Don't Get Too Comfortable

Don't Get Too Comfortable now lives @ http://nohumantrafficking.org

 

Don't Get Too Comfortable now lives @ http://nohumantrafficking.org

Scotland: Woman Helped Her Vice Boss Traffick Victims For Prostitution

There's a movement afoot challenging the notion that human trafficking is as widespread in "modern" countries as often reported. Statistics are questioned, protests are made that if the crime were indeed so large there would be more evidence.  Questioning is smart. Actually looking into the problem and realizing much of the iceberg is under water is smarter.

Woman helped her vice boss traffick victims for prostitution

Sep 10 2011 Ashlie McAnally

A VICE boss and his female sidekick yesterday became the first people to be convicted under new sex trafficking legislation.

Stephen Craig, 34, and Sarah Beukan, 22, admitted moving 14 men and women to addresses in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Belfast, Cardiff and Newcastle for sex.

On the day their trial was due to start, Craig, of Clydebank, pled guilty at Glasgow Sheriff Court to committing the offence between January 1, 2009, and September 3 last year.

He faces action under the proceeds of crime act after making money from his part.

Beukan, of Leith, Edinburgh, admitted committing the offence between October 2009 and September 3, 2010.

Two others, Malcolm McNeil and Gordon Dryburgh, had their not guilty pleas accepted by the Crown.

All three men were also charged with managing the men and women and living on earnings from prostitution.

Beukan was accused of managing prostitutes and arranging accommodation and advertising for them in Glasgow and Aberdeen, between January 2009 and September 2010. Craig was also accused of being concerned in the supply of cocaine.

All of the pleas of not guilty by each of the accused were accepted for these charges.

It is understood they were the first to be charged under section 22 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003, which is designed to deal with offences involving “traffic for prostitution”.

Paul Brown, for Beukan, told the court she was a prostitute who was acting under the orders of Craig.

Sentencing on Craig and Beukan was deferred and they were remanded in custody.

It was also claimed Craig, who had been prosecuted in Northern Ireland before the proceedings were moved to Scotland, was part of a gang who spent £50,000 on advertising brothels.

A spokeswoman for Trafficking Alliance Raising Awareness, who counselled three of the victims, said: “Human trafficking is akin to slavery and Craig and Beukan exploited their victims in the most appalling manner.”

 

China Says 30 Mentally Impaired slaves In Illegal Brick Factories Freed

Two stories on the same subject. This is not an unusal occurence.  What is unusaul is that it is being allowed coverage.  A hopeful sign .

China frees disabled workers in new slave scandal

(AFP) – 2 days ago  BEIJING — Authorities in central China said they had rescued 30 workers with severe learning difficulties used as slaves in illegal brick factories, in the nation's latest case of labour abuse.

State media on Wednesday reported that some of the victims, who were also regularly beaten, had toiled for more than seven years without pay in Henan province -- already the scene of a huge slavery scandal in 2007.

"These 30 people are mentally disabled, and were taken from their home town and tricked into working," a spokesman for the provincial police, surnamed Zhang, told AFP.

He said authorities freed them on Sunday and were in the process of locating their families. But he added that some of the victims' disabilities were so severe they were not able to identify them.

"In that case, they are being sheltered by the departments that rescued them," he said.

The official China Daily newspaper, quoting a television channel that exposed the scandal, said the victims were mostly abducted and sold to factory bosses for 300 to 500 yuan ($47 to $78).

A police officer quoted by state media said that one factory supervisor accused of whipping the workers was just 14 years old.

Zhang said police had so far detained eight brick kiln bosses and recruiters.

It is not the first time that slave labour has been uncovered in Henan.

In a scandal that shocked the nation in 2007, thousands of people were found to be working without pay in brick factories in Henan and further north in Shanxi province.

They had been subjected to regular beatings and near-starvation, with the alleged collusion of some local officials and police.

Although no official numbers have been reported on how many were enslaved, a parliamentary investigation said some 53,000 migrant workers had been employed in more than 2,000 illegal brick factories in Shanxi alone.

Since then, similar cases of slavery have been reported sporadically around China, despite government pledges to eradicate the practice.

In December last year, authorities shut down a factory in the northwestern region of Xinjiang where 11 workers -- most of them suffering from learning difficulties -- were reportedly enslaved for years in deplorable conditions.

Copyright © 2011 AFP. All rights reserved.

Mentally disabled ‘slaves’ rescued from Chinese brick factories

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POLICE IN CHINA are struggling to identify 30 people with mental disabilities who had been enslaved and used as free labour at illegal brick factories in China.

One victim told police he was abducted after getting lost in his home city of Luoyang, then taken to work unpaid in the kiln where he was beaten with whips. However, many of the abused workers taken from kilns in Henan province – after reportedly being sold to factory bosses for between €30 and €55 – were unable to give their names and origins to police due to their disabilities.

A government official told English-language newspaper China Daily: “Some of them can’t even speak a whole sentence [...] Most are staying at a relief station because they can’t remember where they are from.”

The workers were freed on Sunday. According to AFP, eight brick factory managers have been arrested. One factory supervisor who allegedly whipped the slaves was reportedly just 14 years old.

People with mental disabilities are especially vulnerable in China due to a dearth of official welfare services, the Wall Street Journal reports. In a 2010 scandal in the western Sichuan province, a man advertised a shelter for people with such disabilities, then sold at least 70 of them to factory owners.

 

 

Despite Death Threats, Activists Fight Slavery To Bring Kids Better Life

 

Despite death threats, activists continue mission to bring kids better life

Emmanuel Otoo is a man with a simple message: Poverty is not a reason to sell children into slavery.

For many people, that's a pretty obvious sentiment. But if you come from Otoo's background, it's easy to see why he would say that. He's the Ghana Director for the non-profit group Free the Slaves, and it's his mission to make parents understand that selling their children isn't going to bring anyone a better life.

 Otoo has a lot to be thankful for, and he mostly credits his mother for not making the choice that so many families around him in Ghana made when he was a child.

"We observe a lot of situations currently where out of poverty, out of need, out of desire to give their children the basic necessities, parents tend to traffic their children - give them out or sell them out," he told CNN. "So I compare this to our relationship with our mother that in spite of the difficult times, in spite of the lack, the need, and the want, she did not give us out. She could've done that, but she did not."

Otoo's mother kept the family together, and he went on to college, majoring in sociology and earning a master's degree in business administration. But instead of taking his education and moving away, Otoo stayed where he felt he was needed most - in the heart of some of the worst areas for trafficking in his country. One of the sites is Lake Volta, where he documents child slavery in the fishing industry.

"Children are put on canoes, they work long hours. And to help you understand long hours - long hours is over 12 hours. Some work 16 hours," he said. "And they perform various forms of activities, from casting nets to dragging nets, emptying water in the boat, and diving deep into the water to disentangle nets. Children dive into the water and some of them do not return again. That is the last time some of them are seen."

Ghana Director Emmanuel Otoo at work on Lake Volta

It is dangerous work to fight a practice that can be very profitable for the traffickers. But the peril means nothing to Otoo, who is driven in part by his two young children.

“The danger is there, we receive death threats, people who don't like what we're doing. Others come up to you and actually warn you to stop doing what you're doing," he said. "But my motivation is the fact that I would've ended up as one of the people who was enslaved so if I am lucky to escape, I believe that I have a huge responsibility to contribute all that I can within me to make sure that this unacceptable practice ends.”

Otoo is one of several directors working in seven countries for Free the Slaves. The directors conduct research, provide education and bring together community groups from other non-profits, churches and schools. They're not just trying to free slaves - though that is their obvious goal - but they say making sure the community can make a change is the foundation for ending slavery.

"You meet families who are not rich families, don't have cars to drive in or other things, but they have their families back," said Otoo. "They have their children back, and they sit happily, chat, eat and give the children opportunity to play. And that is a success story for me."

Free the Slaves has headquarters just outside of Los Angeles and in Washington. They are one of hundreds of non-profit groups fighting human trafficking, and they bring these groups together every year for what co-founder Peggy Callahan calls "the largest anti-slavery gathering in the world." Their annual Freedom Awards honor people working to free slaves, handing out awards ranging from $10,000 to $50,000 for the recipient's organization

The group also documents anti-slavery work done around the world, to show others that the fight can be won.

 

Mauritania : 9 Imprisoned After Sit-In Protesting Child Slavery

Mauritanian activist jailed after anti-slavery protest   NOUAKCHOT, MAURITANIA - Aug 22 2011 16:09

A Mauritanian court on Monday sentenced an anti-slavery activist to three months in prison, while eight others accused of "rebellion" were acquitted, a judicial official said. 

The nine members of the Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement in Mauritania (IRA) had been charged with "unauthorised gathering and rebellion", after they organised a sit-in protest against child enslavement.

The accused were arrested on August 4 during their protest, in front of a Nouakchott police station, against the enslavement of a 10-year-old girl. They claimed the woman accused of keeping the child as a slave had been freed on the day of the protest, while the child was missing.

A judicial source speaking on condition of anonymity said one of the accused, Belkheir Ould Cheikh, had been convicted for "assaulting a police officer. The other eight members were acquitted."

The decision was confirmed by IRA president Birame Ould Abeid, who called it a "defeat for the slavery system and acknowledgement of the legitimacy of the IRA's battle".

The prosecutor had demanded that eight of the defendants should be jailed for at least two years, and Ould Cheikh for three years.

Mauritania abolished slavery in 1981 but it continued unabated and a law making enslavement punishable with up to 10 years in prison, introduced in 2007, has never been applied.

Human rights organisation Anti-Slavery International says on its website about 600 000 people are estimated to be enslaved in Mauritania. -- AFP

Slavery: That Peculiar Institution - Mauritania, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, China, South Africa

Slavery: That peculiar institution LISA VAN WYK | JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA - Sep 06 2011 11:13

The recent arrest of anti-slavery protesters inMauritania has highlighted the fact that, despite slavery in that country officially being abolished in 1981 (pretty late, by most standards), it takes more than a few laws to upset an entrenched and seemingly archaic status quo. 

The term "slavery", that is, the ownership of one person (and their labour) by another, may conjure up images of the American deep south, or even more ancient times. But is Mauritania an anomaly? There are few that could feign ignorance about children who work in sweatshops around the world, and those who are forced to work in dangerous and unsuitable environments, or for meagre wages. But the sheer number of people who are trapped in lives of bondage, people whose lives are controlled by those who profit from their labours, may shock many who thought that that "peculiar institution" (as Southerners euphemistically nicknamed the practice) was an unsavoury relic of the past.

The examples below are just some of the instances where "slavery" can be strictly defined as ownership of one person and their labour by another, against their will. This includes human trafficking. There are obviously many other forms of worker abuse, child labour and exploitation, though even using this strict definition the list of examples is seemingly endless.

Mauritania
Slavery is an everyday part of life in Mauritania, where up to 20% of the population, or 600 000 people, are in bondage, according to estimates by Amnesty International. The practice is a relic of the history of the country, where dark-skinned haratin, or "black Moors", have traditionally served beidane ("white Moors"). The relationship between these two groups is well-established, with many of the haratin thought to be descendants of African slaves brought into the region by slave traders in the Middle Ages. Trafficking also brings many women and children into the country to work as domestic labourers. Mauritanian slaves, generally, receive no education, and cannot marry or start a family without the permission of their masters, on whom they are totally dependent. The psychological dependence that results has been blamed for the persistence of the practice, with many slaves who were officially "freed" when laws abolishing slavery were introduced still living lives of servitude.

Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan is the world's third largest producer of cotton, and the use of child labour is one of the reasons that the product can be exported so cheaply to foreign markets, who seem to turn a blind eye to the practice. Every autumn, the authoritarian state shuts down schools so that children are available to harvest the cotton, and they are sent into the fields. Teachers and headmasters are given quotas that their students must reach. The students -- some as young as seven -- are told that not reaching their quota will result in punishment and negatively affect their school careers. Those who refuse -- or whose parents refuse to allow them to work -- are threatened with expulsion. The children receive no compensation for their labour, and are exposed to dangerous pesticides in the process.

Pakistan
Debt labour, where people are forced into slavery to pay off a debt owed to their masters, is one of the most common forms of slavery practiced in the world today. Despite attempts by the Pakistan government to prevent it, there are thought to be between one million and two-million people in debt bondage, most of whom work in the brick industry. Desperate families approach factory and business owners for a loan to make ends meet or pay urgent medical bills, and are made to work in order to pay back the debt. This can be unpaid labour, or, if a meagre living allowance is paid, this is added to the debt, which increases the work hours "owed" to the employer. In many instances the whole family -- including young children -- is made to work in an attempt to speed up the repayment, and so the children of bonded labourers are prevented from attending school. This in turn leaves them vulnerable to further exploitation.

China
China's forced labour camps, the laogai, modelled on the Soviet gulags, have been described by the government as a way to "cleanse" wrongdoers, and make them productive members of society. This is not unique -- prison labour is legal and practiced all over the world -- but the harshness of the conditions in these camps has raised concerns amongst human rights advocates. Prisoners perform a variety of tasks including mining, farming and factory work, working up to 19 hours a day. Concerns have been raised about who is forced to work in these camps. While "traditional" criminals (those who commit crimes that would be recognised as such by most countries) are housed in jails, those sent to laogai are often political dissidents, drug addicts, prostitutes (some of whom are already victims of trafficking) and others who, for vague reasons, are deemed "undesirable". Prisoners need not go on trial before being shipped off to the camps, and some human rights groups have raised concerns that these camps are even being used to get homeless people off the streets. Those in the camps are given no access to their families or legal representation. Similar camps are known to exist in North Korea.

South Africa
For the fourth year in a row South Africa has been placed on the Tier 2 Watchlist (only one tier above countries such as Mauritania) by the United States' state department's trafficking in persons report, which monitors international trafficking and ranks countries according to their governments' efforts to combat it. South Africa is seen as a soft target for traffickers, with lax border control and corruption rife in the department of home affairs. Victims come from African countries where they are forced to work in agriculture and industry for no pay, before being reported as illegal immigrants and deported. It is estimated that about 1 000 young Mozambican women are brought into the country each year with the promise of work, but are forced into prostitution or "sold" as wives for migrant workers. There is also a large number of women from Eastern Europe and the Far East who are forced into the local sex industry, or who are temporarily placed in South Africa before being sent to the Middle East. One of failures of the South African government seems to be a lack of documentation. Numbers are rough estimates as many victims of trafficking are deported as illegal immigrants -- without ever being documented as victims of trafficking -- or find themselves jailed for the illegal activities they have been forced to take part in.
Source: Mail & Guardian Online
Web Address: http://mg.co.za/article/2011-09-06-slavery-that-peculiar-institution

The Trafficking Victims Protection ACT: Keeping A Law That Works

September 6, 2011

Trafficking victims protection: Keeping a law that works posted at 5:36 AM PST by Jesse Eaves, WV policy adviser on child protection TAGS: child protection, human trafficking, international affairs, Justice Issues

Debating the effectiveness of laws is a tradition as old as our nation itself. But I want to share a story that illustrates how one law is accomplishing exactly what it was passed to do.

From 2003 to 2007, the owners of the U.S. company Global Horizons trafficked more than 600 Thai workers to U.S. soil. The company lured the men with promises of high-paying agricultural jobs.

When the men arrived after having paid exorbitant recruitment fees, their passports and immigration papers were taken from them. Instead of receiving high-paying jobs, the men were forced to work on farms in Washington state and Hawaii to pay off the “debt” they were told they incurred.

In 2007, the owners of the company were arrested. The victims were referred to service providers, who handled everything from medical care and legal services to making arrangements for those who wanted to return home. In June 2011, the eight defendants in the Global Horizons case were convicted of their crimes.

Trafficking victims protection: Keeping a law that worksPrevent, protect, prosecute

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000 is the largest piece of human-rights legislation in U.S. history. It created the first comprehensive federal law to address human trafficking and modern-day slavery, targeting both the domestic and international dimensions of this crime. The law has a three-pronged approach:

• Prevent vulnerability  
• Protect survivors 
• Prosecute human traffickers

Enhancements to the law

Because the methods of perpetrators constantly evolve, the law must also evolve. This is why the TVPA must be renewed every few years.

The original legislation from 2000 was reauthorized through the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Acts (TVPRA) of 2003, 2005, and 2008. Each time the bill was reauthorized, innovations and improvements were added.

The Trafficking Victims Protection and Reauthorization Act of 2011, as introduced by the Senate, makes some improvements that will better assist human trafficking victims, prosecutors, and law-enforcement agencies. Some of the key improvements include:

• Encouraging partnerships between the U.S. government and private entities to ensure that U.S. citizens do not use goods or materials produced using labor from human trafficking victims
• Providing technical assistance to other countries to investigate labor recruitment centers where trafficking victims may be recruited
• Establishing child protection compacts between the United States and other countries to prevent the exploitation and abuse of children
• Strengthening the enforcement of child exploitation laws against U.S. citizens living abroad who participate in such crimes
• Protecting possible witnesses, informants, and threatened family members of trafficking victims

Time for reauthorization

The current TVPRA expires on September 30, 2011. If Congress does not pass an updated bill, all of the tools that brought the owners of Global Horizons to justice will be gone as of October 1.

Over the past decade, we have made significant strides toward identifying human trafficking victims, prosecuting traffickers, and creating partnerships here in the United States and around the globe to combat this crime. Congress needs to act now to ensure that we build on these gains, not let them expire.

Lending your voice to make phone calls to your members of Congress can mean the difference between our country leading the fight against human trafficking, or giving up. Tell your elected officials that the United States needs to lead the fight against modern-day slavery around the world, and here at home.

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Call your members of Congress today. Urge them to support reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act so that there is no gap in the fight against human trafficking.

 

A Dangerous Labyrinth For Border-Crossing Kids

I'm no expert, but I do read a lot of trafficking news.  This article bring up a large number of points  about the processing of children caught in illegal Mexican border crossings that I'd never read about before. The implications  for the children are a tangled mess.  I can only assume the same problems must exist on our other borders as well, albeit in smaller numbers.  The breadth of countries involved is something I've not seen hard numbers on either. How can we expect ICE to handle such a complicated scenario without clear-cut, separate divisons?  

