficking, or "modern-day slavery" in which victims are forced into the sex trade or another form of labor.

How she got there: Headed the Schenectady County District Attorney's Office Special Victims Unit beginning in March 2005; before that, she worked as assistant district attorney in Albany County for four years; briefly worked at Troy-based Pechenik & Curro law firm; and served as assistant district attorney in Rensselaer County for a year and a half. Ackerman earned her law degree in 1999 from the State University at Buffalo's School of Law, her bachelor's degree in political science from Siena College in 1994, and her associates degree in criminal justice from Hudson Valley Community College in 1991.

Personal: Single. Grew up in foster care in the Capital Region. Graduated from Averill Park High School.

How does your new job combating human trafficking compare with prosecuting sex crimes?
"It's very different — to be so long in the trenches, so to speak, really working with the victims and the court system, to now being at a state agency where the beautiful part of it is being able to affect change; to not only affect one community, but all the communities in New York state."

What is the scope of human trafficking in New York?

"Society is changing, and along with that are the ways that (criminals) are pulling victims into human trafficking. There are many cases where women are pulled in from the bordering states and countries. But they're also pulled in from the Internet. And they take runaway kids, for example, from areas like MySpace and Craigslist, and they literally lure them into prostitution and use the same means as traffickers. Really, the (new) law applies to them as well."

Human trafficking is often associated with immigrants from foreign countries? Does that hold true?
"That is correct — but it's not just outside of this country. ... There are just as many victims who are domestic victims. It literally can be happening down the street. It's really insecure, troubled kids who are offered an opportunity to change their lives — and it's not the change they were looking for."

On the unique problem human trafficking presents:

"Human trafficking is different from every other crime that I've seen ... (The victims are) not running to police, they're running away from police. ... They think in their mind that they're committing a crime, and they're told that. So here you have a situation where somebody appears to be a prostitute. They're afraid of law enforcement and law enforcement, old-school, has looked at them as prostitutes. What we're doing here is to try to show and teach law enforcement to look outside the box. ... These perpetrators use that fear of law enforcement as a tool, and that's different from all other cases that I've handled, because the victims really feel like they're part of this crime, too. They're made to believe that."

On her experience in foster care and its impact on her career:
"A lot of the work I do now is because of that. It's really being a voice for kids. What I love about this job is I helps me affect kids' lives on a state level, not just in the community. The community is great, but this job allows me to do it in every community around New York. And if I didn't have that experience when I was younger, I may not be here. ... A lot of these kids abused are in foster care. If you haven't been there, it's so hard to understand. But being there, and you look at them and you tell them you been there, they're eyes get big. They really open up to you they talk to you."

What would you tell victims if they could see your words?
"I'd say, 'Take a moment, Trust us. Give us your time — we can provide you the services you need and we can help you. And really, New York state is there for you. It's true."

— Robert Gavin
First published: Monday, October 13, 2008

What Have We Learned ?

2008-10-11T23:53:00.000-07:00

The number of women and children trafficked into sexual servitude (slavery) and debt bondage is impossible to quantify, but it is estimated that between 700,000 to 4 million people are trafficked around the world annually for sexual exploitation and many more are condemned to slave labour on cocoa plantations and other agriculture.

These 2 verses from a poem written almost 200 years ago show that people are just as uncaring and, in some cases, more inhumane than in the 19th Century.

I invite you to suggest your ideas on remedying the situation by adding your comments to this blog.
Patricia Church.
The Slave's Dream
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(1807-1882)
Beside the ungathered rice he lay,
His sickle in his hand;
His breast was bare, his matted hair
Was buried in the sand.
Again, in the mist and shadow of sleep,
He saw his Native Land.

He did not feel the driver's whip,
Nor the burning heat of day;
For Death had illumined the Land of Sleep,
And his lifeless body lay
A worn-out fetter, that the soul
Had broken and thrown away!

Unprotected Children

2008-10-10T17:23:00.000-07:00

RIGHTS: EU Parliament Acts Against Child Trafficking
By David Cronin
BRUSSELS, Oct 9 (IPS) - The European Union needs to develop a programme against child trafficking, the bloc's only directly elected institution has declared.

Between two and four million people -- most of them children -- are estimated to fall victim to forced labour and other forms of trafficking each year.

Since the Amsterdam Treaty came into effect in 1999, trafficking in human beings has been named as an area of responsibility for the EU as a whole. Yet even though the Union's executive, the European Commission, drew up a strategy on the rights of the child in 2006, anti-exploitation campaigners feel that it does not grapple properly with the problems associated with trafficking.

More than half of the European Parliament's 785 members have now signed a declaration urging that the situation be remedied by setting up a specific EU-funded scheme to address this scourge. Under the assembly's rules of procedure, the declaration has enough support to be formally endorsed by the entire body.

The child rights advocacy group Terre des Hommes has complained that the issue of trafficking tends to be viewed through the prism of law enforcement and control of immigration. As a result, when authorities identify a child who has been trafficked, their main objective can frequently be to seek information about organised crime, rather than to give protection to the boy or girl in question. In many cases, EU governments go as far as making protection conditional on the child cooperating with the justice system.

Salvatore Parata, spokesman for Terres des Hommes, said that the EU has "confused child trafficking with migration and with the sexual exploitation of adults." Child trafficking should instead be viewed as a broader phenomenon which can also involve the drugs trade, begging and illegal adoptions, the group believes.

Last month the London police headquarters Scotland Yard agreed to liaise with Romanian authorities to address allegations that Romanian children are being forced to beg and steal in Britain. Although similar allegations have surfaced in Madrid and Valencia, Spanish authorities have not yet undertaken any concrete measures, according to Terre des Hommes.

It has also found that centres throughout the EU accommodating children who have migrated without the company of an adult have reported numerous cases of children leaving the centres under dubious circumstances. So far, though, there has been no coordinated EU response to these reports.

Diana Wallis, a British Liberal member of parliament (MEP), said that the Union is "not doing enough to get to grips with this problem.

"This horror is still being perpetuated 200 years after the abolition of slavery," she added, recommending that EU governments should share more information about what they are doing against child trafficking at the national level.

Child trafficking "can and does destroy lives," said Bulgarian Socialist Maryusya Lyubcheva. "Children are sold like commodities for sexual purposes and illegal adoption."

Simon Chorley, policy officer with the London-based group Stop the Traffik, argued that both the EU's internal and foreign policies should address the related issues. "Children need to be correctly identified as victims of trafficking, not as criminals."

He also drew a link between child trafficking and the exploitation of minors in poor countries, citing estimates that half of the chocolate consumed in Europe is made from cocoa that has been picked by young Africans who have been forced to work.

Meanwhile, the Parliament urged Oct. 9 that the EU should formally set itself the objective of reducing child poverty by half within the next four years. Almost 19 million children are at risk of poverty in the EU, according to a parliamentary report, which demanded that the Union's governments should make adequate resources available to deal with this matter.

Swedish MEP Eva-Britt Svensson said that child trafficking is closely related to hardship. "Poverty is one of the main reasons for this ongoing slavery."
The Parliament's report has recommended, too, that all 27 EU governments should agree on a collective target for minimum wages for adult workers. This remuneration should be at least 60 percent of the average industrial wage.

The report found that although having a job is the best defence against poverty, it does not always provide a guarantee. It maintained that meeting the needs of both the employed and unemployed should be viewed as a question of human rights.

While most EU countries have introduced minimum income schemes, with the stated aim of helping people who cannot fend for themselves, the Parliament's report said that social assistance can often provide less money to recipients than they require to ward off the risk of poverty.

Gabriele Zimmer, the German left-wing MEP who drafted the report, noted that there are "tremendous differences" in the proportion of people at risk of poverty in different countries. These vary from less than 10 percent of the population in Sweden to more than 20 percent in Poland and Lithuania.

Back in 1992, the EU formally agreed that everyone had the right "to sufficient resources and social assistance to live in a manner compatible with human dignity." Sixteen years later there are still EU countries "without a sufficient national social safety net in place," Zimmer said. (END/2008)

Trafficking Tribal Women

2008-10-08T11:59:00.000-07:00

MALAYSIA: Emerging Trend in Trafficking Tribal Women
By Baradan KuppusamyKUALA LUMPUR, Oct 7 (IPS) -
An emerging trend in the trafficking of tribal people, mostly young girls, is raising concern among government officials, rights organisations, migration experts and human rights lawyers.

Increasingly, tribal girls in the region are duped and trafficked from their villages to regional capitals like Singapore and Kuala Lumpur to work in brothels and massage parlours that attract well-heeled locals as well as tourists.

‘’The trafficking of tribal people is on the rise across the South-east Asian region,’’said Irene Fernandez, executive director of Tenaganita, a leading Malaysian NGO that tracks trafficking of women to Malaysia from across the Asia Pacific region.

‘’It is a most heinous crime because tribal girls are duped into believing they are getting high-paid office and home jobs, but are forced into prostitution,’’ she told IPS.

Not only are tribal people from the region trafficked to Malaysia, the country’s own Penan, from the interiors of Sarawak state, and the Orang Asli tribal groups in peninsular Malaysia are trafficked internally and exploited.

Outsiders, including workers, miners and others, also visit the villages to sexually exploit young tribal women, researchers told IPS.

‘’It is their poverty, dislocation and vulnerability that makes the tribal easily exploited,’’ said a Malaysian researcher with the Penan people who declined to be named. ‘’The government is totally unresponsive...it is total neglect of indigenous people.’’

‘’They give lip-service whenever the issue makes the headlines, but after that the indigenous people are left to the mercy of the traffickers,’’ Fernandez said.

The case of five young Naga tribal women from India’s north-east, who were trafficked from their village to Singapore and later moved to Malaysia and forced to work as sex slaves, has highlighted the plight of tribal women uprooted from their villages and trapped in Malaysia, a country generally hostile to migrants.

The five women are now housed in a half-way centre and the Indian High Commission here is making arrangements to send them home.

Commission counselor Sudhir Kumar Mehrotra told ‘The New Straits Times’ daily on Sep. 29 that the women from the Zeliangrong Naga tribe were promised lucrative jobs but were duped and forced to work as bar girls and prostitutes in nightclubs in Singapore and Malaysia.

‘’We have information that as many as 150 women from Manipur, Assam and Nagaland have been duped and forced to work immorally in this region,’’ he said. According to Mehrotra, the Indian government is concerned and investigating the people involved and the routes taken to curb the emerging trend in the trafficking of tribal people.

Poverty among the tribal people in places like Manipur state’s backward Tamenglong district, where parents place their hopes on agents to secure jobs for their daughters, is fueling the trade, human rights lawyers said.

According to migration experts, trafficking of tribal girls is widespread within India but because of the great demand in South East Asian capitals traffickers are beginning to traffic them outside India in the hope of making a fortune.

‘’Tribal people are rare in these capitals and there is a rising demand for them in many brothels and massage parlours in the region because of their rarity,’’ said a migration and HIV expert with a regional NGO.

‘’The flesh trade is always looking out for new victims,’’ he said, declining to be identified so as not to annoy regional governments. ‘’Trafficking of tribal people is common in India and blatantly carried out despite all the laws against it. But with the heightened push and pull factor the victims are surfacing outside India.’’

‘’We must take note and act speedily before the number of trafficked women rises dramatically,’’ said the HIV expert, adding that what was needed was for the Indian government to work closely with its counterparts in the region to stop the trend.

He said tribal people forced into sex work are especially vulnerable to sexually transmitted infections, including HIV and unwanted pregnancies, because of lack of quality information and language barriers.

The sex trade is also seen to be shifting from the main capitals of the region to towns and even villages because of the spread of wealth and transport facilities.

‘’You can find foreign women trafficked to even remote towns because of rising demand, expanding wealth and minimal supervision by police and other enforcement agencies,’’ said Fernandez.

‘’Here [remote areas] the scene is much more sinister, it is more hidden and curbing the exploitation is much more challenging,’’ she said. ‘’We are afraid the remoteness of the scene would make it that much more difficult to curb the problem.’’

Unlike drug trafficking where penalties are high, it is an easy walk for human traffickers with the authorities prepared to pocket part of the profits and ‘’close an eye’’ to trafficking crimes in their midst.

