Friday, February 28, 2014

Traffic - A five part series about human trafficking.

http://mtv.in.com/videos/promos/mtv-exit-traffic/exit-traffic-first-look-100207715.html?frm=india

EXIT - TRAFFIC - First Look
When small town dreams turn in to big city nightmares, you know you have to stop, think and act. Anurag Kashyap and MTV Exit present Traffic - A five part series about human trafficking.

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Freedom Fighter Andy Yaffa

We just had the great fortune to have Andy Yaffa present his litigation on behalf of the baby born without limbs as a result of toxic pesticides unleashed on his pregnant mother while she worked to harvest our tomatoes.  Please read their story.

http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/1033178/chemical_warfare_the_horrific_birth_defects_linked_to_tomato_pesticides.html

Chemical warfare: the horrific birth defects linked to tomato pesticides

Barry Estabrook
1st September, 2011

The 'Immokalee babies' were born with severe deformities after their mothers were each exposed to pesticides whilst harvesting tomatoes. Barry Estabrook reports on the case that shocked the US

Tower Cabins is a labour camp consisting of about thirty drab wooden shacks and a few deteriorating trailers crammed together behind an unpainted wooden fence just south of Immokalee, a city in the heart of southwest Florida’s tomato-growing region.

The community of poor migrant labourers is dreary at the best of times, but just before Christmas a few years ago, there were reasons for joy. Three women, all neighbours, were expecting children within seven weeks of each other. But in the lives of tomato workers, there is a fine line between hope and tragedy.
The first baby, the son of twenty-year-old Abraham Candelario and his nineteen-year-old wife, Francisca Herrera, arrived on December 17. They named the child Carlos. Carlitos, as they called him, was born with an extremely rare condition called tetra-amelia syndrome, which left him with neither arms nor legs. 

About six weeks later, a few cabins away, Jesus Navarrete was born to Sostenes Maceda. Jesus had Pierre Robin Sequence, a deformity of the lower jaw. As a result, his tongue was in constant danger of falling back into his throat, putting him at risk of choking to death. The baby had to be fed through a plastic tube. 

Two days after Jesus was born, Maria Meza gave birth to Jorge. He had one ear, no nose, a cleft palate, one kidney, no anus, and no visible sexual organs. A couple hours later, following a detailed examination, the doctors determined that Jorge was in fact a girl. Her parents renamed her Violeta. Her birth defects were so severe that she survived for only three days. 

In addition to living within one hundred yards of each other, Herrera, Maceda, and Meza had one other thing in common. They all worked for the same company, Ag-Mart Produce, Inc., and in the same vast tomato field. Consumers know Ag-Mart mainly through its trademarked UglyRipe heirloom-style tomatoes and Santa Sweets grape tomatoes, sold in plastic clamshell containers adorned with three smiling, dancing tomato characters named Tom, Matt, and Otto. 'Kids love to snack on this nutritious treat,' says the company’s advertising.

From the rows of tomatoes where the women were working during the time they became pregnant, the view was not so cheery. A sign at the entry warned that the field had been sprayed by no fewer than thirty-one different chemicals during the growing season. Many of them were rated 'highly toxic,' and at least three, the herbicide metribuzin, the fungicide mancozeb, and the insecticide avermectin, are known to be 'developmental and reproductive toxins,' according to Pesticide Action Network. They are teratogenic, meaning they can cause birth defects.
Safety violations
If they are used, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency mandates 'restricted-entry intervals' (REIs in the jargon of chemical agriculture), the time that must elapse between when pesticides are applied and when workers can go into the fields. In all three cases, the women said they were ordered to pick the fruit in violation of REI regulations.

'When you work on the plants, you smell the chemicals,' said Herrera, the mother of limbless Carlitos. Subsequent investigations showed that Herrera worked in fields that recently had been sprayed with mancozeb twenty-four to thirty-six days after conception, the stages where a child begins to develop neurologically and physically. 

Meza recalled: 'It has happened to me many times that when you are working and the chemical has dried and turned to dust that you breathe it.' Although regulations require that handlers of many of these pesticides use protective eyewear, chemical-resistant gloves, rubber aprons, and vapour respirators, the three pregnant women said they had not been warned of the possible dangers of being exposed to the chemicals. They wore no protective gear, unless you count their futile attempts to avoid inhalation by covering their mouths with bandanas. 

Herrera said she felt sick the entire time she worked in the field. She described being coated in pesticides and suffering from dizziness, nausea, vomiting, and lightheadedness. Her eyes and nose felt as though they were burning. She developed rashes and open sores. 

