Human Trafficking Law Blog

Alternative Spring Break Week

2012-03-02T07:32:00.002-08:00

Dear readers,

I will be in Immokalee, Florida this next week, with a group of law and medical students. Posts will resume on Monday, March 12th. Have a great week!

Lincoln's Legacy

2012-03-02T07:12:00.000-08:00

09:54 AM ET

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Lincoln's legacy fights modern slavery

By Athena Jones, CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Sheila White was beginning to feel numb. She had been beaten numerous times by a man who forced her to work as a prostitute on the streets of New York City.

"I done got beaten up in front of the Port Authority in Times Square," she said, a reference to a bus terminal on the city's West Side. "When stuff like that happens out in the open, you really feel like you're not even a person."

White was eventually able to escape her pimp and now works with victims of sex trafficking throughout New York state. But her story is proof that slavery is alive and well in America, 150 years after it was supposedly abolished.

While modern slavery may look different from the old images of plantations, slave cabins and auction blocks, abuse, coercion and manipulation remain the order of the day.

According to the anti-trafficking organization the Polaris Project, hundreds of thousands of people are being forced to work at jobs they don’t want to do - in the commercial sex trade, on farms, in homes, in factories and elsewhere in the United States. They work for little or no pay and under constant threat of violence and even starvation.

Polaris estimates this modern slavery affects an estimated 12 million people worldwide and brings in some $32 billion. Other estimates put the global number of victims as high as 27 million.

White told her story as part of “Not My Life,” a documentary on human trafficking that aired on CNN last year, believed to be one of the fastest growing criminal industries in the world. The film is featured in a new exhibit at President Lincoln's Cottage in Washington, part of a year-long effort by the cottage to celebrate the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation that freed slaves during the Civil War.

"(Lincoln) made some of the most important decisions during the Civil War here. He lived during his re-election here and he also developed the Emancipation Proclamation while living here," said Erin Carlson Mast, president of the cottage, which is a National Trust Historic Site. "This was really an opportunity to see how far we have come as a country in dealing with the issue of slavery."

How far the country has come is a complicated story, as the exhibit, called “Can You Walk Away?” illustrates.

Lincoln's proclamation was followed two years later by the 13th Amendment, which made slavery illegal in the United States. But instances of modern slavery still exist in all 50 states, according to Polaris, which partnered with the cottage on the exhibit.

Polaris was founded in 2002 and named after the North Star that helped guide slaves to freedom along the Underground Railroad. The organization operates a national hotline, taking calls 24 hours a day in more than 170 languages, from people who suspect trafficking is going on in their communities and from victims themselves.

The goal of “Can You Walk Away?” - which will be on display through August 2013 and includes photos and other data on numerous trafficking cases - is to increase awareness of the issue in the U.S. and thereby increase the risk to traffickers of getting caught.

"It's a much bigger issue in the United States than most people understand or realize," said Polaris' executive director Bradley Myles.

"The whole issue of trafficking is dehumanizing and objectifying somebody and saying, “You're not a human being, we can use you like property.” And what we're trying to do is humanize the issue and say this is how to connect with it on a very, very human level."

Victims in the United States span all ages, races and nationalities. A young man named Given tells the story of how he left Zambia to travel to America as part of a choir, hoping to raise money to help support his six orphaned siblings.

Instead of being paid, he had his passport taken from him and he was forced to work for free, with his handlers withholding food and threatening to deport him if he protested.

"We were not getting paid. Our families back home in Zambia were not getting paid as they were promised. The schools that we were promised back home were not getting built," he said in an interview for mtvU's “Against Our Will,” a documentary that is also used in this exhibit.

"I never spoke to my little sister the whole two years that I was in the United States. I never spoke to my brother. I never spoke to any of my siblings, so I had no way to let them know what was happening to me."

Angie, a teenager from Wichita, Kansas, ran away with two friends after trouble at home. The three girls ended up under the control of a pimp who forced them to prostitute themselves at a truck stop in Oklahoma City, threatening to harm them if they did not bring in enough money. Another trafficking victim, Debra, was forced to work 24 hours a day at a home in Falls Church, Virginia, cooking, cleaning and caring for children with no breaks.

Human trafficking is appealing to criminals because there is an "enormous amount of money to be made" and low risk of being caught as long as the community is not aware, Myles said.

"I think it is harder to eradicate in certain ways, because it's already made illegal, and so there's this ecosystem of human trafficking and modern slavery that's developed. And we have to fight that ecosystem, and the ecosystem morphs, it changes, it's very nimble," he said, an acknowledgement that existing laws against trafficking only serve to push the practice underground.

Myles said Polaris is looking for people “to be the eyes and ears, looking for trafficking, and if they can call in and be the good Samaritan to break a case."

"But we're also trying to build a national, systemic response system almost like the national 911 for trafficking, where every single time there's a case, there's a response ready to help in that local community, so that those victims aren't falling through the cracks."

Great training idea

2012-03-01T10:12:00.000-08:00

Airport employees being trained to intercept sex trafficking

Monique O. Madan The Miami Herald

Employees at Miami International Airport were trained Thursday to identify and respond to children who are being sexually exploited.

Fifty workers attended a sex-trafficking training session given by Miami-Dade police and personnel from PortMiami and MIA. The workshop is aimed at keeping watch on the tens of thousands of daily passengers who walk through the airport.

South Florida is one of the 13 major trafficking hubs in the country, according to the FBI.

Most recently, on Feb. 17, two men — former Miami Beach Police officer Lavont Flanders Jr., 41, of Miami Gardens, and Emerson Callum, 45, of Miami — were sentenced to life in prison for sex trafficking after they lured unsuspecting women to South Florida, slipped them drugs, taped them performing sex acts and sold the images to pornographers.

Last spring, advocates with Kristi House — a nonprofit that helps sexually abused victims — said they wanted to prevent child victims from being trafficked through unprepared South Florida airports.

MIA is one of the first U.S. airports to launch this type of training, according to Kristi House.

Miami-Dade County Commissioner Jose "Pepe" Diaz, led the sex-trafficking crackdown after he said he realized victims are taken across state lines or international borders through places like Miami International Airport and PortMiami.

About 293,000 young people in the United States are at risk of commercial sexual exploitation, according to Diaz’s legislation.

Experts describe these children as runaways who leave abusive and neglectful homes, becoming involved in prostitution for financial support or by force.

The Fishing Industry's Cruelest Catch

2012-03-01T06:34:00.001-08:00

In March 25, 2011, Yusril became a slave. That afternoon he went to the East Jakarta offices of Indah Megah Sari (IMS), an agency that hires crews to work on foreign fishing vessels. He was offered a job on the Melilla 203, a South Korea-flagged ship that trawls in the waters off New Zealand. “Hurry up,” said the agent, holding a pen over a thick stack of contracts in a windowless conference room with water-stained walls. Waving at a pile of green Indonesian passports of other prospective fishermen, he added: “You really can’t waste time reading this. There are a lot of others waiting, and the plane leaves tomorrow.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

U.S. Treasury Dept. Penalizes Japan’s Largest Organized-Crime Group

2012-02-29T03:42:00.000-08:00

The Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on Japan’s biggest yakuza group, an organized-crime syndicate that operates with relative impunity there and whose far-ranging criminal activity has become a significant concern in Washington.

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In an announcement on Thursday, the department said it would freeze the American-based assets of the group, the Yamaguchi-gumi, and two of its leaders. It will also bar any transactions between Americans and members of the penalized crime syndicate. Yakuza have been tied todrug trafficking and other crimes in the United States, with particular prominence in Hawaii and California. The Treasury did not elaborate on the dollar value of United States-based accounts that might be frozen under the new sanctions.

In a statement, the Treasury said the group made “billions of dollars” every year around the world. Its criminal activity includes prostitution, money laundering, fraud and trafficking in humans, weapons and drugs.

The action “casts a spotlight on key members of criminal organizations that have engaged in a wide range of serious crimes,” David S. Cohen, under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement.

“We will continue to work with our international partners to target those who deal in violence, narcotics, money laundering and the exploitation of women and children,” Mr. Cohen said.

The Treasury is using sanctions authority created by a 2011 executive order. In the order, President Obama said he had determined that criminal organizations — including the yakuza, the Camorra crime syndicate in Italy and Mexico’s Zetas drug cartel — “constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States.”