Although Malaysia has tough new laws to curb trafficking, few people are ever booked for the offence of trafficking.

Tribal people trafficked to Malaysia face insurmountable hurdles, said Fernandez. ‘’They stand little chance of returning home, let alone make the big money they have been promised when they were lured from their village and forced into prostitution,’’ she told IPS.

‘’We have to stop them from leaving their villages by addressing issues of poverty, human rights and legal protection against exploitation,’’ she added.

India’s National Commission for Women, the All-India Christian Council and the Northeast Support Centre have called on the Malaysian High Commission in New Delhi to seek help in checking the trend.
‘The New Straits Times’

Here, in Australia

2008-10-07T23:13:00.000-07:00

Girls who are traded like goats

IT is time the myths of multiculturalism were abandoned. The majority Christian community in Australia must not be coerced into pretending all cultures are equally valid.

Late last year, in Pakistan, a village council decreed five young women be abducted, raped or killed for refusing to honour marriages it ordered to recompense enemies of their family after a murder.

The women, all cousins, were married in absentia by a mullah to illiterate sons of their family's enemies, after the father of one of the girls shot dead a rival. The council also sentenced to death Jehan Nizzi, the father of three of the women, and the fathers of the other two, for refusing to hand over their daughters.

In 2004, a three-year-old girl was betrothed to a 60-year-old man in a similar settlement. These cases, pitting tribal cultures against a group of educated women, led to the Pakistan parliament passing a law banning honour killings and "vani", which is the custom of handing over women to resolve disputes.

The Pakistan Human Rights Commission condemned the barbaric custom of "vani" and called on the Government to enforce the laws, which are widely ignored.

Amna Nizzi, 22, the oldest of the five girls, is studying English literature and hopes to become an English lecturer. Her sister, Abida, 18, hopes to study medicine, and their youngest sister, Sajida, 15, is at school. The other girls, Assi, 20, and 16-year- old Fatima, are the daughters of Mr Nizzi's brothers.

Amna Nizzi said: "It is a great injustice that should be ended. Why should we pay for a crime committed by someone else?

"I am proud of my father. Despite having little money, he has educated us and shown us we must stand up in society and demand our rights."

Mr Nizzi was quite open about the feud: "My brother murdered one of our neighbours after being shot at. But they already insulted us by making indecent remarks to our girls. I have refused to give in to the council's request. I cannot hand over my girls like goats to marry these illiterate boys."

Well, that was in Pakistan. Here, in Australia, a 55-year-old Aboriginal man, over two days, bashed and raped a 14-year-old girl who had been promised to him in marriage under Aboriginal law.

He was sentenced to one month's jail because the judge took tribal customs into account. The sentence, since increased to three years by the Court of Appeal, is in my view totally inadequate.

BUT it is not just "coloured" tribes that have atrocious customs. Many "tribes" in the world are represented in Germany for the World Soccer Cup and thousands of young women will have been trafficked from Europe to work as prostitutes in government-sponsored brothels.

As many as 40,000 women were expected to be added to the 400,000 prostitutes in Germany's sex industry.

German authorities have facilitated the construction of mega- brothels and "sex huts". Cities hosting the games were to issue special permits for street prostitution, creating partnerships with brothel owners, pimps and traffickers.

In Washington DC, dozens of human rights groups and experts in human trafficking gathered to decry the German Government's involvement in the sex trade.

Chris Smith, vice-chairman of the US House of Representatives international relations committee, said: "The sad news is that the German Government is facilitating prostitution and what will be a very significant influx of trafficked women who will be exploited.

"They will be treated as commodities. They will be raped as a direct result of having been trafficked into Germany for the World Cup event."

Mr Smith noted that about 75 per cent of the prostitutes in Germany were foreigners from central European countries. "We know beyond reasonable doubt that so many of these women are coerced and they are there because of force, fraud or, like I say, coercion."

What "tribes" need are enlightened men like Mr Nizzi, who will protect their daughters.

babette@endeavourforum.org.au

Some Traffickers get Caught

2008-10-06T01:13:00.000-07:00

Dominic Woo
A businessman who ran a brothel from a sauna in Glasgow’s west end has been jailed for nine months.Dominic Woo was arrested after police raided the Venus Sauna in 2004 after several weeks of surveillance.
Officers secured a prosecution after questioning prostituted women whom Woo had coerced into the sex industry.
Woo admitted running a brothel and living off immoral earnings when he appeared at Glasgow Sheriff Court.
As he was sentenced, he described the charges as a “stitch-up.”
Police acted after keeping the sauna in the city’s Sandyford Place Lane under surveillance for several days in July 2004. A number of men were seen visiting the premises and were later traced and interviewed. Most admitted knowing sex was for sale there.
Police raided the sauna and seized pornographic magazines, videos and DVDs as well lubricant, sex aids,condoms and underwear. A member of staff admitted she had been engaged in prostitution.
Adele MacDonald, prosecuting, told the court: “She said for each customer, irrespective of the sexual service,she would give £15 to reception. She was able to say that Dominic Woo would attend and check the takings. As far as she was aware, he would take the money as it would not be there afterwards.”
Luan Plakici
In December 2003, Albanian immigrant Plakici received a prison sentence of 23 years for trafficking Eastern European women into the UK and forcing them into prostitution. Plakici was convicted of several offences including kidnap, incitement to rape and living off the earnings of prostitution. He admitted smuggling up to
60 people into the UK, including seven counts of human trafficking.
Seven of his victims gave evidence in the trial, describing how they were tricked into leaving their loved ones behind for a brighter future. Instead the women were imprisoned, bought, sold and raped during their journey to the UK.
All the victims were beaten, raped and forced to have sex with up to 20 men a day in UK brothels. Plakici married one teenage victim for her earning potential, who then spent her wedding night being prostituted.
She was forced to undergo two abortions, returning to prostitution just hours later.
It was the biggest UK case of human traffi cking for prostitution, with a turnover of £1 million, supplying brothels in London, Reading, Luton and Bedford. Before leading his Albanian traffi cking ring, Plakici worked as a legal interpreter specialising in immigration. He attempted to deny his crimes by saying he had merely flouted immigration laws.
Ron and Angela Miller
A brothel owner was jailed for three and a half years after police raids on her Northampton massage parlours.
The raids ended with the discovery of then Labour MP Joe Ashton in one of the properties with a 21-year-old Thai woman. Along with three family members including ex-husband Ron and their son Don, Miller used false passports to bring up to 18 women from Thailand into her two brothels. She fled the country on September
15, 2000, the day she was given bail after admitting involvement in the £1 million prostitution racket.
Northamptonshire Police, working with Interpol, tracked Miller, who had duel citizenship, to Thailand where she was hiding in the beachside resort of Pattaya.
Miller’s prostitution gang was masterminded by her husband Ron Miller, who used agents in Thailand to find “suitable peasant girls.” He would make regular trips to the Far East to buy the women for £5,000 each at sales in Bangkok hotels.
WWW.CATWINTERNATIONAL.ORG
WWW.WOMENLOBBY.ORG

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Prosecutes

2008-10-04T01:34:00.000-07:00

Human Traffickers in Kansas City Plead Guilty to Coercing Prostitution, Money Laundering, and Identity Theft

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (ICE) -- The three owners and operators of Asian massage parlors in Johnson County, Kan., pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday to engaging in human trafficking by coercing their employees, whom they recruited from China, to engage in prostitution. This plea was announced by John F. Wood, U.S. Attorney, Western District of Missouri. The case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the FBI, and other law enforcement agencies.

"Human trafficking is a modern-day form of slavery that reaches from the other side of the globe to the suburban Midwest," Wood said. "Chinese women were recruited to travel to Kansas City, then coerced to work as prostitutes at massage parlors. These businesses have been shut down and the owners brought to justice. We have also provided social services to assist their victims."

"Victims of human trafficking are deceived, coerced or threatened by their captors," said Gary Hartwig, special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in Chicago. "ICE will work closely with our law enforcement partners to identify and protect the victims, and prosecute their captors." Hartwig oversees a six-state area, which includes: Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky and Wisconsin.

Ling Xu, also known as "Cherry," 46, Zhong Yan Liu, also known as "Lucky," 36, and Cheng Tang, also known as "Tom," 22, all citizens of China residing in Overland Park, pleaded guilty in separate appearances this morning before U.S. District Judge Fernando J. Gaitan. Each of the defendants pleaded guilty to coercing persons to travel across state lines and national borders to engage in prostitution and illegal sexual services. They also pleaded guilty to money laundering by wiring more than $500,000 from the proceeds of that unlawful activity to China. Xu also pleaded guilty to aggravated identity theft for using the passports and identification of her female workers to make most of those wire transfers. All three defendants remain in federal custody.

Xu and Liu are married to other persons, with whom they have limited contact, and were living together with Xu's son, Tang. Xu, Liu and Tang were involved in operating massage parlors, including: "China Rose Massage" and "China Villa Massage/Lin Dynasty" in Overland Park; and, at the times charges were filed, they were preparing to open "Victoria Square" in Overland Park. They also operated a nearby residence that was used for prostitution.

Co-defendant Hongmei Madole, also known as Hongmei Zhou, 32, of Olathe, Kan., pleaded guilty April 24 to coercing persons to travel across state lines and national borders to engage in prostitution and illegal sexual services. Madole owned "Asian Touch Massage" in Olathe.

Xu, Liu and Tang recruited female Asians to travel to the Kansas City area to work as masseuses. They facilitated the women's travel, including, but not limited to, booking and purchasing the flights for the women. They would fly the women into the Kansas City, Mo., International Airport and then transport or have them transported to the businesses. Xu and Tang signed massage therapy license applications, as the manager of the businesses, for the females to obtain massage therapy licenses with the city of Overland Park.

Xu, Liu, and Tang placed ads in the Kansas City magazine, The Pitch, which stated the massage parlors offered, for example, "The most elegant environment and the most comfortable atmosphere in town. With free table shower and free Sauna!" The ads stated that the massage parlors were open seven days a week, from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Tang also posted and maintained ads for the business at ASPD.net, a website where male customers posted reviews of the sexual services offered by China Rose and China Villa Massage/Lin Dynasty.

The female Asians who worked for Xu, Liu, and Tang worked from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. seven days a week and lived inside the massage parlors. Xu, Liu and Tang operated surveillance cameras inside the massage parlors to monitor the female Asian workers. Inside the massage parlors, the female Asian workers were forced to perform sexual services on male patrons in exchange for money. Xu, Liu, and Tang also used a nearby apartment, within walking distance of one of the massage parlors, to have the female Asian workers provide extended sexual services to some male patrons.

Xu and Liu purchased supplies to be used in the prostitution activities, including bulk orders of condoms that were provided to the females for use while engaging in the prostitution activities.

Xu, Liu, and Tang used businesses, such as 888 Market and Ho's Oriental Market, to wire at least $452,500 in proceeds from the prostitution businesses, via Western Union, to several locations in China. Xu wired at least $343,600 in this manner from 2005 to 2006. Of this amount, Xu wired $318,600 by illegally taking and using her female worker's passports and identification. Liu wired at least $74,500 and Tang wired at least $34,400.

Xu was the head of these businesses, as the lead owner and operator. Xu also employed and paid Liu and Tang for their work and assistance in committing the offenses.

By pleading guilty today, Xu, Liu, and Tang also agreed to forfeit to the government $452,500, which represented the proceeds of the unlawful activity, as well as $60,497 that was seized by the FBI during the execution of federal search warrants at the defendants' residences and businesses.

Xu is a native and citizen of China. She has resided legally in the United States pending adjudication of immigration benefits. Liu entered the United States on a visitor's visa which expired in 2001. He remained in the United States illegally thereafter. Madole is a native of China who is a conditional resident alien in the United States based upon marriage to a U.S. citizen.