Giving up work was not an option. Herrera said that her boss, a subcontractor to Ag-Mart, told her if she did not work, she would be kicked out of the room that he was providing. Ironically, the impending arrival of her first child made it all the more important for her and her husband to have a place to live. She worked in the fields from preconception, through the early stages of gestation, right up until her seventh month of pregnancy, only a few weeks before Carlitos’s slightly premature arrival. Even after quitting the fields, she continued to hand wash the chemical-soaked clothes of her husband and her brother, Epifanio.

Jesus’s jaw deformity proved not to be as dangerous as first thought, and doctors told his mother that the baby’s condition would likely improve as he grew older. Violetta’s parents had to mourn the death of their child. But after the birth of Carlitos, Herrera and Candelario’s problems intensified. The end of the winter picking season in Florida was approaching, and the family would have to migrate north to find work. But Carlitos needed constant medical attention, which he was receiving through a local agency, the Children’s Medical Services of Lee County. Even though he was an American citizen by birth, his parents were Mexican and had no documentation. Deportation was a real possibility.
Things took a turn for the worse when at three months of age the baby developed respiratory problems that made it difficult for him to breathe. He had to be flown from a hospital near Immokalee to Miami Children’s Hospital. Lacking a car, Herrera and Candelario had to rely on rides from social workers to make the journey across the state, trips that took two and a half hours one way and could be undertaken only on days when Candelario was not required in the fields, where he still had to work to pay the rent. 'There was nothing we could do for our little boy,' said Candelario.
Legal help

One of the social workers helping Carlitos’s parents realised that the family faced an insurmountable financial burden and needed legal help. The social worker contacted a local lawyer, who confessed that he would have been completely over his head with such a complex case. He did, however, have a colleague who specialised in catastrophic personal injury, product liability, and medical malpractice litigation. 

He picked up the telephone and put in a call to Andrew Yaffa, a partner in the firm Grossman Roth, which has offices in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, Sarasota, and Key West. Although they had no way of knowing it, Abraham Candelario, Francisca Herrera, and Carlitos had just caught what might have been the first break they had ever received in their hardscrabble lives. If you are injured in a car accident, hurt on the job, or the victim of a negligent physician, you could do no better than getting Andrew Yaffa to represent you.

As soon as I met him, I understood why Andrew Yaffa became such a successful lawyer. The day I visited, he was working out of the boardroom in his firm’s Boca Raton office. 'I live out of a FedEx box,' he said. 'I serve every office we have.' That afternoon he had taken over the conference room table. File folders were strewn here and there. His laptop was open. His expensive suit coat was folded over the back of a chair, and his tie was loose. Every few minutes when a cell phone on the table warbled, he glanced at its caller ID and replaced it without missing a conversational beat.

In his early forties at the time of Carlitos’s birth in 2004, Yaffa is widely recognised as one of the top lawyers in the state. He has won many multimillion dollar settlements in cases tried before some of Florida’s toughest judges. One of Yaffa’s competitors in Florida described him to me in an e-mail as 'a great lawyer...solid person...integrity...partner in a fabulous law firm...creative...innovative...bright...ethical...the works!'

Yaffa is tall and has the sort of telegenic good looks that would make him a shoo-in to play the role of the leading man if someone ever does a movie version of his life as a crusading attorney. His short dark hair is brushed back and moussed neatly in place, and I caught the merest whiff of cologne. His handsome face is tempered by a kind of Midwestern earnestness. (He’s actually a Virginia native.) 

Yaffa establishes an instant rapport, speaking with a soft, unwavering voice. When I asked him why he chose to take on such a long shot case as that of Carlitos Candelario, he eyed me the way he might stare at an uncooperative witness and said, 'I see a lot in my work. But when I see a child or a family that has been harmed and in distress, I don’t need a whole lot more motivation than that.'

Initially, Yaffa could hardly believe what his friend had told him. He needed to see for himself and to talk to the child’s parents. Were they people who would come across as credible? Would a jury relate to them? Would they even want his help? Leaving behind his usual car, a new BMW, to avoid drawing attention to himself, he got in the road-weary Chevy Suburban reserved for weekend fishing outings and trips to the beach with his kids and drove from his Miami office across miles of uninhabited saw grass prairies in the Everglades to the shabby two-bedroom trailer that the young couple and their tragically deformed child shared with seven other migrants. 