The Edge of Immigration Back to Society Border-Crossing Kids Need more Assistance, say Child Advocates Susan Ferriss September 5th 2011 iWatchNews     In December 2010, Washington attorney Jennifer Podkul received a call from the Department of Homeland Security inspector general’s office, asking to speak with one of her clients. The client was a minor, 17, when Podkul, a legal aid group attorney, happened to meet him during a routine visit to a Virginia juvenile jail. The boy had been sent to the Northern Virginia Juvenile Detention Center, which has an immigration wing, after U.S. Border Patrol agents caught him, unaccompanied by any family members, crossing into Texas from Mexico for the third time. The first time the boy had crossed into the United States was in 2009, he was 16, with a backpack of marijuana a gang told him to carry. He told Podkul he had asked agents then if he could stay and offered to give them information about smuggling routes. Instead, the boy told the lawyer, the agents had their own proposal: They told him to go back to Mexico and get more information, including names of smugglers. The request was a direct violation of the intent of 2008 federal legislation designed to help stop abuse of minors by human traffickers, Podkul told iWatch News. Now it appeared that the IG’s office wanted the boy to cooperate in their own investigation of how the agents had treated him. “They wanted to show him photos of the agents,” Podkul said, “and to talk to him.”  The boy, she said, had been “terrified of the Border Patrol,” but he had also been terrified of not making his delivery of drugs for the gang that an uncle had allegedly forced him to enter into at 14. Border Patrol spokesman Bill Brooks, who is based in Marfa, Texas, said he wasn’t aware of the inquiry into Border Patrol agents in Texas that Podkul described. He added that he couldn’t comment on pending legislation affecting the Border Patrol. “Our agents are trained, and they’re going to be on the side of the juvenile during the process,” he said. “If we find signs of trafficking, we turn the case over right away to investigators at Immigration and Customs Enforcement.” But the inquiry by Homeland Security’s inspector general serves to illuminate other, broader concerns about having Board Patrol agents undertake the sensitive interviews, or screenings, that Congress has mandated of unaccompanied minors, specifically Mexicans, who cross illegally into the United States. Congress added the provision for screening youths from Mexico and Canada to the Trafficking Victims Protection and Reauthorization Act in 2008 as a way to identify minors who may be under the control of drug or sex traffickers or who may face other threats if sent home. But its effectiveness has been questionable and child-welfare advocates say better screening and more reforms are needed to dissuade minors from repeat crossings, and prevent them from becoming prey of violent criminal gangs on the border. Border agents are supposed to ask unaccompanied minors if they fear being returned to their country, tell them that they have a right to an immigration hearing to try to stay in the United States, and inform them of their right to go to a shelter for minors.  Reading the minors their “rights” is supposed to occur before the minors are offered a consent form to go back to their home countries voluntarily. Two recent reports examining the treatment of unaccompanied minors, including Mexicans, caught at the border – and two bills introduced during the summer – question agents’ effectiveness at conducting these sensitive screenings and how well the minors are being treated overall. One of the bills (H.R. 2235), introduced June 16  by Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, (D-Calif.), calls for licensed social workers to assist Border Patrol agents in the mandatory interviews of minors caught crossing the border to clarify their individual circumstances. Senate bill 1301 (which would reauthorize existing anti-human trafficking laws) was introduced June 29 by Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Scott Brown (R-Mass.). It also calls for a Government Accountability Office study of Border Patrol agents’ effectiveness in carrying out the screening of vulnerable minors. Last year, Border Patrol agents detained about 30,000 minors, more than half of them unaccompanied by parents. More than 80 percent of minors overall and unaccompanied were Mexican, and the rest were Central American, Chinese or nationals of other countries. Mexican and U.S. law enforcement officials report finding people from all over the world, including children, who have paid transnational smugglers to get them into Mexico and over the U.S. border. Most minors found crossing the border, regardless of nationality, appear to be trying to join parents or other relatives in the United States, or to find work, according to counselors and lawyers who aid these children. Many are found among adults who are not family members, and some have been pulled into criminal rings either as victims, participants, or both. Mexican minors The debate over how to best handle minors once agents detain them goes back a couple of decades, and laws affecting them have changed incrementally. Because of concerns about keeping children in immigration detention with adults, the Homeland Security Act of 2002 transferred responsibility for long-term custody of all unaccompanied minors to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). To ensure that children don’t remain in lockup, federal law requires that within 72 hours Border Patrol agents transfer children to the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement, which supervises shelters and foster care for them. Minors are sheltered pending immigration hearings, temporary release to U.S. relatives or a return to home countries. Non-Mexican children are routinely transferred to shelters because sending them back home takes so long. Even if, after being caught, they say they want to return home, journeys to Central America or more distant regions usually take longer than 72 hours, or three days, to arrange. Because of Mexico’s proximity, however, Mexican minors can be sent back relatively quickly. If they agree to leave the United States voluntarily, they rarely reach U.S. shelters.  They are taken to the border and released to the custody of Mexican social workers within a matter of hours. Before the 2008 authorization, child-welfare advocates pressed Congress to address this discrepancy, arguing that too many Mexican minors were not being afforded the counseling available only in shelters that could help reveal criminal threats the youths might face. The Border Patrol screenings were designed as a step toward getting more information from Mexican minors and giving them a chance to disclose any fears. But advocates say the interviews by Border Patrol agents, in holding areas, lack the sensitivity that professionals trained in questioning children can provide. Once minors are away from uniformed, armed Border Patrol agents, advocates contend, they are more likely to open up to counselors in shelters who speak the minors’ languages and are adept at finding out more about children’s experiences. Minors in shelters are also formally interviewed, or screened, by licensed social workers who ask them about fears and other circumstances. In the 2008 reauthorization, lawmakers ordered Border Patrol agents to present Mexican minors a similar set of questions and information, within 48 hours, and before offering them voluntary return consent forms. A flawed system Over the past year, studies of current procedures have raised questions about whether the required policies and protocols are working. In September 2010, the Department of Homeland Security inspector general’s office issued a report focusing on agents’ compliance with terms of a 1996 legal settlement that set minimum standards in regard to food and water and the provision of shelter for minors apart from adults. While the office found most Border Patrol holding areas in general compliance with the settlement requirements, inspectors also found that many agents hadn’t received updated training regarding minors or couldn’t prove they had. Some agents who had little experience with minors said they applied their station’s own “internal detention policies.” The report urged the Border Patrol to document that all agents were appropriately trained. In April, a national nonprofit legal aid organization, Appleseed, issued its own report, “Children at the Border,” that concluded the Border Patrol agents’ screenings of Mexican minors remain flawed. Appleseed reported that in some Border Patrol stations, “children are held in cells within sight or hearing of adults, possibly including traffickers.” The report said the centers “provide no environment for a child to feel safe and secure enough to divulge sensitive information about trafficking or other abuse.” Freedom Network USA, a coalition of 27 non-government organizations that helps trafficking victims, said minors from various countries who have received counseling after being rescued from human smugglers have recounted being sexually assaulted, forced to work for gangs as domestic servants, or pressed into service as “mules” to carry drugs over the border. Others have been smuggled through the border only to become indentured workers at U.S. farms or restaurants, or have become involved in prostitution, according to allegations the network has collected. In its report, prepared with its counterpart Appleseed Mexico, Appleseed criticized Mexican authorities for placing too much emphasis on swiftly releasing minors to family members after Border Patrol agents delivered children to Mexican social workers. Appleseed and Appleseed Mexico urged Mexican authorities to carry out more thorough investigations of the risks children face at home and what led them to cross the border. Mexican minors, according to Appleseed’s report, are “an especially attractive recruiting target” for gangs because they are usually released so quickly and few incentives exist on either side of the border to help them sever ties to gangs. On the U.S. side, authorities rarely prosecute minors who are carrying drugs for smuggling offenses. In Mexico, children released at the border are usually placed in shelters run by Mexican government social workers, who are supposed to identify family members in Mexico to come retrieve the children. Appleseed researchers said that minors involved in gangs, once repatriated, often run away from shelters run by Mexican social workers. Researchers also heard from some Mexican social workers that armed gangsters have entered shelters in Mexico and demanded that certain minors be released to them. ‘Romancing’ for prostitution Podkul, who represented the Mexican minor sent to Virginia, said she’s also represented Mexican girls who were detained by Border Patrol agents and sent back, but who eventually made it into the United States and were forced into prostitution.  Podkul said 10 girls she represented were rescued after police broke up trafficking rings in Maryland, New Jersey and North Carolina in 2007. Almost all the minors had a similar story, she said. They were “romanced” by men in Mexico who told them they could go north and work in restaurants to earn money. But when they arrived in this country, the men told them that no work was to be found, and that to survive they had to work as prostitutes. Some of the girls told Podkul that they had been caught by the Border Patrol two or three times before getting over the border. But the girls were sent back to Mexico with the men they were traveling with after they all lied and said the girls were not minors. “These are 15-year-old girls,” Podkul said. At the time, Podkul worked for Ayuda, a Washington, D.C., immigrant rights group, and she represented minors she found in detention centers she visited or who were referred to her. She is now a detention and asylum program officer for the Women’s Refugee Commission, a non-governmental group that tries to help refugees worldwide. Santa Monica, Calif., attorney Sandy Chung said her experience representing a Chinese girl detained along the Mexican border showed her it’s critical to have time and skilled professionals on hand to help win children’s confidence. The girl, 16, was found traveling with a group of Chinese adults. Agents transferred her to a shelter, and she was subsequently placed in a foster care in Los Angeles. Chung speaks Mandarin, and she was recruited by the nonprofit group Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), which finds lawyers willing to provide pro bono representation for unaccompanied children facing deportation. It took weeks, Chung said, for her, the foster mother and others to coax information from the girl, and to piece together clues that suggested she was probably headed for forced prostitution in New York. In the end, Chung won the girl a special juvenile visa on the grounds that the girl’s parents had abandoned her by handing her over to human traffickers. “It makes sense in some cases to send kids back” to home countries, Chung said. “But not when kids are being trafficked.” Jose Cardona, a Honduran, also won a special juvenile visa after being detained and later meeting a pro bono attorney. Cardona, at 17, was caught just inside the border in 2010, held in a Border Patrol cell for minors in Harlingen, Texas, but transferred to an Office of Refugee Resettlement shelter in less than two days. While in Border Patrol custody, Cardona told iWatch News, agents never told him what his options were even when he asked them point blank. When he asked an agent if he might be able to stay because his mother had a visa, Cardona said, the agent was dismissive and told him he was probably too old. “He told me, ‘Maybe next time,’ ”Cardona said.  “He treated me with great sarcasm.” Cardona had set out alone to try to reach his mother, a live-in maid in Boca Raton, Fla. He had lived with his grandmother since age 3, and after she died, he said, he had no family left and decided to take off on his own to find his mother. She has temporary protective status and a work visa granted to her after hurricanes devastated Honduras. Cardona said he fell asleep on the floor of the Border Patrol cell the first night he was detained, and that the next morning an agent kicked his feet and told him it was time to fill out forms. “I think they are completely focused on how you got over the border,” he said. “They don’t care about your past.” Cardona said a Mexican minor he met while in Border Patrol custody said he had been returned to Mexico multiple times. The boy said he worked for human smugglers, and that being caught and released had become routine. “This kid told me ‘I can’t get out of it (the smuggling gang). It’s too late,’ ” Cardona said. The Border Patrol’s view At a March 2009 hearing before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, then- Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar defended his agents, saying that they were trained to handle children, and that stations have juvenile officers who specialize in dealing with minors. Now U.S. Customs and Border Protection Deputy Commissioner, Aguilar said agents try to ensure an effective “hand-off” process to transfer children to the custody of HHS. When the Appleseed report was released in April, the Border Patrol released a statement saying that the Department of Homeland Security was "committed to upholding the law by ensuring a stringent screening process for unaccompanied alien children to help identify and protect victims of human trafficking." The agency statement also said it worked closely with HHS to “ensure the integrity of this process and provide for the care and custody of these minors," the statement said. Betsy Cavendish, Appleseed’s Washington, D.C.-based executive director, said Appleseed is urging Homeland Security to consider shifting responsibility for screening minors to asylum officers with another of its branches, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Appleseed believes asylum officers’ training makes them more suited to judge children’s stories. “Our real goal is that the kids are interviewed by people who are trained at interviewing children,” Cavendish said. “There could be a win-win for the government interest in stopping the drug trade,” Cavendish said, while fulfilling the U.S. belief in helping children out of harm’s way. Homeland Security media affairs representatives did not respond to requests to comment on Appleseed’s suggestion. A new push in Congress In the House, Roybal-Allard has tried before, as part of a comprehensive package, to have social workers assigned to interview minors caught on the border. This time, her bill is narrowly focused on that goal. The bill also calls for providing minors with a video orientation produced in the five main languages they tend to speak. Allard hopes to generate support among Republicans who have strongly supported prior anti-trafficking legislation that included mandatory screening for all unaccompanied children. Her bill has four Democratic co-sponsors, and has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee and the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security. Supporters contend that the costs of contracting social workers in the busiest border ports to conduct screenings of minors could be paid for with the savings to the Border Patrol. The Congressional Budget Office has not yet produced cost estimates. The Senate bill calling for a GAO study of the Border Patrol, in no later than two years, is part of a proposed comprehensive reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 and 2008. A House version of the reauthorization proposal has not been introduced yet. Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to which the bill was referred, issued a statement about his proposed reauthorization, saying: “Thanks to the tools provided by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, we have made progress in combating these reprehensible human rights abuses, but there is more work to be done.” Judiciary committee staff members didn’t respond to requests to explain the reason for a GAO report on the Border Patrol is included in the Senate bill. Podkul, who supports Roybal-Allard’s bill, said “to their credit,” Homeland Security investigators contacted her and seemed interested the allegations her Mexican client made about Border Patrol agents telling him to return to gather information from dangerous smugglers. Minors seeking a stay on deportation have a right to counsel, but no right for it to be government-supplied, so for many pro bono counsel is their only hope. Podkul met the boy, by chance, at the Virginia detention center, where she had gone to observe who was being held in a wing contracted out to federal immigration officials. Because of the youth’s story, Podkul said, she called in an investigator with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who interviewed the teenager, found him credible and did not oppose Podkul’s attempts to protect him as a trafficking victim. For a year, much of it while the boy remained in jail, Podkul shepherded the process of petitioning U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and asking that the youth be granted a visa for trafficking victims who cooperate with law enforcement. The boy recounted, Podkul said, that “he had to sit and watch people being tortured as part of this ring in Mexico” if they displeased its leaders. Podkul succeeded in convincing government officials to grant the youth a visa, and he now lives in a rural area of the United States that he chose because he felt he was less likely to encounter drug traffickers with border ties.

 

Wales’ Ports Vulnerable To Human Trafficking

Human trafficking victims could be pouring through Wales’ ports

• by Clare Hutchinson, 
• Wales On Sunday
• Sep 4 2011

• Anit-trafficking czar Bob Tooby

HUNDREDS of victims of human trafficking could be pouring through Wales’ ports every year – according to the man charged with stemming the tide.

Exactly five months after Bob Tooby took up his role as Wales’ first anti-human trafficking czar, the former Chief Superintendent of Cardiff told Wales on Sunday: “I want the criminals to know – wherever they are – we will be coming for them.”

The former top cop has been travelling the length and breadth of the UK to look at how trafficking works and what police and charities are doing to tackle the vile trade.

He said many victims are being smuggled in to Wales’ ports from Ireland right under the noses of border authorities.

“We have got two million people coming into Holyhead each year, plus half a million coming into places like Milford Haven and Swansea and traffickers are choosing these ports as a route into Britain,” he warned.

“It can be almost impossible to tell if someone is being trafficked. Their trafficker might be a family member, someone travelling with them, or standing near them.

“That is why I have sat down with the authorities in charge and with the charities and we have started to look at what the common trends are.”

He said people were almost certainly being brought in through ports including Holyhead, Fishguard, Milford Haven and Swansea, as well as through airports.

Others fall victim to internal trafficking, where they are brought to Wales from other parts of the UK.

“Some traffickers are choosing Ireland as an easy option,” he said.

“They might bring victims into Ireland, flying them in on a false passport with the promise of jobs in hotels and cafes.

“They are not necessarily unknown to the victims. In some cases, they might be as close as brothers, cousins, other relatives or family friends.

“They will travel with them and sometimes they will groom them back in their home countries saying things like, ‘I’ve been to Britain and look at me, look at my nice new house and my new car’.

“Sometimes they even bring their unwitting victims over here legitimately with legitimate passports. It is not until they get here that they are forced into slavery.

“It is an easy option for these traffickers to stop off in Wales for a week or a month.”

Official figures show just 34 victims of human trafficking have been reported to police across the UK since 2009, but Bob said the real number could be many more.

Victims of the modern-day slave trade come from all over the world, but most commonly from places like Nigeria, Vietnam, China and former communist countries in eastern Europe like Romania and Slovakia.

Many fear they would face deportation if they asked for help or that corrupt officials would hand them back – a myth encouraged by traffickers keen to scare their victims into complying with their demands.

Others do not ask for help because they fear what their tormentors might do if they found out about it, with many being told their families will be at risk.

Bob said: “When you talk about trafficking, most people automatically think of sexual exploitation, but this can be dangerous because there are many other forms of trafficking out there.

“If a person is coerced, deceived or forced in order to be taken from one place to another and subjected to threats and suffering as a result, it is trafficking.

“There is no average experience for a victim. Some will be brought to the country for sexual exploitation or domestic servitude – or a mixture of both.

“A victim of labour trafficking might be working in a sweat shop, a takeaway or in a hotel, and they will be going through a completely different experience to a child, who might be forced into domestic servitude before falling victim to sexual exploitation.

“But what they have in common is that they are all victims of human trafficking and the people who are committing the crimes have no morals whatsoever.

“These people target those who are most vulnerable in our society.

“It is a myth to say that traffickers are all part of organised crime gangs – they are just as likely to be a group of three and as likely to be Welsh or English as they are to be Albanian.

“They see their victims simply as goods to be bought or sold and they will coldly use them in whatever way will make them the most money.

“But I want them to know – wherever they are – we will be coming for them.”

High-profile trafficking cases uncovered in Wales in recent years have included:

Thomas Carroll, who controlled a prostitution network of trafficked Nigerian women in Ireland from the Pembrokeshire village of Castlemartin. The 49-year-old, from Bagenalstown, Co Carlow, was last year jailed for seven years and had £2m assets seized;

A council investigation that heard Eastern European gangs were trafficking women into Cardiff in a trade that saw up to 60 women involved in the city’s sex trade at any one time; and

The jailing of two Albanian gang members for a total of 10 years in 2005 for smuggling a 21-year-old Lithuanian into Cardiff to be sold for £5,000 to work in brothels. The judge labelled the sick trade “21st century slavery”.

In Wales, charities like Black Association of Women Step Out (Bawso), Women’s Aid and Amnesty International are working to help victims of trafficking know where to get help.

According to Bob – who has previously raised concerns about a rise in sex trafficking to the UK coinciding with next year’s London Olympics – Wales is in a unique position to fight the war against trafficking because agencies, charities and authorities in the country already have tried and tested ways of working together.

“Can Wales make a difference?” he said.

“Yes, it can make a massive difference.

“In 12 to 18 months, I hope we will have built up enough awareness so that there won’t be a public service provider who is not aware of what to do or who to contact if they come across a case of trafficking.”

He hopes leaflets explaining telltale signs of trafficking and who to contact will be in “every GP surgery and post office in Wales”.

Responsibility also needs to lie with business owners, landlords and even neighbours, who suspect trafficking might be taking place, he said.

“If I say domestic servitude you might say, ‘what on earth?’.

“But we call it the Cinderella system, where two children in a house go to school and one child doesn’t.

“It could be possible that child is a victim of trafficking.

“I would hope that neighbours would report this, but we see cases where it has been going on for years and no one has noticed or said a thing.

“Sometimes these children are being forced to work up to 18 hours a day.

“That is not acceptable, and it is time we all did something about it.”

If you suspect someone is being trafficked you can call the United Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre (UKHTC) on 0114 252 3891, or call Crimestoppers free, and anonymously, on 0800 555111

"America's Most Wanted" Child Porn Producer Nailed

"America's Most Wanted" child porn producer nailed

Jim Kouri

 Public Safety Examiner

September 3, 2011

Eric Antwan Bell, a federal fugitive in a Clearwater Area Human Trafficking Task Force (CAHTTF) investigation, was arrested on Wednesday by special agents of the FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Parsippany, New Jersey. 

He had been living in Jersey City, N.J.  Bell used the aliases  "Santana" Laveric Santana, Eric Santana, Eric Dean, Thomas Kelly, and Anthony Ellis.

On June 11, Bell was featured on the television program "America's Most Wanted" with John Walsh during the show's "Be On the Look Out" (BOLO) segment.

Bell was also featured on a digital billboard throughout the Tampa Bay-area and on ICE's website as one of the agency's most wanted criminals.

On January 3, 2011, a federal criminal complaint was filed in the Middle District of Florida which alleged that Bell was involved in the production of child pornography, had unlawfully possessed a firearm and had engaged in sex trafficking of a minor.

Through interviews with his sex trafficking victims and house searches, law enforcement agents and officers discovered Bell’s interstate operation to sexually exploit underage girls in operation that ICE and FBI agents said began in December 2008, according to the HSI.

Promoting Pedophilia

Law enforcement executives, child protection workers and church leaders are attempting to combat the sex crimes committed against the youngest and most vulnerable members of U.S. society. At the same time, there are adults who believe having sexual relations with children should not be viewed as a crime but merely as an alternative lifestyle.

For example, on August 17, the pedophile advocacy group B4U-ACT hosted a conference in Baltimore, Maryland. B4U-ACT was established in 2003 as a 501(c)(3) organization to publicly promote services and resources for self-identified individuals (adults and adolescents) who are sexually attracted to children and seek such assistance.

According to child advocates Matt Barber, Vice President of Liberty Counsel Action, and Dr. Judith Reisman, a visiting law professor at the Liberty University School of Law, about 50 people attended the conference including pedophiles and pederasts. The group even has a politically correct euphemism for these practitioners of deviant sex – Minor-Attracted Persons.

 

Jim Kouri, CPP, the fifth Vice President and Public Information Officer of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, has served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country. 

In Germany, Legal Street Prostitutes Feed a Meter - Work In Wooden Garages

What one generation allows, the next generation embraces. Calling them "sex workers" instantly strips away the truth, that many have been forced or coerced into prostitution, suffer severe abuse from pimps and traffickers and can not get away.  All sympathy and empathy is removed. It legitimizes the criminal users and owners with no hope of rescue for the victims who are now invisible except as revenue to the city as well as their pimps.

In Germany, Sex Workers Feed a Meter

By NICHOLAS KULISH
Published: September 1, 2011

New York Times

BERLIN ­ The city of Bonn has begun collecting taxes from prostitutes with an automated pay station similar to a parking meter, proving again that German efficiency knows few if any bounds. 

  
Oliver Berg/DPA, via Agence France-Presse ­ Getty Images

A ticket machine prints receipts for those who work the streets. 

Bonn is not the only city in Germany to charge such a tax, but it is the first to hit upon the idea of a ticket machine that prints out receipts for the nightly flat fee of 6 euros (currently about $8.65) for the privilege of streetwalking. The meter went into service over the weekend, and by Monday morning had collected $382 for the city’s coffers. 

Prostitution is legal in Germany; the Reeperbahn in Hamburg is one of the largest red-light districts in Europe. Attempts are often made to regulate the industry, unionize the workers and tax the proceeds, but they are not always effective, given both the discretion and the unpredictability that are inherent in the business. 

Street prostitution as practiced in Bonn, once the capital of West Germany and a town better known for sleepiness than sexiness, would be unfamiliar to many people outside Germany for its unusual degree of organization and institutionalization. 

The women wait for customers on a stretch of the Immenburgstrasse in a largely industrial part of the city. In addition to the Siemens-built meter machine, which cost $11,575 including installation, the city has built special wooden garages nearby where customers can park their cars and have sex. 

“They are called, in fairest and finest administrative High German, ‘performance areas,’ but I believe the Italian prime minister would say ‘bunga bunga,’ ” said Monika Frömbgen, a spokeswoman for the city. Still, she said, the serious issue that the meter was intended to address boils down to tax fairness. 

“The women in the bordellos and the sauna clubs also pay the tax, and so should those working on the streets,” Ms. Frömbgen said. 

The city estimates that it has 200 sex workers, of whom about 20 ply their trade on the street. The Bonn government spends $116,000 a year for a private security company to guard the area and to provide security for the sex workers. 

Under the new meter system, street prostitutes must purchase the tickets to work between the hours of 8:15 p.m. and 6 a.m. Leaflets explaining the system, translated into several languages, are handed out to the prostitutes. After one warning, a sex worker caught working without a ticket would be fined up to $145. 

Opinion was divided Wednesday on Bonn’s blocklong strip where the women cruise for customers. 

“The other night I worked all night but didn’t get any work, but I still had to pay it,” said a young woman from Hungary who gave her name only as Monica and said she thought the new system “stinks.” 

Vero, a middle-age woman who spoke Italian but no German, said the tax was “proper.” 

“It’s like rent, food or all the other things everybody has to pay for,” said the woman, who declined to give her last name. 

Franz-Reinhard Habbel, a spokesman for the German Association of Cities and Municipalities, said he expected other cities “to follow Bonn’s example.” The country’s 11,000 municipalities are struggling under a combined $11 billion in debt and are searching for new, “relatively simple” sources of income, he said. 

Advocates for sex workers say the tax is unfair because prostitutes in Germany already pay income taxes. But the meter itself is not an issue, said Mechthild Eickel, a spokeswoman for Germany’s Alliance of Counseling Centers for Sex Workers. “An automat is no worse than a person,” she said. 

Josh Ward contributed reporting from Bonn. 

 

Austria uncovers new human trafficking ring -180 rescued in one week

Outstanding work by the Austrian police!

Austria uncovers new human trafficking ring

54 mins ago

VIENNA - Austrian police stopped over 50 illegals from Afghanistan, India, Pakistan and Iraq, bringing to five the number of smuggling rings uncovered in just over a week, authorities said Wednesday.
A Hungarian driver was stopped on Tuesday during a routine border check as he tried to smuggle 18 Turkish Kurds and Iraqi refugees into Austria, police said.
In a separate case, police then picked up 35 illegals on Wednesday in Vienna, after being alerted by a passer-by who spotted the group. 
The refugees, who stemmed from India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, were accompanied by two Afghans, believed to be their smugglers. 
In Tuesday’s case, the refugees, including a pregnant woman and an eight-month-old baby, were discovered crammed in the windowless back of a small van without food or water. 
They were believed to have paid between €2,000 and €4,000 to be brought to either Germany, Austria or Switzerland. 
From Serbia, they crossed the border to Hungary on foot, before boarding the van for the onward trip, the police said. 
The driver has since been placed in custody while investigators were looking for possible accomplices. 
These latest cases bring to over 180 the number of illegals discovered by Austrian police in five smuggling attempts in just over a week. 
On August 23, 70 refugees from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan were found piled into two vans by 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit). 
On Monday, police then uncovered 30 Afghans, including children, hidden below the floorboards of a Greek tourist bus and among the passengers. 
The same day, 30 refugees from Somalia were picked up in eastern Burgenland province where their smugglers had abandoned them shortly after crossing the border from Hungary.
The sudden surge of cases urged Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner Wednesday to urge further cross-border cooperation in fighting smuggling. 
“The external (EU) borders are too permeable, the measures within the EU half-hearted,” she said.

All-women Team To Row UK to US 1800's Slave Transport Route

Atlantic challengers take on the traffickers

Kirsty Whalley
2 Sep 2011 

An all-women team will try to row the Atlantic in a world record bid to highlight human trafficking.

Julia Immonen and her Row For Freedom crew are competing in the Woodvale Challenge, covering 3,000 miles from the Canary Islands toBarbados in December.

They will follow the route used to transport slaves between Britain and theUS in the 1800s and will row 24 hours a day, two hours on and two hours off for about 40 days.

The six, aged 22 to 45, from the UK,Finland, south-east Asia and the US, met in London for the first time this week to start training on the Thames.