Yamaguchi-gumi; its reputed “godfather,” Kenichi Shinoda; and its “deputy godfather,” Kiyoshi Takayama, are the first to be penalized under the order.

The Treasury also announced sanctions against a major crime syndicate called the Brothers’ Circle, along with several of its top members. The Brothers’ Circle, formerly known as the Family of Eleven or the Twenty, is a multiethnic umbrella organization for criminal groups operating across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

The yakuza gangs, which boast about 80,000 members, have deep historical roots in Japan and have operated for more than a century. They recently have been tied to a wide range of businesses, including the nuclear industry and Olympus, the Japanese camera manufacturer mired in a major accounting scandal.

According to a 2009 report by Japan’s National Police Agency, the Yamaguchi-gumi had 19,000 members and 17,400 associates, making it the biggest yakuza group. Recently, Japanese authorities have been cracking down on the yakuza, with citizens becomingincreasingly intolerant of the criminal underworld. But local authorities have struggled to scrub the groups from industries where they hold considerable influence, like construction.

To End Prostitution, Start With the Demand Side

2012-02-28T03:18:00.000-08:00

To the Editor:

In “As Other Crimes Recede, Street Prostitution Keeps Its Wily Hold” (news article, Feb. 13), you report that New York City’s police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, is directing law enforcement to arrest those who buy prostituted human beings for sexual exploitation.

Commissioner Kelly, by adopting this human-rights, women’s-rights-based approach, joins the growing ranks of leaders in law enforcement who have made ending sex trafficking their priority.

For too long, prostitution laws have been enforced in a gender-discriminatory manner. Those being sold and arrested are overwhelmingly women and girls. Those who buy the prostituted, or sell them, are overwhelmingly male, and face far fewer, if any, legal consequences for their actions.

If we are to stand a chance at ending sex trafficking, we must deepen our understanding of the end point of sex trafficking, which is prostitution. Those of us who reject the notion that prostitution is sex work (when did human sexuality become work anyway?) and see it as an end result of some of the worst social conditions possible (sexual abuse in childhood, poverty, gender inequality, racism) must fashion remedies that address those conditions.

Rather than make social injustice more tolerable, we must work to end it — in our lifetime and forever.

NORMA RAMOS
Executive Director, Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
New York, Feb. 14, 2012

Man Charged In Sex Slave Case

2012-02-27T03:20:00.002-08:00

The trial for a southwest Missouri man accused of keeping a woman as a sex slave has been delayed by seven months. The Lebanon Daily Record reports that the trial for Ed Bagley Senior and his wife, Marilyn, had been scheduled to begin February 13th. But U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Larsen has ordered the trial to be rescheduled to September 17th. Prosecutors allege the couple groomed the woman to be a sex slave after she moved into their trailer in Lebanon while she was a teenager. The woman went to authorities only after going into cardiac arrest following a torture session.

Good info from another blog on what to do to combat child trafficking

2012-02-24T05:57:00.002-08:00

13 things I learned about child trafficking from an undercover operation

Wednesday, January 11, is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day.

In honor of this day (which I hope we soon don't have to commemorate), I want to tell you about my recent experience as part of an undercover operation in a large US city.

Our focus was Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking (DMST). These are minors (under 18) and US citizens.

It was an eye-opening, two-day operation. Here's what I learned, in part from Giselle Rodriguez, state outreach coordinator for the Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking, who trained us, and in part from my own experiences on the street:

1. We were not in the "bad" part of town but in a area popular with tourists and families.

2. We worked with undercover investigators who regularly monitor DMST happening throughout the city.

3. We saw at least one minor being trafficked, right in the open. We knew there were many more we couldn't see.

4. We talked to hotel owners about DMST and watched their varying reactions. Some said they'd seen girls being trafficked and reported it to the police. Others denied ever seeing anything--but their body language and quick, furtive glances told us otherwise.

5. Girls are controlled by a network of pimps, handlers, and others who are watching her at any given moment from hidden locations. (This is why we were told NOT to try to rescue girls we saw but to get as much information as possible and report to the investigators at our control center.)

6. We must see these girls as victims. They are doing what they do because of force, fraud, and coercion--not because they've made a lifestyle choice.

7. 2,500 children go missing every day--in the US alone. That's 1.6 million a year. Not all of them are trafficked--but they are all at-risk for trafficking.

8. Within 48 hours of running away, a teenager will be approached by traffickers. Most runaways don't bring cash, lunch, or other necessities, so they are easy pickings for traffickers who offer all that and more.

9. Today the average age of a trafficked person is 12 years old. That's the average age, so many are much younger. Traffickers are going after younger and younger children because they are easier to manipulate.

10. One of the common recruiting locations that trafficking recruiters frequent are the halls outside juvenile justice courtrooms.

11. Trafficked children don't call their controllers "pimps" but rather "Daddy" or "Boyfriend." And that's how they really see them. Traffickers work to create a feeling of family because who isn't looking for a family to belong to? Children will ignore the abuse, violence, and control because trauma bonding is so strong. In fact, if you try to rescue a victim of DMST, she will fight youbecause you have just ruined what she sees as a perfect world.

12. Victims of DMST are trained to lie for their pimps, to take the fall for their "knight in shining armor," and to distrust everyone else (that would be you and me).

13. Once a child is trafficked, her average life expectancy is 7 years.

It is very difficult to rescue a trafficked child--not to mention help them heal. That's why our goal at The Born2Fly Project is to reach kids before the traffickers do. Our goal is to cut off the supply line of kids by educating them ahead of time about the lies that traffickers tell.

My other goal is that some January in the future we will not need a Human Trafficking Awareness Day. My goal is that one day the world will be free of child slavery.

Florida Mom Accused Of Pimping Daughter For Drugs

2012-02-23T06:08:00.000-08:00

Police arrested Tony Marcel Hammond, 23, after he allegedly had sex with a child in exchange for prescription pain killers Oxycodone and Percocet for her mother. The victim's mother, Debra Annmarie Blackmon, 25, reportedly made the arrangements and her daughter agreed to have sex with Hammond in December, according to the police report. … The report goes on to say Hammond gave the young girl marijuana to "help [the victim] complete the sex act." Afterwards, Hammond provided the drugs to her mother. Hammond has been charged with sex trafficking charges and procuring a person under 18 years old for prostitution. … Blackmon has been charged with sex trafficking of a minor by legal guardian and child neglect causing great bodily harm.

Attack on VAWA---seriously?

2012-02-22T06:47:00.000-08:00

Grassley Holds Domestic Violence Victims Hostage To Lash Out At Gay Victims And Immigrants

By Ian Millhiser on Feb 15, 2012 at 10:30 am

Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act in 1994, and it’s been reauthorized without a hitch twice since then. Now that it’s up for reauthorization again, however, Senate Republicans have suddenly decided to use it as part of an anti-gay and anti-immigrant crusade. Every single Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee voted against reauthorization, with Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-IA) taking the lead against the bill:

The objections, led by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and a few conservative organizations, are not over the VAWA as a whole, but over a few new provisions in the reauthorization —specifically, protections for LGBT individuals, undocumented immigrants who are victims of domestic abuse and the authority of Native American tribes to prosecute crimes.

The Leahy bill enumerates protections for LGBT victims of domestic violence, forbidding discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity by VAWA grantees.

The VAWA reauthorization also expands the availability of visas for undocumented immigrants who have been victims of domestic violence and may be reluctant to come forward because of the risk of deportation. VAWA has always protected this group of individuals, but the reauthorization would raise the cap on visas for battered women and sexual assault victims from 10,000 to 15,000. The additional visas would come from recaptured visas in previous years that haven’t been utilized.

It is a mystery why Grassley or anyone else could think that battered gay men, lesbians or immigrants (or, for that matter, Native Americans) do not need the full protection of the law. Worse, Grassley’s tactic here does not simply deny protections to these individuals, he is literally holding a bill that protects all battered women hostage in order to score a few anti-gay and anti-immigrant points.

Human trafficking bill heads through Florida Legislature

2012-02-21T05:24:00.000-08:00

A bill steadily moving through the Florida Legislature could make it easier to prosecute human trafficking crimes. The issue is an important one for Rep. Matt Gaetz, a co-sponsor of the bill, who said human trafficking is a big problem in Northwest Florida, particularly in the tourism industry. “It’s happening right under our noses and many people are not aware of it,” he said.