Under federal statutes, Xu, Liu, and Tang are each subject to a sentence of up to 40 years in federal prison without parole. Xu is also subject to an additional mandatory term of two years in federal prison without parole for aggravated identity theft, which must be served consecutively to her sentence on the other offenses. Madole could be subject to a sentence of up to 20 years in federal prison without parole. Sentencing hearings will be scheduled after the U.S. Probation Office completes its presentence investigations.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Cynthia L. Cordes, Western District of Missouri, is prosecuting this case. It was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the FBI, the police departments of Overland Park, Kan., Olathe, Kan., Mission, Kan., Lenexa, Kan., and Independence, Mo., and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

Chocolate leaves a bitter taste

2008-10-03T21:09:00.000-07:00

Salvokat Seductive Sweet
September 18, 2008

It is enjoyed by millions of connoisseurs around the world, but in recent years chocolate has started to leave an unpleasant aftertaste.

Canadian author Carol Off, whose book alerted readers to the ethical quagmire of chocolate consumption when it was released two years ago, is currently in Australia to talk up the topic.

Her book, Bitter Chocolate, lifted the lid on the use of child slavery in the cocoa plantations of West Africa.

The link between slavery and chocolate is as old as history, Off said.

“There has always been a case where cocoa has been produced by people who didn’t have a lot for people who do,” she said.

“The Aztecs and the Mayans produced cocoa for the King of Montezuma and in Europe they produced slaves to harvest cocoa beans for the chocolate fanatics of Europe.”

Things haven’t changed, she says.

“We have chocolate bars today that seem to be cheap and affordable even to a child … but the truth of the matter is we can only afford this chocolate because people who are picking the beans and cultivating it are children in West Africa,” she said.

“A lot of children voluntarily go (to the plantations) because there’s nothing for them in countries like Mali.

“Their crops are failing and nothing is growing in that part of the world, So a lot of the kids are sent off by their parents to get some money.

“But child traffickers see the vulnerability of these kids, there’s nobody watching over them and they round them up and take them over the border into the Ivory Coast and make money from them.”

It is difficult to help these children, Off says, because much of the Ivory Coast, which produces most of the world’s cocoa supply, is torn by civil war.

The government uses profits from the cocoa trade to fund the war, Off says.

“The complicity here is with them and the big chocolate companies.”

“There are only a handful of multinationals that control the industry and basically they are able to operate with impunity in Africa and Ivory Coast because everybody that has power over the situation is getting what they want.”

Fair trade systems were having a small impact, Off said, but would never provide a full solution.

“They pay a premium to the farmer, the chocolates are more expensive and the profits go back to the farmers.

“Where I went in those situations, the kids are going to school, there was health care, clean water and all these things were paid for by fair trade premiums - but there’s so few of them.

“It represents not even one per cent of all the cocoa being produced, so the vast majority is under this other system.”

The CEO of The Confectionery Manufacturers of Australasia (CMA), Trish Hyde, said the CMA was a part of a global initiative to eliminate child slavery and forced labour in the industry.

She said the CMA and other chocolate companies from around the world were working with the governments of the Ivory Coast and Ghana to help eliminate child slavery and forced labour.

“The important thing is from our perspective is the collaboration with government and NGOs (Non-Government Organisations) on the ground, with industry programs … that are actually making changes in the communities.”

The CMA says that in July this year it also helped implement a reporting system that would certify all labour on West African cocoa farms.
AAP

This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/09/17/1221330918327.html

Bonded Slavery

2008-10-01T13:59:00.000-07:00

IJM casework, pseudonyms have been used though the accounts are real. Actual names and casework documentation are on file with IJM.
All text and Images © 2005 International Justice Mission
Bonded slavery is the continual labor of an individual forced to work by mental or physical threat. Bonded slaves are owned by an employer to whom the slave or slave’s family is indebted. Bonded slaves are forced to work long hours, often seven days
a week, for meager wages, if any, attempting to pay back a debt that increases at exorbitant interest rates. In reality, there is no way to repay the debt and the laborer becomes essentially a slave for life. Many bonded slaves are children who are beaten and abused if they do not fulfill the extreme expectations of the owner.
What are the facts?
• According to the United Nations Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, an estimated 20 million people were held in bonded slavery as of 1999.
• In 2004 there are more slaves than were seized from Africa during four centuries of trans-Atlantic slave trade. (Kevin Bales, Disposable People)
• In 1850 a slave in the Southern United States cost the equivalent of $40,000 today. According to Free the Slaves, a slave today costs an average of $90.
• Approximately two-thirds of today’s slaves are in South Asia. Human Rights Watch estimates that in India alone there are as many as 15 million children in bonded slavery.
How does bonded slavery happen?
When a personal or family emergency requires immediate funds the individual or family is forced to work for very little or no pay in exchange for a small loan. Because the debt increases faster than they’re paid a slave is trapped without hope of ever paying off the original debt. While IJM does not often find victims in physical chains, the intimidation of powerful oppressors is every bit as effective a means of restraint.
What does IJM do about bonded slavery?
IJM investigates and documents cases of bonded slavery, then works with local law enforcement within the country’s legal system to emancipate slaves and bring slaveholders to justice. IJM also works to secure quality after care for the victims.
How does IJM help real people held as bonded slaves?
Narakalappa is a 70-year-old man who was born into a family of bonded slaves (each generation assumes the debt of the previous). He and his children and grandchildren worked as slaves on an agricultural plantation. In June 2003, IJM led a raid on the property to identify and rescue as many bonded slaves as possible. IJM secured the release of 16 slaves, including Narakalappa.
For the first time in his life, Narakalappa is now a free man.
Bonded Slavery

Israel's Strange Reluctance

2008-10-01T13:03:00.000-07:00

Israel's fight against sex trafficking
By Raffi Berg
BBC News, Jerusalem

Marina rarely leaves her two-room home in northern Israel these days.
She is in hiding - wanted by the Israeli authorities for being an illegal immigrant, and by the criminal gangs who brought her here to sell her into prostitution.

Marina - not her real name - was lured to Israel by human traffickers.

During the height of the phenomenon, from the beginning of the 1990s to the early years of 2000, an estimated 3,000 women a year were brought to Israel on the false promise of jobs and a better way of life.

"When I was in the Ukraine, I had a difficult life," said Marina, who 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.

MAIN ORIGINS OF WOMEN TRAFFICKED TO ISRAEL
Russia
Moldova
Ukraine
Uzbekistan
Belarus

That part of her ordeal only ended when she managed to escape, but the physical and mental scars remain.

Last year, the United Nations named Israel as one of the main destinations in the world for trafficked women; it has also consistently appeared as an offender in the annual US State Department's Trafficking in Persons (Tip) report.

While this year's report said Israel was making "significant efforts" to eliminate trafficking, it said it still does not "fully comply with the minimum standards" to do so.

Like Marina, some trafficked women are brought into the country legally, while others are smuggled by Bedouins across the border from Egypt.

In all cases, the traffickers - as many as 20 in the chain from recruitment to sale - 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.

Prostitution in Israel is legal, but pimping and maintaining a brothel are not.

The law however is not widely enforced and few brothels are closed down.

In Tel Aviv's Neve Shaanan district for instance, just a short walk from the city's five-star tourist hotels, brothels masquerading as massage parlours, saunas and even internet cafes, fill the side streets.
One such place even operates opposite the local police station.

There are bars on windows and heavily-built men guard the doors, which are only opened to let customers in and out.

Inside, groups of sullen-looking women sit in dimly-lit rooms, waiting for their next client.

Foreign women fetch the highest prices, with trafficked women forced to work up to 18 hours a day.
For years, the absence of anti-trafficking laws in Israel meant such activity - less risky and often more profitable than trafficking drugs or arms - went unchecked.

"During the first 10 years of trafficking, Israel did absolutely nothing," said Nomi Levenkron, of the Migrant Workers' Hotline, an NGO which helps trafficked women and puts pressure on the state to act.

In 2003 we used to find women who were being raped, jailed and under a great amount of violence. In 2007, the situation is completely different.
Raanan Caspi
Israeli anti-trafficking police chief

"Women were trafficked into Israel - the first case we uncovered was in 1992 - and not much really happened," she said.
"Occasionally traffickers were brought to trial, but the victims were arrested as well, they were forced to testify, and then they were deported."

In 2000, trafficking for sexual exploitation was made a crime but the punishments were light and its implementation was poor, NGOs say.

It was only after repeated criticism of Israel by the United States - and the threat of sanctions - that authorities began to act.

Investigations into suspected traffickers increased, stiff jail terms were handed down and Israel's borders were tightened against people smuggling.

Changing tactics

Campaigners say things began to change for the better in 2004, when the government opened a shelter in north Tel Aviv for women who had been trafficked for sex.

It marked a change in the way the state perceived them - as victims of a crime rather than accomplices.

There are some 30 women at the Maggan shelter - most from former Soviet states, but also five from China.

"When they come here they are in a bad condition," said Rinat Davidovich, the shelter's director.
"Most have sexual diseases and some have hepatitis and even tuberculosis. They also have problems going to sleep because they remember what used to happen to them at night," she said.

"It's very hard and it's a long procedure to start to help and treat them."

Police say their actions have led to a significant drop in the number of women now being trafficked into Israel for sex - hundreds, rather than thousands, a year - and they say the women's working environment has improved too.

"There is a significant change in the conditions that the women are being held in," said anti-trafficking police chief Raanan Caspi.

"In 2003 we used to find women who were being raped, incarcerated and suffering violence. In 2007, the situation is completely different - they get paid in most cases and the conditions that they're in are much more humane."

Now most trafficking occurs through what people like to call discreet apartments and escort agencies
Yedida Wolfe
Task Force on Human Trafficking

But the true picture might not be so clear-cut.
Campaigners say increased police activity has also had an adverse effect. Instead of operating openly in brothels, traffickers have become more discreet, plying their trade in private apartments and escort agencies, making the practice more difficult to detect.

"We've been keeping tabs on trends, in terms of, for instance, prices of exploitative services," said Yedida Wolfe, of the Task Force on Human Trafficking.

"Those prices have not gone up, which leads us to believe that the supply of victims has not gone down.

"While government officials are saying that their efforts have drastically cut the number of victims in the country, the NGOs on the scene really don't feel that's true."

Israel might well have turned a corner in its fight against the traffickers, but the battle is far from won.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/7070929.stm

Published: 2007/11/06 07:51:50 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