When Yaffa knocked on the door, Herrera answered. He was struck by the fact that the petite, round-faced woman was barely older than a child herself. All the men who lived in the trailer were in the fields. Carlitos was propped up in a baby seat. Strips of drying meat hung from a clothesline stretched across the living room, and the humid air was rank and pungent. Flies buzzed everywhere. When Carlitos began fussing, Herrera took the six-month-old baby out of the seat and laid him on the floor. An orphaned puppy that the trailer’s residents had adopted came bouncing around, and the child watched it, smiling and cooing.
'No arms, no legs'
The puppy yipped, pounced, and started nipping at the baby. Carlitos began to scream, and Herrera rushed to pick him up. Yaffa was powerfully affected. The child, who did not even have the ability to flick away a fly or push back against a puppy, faced a lifetime of need. 'The pesticides got into her system and affected this child that was forming and lo and behold, he ends up being born with no arms and no legs,' he told me.

Speaking in Spanish, he tried to draw out Herrera, who spoke very little Spanish herself. As is the case of many migrant farmworkers, her first language and the one she was most comfortable communicating in was a native Indian dialect. Yaffa explained that a social worker had contacted him, and he was there for one reason—to help her. He told Herrera that there was no pressure for her to work with him. As is the norm for lawyers in his field, he would bear all the legal expenses himself and be paid only by taking a percentage of anything they won. 

When Herrera finally nodded her head, Yaffa vowed that he would do everything in his power to help his new client. But even a lawyer of his track record and courtroom acumen had his work cut out for him. Because of all the nearly infinite variables—heredity, exposure to chemicals at other job sites, possible smoking or drug abuse, environmental factors—cases linking pesticide exposure to birth defects are notoriously hard to prove.

Instead of pursuing the conventional approach by trying to determine the chemical that caused the damage and suing the company that made it, Yaffa decided to do something he had never done: He would try to get compensation from the corporate farm where Herrera had worked. In essence, he would try the entire modern agricultural industry and the chemical-based philosophy on which it is founded.

Extracted from the ‘Chemical Warfare’ chapter of Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit by Barry Estabrook, published by Andrews McMeel Publishing

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

I Am Proud of You, Tallahassee

This event is going on right now...

Keynote Speaker
Wendi Adelson
renowned author of
This is Our Story
Sponsored by The Salvation Army Tallahassee Corps
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
9:00am - 2:00pm
2410 Allen Road, Tallahassee, FL 32312
Symposium purpose:
To increase community awareness about human trafficking
and promote a healthier environment for our youth.
Objectives:
• Increase awareness about childhood victims of human
trafficking.
• Recognize the signs and trappings of human trafficking.
• Learn how to assist victims of human trafficking
through knowledge of available resources.
C
To Register:
Submit name, organization, phone and email by 2/21/2014
Julie Smith, Community Relations/Volunteer Coordinator
(850) 222-0304
julie_smith@uss.salvationarmy.org
Who should attend?
Child advocates · Concerned citizens · Criminal justice professionals
Faith community · Health care providers · Policymakers
School Safety Officers · School staff
Expert Panel:
• Lorena Bueno, Assistant State
Attorney, 2nd Judicial Circuit
• Tyson Elliot, FL DJJ Human
Trafficking Director
• Kim Grabert, FL DCF Human
Trafficking Coordinator
• Don Ladner, FDLE SAC, Tallahassee
Regional Operations Center
• Graciela Marquina, Advocate
Special Guests:
• Pamela Marsh, U.S. Attorney North
Florida District
• Michelle Gaines, FL Department of
Education
• Alesia Adams, Territorial Services
Coordinator, Salvation Army
Moderator:
• John Robertson, Program Services
Director of FL Network of Youth &
Family Services
Keynote Speaker
Wendi Adelson
renowned author of
This is Our Story
Call to Action
Honorable Judge Lynn Tepper
Sixth Judicial Circuit Court
Dade City, FL

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Stories from around the globe on the issues of Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking

http://paper.li/unseenukorg/1288640983

Human Trafficking/Modern Slavery

Stories from around the globe on the issues of Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking

xoJane

Shared by
Martin Haven
xojane.com - IT HAPPENED TO ME: I Almost Became a Victim of Human Trafficking at the Sochi Olympics Brittney Cason - 3 Hours Ago Posted in It Happened To Me, trafficking, olympics, sochi With my hairbrush as my...

LOVE146 | Film + Books

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MissionToElSalvador
love146.org - Part of the DNA of Love146 has always been identifying gaps and finding ways to fill those gaps. Our work in the United States so far has been Prevention Education. Through our work here we’ve iden...

Arts London News | Slavery in the modern world

Shared by
Emma Francis
artslondonnews.com - Slavery is not a thing of the past. Emma Francis investigates how there are more slaves in the world today than ever before and how we can help make people aware of the shocking issue. January’s ha...