Ms Immonen and Debbie Beadle, both of London, Katie Pattison-Hart, Kate Richardson, Andrea Quigley and Helen Leigh aim to raise £1million for anti-trafficking charities A21 and ECPAT UK, and want the Government to provide safe houses and guardianship for child victims.

They are sponsored by ManPower group. The women will pass Parliament as they row through London on October 18, Anti-Slavery Day.

Ms Immonen, 31, fears women could be trafficked to London before the Olympics to work as prostitutes. She said: "Last year more than 700 victims were identified in the UK."

She added: "The record for women rowing the Atlantic is 52 days. We want to do it in under 40."

For more info and to follow these amazing women go to:Row For Freedom

 

The Power of 1 Child - American Abolitionist at 10 Going Strong At 14

Brentwood teen, African child rescuer share message of hope By Judith Prieve Contra Costa Times Updated: 08/31/2011 05:42:58 PM PDT It might take an outboard motor, a bucket of fish fingerlings or even 50-pound sack of salt. It could take a day, several months or even years to convince a fisherman to release an enslaved child in Ghana, but 14-year-old Tyler Page of Brentwood is determined to do whatever it takes to make that happen. The Heritage High freshman first learned of the Ghanaian children's plight four years ago while watching "The Oprah Winfrey Show." He went on, at 10 years old, to form a nonprofit to raise money to help end the human trafficking and exploitation, which continues despite Ghanaian legislation that has made it illegal. Now, with the help of his mother, Laura, and a visiting African social worker, Eric Peasah, who first inspired him with his story on a TV talk show, Tyler is speaking to groups to raise awareness and making plans so he and a small entourage of friends can learn firsthand about the Ghanaian children's struggles. "I thought it would be just one car wash and we would raise $50 and we would be done, but it just kept going," Tyler said of his first fundraiser to help the trafficked children. "It's the greatest job in the world to empower kids to try to impact someone's life, to try to do their best to help someone in the community." The Pages and Peasah this week launched The Five Campaign, an effort to get as many as 1 million people to donate $5 monthly to help rescue and help sustain the untold number of children toiling away in the murky waters of the largest man-made lake in the world.  Laura Page called the donation "a small number with a big impact," noting it takes $4,300 to rescue, rehabilitate and reintegrate an enslaved child but only $240 a year to sustain a rescued child with enough for school tuition, supplies and medical care. Peasah to date has rescued 651 Ghanaian children, some as young as 4, who were sold for as little as $20 to work as slaves in the fishing industry there. Some are sold because their parents cannot afford to feed them; others to pay for simple necessities such as a parent's coffin. With small, nimble fingers ideal for untangling nets below the water, the children have been forced to work 12 to 16 hours a day, living in fear of an attack by crocodiles or electric eels, drowning in the chilly waters or being beaten by their masters. Though others have rallied to raise money to free the enslaved children of Lake Volta, Peasah said he chose to visit Tyler, whom he has befriended, because his Kids Helping Kids nonprofit is unique. No one as young as Tyler has ever done what he's done to help the enslaved children, not to mention other disadvantaged children in his community and beyond, Peasah said. "I'm really touched; he touched my heart," Peasah said of Tyler and his philanthropic efforts. "He's really reaching out to others and making his world a better place ... You want to come to give (Kids Helping Kids) new energy, to motivate them to go on." The African social worker, who was wrapping up his fifth trip to Contra Costa County this week, spoke about the plight of the lake children at eight gatherings in 10 days from Brentwood to Walnut Creek, and to a group of doctors in Oakland, whom he hoped to convince to visit Ghana. Tyler was only able to accompany him on one of those recent talks because of school and sports obligations. Heritage freshman football coach Doug Sanders, however, let him leave practice early last week to speak at an event with Peasah, because, he said, in his 17 years of coaching, he has never known a child who started his own nonprofit. Although Tyler's mother, Laura, admits it is much harder now that her son is in high school, she said he still finds time to speak at public functions -- several engagements are lined up this fall in Washington, Los Angeles and Georgia -- and to help with Kids Helping Kids' fundraisers. "It's definitely time-consuming but worth it in the end," Tyler said. "The fact that they only get one meal a day and are often beaten by their masters but keep on going and never lose hope -- if they can go that long without comfort, I can do something to raise money to help them." Through carwashes, lemonade and root beer float stands, cookie sales and more, Kids Helping Kids has sent $50,000 to an intergovernmental organization that rescues child slaves in Ghana and raised another $100,000 for other children in need in the community. Kids Helping Kids now sends its Ghana donations to Peasah's newly formed Right to Be Free nonprofit, which he says he formed to help all children in need, not just those who are enslaved. "I want to reach out to more children who aren't being trafficked but still need help, like the son of the fisherman who was left behind but still works like a slave," he said. Kids Helping Kids once sent more than 6,000 bags of candy to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan; has raised money for sick children and a local shelter; and founded a leadership academy that meets twice a month at REI in Brentwood. "I never imagined it would grow so much," Laura Page said. "You just take one thing every day to make it move forward, and it seems to go." Peasah called Tyler and his nonprofit a great example. "By the age of 10, Tyler can make a difference in someone's life ... My message to everyone is it's great to help the people of Ghana but also look into your own neighborhood for someone in need. If all of us make an attempt to reach out to others, it'll be a better world." The Pages' next big challenge will be to raise money and collect enough donations for a planned two-week rescue mission to Ghana's Lake Volta during Tyler's spring break. While there, they will help negotiate the release of child workers, build a new playground, and bring soccer balls, toys and clothes to the children who eventually will be reunited with family members. Though a rescue mission could be considered dangerous -- Peasah has been met with machetes before -- the African humanitarian says foreigners are welcomed with open arms. He also says his organization does extensive research and outreach before venturing on a rescue, often meeting with members of a village for several months to identify the enslaved workers and masters and decide upon the correct approach. To convince a fisherman, Peasah might offer an outboard motor to several men to share so they don't need the small children's help, or sacks of salt to preserve their catch or buckets of tilapia fingerlings as seeds for a fishery. After gaining their trust and having them sign a "social contract" not to enslave children, the nonprofit will continue to educate them about alternative livelihoods. "My philosophy is to not just give them something but to teach them principles, how to manage their finances, business skills," he said. For Tyler, who has long dreamed of visiting Ghana, the reasons to go on a mission are more simple. "We're going to build a center of hope and do this fun stuff for the kids who are rescued so they know someone is watching over them," Tyler said. "My mom decided it was time to go. We need to expand our minds, see with our own eyes and love on the kids."

 

Sex Trafficking Trial Collapses - Victim Recognises Defence Lawyer As Client

A whole new take on "The only way not to find Human Trafficking is not to look for it".

Massage parlour sex trafficking trial collapses... as masseuse recognises married defence lawyer as client

By PAUL BENTLEY

Last updated at 6:41 PM on 31st August 2011

A sex trafficking case has collapsed in astonishing circumstances after a masseuse who was called to the stand pointed out the defence lawyer as one of her clients.

Ukrainian immigrant Liudmyla Ksenych had been summoned to court in Chicago as one of the women said to have been forced by a pimp to provide sexual favours to clients and then hand over thousands of dollars to their boss to avoid deportation.

But as she left the witness stand last week, she told prosecutors that she recognised the lawyer representing pimp Alex 'Daddy' Campbell - because the married man was one of her regulars.

Apologetic: Mr Rathe said sorry but insisted he didn't have sex with the woman

After the allegation came to light, Douglas Rathe, who is a former assistant state attorney, confessed to the judge that he had visited Miss Ksenych four times in 2009.

He said he didn't recognise her name before she arrived at court because she used a pseudonym when she worked in the parlour.

While he told U.S. District Court Judge Robert Gettleman that the pair had exchanged emails and he had even given her a bottle of perfume as a gift, he insisted 'nothing inappropriate' had occurred.

 'It was a massage - that was all it was,' Mr Rathe later told the Chicago Sun-Times. 'What happened was embarrassing - there was no doubt about it. [But] I did nothing illegal or nothing that was considered improper. This was a very unusual circumstance.'

He added: 'I apparently used very poor judgement in even going to this place, but I did nothing inappropriate. I apologise to Mr. Campbell. … I got too friendly with [Ksenych]… in the sense that I liked her a lot… And I gave her a bottle of perfume. Stupid thing to do when you are married, but I did it.'

Mr Rathe insisted he did not know Mr 'Daddy' Campbell before the case.

Mr Campbell was on trial accused of forcing immigrant women to take jobs at his massage parlours before confiscating their passports, locking them in apartments and coercing them into handing over their money.

An accomplice of his has already pleaded guilty to the same charges.

Suburban: Alex 'Daddy' Campbell ran the Day and Night Spa in Mount Prospect

Authorities said part of the evidence against him is a 'pimp bible' in which he had written detailed accounts about how to force women into sex trafficking.

Miss Ksenych is said to be an illegal immigrant who came to America from the Ukraine five years ago with a bachelor's degree in law.

The prosecutors and the judge initially decided the trial could continue, with the state offering to withdraw Miss Ksenych as a witness.

But Mr Campbell filed for a mistrial arguing that he could no longer trust his lawyer to do his job and would require a new court-appointed attorney.

'I have to reluctantly conclude that the relationship is irreparable and, therefore, we have to start again,' Judge Gettleman said.

He added that he did this with 'great compassion for the witnesses… besides the cost and everything else and disruption. I think we have no choice in this sad matter.'

The trial has now been rescheduled for January.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2032158/Massage-parlour-sex-trafficking-trial-collapses--As-masseuse-recognises-defence-lawyer-client.html#ixzz1WjC6QTKl

 

Betrayal - U.S. Breach Of Faith Undermines Trust

I could easily picture this terrible scenario in any number of countries but am shocked and outraged to find it occuring here.  Ten years of  repeatedly refusing to assist persons placed in danger through a deal on our behalf and then abandoned.  

One of the essential strategies we have to fight human trafficking is protecting victims trafficked into the U.S. while they testify against their traffickers.  We need that help to break the syndicates and rings controlling the trade. We have special T and U visas to protect them and their families, especially those in clear danger.  Betraying that trust is villainous.  I can only hope there is more to the story than stated here.  This could throttle the life out of many victims trust in the system to protect them.

U.S. breach of faith undermines trust

By Editorial, Tuesday, August 30, 8:38 PM

EDMOND DEMIRAJ, an Albanian national, agreed in 2001 to serve as a material witness in the prosecution of an alleged Albanian mobster suspected of conducting human trafficking operations from U.S. soil. Mr. Demiraj was in the country illegally and says that federal prosecutors promised to protect him and his family and pave the way for a green card in exchange for his testimony.

The U.S. government’s actions ever since, including by the Obama administration recently, have been immoral, self-defeating and potentially tragic in their consequencesU.S. assurances evaporated when the suspect, Asqeri “Bill” Bedini, fled to his native Albania after being released on bail. The government abandoned Mr. Demiraj and deported him to Albania, where he says he was beaten, shot and left for dead by Mr. Bedini.

Mr. Demiraj survived, but Albanian police refused to move against Mr. Bedini. Mr. Demiraj found his way back to the United States. This time the government agreed not to deport him.

But the administration continues to try to remove Mr. Demiraj’s wife and teenage son — both of whom are Albanian nationals — despite strong evidence that they could be brutalized if they return to Albania.

Over the past few years, Mr. Bedini is alleged to have been responsible for kidnapping three of Mr. Demiraj’s nieces and attempting to force them into prostitution. Mr. Demiraj’s father and brother have gone into hiding or have left the country.

Each of the nieces escaped and came to the United States, where they were granted asylum after arguing that they feared persecution in Albania because of their relationship to Mr. Demiraj. It is the same argument being made by Mr. Demiraj’s wife and son — and being strenuously and incomprehensibly opposed by the Justice Department.

The department argues that the two are not entitled to asylum or any other relief from the threat of deportation because they cannot prove that the potential harm they face is “on account of” their “membership in a particular social group” — in this case, the Demiraj family. “There is no evidence that Bedini sought out Mr. Demiraj and his brother and nieces merely because they were members of the same family,” the Justice Department argued in a 2010 brief. “The record instead shows that the conflict stemmed purely from Bedini’s desire to retaliate against Mr. Demiraj for his agreement to provide incriminating testimony in Bedini’s trial in the United States. It is well-settled that aliens fleeing personal disputes do not qualify for asylum.” A split panel of the New Orleans-based federal appeals court inexplicably agreed with the administration in an opinion that differs with decisions from four other courts of appeals that have considered the issue. Mr. Demiraj has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court; the Justice Department has at least twice asked for more time to respond.

The Justice Department and the court of appeals disingenuously skirt the most relevant factor: The “personal dispute” would not exist but for Mr. Demiraj’s cooperation with the U.S. government. That alone should be reason enough for the administration to use its considerable latitude in immigration matters to grant the family’s request. The administration should also provide security for the family, which makes its home in Texas and has been threatened by Bedini associates in the United States. On Monday, Mr. Demiraj’s lawyers again begged the administration for help, saying they were “truly and vitally fearful” for the family’s safety.

In response to our questions, the administration failed to offer any cogent explanation of its behavior in this case. Late Tuesday, the Justice Department issued a two-sentence statement saying that it was “unaware of any promises of physical protection ever made to Mr. Demiraj or his family” but that it is “in active discussions” with lawyers for the Demiraj family.

We hope those discussions lead to a change of heart. Who in his right mind would risk his life and those of his relatives to assist a government that fails to offer assistance in return?

 

Better late than - Boston Pushes For Human Trafficking Law

Massachusetts, a center of resistance to tyranny and cradle of Liberty is one of only four U.S. States  without laws to prosecute labor and sexual servitude. It ranked with eight other states – Alaska, Colorado, Montana, South Carolina, South Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming – as having the lowest rating based on the lack of state laws critical to comprehensive anti-trafficking legal framework.

There are many within the state fighting to change those shameful statisitcs.  It's time for the Massachusetts Legislature to review it's history and pay attention.  That terrible rumble isn't an earthquake, it's the Founding Fathers/Citizens spinning in their graves.

Quincy Sex Slave Case Factor In Push For Human Trafficking Law

The Patriot Ledger

Posted Aug 29, 2011 @ 02:08 PM

Last update Aug 29, 2011 @ 02:54 PM

BOSTON - Attorney General Martha Coakley is highlighting Massachusetts’ poor rating by an anti-human trafficking group which has criticized the state for being one of only four in the country without laws to prosecute labor and sexual servitude.

The Polaris Project ranked states based on the presence or absence of 10 categories of state laws that it believes are critical to a comprehensive anti-trafficking legal framework.

Massachusetts and eight other states – Alaska, Colorado, Montana, South Carolina, South Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming – received the lowest rating.

“This report highlights the fact that Massachusetts is well behind the rest of the nation in our laws to combat human trafficking. The passage of a human trafficking law would give us the tools to go after those who are exploiting children and other victims right in our own communities,” Coakley said in a statement released Monday.

Coakley, Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrissey of Quincy and other prosecutors are pushing for passage of a bill that would make human trafficking a crime in Massachusetts and create harsher penalties for pimps who sell adults and adolescents for labor and sex.

The House unanimously approved the bill in June and it is now in the state Senate.

Human trafficking hit home in May when a 28-year-old Boston man was charged with kidnapping a 15-year-old girl at an MBTA stop and forcing her to have sex with men at motel rooms, including the Best Western Adams Inn in Quincy.

Norman Barnes is still being held without bail and is due back in Quincy District Court on Sept. 6. Norfolk County prosecutors charged him with kidnapping and child enticement, which carry maximum penalties of 10 and five years, respectively. Those charges are the best tools currently available in Massachusetts in human-trafficking cases, prosecutors say.

Victim advocates said the bill at the State House would fix an “upside down” system in which victims of the crime are viewed as delinquents or prostitutes who are subject to penalties themselves.

A “safe harbor” provision in the bill would remove from the juvenile justice system anyone 18 or younger involved in commercial sexual exploitation and offer the same support services extended to child abuse victims.

“What can happen now is there isn’t clear communication, so kids fall through the cracks. They are seen as delinquent or invisible,” Lisa Goldblatt Grace, program director for My Life, My Choice, a nonprofit that provides services to adolescent girls involved in sexual exploitation in the Boston area and as far south as Plymouth, said earlier this summer.

Read More On This Subject

Vive la Revolution - California Law On Supply Chain Transparency

This law has exponential potential as a very effective tool in fighting child and adult slave labor. It can be applied to myriad types of manufacturing and service businesses.

California is often ridiculed for maverick laws and "stand alone" stances on human rights issues.  This law when enforced, is revolutionary.  It squarely confronts the huge Goliath of slavery and hits him where it hurts.  If a slave does not generate profit, why acquire him?

This is a model law that needs to be adopted by all 50 states. The ripple effect will inevitably spread worldwide through our trade. Something worth getting excited about.  Let's finish this.

Spotlight on...California law on supply chain transparency

Author: Leonie Barrie | 30 August 2011

Apparel retailers and brands are already closely scrutinised on corporate social responsibility issues across their supply chains - but a new law coming into force in January adds another dimension to the accountability of large retailers and manufacturers trading with the US state of California. 

In just five months time, on 1 January 2012, the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act will go into effect. This will require large retailers and manufacturers doing business in the US state to disclose their efforts to eradicate slavery and human trafficking from their product supply chains.

Companies impacted by the legislation will include apparel and footwear retailers and manufacturers with annual worldwide gross receipts of more than US$100m - who must make the required disclosures on the home page of their corporate websites.

An estimated 3,200 companies worldwide will be affected by the new law, which must address five areas: third-party supply chain verification, independent and unannounced supplier audits, supplier certification of legal compliance, internal accountability standards, and staff training on forced labour and human trafficking.

"The California law will have a wide reach," trade expert Brenda Jacobs, an attorney at Sidley Austin LLP, tells just-style.

The state advertises itself as the tenth largest economy in the world - so as well as the 3,200 retailers and manufacturers who will be required to post or link the disclosure, the reach into the consumer goods supply chain will be very significant.  
"That is because retailers will be seeking from their suppliers further and specific assurances with respect to slavery and human trafficking, including certifications, as well as the right to verify those assurances and certifications so that they can truthfully state that yes, they take each of the steps about which disclosure is required," Jacobs explains. 

As a result, the new law has a cascading effect that goes far beyond California, to the global supply chain.

"This is not just about writing a statement for a website; it is also about re-writing contracts between buyers and vendors to impose greater responsibilities on the supply chain and possibly more unannounced inspections, including perhaps more work for third party inspectors," Jacobs adds.

Five points of disclosure
The California Transparency in Supply Chains Act requires each covered company to disclose, at a minimum, whether and to what extent it does five things:

• Engages in verification of product supply chains to evaluate and address the risks of slavery and human trafficking - and if so, whether any verification is conducted by a third party; 
• Conducts audits of suppliers to evaluate their compliance with the company's standards regarding slavery and human trafficking - and if so, whether those audits are independent and unannounced;
• Requires direct suppliers to certify that the materials incorporated into the product comply with the laws regarding slavery and human trafficking in the country or countries in which they do business;
• Maintains internal accountability standards and procedures for employees or contractors or suppliers that fail to meet company standards with respect to slavery and human trafficking; and
• Provides training on slavery and human trafficking for employees and management who have direct responsibility for supply chain management, and training on mitigating the risks within the supply chain.

While many companies will already doing this, the new law puts them under even greater pressure to document it.

And given the length and depth of the apparel supply chain, companies who are subject to the California law should already be working on what the statements or links on their websites will say - and ensuring that agreements with suppliers are consistent with those planned statements.  

Jacobs notes that the only "punishment" for failing to post a statement online is an injunction by the California attorney general compelling a company to make the disclosure.

"But the public relations consequences are what is really at issue here," she adds. "No company wants to post or link a disclosure that says it is not addressing the possibility of slavery and human trafficking in its supply chain.

"Nor does any company want to publicly say it is doing something if that statement can be contradicted."     

It's also fair to assume that NGOs will be closely monitoring websites/links and publicising the fact that some companies disclose what steps they are not taking or that they are not using third party validators. 

 

CAMBODIA-THAILAND: Men Trafficked Into Slavery At Sea

They're out there. Under-reported, literally slipping under the radar, both media and real in the vastness of the world's oceans. Men trafficked from Northern countries and climes for cold-water fishing (Eastern and Northern Europe, Russia) and the same tactics for Southern waters (Asia, South America, Africa). This article is one of the very few published addressing even a portion the topic.

As other forms of trafficking become recognized and acknowledged, these men desperately need to be.  We can't leave them out there, truly trapped and disposable in a particularly well hidden form of slavery. It carries a stigma attached unique to men.  

CAMBODIA-THAILAND: Men trafficked into "slavery" at sea

Photo: David Swanson/IRIN

More Cambodian men than women are trafficked

PHNOM PENH, 29 August 2011 (IRIN) - Taing Ky* and his cousin were told they would be gardeners in Thailand, but instead they were forced to work on Thai fishing boats. 

Each year, hundreds of Cambodian men, many impoverished farmers, are lured from their homes with the promise of better-paying jobs in Thailand, only to find themselves on Thai fishing boats plying the waters of the South China Sea. 

"We were told we would earn good money," Taing Ky, 37, a father-of-five from Cambodia's Kampot Province, about 200km southwest of Phnom Penh, told IRIN. After six months, they managed to escape while the boat was offloading on Benjina island in northern Indonesia. There they were picked up by local authorities. 

Thousands of Cambodian men are now believed to be working against their will in exploitative working conditions on long-haul trawlers well beyond the reach of law enforcement agencies, and often alongside Burmese men. 

"It's slavery. There's no other way to describe it," Lim Tith, national project coordinator for the UN Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking (UNIAP), told IRIN. 

Thousands exploited 

According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), about 125,000 Cambodians are registered as working legally in Thailand, including more than 25,000 in the fishing sector. 

But with formal migration costs becoming prohibitive and limited economic opportunities for Cambodians at home, it is widely believed the number of undocumented Cambodians in Thailand is significantly higher; many are trafficked. 

Of the 89,096 Cambodians deported from Thailand in 2009 for illegal migration, more than 20,000 (23 percent) were reportedly trafficked, according to a 2010 UNIAP Human Trafficking Sentinel Surveillance. 

And while about 31 percent of Cambodian fishermen deported from Thailand reported being trafficked, those on fishing boats far from Thai shores for up to a year at a time are more difficult to track and regularly drop off the radar. 

"This is a big problem, but the cases we actually receive are really just the tip of the iceberg," said Lim Tith. "The true number of men being trafficked in this manner is much higher." 

In addition, the problem appears to be shifting from Malaysia to Indonesian waters, where more and more men are now being reported, 25 this year alone, he said. 

Traumatized 

Those lucky enough to escape report 20-hour work days, food deprivation, regular beatings and threats at the hands of the crew, many of whom are armed. 

"The captain had a gun. We had no choice but to work," said one survivor. 

So bad are conditions that those deemed expendable are tossed overboard. 

"Many of these men have been badly traumatized by what's happened to them," Mom Sok Char, programme manager for Legal Support for Children and Women (LSCW), a local NGO and one of the first to monitor the trafficking of men, explained. "After months of forced labour, that's understandable." 

Culturally, most men do not seek psychological support, he said, making follow-up and adjustment back into the community particularly difficult. 