Slaves in Rice Mill

2008-09-30T16:31:00.000-07:00

Late on a hot, August afternoon, IJM assisted local authorities in raiding a
rice mill for the second time in less than two years. This was the first time
IJM helped raid the same slave-facility more than once to rescue different
groups of slaves and to press criminal charges again against its owner.
In March 2004, IJM and local authorities rescued 35 people from slavery
and sexual harassment at the mill. The owner pled guilty in a summary
trial, but was released immediately upon the conclusion of his court hearing
—held virtually unaccountable for the enslavement and gross abuse he had
inflicted. Emboldened by impunity, the slave owner “restocked” his mill
with new slaves and began to brag openly about how he would continue his
operations using forced laborers and that no one could stop him.
After trying for several months to gain access to the mill and meet some
of the “second generation victims,” IJM’s lead investigator designed and
executed an intricate mission that arranged for IJM agents to speak with
the owner and to meet the new victims while the owner was occupied.
The owner made outrageous admissions to undercover IJM agents, boasting
about how he trapped this new group through the bait of illegal
monetary advances. He described how he would track down victims that
escaped his facility, how he could not be touched and how there was
nothing anyone could do to change the system. IJM agents believed otherwise
and remained committed to bringing the owner to justice.
The second raid saw another eleven people receive release certificates from
the government, certifying their new-found freedom. During the raid,
the owner had to be physically restrained after trying to hit a police officer
who had blocked him from harassing the victims. IJM’s intervention
team, which has facilitated the rescue of hundreds of slaves, said they had
never seen a group of slaves pack so quickly to leave a facility.
In recent raids to emancipate slaves, IJM staff members have been assaulted,
their vehicles have been damaged by rioting slave owners and death threats
have been hurled against both victims and IJM staff. These are the obstacles
that give cruel slave-masters a false assurance that no one can touch them—
that the system will never change. But the system is changing.
(continued on next page)
Freedom at a Rice Mill
Families rescued from slavery from a rice mill
hold government-issued release certificates, certifying
their freedom. They now live in a village
together where they have their own houses, visible
in the background of this picture.
* In order to protect the individuals IJM serves and those who carry out the work, faces of sex abuse victims and particular IJM
investigators have been blurred. To further conceal the identities of victims and safeguard ongoing IJM casework, pseudonyms
have been used though the accounts are real. Actual names and casework documentation are on file with IJM.
All text and images © 2006 International Justice Mission
The slaveowner at the rice mill has again been charged by police with
crimes relating to slavery and currently awaits trial. As a documented
recidivist, he is now likely to gain much less favor now with local criminal
justice authorities.
IJM social workers continue to follow-up with the former victims to ensure
they are able to care for themselves and their families as they embrace
new lives of freedom. Many of the rescued victims have been provided
with monetary compensation from the local government and are capitalizing
on their freedom by starting new businesses, breeding goats and
investing in their childrens’ education.
Many of the former slaves have built brick houses for their families. Their
new homes are set in a beautiful, open landscape with the barbed wire
fence that held them captive in the mill barely visible far in the distance.
Reflecting on the juxtaposition, one IJM agent remarked, “[s]eeing how
their lives have changed makes everything we do worth the effort.”
IJM attorneys continue to monitor the criminal case against the slaveowner
and are hopeful that he will receive an appropriate sentence for his crimes,
thus deterring future abuses. However, if the slaveowner is again released
with impunity, IJM agents will continue to help authorities raid his facilities
every time he holds even a single slave, until justice is secured.
The rice mill case is a poignant reminder of why criminal accountability
for the perpetrators of abuse is an essential element in IJM’s holistic approach.
The steadfast work of standing for justice, going back again and
again, one case at a time, one raid at a time, will break the back of slavery,
changing the equation for both the perpetrators and the victims.
* In order to protect the individuals IJM serves and those who carry out the work, faces of sex abuse victims and particular IJM
investigators have been blurred. To further conceal the identities of victims and safeguard ongoing IJM casework, pseudonyms
have been used though the accounts are real. Actual names and casework documentation are on file with IJM.

In Denial

2008-09-29T03:42:00.000-07:00

Dale Lapthorne, father of missing girl, Britt, fears that his daughter may have been kidnapped by Human Traffickers while backpacking in Croatia.
He said, on ABC Radio, that Croation officials strongly denied this possibility stating that no trafficking of women into sexual servitude takes place in Croatia.

US State Department Reports dispute their claim:

Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery

Republic of Croatia
[ Country-by-Country Reports ]

The Republic of Croatia is located in the northwest corner of the Balkan Peninsula and is bounded by Slovenia (NW), Hungary (NE), Serbia and Montenegro (E), by Bosnia and Hercegovina (S & E), and by the Adriatic Sea in the west. Its capital city is Zagreb. Following political changes in 2000, Croatia is gradually moving towards a fully democratic society with a free market economy.

Croatia is a source, transit, and increasingly a destination country, for women and girls trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Croatian females are trafficked within the country and women and girls from Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and other parts of Eastern Europe are trafficked to and through Croatia for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Croatian men are occasionally trafficked for forced labor. Victims transiting Croatia from Southeastern Europe are trafficked into Western Europe for commercial sexual exploitation. IOM reported continued seasonal rotation of international women in prostitution to and from the Dalmatian coast during high tourist seasons, raising concerns about trafficking. - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2008

Up-Date on Hunt for Missing Girl.
Britt hunt intensifies, Facebook page sealed12:00 AEST Wed Oct 1 2008
The father of missing Melbourne backpacker Britt Lapthorne says the investigation into his daughter's disappearance after a night out in Dubrovnik is making "huge progress" after the case made the front pages of major newspapers in Croatia.

Dale Lapthorne's comments came as the 11,000-member Facebook group set up to track Britt down was made off limits to the public, after what her father suspects was the intervention of the Australian Federal Police [AFP].

Mr Lapthorne, who has so far been very critical of the search effort, today said Croatian police had stepped up their hunt for his 21-year-old daughter, who was last seen outside a Dubrovnik nightclub 12 days ago.

"The intensity [of the investigation] has improved dramatically," Mr Lapthorne told ninemsn.

"They've made huge progress, which they should have made weeks ago. My son tells me things are happening."

Local police were overnight expected to begin watching long-awaited CCTV footage of the area outside Club Fuego, between the hours of 12-4am, when its thought Britt may have left the popular tourist nighspot.

"It was OK and there was some reasonable footage," Mr Lapthorne said, adding the investigation prevented him from going into specific details.

Mr Lapthorne hailed the attention his daughter's case was finally receiving in Croatia, after he publicly lobbied Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Foreign Minister Steven Smith to weigh in on his daughter's case.

Mr Rudd yesterday told TODAY that all resources would be made available to find "this young one".

Mr Rudd's comments had made the front pages of major newspapers in Croatia and lifted the case's profile, Mr Lapthorne said.

Mr Smith earlier announced the deployment of an Australian Federal Police to Dubrovnik, who is due to arrive there later today.

The arrival of investigators from the Croatian capital Zagreb was also a big factor in improving the search effort, Mr Lapthorne said.

Britt's parents had been critical of how long it had taken authorities to inspect the CCTV footage, on Monday accusing the local police of lying about whether they had seen it at all.

Meanwhile, the Facebook group titled "MISSING PERSON, BRITT LAPTHORNE!!!", created to help locate the RMIT student, was shut down to the public overnight.

The page's administrator Tara Reynolds set the group to private, meaning the public can no longer view any news or the more than 1000 wall posts that been left by last night.

Ms Reynolds, who is in Dubrovnik with Britt's brother Darren Lapthorne, left a brief explanation on the page:

"DUE TO THE NATURE OF THE SENSITIVE SITUATION AT THE MOMENT I HAVE TEMPORARILY MADE THIS GROUP PAGE PRIVATE," she wrote.

"THANK YOU TO ALL WHO HAVE POSTED ON THIS SITE, YOU HAVE ALL BEEN WONDERFUL IN HELPING FIND BRITT."

Mr Lapthorne this morning said he had not spoken to Ms Reynolds since the page had been shut down and did not know why it was no longer available.

"We can't access it either," Mr Lapthorne said from his home in Melbourne.

"I don't know why. I assume the AFP have [intervened]. That's all I can assume."

Mr Lapthorne said the matter had been complicated by the fact he had lost internet access for much of the night.

Ms Reynolds and Darren Lapthorne did not answer calls made by ninemsn this morning.

A second, smaller group set up by Ms Reynolds asking for photos of the missing backpacker is still accessible.

Britt’s mother, Elke Lapthorne, was a regular contributor to the message board of the larger group, offering latest information and thanking the public for their support.

Yesterday, the Lapthornes said they planned to put up a 100,000 Euro ($177,000) reward for information about their daughter's whereabouts.
By Jay Savage, ninemsn

Fair Trade Milwaukee

2008-09-28T19:51:00.000-07:00

Commercial use of Slaves - 21st Century.
Several years ago, when I was a Parish Councilor, Bill Lange asked us Councilors to join him in protesting poor wages for Mexicans working in sweatshops producing jeans. It was during Advent and there was already too much on my plate, so I didn’t go; but I couldn’t stop thinking about Bill’s concern for the working poor.

With that on my mind, and some subsequent reading in the Milwaukee Journal and the National Geographic about the harvesting of cacao and the mining of diamonds, I created a research unit for my students at Menomonee Falls High School. With help from our school’s librarian, my students began researching the stories behind products marketed in the U.S. The products included GAP jeans, chocolate, diamonds, coffee, bananas and more. I asked my students to do their best to get at the truth of the costs and benefits of producing and consuming these products.

This unit turned into an eye-opening experience for my students and for me. We learned about the widespread exploitation of humans: young women working 14-20 hour days, six to seven days per week, in sweatshops in Haiti; boy slaves harvesting cacao beans on the Ivory Coast; amputations and killings resulting from wars paid for by slaves mining diamonds in Sierra Leone; coffee farmers starving in Tanzania, and the beatings of striking banana workers by soldiers in Honduras. We also learned about the degradation of our environment; such as, the loss of 3 million acres of Latin American rainforests (the cost of sun-grown coffee) and the explosion of toxic chemicals contaminating our ground water as consumers dump old cell phones and computers. In short, we learned that free trade, as it’s being practiced, is not a sustainable practice. We learned that we were actively contributing to suffering and death through our purchase of everyday products.

When you learn the kinds of things we learned, you just have to do something. That’s how I got involved with Fair Trade. I learned about Fair trade through my students first and then through Fair Trade volunteers. Fair Trade is a sustainable practice. It promises workers humane working conditions, fair wages, the right to unionize, and more. Fair Trade also calls for improved care of our earth. When you purchase a bag of Fair Trade coffee, for instance, you can be sure that the workers receive not only sustainable wages but also that the coffee has been produced without exposure to chemical pesticides. Furthermore, the beans are shade grown and that means precious animals and insects are not being destroyed in its production. You can be sure of all this because Fair Trade business practices are available for public review.

I believe I have taken a step toward building peace in our world by purchasing and promoting the purchase of Fair Trade goods when possible. Even though I don’t get the satisfaction of seeing how I’m contributing to life-sustaining measures, I know I am doing the right thing. A lot of Blessed Trinity parishioners are also making this commitment in solidarity with the poor. I am grateful (and proud!) to be part of this parish that truly does follow its Mission Statement of reaching out to all.
LIZ DIXON

Patricia Church

Defying Solution???

2008-09-28T19:44:00.000-07:00

A bold challenge to the grim crime of sexual slavery
Nicholas Kristof
September 28, 2008
WORLD leaders paraded through New York last week for a UN General Assembly reviewing their (lack of) progress in fighting global poverty. That's urgent and necessary, but what they aren't talking enough about is one of the grimmest of all manifestations of poverty — sex trafficking.

This is widely acknowledged to be the 21st-century version of slavery, but governments accept it partly because it seems to defy solution. Prostitution is said to be the oldest profession. It exists in all countries, and if some teenage girls are imprisoned in brothels until they die of AIDS, that is seen as tragic but inevitable.

The perfect counterpoint to that fatalism is Somaly Mam, one of the bravest and boldest of those foreign visitors pouring into New York City this month. Mam is a Cambodian who as a young teenager was sold to brothels and now runs an organisation that extricates girls from forced prostitution.

Now Mam has published her inspiring memoir, The Road of Lost Innocence, in the United States, and it offers some lessons for tackling the broader problem.

In the past when I've seen Mam and her team in Cambodia, I frankly didn't figure that she would survive this long. Gangsters who run the brothels have held a gun to her head, and seeing that they could not intimidate Mam with their threats, they found another way to hurt her: they kidnapped and brutalised her 14-year-old daughter.

Three years ago, I wrote from Cambodia about a raid Mam organised on the Chai Hour II brothel where more than 200 girls had been imprisoned. Girls rescued from the brothel were taken to Mam's shelter, but the next day gangsters raided the shelter, kidnapped the girls and took them right back to the brothel.

Yet Mam continued her fight, and, with the help of many others, she has registered real progress. Today, she says, the Chai Hour II brothel is shuttered. In large part, so is the Svay Pak brothel area where 12-year-old girls were openly for sale on my first visit.

"If you want to buy a virgin, it's not easy now," say Mam in English, her fifth language.

Mam's shelters — where the youngest girl rescued is four years old — provide an education and job skills. More important, Mam applies public and international pressure to push the police to crack down on the worst brothels, and takes brothel owners to court. The idea is to undermine the sex-trafficking business model.

In her book, Mam recounts how she grew up as an orphan and was "adopted" by a man who sold her to a brothel. Once when Mam ran away, the police gang-raped her. Then her owner, on recovering his "property", not only beat and humiliated her but tied her down naked and poured live maggots over her skin and in her mouth.

Yet even after that, Mam occasionally defied him. Once two new girls, about 14 years old, were brought in to the brothel and left tied up. Mam untied them and let them run away. For that, she was tortured with electric shocks.