Massage Parlor Owners Charged With Human-Trafficking

2012-02-20T06:23:00.002-08:00

The operators of four Rockville massage parlors are facing human-trafficking and prostitution-related charges. Montgomery County police said that investigators began probing the businesses in September and found that they were "havens" for human trafficking. Prostitution brothels were operating under the guise of being massage or acupressure parlors, according to police. Authorities charged 31-year-old Mauricio Alexa Garcia Guardia, operator of Executive Body Work at 966 Hungerford Drive; 48-year-old Howard Hao Wang, operator of Tropical Spa at 620 Hungerford Drive; 47-year-old Robert Carrasco, operator of Pink Spa at 932 Hungerford Drive; and 46-year-old Feng Liu, operator of Ya Ya Spa at 751 Rockville Pike. Guardia, Wang and Liu are charged with human trafficking; all four men are charged with conducting prostitution.

More Florida News on the Sex Trafficking Front. Sigh.

2012-02-15T05:55:00.000-08:00

Sex trafficker sentenced to 30 years in prison

A 35-year-old man from Tamarac was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for sex trafficking and producing child pornography, according to U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer.

Leighton Martin Curtis also was ordered to pay $54,500 restitution to the victim.

The trial evidence showed that in December 2009, Curtis recruited a 15-year-old runaway to work for him as a prostitute, going on "dates" within days. He also took sexually explicit photographs of her to be used in prostitution ads on web sites such as Craigslist and Backpage.com, according to court documents.

Curtis brought her to Broward from North Carolina onNew Year's Eve2009. She worked as a prostitute under Curtis for more than a year, four to five days per week, servicing five to seven customers per day, throughout Florida, Georgia and North Carolina, generating thousands of dollars weekly, according to trial testimony.

For battered immigrant women, fear of deportation becomes abusers’ weapon, but 2 laws can overcome that

2012-02-14T06:05:00.002-08:00

By Pamela Constable

Teresa Gomez, a Salvadoran woman in her 20s, and Margaret Ashong, a grandmother from Ghana, endured regular beatings, threats and insults by the fathers of their children. Like many battered immigrant women in the Washington area, they mostly suffered in silence, fearful that if they went to the police they could lose their right to remain in the United States and their source of economic support.

It was not until both women ended up in emergency rooms — Teresa with her face slashed and bloodied from a knife attack, Margaret bruised and traumatized from another beating — that they discovered a network of support that eventually helped them obtain legal immigration status as well as psychological and financial help.

“He treated me like a slave, and there was no one I could tell,” said Ashong, 62, who lives in Arlington County. “He told the police I was not his wife and that they should send me back to my country. But [the police] said to me, ‘Don’t weep, madam, this is not an immigration matter. It is a case of domestic violence. We will get help for you.’ ”

In the past decade, several new laws have allowed abused foreign-born women, including those who entered the United States illegally and those whose immigration status depends on their spouse, to obtain legal residency on their own.

Lawyers at two area nonprofit legal agencies, Ayuda in Takoma Park and the Tahirih Justice Center in Arlington County, said that in the past several years, they have helped hundreds of foreign-born women win the right to remain in the United States after they were able to prove to immigration authorities that they had been abused or assaulted by a boyfriend, husband, employer or acquaintance.

But, the lawyers said, a far larger number of abused immigrant women — especially those who entered illegally — never find out that they are entitled to such relief. Instead, they remain isolated and trapped in a terrible dilemma: afraid of men who subject them to emotional and physical harm, yet equally afraid of the consequences of turning them in.

“In many cases, the threat of deportation is part of the abuse,” said Paula Fitzgerald, a lawyer atAyuda, which means “help” in Spanish. When immigrant women from poor countries come to the United States to join husbands who are legal residents or citizens, she said, they often do not speak English or understand American laws. “The sponsor holds their legal status over their head and uses it to control them,” she said.

For victims who do come forward, there are two forms of relief that allow them to obtain legal status on their own. One is the Violence Against Women Act, enacted in 1994 and widely used in the past several years, which permits battered women to apply for work permits and later for legal residency. The other is the “ U visa,” in use since 2007, which allows victims of sexual assault and other crimes to win legal residency if they cooperate with police and the judicial system to help prosecute the offender.

Laura Cortez, 30, an illegal immigrant from Central America who lives in Alexandria, told police that she was molested by a man from her church who convinced her that she was possessed by demons and that he had to exorcise them. Law enforcement officials, eager to prosecute the man for other suspected offenses, supported her application for a U visa after she agreed to help them. She now has a work permit and within four years can become a permanent resident.

“What happened to me was very ugly, but it had a happy ending,” Cortez said. “I was scared I was going to be deported, but I had to do something. I was so sick and upset that I couldn’t sleep or eat. I helped the police uncover what was inside the tamale,” she said, using a Spanish metaphor. “Maybe that saved some other victims, too.”

An extra advantage of a U visa is that it entitles women to sponsor their children for immigration to the United States. That’s a strong inducement for them to cooperate with law enforcement authorities, especially for the Hispanic community, where thousands of women from Mexico and Central America migrate illegally to the United States to work, leaving their children behind for years in the care of relatives.

Yadira Gonzalez, 30, a dishwasher from Nicaragua, entered the United States illegally in 2007 and left two young children with her parents. In Northern Virginia, she became involved with a man, and they had a baby. The man grew increasingly violent, and she obtained a court protection order. Eventually, with her testimony, he was prosecuted and deported. As a reward for her cooperation, Gonzalez won the right not only to remain here, but also to send for her kids back home.

“The U visa was created strictly to benefit law enforcement. They were tired of undocumented people not cooperating against crime, of victims and witnesses being deported,” said Layli Miller-Muro, director of the Tahirih Justice Center. Even if the law may seem to generously reward illegal immigrants, she added, “it can work the other way. I have seen horrible cases of abuse, but the police didn’t want to pursue the case, so the woman didn’t get the visa.”

Sometimes, women who enter the United States illegally are fleeing domestic abuse in their home countries. In such cases, there is another potential source of legal relief in the American asylum system, which was established to provide a haven for foreigners who can show they have a “well-founded fear” of persecution or harm if forced to return home.

Although asylum is most often granted to individuals who have suffered for political, religious or social reasons, it has also been awarded to a handful of women who faced sexual or domestic abuse. The groundbreaking case was that of Fauziya Kasinga, a woman from Togo who was subjected to genital mutilation as part of a tribal ritual. She was granted asylum in 1996.

Since then, most immigration judges have found that being beaten in their home country is insufficient grounds for asylum, but women’s rights activists keep pushing to change this thinking.

“There has been this fear that if judges started granting asylum because of domestic violence, it would open up the floodgates,” said Morgan Wiebel, an attorney for a woman in Frederick who fled to the states from her abusive husband, a police officer in Honduras. She applied for asylum several years ago, but her case is still on appeal.

Even when battered immigrant women win full legal protection, painful memories can persist long after the abuse. Each of 10 women interviewed for this article wept repeatedly as they described the humiliation and helplessness they felt, even years later.

Ashong, an effusive woman who works as a live-in aide for an elderly invalid, burst into tears and clutched a tissue to her face. “What did I ever do wrong to him, that he should beat me like that?” she asked over and over. “I am happy now that I got my life back, but the pain is still there.”

Gomez, a petite woman of 24, uses a different last name in public but asked that it not be published. She said her entire life changed on April 3, 2007, when her estranged boyfriend dragged her into the kitchen and began to punch and stab her in a frenzied rage. Two days later, she awoke in a hospital room.

“I got up and went to the bathroom. When I saw my face in the mirror, it was the face of a monster. It wasn’t me at all,” she recounted, sobbing. Her former boyfriend was arrested and deported. He later died overseas.

But Gomez, who won full legal residency, said she still has nightmares that he will find her. “I am even afraid to close my eyes in the shower,” she said.

Canadian Company Swept Up in Suspected Plot to Smuggle a Qaddafi

2012-02-13T06:30:00.000-08:00

The Canadian company SNC-Lavalin had paid more than $100,000 to a consultant charged in what the authorities call a plot to smuggle one of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s sons into Mexico.

OTTAWA — It began as a seemingly implausible tale of a consultant from small-town Canada charged in what the authorities call a plot to smuggle Saadi el-Qaddafi, a son of the former Libyan dictator, intoMexico.