"More and more men are falling victim and this is a genuine concern of the Cambodian government," San Arun, chairwoman of the Cambodian Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative Against Trafficking (COMMIT) taskforce, agreed. "It's not just women and children any more," she said, calling for greater regional cooperation on trafficking. 

Thai action urged 

Earlier this month, the UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Joy Ngozi Ezeilo, called on the Thai government to "do more to combat human trafficking effectively and protect the rights of migrant workers who are increasingly vulnerable to forced and exploitative labour. 

"Thailand faces significant challenges as a source, transit and destination country," said the UN expert at the end of her 12-day mission to the country. 

"The trend of trafficking for forced labour is growing in scale in the agricultural, construction and fishing industries," she said. 

While commending the Thai government with the enactment of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2008, she warned that the implementation and enforcement of the law remained "weak and fragmented", often hampered by corruption, especially among low-cadre law enforcement officers at provincial and local levels. 

"Thailand must do more to combat human trafficking effectively," Ezeilo concluded. 

Thai authorities say there is little they can do about the trafficked Cambodians working on Thai fishing boats, particularly when the alleged crimes occurred outside Thai waters, if they do not report it. 

According to UNIAP, most of the deportees who were exploited choose not to report their cases due to fear of their broker, employer, or the police; a lack of understanding of their rights; and/or inability to speak Thai. 

*not his real name 

ds/mw 

 

B.C., Canada - Charged Trafficker Faces 3M Home Seizure

Take the house.  I'd say that sounds like an accurate description of a house slave (from any century), wouldn't you? If you don't think so, picture yourself or a loved one living in the same circumstances.

$3M home faces seizure

 Property owner accused of human trafficking

 

BY MANISHA KRISHNAN, NORTH SHORE NEWS

 AUGUST 28, 2011

 

 THE home of a West Vancouver woman who has been charged with human trafficking may soon be the property of the B.C. government, if the Supreme Court approves a forfeiture claim filed earlier this week.

The province's director of civil forfeiture filed the claim on the grounds that the $3.1-million house on Bramwell Road belonging to Mumtaz Ladha was "an instrument of unlawful activity."

According to the statement of facts attached to the application, Ladha originally hired the victim of the alleged trafficking at her family home and salon in Tanzania. In early 2008, she promised the woman a job at a salon in Canada for a $200 monthly income, said investigators.

But the woman told police that upon her arrival in August of that year, she was made to work 18 to 22 hours per day cooking, cleaning, landscaping, washing vehicles, providing daily massages and washing undergarments by hand.

Police also noted that the servant's initial application for a visitor visa failed, and that her second one was only approved because Ladha provided a doctor's note, which stated she needed assistance for a health condition.

The alleged victim later told police Ladha was in fact "in perfect health."

Based on that evidence, the province is seeking part or all of Ladha's property. If approved, money from the sale of the home will go into a "special account that fully funds the activities of the civil forfeiture office," according to the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General.

For civil forfeiture claims to be approved, evidence must meet the civil standard of proof - a balance of probabilities - as opposed to the higher criminal standard, beyond reasonable doubt. It's a point that the B.C. Civil Liberties Association takes issue with.

"The concern we have is one of what we call 'due process' and the kinds of protections you have in the criminal process are incredibly important," said Micheal Vonn, policy director for the BCCLA.

"This is essentially a trick to get around it."

Often, the property seized only has a tenuous connection to the offence, she added, citing Ladha's case as an example.

"What does this have to do with the house except for that's where they were? It's not like this person was exploited, ergo this person was allowed to acquire the house," she said.

While some proceeds are said to support victims of crime, Vonn would like to see more transparency.

According to the ministry, $250,000 of forfeiture money was used to help fund the province's domestic violence action plan this year.

[email protected]

© Copyright (c) North Shore News

Read more:http://www.nsnews.com/news/home+faces+seizure/5319292/story.html#ixzz1WL5ZTdkR

 

Swedish Police Searching For Additional Paedophile Victims

Swedish police launch paedophile victim appeal

Published: 25 Aug 11 11:58 CET | 

A 41-year-old suspected paedophile currently in custody may have had contact dozens more children via internet chat sites, warn Swedish police, who have appealed to the public for help in identifying potential victims.

The man has been in custody since April for five suspected counts of sexually assaulting a child, four counts of paying for child sex, and 13 counts of sexual molestation.

Police believe he has been active for years and, having combed through files on the man's computer, believe he has used a number of aliases on different internet chat forums and social media websites such as MSN, Facebook, snyggast.se, and kamrat.se.

“Aside from one case, the girls haven't filed the reports themselves, but have been found through his computer,” prosecutor Markus Hellsten said at a press conference on Thursday.

Based on the material found on the 41-year-old's computer, police have been able to identify 14 young girls, but have yet to confirm the identity of an additional 35 victims.

With few exceptions, the victims are young girls, aged 7 to 18-years-old.

Investigators now hope to get in touch with more victims by sending emails to addresses found in chats where the 41-year-old has been an active participant.

So far, investigators have identified 800 addresses in the man's computer.

In consultation with child and youth psychiatrists, police plan to get in touch with suspected victims, provide information about the man, and request they contact police.

Children and their families have been urged to contact police if they suspect they may have been contacted by the man.

“Though a few interviews we've realised that this is a hard subject for children to talk about,” said Hellsten.

The 41-year-old, who resides in the Stockholm area, has previously been convicted of assault and molestation. He is also suspected in several rapes and for child grooming.

 

TT/The Local/dl ([email protected])

 

Nine States Lag In Laws To Stop Human Trafficking

Polaris Project is a leading organization in the United States combating all forms of human trafficking and serving both U.S. citizens and foreign national victims, including men, women, and children. They strive for systemic change by advocating for stronger federal and state laws, operating the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline 1.888.3737.888, and providing services to help clients and all victims of human trafficking.

Polaris Project

  

Nine States Lag In Laws To Stop Human Trafficking

By Chuck Neubauer

The Washington Times

Thursday, August 25, 2011

A Washington-based group that advocates stronger laws against human trafficking says nine states are lagging in passing laws to combat the growing crime.

The Polaris Project said in a report Thursday that the nine states have either failed to enact basic human-trafficking provisions or the provisions they have adopted are inadequate to address the problem. Polaris called the states the “Nine Lagging Behind.”

The organization, which also helps trafficking victims by running a national hot line and providing social services, annually rates the 50 states on whether or not they have adopted 10 categories of laws it thinks are critical for the states to stop trafficking.

“Every day we are identifying an alarming number of victims from every state through the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hot line,” said Mary Ellison, director of policy at the Polaris Project. “Continuing to improve the legal framework at the state level by enacting critically important statutes will literally save lives.”

The Polaris Project gave its lowest rankings to Massachusetts, West Virginia and Wyoming, saying the states had failed to enact any laws against human trafficking.

“These three states have no human trafficking laws,” said James Dold, policy counsel for Polaris. He said the Massachusetts legislature has been considering an anti-trafficking bill.

The remaining six states that Polaris singled out for criticism were Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Montana, South Carolina and South Dakota. The Polaris report said those states only met two or fewer of the 10 categories of statutes that the group recommends.

Polaris also named four states, including Virginia, it said had improved their ratings from last year. The others were Vermont, Hawaii and Ohio.

Ms. Ellison said that, overall, the states have made progress but she and Mr. Dold both said more needs to be done.

“Ten years after the passage of the federal anti-trafficking law, forty-five states, including D.C., now have sex-trafficking criminal statutes, and forty-eight states have labor trafficking criminal statutes” she said.

Mr. Dold said that in addition to passing criminal statutes, the states need to focus on enacting legislation that provides “victim assistance and services.”

Sex trafficking involves forcing another person to engage in a commercial sex act while labor trafficking involves forcing another person to provide labor or services.

Human trafficking is a $32 billion-a-year industry worldwide and an estimated 100,000 U.S. children are exploited in the commercial sex industry annually, according to the Polaris Project.

© Copyright 2011 The Washington Times, LLC.

 

Mira Sorvino On Human Trafficking Laws

Academy Award winning actress, humanitarian and UNODC Goodwill Ambassador Mira Sorvino was awarded the Global Advocate of the Year Award for her support in highlighting the plight of victims of human trafficking by the United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA), the UN's press corps in New York. While this report is not indepth, this woman is no lightweight, celebrity-endorsement-flavor-o-the month  She's in the fight, don't underestimate her.

Mira Sorvino weighs in on human trafficking laws

 

Related Links

• Polaris Project
• Oklahomans Against Child Trafficking
• Stop Child Trafficking Now run info

•  By: Marla Carter

We've seen it on the big screen, in movies and television shows, but for many the world of human trafficking seems like just that, a movie based on reality but not a real problem.

Actress Mira Sorvino plays the lead role in the film "Human Trafficking," but it's what she learned behind the scenes that proved to her human trafficking isn't played up for the movie, it's actually a frightening reality.

"I thought slavery was dead. I thought Lincoln freed the slaves," said Mira Sorvino, an award-winning actress and advocate.

Fighting trafficking has become a passion of Sorvino's. She's a U.S. ambassador for the issue. We caught up with her at a conference in San Antonio where she lobbied lawmakers from across the country to toughen trafficking laws in their states.

"It's on the state and local level that this crime is fought, and without those statues on the books local police forces don't have the mandates to fight this crime," said Sorvino.

What's especially concerning is that Oklahoma's highway system makes us at the center of it all. It's estimated there are up to 300,000 human trafficking victims in the U.S., but it could be much worse.

"We really don't have statistics. Mainly because these people are in the shadows. It's hard to identify them," said Representative Pam Peterson, R-Oklahoma.

But training so the victims can be identified is a must for Sorvino.

"A course on human trafficking that should be for medical personnel, airline personnel who are there when people fly people into the country all the time, bus stations, train stations," said Sorvino.

Peterson worked on legislation to post fliers educating people on how to spot victims, but she says it didn't get far in Oklahoma. Sorvino wants people to realize that human trafficking isn't just a movie. It's playing out as a real-life horror story for so many, and she wants states to act now.

"They're kids, and we have to treasure them and celebrate them and protect them to the fullest extent of our capacity everywhere, and it starts with us today, here in the United States now. It has to happen now," said Sorvino.

Read more: http://www.kjrh.com/dpp/news/local_news/mira-sorvino-weighs-in-on-human-trafficking-laws#ixzz1W9xXSmt9

 

Vietnam Struggles: Religious Freedom, Censorship & Increased Human Trafficking

Troubled Vietnam, a Tier 2 Watch list country on the US TIP Report (see below), still suffers 40 years later from crime syndicates, censorship, lack of even basic religious and politicalfreedoms and the ostracism of it's mixed-American blooded peoples.  The women and children trafficked out of the country for sex work are often at the very bottom of what seems a bottomless caste system.

NEW WIKILEAKS: Vietnam Struggles With Religious Freedom, Censorship And Increased Human Trafficking

Vivian Giang | Aug. 25, 2011, 11:48 AM | 48 | 

Image: wikipedia commons

Almost four decades since the Vietnam War, the country continues to struggle with religious freedom, censorship and human trafficking, according to nearly 3,000 WikiLeaks cables released August 25 from Hanoi Embassy.

 A cable from 2010 reveals that human trafficking has increased in the country by 5.3% this year with an estimated 60% of victims ending up in China.

In a January 2010 meeting, a Vietnamese official stated that there were more than 4,000 human trafficking victims reported in the past five years.

Cables also revealed:

• Prominent political writer, Tran Khai Thanh Thuy, said her arrest in October 2009 was "arranged" when she was convicted of throwing bricks and sticks at two men. Thuy argued she acted to defend her husband "who was under attack" by the men. The writer was a recipient of Human Rights Watch's Hellman/Hammett Award in 2007.
• Suspicions that the country blocked its only non-GVN managed news service -- BBC Vietnamese.
• Vietnamese officials in Hanoi and Central Highlands forced monks and nuns living in Plum Village to evacuate their current homes to seek residence at local Vietnamese Buddhist Sangha in 2009. A chief abbott said he felt he had "no choice" but to sign with "pressure from police, local authorities and an angry mob."
• "Con Lai Mi," or "Mixed Blood Americans" are finally being accepted within their own culture after being ostracized for many years after the War. Many were forced to relocate to "New Economic Zones," living under harsh conditions.  
• Canadian Ambassador said they would offer Father Nguyen Van Ly a home in Canada if GVN released him. The religious man has spent about 17 years in and out of prison for publicly criticizing the government. Ly was returned to prison in July 2011 after a year-long medical leave causing great concerns among many U.S. Congress members.

More on trafficking in Vietnam from the 2011 U.S. State Department Trafficking In Persons Report :

VIETNAM (Tier 2 Watch List)

Vietnam is a source and, to a lesser extent, a destination country for men, women, and children subjected to sex trafficking and conditions of forced labor. Vietnam is a source country for men and women who migrate abroad for work through predominantly state-affiliated and private labor export companies in the construction, fishing, agriculture, mining, logging, and manufacturing sectors, primarily in Taiwan, Malaysia, South Korea, Laos, the United Arab Emirates, and Japan, as well as in China, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Indonesia, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Sweden, Trinidad and Tobago, Costa Rica, Russia, and elsewhere in the Middle East, and some of these workers subsequently face conditions of forced labor. Vietnamese women and children subjected to forced prostitution throughout Asia are often misled by fraudulent labor opportunities and sold to brothels on the borders of Cambodia, China, and Laos, with some eventually sent to third countries, including Thailand and Malaysia. Some Vietnamese women are forced into prostitution in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and in Europe.

Vietnam’s labor export companies, most of which are affiliated with the state, as well as unlicensed middlemen brokers, may charge workers in excess of the fees allowed by law, sometimes as much as $10,000, for the opportunity to work abroad. This forces them to incur some of the highest debts among Asian expatriate workers, making them highly vulnerable to debt bondage and forced labor. Upon arrival in destination countries, some workers find themselves compelled to work in substandard conditions for little or no pay despite large debts and no credible avenues of legal recourse. Some of Vietnam’s recruitment companies reportedly did not allow workers to read their contracts until the day before they were scheduled to depart the country, after the workers had already paid significant recruitment fees, often incurring debt. Some workers even reported signing contracts in languages they could not read. There also have been documented cases of recruitment companies being unresponsive to workers’ requests for assistance in situations of exploitation.

Vietnamese and Chinese organized crime groups are involved in the forced labor of Vietnamese children on cannabis farms in the United Kingdom, where they were subject to debts of up to $32,000. According to a UK government report released during the year, many of these Vietnamese victims flew with an agent to Russia, transported via trucks through the Ukraine, Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany, France, and then to the UK. During the year, 15 Vietnamese men who were victims of forced labor on a Taiwan-owned fishing vessel were freed in Costa Rica, and Vietnamese women in Thailand were reportedly forced to be surrogate birth mothers for foreigners. There are also reports of some Vietnamese children trafficked within the country as well as abroad for forced labor. In both sex trafficking and labor trafficking, debt bondage, confiscation of identity and travel documents, and threats of deportation are commonly utilized to intimidate victims. Some Vietnamese women moving to China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and increasingly to South Korea as part of internationally brokered marriages are subsequently subjected to conditions of forced labor (including as domestic servants), forced prostitution, or both. There are reports of trafficking of Vietnamese, particularly women and girls, from poor, rural provinces to urban areas, including Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and newly developed urban zones, such as Binh Duong. While some individuals migrate willingly, they may be subsequently sold into forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation. Vietnamese children from rural areas are subjected to commercial sexual exploitation. Children also are subjected to forced street hawking and forced begging in the major urban centers of Vietnam, though some sources report the problem is less severe than in years past. Some Vietnamese children are victims of forced and bonded labor in urban family-run house factories and gold mines. There continued to be evidence of forced labor in drug treatment centers in which drug offenders, sentenced administratively, are required to perform low-skilled labor, though this practice is reportedly declining. While the number of persons sent to such centers is approximately one-third of what it was three years ago, there are reports that individuals who failed to meet work quotas were punished through beatings and other physical abuse. Vietnam is a destination for child sex tourism with perpetrators reportedly coming from Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, Australia, Europe, and the United States, though the problem is not believed to be widespread.

 

 

 

ICE At Work: Ringleader Gets 30 Years For Teen Sex Trafficking

While there are no miraculous happy endings, ICE's victory in this case and the courts demand of restitution for the minors involved is indeed an encouraging example of progress in the prosecution of human trafficking cases.

Ringleader gets 30 years for teen sex trafficking at Mission bar; 3 others get prison

August 24, 2011 9:59 AM

Ildefonso Ortiz

The Monitor

A small, olive-skinned, raven-haired teenager sat motionless as she looked across the courtroom at a small man in shackles. He was the one who smuggled her and her two sisters into the U.S. with the promise of well-paid restaurant jobs.

Instead of working a dream job, they were forced to wear stilettos and revealing clothing as they sat and drank beer with various men — who would then grope them, and if they paid the right price, sleep with them. At the time, the three teenagers were 14, 15 and 17.

Tuesday afternoon, that raven-haired teen smiled and hugged her social worker as she heard federal Judge Randy Crane sentence that man to 30 years in prison.

Beleal Garcia Gonzalez, who was the ringleader of the sex trafficking group and the owner of Mission’s Bar El Paraiso, had all his assets in the U.S. seized. Crane also ordered the Mexican citizen to pay close to $230,000 in restitution to the three teens to cover unpaid wages and medical and psychological care. Additionally, Crane ordered Garcia to pay $157 a day to each teen from now until her 21^st birthday.

Garcia was convicted last September on three counts of sex trafficking, one count of conspiracy and six counts of harboring illegal immigrants. The girls were rescued in January 2010 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, who noticed the girls walking home from the bar on Bentsen Palm Drive south of 5 Mile Line in miniskirts and high heels — on a cold, rainy morning.

Also sentenced in the hearing were three other employees of the bar:

>> Enrique Sarmiento of El Salvador, described as Garcia’s right-hand man, was sentenced to seven years in prison after the judge granted a sealed motion by the prosecution even though he was initially eligible to a much steeper sentence. Crane said that his testimony helped convict Garcia.

>> Jenny Barreda, who was described as the girl’s caretaker and confidant, was sentenced to six years in prison, also after Crane took into consideration her testimony during Garcia’s trial.

>> Elizabeth Mendez Vasquez, who was described as another immigrant who was working at the bar and occasionally would work as a bartender, was sentenced to 27 months in prison.

Unlike Garcia, the other three defendants showed remorse and asked for forgiveness. Despite being described as a broken man by his attorney, Garcia stood before Crane and called the entire proceeding a farce, saying that justice couldn’t be served in this country if a man could be convicted based on lies.

“I was just the owner of the bar, I was hardly ever there,” Garcia said. “My wife, now ex-wife, was in charge of the place. Also Enrique Sarmiento lied. The girls lied, why wouldn’t they lie if they can get their citizenship?”

Crane said he was surprised at Garcia’s lack of remorse.

After the sentencing, ICE Special Agent in Charge Jerry Robinette said that “while we can’t erase the pain and suffering these young women experienced, by aggressively investigating and prosecuting these cases, ICE Homeland Security Investigations, as well as our partners, are sending a powerful warning about the consequences facing those responsible for such schemes.”

 

FBI: MS-13 Member's Child Prostitute Ring Serviced Clients in Fairfax

FBI: MS-13 Member's Child Prostitute Ring Serviced Clients in Fairfax

FBI believes man exploited runaways for self-made child prostitute ring.

• By Whitney Rhodes
• Email the author
• August 23, 2011

A Fairfax County man pled guilty Monday to sex trafficking teenage runaways as part of his juvenile prostitution business. His victims serviced clients all over Northern Virginia, Washington D.C. and Maryland, notably in Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax, Falls Church and Woodbridge.

Alonso Bruno Cornejo, aka “Casper,” 22, a Peruvian-born U.S. citizen and self-proclaimed member of MS-13, admitted that he ran a prostitution ring of juvenile girls. He said he started the ring in August 2009

Cornejo pled guilty to one count of sex trafficking of children. He faces 10 years to life in prison.

“This case serves as an example that child prostitution takes place in our own towns and neighborhoods,” said Special Agent Ronald Hosko, who is in charge of the FBI’s Washington field office. “Our society has no place for those who prey on children and no tolerance for those who lure children into prostitution or sex trafficking.”  

FBI and Fairfax County Police investigations revealed Cornejo preyed on juvenile runaways who were desperate for shelter and support. He promised them money and narcotics if they serviced his clients.

Much of the evidence against Cornejo came from three other MS-13 members who alleged that they saw Cornejo prostitute juveniles and promote his prostitution ring to clients, according to an affidavit filed by the FBI in April.

"[A witness] stated that Cornejo set up approximately six-to-seven prostitution appointments a day and generally profited $400-500 on weekdays and $800-900 during a weekend day," the affidavit said. Cornejo allegedly shared a little bit of the profits with his victims.

"Cornejo managed all aspects of his prostitution ring: He recruited the young, vulnerable women to serve as prostitutes, obtained clients, scheduled the prostitution appointments, collected the money that was paid for sexual intercourse, transported the juvenile females to the prostitution appointments, and instructed the juveniles how to engage in sexual intercourse with the paying customers," read an FBI press release.

His prostitution ring frequented certain areas, so much so that an unidentified Falls Church hotel gave Cornejo a discount because he rented rooms so often, the affidavit said. Cornejo also used a Super 8 Motel in Manassas, his mother's house and locations within the Four Mile Run area of Arlington, according to witness statements.

A victim, who claimed she was 15 years old at the time she started prostituting for Cornejo, said she was taken to the noted locations and more, including Annandale and Little River Turnpike, according to the affidavit.              

 

Czech Police Charge Nigerian Black Magic Human Traffickers

It's easy to think of human trafficking as a single-file line snaking to and from certain destinations, always flowing in the same directions. Unfortunately its more of a network of multi-lane superhighways, impervious to borders, cultures and authority.  Picturing women held in bondage by not only traffickers but also ancient occultic practices in the "Paris" of Eastern Europe is as surreal as slavery's existence in our modern world.

Czech police charge Nigerian black magic sex gang

Chris Johnstone | 23.08.2011 - 14:18

Czech police say they have charged six Nigerians who headed a human trafficking and sex gang in the country since mid-2009.

Czech police say they have charged a group of Nigerians who are alleged to have headed a trafficking and prostitution ring which brought in at least 25 young girls to the country and forced them to work in brothels, mostly located on the frontier with Germany and Austria but also in the capital, Prague.

Three men and three women have been charged with trafficking and forging passports and other documents used by the gang, which operated from the middle of 2009.

The gang’s victims were girls aged between 18 and 25 who were promised secure jobs in Europe as hairdressers or in the hospitality sector. But on arriving in the continent they were presented with bills of around €50,000 for travel and forged documents. When they couldn’t pay, they were forced into the sex trade under the threat of violence.

Girls were often forced to take part in tribal ceremonies before they left,  swearing to pay all their costs and keep secret the gang’s activities.

Investigators found that the girls were often forced to take part in tribal ceremonies before they left, swearing to pay all their costs and keep secret the gang’s activities. Sometimes the ceremonies took place in mortuaries with girls being forced to drink their own blood and warned their families would die if they broke their oaths.