USCIS: Protecting Victims of Human Trafficking

Shared by
Broward HTC
dhs.gov - Human trafficking exists today in every country and in every state in our nation. It exists in cities, suburbs, and rural areas – hidden in plain sight. Traffickers often lure victims with false pr...

Country's First Safe House For Male Human Trafficking Victims Coming To The East

Shared by
David Rickman
witn.com - Human trafficking has been described as a modern form of slavery and a growing problem and a local organization is working to help its victims. North Carolina is ran

Monday, February 24, 2014

Salvation Army hosting public human trafficking forum

http://www.wtxl.com/news/salvation-army-hosting-public-human-trafficking-forum/article_7ef7e42a-9d43-11e3-8cea-001a4bcf6878.html#.UwtYaBg36QA.twitter

Salvation Army hosting public human trafficking forum

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Posted: Monday, February 24, 2014 6:04 am |Updated: 6:22 am, Mon Feb 24, 2014.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) -- The Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking estimates there are 2.5 million people in the United States enslaved right now in a profitable and torturous industry.
Law enforcement say Florida and Georgia are not immune to the growing problem of human trafficking. Law enforcement leaders say it's a problem that impacts men, women, and children.
In an effort to raise community awareness and to help others spot potential human trafficking victims, Salvation Army Tallahassee Corps is hosting an upcoming forum called "Saving Our Youth: Faces of Human Trafficking".
Organizers say the purpose of the event is to increase community awareness about human trafficking by providing information of recognizing the signs and how to assist victims.
The forum will be held Wednesday, February 26 from 9:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. at the Salvation Army building located at 2410 Allen Road, next to Tallahassee Mall.
For more information on the free event, call (850) 222-0304.

Friday, February 21, 2014

Access to Safe Shelter is One of the Greatest Obstacles Victims of Trafficking Face

http://www.wsls.com/story/24778233/roanoke

Roanoke human trafficking education, shelter

Posted: Feb 20, 2014 2:40 PM ESTUpdated: Feb 20, 2014 2:45 PM EST
ROANOKE, VA -
Straight Street just got its first donation to continue working towards the first human trafficking shelter in Roanoke.

The Junior League of Roanoke Valley is giving them $30,000 as part of the group's annual Community Project Grants. 
Keith Farmer the Straight Street director says the money will be used to bring in people from Georgia. A group called Wellspring Living, who has worked with victims of human trafficking for more than a decade running a shelter. 
The money will also be used for billboards around the Roanoke Valley and education.
CLICK HERE FOR PAST WSLS STORIES ON STRAIGHT STREET

"You're going to be much more successful if you can prevent a child from becoming a victim then just taking care of a victim. We want to be there to support victims, help them through the  recovery process but if you can prevent somebody through education and public awareness you're saving just a lifetime of hurt, pain, healing and flashbacks," said Farmer.

If you're interested in learning more information Straight Street is showing a documentary March 15th and will talk about human trafficking on the local and global level. The event is from 11 a.m. - 2 p.m.

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Foster Care and Prostitution

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/20/opinion/foster-care-and-prostitution.html?emc=edit_tnt_20140219&tntemail0=y&_r=0

To the Editor:
In “When Emily Was Sold for Sex” (column, Feb. 13), Nicholas Kristof draws attention to the sex trafficking of runaways. It should also be noted that children in foster care make up a significant portion of runaways, and are especially vulnerable to sex trafficking.
There is a strong connection between homelessness and prostitution, the endpoint of sex trafficking. All too often children in foster care already feel homeless and “graduate” into homelessness. It is my hope that our progressive new mayor will devote resources toward addressing the problems of these most vulnerable of children.
NORMA RAMOS
New York, Feb. 14, 2014
The writer is a board member of Prostitution Research and Education.

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

The Role of Medical Responders in the Fight against Human Trafficking

http://inpublicsafety.com/2014/02/the-role-of-medical-responders-in-the-fight-against-human-trafficking/