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Tim Wimborne/Reuters

There are charges of a plot to take Saadi el-Qaddafi to Mexico.

DOCUMENT: Cynthia Vanier’s Background and Activities in Libya

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But in the backdrop, questions have loomed about the role of a multibillion-dollar Canadian company that had extensive business dealings with the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and paid the consultant more than $100,000 to travel to Libya, despite her evident inexperience in the region.

The lingering questions jumped to the forefront on Thursday when the company, SNC-Lavalin, announced that it had fired two senior executives connected to the accused consultant, suggesting that they had run afoul of its “code of ethics and business conduct.”

SNC-Lavalin, a Canadian engineering and construction giant, had significant business connections with the Qaddafi government, and with Saadi el-Qaddafi in particular. During last year’s turmoil in Libya, about 1,000 foreigners were working for SNC-Lavalin inside the country. Leslie Quinton, a spokeswoman for the company, confirmed that its projects included the construction of the “Judicial City” prison in collaboration with the Libyan Engineering Corps led by Mr. Qaddafi.

Last year, SNC-Lavalin also agreed to pay the jailed consultant, Cynthia Vanier, more than $100,000 to travel to Libya, Ms. Quinton said, in order to act “as a third-party adviser, to counsel on how to resume our operations in Libya, especially on issues regarding the safety and security of our personnel.”

While the company has consistently denied any involvement in “an attempt at an extraction mission,” exactly how or why it became involved with Ms. Vanier, who was charged last week by the Mexican authorities in connection with the supposed plot, remains unclear. Little in Ms. Vanier’s background made her an obvious candidate for assessing the situation in Libya on behalf of a corporation with long experience of its own in that region.

Through a small consulting firm she ran with her husband, Pierre, and one employee in Mount Forest, Ontario, Ms. Vanier mainly acted as a mediator in disputes involving indigenous groups in Canada. Her résumé does not indicate that she has any experience in Libya or an educational background related to the region.

Nor did the company specifically explain in a brief statement released on Thursday night why it had fired the two executives, Riadh Ben Aïssa, a Tunisian-born Canadian who was executive vice president of the construction and infrastructure division, and Stéphane Roy, the vice president of finance for that unit.

Adding to the mystery, Mr. Ben Aïssa said in a statement that he would sue the company for suggesting that he was fired for ethical violations, but his spokesman would not explain why he left the company, although he said that the departure was voluntary.

Within SNC-Lavalin, documents show that Mr. Roy was Ms. Vanier’s contact. After traveling to Libya by private jet, Ms. Vanier produced a five-page report highly critical of the NATO-led bombing campaign in support of Libyan rebels.

Mr. Roy praised the report as “eye-opening” in a letter to her dated Aug. 4, 2011. He added: “Hopefully, as a neutral third party, your findings will be able to shed the truth on the real events happening on the ground.”

Last December, Ms. Quinton, the SNC-Lavalin spokeswoman, said in an e-mail that the report marked the end of the company’s involvement with Ms. Vanier. Last week, she changed the story, indicating that Mr. Roy continued to work with Ms. Vanier until her arrest in November.

Gary P. Peters, who provided security for Ms. Vanier’s trip to Libya, said that the company sent him to Tunis at its expense in September. While there, he said, he joined Mr. Ben Aïssa and Mr. Roy, the two executives, at an SNC-Lavalin office for a teleconference call with Mr. Qaddafi. The company acknowledged that a meeting with Mr. Peters took place, yet refused to say who attended, arguing that it “did not result in any contract or business arrangement.”

But after that meeting, Mr. Peters said, he then traveled to Libya and led a group that escorted Mr. Qaddafi to the border with Niger, where he remains.

Paul Copeland, Ms. Vanier’s Canadian lawyer, said that border officials twice conducted unusually comprehensive searches of jets that Ms. Vanier used to travel to and from Mexico, where she and her husband own a home.

On Nov. 10, the Mexican police swept in and arrested Ms. Vanier in Mexico City. The next day, Mr. Roy arrived in Mexico expecting to meet Ms. Vanier to “discuss potential water treatment projects,” SNC-Lavalin later said in an e-mail. The company said that Mr. Roy was present when an associate of Ms. Vanier’s was arrested. It declined to explain why Mr. Roy would be conducting such a trip. It said last week that he was not detained by the Mexican authorities and, to its knowledge, is not the subject of any investigation.

Mexican officials claim that Ms. Vanier was carrying forged documents at the time of her arrest and had negotiated a property purchase that was being made on Mr. Qaddafi’s behalf.

Ms. Vanier and Gabriela Dávila Huerta, a friend and associate of Ms. Vanier, have been charged with organized crime, attempted human trafficking and falsifying documents. A Danish citizen, Pierre Christian Flensborg, and a Mexican, José Luis Kennedy, had received the same charges, but a judge dismissed the organized crime and document falsification ones this week. Mr. Flensborg was arrested with Ms. Davila as they left a hotel in Mexico City with Mr. Roy on Nov. 11.

Ms. Vanier’s parents said that the fake documents were planted in a wallet that she received as a gift, and that the real estate dealings were nothing more than an attempt by Ms. Vanier and her husband to trade up to a better vacation home.

But John MacDonald, her father, acknowledged that they, too, were confused by the chain of events that have left their daughter in a Mexican jail for months.

Ian Austen reported from Ottawa, and Elisabeth Malkin from Mexico City.

More News on the Legislative Fight Against Trafficking in Florida

2012-02-10T06:33:00.000-08:00

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi Advocates Zero Tolerance for Human Trafficking

2:37 PM, Feb 8, 2012 | comments

Fla. Attorney General Pam Bondi

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Trafficking, as told from Dartmouth

2012-02-09T06:23:00.000-08:00

Local human trafficking persists in Upper Valley

By Lindsay Ellis, The Dartmouth Staff

Published on Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Sex trafficking in the Upper Valley primarily victimizes vulnerable, female adolescents, Abby Tassel, WISE assistant director and former College Sexual Abuse Awareness Program coordinator, said in a Monday discussion — held in Fahey-McLane hall in front of about 20 students — coordinated by the Modern Abolition Initiative. Many are unaware that sex trafficking exists even in the Upper Valley, according to Peggy O’Neil, executive director of WISE.

Trafficking, which Tassel called “modern-day slavery,” often stems from domestic and sexual violence, with a trafficker posing as the victim’s boyfriend or partner.

“It’s common for the man to meet the victim and say, ‘I’m going to take care of you; you’re going to be my girlfriend,’ and then enslave her,” she said.

Although exact numbers regarding instances of trafficking are “hard to know,” Tassel said she has seen several cases while working at WISE, a designated support center for issues related to stalking and domestic and sexual violence. WISE, located in Lebanon, works to offer support and raise awareness for victims of sex trafficking, according to O’Neil.

Sex trafficking occurs when a victim of sexual exploitation is a minor or if force, fraud or coercion is involved, Tassel said.

Coercion can include threats to a victim’s family or taking his or her money away, she said. Tassel said a woman with whom she previously worked thought giving away her money seemed natural because she assumed that her trafficker had invested it or used it to pay for her lodging, Tassel said.

“It became clear that she would never see any of that money, and if she didn’t do a number of tricks in a particular night, he would beat her,” she said.

Trafficked individuals are not solely poverty-stricken, desperate individuals — they can also be students or come from “well-to-do” families, Tassel said.

“It’s quite amazing how sophisticated the manipulation can be,” she said. “Once someone is in the grips of this perpetration, it’s hard to escape.”

The average age of female victims is 12 to 14 years old, while male victims are typically 11 to 13 years old, according to Tassel. The average prostitute sees 10 men per day, but the average sex trafficking victim sees 20 to 35 men per day. Upper Valley officials have seen more street prostitution than sex trafficking, but truck stops throughout New Hampshire are “good places” for sex traffickers, she said.

“In a place like the Upper Valley, it would be easy to say it’s hard to hide a trafficking operation, but I’m always amazed about the reality of what happens here,” Tassel said.

Tassel said one woman she worked with had been trafficked as a girl, despite coming from a well-to-do family, and was sold by her parents to professors and other Upper Valley residents. Another woman Tassel worked with said her trafficker required her to make between $500 and $1,500 per day, Tassel said.

“She was exhausted,” Tassel said. “The level of violence is unimaginable. He knew where she lived and would come and make her go to work.”