As Cambodia opened up, Mam began to get foreign clients, whom she vastly preferred because they didn't beat her as well, and she began learning foreign languages. Eventually, a French aid worker named Pierre Legros married her, and together they started Afesip, a small organisation to fight sex trafficking. They have since divorced, and Mam works primarily through the Somaly Mam Foundation, set up by admiring Americans to finance her battle against trafficking in Cambodia. It's a successful collaboration between American do-gooders with money and a Cambodian do-gooder with local street smarts.

The world's worst trafficking is in Asia, but teenage runaways in the United States are also routinely brutalised by their pimps. If a white, middle-class blonde goes missing, the authorities issue an "amber alert" and cable TV goes berserk, but neither federal nor local authorities do nearly enough to go after pimps who savagely abuse troubled girls who don't fit the "missing blonde" narrative. The system is broken.

A bill to strengthen federal anti-trafficking efforts within the United States was overwhelmingly passed by the House of Representatives, led by Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat. But crucial provisions to crack down on pimping are being blocked in the Senate in part by senators Sam Brownback and Joe Biden, who consider the House provisions unnecessary and problematic. (Barack Obama gets it and says the right things about trafficking to the public, but apparently not to his running mate.)

With UN leaders focused on overcoming poverty, Mam is a reminder that we needn't acquiesce in the enslavement of girls, in this country or abroad. If we defeated slavery in the 19th century, we can beat it in the 21st century.

NEW YORK TIMES

Major Trafficking Nations

2008-09-23T19:27:00.000-07:00

The nations named on the map are of most concern as they appear reluctant to address isues related to Slavery and Trafficking.They failed to comply with requirements of Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, US Department of State as at 2005.

The following maps show Countries of Origin and Preferred Destinations.

21st CENTURY SLAVES

2008-09-23T18:11:00.000-07:00

A European Perspective

by HANA BUSHNAQ

Human trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion for the purpose of exploitation — sexual or forced labor — for material gain. With 127 countries of origin, 98 transit countries and 137 destination countries, human trafficking is, sadly, still poorly documented and understood.

"Congratulations! A job for you abroad!” One could only imagine how luring such an advert could be for a naïve Albanian teenager, where one third of the children live on less than two dollars a day. It is not only one of the poorest countries in Europe, but also the youngest, with 34% of the population under the age of 18.1 Many girls reading such ads end up as victims of human trafficking. Although it is almost impossible to obtain solid figures of victims around the world, here is a shocking fact: “It certainly runs into millions,” as stated by Antonio Mario Costa, Executive Director of UNODC (United Nations Office On Drugs and Crime).

It is safe to say that no country on the map is immune to the crime of human trafficking or is not affected by it in some way. It has been found that there are 127 countries of origin, 98 transit countries and 137 destination countries.2 As bad as this may sound, human trafficking is still not a well-presented issue. There still exists a confusion with the term human smuggling. Whereas smuggling is the procurement, for financial or material gain of the illegal entry of immigrants, human trafficking is a much bigger crime. It is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion for the purpose of exploitation for material gain. The two main reasons for trafficking are sexual exploitation and forced labor, respectively.

The problem is massive in the poor Eastern European countries. Although the appalling treatment of girls from that region is not unheard of, it is still poorly documented and understood at present and should move higher up the policy agenda.

Trafficking in Europe has more than exploded since the break-up of the former Soviet Union, depicting the problem as the “underside of Globalization.” The massive growth of “shadow economies” in these countries translated to an increase in the number of vulnerable people who fall victim to practices taking place in such economies. The challenges faced by these countries are plenty. In some areas poverty was brought about by natural disasters and conflicts which were subsequently followed by a flow of refugees and migration. Migration has changed the demography of some of the countries in the region.

For example, the population of men is 75 men to 100 women in Armenia.3 In Russia, the great number of single young mothers alongside the decline of cultural and educational services made poverty a much graver reality for women. All this makes the women of these countries desperate for seeking better income jobs abroad, which makes them easy prey for the traffickers. In a country like Azerbaijan, outdated educational systems and lack of proper publicity on the issue pose an extra hurdle for the government and NGOs since the problem is not only demand-based, but should be understood as a multi-faceted problem with children’s proper upbringing being a cornerstone in prevention.

But simply knowing that the problem exists is not enough, as has been found by a UNICEF led research in Moldova in 2002.4 It discovered that children had heard of trafficking but were still eager to migrate and willing to take risks to do so. In Montenegro, when asked how to protect themselves from trafficking, the children cited, “Not to walk alone after dark.” It makes one wonder how much publicity still needs to be reinforced into the minds of these children. Consequently, while dealing with solving the problem, it helps to consider the programs that understand the root causes of trafficking which are those programs focusing on children. UNICEF doesn’t look at trafficking as an isolated issue, but as a result of the intolerable abuse and neglect of children. It helps governments help families raise strong children before the traffickers come after them.

Although we might not be able to obtain solid figures, as the level of reporting varies considerably between countries, we could know more about the kind of girls the traffickers are after and what awaits them after being trafficked. Most are 18 to 24-year-old women trafficked mainly for sexual exploitation, but ages can range from 15-35.5 The girls are brought in by gangs from Lithuania, Albania and the Czech Republic, among others.

The girls themselves come from many different countries. Most victims come from Ukraine, Russia, Lithuania, Albania and Moldova. Of those, the Roma ethnic minority is especially vulnerable. Children under 13 years are trafficked for forced labor and begging. These often come from orphanages or residential institutions. In fact, UNICEF states that children in orphanages are ten times more vulnerable to trafficking than children from healthy households. In Moldova, for example, thousands of children grow up without the care of one or both of their parents. More than 14000 children are in institutions.6 For thousands of other families, one or both parents leave their children to work abroad because they cannot find jobs in their country.

The UK is a major European destination, where the police believe 4000 women have been brought in to work as prostitutes, many of which are from Eastern Europe. The selling price of these women is between £2000-£8000.7 On entry to the destination country, their passports are taken away from them, serving as restraint to keep them from running away. The expectations of these girls are to work in restaurant jobs, or as maids or child minders. Some expect to work as lap dancers or escorts—but not prostitutes. For those who know they will be working as prostitutes, they are lied to about the conditions. These women can be expected to work for 16 hours and service as many as 30 men a day, sometimes physically locked in brothels for months.8

With no passports and under the threat of their pimps, they have nowhere to run. Many of them fall ill or become pregnant. They are moved about frequently and sold from dealer to dealer. They work as a means of paying their “debts” to the traffickers, who take all the money leaving them with no chance of ever paying the debt. Other main European destination countries are France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Belgium and Austria. However, the flow of these victims could be anywhere from poor to more affluent countries. It is estimated that there are 10000 victims in the United Arab Emirates, again many of whom are from Eastern Europe.9

Trafficking routes are many, and they change constantly with the changing routes of migration. A route that has been found out to bring victims to the UK starts in Moscow being the trafficking center. Victims then travel a long journey via Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to Poland and the Czech Republic. From there the route to the UK is less understood; however, some direct flights are used from Moscow to the UK. Two trafficking routes to the UK involve Turkey, where 60% of the victims are Ukrainian or Moldovan. The Balkans also provide a trafficking route on to Italy and Greece, with Belgrade and Sarajevo being trafficking centres.

Some of the countries are serious about solving this problem since they aspire to join the European Union. However, global efforts are hampered by lack of accurate data. The data was also often found to be misleading in these regions. The number of trafficking victims appeared to be decreasing because traffickers use newer, more improved methods. Private apartments are used for sexual exploitation and more use is being made of phone and internet communications. The use of female pimps and legal travel documents all contribute to many cases not making it to the fact sheets. For some countries, there appears to be less of a problem than others because the reporting is less accurate than in countries that might be following more rigid documentation.

That said, the problem is obviously too big to ignore, no matter how discrepant the numbers. Thinking of the big picture is essential when putting a solid plan to fight this problem. The root causes of the problem are poverty and lack of proper child development programs. A major factor that is rarely addressed is gender discrimination and the devaluation of women. These components should be well included in the information campaigns that usually generate more fear than answers.

The most compelling information for the young women in the most vulnerable places in villages, small towns and in cities should be provided. These include showing movies, TV and radio talk shows, hotlines and promotional stickers along with any other distributed material. Information campaigns should also be easy to evaluate so that the governments can gauge their success or lack thereof.

Every country in that region must have a national plan legitimized by law to tackle the problem of human trafficking. These laws should aim at reducing demand, targeting the criminals who usually face a low rate of convictions and protecting the victims who are usually criminalized. Protecting the victims proves to have more than just a humane virtue. If the victims are guaranteed protection, they can testify against their aggressors.

They are usually too scared to speak and are sometimes prosecuted and threatened by their previous abductors even after their escape. Dorina is one such victim from Moldova.10 She stayed at the Rehabilitation Centre for Victims of Trafficking that has not made its existence and address public for security reasons; many girls receive threatening phone calls from their former pimps. But simply protecting the victims is not enough, as the plans usually lack proper integration of these individuals into society.

Not only are they usually looked at as criminals or simply prostitutes themselves, but they are not given some of their basic needs. In the case of Dorina, she cut her long blonde hair and dyed it black to avoid being recognized even by her own village, where the stigma is unavoidable. Therapy is an obvious need for these women to slowly start building their trust in the people around them.

The psychologist at Dorina’s center takes care of the victim’s emotional bruising. Also, teaching them new skills and helping them generate their own money is vital for their full incorporation into society. Dorina aspires to undertake vocational training and become a hairdresser. Afterall, going out of their way to improve their living conditions is what got the victims where they are. The advert, the agent or the sudden older male friend were there when strong prevention campaign should have been.

REFERENCES

1. unicef.org/infobythecountry/albania
2. Unodc.org/unodc/en/press_release_2006_04_24.html
3. Archive.idea.int/df/2000df/regional_reports_chapter_1.html
4. Unicef.org/ceecis/protection_3974.html
5. bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/5343036.stm
6. Unicef.org/infobythecountry/moldova_background.html
7. bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/5343036.stm
8. Ibid.
9. uae.usembassy.gov
10. http://unicef.org/infobycountry/moldova_24121.html

____________________

HANA BUSHNAQ is research associate at Islamica Magazine

Difficulties in proving slavery without evidence of locks and chains.

2008-09-21T19:54:00.000-07:00

Non-Physical Restraint.
In Wei Tang (The Queen v Wei Tang [2006] VCC 637), Justice McInerney accepted that there was no evidence that the alleged victims in that case had been held under lock and key. However, Justice McInerney found that due to a combination of circumstances, each alleged victim, while not locked in the premises, was 'effectively restrained by the insidious nature of their contract'. Justice McInerney suggested that to comprehend their circumstances, it was relevant to ask the rhetorical question:
How could they run away when they had no money, they had no passport or ticket, they entered on an illegally obtained visa, albeit legal on its face, they had limited English language, they had no friends, they were told to avoid Immigration, they had come to Australia consensually to earn income and were aware of the need to work particularly hard in order to pay off a debt of approximately $45,000 before they were able to earn income for themselves?

Confused Testimony.
When I was at the Villawood Detention Centre, I was totally exhausted and confused, and the time lapse between the event and time when I was in that detention centre has been a long lapse. I remember the events happening but I may have made some mistakes in the chronological order.
Usually, it's common for people to forget details as time passes, especially at that time I was particularly exhausted and confused (transcript of R v Tran, Xu & Qi, 8 April 2005).

Trafficking as a transnational crime
The transnational nature of many trafficking offences can complicate and even thwart prosecutions. For example, while a trafficking case might be prosecuted in the country where the exploitation took place, key evidence may be located in the trafficked person's country of origin. At least in the Australian context, if the evidence is required for court it will generally need to be sought from the country in question through formal channels (a process known as mutual assistance). While mutual assistance channels can operate quickly and smoothly, they can also be slow, inefficient and ineffective (ADB & OECD 2006: 73-105).

The matter is equally complex if the suspect or defendant is located in another jurisdiction. In these cases, investigators and prosecutors must decide whether to seek extradition (a lengthy and complex process) or provide their evidence to the country in question, thereby allowing the authorities in that country to investigate and prosecute. This may involve balancing a number of competing considerations, including the relative likelihood of a criminal justice process progressing in either jurisdiction, the likelihood of an extradition request succeeding and human rights issues.