The Role of Medical Responders in the Fight against Human Trafficking

As an emergency responder, chances are you have treated victims of human trafficking and child sex-trafficking and did not recognize it, or, if you did suspect something, you may not have known what to do.
During the EMS Today Conference and Exhibition in Washington, D.C. on February 7, Dr. Ramsey Tate, a fellow in Pediatric Emergency Medicine at the University of New Mexico, gave a riveting and inspiring talk about the critical role EMS responders have in the fight against human trafficking.
human-trafficking pic“Each of you is powerful against human trafficking,” she said. “It is an uncomfortable and challenging topic and it’s not easy to discuss,” but medical responders can do something about it by educating themselves about what to look for and how to respond.
First of all, this form of modern-day slavery is alive and well in our communities, according to Dr. Tate. It is happening all around the country. For example, in New Mexico where Dr. Tate lives and works, there are very high rates of child poverty, which is the most vulnerable population for sex trafficking (the average age of child sex victims is 12-14 years old). In addition, there are a lot of casinos in the area, which means there is a high demand for commercial sex.
EMS responders must first recognize that human trafficking and child sex-trafficking exists in their community and understand that they are on the frontlines.
What is Human Trafficking?Dr. Tate started the conversation by defining human trafficking, which is often referred to as modern-day slavery. First of all, trafficking is not smuggling—human trafficking is a crime against a person (whereas smuggling is a crime against a border). Second, trafficking is NOT voluntary sex work by adults—many adults choose to engage in sex work and they are not trafficking victims.
So what is considered human trafficking? Dr. Tate recommended following the A-M-P model to help identify human trafficking. In order to be considered human trafficking, there must be an action, a means, and a purpose:
  • Action: induces, recruits, harbors, transports, provides, obtains
  • Means: Force, fraud, coercion
  • Purpose: commercial sex acts, labor or service
The exception to this formula, which is critical for EMS responders to understand is:
ANY MINOR involved in commercial sex work is automatically considered to be a trafficked person.
How to Spot a Trafficked PersonDr. Tate discussed the unique position that EMS responders are in because they respond to the scene and can observe the location firsthand. Here are some things that first responders should look for as indicators of a trafficked person:
  • Any minor working in commercial sex
  • Presence of a companion who answers for a patient
  • They do not have their own ID documents
  • Companion who refuses an interpreter and seems controlling
  • Reluctance to explain tattoos/branding (many pimps will brand girls to signify their property)
  • Rectal/vaginal trauma
  • Battered and/or they are missing hair
  • Inadequately dressed for work or the location
  • There appears to be security measures at the residence that are meant to keep a patient in (i.e. locks on the outside of doors)
  • Degraded, unsuitable place for habitation
What Questions Should You Ask?If any of the indicators described above are present or you have a feeling in your gut telling you something with this situation is not right, Dr. Tate emphasized the importance of getting more information.
“This requires you to be a little nosey, and it can be uncomfortable, but it’s very important to ask questions of high-risk adolescents,” she said. Keep in mind that these youths have often been manipulated, they have been taught to be scared of authorities, and they are terrified of their pimps. You need to ask questions in order to help them. Here are some questions she recommends asking:
  • Who is with you?
  • Does anyone keep your ID, passport or visa?
  • Have ever had to trade sex for money or something else you needed?
  • What is your job like? Are you paid for your work? Could you leave your job if you wanted?
  • Has anyone threatened you with deportation or jail if you try to leave?
What to do When You Suspect TraffickingOnce you suspect someone might be a trafficking victim, the next steps are very important. First of all, transport the patient alone, do not allow their companion to come with them. Also, ask (and observe) the patient to turn off his/her cell phone so that no one can listen in during transport. Share your concerns privately with other emergency responders and the emergency department staff so they understand the sensitivity of the situation.
The Role of Law EnforcementDuring the presentation, Dr. Tate emphasized that EMS responders are a key piece in identifying victims of human trafficking, but the police must be notified.
“We don’t rescue people from human trafficking, the only ones who can do that is law enforcement,” she said. “Do whatever it takes to get law enforcement involved.”
If local law enforcement are unavailable or unresponsive, she recommended calling the National Human Trafficking Resource Center (Call: 1-888-373-7888 or Text: BeFree to 233733). This organization can provide resources and contacts.
When you suspect a victim, notify law enforcement from the scene (discretely) so police can meet a patient at the emergency department. This decreases the chances that a patient will run.
Also, when contacting police do not use the word “prostitution.” Instead say you are transporting a minor who you suspect is being trafficked for commercial sex. It is communicating the same information, but Dr. Tate said that in some states with Safe Harbor Laws, police are not able to hold child prostitutes because they are not considered perpetrators. While the intention of this law is good, in reality it is important for police to be able to hold victims for 72 hours to get them away from their pimps, she said. Also, by telling police you have a minor who is being trafficked often means that police will send their crimes against children unit who have experience dealing with this demographic.
The bottom line is that EMS responders are powerful in identifying and helping to stop human trafficking and child sex-trafficking. Now is the time to educate yourself by knowing the signs to look for and the best way to respond.