Media coverage of prostitution and trafficking have been “aggravating” in their inaccuracies, Tassel said. She referred to the film “Pretty Woman” (1990), in which a wealthy businessman hires a Hollywood prostitute and eventually falls in love with her as an example of the “ridiculous” depiction of prostitution.

“In ‘Pretty Woman,’ it’s like, ‘This is so fun — it would be great to meet this rich guy,’“ Tassel said. “Prostitution is unbelievably horrible, demeaning, dangerous and violent. Women I’ve worked with who have been prostituted — they are being beaten and raped on a regular basis.”

A federal law was passed in 2000 to forbid sex trafficking, and states have recently passed supplemental laws, Tassel said. New Hampshire passed state legislation forbidding “the trafficking in persons for the purposes of sexual or labor exploitation” in 2009, according to a Human Trafficking Data Collection and Reporting project published by Northeastern University.

Although Tassel praised anti-trafficking legislation, the cycle of dependency continues, she said. Trafficked women are “the ones who get arrested” on charges of prostitution, and in many cases, the trafficker bails out the victim, who then feels obligated to continue to work for him, she said. If a prostitute is not paid or suffers abuse at the hands of a client, she may not feel safe reporting her abuse to the police.

“If someone is doing sex work, they don’t feel like they can go to law enforcement to report because they’re already doing something against the law,” Tassel said.

The existence of trafficking in the Upper Valley surprised Josef Linnhoff, an exchange student from the University of Edinburgh who attended the discussion.

“I imagined it would be a problem in New York or Boston,” Linnhoff said. “It’s so rural here.”

Tassel said in an interview following the lecture that she became aware of human trafficking in the Upper Valley in the fall of 2006. A couple from Litchfield, N.H. traveled to Jamaica and returned with several men who had been promised jobs at a log removal company, Tassel said. Upon their return to New Hampshire, the couple refused to pay the men and took away their legal documents. The U.S. Attorney General who prosecuted the case was present at a training session Tassel attended, she said.

“I realized I was seeing trafficking cases and not thinking of them as trafficking,” Tassel, who has been working at WISE since 2004, said. “There is a whole other level of criminal justice intervention I wasn’t thinking about before.”

Tassel served as the Sexual Abuse Awareness Program coordinator at the College until she resigned in April 2005, largely because she was critized for being too “student-focused,” she said at the time.

Sex trafficking often flies under the radar, much like other issues that WISE addresses, O’Neil said.

“By raising awareness and talking about it, we hope to be providing more information about the problem,” she said. “If people think someone is being trafficked, they know how to respond to that.”

The Modern Abolition Initiative, which hosted the discussion, works to raise such awareness, Yesuto Shaw ’15, who planned the event, said. MAI will screen a movie called “Sex + Money,” about domestic sex trafficking, on Feb. 24 to continue to address the issue, according to Shaw. In the future, the organization will raise funds for advocacy groups, he said.

MAI, founded last spring by Liz King ’13, Ify Achebe ’13 and Gabby Mezochow ’13, facilitates discussion that aims to mobilize Dartmouth students to combat modern-day slavery, King said in an email to The Dartmouth.

Florida Trafficking News

2012-02-08T06:05:00.000-08:00

2 charged with sex trafficking West Palm Beach runaway girl

PBSO

Mandi Lynn Bowman faces federal charges including sex trafficking a child, punishable by up to 40 years in prison, and enticing a minor to engage in a commercial sex act, punishable by a minimum 10 years in prison and up to life.

Palm Beach County's sex trade

2 charged with sex trafficking West Palm Beach runaway girl

Palm Beach County man convicted of holding child as sex slave for decades

1998 FBI complaint against Anthony Genovese

Promissory note showing Genovese’s financial interest in a club that holds a liquor license

Martinez plea agreement

El Rancho ABT application

El Alacran ABT application

South Florida a gateway for child sex trafficking

'Mom' sentenced to 7 years for forcing sisters into sex trade

More documents

Sex predators, offenders

FDLE allows you to search by county, city, ZIP code and/or pattern for a last name.

Community Post

Click the map to find and read about your notable neighbors. Join in! Read their stories and suggest your own

The Days Inn on 45th Street in West Palm Beach.

By Peter Franceschina

Sun Sentinel

Updated: 7:46 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012

Posted: 6:25 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012

A man and a woman face up to life imprisonment on charges of sex-trafficking a runaway minor, after quick work by West Palm Beach police, who found the young girl offering prostitution services at a hotel.

The investigation began Thursday, after the girl's stepfather reported her missing and possibly engaged in prostitution, according to a federal arrest affidavit filed Monday.

The girl had disappeared from home a few days before, and the man accused of sex trafficking found her at a convenience store, gave her his phone number then lured her into the world of prostitution, the affidavit says.

After being contacted by the stepfather, West Palm Beach police searched online escort ads on backpage.com and found what appeared to be a listing for the missing girl, who was born in 1997, making her either 14 or 15 years old, according to the affidavit.

An undercover officer posing as a "john" called the number in the ad on Thursday and spoke to the girl, who told him to meet her at the Days Inn on 45th Street, near Interstate 95. The officers met the girl in the parking lot and explained their investigation.

That's when the girl told officers how she met her "pimp" — Rashad Emon Clark, 33, and one of his prostitutes, Mandi Lynn Bowman, 22 — the affidavit says. Both Clark, who goes by the street name "Shagg Dog," and Bowman have listed past addresses in West Palm Beach, records show.

South Florida is considered by law enforcement officials to be a hot spot for sex trafficking because of its international airports and ports, and its tourism-based economy. No single agency keeps track of the number of girls and women who end up being trafficked, but it is estimated to be a $32 billion business nationally.

During the girl's first meeting with Clark at the convenience store, "Clark discussed with the juvenile prostitution activities at that time and had two adult prostitutes in the vehicle with him. The juvenile contacted Clark by cellular phone the following day, and Clark picked up the juvenile and drove her to the Days Inn," the affidavit says.

Then Clark had sex with the girl, and paid her $40, according to the affidavit. He then explained how much money she could make for various sex acts — $250 an hour or more — and how much of that he would keep.

"Clark also advised the juvenile victim that she had to choose money or friends," the affidavit says. Then Clark dropped her off at another location.

The following day, Thursday, Clark brought the girl to the hotel, had sex with her and supplied her with condoms, the affidavit says. Clark told Bowman to teach the girl the ways of a prostitute.

"Bowman taught the juvenile how to set up and schedule appointments, and how to negotiate prices with johns," the affidavit says.

The girl had sex with one man, and another man performed a sex act in her presence, before police found her, according to the affidavit.

Clark and Bowman face federal charges that carry hefty prison terms. Each is charged with sex trafficking a child, punishable by up to 40 years in prison, and enticing a minor to engage in a commercial sex act, punishable by a minimum 10 years in prison and up to life.

Warning signs of sex 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 trafficked 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 Human-trafficking legislation

Hillsborough traffic stop leads to human smuggling charges

2012-02-07T06:13:00.000-08:00

Another confusing article from the press. If they were trafficked, why the summary deportation proceedings?? Can anyone who is in the Tampa area reach these Mexican citizens who may be victims of trafficking?

Robin

Hillsborough traffic stop leads to human smuggling charges

Stephanie Wang, Tampa Bay Times In Print: Monday, February 6, 2012

TAMPA — A deputy who pulled over a sport utility vehicle without a license tag discovered the driver was transporting five Mexican citizens in the county illegally, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.

The driver, 21-year-old Kathleen Roberson of Phenix City, Ala., was going through Hillsborough County on her way to take the five to Immokalee, the Sheriff's Office said. She was arrested and the five were held on immigration charges.

The incident started around 5:15 p.m. Saturday when a deputy noticed a 2003 Kia Sorento without a license plate near the intersection of Falkenburg Road and Progress Boulevard.

Upon investigation, the deputy discovered five of the people in the SUV were in the county illegally and that Roberson was carrying $6,000 cash.

U.S. Border Patrol was notified, and an agent seized the SUV and the cash.

Roberson was arrested on a charge of driving without a valid license and also faces federal charges of human trafficking. She was being held Sunday in Hillsborough County Jail without bail.

Another passenger, Jessica Roland, 29, also of Phenix City, Ala., was arrested on a cocaine possession charge.