Trafficked person may be the crucial witness
The trafficked person may be one of only a small number of people who can verify exactly what happened. Accordingly, their evidence may be crucial to the prosecution case (American Cultural Center 2007: 13). This can raise practical challenges for prosecutors.

In many countries, trafficked persons risk deportation or arrest for involvement in illegal activity such as visa fraud or illegal entry. This has the practical result of removing the key witness to the trafficking offence from the jurisdiction or ensuring they are in prison. Some countries have sought to redress this problem, through laws to protect trafficked persons from prosecution and to ensure the immigration status of trafficked persons can be regularised (Carrington & Hearn 2003: 2-13; Costello 2005: 7-11; ICMPD 2004: 53).

While visas and victim support strategies are vital, they also must be managed carefully in the context of a prosecution process. In an adversarial system, it is the defence counsel's role to explore any possible motives the victim and other witnesses may have for fabricating their story. Experience in the United States, Australia and Italy has confirmed that defence counsel can and will argue that the victim's or other witnesses' testimony has been 'bought' or tainted by 'opportunities' offered by the authorities. This might include immunity from prosecution, access to visas or entitlements under the victim support program (American Cultural Center 2007: 9-10; Costello 2005: 10). For example, in the Australian Sieders and Yotchomchin trial, defence counsel drew attention to the fact that the Australian Federal Police had helped key witnesses apply for visas that included work entitlements (see for example, pp. 506 and 630 of the transcript). The implication was that the witnesses should not be believed, as they had ulterior motives for participating in the criminal justice process.
Australian Government Office for Women
Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs – PO Box 7576, Canberra Business Centre ACT 2610

MELBOURNE BROTHEL LICENCE SUSPENDED

2008-09-21T19:14:00.000-07:00

21 August 2003

SEX SLAVERY BROTHEL LICENCE SUSPENDED

The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) today indefinitely suspended the brothel licence held by Wei Tang following an application made by Consumer Affairs Victoria (CAV).

"This action was taken in the public interest after Tang had been charged by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) with 'sex slavery' offences," Dr Cousins, the Director of CAV said.

Paul Pick, the manager of the brothel, had his Manager's Approval status suspended.

"The allegations raised issues of exploitation of sex workers as well as issues of community health risks. Consumer Affairs Victoria acted quickly to have VCAT inquire into the allegations and make a decision," Dr Cousins said.

The suspensions remains in force until the Commonwealth's case against the brothel is concluded. Any licensed person convicted of serious indictable offences will be subject to further disciplinary application in VCAT.

On 30 May 2003, Commonwealth authorities raided the licensed brothel known as Club 417, of Brunswick Street Fitzroy, and detained five illegal workers. These workers provided information to the authorities who were then able to lay charges of sex slavery offences.

In this matter Consumer Affairs Victoria has liaised with the AFP and Department of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs.

This liaison is continuing and Consumer Affairs Victoria investigators today were present during a raid by the Department of Immigration on a licensed brothel in West Footscray. The raid resulted from Immigration officials' concerns that illegal foreign workers were employed at the brothel. CAV officers conducted an audit of the brothel for compliance with the Prostitution Control Act.
CONSUMER AFFAIRS Victoria

GERMANY The defendants don't look like slave traders.

2008-09-21T19:02:00.000-07:00

Battling Human Trafficking in Germany
With German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer on the hot seat for allegedly ignoring gaping holes in Germany's visa distribution policies, a major trial against a huge forced prostitution ring opens in eastern Germany. The pressure on Fischer is only likely to grow.

DDP
Thousands of Eastern Europeans work as prostitutes in Germany and Western Europe. Many of them not of their own choice.
The doors to the courthouse in the town of Halle in eastern Germany finally open just before 9:00 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 17. The electronic security gates swing open and everyone is searched. Cell phones, cameras, and backpacks are all handed in. The trial, in the courthouse of the Eastern German city of Halle -- is about to begin.
Sitting at the defense table in the courtroom are seven defendants who are, according to state prosecutors, part of a gigantic prostitution ring. There are a total of 73 defendants in the case and the charges are many: creation of and belonging to a criminal organization, assault, human trafficking, violation of immigration laws, duress, rape, pimping and violation of weapons laws. The documents of the case fill 139 thick file folders. It takes the prosecutor 41 minutes to read through the laundry list of charges.
The defendants don't look like slave traders. One of the two Italians is wearing a pony tail and pinstripes, the other sketches small pictures on the pad in front of him. The Greek woman looks like she'd rather be cooking moussaka than importing women as prostitutes.
According to the prosecution, the idea of the ring was simple: take women primarily from Eastern Europe, and bring them together with johns in Germany. At first, the gang was forced to smuggle the women over the border into Germany. Once the German Foreign Ministry loosened its rules for distributing visas at its diplomatic outposts in Kiev, Moscow and Minsk, it became much easier and cheaper. And, indeed, the list of witnesses to be called, many of them forced into prostitution by the ring, reads like an Eastern European telephone book: dozens of Ukrainians, Bulgarians, Poles, Belarussians and Czechs.
The beginning of the trial promises to put even more pressure on popular German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer. Accused of having ignored warning signs that criminal groups like this one were taking advantage of liberal visa laws, he finds himself confronted with the biggest scandal of his political career. On the eve of the trial's start, opposition politician Michael Glos of Bavaria's Christian Social Union once again indicated that Fischer should bear a large burden of the responsibility for the recent boom in this kind of organized crime and human trafficking. He even repeated his insinuation that Fischer's policies make him a "pimp" and said that as soon as pictures of the sex slaves hit the press, Fischer would be in trouble.
The trial will take many weeks to complete. Meanwhile, Fischer himself faces many weeks of investigation by a special commission created to examine his role in the visa affair. Meanwhile, the loophole used by the prostitution ring remains open.
Sasha, trafficked in Germany & the Netherlands, originally from the Czech Republic; Interview with Michele A. Clark, Co-Director, The Protection Project

Questioning the Chocolate Industry

2008-09-20T00:17:00.000-07:00

"I don't know how one human being can treat another in the way they treated me."
By Humphrey Hawksley BBC, Mali
The answer, put simply, is because the market is there for it - and until recently no one bothered to question the ethics behind it.
Unlike wine or coffee, with chocolate you don't know for sure which country the cocoa comes from. The chances are, though, it is the Ivory Coast, which produces almost half the world's cocoa.
The British spend four billion pounds a year on chocolate
The British spend £4bn (US$5.9bn) a year on chocolate, yet the big household names, such as Cadbury Schweppes, Mars and Nestle, refuse to speak individually on the thorny issue of child labour.
They describe it as an "industry" issue. They say they are setting up a trust foundation and that surveys have been commissioned. They've also signed an international protocol.
By July 2005, we should be guaranteed that our chocolate is not produced with child slave labour.
At present, no such guarantee exists.
How this will be done, though, is not clear. No figures on money and manpower are available.
As for the surveys, no one had even gone through the Mali government records, for example, to see how the trafficking takes place.
"The objective of the surveys is to look at what is going on in the field, in the cocoa growing areas themselves, right now," said Bob Eagle, the industry spokesman, put up by the chocolate companies.
"Not to see the children themselves," I ventured.
"I think if we look at the detail and objectives it is very much about what is going on in the villages and towns."
Child labour
So I set off to find out what was going on. A drive of hundreds of miles from the parched bush land of Mali to the lush jungle of Ivory Coast.
I had thought that finding child labour would be difficult. I had talked to contacts, gathered phone numbers, spent hours of preparation. In the end, I needed none of it.
After a 30 minutes' drive from our hotel in the city of Yammousoukrou along the main road to Sinfra, we turned into a village, drove through, down a dirt track, past a cocoa plantation and saw gangs of children coming towards us.
They wore grubby, torn T-shirts and carried machetes, their heads hung in confusion.
It was a Wednesday morning. The oldest was 13 years old. The others didn't know their age. The youngest was probably six or seven.
As we talked to them, another gang passed us on their way to work. After that a group of women, who saw nothing unusual about child workers.
Then their boss turned up, on a bicycle, looking for them. He was only 15 himself.
Tiring work
It turned out the boys were shunted between maize, coffee and cocoa farms - depending on the season. If they were paid, it was the equivalent of a pound a day - between the ten of them.
"We spend all the time bent over in the field," one said.
"It's terrible," said another. "Hot, tiring work."
Ivory Coast produces half the world's cocoa
Down the road to my right was a cocoa farm.
In front of me was evidence of the contravention of at least two International Labour Organisation conventions aimed at protecting children from abusive labour and giving them a right to an education.
If child labour is so easy to find, the numbers might be in the hundreds of thousands, if not the millions.
I gave their names to an official of the Ivory Coast government and told him where we found them. I showed their pictures to the chocolate spokesman, Bob Eagle.
There was no sign that any immediate help was on its way to them. Mr Eagle said exploitative child labour was unacceptable in his industry - and reiterated the deadline of July 2005 to end it.
But that means, although we know who they are and where they are, they could be working in the farms for at least another three years.
At the centre in Mali, Save the Children Fund says, if the will was there, the problem could be fixed within a month.

Trafficking of Nigerian Women into Italy

2008-09-18T18:10:00.003-07:00

TED Case Studies
Number 656, January, 2002
Allison Loconto
While walking through the streets of Rome or any major city in Italy at night, or while taking a leisurely afternoon drive through the country, on cannot help but notice the hundreds of scantily clad women standing on the side of the road. The majority of these women are Africans, working as prostitutes to send money home to their families in the poverty sticken areas from which they come. Some women are working by their own choice, most are not.

The kidnapping, recruitment, and transport of women and children for sexual and other forms of slavery dates back thousands of years. It hasn't been until the turn of the 20th century that this activity has been recognized as "trafficking", a term that today, has many debated definitions. Trafficking is most often defined as the 'recruitment, transport, harbouring, transfer, sale or receipt of persons through coercion, force, fraud, or deception in order to get people in the situations such as forced prostitution, domestic servitude, sweatshop labor or other kinds of work to pay of debts.' It is at once a moral problem, a criminal problem, a human rights problem, a global problem, an economic problem, a health problem and a labor problem.The Congressional Research Service estimates that every year two million people are trafficked against their will to work in some form of servitude. Annually, about 50,000 women and girls are trafficked into the United States alone. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates that trafficking in human beings is a $5 to $7 billion industry worldwide.

These figures indicate that trafficking in human beings is an industry more lucrative than the international trade in illicit weapons. In a review of data on the scale of and recent trends in trafficking conducted in April, 2001 by the IOM demonstrates the paucity of reliable data on trafficking across the world. This lack of data is explained by the underground and illegal nature of trafficking; the lack of anti-trafficking legislation in many countries; the reluctance of victims to report their experiences to the authorities; and the lack of government priority given to data collection and research. This suggests that the real numbers of trafficking could be even higher than those figures stated above.

Extent of the Problem

There are 19,000-25,000 foreign prostitutes in Italy. Approximately 2,000 have been trafficked. Rome is the concentrated region of trafficked Albanian and Nigerian women brought for the purpose of prostitution. According to Police, about 50,000 Nigerian girls engaging in the sex trade have been stranded in the streets of Europe and Asia, most of whom come from Nigeria's southern states Edo, Delta and Lagos. This excludes thousands of those girls scattered across the world neither do they include the dead or those wasted by diseases such as HIV/AIDS. Between October 25 and November 12 1999, eighty-four young Nigerian girls were deported from Italy to Nigeria. Seventy-one were from Edo State, nine from Delta State, two from Ondo State and one each from Enugu and Imo States. Between December 3 and 8 another set of eighty-seven predominantly female deportees arrived in Nigeria from Italy. In all, well over 180 Nigerian girls aged between 16 and 23 years have been deported from Italy within the last three months. 90% of them are from Edo State, Nigeria. So far 9 out of 87 screened for HIV have been found to be HIV positive. It is not known if those found to be HIV positive were positive before they went to Italy or got infected in Italy. This deportation has been a source of considerable embarrassment to both the Federal and Edo State governments. President Olusegun Obasanjo pleaded with the Italian government and other European countries to assist Nigeria in putting an end to trafficking of Nigerian girls for prostitution abroad. The influx of Nigerian girls to Europe for prostitution, he stressed, was caused largely by the degradation of all facets of life in Nigeria during the military era.