Police said the investigation was complicated by the need to gain the girls’ trust and overcome the threats of black magic made against them.

The special police squad for uncovering and tackling organized crime, the ÚOOZ, said gang members sought to mask their activity by launching the official procedures for the girls to legalize their stays in the Czech Republic.

The head of the gang was a  37-year-old woman from Nigeria who had permanent residence in the Czech Republic. She cooperated with the heads of similar sex trafficking rings across Europe, for the most part led by women, who were given the title “mama.”  Cooperation, for example, covered trading and exchanging girls.

Czech Police said they worked closely with forces from Austria, Switzerland and Italy in their investigation as well as with Czech authorities in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.

 

PIOs Tackle Cyber Pornography, Human Trafficking

It's a start, the public acknowledgement of the ties between pornography and human trafficking.  The Phillipines is struggling to find effective methods to fight their trafficking problems of citizens domestically and abroad.  Besides their problems at home with sex trafficking, they export extremely large numbers of workers, many of whom are illegally trafficked by fraudulent recruiting sevices luring them with offers of domestic or restaurant work only to arrive at foreign destinations and have "clients" instantly confiscate their passports and documents making it impossible to escape. They can then be used anywhere , brothels, quarries, factories, fieldwork.

PIOs Tackle Cyber Pornography, Human Trafficking In Recent Meet

by Amor Saludar

 CEBU CITY, August 22 (PIA) -- Cases of cyber pornography and human trafficking, two of the hottest issues in Cebu today, were tackled during the recent gathering of the Cebu Association of City and Municipal Public Information Officers (CAOCAMPIO) at the Cebu City Hall.

 Cebu Provincial Police Office Director S/Supt. Patrocinio Comendador who was the main resource person for the topics told the public information officers (PIOs) that one of the reasons why cyber pornography seemed to be spreading widely in the province is because of the existence of internet cafes in the province and the volume of internet users.

 Another reason cited by Commendador is that Cebu is one of the favored tourist destinations among foreign visitors, which is why prostitution also thrives as well as human trafficking.

 As reported, the Philippines ranked fourth in all Southeast Asian nations where cyber sex and human trafficking involving young boys and girls are rampant.

 Comendador however, said that even with the seeming proliferation of home-based cyber pornography and cases human trafficking that have created public alarm, the number of crimes of both nature are not alarming.

 “Cases of cyber pornography and human trafficking are just widely publicized in the media giving the impression that these crimes are an alarming trend here,” Commendador said.

 Comendador said their office is coordinating with some groups focused on human trafficking and anti-pornography involving minors and women so that actions are coordinated and there is regular information sharing so that suspected areas where crimes of this nature are engaged can be closely monitored.

 But to stop cyber pornography and human trafficking, Commendador said this needs concerted efforts from every sector in the community such as government agencies, barangay officials, parents, private sector among others.

 Comendador urged the public to be vigilant and to support the police by reporting any suspicious activities within their areas.

 The PIOs for their part, pledged massive information dissemination to help stop cyber sex and human trafficking in the province. (FCR/AS/PIA-Cebu)

 

Running Brides: The Trafficked Brides of China

It was certain to happen following decades of China's one-child policy that there should be a huge shortage of women to marry. Female infanticide, and as it has become available, selective abortion of girl fetuses has decimated the population numbers. Babies, children and teens bought and sold for wives have been reported with increasing frequency.   

Running brides

(Global Times)

08:56, August 22, 2011 

Hu Xinfa goes to sleep every night fearing that his wife may not be there when hewakes up the next 

morning. 

Hu, a resident of a remote village in Central China's Hunan Province, bought his bridein 2008, 

who was kidnapped by human traffickers at the border between China andVietnam. His worries 

began after hearing that several of his fellow villagers' wives, alsobought from Vietnam years ago,

 had recently disappeared. 
The villagers suspect that these women have been abducted and resold by humantraffickers, 

Southern Metropolis Daily reported.

Hu Xinfa's wife is still with him, but Hu Jiahe from Shuizhou village is long gone. Hiswife has 

been missing for three months, leaving behind a 2-year-old daughter andunanswered questions for Hu's family.

Hu Jiahe's father spent 36,388 yuan ($5,633) on a bride for his son in 2008, afterbeing introduced

 by Feng Zhicheng, a middleman at a matchmaking business inShuangfeng county, Hunan Province. 

"My son couldn't go to other cities to work as he injured his feet working on aconstruction site years

 ago… and our place is far from the city, so I had to buy a wifefor my son," said Jiahe's father. 

After visiting some nearby villages and townships to gather information about his missing wife, Hu's family found that dozens of local residents' wives had also left home in recent days. One of them was his neighbor, whose wife had said she was going shopping on the morning she disappeared – the same excuse that Hu's wife used –but never came back.

Lost wife resold?

In July, Hu Jiahe received a phone call from his wife, who begged him to send 20,000yuan 

(US$3,131) to free her from human traffickers. She said she had been kidnappedand resold to

 a remote village in Southwest China's Yunnan Province, but refused toreveal her specific 

whereabouts.

The same thing happened to a few other fellow villagers.

A large number of Vietnamese brides have been sold in the hinterlands of Hunan since2008, 

according to Hu.

Police in Shuangfeng County, which has jurisdiction over Hu's village, announced theywould 

launch an investigation into the missing Vietnamese women Saturday. 

The police department has begun its probe into trafficked women and fraudulentmarriages in 

16 townships and villages in the county. 

The public security department in Shuangfeng confirmed to the Global Times thatmany villagers 

were involved in fake marriages with women trafficked to the region. 

The bureau is seeking to identify the exact number of missing wives, as very fewvillagers reported

 them to police for fear their actions would be exposed. 
"We have received two reports since September last year, in which four wives werefound to be

 victims of trafficking," a local policeman said, who refused to be named. 

Hu Xinfa says he is lucky, since his wife has decided to stay with him in China. 

"My wife was also trafficked from Vietnam, but we hope to maintain our marriage eventhough it's

 illegal now," he told the Global Times on Sunday.

Hu's wife once received a call from an unknown person who spoke the same languageas her, 

telling her if she wanted to go home, he could help her. 

"I hesitated, but when I saw my 1-year-old daughter and my husband, I didn't wantthem to bear the sorrow," said Yang Jinmei, Hu's wife.

When she was sold in Shuangfeng county together with another woman three yearsago, she was

 only 15 years old. 

Turning a blind eye

The local government turned a blind eye to the practice of purchasing brides since itwas common 

for locals to do so, Hu Chunmei, former Party secretary of the village,told the Southern Metropolis

 Daily. 

Hu Chunmei was actually the witness of several marriages involving Vietnamesebrides.

The price for a bride ranges from 30,000 yuan to 40,000 yuan plus another 2,000-yuan "introduction fee" paid to the middlemen, who were also human traffickers.

These marriages were not protected by law, as they did not come with marriagecertificates or

 residence permits. Their records did not exist in the police system,making them untraceable

 by local authorities.

"Some Vietnamese women were willing to marry Chinese husbands, but others, likeme, were

 abducted or coaxed into it," Yang told the newspaper.

Lu Jiehua, a sociology professor at Peking University, explained that economic factorswere the

 main causes behind the trend of bride trafficking.

"Many young women from poor families in Vietnam are willing to marry Chinese menso as to 

lead a better life. At least that way they don't need to struggle along on theverge of starvation,"

 he told the Global Times. 

On the other hand, there are more males than females in Chinese rural areas, due tothe general 

preference for boys. Some men in poor regions resort to buying wivessince they cannot find women 

to marry them.

"Many women from rural areas hope to marry men in cities, which also leads to theresult that

 men in villages have to buy women from other poor counties," he added.

Let Them Big Rigs Roll - Truckers Against Trafficking

Think of the visual coverage if even a small percentage of long and short-haul truckers joined in the watch for trafficking victims.  They're also incredibly valuable in sighting runaways and those vulnerable to trolling procurement gangs and pimps.

 
Truckers Against Trafficking will have booth at GATS

By Clarissa Kell-Holland, Land Line staff writer

Since the Truckers Against Trafficking organization was formed in 2009, more than 125 truck drivers in 30 states have called the national hotline number to report instances of possible human trafficking.

And Kylla Leeburg, one of TAT’s founders, wants to invite truckers to stop by booth No. 22158 at the Great American Trucking Show to be educated on how they can “make a call, save lives.”

Leeburg said the statistics are tracked by the Polaris Project, which runs the National Human Trafficking Resource Center. She told Land Line recently that while it’s the first instinct of many drivers to call 911 to report possible human trafficking or prostitution, it’s also important that they call the national hotline number at 888-373-7888 to report what they witness.

“We work with other groups like Polaris, who will be pushing for legislation and funding, so the more calls that come in from truckers – there will be a push on that end when that need continues to grow,” she said. “Even if the results aren’t immediate, the information is being used and it will eventually save lives. We have seen this happen.”

TAT’s goal is that their training video, released in March and available on the TAT website, will be used in every truck stop and driver training school in the country. Leeburg said they already have received tons of support from the trucking industry.

“Going into this, we were all outsiders to the trucking industry and there was a definite learning curve for us,” Leeburg said. “What we have found is that truckers are taking an active role in fighting human trafficking.”

Copyright © OOIDA

 

 

Melts Your Belief - Mud On Their Hands: Foreign Students Walk Out Hershey’s Factory In Protest

Leaves you angry with a bad taste in your mouth.  Refusing to re-source after public revelations concerning ongoing use of child slave harvested cacao apparently wasn't enough for Hershey's to worry about their solidly sweet reputation.  Hopefully this spotlight will melt the confectioner's arrogance.

Foreign students walk off Hershey’s factory job in protest

By Liz Goodwin | The Lookout – 17 hrs ago

Hundreds of foreign students on a State Department cultural exchange visa program walked off their factory jobs in protest on Wednesday.

 The J-1 visa program brings foreign students to the country to work for two months and learn English, and was designed in part to fill seasonal tourism jobs at resorts and seaside towns. The 400 students employed at a Pennsylvania factory that makes Hershey's candies told The New York Times that even though they make $8.35 an hour, their rent and program fees are deducted from their paychecks, leaving them with less money than they spent to get the visas and travel to the country in the first place.

Some of the students were assigned night shifts, and said they were pressured to work faster and faster on the factory lines.

This video clip of the students is dumbfounding: News interview foreign exchange student employed by Hersheys

Hershey's said they didn't hire the students when the Times asked:

 A spokesman for Hershey's, Kirk Saville, said the chocolate company did not directly operate the Palmyra packing plant, which is managed by a company called Exel. A spokeswoman for Exel said it had found the student workers through another staffing company.

Last December, the AP revealed that federal immigration officials were investigating two human-trafficking abuse cases related to J-1 visas. Strip clubs openly solicited J-1 visa holders in job listings, and some foreign students told the AP they were forced into sexual slavery when their passports were confiscated by a ring of criminals. About 150,000 J-1 visas were given out in 2008. Businesses save about 8 percent by using a foreign worker because of Social Security and other taxes they do not have to pay.

 

UN envoy: Thailand fails to enforce laws against human trafficking

The ad running immediately to the left of the headline to this story:

UN envoy: Thailand fails to enforce laws against human trafficking

Aug 19, 2011, 8:00 GMT

Bangkok - Corruption and poor law enforcement has undermined Thailand's efforts to crack down on human trafficking, which remains rampant, a UN envoy said Friday.

'Corruption, coupled with the infamous brokerage system, has diluted the efficacy of government policies and programmes to combat human trafficking,' UN special rapporteur on human trafficking Joy Ezeilo said after concluding a 12-day assessment tour of the country.

Thailand, which has about 2 million registered migrant workers and an estimated 1 million unregistered ones, has long been a hub for human trafficking for the sex industry and forced labour.

'There is widespread occurrence of sexual exploitation, including child prostitution, pornography and sex tourism,' Ezeilo said.

She added that she found evidence of increased trafficking of forced labour in agriculture, construction and the fishing industry.

'In particular, trafficking for forced labour is notoriously common in the fishery sector, where men are often trafficked onto fishing boats,' Ezeilo said.

The special rapporteur would present her final report on human trafficking in Thailand to the United Nations in June.

Despite past efforts to register its migrant labour force, pass laws that increase penalties on traffickers and provide better services for victims, Thailand continues to get poor grades for tackling the crime.

The US State Department Trafficking in Persons Report placed Thailand in its Tier 2 category, which indicates it does not fully comply with laws on preventing human trafficking but are making significant efforts to enter Tier One, which indicates full compliance. Thai officials said they believe the country should be in Tier One.

'We don't think that we deserve it because we've been doing quite a lot in the field,' Thai Foreign Ministry Information Department head Vijavat Isarabhakdi said.

Thailand passed an Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act in 2008, and has established teams in every province to cope with human trafficking.

'I think implementation is where the challenge is,' Ezeilo said. 'Now what I am challenging the government to do is more investigations to ensure that the bad eggs in the police and those abetting and aiding human trafficking are punished.' According to non-governmental organizations, police are always on the receiving end of a well-organized brokerage system that preys on both documented and undocumented workers seeking work in Thailand from its neighbours Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.

The UN rapporteur was in Thailand at the invitation of the Thai government.

'We welcome all her observations and comments, and we are determined to do what we can to address the things that are still lacking,' Vijavat said.

Judge Ruling Gives Backpage Immunity For Human Sex Trafficking Ads

Where IS the line of responsibility drawn? By this definition one could take out ads for hitmen, illegal arms, pedophile parties, snuff films, drugs, ad nauseum and Backpage (or any venue) is completely free of complicity; even though they transacted business with the perps,  participated in reviewing and editing the ad, receiving monies to run the ad? That doesn't make them a party to it? As long as the criminals find a way to stay one jump ahead of the bust they can legitimately offer anything? Traffickers, pimps, and other scum must be having quite the party right now. 

Backpage.com immune from liability for human sex trafficking ads

Judge dismisses case against internet service provider

Web ReporterQ13 FOX News Online

5:47 p.m. PDT, August 17, 2011

A federal court judge in Missouri dismissed the claims against Backpage.com and Village Voice Media Holdings on August 15. In the 31-page decision, United States Magistrate Judge Tomas C. Mummert, held that the defendant companies were immune from the claims, because they were passive internet service providers, entitled to immunity under the Communications Decency Act.

The claims alleged that in 2009 and 2010, Backpage.com, a website company, aided in the sexual trafficking of a 14-year-old, because it posted advertisements which included explicit nude photographs of the minor. The advertisements were created and submitted to Backpage.com by Latasha Jewell McFarland who plead guilty to one count of sexual trafficking of children in September 2010.

The court held that the defendants merely operated the website, but did not have active control over the images in the advertisements submitted by McFarland. Under the Communications Decency Act and the case law interpreting the immunity sections of the statute, service providers are not liable for harmful content provided by third parties. Because McFarland created the content, the defendants are immune from the harm they caused.

Furthermore, the court held, immunity applies to the defendants, even if the Backpage.com website had search engines that allowed keyword searched of postings in its “adult categories.” Furthermore, case law has established precedent that even where interactive service providers have an “active, even aggressive role in making available content provided by others,” immunity applies to website operators.

Ultimately, this court followed prior decisions, holding that “Congress has decided that the parties to be punished and deterred are not the internet service providers but rather are those who created and posted the illegal material.”

In light of this precedent, Judge Mummert wrote the plaintiff “may still pursue a civil remedy against McFarland.”

 

Kellogg Pact Redux? - KL, Beijing To Sign Pact On Human Trafficking

Both Malaysia and China are Tier 2 Watch List in the 2011 U.S. Trafficking In Persons Report. I believe they should be unequivocally Tier 3 for their consistently blatant defiance and token measures in the face of millions trafficked for labor and the sex trade.

You can read the astounding facts and figures against both these countries online in the report:  http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2011/164230.htm , which I also believe are tempered in severity for obvious political reasons.

The idea that this pact ultimately carries any more weight in dealing with human trafficking within these two countries (or in their consumption and exportation of victims), than the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 did to stop war and aggression would be laughable if  it weren't so sinister. The "registration of workers" also carries chilling undertones of previous movements to identify "populations" for supposedly benign reasons.

Watch list indeed.  Hopefully we, and the entire world will be watching. 

Wednesday August 17, 2011

KL-Beijing to sign pact on tackling human trafficking

By A. LETCHUMANAN 
[email protected]

PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia and China will sign a memorandum of understanding early next month to fight human trafficking and to cooperate on security issues.

The MoU is part of Malaysia's attempt to deal directly with countries of origin, transit and destination for human trafficking, Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said.

He had discussions with Chinese officials in Beijing last week as a follow-up to earlier discussions with officials in Bangladesh and Indonesia, the minister said after meeting Chinese ambassador to Malaysia Chai Le here yesterday.

Hishammuddin said bilateral relations between Malaysia and China were at an all-time high while Chai said the MoU will ensure continued peace and stability in both countries and people of the region.

For better relations: Hishammuddin shaking hand with Chai during the courtesy call in Putrajaya.

On the swapping of refugees between Malaysia and Australia, Hishammuddin said it has to be deferred because of a pending court case in Australia.

Meanwhile, acting Indonesian ambassador Mulya Wirana said he was satisfied with Malaysia's effort in the massive registration of legal and illegal foreign workers in the country.

“This exercise is a golden opportunity for the workers, especially the illegals, to register and be legalised. Through this registration, they need not fear being caught or facing action by the authorities,” he said.

Immigration director-general Datuk Alias Ahmad and deputy secretary-general (registration and immigration) Datuk Alwi Ibrahim briefed Mulya and his officials on developments concerning the issue.

The Indonesian team welcomed the exercise as it allows them to know the actual number of Indonesian workers, both legal and illegal workers, in Malaysia.

Alwi said 890,156 Indonesians, including 528,714 illegals, have so far registered under the exercise.

 

Hide In Plain Sight: Justice Usec. Jose Vicente Salazar Relieved For Aide’s Link To Trafficking

We experience this within our own justice system.  What better place to hide than in plain sight, within the "machine" fighting the problem.  No country or organization is immune. Some actively participate in corruption, some take part apathetically through indifference.

I wonder how our "numbers rescued" would change with a watchdog group in place to police our own system?  Those "numbers" are people, and a recuring theme from rescued victims is the terror of being abused by the Police or Immigration, most often a false fear implanted by the traffickers themselves as a control, but unfortunately true in some cases.  
Do all agencies dealing with these issues have Internal Affairs watching for human trafficking as well?  This is certainly linked to the same corruption as complicity with drug dealing or any felony crime. Boldness in public retaliation against the corrupt ones certainly reinforces the solidarity and visibility of those who serve with honor, which would help even more victims to come forward.

Justice Usec. Jose Vicente Salazar relieved for aide’s link to trafficking

By Marlon Ramos
Philippine Daily Inquirer

5:31 am | Wednesday, August 17th, 2011

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima has relieved Justice Undersecretary Jose Vicente Salazar as “undersecretary-in-charge” of the Bureau of Immigration (BI) after the latter’s security escort was implicated in alleged human trafficking in Zamboanga City.

In an order dated Aug. 10, De Lima revoked her two previous department orders assigning Salazar to oversee the operation of BI and as alternate representative of the Department of Justice (DoJ) to the national government’s Border Committee.

However, De Lima did not indicate the reason for Salazar’s relief.

“Accordingly, supervision and control over the (BI) shall hereafter be directly exercised by the Secretary of Justice,” De Lima said in her two-page memorandum.

“This order takes effect immediately and shall remain in force until further orders,” she added.

De Lima said other department circulars and orders “inconsistent herewith are hereby revoked or modified accordingly.”

In the same order, De Lima appointed BI associate commissioner Siegfried Mison to replace Salazar in the Border Committee.

She also revoked Department Order 144 which gave Salazar the authority to approve the transfer, deployment and reassignment of immigration personnel.

“Personnel actions such as appointment, promotion, reemployment, demotion and separation, however, including with regards to the engagement, renewal and termination of services of confidential agents, shall continue to require the prior approval of the Secretary of Justice,” De Lima said.

Salazar came under fire after his close-in security detail, identified only as a “master sergeant,” was caught by policemen while purportedly trying to transport 17 women from various Bicol provinces to Zamboanga.

 

Protea Hospitality Corp: Hotels Are Hub Of Human Trafficking Prevention

Hotels are hub of human trafficking prevention

16 August 2011

By Stacey Mieyal Higgins
News Editor-International
[email protected]

INTERNATIONAL REPORT—A global problem has been receiving more media attention lately and puts hotels in the epicenter of discussions around the prevention of sex tourism and human trafficking.

Human trafficking is the third largest crime industry, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, accounting for US$15.5 billion in profits annually in industrialized countries.

Globally, some 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year, according to a 2007 report from the U.S. State Department. Of that group, more than 70% are female and 50% are children. A separate 2009 United Nations report, however, stated approximately 20% of all trafficking victims are children. Actual figures can be difficult to pinpoint because the victims are, by definition, hidden and a common definition for “slavery” has not been established.

The travel and tourism industry has established a formal code, recognizing that it can be proactive at the forefront of trafficking of children in particular.

The Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism (“the Code”) is an initiative funded by UNICEF and supported by the UNWTO. It was founded in Sweden in 2002 and has grown into a global mission.

According to the organization: “The problem of commercial sexual exploitation of children and its connection with the tourism trade is extremely complex. While the tourism industry is not accused for encouraging this un-wanted phenomenon, it has been asked to collaborate and to react against the use of its networks and establishments for this purpose.”

Minneapolis-based Carlson has long been affiliated with the Code.

“The issue of child exploitation and child trafficking is a new crime which has increased and spread to all over the world—even in our neighborhood,” said Beathe-Jeanette Lunde, executive VP, people development, responsible business, safety and security,Carlson. “We see it as an opportunity to be open and proactive about this crime so all our stakeholders, be it employees, guests or suppliers, can feel safe while working or doing business with us.” 

Bill Ford of Cape Town, South Africa-based Protea Hospitality Corporation, said via email he would like to see hotels help solve the problem rather than simply sign the Code: “I would rather see the global tourism industry actively working to eradicate child sex tourism than for everyone to line up, sign a document and feel that by doing that, their responsibility ends. The fight against this scourge will probably never be won, but actions always speak louder than words.

“Hotels are the tourist accommodation mainstays in most global destinations, and it is therefore essential to confront this possibility head on, no matter how distressing,” said the group operations director for Protea. The company is in the process of becoming a member of the Code.

Michelle Guelbart, interim secretariat coordinator at ECPAT-USA (the U.S. based organization that helps manage the Code), approaches hotel companies to educate them about what might already be going on, understanding that “they might not know that there is sexual exploitation of children on their properties. This may be because it is not directly in their faces or they do not have a word for what they are seeing.”

Guelbart said she emphasizes awareness: “It is important for (hotel operators) to know that traffickers and pimps are taking advantage of their lack of policies and staff training by using their properties for selling and abusing children. … This may be the only opportunity for exploited children to be saved, as they are often isolated from mainstream society by their traffickers.”

On board
Hilton Worldwide signed the Code last year after it was involved in reports that the Chinese police found a brothel operating in an independently owned karaoke club in a Hilton hotel in southern China last summer, according to a story in the Washington Business Journal.