The Mexican citizens were being held at the jail pending deportation proceedings. They are Flora Flores-Salinas, 18; Teresa Quintas-Osario, 27; Ramon Juarez-Martinez, 27; Artemio Pedrez-Abarca, 35; and Salvador Hernandez-Mendez, 18.

The investigation was continuing.

Loved these action items to end trafficking

2012-02-06T06:21:00.000-08:00

While the campaign of "21 Days of Citizen Actions" concluded on February 1st, please continue to pursue any of these actions you were unable to take during the campaign timeframe.

Working together we can make it clear that human trafficking is unacceptable in our neighborhoods.

The actions are listed below for your reference.

ACTION 1...Take a moment of silence at 6:00 pm to STOP human trafficking in NC!

ACTION 2…Learn basic facts about human trafficking. Print out an 'orange card' from www.soroptimistraleigh.org select Ending Violence, Awareness and Action Card. Presentation guide available fromendingviolence@soroptimistraleigh.org.

ACTION 3...List ten things you love to do. Identify one that can involve time spent with a minor. In a supervised manner, find a way to spend time with a minor sharing that activity that you love.

Source: www.search-institute.org.

ACTION 4…Become more informed about human trafficking by reading Rescue and Restore Campaign fact sheets and other materialshttp://www.acf.hhs.gov/trafficking/about/factsheets.html

ACTION 5…Review the indicators from the ‘orange card’. Share with a friend or co-worker. When something in your neighborhood doesn't seem right to you or suspicious, CALL 919.856.6800.

ACTION 6…Teens often are uninformed about acceptable behavior when dating. Dating abuse can be a precursor conditioning to becoming more vulnerable to human trafficking. To help a teen; learn more yourself.

Go to www.loveisrespect.org

ACTION 7…Arrange to speak about human trafficking to one group to which you belong, such as book club, bridge group, church group. Use orange card. A guide is available fromendingviolence@soroptimistraleigh.org.

ACTION 8...Show respect by being kind and courteous to yourself and to others. Make it your normal response. Showing respect is the antithesis to violence.

ACTION 9…Contact your local school and its PTA president to propose an educational program on human trafficking be held for parents of students and all school personnel. Contact pathnc@mindspring.com for curriculum resources to conduct session

ACTION 10…Switch to Fair Trade products. Fair Trade means the product was produced without use of slave and/or the laborers are paid a living wage. You are preventing human trafficking by increasing demand for only Fair Trade products. To learn how to identify fair trade products and other information, refer tohttp://www.fairtraderesource.org.

ACTION 11... Ask your pastor/priest/rabbi/minister to arrange a prevention program regarding human trafficking of minors. Resources are available. Contact us for a list of suggested programs.

ACTION 12…Sign up to receive updates on what is going on around the state through NC Stop Human Trafficking website. ncstophumantrafficking@gmail.com.

ACTION 13…Call your Sheriff/Police Chief and thank them for keeping our community safe. Inquire if they have specific staff assigned to investigate potential human trafficking cases. If they need training, let them know it is available from Pitt County Sheriff Department.
Contact mnlarson@pittcounty.gov.

ACTION 14…Call your local newspaper, TV, and radio stations and ask for more coverage about human trafficking, especially domestic minor sex trafficking.

ACTION 15... Ask your local librarian to help you find books about trafficking of minors.

ACTION 16…Call a local hotel or motel and ask if they have implemented the no human trafficking CODE in their hotel. You canfind more about this CODE at www.thecode.org. For further background information, go to www.ecpat.net and read under Combating Child Sex Tourism.

ACTION 17…Get to know your neighbors. Resolve to learn those you do not yet know.

ACTION 18…Talk with a local youth leader [YMCA, YWCA, Boys/Girls Club, Scouts] about including trafficking prevention in their programming.

ACTION 19…Keeping our minors less vulnerable is key to helping them resist coercion and fraud used by traffickers. Search Institute has extensive research to show what can increase a minor’s choice of positive over negative responses. Visit www.search-institute.org to learn one way you can equip a minor to make more positive choices.

ACTION 20…Almost 100% of victims of human trafficking, who are now survivors, have stated they experienced some type of abuse in their childhood. Find a way you can support those who are focused on prevention of child abuse. Visit www.d2l.org.

ACTION 21…Take a moment of silence at 6:00 pm to STOP human trafficking in NC!

Thank you again for taking these actions. You may wish to connect with a local coalition that is working to take these and other actions. PATH NC will be happy to direct you to one in your geographic area.

Let’s end human trafficking in our society!

HUMAN TRAFFICKING MEASURE PASSES SENATE PANEL

2012-02-03T04:27:00.000-08:00

A bill (SB 1880) bolstering penalties for those involved in human trafficking passed the Senate Criminal Justice Committee in Florida, the first of two committee stops in that chamber. A House companion bill, HB 7049, by Rep. William Snyder, R-Stuart, is awaiting action in the House Appropriations Committee. The bills would make human trafficking a first degree felony and establish the statewide prosecutors as the lead agency in multi-jurisdictional investigations. "Thanks to the leadership of Senator (Anitere) Flores, our state is one step closer to confronting a crime that exploits the most vulnerable among us and has no place in our communities," Snyder said. "Human trafficking is a serious crime that requires stricter penalties – especially in Florida, due to our geography, rapidly growing population and high number of visitors every year."

14 Indicted In Child Prostitution, Human-Trafficking Ring

2012-02-02T04:04:00.001-08:00

14 Indicted In Child Prostitution, Human-Trafficking Ring

4 Named As Ringleaders In Statewide Operation, State AG Says

Written by Marshall Zelinger, reporter andWayne Harrison, web editor

POSTED: 3:57 pm MST January 30, 2012

UPDATED: 10:38 pm MST January 30, 2012

DENVER -- A 70-count indictment names 14 individuals suspected of running and patronizing a human-trafficking ring that used children for sex at locations ranging from Denver to Grand Junction.

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers announced the indictments Monday. Read the indictment.

"Human trafficking and child prostitution are tragic crimes, from the devastating effects they have on their victims to the mere fact that the use and sale of persons persists in our world today," Suthers said. "This indictment underlines law enforcement’s commitment to vigorously investigate and prosecute any and all cases of human trafficking we encounter."

Patrick Lloyd McGowan, 22; Chad Armand Gow, 20; Roy Manuel Ibarra-Gonzales, 20; and Bryan Steven Burns, 20, oversaw a human trafficking ring that involved the prostitution of children as well as the sale of methamphetamine and cocaine, according to the indictments.

McGowan, Gow, Ibarra-Gonzales and Burns are suspected of arranging "out calls" for the child victims through the Internet and coercing their victims through the use of drugs and threats of violence, Suthers said. The three are suspected of transporting children to locations in Denver, Boulder, Glenwood Springs, Grand Junction and Lakewood for sex, he said.

Wheat Ridge Runaway Call Led To Alleged Child Prostitution Discovery

A Wheat Ridge couple reporting their daughter as a runaway led to the discovery of the potential human trafficking scheme.

"This young lady's parents were very concerned that she had been forced into child prostitution," said Lisa Spinder, spokeswoman for the Wheat Ridge Police Department.

According to Spinder, police found the girl, but she would run away again. This happened repeatedly until a school resource officer learned information about the teen, and then passed that information to investigators.

"The more we got involved in trying to bring this young lady back home, the more it became clear there was something else going on," said Spinder.

AG: Child Prostitution Happening Online

According to Suthers, the child prostitution occurred through the use of personal ads on Backpage.com, a site with personal listings similar to Craigslist.

"They were making these arrangements over this website, delivering the girls to these locations for the purpose of sex," said Suthers. "We've had an ongoing discussions with (backpage.com), asking them to be more corporately responsible."

The website came under scrutiny in Washington state this past week for similar human trafficking allegations.

The site does have a link users can click on if they feel they see human trafficking being promoted.

Investigation Also Led To Drug Busts

The indictments also accuse McGowan of selling methamphetamine to an undercover officer at Casa Bonita in Lakewood on Dec. 21, 2011. Nearly 2 grams of meth was recovered from McGowan, according to the indictment. In addition, another 15 grams of meth was recovered when McGowan was booked into the Jefferson County Jail, the indictment stated.

On one occasion, one girl was held down on a hotel bed in Boulder and "subjected ... to sexual contact without her consent," the indictment alleged. The ring advertised the girls as prostitutes on the Internet, according to the indictment.