The Push Factors

Many academics, advocates, and governments have deliberated on the definition of and the motivations for trafficking of women. Dr. Cornelia Tsakirdou, a La Salle University Professor says, "In many developing countries sexual slavery is tied directly to the impact of globalization. In Eastern Europe, the collapse of the former Soviet Union has led to the sudden impoverishment of vulnerable populations - primarily women and children - who are most likely to be affected by transnational prostitution." The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) admits, "Trafficking is inextricably linked to poverty. Wherever privation and economic hardship prevail, there will be those destitute and desperate enough to enter into the fraudulent employment schemes that are the most common intake systems in the world of trafficking."

Carron Somerset of Ecpat claims "It's all about poverty. It's one less mouth to feed and if they think that child may be able to send money back and could possibly have a better life than they'll go for it. "I think some parents know what's going to happen to their children but I think a lot are duped as well," Ms Somerset said. The same uncertainty rests with how women are recruited. Depty Comptroller-General of the National Immigration Service Alhaji Usaini Mahuta remarked; "From our intelligence report and analyses, the major factor that pushes Nigerian girls and boys into prostitution and hard labor is poverty. Most of the girls deported from Europe and the rest of the world left Nigeria due to poor economic backgrounds." Because of the poor socio-economic condition in the country, human traffickers directly recruit their victims who are willing to submit themselves for either prostitution or hard labor while others are recruited through fraud.

The Pull Factors

Recruitment of girls, usually teenagers, as sex slves often starts with the enticement of potential victims with promises of good jobs in Europe by baronesses who are ironically women. Some of the girls' parents also encourage them to go abroad insensibly in search of greener pastures and with the hope that the daughters would repatriate foreign currencies.

Girls are offered huge sums of money ranging from about 20,000 naira (about $174 U.S.) to 200,000 naira ($1,740 U.S.) by Nigerian sex slave trafficking agents with a promis of a good job for them. Traffickers promise work as shopkeepers, maids, waitresses, or other menial jobs in Europe. One woman in her 30s, who said she was married with five children, said she abandoned her home because she had found the promise of a good life in Italy irresistible.

Human Traffickers in Kansas City Plead Guilty

2008-09-18T18:10:00.002-07:00

Human Traffickers in Kansas City Plead Guilty to Coercing Prostitution, Money Laundering, and Identity Theft
New York Jewish Times

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (ICE) -- The three owners and operators of Asian massage parlors in Johnson County, Kan., pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday to engaging in human trafficking by coercing their employees, whom they recruited from China, to engage in prostitution. This plea was announced by John F. Wood, U.S. Attorney, Western District of Missouri. The case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the FBI, and other law enforcement agencies.

"Human trafficking is a modern-day form of slavery that reaches from the other side of the globe to the suburban Midwest," Wood said. "Chinese women were recruited to travel to Kansas City, then coerced to work as prostitutes at massage parlors. These businesses have been shut down and the owners brought to justice. We have also provided social services to assist their victims."

"Victims of human trafficking are deceived, coerced or threatened by their captors," said Gary Hartwig, special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in Chicago. "ICE will work closely with our law enforcement partners to identify and protect the victims, and prosecute their captors." Hartwig oversees a six-state area, which includes: Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky and Wisconsin.

Ling Xu, also known as "Cherry," 46, Zhong Yan Liu, also known as "Lucky," 36, and Cheng Tang, also known as "Tom," 22, all citizens of China residing in Overland Park, pleaded guilty in separate appearances this morning before U.S. District Judge Fernando J. Gaitan. Each of the defendants pleaded guilty to coercing persons to travel across state lines and national borders to engage in prostitution and illegal sexual services. They also pleaded guilty to money laundering by wiring more than $500,000 from the proceeds of that unlawful activity to China. Xu also pleaded guilty to aggravated identity theft for using the passports and identification of her female workers to make most of those wire transfers. All three defendants remain in federal custody.

Xu and Liu are married to other persons, with whom they have limited contact, and were living together with Xu's son, Tang. Xu, Liu and Tang were involved in operating massage parlors, including: "China Rose Massage" and "China Villa Massage/Lin Dynasty" in Overland Park; and, at the times charges were filed, they were preparing to open "Victoria Square" in Overland Park. They also operated a nearby residence that was used for prostitution.

Co-defendant Hongmei Madole, also known as Hongmei Zhou, 32, of Olathe, Kan., pleaded guilty April 24 to coercing persons to travel across state lines and national borders to engage in prostitution and illegal sexual services. Madole owned "Asian Touch Massage" in Olathe.

Xu, Liu and Tang recruited female Asians to travel to the Kansas City area to work as masseuses. They facilitated the women's travel, including, but not limited to, booking and purchasing the flights for the women. They would fly the women into the Kansas City, Mo., International Airport and then transport or have them transported to the businesses. Xu and Tang signed massage therapy license applications, as the manager of the businesses, for the females to obtain massage therapy licenses with the city of Overland Park.

Xu, Liu, and Tang placed ads in the Kansas City magazine, The Pitch, which stated the massage parlors offered, for example, "The most elegant environment and the most comfortable atmosphere in town. With free table shower and free Sauna!" The ads stated that the massage parlors were open seven days a week, from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Tang also posted and maintained ads for the business at ASPD.net, a website where male customers posted reviews of the sexual services offered by China Rose and China Villa Massage/Lin Dynasty.

The female Asians who worked for Xu, Liu, and Tang worked from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. seven days a week and lived inside the massage parlors. Xu, Liu and Tang operated surveillance cameras inside the massage parlors to monitor the female Asian workers. Inside the massage parlors, the female Asian workers were forced to perform sexual services on male patrons in exchange for money. Xu, Liu, and Tang also used a nearby apartment, within walking distance of one of the massage parlors, to have the female Asian workers provide extended sexual services to some male patrons.

Xu and Liu purchased supplies to be used in the prostitution activities, including bulk orders of condoms that were provided to the females for use while engaging in the prostitution activities.

Xu, Liu, and Tang used businesses, such as 888 Market and Ho's Oriental Market, to wire at least $452,500 in proceeds from the prostitution businesses, via Western Union, to several locations in China. Xu wired at least $343,600 in this manner from 2005 to 2006. Of this amount, Xu wired $318,600 by illegally taking and using her female worker's passports and identification. Liu wired at least $74,500 and Tang wired at least $34,400.

Xu was the head of these businesses, as the lead owner and operator. Xu also employed and paid Liu and Tang for their work and assistance in committing the offenses.

By pleading guilty today, Xu, Liu, and Tang also agreed to forfeit to the government $452,500, which represented the proceeds of the unlawful activity, as well as $60,497 that was seized by the FBI during the execution of federal search warrants at the defendants' residences and businesses.

Xu is a native and citizen of China. She has resided legally in the United States pending adjudication of immigration benefits. Liu entered the United States on a visitor's visa which expired in 2001. He remained in the United States illegally thereafter. Madole is a native of China who is a conditional resident alien in the United States based upon marriage to a U.S. citizen.

Under federal statutes, Xu, Liu, and Tang are each subject to a sentence of up to 40 years in federal prison without parole. Xu is also subject to an additional mandatory term of two years in federal prison without parole for aggravated identity theft, which must be served consecutively to her sentence on the other offenses. Madole could be subject to a sentence of up to 20 years in federal prison without parole. Sentencing hearings will be scheduled after the U.S. Probation Office completes its presentence investigations.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Cynthia L. Cordes, Western District of Missouri, is prosecuting this case. It was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the FBI, the police departments of Overland Park, Kan., Olathe, Kan., Mission, Kan., Lenexa, Kan., and Independence, Mo., and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

Court hears of teen's life before the streets.

2008-09-18T18:10:00.001-07:00

BY RON SYLVESTER
The Wichita Eagle

The Dallas detective listened as the Wichita teenager described a troubled past that led her to work as a prostitute on the streets of his city.

Detective Michael McMurray testified Wednesday in the trial of Marlin Williams -- charged with human trafficking for allegedly taking the teenager to Dallas.

Williams' trial is the first case filed in Sedgwick County under a new law against human trafficking aimed at people who "recruit, harbor or transport" minors to engage in sex. The girl is not being named because The Eagle does not name victims of alleged sex crimes.

She told McMurray:

Her parents divorced in Michigan when she was 8 years old, and she moved to Wichita with her mother, who abused alcohol and cocaine.

When the girl, barely a teen, brought home a 34-year-old man,

her mother said it was all right for him to move in with them. The girl became pregnant by him and had a baby at 14. He went to prison for having sex with her because she was so young. She went to live with an aunt.

The aunt, however, couldn't handle the teen.

"Her mom obviously wasn't a stable environment, and the aunt didn't want her," McMurray told prosecutor Christine Ladner.

The girl ended up at the Wichita Children's Home but ran away after failing a drug test.

She said she later found herself in a car with Williams driving to Dallas.

"This is not something I stewed up in my own mind," the girl testified earlier in the day. "I knew where we were going. I knew what I was going to be doing."

McMurray said his job with the Dallas vice squad often involves locating juveniles prostituting themselves. On May 4, 2007, McMurray was driving in an area of the city where girls "walk the track," as they say, along Northwest Highway near I-35, when he saw the girl.

She lied about her age, saying she was 17. She was 15.

"I'm a police officer," he remembered telling her. "Every day, someone lies to me. Sometimes, it's people on the street, sometimes it's my sergeant. But every single day someone lies to me. I'm not mad at you. But I'm not going away until I find out who you are."

The girl began talking.

Earlier, the girl testified that she earned about $6,000 in two weeks in Dallas, most of which she gave to Williams.

Williams' defense cross-examined the girl about a MySpace page and her use of the social networking Web site.

Brad Sylvester, Williams' lawyer, asked her about a headline on the page that included references to money, "hoes" and sex. He indicated she was advertising herself as a prostitute.

The girl, now 16, said it was a quote from a hip-hop song and had nothing to do with prostitution.

Ladner rested the case for the prosecution Wednesday afternoon.

The trial is in recess until Friday, when Williams' attorney hopes to call Williams' wife as a witness. She lives in Louisiana and her travel plans were complicated, Sylvester said, by the recent hurricane.

Reach Ron Sylvester at 316-268-6514 or rsylvester@wichitaeagle.com.

Court hears of teen's life before the streets.

2008-09-18T18:10:00.000-07:00

Women Religious Seek MPs Support

2008-09-17T02:30:00.000-07:00

Women Religious Seek MPs Support in Fight Against Trafficking of Humans
Published: September 07, 2008
What do Tanya Plibersek, Minister for Women, Australian women religious and women trafficked in Cebu in the Philippines have in common? They all share a concern for the human rights of people who are trafficked and a commitment to make a difference.
Women religious, members of a major Australian anti-trafficking lobby group (ACRATH), will be in Canberra from September 15-19 visiting MPs and social justice advocates to tackle human trafficking issues in Australia.

Australian Catholic Religious Against Trafficking in Humans (ACRATH) represents 180 religious orders in Australia working to eliminate human trafficking in Australia, the Asia Pacific and internationally.

The two main aims of the week-long Canberra trip are to lobby for changes to the visa regulations applied to people who are trafficked and to ensure adequate services are provided once a person has been recognised as trafficked.

The Chair of ACRATH, Sr Pauline Coll sgs, said the Rudd Government should be applauded for its willingness to work with civil society on this issue. However, she said much more needed to be done to ensure that people trafficked into Australia were treated justly.

ACRATH members will lobby Government on several issues, including:

* Allocation of visas to people trafficked into Australia on the basis of their human rights and not on the basis of their willingness to assist with prosecutions.
* An amnesty for people trafficked into Australia who are now living here illegally.
* Assurances that the Federal Government tender for services for people who have been trafficked is administered to offer a holistic approach to each person's needs.
* A comprehensive community education strategy.
* Utilisation of the sisters' international networks, where appropriate, for prevention repatriation strategies.