More recently, Wyndham Worldwide committed to joining the Code in July and vowed to improve its staff training and procedures after reports of gang-led child prostitution rings in California hotels drew media and activist attention to the company’s hotels, CNN reported.Wyndham’s hotel system consisted of approximately 7,220 properties and 612,900 rooms, as of 30 June 2011.

Also in July, the Minister for Tourism and Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation, Government of India, launched the Code of Conduct for Safe and Honorable Tourism through the support of UN.GIFT.  The code was drafted by UNODC with the Ministry in collaboration with Save the Children India and the Pacific Asia Tourism Association.

Roma Singh, Regional Director (Western & Central Region), Indiatourism, Mumbai told Travel Talk India: "We are going to educate major hotel players in western and central region of India this year. We are also encouraging hotels from all categories to implement practices for safe tourism. Hoteliers can also approach us for training their staff on Code of Conduct."

Carlson makes the issue a part of its training.

 

Bill Ford Protea Hospitality Corporation

In 2010, it trained 158 Radisson hotels and 447 corporate employees in the U.S. in a program called Living Responsible Business, Lunde said. One of the modules is dedicated to creating awareness of what child exploitation and child trafficking is.

 

“We include a video clip from the newly released ‘Not my Life’ documentary as well as an internal video showing scenarios our employees might come across,” she said. “After each situation, we stop and discuss with the employees how to deal with a possible situation like the video describes. The program also includes a message from Carlson Chairman Marilyn Carlson Nelson and her view and expectation to our employees.”

“Not My Life” is a part of CNN’s Freedom Project: Ending Modern Day Slavery and received support from The Carlson Family Foundation.

Ford said staff empowerment is essential.

“One of the cornerstones of this culture is the empowerment of all members of our STAFF who are expected to act with responsibility and vigilance in everything they do. To this extent where a STAFF member becomes aware of any untoward activity happening on one of our premises, this will be brought to the attention of senior management who will act in the appropriate manner.

Baltimore Conference aims to normalize pedophilia

We're already the largest source of tourists to foreign countries specializing in trafficking young children to pedophiles. I know this is a "small group" and not by any means a majority, but even the suggestion, openly made by "educated professionals" is... overwhelming my "outrage"vocabulary.

Conference aims to normalize pedophilia

By John Rossomando - The Daily Caller Published: 10:00 AM 08/15/2011 | Updated: 4:38 PM 08/15/2011

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/08/15/conference-aims-to-normalize-pedophilia/#ixzz1VCWFJT20

If a small group of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals have their way at a conference this week, pedophiles themselves could play a role in removing pedophilia from the American Psychiatric Association’s bible of mental illnesses — the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), set to undergo a significant revision by 2013.  Critics warn that their success could lead to the decriminalization of pedophilia.

The August 17 Baltimore conference is sponsored by B4U-ACT, a group of pro-pedophile mental health professionals and sympathetic activists.  According to the conference brochure, the event will examine “ways in which minor-attracted persons [pedophiles] can be involved in the DSM 5 revision process” and how the popular perceptions of pedophiles can be reframed to encourage tolerance.

Researchers from Harvard University, the Johns Hopkins University, the University of Louisville, and the University of Illinois will be among the panelists at the conference.

B4U-ACT has been active attacking the APA’s definition of pedophilia in the run up to the conference, denouncing its description of “minor-attracted persons” as “inaccurate” and “misleading” because the current DSM links pedophilia with criminality.

“It is based on data from prison studies, which completely ignore the existence of those who are law-abiding,” said Howard Kline, science director of B4U-ACT, in a July 25, 2011 press release. “The proposed new diagnostic criteria specify ages and frequencies with no scientific basis whatsoever.”

The press release announced a letter the group sent to the APA criticizing its approach, and inviting its leaders to participate in the August 17 conference. “The DSM should meet a higher standard than that,” Kline continued. “We can help them, because we are the people they are writing about.”

APA spokeswoman Erin Connors told The Daily Caller in an emailed statement that her organization was not participating in the conference and would not comment on its aims.

Child advocate Dr. Judith Reisman, a visiting professor at Liberty University’s School of Law, said the conference is part of a strategy to condition people into accepting pedophiles.

“The first thing they do is to get the public to divest from thinking of what the offender does criminally, to thinking of the offender’s emotional state, to think of him as thinking of his emotional state, [and] to empathize and sympathize,” Reisman said. “You don’t change the nation in one fell swoop; you have to change it by conditioning. The aim is to get them [pedophiles] out of prison.”

According to Reisman, empirical data show that pedophiles typically molest many children before finally being caught.

“The data on paroled pedophiles confirms these predators repeat their crimes against children and are known to have escalated them even to murder,” Reisman said.

Several speakers at the August 17 conference, including B4U-ACT director of operations Dr. Richard Kramer and conference keynote speaker Dr. Fred Berlin, of the Johns Hopkins University, have actively opposed sex offender notification laws.

“What purpose does calling someone a ‘pervert’ or ‘predator’ serve anyway, other than to express contempt and hatred?” Kramer wrote in a March 14, 2009 blog entry on the website ReformSexOffenderLaws.org. “How is this productive? It certainly doesn’t protect children. I would urge all SO [sex offender] activists to listen to their own message: Stop buying into and promoting false stereotypes. Stop demonizing a whole class of people, and start learning the facts.”

Berlin has similarly compared society’s reaction to pedophilia to that of homosexuality prior to the landmark 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision that decriminalized sodomy.

B4U-ACT’s own website puts Berlin’s views front and center. “Just as has been the case historically with homosexuality,” he writes, “society is currently addressing the matter of pedophilia with a balance that is far more heavily weighted on the side of criminal justice solutions than on the side of mental health solutions.”

Berlin’s opposition to, and even noncompliance with, Maryland’s sex offender notification law drew scrutiny from former Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran in the early 1990s.

In 1990 The Baltimore Sun reported that Berlin refused to report pedophiles under his care who were actively molesting children.

In an emailed statement to TheDC, Berlin distanced himself Monday afternoon from other B4U-ACT conference participants’ stated aims, saying that he opposes removing pedophilia from the DSM and that he hopes to stop pedophiles before they act.

Berlin also disputed Reisman’s contention that he wants to decriminalize pedophilia, noting that “society’s interests can best be served by supporting both criminal justice interventions and public health initiatives.”

Reisman remains unconvinced. “His empathy was with the pedophile and the pederast, not with the child victim,” she told TheDC. “He refused to report the criminal to law enforcement because he said they were in treatment.

“Taxpayers pay for treatment and they are molesting kids. They go out to Berlin, and he gets paid by us [the taxpayers] for therapy.”

Reisman also claims that mental health practitioners like Berlin want to place pedophilia on a par with neuroses or clinical depression, and counsel pedophiles rather than incarcerate them.

“The scientific defense of pedophiles follows on the natural outgrowth of … [Alfred Kinsey’s] 1948 book ‘Sexual Behavior of the Human Male’ where he describes the rapes of infants and children, as would any pedophile, as ‘orgasmic,’” Reisman said.

Reisman warns that declassifying pedophilia as a mental illness could result in the repeal of child-protection statutes because the law always follows the input of psychiatry. She points to psychiatry’s normalization of sadomasochism, exhibitionism, and homosexuality as precedents.

“[I]t has been carried from the university to the law, going back to Kinsey,” Reisman said.

And other conference panelists such as Jacob Breslow, a graduate student in gender research at the London School of Economics, plan to discuss how political activists can exploit removing pedophilia from the next edition of the DSM for their own ends.

“Allowing for a form of non-diagnosable minor attraction is exciting, as it creates a sexual or political identity by which activists, scholars and clinicians can better understand Minor Attracted Persons,” Breslow writes in a summary of his upcoming August 17 presentation.

“This understanding may displace the stigma, fear and objection that is naturalized as being attached to Minor Attracted Persons and may alter the terms by which non-normative sexualities are known.

AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION, B4U-ACT, PEDOPHILIA

Kansas City Mother Charged w/ 10 Counts Of Trafficking 11,12 Year-Old Daughters

MONDAY, AUGUST 15, 2011

LAW

Woman accused of driving her preteen daughters to Wichita so a sex offender could abuse them is charged with rape and human trafficking

Posted by Justin Kendall on Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 11:00 AM

The Kansas City, Kansas, woman accused of driving her preteen daughters to Wichita so a convicted sex offender could abuse them is now charged with 10 counts of rape and human trafficking, according to KAKE. The 34-year-old woman's name isn't being used in order to protect her children.

 The woman's children were 10 and 11 years old when the alleged sexual abuse began. (They're 12 and 13 now.) The children confided in a neighbor about the alleged abuse at the hands of 47-year-old James Brown. The girls told the neighbor that their mother would watch as Brown allegedly molested them. The woman also reportedly forced her daughters to watch her have sex with Brown.

If the charges and accusations are true, I find it hard to refer to this person as a mother. She's subhuman.

KAKE has footage of the woman hyperventilating and passing out during her court hearing. Again, if true, I have little sympathy for her.

Brown is also facing rape and human-trafficking charges. The Kansas Sex Offender Registry says Brown was convicted in September 2002 of lewd and lascivious behavior against a 12-year-old.

 

Warning Signs: Protect Your Child From Trafficking

 

Warning Signs: Protect Your Child From Trafficking

Ask questions if your child has unexplained cash, a hotel key or a phone or stash of clothing you did not buy.

Take notice if your child exhibits abnormal behavior; is unusually fearful, anxious, depressed, paranoid or tense; is confused about his or her whereabouts; shows inconsistencies in his or her story; has been "branded" by a trafficker with something like a tattoo of the trafficker's name; or has unexplained cuts or bruises.

A child may be a runaway, truant, have a sexually explicit online profile or an interest in age-inappropriate relationships with adults.

To report human trafficking, contact local law enforcement or the confidential 24-hour National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline, 888-373-7888.

Source: Broward Human Trafficking Coalition, Polaris Project, National Human Trafficking Resource Center

 

Labor Trafficking: If You Don't See It In Your Own City, You're Not Looking

You're just not looking for it'

 'if you don't see it in your own city,

 

By Sarah Douziech, The Province August 14, 2011 7:04 AM

When Ana* and Lily* were recruited for work in Canada, they thought they were leaving behind life in the Philippines to make their dreams come true.

"I had a good life there, but I gave up everything to pursue success and a better life here" Lily, 35, says.

In addition to families and friends, Ana, 28, left behind a serious boyfriend while Lily gave up a secure job she'd held for 13 years in a luxury hotel in Manila, all for the promise of good-paying jobs in an Alberta resort that supposedly awaited.

But when they arrived in Vancouver four years ago, their dream quickly turned into a nightmare.

Their passports were seized and they were forced to work gruelling hours as housekeepers and nannies in the homes of a middle-aged businesswoman and her extended family in Burnaby.

They say they were treated like slaves, enduring constant verbal abuse. They were summoned by numbers assigned to them - their captors refused to use their names - at all hours of the night to "wash undies" or clean bedsheets.

They didn't know it at the time, but they'd become victims of human labour trafficking.

With the exception of two recent charges stemming from allegations of domestic slavery in the Lower Mainland, the issue has been a well-kept secret in British Columbia.

Mumtaz Ladha, a 55-year-old West Vancouver woman, was charged in May with human trafficking and human smuggling. Mounties allege that Ladha hired a 21-year-old African woman in 2008, promising her a work visa and a job and instead took the young woman's passport and forced her to work long hours at her West Vancouver home with no pay.

"Many people would be shocked to know that it happens here in our own backyard," B.C. RCMP Human Trafficking Coordinator Cpl. Jassy Bindra said, adding that labour trafficking issues in particular "are coming to the forefront."

One reason it has gone under-reported is a lack of public awareness. But this is slowly changing.

On Monday, Tara Teng, Miss Canada 2011, and nine other anti-human-trafficking activists launch a Canada-wide campaign in Vancouver to raise the profile of what she calls "the human rights issue of our time."

- - -

Three months after arriving in Vancouver, Ana, Lily and six other Filipinas were moved to a lakeside town in southwestern Alberta where they were kept among gift shop stock in a cramped basement.

"You could touch the ceiling," says Lily, describing the tiny room she lived in on and off over two years. They finally did work in a hotel, but for 16-18 hours a day and often for no pay.

Subject to extreme control, they were only allowed to eat one hamburger a day, were forbidden to talk to anyone else and were even given specific times they could flush the toilet that eight of them shared.

They endured humiliation as other hotel employees would sing "Here come the slaves" when they arrived for work, Ana says.

At a private party their trafficker hosted for a housing charity she reportedly supported in India, Lily, Ana and the six other women were summoned in front of the crowd and commanded to sing on the spot.

Lily says they were petrified. Not knowing what to do, they started singing in monotone, "thank you, thank you."

"It was so embarrassing," she says.

People in the town also knew what was going on, but many kept the secret.

"Some of them offered to escape us," Ana says. "But, we were so scared, because we don't know where to go after that."

Not only did they not have their passports, their trafficker told them if they tried to escape, she would have them deported on the spot or thrown in jail.

They were moved from B.C. to Alberta and back every six months over the course of about two years.

Naomi Krueger with Deborah's Gate, the Salvation Army's safe house for trafficking victims in Vancouver, said using threats, fear and emotional manipulation are classic grooming strategies

traffickers employ to keep their crime a secret.

She said women, in situations similar to Ana and Lily's who so desperately want residency and know so little about employment standards in Canada, are in a vulnerable position that traffickers further exploit.

"We've been intrigued and interested by sexual human trafficking and we haven't necessarily focused on labour trafficking," Krueger said.

Yet, immediately after Deborah's Gate opened in late 2009, they were receiving calls about it.

Krueger said "a high percentage" of safe house residents are victims of labour exploitation who came to Canada for live-in caregiver or tourism jobs.

Westcoast Domestic Workers' Association director and lawyer Virginie Francoeur advocates for women who come into the country as live-in caregivers.

Francoeur said in the last year and a half she has worked with three women who were labour trafficking victims - one of whom also endured severe sexual abuse.

But she said the numbers coming forward don't reflect what's actually happening.

"There are definitely more," Francoeur said, adding that it often takes time for victims to realize they've been trafficked and then try to do something about it.

She said the trafficked women she sees come from developing countries and hoped to escape extreme poverty, support their families, or sometimes, escape abuse they were subject to there.

"They come here often being promised a lot of things," Francoeur said, but that usually doesn't happen.

She said traffickers could be anyone, but tend to be people, in the case of live-in caregivers, who are quite well off because they have to prove they have the income to pay for one.

In cases she's seen, Francoeur said, they're often immigrants who bring their nannies with them and treat them according to accepted cultural practices around domestic labour, or what they were able to get away with in their homelands.

"Most people would be shocked to know how much this is happening."

Human trafficking has been referred to as "modern-day slavery" and involves the domestic or international recruiting, transporting and harbouring of people for forced labour exploitation and is unlike human smuggling, where people pay someone to bring them into the country illegally.

Statistics around how many people are trafficked into the province annually and where from are virtually non-existent.

Bindra said it's difficult to quantify because the crime is secretive and victims face numerous challenges in coming forward.

The United Nations has estimated 2.5 million people are trafficked annually, 32 per cent of whom were exploited for their labour.

According to the U.S. State Department's 2011 annual trafficking in persons report, Canada remains a source, transit and destination country for human sex and labour trafficking.

The report notes labour trafficking victims are found on farms, in sweatshops, processing plants, or as domestic servants across the country.

Ontario brought forward Canada's first charges of labour trafficking in October 2010 against 10 people accused of trafficking in 19 Hungarians.

In 2004, RCMP estimated 800 people were trafficked into Canada per year - 200 of whom were labour trafficking victims.

Bindra said there are currently more than 30 active human trafficking investigations in the country, but couldn't say what portion were in B.C.

Victor Porter with B.C.'s Office to Combat Trafficking in Persons (OCTIP) said while numbers around human trafficking in Canada are "very sketchy," the majority of calls they receive are reports of labour trafficking.

Porter said the office, which has coordinated B.C.'s response to the problem since 2007, has helped just under 75 human trafficking victims in the province in the last three years. Funding for the office as well as its top official was slashed earlier this month.

Ana and Lily came into Canada under the Provincial Nomination Program, where if a foreign national works at the same company for two years, their employer can nominate them for permanent residency.

Both women thought they could endure the slave-like conditions they faced in exchange for staying in Canada, but as time wore on, their fellow Filipinas were being fired and deported short of their two-year contracts.

Fearing they would face the same fate, they resolved to flee.

While back in Burnaby in early 2010, Ana and Lily made their move.

"We left everything, we just ran," says Lily.

The two made it to Brentwood Mall and phoned a Filipino couple one of their cousins had met at church.

They rescued Ana and Lily from the mall and called the police.

"At first, I can't believe there's somebody helping us," Ana says. "You're still thinking, what's going to happen next."

Two days later, RCMP connected them with Deborah's Gate in Vancouver, where they were protected under 24-hour surveillance and given resources and support to overcome their trauma.

Although the recruitment agency that originally hired them tried to hunt them down at the safe house, their trafficker never did.

It took some time, but now, a little over a year later, the two women's demeanour has completely changed, Krueger says. They smile, they don't jump when the phone rings and they both have aboveboard jobs and share an apartment in downtown Vancouver.

"This is the real Canada," Lily says, laughing. Both are working toward becoming permanent residents.

Charges were never laid stemming from Ana and Lily's case.

Krueger said to lay human trafficking charges, fear has to be proven as the primary reason for keeping someone in servitude, and it's often difficult to do.

Francoeur said proving that someone's freedom of movement was restricted is also a challenge.

Investigations are also often reactive, not proactive, Bindra said.

"That gives suspects time to dispose of the evidence," she added.

While anti-trafficking efforts are still developing, it has been highlighted annually by the U.S. State Department that Canada lacks a national strategy to combat the emerging crime.

Yet, Canada continues to increase capacity in its programs that bring in temporary foreign workers to fill its labour market.

A 2010 RCMP "Human Trafficking in Canada" report noted this influx "has generated concern."

Some solutions could be tightening regulations for recruiting agencies, performing more investigations before and after placements, and creating better complaint processes for affected workers, experts say.

But the biggest thing everyone can do is open their eyes, Teng, a 22-year-old beauty queen and Trinity Western University education student, said.

"It's easy to say it happens far away in another country, but it's more common than people think" Teng said. "If you don't see it in your own city, then you're just not looking for it."

After becoming aware of the widespread nature of human trafficking, Teng decided to try and unite Canada's response to the crime by speaking out about it across Canada in the coming weeks.

Teng will be joined by 10 other activists, including a 15-year-old Walnut Grove high-school student and Tania Fiolleau, who encountered many trafficked women during her work as a former prostitute and madam in the Lower Mainland.

Ignite the Road to Justice kicks off in Vancouver, Monday Aug. 15 at 7 p.m. at Coastal Church on West Georgia Street.

"People are not commodities to be bought and sold," Teng said. "Change is possible and it starts with each and every one of us."

[email protected]

INFORMATION STATION

To learn more about human trafficking:

British Columbia's Office to Combat Human Trafficking (OCTIP) launched an extensive, free online training resource that allows users to learn more about what human trafficking is, Canada's response to it, how to recognize it and how to help. It can be found at http: //www.pssg.gov. bc.ca/octip.

OCTIP's 24-hour, toll-free emergency line, 1-888-712-7974, provides help for trafficking victims and organizations or individuals working with them. For general information about trafficking, OCTIP's office is at 250-953-4970.

Deborah's Gate, a safe house in Vancouver for human-trafficking victims, has an emergency line that can be reached at 1-855-DEB-GATE (1-855-332-4283).

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime's website, www.unodc.org, offers a list of signs that could indicate someone is a trafficking victim.

UBC law professor, activist and foremost human trafficking expert Benjamin Perrin's website www.endmoderndayslavery.ca offers comprehensive reading lists as well as resources for people wishing to take personal action on the issue.

The RCMP's Human Trafficking National Coordination Centre at www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/ht-tp/indexeng.htm provides key facts about trafficking in Canada as well as contact information for local centres.

For more on Tara Teng's Ignite the Road to Justice tour, visit www.ignitetheroadtojustice.com.

If you are or someone you know is a victim of human trafficking, you can report by calling Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477).

© Copyright (c) The Province

Read more: http://www.theprovince.com/news/just+looking/5253173/story.html#ixzz1V1lQf3Yh

 

Los Zetas Gang Centralizes Control Of Human Trafficking

 Mexican drug gang centralizes control of migrant smuggling

Los Zetas run a multibillion-dollar human trafficking racket using unprecedented violence

By Tim Johnson

McClatchy Newspapers

Posted: Sunday, Aug. 14, 2011

In this handout X-ray photo, 512 undocumented migrants were discovered hidden in two trailer trucks at a checkpoint in Chiapas state. Los Zetas charge up to $30,000 per head for people from Africa and Asia trying to enter the U.S. from Mexico. Chiapas State Attorney General - MCT

ARRIAGA, Mexico One of Mexico's most powerful criminal gangs has muscled into the migrant-smuggling racket, changing what had been a relatively benign if risky industry of independent operators into a centralized business that often has deadly consequences for those who try to operate outside it.

Los Zetas, who earned a reputation for brutality by gunning down thousands of Mexicans in the battle for drug-smuggling routes to the United States, now control much of the illicit trade of moving migrant workers toward the U.S. border, experts in the trade say.

They've brought logistical know-how, using tractor-trailer trucks to carry ever larger loads of people and charging higher prices, as much as $30,000 per head for migrants from Asia and Africa who seek to get to the United States.

They've also brought an unprecedented level of intimidation and violence to the trade. Los Zetas or their allies often kidnap and hold for ransom poor migrants who try to operate outside the system. If relatives don't wire payment, the migrants sometimes are executed and dumped in mass graves or press-ganged into jobs with the criminal group.

Nearly a year ago, Zetas gunmen were implicated in the slaughter of 72 migrants at a ranch near San Fernando in Tamaulipas state, barely an hour and a half drive from Brownsville, Texas.

Other mass graves discovered in northern Mexico also may be the work of Los Zetas pushing to control smuggling to the United States.

Alejandro Solalinde, an activist Roman Catholic priest who runs a migrant shelter in the town of Ixtepec, in Mexico's Oaxaca state, said Los Zetas had been merciless with migrants.

"Los Zetas control the trafficking of persons," he said. "They are crueler and kill more easily. ... They are voracious. They ask for more and more and more money."

Even with an apparent drop in the numbers of migrants moving through Mexico, human trafficking is a huge business.

A U.N. report last year titled "The Globalization of Crime" estimated that Mexican smugglers rake in $6.6 billion annually from the 3 million Latin Americans who are taken across the southern U.S. border each year. Two weeks ago, Mexico's National Institute of Migration said that 6 out of 10 migrants paid traffickers to help them cross the U.S. border, while 43 percent used them to traverse Mexico as well.

While such estimates routinely are disputed, officials acknowledge that drug gangs have found a new revenue source in human trafficking. Mercedes Gomez Mont, the chief immigration official in Chiapas state, which borders Guatemala, cited criminal investigations by the Mexican Attorney General's Office for her declaration that while "organized crime derives its greatest income from drug trafficking ... in second place is human trafficking."