If convicted of trafficking in children, a Class 2 felony and the lead count of the indictment, McGowan, Gow, Ibarra-Gonzales and Burns each could face up to 24 years in prison and up to $1 million in fines.

In addition to the ringleaders of the suspected human trafficking enterprise, the Office of the Attorney General also indicted 10 other individuals accused of either abetting or patronizing the operation. All but two of those indicted have been arrested.

Supervisor Pleads Not Guilty To Trafficking [Malaysia]

2012-02-01T06:15:00.000-08:00

A spa supervisor was charged in a Sessions Court here with two counts of human trafficking. Phang Chee Kung, 55, pleaded not guilty to trafficking two Indonesian women Sonia, 24, and Endang Sekerayu, 22, by forcing them into becoming prostitutes. The two offences allegedly took place in front of a room at Golden Asean Hotel, Jalan Pudu. Phang faces a maximum of 15 years' jail and is liable to a fine under Section 12 of the Anti-Human Trafficking Act 2007 upon conviction.

Former Trafficking Officer Gets 7 Years [Cambodia]

2012-01-31T07:31:00.000-08:00

Phnom Penh Municipal Court sentenced a former anti-human trafficking and juvenile protection chief and three Cambodian-Vietnamese nationals to jail terms of between seven and eight years for running a prostitution racket in Phnom Penh. Three of the four, including 41-year-old Eam Rattana, the former anti-human trafficking chief, were sentenced in absentia. "The court had found that Eam Rattana was guilty of being an accomplice to an illegal prostitution operation. So it is decided to sentence him to seven years in jail and order for his arrest," presiding judge Duch Kimsorn said.

Traffic Stop Leads To Sex Trafficking Charges

2012-01-30T03:56:00.000-08:00

A routine traffic stop by a state trooper assigned to the West Tennessee Drug Task Force's Interstate Interdiction Unit led to the arrest of a Texas man on sex crimes charge. Trooper Brad Simpson stopped a 2005 Escalade headed eastbound on Interstate-40 at the 43 mile marker in Haywood County for traffic violations. … Further investigation revealed the 16-year-old juvenile passenger was reported as a runaway from the Dallas area. Trooper Simpson contacted the Memphis Police Department Sex Crimes Unit when further investigation indicated possible criminal activity occurred in the Memphis area earlier that day. Steven Geer, age 40, of Dallas was arrested and transported to Memphis. He was charged with especially aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor…aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor…sexual exploitation of a minor…aggravated statutory rape…and criminal exposure to HIV. … "This is an example of how our interstate interdiction officers are not only on the lookout for drug trafficking, but also human sex trafficking, which is a serious problem in our state," said Department of Safety and Homeland Security Commissioner Bill Gibbons. Earlier this year, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation released a study on human sex trafficking in Tennessee and its impact on children and youth. The study showed that simply because of its geographical position and the large number of interstates that cross the state, Tennessee is conducive to sex trafficking.

Wage Theft in Florida: an important issue oft linked to trafficking

2012-01-27T03:29:00.000-08:00

Groundbreaking Study: WAGE THEFT IS WIDESPREAD IN FLORIDA

The Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy at Florida International University will release a groundbreaking analysis of reported wage theft cases throughout the state of Florida. The report entitled: “Wage Theft: An Economic Drain to Florida. How Millions of Dollars are Stolen from Florida’s Workforce”, estimates that nearly 60-90 million dollars are stolen from Florida’s workforce, impacting communities, law abiding employers and local and state economies.

The report finds that many of Florida’s workforce fall outside of federal labor laws; thus, other enforcement mechanisms such as Miami Dade’s Wage Theft Ordinance are needed to ensure that employees, communities, and local governments will not miss out on millions of stolen wages that are owed to them, and that unscrupulous employers will be penalized for breaking labor laws.

Some findings from this report are:

· Over $28 million of unpaid wages have been recovered by the U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division in Florida, Miami-Dade’s Wage Theft Ordinance and community groups throughout Florida

· The primary pillars of Florida’s economy are undermined by widespread theft of employees’ wages. Florida’s key industries have the highest numbers of reported wage violations—tourism, retail trade and construction.

· In spite of ample evidence of widespread wage theft among low income workers, as of December 2011, the Florida Attorney General had not brought one single civil action to enforce the state’s minimum wage law enacted in 2004.

· Since the full implementation of the Miami-Dade County Wage Theft Ordinance in September 2010, the Miami-Dade County’s Small Business Development agency has recovered nearly $400,000 in unpaid wages for 313 employees who unlawfully had their wages withheld from them.

· Out of the six counties we analyzed, the largest number of wage theft cases were in Miami-Dade County followed by Hillsborough, Broward, Pinellas, Palm Beach and Orange counties in that order.

The release of the report comes at a time when the Florida legislature is debating a House and Senate bill that would eliminate the Miami-Dade Wage Theft Ordinance, which has collected nearly $400,000 in stolen wages from employees--and pre-empt any other local governments trying to find solutions to wage theft in their communities.

“The negative effects of shortchanging workers’ wages ripple across communities and our state economy. Families suffer when earnings are too low to meet basic needs. Much more can be done by simply enforcing existing wage and hour laws and by creating a statewide process that addresses the problem,” said report author Cynthia Hernandez. “The evidence accumulating of a spreading illegal and ultimately an anti-business practice raises serious questions for a state economy and local economies hoping to attract businesses and employees in order to grow.”

The report will be released on Thursday, January 26. To receive a copy under embargo or for questions, please contact Cynthia S Hernandez at:

chern032@fiu.edu or 786-301-6665

How Pimps Use the Web to Sell Girls

2012-01-26T06:16:00.000-08:00

Kristof highlights the dark side of connectivity...

**************************************************************************

In November, a terrified 13-year-old girl pounded on an apartment door in Brooklyn. When a surprised woman answered, the girl pleaded for a phone. She called her mother, and then dialed 911.

The girl, whom I’ll call Baby Face because of her looks, frantically told police that a violent pimp was selling her for sex. He had taken her to the building and ordered her to go to an apartment where a customer was waiting, she said, and now he was waiting downstairs to make sure she did not escape. She had followed the pimp’s directions and gone upstairs, but then had pounded randomly on this door in hopes of getting help.

Baby Face said she hurt too much to endure yet another rape by a john. She told prosecutors later that she was bleeding vaginally and that her pimp had recently kicked her down a stairwell for trying to flee.

That 911 call set in motion the arrest of Kendale Judge, then 21. Judge has pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking, kidnapping, rape and compelling prostitution. He is in jail, and we haven’t heard his side of the events yet.

The episode also shines a spotlight on how the girl was marketed — in ads on Backpage.com, a major national Web site where people place ads to sell all kinds of things, including sex. It is a godsend to pimps, allowing customers to order a girl online as if she were a pizza.

Lauren Hersh, the ace prosecutor in Brooklyn who leads the sex-trafficking unit there, says that of the 32 people she and her team have prosecuted in the last year and a half — typically involving victims aged 12 to 25 — a vast majority of the cases included girls marketed through Backpage ads.

“Pimps are turning to the Internet,” said Hersh. “They’re not putting the girls on the street so much. Backpage is a great vehicle for pimps trying to sell girls.”

Craigslist backed out of this sector after public protests. Pimps then moved to Backpage.com, which is owned by Village Voice Media, owners of The Village Voice weekly newspaper.

Attorneys general from 48 states wrote a joint letter to Backpage, warning that it had become “a hub” for sex trafficking and calling on it to stop running adult services ads. The attorneys general said that they had identified cases in 22 different states in which pimps peddled underage girls through Backpage.

The attorneys general cited a 15-year-old girl who was being forced to have sex with men last year in Dorchester, Mass. The pimp marketed the girl through Backpage.

But Backpage isn’t budging. Indeed, it has fought back with personal attacks on those, such as Ashton Kutcher, who have linked it to human trafficking.

Steve Suskin, legal counsel to Village Voice Media, gave me a lengthy statement in which he argued that the company is already cooperating closely with law-enforcement authorities. He cited a 16-year-old girl in Seattle who was rescued as a result of a tip the company had made.

“Censorship will not rid the world of exploitation,” Suskin asserted.

It’s true that there’s some risk that pimps will migrate to new Web sites, possibly based overseas, that are less cooperative. But, on balance, that’s a risk worth taking. The present system is failing. Pimps aren’t the shrewdest marketers, and eliminating a hub for trafficking should at least chip away at the problem.