ACRATH members will meet with more than 40 MPs, including Tanya Plibersek, Minister for the Status of Women; Bob Debus, Minister for Home Affairs. They will also meet with representatives from various government departments.

ACRATH is one of a growing number of coalitions in Australia, including Melbourne-based Project Respect and the Sydney based Anti-Slavery Project, which is working for a greater community awareness of human trafficking. Many people associate trafficking with Asia. However, there is a growing awareness of trafficking into Australia.

Sr Pauline referred to the recent High Court decision which has provided a definition of slavery in the 21st century; it also recognised that what has happened to the women in the case being considered was a crime against humanity. Sr Pauline also referred to recent Australian media reports of trafficking and labour exploitation, and the trafficking of children for adoption.

Sr Pauline has recently returned to Australia from Congress 2008 in Rome. The international congress involved religious congregations from 30 countries including Australia. The participants agreed to maximise efforts and mobilise resources on the issue of human trafficking; they resolved to educate, prevent, protect and assist, and to have a greater social and political impact.

"This congress really made a commitment, and strengthened the determination of women in religious orders around the world, to work together to prevent the trafficking of humans," Sr Pauline said.

"We have come to Canberra as part of this strengthened commitment and we will keep coming and talking to those with influence until a more just system is in place and until this issue is a priority for policy makers."
If you would more information about ACRATH's work, trafficking in Australia or the visit to Canberra, please contact the following people:

Sr Pauline Coll sgs 0417 498 880

Sr Stancea Vichie mss 0438 116 689

or visit link for Radio Broadcast http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/programguide/stories/200809/s2365630.htm

You will rescue my life from the pit, O Lord.

2008-09-17T02:12:00.000-07:00

CathNews - a Service of Church Resources
Call for amnesty for trafficked womenPublished: September 17, 2008The Federal Government should provide an amnesty for victims of trafficking now living illegally in Australia, a coalition of Catholic women religious says.

The Australian Catholic Religious Against Trafficking in Humans (ACRATH) coalition says many people from the Asia-Pacific region are brought to Australia to work in the sex industry or in sweatshops or other forms of slave labour, Radio Australia reports.

Good Samaritan Sr Pauline Coll said victims should be treated in a more compassionate manner.

"If its for sexual exploitation many of the women come from the Asian countries, for other labour practices we would have people from the Pacific islands...so it's a broad ranging thing and people are trafficked into Australia or are used here in slave like conditions," she said.

Sr Coll was speaking ahead of a visit to Canberra this week by ACRATH members who will be in Canberra to meet with MPs and social justice advocates.

ACRATH represents 180 religious orders in Australia working to eliminate human trafficking in Australia, the Asia Pacific and internationally, the group said in a media statement.

The two main aims of the week long Canberra trip are to lobby for changes to the visa regulations applied to people who are trafficked and to ensure adequate services are provided once a person has been recognised as trafficked.

Sr Coll, who chairs ACRATH, said the Rudd Government should be applauded for its willingness to work with civil society on this issue. However, she said much more needed to be done to ensure that people trafficked into Australia were treated justly.

ACRATH members will lobby Government on several issues, including allocation of visas to people trafficked into Australia on the basis of their human rights and not on the basis of their willingness to assist with prosecutions.

The group is also calling for an amnesty for people trafficked into Australia who are now living here illegally and is seeking assurances that the Federal Government tender for services for people who have been trafficked is administered to offer a holistic approach to each person's needs.

A comprehensive community education strategy is also needed.

Sr Coll cited a recent Australian High Court decision which has provided a definition of slavery in the 21st century and recognised that what has happened to the women in the case being considered was a crime against humanity.

She has recently returned to Australia from Congress 2008 in Rome with representatives of religious congregations from 30 countries including Australia.

"This congress really made a commitment, and strengthened the determination of women in religious orders around the world, to work together to prevent the trafficking of humans," Sr Pauline said.

"We have come to Canberra as part of this strengthened commitment and we will keep coming and talking to those with influence until a more just system is in place and until this issue is a priority for policy makers," she said.

SOURCE

Calls for amnesty for people trafficked into Australia (Radio Australia, 16/9/08)

Women Religious Seek MPs Support in Fight Against Trafficking of Humans (Media Release, ACRATH, 16/9/08)
ACRATH (Good Shepherd Sisters)
Jonah 1:1-2:1. You will rescue my life from the pit, O Lord. Jonah 2:3-5,8. Luke 104:25-37.

STORIES from WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION (WHO)

2008-09-15T23:44:00.000-07:00

Trafficked women commonly report seeing their traffickers bribe local officials. One victim explained how she and her trafficker were transported through a border crossing by police in a police vehicle. When trafficked women were returned to authorities in an African country, it used to be common practice to show their faces on television and in news media as a prevention strategy to warn the public about trafficking. Consequently, many of the portrayed victims were shamed and rejected by their families and their communities.

A woman in a destination country prison who spoke with an NGO and agreed to give evidence against her traffickers subsequently found a note on her prison bunk threatening her life and the lives of her children in her country of origin.

Report from a Federal US Prosecutor

2008-09-15T23:42:00.000-07:00

By Tom Paquette

FEDERAL PROSECUTOR CAROLINE WITTCOFF: “Under-reporting is the main problem in apprehending and prosecuting human traffickers. Victims are afraid to run away or report their captors to authorities out of fear for their own lives or the lives of their loved ones. As trafficking rings have ties all the way back to their home countries, this is a very real danger.” she was a teenager from an impoverished village in Bangladesh. The American couple offered her transport to America and a better life: a nice job as their nanny and housekeeper, wages and opportunity. The dream offer dissolved into a nightmare as soon as she reached sunny Southern California. The couple informed her she owed them a huge sum for bringing her into the country and forced her to work without wages for years in their home. There she was repeatedly raped and beaten by the husband and abused by the wife. After three failed attempts, and with the help of good samaritans, she finally escaped.
This is just one of the stunning, real-life anecdotes recounted in a series of “Slavery Today” panel discussions on the multibillion-dollar human trafficking industry which, experts say, has grown to epidemic levels in Southern California.
The panels, sponsored by the Foundation for Human Rights and Tolerance and held in Hollywood, recognized the United Nations International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition. At the kick-off event, Lynsey Bartilson, star of the WB network’s “Grounded for Life,” told attendees, “The modern day slave trade is largely sexual trafficking, which Hollywood glamorizes in movies like ’Pretty Woman,’ but the harsh reality is that most of the girls involved are sold into a life of slavery.”

Numbers on the Rise

2008-09-15T23:40:00.000-07:00

"Globalization’s Underside" Sex Trafficking in Brooklyn
by Claire Hoffman
August/September 2003

The pitch was like a dream come true. For $3,000 each, the three desperate young Indonesian women would receive falsified visas, airline tickets from Jakarta and restaurant jobs when they got to New York. A man named "Johnny" would meet them at the airport and arrange their housing.

But once the women got off the plane, it didn’t take long to see that Johnny had other ideas. He and his friends hustled them off to brothels, first in Connecticut and then in Brooklyn, while threatening to shoot them if they refused to be prostitutes. Over four lurid days, the women were repeatedly forced to have sex with men who paid their captors $140 for each 45 minutes. Johnny also told each woman that she owed him $30,000, and he started making arrangements to "sell" them to other brothels in New York and Boston.

As this case suggests, the sordid business of human trafficking, which includes enslavement in agricultural work, sweatshops, domestic labor and prostitution, is rapidly expanding. And with its growing immigrant population, experts say, parts of New York City, including Brooklyn and Queens, have become hotspots in a trade that the International Labor Organization has described as the "underside of globalization."

The State Department recently estimated that close to 700,000 people are moved through the global networks of human trade each year, and some officials believe that as many as 50,000 of those people are brought to the United States. And while authorities are trying to staunch the flow— "Johnny" and two of his confederates pleaded guilty to federal slavery charges last fall— critics say that the crackdown on visa violators since the September 11th terror attacks has made it harder to get victims and witnesses to come forward to talk about the slave trade.

"It is incredible how big of a business it is," said Christa Stewart, the director of SAFE Horizons, a Manhattan-based non-profit organization that has expanded its outreach from domestic violence victims to women who have been enslaved. She and other advocates said a fundamental tragedy of this crime is that the victims, like the Indonesian women initially were trying to change their lives, were hopeful and courageous enough to leave everything behind in search of a new life.
To read more of this article go to Website below:
http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/fea/20071001/202/2304

Money to be Made

2008-09-15T23:39:00.000-07:00

Huge profits ensure human trafficking has become the world's top rights issue

Vienna, Austria: Trafficking people for forced labour and sexual slavery has become the world's number two most lucrative crime, and terrorists are using shadowy underground networks to move around, a senior US counter-trafficking official warned yesterday.Human trafficking, particularly the smuggling and enslavement of young women for prostitution, is tied with weapons smuggling as the second-largest illegal moneymaking activity, said T March Bell, the US Justice Department's senior special counsel for trafficking issues and civil rights.Only the narcotics trade reaps more profits for organised crime, but traffickers are earning billions of dollars exploiting tens of millions of victims each year, Bell said, calling it "the No 1 human rights issue today".The profits are huge, he told reporters, citing the example of a brothel owner in Southeast Asia who typically might pay$8 000 for a young woman. "We think that owner can make a $200 000 profit on that $8 000 investment," Bell said.Although the traffickers are dealing mainly with young women peddled to brothels or men, women and children sold into virtual slavery on farms and in factories, "they're moving any kind of people for a price", Bell said.Despite the massive scale of the crime, law enforcement agencies are having a difficult time bringing perpetrators to justice - in part because of corruption within their own ranks.In the former Yugoslavia, there have been numerous cases of corrupt local police officers engaged directly in the sex trade or willing to alert a bordello operator to an impending police raid in exchange for a bribe.Police officers in many poor, developing countries where trafficking is widespread tend to be poorly paid, making them particularly susceptible to bribes, Bell said. In Cambodia, theaverage officer earns just $35 a month, he said.Local and national police agencies are trying to counter that by improving the training of police officers, ensuring they are paid professional salaries, and making anti-trafficking units the envy of police forces by equipping them with the latest technology and holding them to higher standards, Bell said.While the most effective weapon against traffickers is "street-level law enforcement", police agencies increasingly are turning to undercover operations in an effort to infiltrate clandestine rings, he said.In the United States and many European countries, former victims are getting increased protection and refugee status in the hopes of persuading them to testify against their former captors, Bell said.A key challenge is winning the trust of former victims who all too often are "frightened, scared, intimidated and coerced" by traffickers."Unless a victim feels safe, they're not going to provide much information to prosecute the perpetrators," he said.

Published on the web by Cape Times on January 26, 2005.

U.S. National Coalition Against Domestic Violence

2008-09-15T23:38:00.001-07:00

International Women's Shelters Conference.

Wed, September 10, 2008

There are 800 delegates -- mostly women but a few good men -- at this week's conference of shelter workers and they all have incredible stories.

Ece Tuncay, who gave a presentation yesterday, is a clinical psychologist with a shelter in Ankara, Turkey, for female victims of human trafficking. There is another in Istanbul and they are desperately needed because Turkey is a destination country for trafficked women from countries like Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Moldova.

The women are tricked into thinking they'll work as cooks or cleaners and then forced into prostitution, said Tuncay.

"They are not generally able to escape because a pimp always accompanies them."

But there are hotlines the women can call and, in a strange twist of fate, Turkish johns sometimes feel sorry for them and call the police to rescue them, added Tuncay.

Her group gets the trafficked women safe housing and counselling. Then, with the help of the International Organization for Migration, the women travel safely home.

Every woman saved is a success story. As Reimer, the prime organizer behind this incredible gathering, commented to the delegates Monday night, shelter workers toil in the middle of a "hurricane of suffering" to keep women alive.

No other profession, she added, sees such a constant reminder of men's inhumanity to women.

I give the last word to Smith who quipped to the hundreds of shelter workers: "I look forward to the day when we all have something else to do in our lives."

Jan Reimer, provincial co-ordinator of the Alberta Council of Women's Shelters
-Edmonton Sun