The ascendancy of Los Zetas in migrant smuggling, formerly the preserve of relatively small independent operators known as "coyotes" who smuggled groups of 20 or fewer migrants north, has transformed the business.

Mexican officials report regularly finding tractor-trailer trucks loaded with as many as 250 migrants. The heavily armed drivers, who travel with escort vehicles, make payoffs at police and immigration checkpoints.

Two such tractor-trailers were detained at a checkpoint May 17 near the Chiapas state capital of Tuxtla Gutierrez. X-ray equipment revealed the ghostly outlines of human cargo, and when officials opened the holds they found 513 people from El Salvador, Ecuador, China, Japan, Guatemala, India, Nepal, Honduras and the Dominican Republic - a United Nations gathering of migrants.

Each migrant had paid at least $7,000 to travel through Mexico to the United States, Mexico's attorney general said, making the cargo worth more than $3.5 million.

It was the largest such discovery in Mexico's history, and it underscored the complicity of authorities in the trade. The two tractor-trailers had passed at least two previous checkpoints in Chiapas before the discovery.

"You pay as you go," said a U.S. law enforcement official based in Mexico City, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "That money is being dropped off all along the route."

Solalinde, the priest-advocate, said he'd been shown the tightly rolled wads of cash the trafficking convoys passed out.

"It is incredible how much money can be in such a small roll," he said.

Trucks carrying large numbers of migrants have been found repeatedly this year. On Jan. 26, authorities found 219 migrants in the back of a tractor-trailer near San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas. On June 12, 202 migrants were discovered in Veracruz state, and 117 more were found June 23 in Oaxaca state.

Los Zetas now have intermediaries in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador who recruit migrants and send them along established routes northward.

"If you want to arrive safely at your house in the United States, you have to pay these coyotes between $7,000 and $10,000," said Patricia Villamil Perdomo, who was the Honduran consul in Tapachula, a Mexican city near the Guatemalan border, until mid-June, when she quit after receiving written threats signed by "Z," or Los Zetas.

Villamil said coyotes told her that they now must pay a "fee" to the Zetas if they worked independently and passed migrants through turf controlled by the gang.

"Everything is passing through their hands," she said of Los Zetas.

Zetas operatives are known to be strong in the southern border state of Tabasco, in Veracruz along the Gulf Coast and in Tamaulipas, which abuts Texas. But they're also in Oaxaca and Chiapas.

In Arriaga, the southernmost rail yard in Mexico, residents said they often saw pickups with tinted windows and license plates from Tamaulipas, the home state of Los Zetas.

As organized crime takes over migrant trafficking, its power to corrupt has become evident. In May, President Felipe Calderon fired seven top officials of the national immigration agency, which had been wracked by allegations that officers in northern Mexico had turned over Central American migrants to mobsters.

Los Zetas profit not only from moving better-off migrants but also by preying on poorer Central Americans who try to pass through Mexico on their own. Masked gunmen in cahoots with train conductors and brakemen halt trains in remote spots and take hostage the migrants who ride atop the boxcars and tanker wagons.

The hostages, often dozens, or scores, are taken to ranches, where they're held while gangsters call relatives in the United States and demand ransom. The longer it takes for payment to arrive, the more the kidnappers charge.

"We call it migrant extortion kidnapping," said the U.S. law enforcement official, who added that hostages are given two choices: Go to work for Los Zetas or find a way to pay thousands of dollars in ransom.

Sometimes the hostage-takers are members of allied criminal networks.

"The Zetas, unlike other cartels that have centralized commands, operate with franchises. They have arrangements with local and regional networks," said Rodolfo Casillas, an immigration expert at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, a hemispheric research and teaching academy with a branch in Mexico City.

"The kidnappers say they are with Los Zetas, they are really well armed and that the authorities are in cahoots with them," said the Rev. Heyman Vazquez Medina, a priest who runs a local shelter and has debriefed hundreds of migrants.

Migrants who survive abduction say the gunmen operate with a swagger.

 

Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/08/14/2526445/mexican-drug-gang-centralizes.html#ixzz1V1IkpE20

 

Oakland, CA: Under-Age Prostitution on the Rise

Under-Age Prostitution on the Rise

Oakland is trying to reduce the number of teenage girls who are on the street and controlled by pimps.

Bay City News — On a gray, drizzly afternoon last March, it was mostly empty along Oakland's "Track," a section of International Boulevard in the middle of the city that is known as a hub for prostitution.

As the sun occasionally pierced through the clouds onto the bars, restaurants and shops that line the street, a young African American girl in a T-shirt and skinny jeans stood behind a bus stop at 29th Street, rubbing her arms against the cold.

"There's one," Oakland police Officer Hamann Nguyen said as he drove by in an undercover police car.

Nguyen was pointing out underage girls working as prostitutes, a long-recognized problem in Alameda County that experts agree is only getting worse. 

Juvenile prostitution has reached epidemic proportions in Oakland, according to Sgt. Holly Joshi, a spokeswoman for the department who spent three years with Oakland's vice and child exploitation unit.

Nearly all the girls on the streets are controlled by pimps who claim their earnings. Many start as early as age 12 or 13.

They therefore aren't really prostitutes; they are commercially sexually exploited youth.

"Underage kids can't give consent to have sex, let alone sell it," Joshi said.

Federal law classifies recruiting minors for prostitution as a form of human trafficking, meaning they're understood to be victims of both civil rights violations and violent crime, such as statutory rape and other sex crimes.

Most of the girls recruited for prostitution come from single-parent homes and have been physically or sexually abused, according to service providers with Alameda County.

Ever since commercial sexual exploitation of youth was identified as a major problem in Alameda County about 10 years ago, public officials have responded with progressive policies that recognize the girls as victims; aggressive prosecution that has put pimps away for life; and regional collaborations that have become models for other cities. 

But experts agree that trafficking of minors is so low-risk and so lucrative for the pimps that growth of the criminal enterprise is outpacing legal and law enforcement developments — even in Alameda County, where a decade of awareness has led to prevention, suppression and rehabilitation techniques that are considered the national gold standard.

Nature of the Game

By the time "Samantha," a survivor of commercial sexual exploitation, was 10, her father was in jail and her mother was a drug addict who had exploited her daughter to fuel her own addiction, according to the Oakland nonprofit Motivating, Inspiring, Supporting and Serving Sexually Exploited Youth, or MISSSEY.

Samantha was removed from her mother's care and placed in a string of foster homes, and by age 12 she was being sexually abused and exploited by a pimp. Three years later, she was living on her own —and continuing to be sexually exploited — when police finally arrested her and identified her as a juvenile, thus beginning her long process of recovery. 

Alameda County officials identify hundreds of girls like Samantha every year who are working as prostitutes, controlled by physically and psychologically abusive pimps who take advantage of runaways, foster children and other at-risk youth. 

Nearly all of the women and girls working Oakland's streets and motels are controlled by pimps, who can make hundreds of thousands of dollars each year with a five-girl "stable," or group of prostitutes under their control, according to Sgt. Joshi.

It's a far different situation than the one police encountered during the 1970s and 1980s, according to Oakland police Officer Jim Saleda, who for years has overseen the department's vice and child exploitation unit.

Pimps used to be groomed by a dad or uncle and welcomed to the profession, he explained. They called pimping the "gentlemen's game" because they stayed out of other types of crime.

"Don't get me wrong," Saleda said.  "This was never a gentlemen's game. There were beatings — these pimps were always parasites."

But pimps used to consider themselves in a class above drug dealers and gangsters, he said. Gunplay was rarely involved in prostitution, and the women working the streets were adults with a distinctive look.

Now, pimps try to make their girls blend in, giving them backpacks and jeans so they will be mistaken for students instead of identified as commercially sexually exploited youth.

They target girls who have been neglected at best and abused at worst. A survey conducted by the county in 2007 found that 61 percent of the area's sexually exploited youth had been raped at least once prior to being exploited and were on average 11 years old during the first attack.

About 55 percent of the girls identified were foster care youth and 25 percent had been hospitalized at least once for a mental illness or episode, the study said.

Joshi said only a few of the girls she has worked with were in school, and most of them dropped out as they became more involved with their pimps.

‘Romeo’ Pimps

Although there are cases of "guerilla pimps" who kidnap the girls and hold them against their will, most common are "Romeo pimps" who go through a calculated process that fosters an entrenched combination of fear and trauma bonding, said Barbara Loza-Muriera, facilitator of the county's Sexually Exploited Minors Network.

She said the pimps use five steps to ensnare the girls: recruitment, seduction, isolation, coercion and violence. They go after girls who aren't just running from something but who are looking for it and they capitalize on the adage that negative attention is still attention.

"Kids love it when somebody older shows interest," Loza-Muriera said.

One recruitment tactic is to go to a mall and compliment girls who walk by, Joshi said. The ones who are dismissive — or just say "thank you" and go on their way — are not the ones the pimps want, she said.

The girls who light up at the compliment or stop to chat are the ones the pimp will offer to buy a meal for or otherwise try to get to know, she said.

Loza-Muriera said she often asks people to think about their worst day — a day when they're feeling sad or ugly. Add to that being a foster child and having nobody pay attention to you, she says.

Then someone tells you, full of sincerity and warmth, "You are so amazing," or, "You are so beautiful."

"You can see how that compliment would be like water to a plant," she said.

The child starts thinking constantly about the pimp, who at this point is still just an increasingly attentive friend. He collects information about her, learning about her hopes, dreams and fears. Later when he wants something from her, he will promise to send her to visit her grandmother in Texas or he will threaten to attack her little sister in Richmond.

The pimp then begins to isolate the girl, to occupy as much of her world as he can, Loza-Muriera said. Eventually he begins asking her to turn tricks, maybe saying at first that it will just be a few times so they can get a house together.

He will introduce her to violence to show her how powerful he is, implicitly saying that he can both protect her and use his influence against her. He will have her hold his gun or witness a gang rape.

Eventually the girls are both terrified of and attached to their pimps, Joshi said. They think they're in real, romantic relationships with them, even though they know the pimps have the same relationship with many other girls.

"They're the most manipulative criminals I've ever come in
contact with," said Joshi, whose police work has involved serving on Drug Enforcement Agency task forces that dealt with Latino drug-dealing gangs. "They're the most hardcore, manipulative, callous criminals."

The pimps usually have their girls start working the Track in Oakland near 15th Avenue or 16th Avenue, where there are fewer cars, hotels, police and potential clients, Joshi said. 

There, the pimps can observe the girls and get them more used to the work before they take them to busier areas where the street numbers hit the 40s and 50s. Many of the more experienced teens work there; those girls might be 15 or 16 rather than 13 or 14, Joshi said.

From about 60th Avenue out to San Leandro, the Track becomes more destitute. Many of the women working there are junkies doing sex favors for $5 to $20 — about one-tenth of what most girls charge per trick — to feed their addictions.

The addicts are generally the only prostitutes in Oakland who aren't working for pimps, Joshi said. The others last maybe two or three days before they're recruited. Female undercover officers who work prostitution stings are usually approached by at least one pimp every night.

It can be difficult at first to identify girls working as prostitutes because it's their behavior on the street, as opposed to their appearance, that sets them apart, Joshi said.

Girls working as prostitutes sit at bus stops even after all the lines have passed at least once. They try to make eye contact with drivers as they walk, or they gesture at passing cars instead of focusing on getting from point A to B. 

Unless they know what to look for, "People probably drive past girls they think are going to school but are being exploited," Joshi said. 

Scope of the Problem

Statistics about the commercial sexual exploitation of youth remain elusive, thanks to the underground nature of the crime and a lack of official data collection protocols. Experts agree, however, that Atlanta and Oakland are two of the biggest trouble spots in the country.

Neither the California Department of Justice nor the FBI collects data on human trafficking arrests, so it's up to local agencies and non-governmental organizations to determine and document the scope of domestic trafficking of minors.

This means there's no consistent system used to organize the information.

The FBI's National Incident Based Reporting System is being modified to collect trafficking arrest data in the future, but the state DOJ dropped its anti-trafficking efforts in 2008 when budget issues forced the closure of its Crime and Violence Prevention Center.

On average, 200 kids are referred each year to Alameda County's Sexually Exploited Minor Network, according to Loza-Muriera. Another 120 exploited youth are case-managed from previous years.

"The referrals come from schools, teen clinics, probation, law enforcement, district attorneys, public defenders, social services, schools," Loza-Muriera said.

About 60 percent of referrals in Alameda County come from law enforcement, according to one survey. The Oakland Police Department targets young-looking girls working on the street or being sold over the Internet, and sometimes girls arrested on theft or truancy charges also turn out to be working as prostitutes. 

Other referrals come from health clinics and community organizations, and a few girls have even referred themselves, which used to be unheard of, Loza-Muriera said. The numbers only represent confirmed cases, though, and countless more are suspected each year.

State and local arrest data also provide some insight into relative rates of commercial sexual exploitation of children. 

In 2009, the most recent year for which data is available, 76 underage girls were arrested on suspicion of prostitution in Oakland out of a total of 549 prostitution arrests, according to the FBI.

That means Oakland alone accounted for about 8.5 percent of the country's 893 juvenile prostitution arrests in 2009 (excluding New York, which doesn't report them to the FBI). California was responsible for 426 of those arrests.

Los Angeles, which has a population of about 3.8 million compared to Oakland's 390,000, logged 69 of the arrests. Oakland appears to have many more exploited youth per capita, but is hard to make many concrete conclusions about the scope of the problem from those numbers since cities vary in their enforcement efforts.

Oakland also receives grant money in ebbs and flows to combat trafficking, so arrest statistics depend in part on department resources, Sgt. Joshi said.

In 2005, Oakland was awarded a U.S. Department of Justice grant that allowed it to focus on human trafficking starting in 2006, according to Lt. Kevin Wiley, who started the department's vice and child exploitation unit.

As a result, he said, underage prostitution arrests jumped from six in 2006 to 41 in 2007. In 2008, juveniles comprised almost 20 percent of the Oakland Police Department's prostitution arrests, or 50 out of 255.

"Nearly 100 percent of our cases are initiated as a result of proactive vice operations," Wiley said. "If we stop doing proactive enforcement/rescues, the numbers will decrease, but the problem will remain and only get worse."

The Oakland Police Department has also found that most girls who run away will be contacted by a pimp by the second time they leave home, Joshi said, even if they are only gone for 24 hours.

The department set up a new system in early 2010 in which the third time a runaway is entered into the system, she's flagged for intervention, Joshi said.

"We want to let her know that running away is high risk in Oakland," she said. "Maybe a pimp has contacted her and given her his number, or she worked one time and hated it. That's when you get her. When she's in the lifestyle and her immunity has built up, that's when it's hard to get her out."

National Model

The Oakland Police Department's runaway intervention program is just one of the ways law enforcement and service providers in Alameda County are national leaders in the fight against domestic sex trafficking of minors.

When Joshi was in the child and sexual exploitation unit, she and Saleda regularly visited schools, churches, and community centers to give talks about the signs of sexual exploitation, she said. 

Oakland's was the second police department in the country — after Dallas — to begin recognizing the girls as victims, and the agency works with Bay Area Women Against Rape and other nonprofits to make sure the girls have advocates throughout their arrests and legal proceedings, Joshi said.

Although the girls working the streets are arrested, the Police Department and Alameda County District Attorney's Office lobby to have prostitution charges dropped as long as the girls agree to enter a program or otherwise work toward rehabilitation.

Even the girls who are convicted of prostitution eventually end up having their records cleared, said Assistant Public Defender Aundrea Brown, who is assigned to represent sexually exploited youth in court.

Juvenile court operates differently than the adult legal process, she said. Youth can enter informal probation programs without admitting guilt, and formal convictions are replaced by "findings" against offenders.

Further, prostitution is a misdemeanor offense, which means it does not need to be reported on job applications that ask for disclosure of felony arrests.

"We are certainly taking our precautions to make sure this does not follow them throughout their adult lives," Brown said.

Several nonprofits declined to help set up interviews with former sexually exploited youth, saying that even as adults the women could be in danger if their former pimps recognized them talking to the media.

Interviewing a girl still going through the legal process is extremely difficult because it requires permission from the girl, her guardians and the judge, and court records are sealed in juvenile cases.

The county continues to endorse arrest because officials say arresting the girls is the only way police can isolate them from their pimps long enough to start eroding the emotional attachment the pimps have fostered.

Most of the arrests are made during undercover stings, which alternately target johns and prostitutes. The department runs undercover stings every month, and the vice and child exploitation unit works to recruit female patrol officers to pose as prostitutes.

Three undercover officers working several hours can bust about 80 would-be johns, but the real victories are the one or two pimps who to try to recruit the undercover officers each time they go out.

Male undercover officers also pose as johns. One night in March, a four-hour undercover operation netted 24 prostitutes, six of whom were underage, Joshi said.

The vice and child exploitation unit also has a grant-funded officer dedicated solely to online exploitation who works with the San Jose Internet Crimes Against Children task force to stay up to date on Web-based investigative techniques. 

The cases against the pimps are then turned over to Deputy District Attorney Sharmin Bock at the Alameda County District Attorney's Office. Bock prosecuted the state's first child sex trafficking case in 2006 and helped create the Human Exploitation and Trafficking, or HEAT, Watch, a multi-agency model to combat trafficking, in early 2010.

In May of that year, Bock was one of two deputy district attorneys who accompanied District Attorney Nancy O'Malley to Washington, D.C., to discuss the program with the president's Domestic Policy Council.

HEAT Watch received a $300,000 Department of Justice grant the following August for its work with Internet crimes against children.

Difficulties of Suppression

Despite these accomplishments, the general consensus appears to be that domestic sex trafficking of minors is outpacing suppression and prevention efforts, with opinions about progress ranging from "just scratching the surface" to outright "losing the battle."

"It's growing faster than we can keep up with," Officer Mark Rhoden of the vice and child exploitation unit said. "It's exponential in opposite directions because as it grows, we lose manpower."

Oakland's budget crisis has led to deep cuts in the Police Department; 80 officers were laid off last year, although 24 were recently rehired. 

The vice and child exploitation unit is down from five members to four — two of whom are grant funded — and the unit's overtime budget is strained, Joshi said.

She said the vice unit is unique in that its members do both police and investigative work.

"Normally the street team hands a case off to investigators to follow through," Joshi said. "Vice has to do day and night work."

The team sees each case from beginning to end, developing targets, going undercover, working with the district attorney's office, appearing in court and corroborating witness testimony, Joshi said.

She said the unit needs a bigger overtime budget and more equipment, such as undercover cars and an alternate facility.

"The undercover cars are used over and over again," Joshi said. "You can get burned."

The unit also doesn't do as many pimp stings as it used to because the overall department cuts have made it difficult to find the necessary funds and personnel, she said.

Police Chief Anthony Batts acknowledged the city is struggling to get ahead of its prostitution problem and said the Police Department needs a unit dedicated to vice and narcotics.

He said about 60 percent of the city's vice crimes are now tied to drug dealing or gang violence, so integrating the two law enforcement arms is becoming imperative.

"The ultimate impact will be having that dedicated unit," he said.

Having enough staff to aggressively fight sexual exploitation of children is especially important for two reasons, according to FBI Special Agent Marty Parker, who has worked on domestic trafficking in Oakland for 10 years.

First, more and more men are turning to pimping as a low-risk, lucrative alternative to drug and arms dealing. Second, by the nature of prostitution, it's easy for law enforcement to access the girls but difficult to get to the men who are exploiting them.

The pimps set up physical and psychological barriers to protect themselves from police, who now also have the Internet to contend with.

"We do have some ways to get around that, both high-tech and the less sophisticated means," Parker said, although she declined to elaborate on law enforcement's methods for reaching past the girls and getting to their abusers.

"But we always feel like we're one step behind," she added. "Prostitution growth is outpacing law enforcement progress."

Human trafficking is now tied with arms dealing as the world's second-largest criminal enterprise, just behind drug dealing, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It's also the fastest-growing illegal industry in the world. 

A pimp with five or six girls working seven nights per week, $80 to $200 per trick, can make $600,000 annually, Joshi said.

Overhead costs are also much lower compared to drug dealing because there's no product to buy or package. Pimps can both use and sell their product over and over again, and exploited children have minimal needs.

Three fast food meals a day, a hair and nail appointment from time to time, and a motel room — which a john will often purchase in exchange for the girl's first trick of the night — are all it takes to keep the girls in business, Joshi said.

Pimping is also much lower risk than dealing drugs, which requires being out in the open and in danger of police or rival dealers, she said. A pimp can keep an eye on his girls from a safe distance.

"If you're a pimp, what do you do?" Joshi said. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing except sell false dreams to girls who stand out there all day. You say you offer protection, but even if you have a gun, you're not there. How are you offering protection?"

Joshi and others agree that pimps flock to Oakland because of its reputation as a mecca of street culture and its endless victim base.

Pimping is glamorized in music, movies and TV — the song "It's hard out here for a pimp" fromHustle and Flow even won an Academy Award in 2006 — and Oakland in particular has come to be associated with the sex trade, Joshi said.

The city is also rife with at-risk girls, many from single-parent homes. Some have come to Alameda County from other parts of the Bay Area.

According to Parker, the more the community learns to recognize these girls and appreciate the circumstances that brought them to this point, the sooner Alameda County can start to get a handle on the problem.

"A culture shift would certainly be a huge step," she said. "People need to see this is a big issue and see these girls aren't just out there because they want to be."

 

Left Behind By Popular Media: The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan

Rape of a child held in slavery is abhorent whether boy or girl. Why are the boys reported so little?  Yes the statistics are greater for girls, but these male children also need and deserve our full attention and rescue efforts .

The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan

The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan exposes the horrific practice called Bacha Bazi, in which young Afghan boys are sold to warlords and powerful businessmen to be trained as dancers who perform for male audiences in women’s clothing and are then used and traded for sex. The practice is sadly making a comeback in that country.

As the West pours billions of dollars into the fight against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan, an ancient tradition (banned when the Taliban were in power) has re-emerged across the rest of the country. Many hundreds of young boys living in extreme poverty are lured off the streets on the promise of a new life away from destitution, unaware their real fate is to be used for entertainment by the warlords and other powerful men of Afghanistan.

Having gained remarkable access inside a sexual exploitation ring, award-winning Afghan journalist Najibullah Quraishi investigates this illegal practice, the consequences of which are shrouded by a focus on the war. The film exposes the lack of support from those in authority and explores possible responses to the plight of children in this conflict zone.

Watch the full documentary now

The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan from Sajid Younas on Vimeo.

 

Mafia Wars: Camorra vs. Nigerian Mafia-Italian sex trade fueled by human trafficking

 AlJazeeraEnglish

Essential & Bi-partisan: H.R. 2759, the Business Transparency on Trafficking & Slavery Act

We NEED these pieces of legislation concerning transparency in the supply chain to go through, and quickly.  We require labeling for many things, but not on whether an item we purchase is made by slave labor.  We're talking children and adults picking cotton in fields 7 days a week , making bricks, quarrying granite, harvesting food, working in factories, fishing and many more forms of labor.  We've been there.  We're still there as long as we continue to buy enormous quantities of items made by slaves.

There'll be a fight, you can bet on it.  Prices will go up when labor is no longer free. How about those who don't want to pay the extra dollars swap places with those doing the work?

 

Maloney Introduces Bipartisan Bill To Fight Human Trafficking

Congressmember Carolyn Maloney announced the introduction of H.R. 2759, the Business Transparency on Trafficking & Slavery Act from the steps of City Hall. The law requires companies to disclose any measures taken to identify and address instances of human trafficking, slavery and child labor in their supply chains.On August 3 at City Hall, Congressmember Carolyn Maloney (D–Manhattan, Queens) announced the introduction of H.R. 2759, the Business Transparency on Trafficking & Slavery Act, which would require companies to disclose any measures taken to identify and address instances of human trafficking, slavery and child labor in their supply chains. The legislation would require companies to include such disclosures in their annual reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and would also be prominently posted on SEC and company Web sites for public access. Congressmembers Christopher Smith of New Jersey, Jackie Speier of California and Jim McGovern of Massachusetts cosponsored the bill.

Joining Maloney at City Hall were Councilmembers Dan Garodnick, Rosie Mendez and Margaret Chin along with Cheryl Queen, vice president of Compass Group, a food-services firm which has taken a leadership role in fighting slave labor in its supply chain; Executive Director of ECPAT USA Carol Smolenski and Ariel Zwang, CEO of the anti-trafficking organization Safe Horizon.

“Human trafficking is the slavery of the 21st century. It is estimated that nearly 12.3 million people are working in some form of forced labor worldwide. We have seen a global shift in trafficking in weapons and drugs to trafficking in children and humans. Drugs and guns can be used only once, but the human body can be used over and over again. We must use every tool available to help men, women and children around the world who are enslaved,” Maloney said. “American consumers make purchasing decisions every day, but very few Americans know that it’s virtually impossible to get dressed, drive to work, talk on the phone, or eat a meal without touching products tainted by forced labor. This bill serves as a step toward ending this devastating enslavement by requiring companies with more than $100 million in worldwide receipts to be transparent about their policies. We don’t tell companies what to do, we’re just asking them to tell us what they do. But in providing this transparency, we’re also empowering consumers with information that could impact their purchasing decisions.”

“The sad reality is that sexual exploitation and other forms of trafficking happen every day -and they happen right here in New York City. We as consumers and taxpayers should know that our money is not filling the corporate wallet by means of heinous activities like human trafficking, slavery, and child labor. One way we can be responsible consumers is by knowing that a company has in place policies that address this issue, ensuring that the supply chain is not marred by any form of trafficking,” stated Councilmember Julissa Ferreras, chair of the Council’s Women’s Issues Committee.

 

Organ Sale Brokers To Stand Trial For Human Trafficking

While these impoverished people were promised payment, many unsuspecting victims are drugged, taken over borders and robbed of organs.  Women often are then sold on to brothels just days after the operations.

Organ sale brokers to stand trial for human trafficking

Updated August, 10 2011 10:13:00

CAN THO – Four members of a ring will be charged with trafficking people to China for selling their kidneys, Can Tho City police said on Tuesday.

Police said they have asked the city's Procuracy to prosecute La Thi Thinh, Vo Dinh Van, Le Son Truyen, and Quang Dai Vang for "organising other people to flee the country".

While organ trading is a crime in Viet Nam, in this case, it happened across the border in China.

From 2008 to February 2011, the four accused illegally took 19 poor Vietnamese nationals from HCM City and southern and Mekong provinces to China to sell their kidneys and earned profits of over VND150 million (US$7,300), investigations found.

Each kidney was sold for VND40 to VND50 million ($2,410) with all travel and accommodation expenses paid by Chinese traders.

For each person taken to China, the brokers got VND10 million ($483).

Police said in 2002, Van, a 25-year-old resident of HCM City's Go Vap District, and Truyen, 27-year-old resident of Tay Ninh Province's Duong Minh Chau District, were the first members of the ring to sell their kidneys to two Chinese traders whose details have not been released.

Van and Truyen were introduced to Thinh, a 40-year-old resident of Bac Giang Province's Son Dong District, who took people willing to sell their kidneys to Guangzhou Province in China. For each person taken to the Chinese province, Thinh received 300 yuan (VND900,000) from Truyen and Thinh.

Vang, a 24-year-old resident of Ninh Thuan Province's Ninh Phuoc District, became a member of the ring after selling his kidney in China in 2009. Vang got VND3 million for each person he successfully took to China.

In February 2011, Vang was arrested in Can Tho when he was on the way to take a Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta resident to China for selling his kidney.

According to medical exams conducted on three victims of the ring, the organ sale had damaged 41 per cent of their health, police said without elaborating.

In an unrelated case, a 22-year-old Vietnamese student died at his home in Ninh Thuan Province in June 2008 after selling his of his kidneys in China several months earlier.

To Cong Luan, a student of the Industrial Technical College in HCM City, had his left kidney removed in December 2007 at a hospital in Guangzhou, where he developed paralysis after the operation. He was brought back to Viet Nam in April 2008 and was treated at a hospital in HCM City until his family took him home, where he breathed his last. – VNS

 

Human Traffickers Threw 10 Pakistanis Into Sea After Insufficient Payment

This short, articulate article sums up major operational tactics and accompanying reasons for the vulnerability of human trafficking victims. It even succinctly addresses the solution.  A brave article from a small Pakistani newspaper.

Alarming rise in human trafficking

A LATEST media report has highlighted the growing menace of human trafficking and the urgent need to take measures to check it through a coordinated and firm approach. According to the report, human traffickers threw 10 Pakistanis in sea on not getting money from them. Bodies of three of them, who were going for greener pasture to Greece, reached Gujrat sending shock waves among people while the alleged trafficker and his accomplices have gone underground.

Human trafficking is going on unchecked since 1950 but regrettably despite a chain of regulatory bodies and law enforcing agencies, the cruel practice is still flourishing, as the influential and organized mafia is minting money at the cost of life-long savings and even life of the poor. Traffickers, their modus operandi and the routes used by them are fully known to the authorities concerned but corruption obviates any effective action against the crime. Three main frequent routes used by traffickers in Pakistan include Makran Coast, Thar and porous border with Afghanistan besides the sea routes of Karachi, Ormara, Pasni Gwadar and Jiwani to get to the Gulf. According to a study carried out by a reputed NGO, illegal recruiting agents, corrupt officials, parents, family, friends, relatives and the community are main actors involved in trafficking process, adding, the public departments that can aid or abet this process may include immigration authorities, travel agents and passport issuing authorities. There are also allegations that human trafficking in Pakistan is aided or facilitated by some influential figures. The problem can be resolved through a comprehensive strategy involving measures like purging the relevant agencies of corrupt elements, effective monitoring of their operations, streamlining of immigration procedures, strengthening border control, addressing the issue of poverty, ensuring provision of basic education and skills and launching an all-out awareness campaign.

Dog Helps Minor Testify At Rape Trial, Ignites Debate

One of the most terrifying and difficult things a survivor of rape and human trafficking can and many times must do to stop the perpetrator is to testify in court.  It's a feat that requires massive courage, often from an underage child or brutalized victim.  Since it is legally impossible to give those testifying a reassuring hand to hold or even person they know and trust nearby to reassure them they're safe with their perpetrator only a few feet away, this seems an ingenious and compassionate solution for many.

Not, apparently, for the perpetrators defence lawyers. 

By Helping a Girl Testify at a Rape Trial, a Dog Ignites a Legal Debate

Kelly Shimoda for The New York Times

Rosie, who comforts traumatized children and aided a teenager on the stand in a rape trial, outside the Dutchess County Courthouse in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., with Dale Picard.

By WILLIAM GLABERSON

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. — Rosie, the first judicially approved courtroom dog in New York, was in the witness box here nuzzling a 15-year-old girl who was testifying that her father had raped and impregnated her. Rosie sat by the teenager’s feet. At particularly bad moments, she leaned in.

When the trial ended in June with the father’s conviction, the teenager “was most grateful to Rosie above all,” said David A. Crenshaw, a psychologist who works with the teenager.

“She just kept hugging Rosie,” he continued.

Now an appeal planned by the defense lawyers is placing Rosie at the heart of a legal debate that will test whether there will be more Rosies in courtrooms in New York and, possibly, other states.

Rosie is a golden retriever therapy dog who specializes in comforting people when they are under stress. Both prosecutors and defense lawyers have described her as adorable, though she has been known to slobber.

Prosecutors here noted that she is also in the vanguard of a growing trial trend: in Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana and some other states in the last few years, courts have allowed such trained dogs to offer children and other vulnerable witnesses nuzzling solace in front of juries.

The new role for dogs as testimony enablers can, however, raise thorny legal questions. Defense lawyers argue that the dogs may unfairly sway jurors with their cuteness and the natural empathy they attract, whether a witness is telling the truth or not, and some prosecutors insist that the courtroom dogs can be a crucial comfort to those enduring the ordeal of testifying, especially children.

The new witness-stand role for dogs in several states began in 2003, when the prosecution won permission for a dog named Jeeter with a beige button nose to help in a sexual assault case in Seattle. “Sometimes the dog means the difference between a conviction and an acquittal,” said Ellen O’Neill-Stephens, a prosecutor there who has become a campaigner for the dog-in-court cause.

Service dogs have long been permitted in courts. But in a ruling in June that allowed Rosie to accompany the teenage rape victim to the trial here, a Dutchess County Court judge, Stephen L. Greller, said the teenager was traumatized and the defendant, Victor Tohom, appeared threatening. Although he said there was no precedent in the state, Judge Greller ruled that Rosie was similar to the teddy bear that a New York appeals court said in 1994 could accompany a child witness.

At least once when the teenager hesitated in Judge Greller’s courtroom, the dog rose and seemed to push the girl gently with her nose. Mr. Tohom was convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life.

His lawyers, David S. Martin and Steven W. Levine of the public defender’s office, have raised a series of objections that they say seems likely to land the case in New York’s highest court. They argue that as a therapy dog, Rosie responds to people under stress by comforting them, whether the stress comes from confronting a guilty defendant or lying under oath.

But they say jurors are likely to conclude that the dog is helping victims expose the truth. “Every time she stroked the dog,” Mr. Martin said in an interview, “it sent an unconscious message to the jury that she was under stress because she was telling the truth.”

“There was no way for me to cross-examine the dog,” Mr. Martin added.

In written arguments, the defense lawyers claimed it was “prosecutorial misconduct” for the Dutchess County assistant district attorney handling the rape case, Kristine Hawlk, to arrange for Rosie to be taken into the courtroom. Cute as the dog was, the defense said, Rosie’s presence “infected the trial with such unfairness” that it constituted a violation of their client’s constitutional rights.

Ms. Hawlk declined to discuss Rosie. In written arguments, she said that all Rosie did was help a victim suffering from serious emotional distress, and she called the defense claims “frivolous accusations.”

The defense lawyers acknowledged the risk of appearing antidog. Rosie, they wrote, “is a lovely creature and by all standards a ‘good dog,’ ” and, they added, the defendant “wishes her only the best.”

As the lawyers prepare their appeal, Rosie has been busy. She spent much of her time in recent weeks with two girls, ages 5 and 11, who were getting ready to testify against the man accused of murder in the stabbing of their mother.

The Dutchess prosecutor in that case, Matthew A. Weishaupt, argued that Rosie and dogs like her did not affect the substance of the testimony about horrifying crimes. “These dogs ease the stress and ease the trauma so a child can take the stand,” Mr. Weishaupt said in an interview.

In the end, Rosie was not needed in the second case: the defendant, Gabriel Lopez-Perez, who had a history of domestic violence, interrupted his trial last week to plead guilty to killing the girls’ mother, his girlfriend, in the Wappingers Falls rooming house where they lived.

But Rosie’s promised appearance next to the children might well have played a role. “It became obvious,” said Mr. Lopez-Perez’s lawyer, Andres Aranda, “that the children were going to be testifying, and he decided to avoid that.”

The defense’s appeal of Rosie’s first courtroom outing, in the rape case, is likely to establish legal principles on the issues of dogs in the witness box. “It is an important case, and appeals courts will consider it an important case,” James A. Cohen, a professor of criminal law at Fordham University School of Law, said.

When New York appeals courts study the question, they are likely to look at the experience of courtroom dogs around the country, including in Washington. In Seattle, a developmentally disabled 57-year-old man, Douglas K. Lare, recently recalled how a Labrador retriever named Ellie, who has made more than 50 court appearances, helped him testify against a man charged with a scheme to steal from him.

Ellie gave him courage when he was afraid, Mr. Lare said in an interview: “It was like I had no other friends in the courthouse except Ellie,” he said.

For 11-year-old Rosie, said her owners, Dale and Lu Picard, the courtroom work is a career change after years working with emotionally troubled children at a residential center in Brewster. The Picards’ organization, Educated Canines Assisting With Disabilities, or ECAD, places service dogs after training them to perform tasks like turning lights on and off and opening doors.

Rosie, named for the civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks, was originally taught to follow 80 commands, including taking off a person’s socks without biting any toes. But she has a special talent with traumatized children, said Dr. Crenshaw, the psychologist who has worked with all three of Rosie’s witnesses and many other troubled children.

“When they start talking about difficult things,” Dr. Crenshaw said, “Rosie picks up on that and goes over and nudges them. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

 

An Phong Vo - Returning To Take Up Cause Of Refugees, Human Trafficking

An Phong Vo is a strong representative of the courageous individuals who are determined to be the change that is so slow to come in the fight against slavery. 

What she's doing can be extremely dangerous, yet like many survivors her thoughts are not to live safely in the freedom she finally attained, but to go back and help those still in captivity.

The astonishing bravery demonstrated here is happening around the world.  I've personally met survivors; American, Congolese, Asian, Nepali, Indian, who are persuing the same goal: To free the enslaved and abolish slavery.  How can we not stand with them and yet claim ourselves free?

 HuffPost Greatest Person Of The Day: An Phong Vo Takes Up Cause Of Refugees, Fights Human Trafficking

First Posted: 8/8/11 06:21 PM ET Updated: 8/8/11 06:29 PM ET

When An Phong Vo was nine years old, her family fled Vietnam and was resettled in Texas. The year was 1992. Nineteen years later, she's teaching Vietnamese and Bible study and taking up the cause of refugees and victims of human trafficking.

Vo came to America because she and her family were considered temporary residents in Vietnam who lacked basic rights of ownership and privacy. "The police could come ransack our home at any time," she told The Huffington Post. "There are people in this situation in many countries -- their rights and dignity are being trampled upon."

Her family escaped Vietnam by boat and was rescued at sea three days later. From there, Vo spent three and a half years in the Pulau Bidong refugee camp in Malaysia. Eventually her family was interviewed by the United Nights Refugree Agency (UNHCR) and was recommended for resettlement in the United States.

Vo is heading to Thailand on behalf of Boat People SOS, a nonprofit dedicated to assisting Vietnamese people aiming to seek asylum status or emigrate from nations in which they are persecuted.

She's making the move alone, and she admitted that her mother and others are concerned, but she's determined: "Many are worried for me, but for me going along is an opportunity -- as a refugee survivor myself, I see being able to be on the other side and help as a miracle."

Vo will be in Asia for an undetermined length of time and has prepared to spend at least a year on her personal mission. She hopes to get the governments of Taiwan, Thailand and Malaysia to commit to enhancing and enforcing human trafficking laws. She will be based in Bangkok and will work with various nonprofits and civil society organizations to assist refugees in applying for and obtaining asylum, while also focusing on trafficking on a policy level.

"In Thailand there are a lot of urban refugees, which means that these people are not living in camps -- they're living underground, illegally," Vo explained. "They're living in a self-imposed exile of sorts, where they can't leave their rooms for fear of being arrested and held in detention centers."

Vo will also be working with the Coalition to Abolish Modern Day Slavery (CAMSA).

As for human trafficking, Vo said that, for some Asian countries, fighting trafficking has not been as high of a priority as it should. "Taiwan has been fantastic in trying to get their act together when it comes to trafficking, but Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia are on the Tier 2 watchlist [as ranked by a State Department report]," Vo said. "That means they're trying to do something but they're not there yet. This year is crucial because if they don't improve, they may be put on Tier 3, which is the lowest tier."

Prior to heading overseas, Vo was a part of the first ever Refugee Congress at the Georgetown Law Center in Washington, D.C. The experience, she said, was simply amazing: "I delayed my trip to Thailand to attend the congress and it was great to be able to meet with our elected officials and draft a proclamation to present to them and UNHCR in Geneva -- it's just thrilling to see that [the U.N. refugee agency] UNHCR is soliciting input from former refugees."

Vo is confident and extremely articulate, but it is perhaps her humility which is most striking. "The work we're doing is an important beginning," she said. "But this is all still new and in the long run [programs like the Refugee Congress] will prove very beneficial."

"I was shocked that [The Huffington Post] wanted to feature my work," she added quickly. "The real heroes are the people who are surviving as refugees every day."

 

An Under-reported Crime: Workers Tell Of Horrors On Trawlers

I believe this to be a grossly under-reported face of human trafficking.

Men around the world,  trapped on fishing trawlers that are un-seaworthy; disposable labor.  They are starved, beaten and thrown overboard or dumped in remote countries when they become useless.

There are several stories such as these depicted in Kat Rohrer's documentary about human trafficking in Eastern Europe: Fatal Promises.  It's logical to traffick men for cold-water fishing from similar places and the same for warm.

Perhaps some of the factors involved in the lack of coverage is the public preference for stories involving sex trafficking over labor, women over men.  It also takes place far out to sea where there are no witnesses, it's a big ocean.

There's also the shame of the male victims of having been duped, trapped, powerless.  One of the heart-rending scenes in Fatal Promises involves a man expressing his shame as a husband and father for desperately believing in the offer of an honest job because of his inability to provide for his family in the post soviet economy, and now, because of the abusive treatment and permanent impairment, his despair of ever being capable of doing so.

I believe there are slave labor manned trawlers off our own coastlines, far enough offshore that they remain anonymous, fresh labor ferried out to the ships when the current are used up and thrown over.  

Human trafficking involves everyone . We can not forget that.  These men must be rescued.

Migrant workers tell of horrors on trawlers

Deceived by traffickers and then abused

Published: 8/08/2011 at 10:09

AMPATHUM THANI - The rain pounding the leaky roof only heightened the horrors of human trafficking, of despondency and hope, as their tale unfolded in a gloomy shack in the farthest corner of the construction site of a nouveau riche residential compound.

It was a story that many people in this country believe belongs in the past, but it's all too real for poor people in neighbouring countries who still view Thailand as a land of hope and riches, and seek work here as illegal immigrants.

“We were told that we would be working in a fish canning factory, but instead were sent to a fishing trawler off the Rayong coast," said a 29-year-old Karen who gave his name as Aung.

"Beatings were a daily occurrence, but no one dared to challenge the boss. If we wanted to bathe, we had to wash using melt water from ice used to stack the fish. We were chilled to the bone day and night.”

Aung

Aung said he was smuggled across the border by a Burmese broker, along with 38 other people, seven of them women. They walked from Myawaddy through the jungle for three days before arriving at Tak’s Mae Sot district.
 
To avoid Thai checkpoints they also used  jungle trails in Thailand, reaching the central province of Khamphaengphet in another seven days. Along the way two men disappeared, apparently lost in the forest.

The remaining 37 people were transported to Bangkok on pick-up trucks they heard belonged to Thai policemen. They were kept in a big house for three more days before being allotted to “buyers” at different destinations.
 
The Karen man said those who had about 12,000 baht to pay brokerage fees could get “better” work, but he, along with five other men and two women, did not have the money. As a result, they were told the cost was to be deducted from their wages and then they were sent to the coast.
 
After enduring excessively long hours working for petty remuneration, Aung (pictured in white T-shirt), finally fled. It was a brief taste of freedom. He was quickly tracked down and sent work on a fishing trawler based in Samut Prakan’s Klong Dan district.
 
“We were just sold from boat to boat," Aung said.

They had no way of keeping track of the brokerage fees and other unknown charges being chalked up against their wages, or how or when they would ever be able to pay them off.

"Eventually I ended up owing some 30,000 baht despite weeks, months, of  never-ending work," he said.

Not willing to accept such a dim future, he fled again and this time sought help from a friend in Samut Songkram.
 
The opening of a new process of registration for illegal immigrants has provided him some hope that he and his wife, they met in Thailand, would be able to cleanse  themselves and become “legal migrant workers", he said.
 
Without thinking thoroughly of the consequences, he last month hired a Thai man to pretend to be his new employer, so he could get a job inland - well away from the hated fishing boats.
 
But the pretend employer demanded the Karen couple to pay him 12,000 baht. They therefore fled again and ended working at the construction site in Pathum Thani. Their future still dangles by a thin thread as the site is not registered so they are still  in breach of  labour and immigration regulations.
 
Zaw, 24, came from Mawlamyai in Burma. He has already been working in Thailand  for two years and entered the country along the same Myawaddy-Mae Sot smugglers' route.
 
“We just thought that Thailand would be a much better place to work," he said.

 "We were supposed to have work in a rambutan canning plant, but were instead sent to a fishing boat. I felt cheated by the broker, who was our countryman.

"I feel that we were coerced to work in an undesirable place, and that is surely trafficking,” said Zaw. There were deductions made from his wages every two weeks over several months.

Zaw

Zaw admitted he had heard stories about abuse suffered at the hands of traffickers before he come to Thailand, but there were “positive” stories as well. So he put his life on the line,  joining the several hundred thousand other Burmese in illegally crossing the border in search of work and a better life.

He said he had paid 5,300 baht for the worker registration document early this month and was now waiting to be fingerprinted and HIV-tested.
 
“My fate has been a bit luckier than Aung's. Women migrants are treated even worse, but Hlaing's story is also sad,” said Zaw, pointing to a 24-year-old compatriot.
 
Hlaing's story fell on our ears with the force of the heavy rain pounding the leaky iron roof of the cramped shanty.

He said he still gets the shakes when he thinks of the ordeal he has been through. He wonders if anyone will ever make the effort needed to bring some sense of justice to this horrific trade and prevent such torture from recurring again and again.
 
“It was do or die," he said with a shudder.

"We never had adequate food or sleep. We were on a fishing boat off the Indonesian coast. A Thai man was at the helm and a Mon man was supervising the 28 of us."

Zaw took up the story.

"At one point the crew  attempted to revolt, demanding to be moved to a new boat or be sent ashore.

"Only 15 decided to remain on the same boat, the rest of us were dumped into the sea, quite far from the nearest visible island,” he said.
 
Nearby trawlers rescued the 13 swimmers who were then landed on the Indonesian island, which they vaguely remembered as being called “Mikina or Bijina”.
 
“There were some Burmese activists in exile who helped coordinate with the Burmese embassy in Jakarta, but after waiting for few months for hoped for repatriation back home we all ended up in a military jail for three months,” said Zaw, who refused to be photographed.
 
He said he was later sent to another Thai fishing vessel, along with other migrant workers.

He finally  managed to escape and had since worked at four or five different places in the past six months.
 
Thailand is regarded as a major transit point and destination for trafficked persons and UN special rapporteur  on Trafficking in Persons, Joy Ngozi Ezeilo, is visiting here fom Aug 8 to 19.
 
The US has also placed Thailand on its human trafficking watchlist, following its annual report on trafficking released two months ago.