Backpage suggests that it is battling censors and prudes. In fact, what drives it seems to be greed. In their letter, the attorneys general said that Backpage earns more than $22 million annually from prostitution advertising.

On Backpage, the pimps claim adult ages for the girls they market, but Hersh scoffs. “I see 19,” she said, “and I immediately think 13.”

“I’m not seeing a lot of cases where there’s not coercion,” she added. “The average age where a girl is forced into prostitution is 12 to 14. And most of these 16- or 17 year-olds are being run by pretty vicious pimps.”

While there are no reliable figures for human trafficking, the more we look, the more we find. The Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, says that in the year before he set up a sex-trafficking unit in June 2010, his office prosecuted no trafficking cases. Since then, the office has become a national model, indicting 32 people, with 10 convictions and no acquittals so far.

Among those rescued was Baby Face, who had run away from home in September. Judge allegedly found her on the street, bought food for her and told her that she was beautiful. Within a few days, he had posted her photo on Backpage and was selling her five to nine times a day, prosecutors say. When she didn’t earn enough money, he beat her with a belt, they add.

When Baby Face ran away from her pimp and desperately knocked on that apartment door in Brooklyn, she was also in effect pounding on the door of the executive suites of Backpage and Village Voice Media. Those executives should listen to her pleas.

Missouri Man Pleads Guilty to Holding Sex Slave

2012-01-25T06:19:00.000-08:00

A Kirkwood man has pleaded guilty to being part of a group that kept a mentally disabled woman as a sex slave in rural southwestern Missouri. Bradley Cook, 33, entered his plea this morning in U.S. District Court in Kansas City to one count of sex trafficking of children by force, fraud or coercion. In exchange, federal prosecutors dropped six other charges including tampering with a victim, use of an interstate facility in commission of murder for hire and attempted witness retaliation — each of which carried potential 10- to 30-year sentences. The binding plea agreement recommends a 20-year prison sentence without parole for Cook.

Portland Gang Sweep Finds Traffickers

2012-01-24T04:00:00.000-08:00

Portland gang members and associates after a federal grand jury indicted some of the city's most violent elements, authorities said Tuesday. Federal and local officers fanned out in the past week to arrest 13 people on charges that included sex trafficking and distribution of cocaine. The majority of the charges involved felons in possession of weapons. Some of the 31 suspects who were arrested are facing state charges. Oregon U.S. Attorney Amanda Marshall said it was necessary to bring federal charges as the city grapples with gang violence. … So far in 2011, 402 gang members have been arrested on charges that carry mandatory minimum sentences under Oregon's Measure 11 law, which specifies the most serious violent and sexual assaults, police said. The probe yielded the names of 68 people with alleged gang ties. The city's most violent gang is now the Rolling 60s Crips, an offshoot of a street gang that originated in Los Angeles, Police Chief Mike Reese said.

OK Woman's Body Found Stuffed In Duffel Bag Linked To Human Trafficking

2012-01-23T03:38:00.000-08:00

Police in Bethany, Oklahoma, are investigating a murder they believe is linked to a local drug and prostitution ring. Police arrested Jimmy Lee Massey, Jr., suspected of taking part in the murder of Carina Saunders, 19, whose dismembered body was found stuffed in a duffel bag behind a store. Bethany Chief of Police Phil Cole said they believe Massey kidnapped another woman and forced her to watch the torture and murder of Saunders. "We believe the murder of Saunders was to send a message to the kidnapping victim and others they needed to take part in the human trafficking side of this criminal organization," Cole said.

Case To Be Heard Under Human Trafficking Law

2012-01-20T06:30:00.000-08:00

The Southern Poverty Law Center and a large firm, Covington & Burling, are representing survivors. Great example of private attorneys stepping up and of how educated, English speakers are also vulnerable:

A Los Angeles federal judge has ruled that the conditions that Filipino teachers were subjected to when brought to Louisiana qualifies their case to be heard under the federal human trafficking law. … An official in the EBRSB superintendent's office facilitated the importation of teachers and conducted interviews in Manila. … Starting in 2007, more than 350 Filipino teachers were brought to Louisiana to fill vacancies in several school districts across the state. Filipino teachers also were brought into the U.S for positions in other states but only the Louisiana teachers filed suit over their treatment. They had to pay exorbitant fees, by Filipino standards, to get here and were required to relinquish a portion of their salaries to companies that recruited them and arranged transportation and work visas. They paid high interest rates to the lender the company required them to use. … They also could not leave the U.S. because the companies confiscated their passports until they paid the assessments.

More Good Stuff from the Global Freedom Center

2012-01-19T06:17:00.000-08:00

This link provides some good and ready information on labor trafficking.

Overlooked: Sexual Violence in Labor Trafficking

2012-01-18T05:53:00.000-08:00

Great new organization and interesting article on how sexual violence is often overlooked in the labor trafficking context.

Four Women Held in Mexican Child Trafficking Case

2012-01-17T02:35:00.000-08:00

MEXICO CITY -- Investigators say four women are being held in the western Mexican city of Guadalajara in connection with an apparent child-trafficking ring that aimed to supply babies to childless Irish couples.

The Jalisco state prosecutor's office says a 21-year-old woman has been arrested after a relative reported that she was "renting out" one of her children.

The woman said she had been paid to give the child to a group of three women who needed baby pictures for legitimate advertising purposes.

Investigators found the other three women were taking the child and several others to a hotel where Irish couples believed they were going to adopt them.

Officials are investigating whether the Irish couples and Mexican mothers were tricked.

Empowering Women: Why It’s a Key to Ending Human Trafficking

2012-01-13T08:01:00.000-08:00

A great post to share:

Women are disproportionately victimized by traffickers. A disproportionate number live in poverty and lack education and health care. (Check out this post from last week about the size and scope of human trafficking.)

This year at STF, we’re going to take a closer look at what it means to empower women, and how to promote opportunities for women’s health, education, business, and life choice.

While it might seem that focusing on women perpetuates inequality and leaves impoverished men and boys without resources, empowered women empower communities.

When women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it into their families, as compared to only 30 to 40 percent for a man.
(Chris Fortson, “Women’s Rights Vital for Developing World,” Yale News Daily 2003.)

In the info graphic at the end of this post, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) explains why empowering women is so important.

And The Girl Effect shows the power of 12-year-old girls in this video.

It’s no secret that STF is already in the business of empowering women. All our products are made by women who’ve previously been exploited. They’ve been given extensive job skills training and health care, and they’re paid a fair (often generous) wage.

Around the world people are taking action for women:

• This journalist in Bangladesh calls for men to band together to bring an end to violence against women.
• These farming innovations give power to the women who produce over 50% of the world’s food.
• This interview with Swanee Hunt, founder of Institute for Inclusive Security, explains how women are a vital part of the peace negotiation process.

Throughout the year, we’ll be pointing you in the direction of different ways you can help empower women; but don’t doubt your own creative abilities. Look around you community: Are there women who need literacy training or rides to the doctor? Are there girls who are falling behind in school because they have to care for their siblings during homework time? Are there organizations focused on women who need volunteers?

A little bit of justice...

2012-01-12T06:16:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, in Orlando Immigration Court, my client (a hardworking single mother of four U.S. citizen children) received the right to stay in the United States (a country to which she was trafficked at age 12) and to keep her family together. It was a fantastic day for all of us, and a fitting victory on National Anti-Trafficking Day.

A video to commemorate national human trafficking day

2012-01-11T04:07:00.000-08:00

Hear from Polaris Project staff members about what shocked them when they first learned of human trafficking and some ideas of how you can help us end it!

It's January 11th Somewhere!

2012-01-10T19:36:00.000-08:00

Excerpt from President Obama’s speech proclaiming January 2011 to be Human Trafficking Prevention Month:

We cannot strengthen global efforts to end modern slavery without first accepting the responsibility to prevent, identify, and aggressively combat this crime at home. No country can claim immunity from the scourge of human rights abuses, or from the responsibility to confront them. As evidence of our dedication to a universal struggle against this heinous practice, the Department of State’s “Trafficking in Persons Report 2010″ included America in its rankings for the first time, measuring our efforts by the same standards to which we hold other nations. Looking ahead, we must continue to aggressively investigate and prosecute human trafficking cases within our own borders.

Prostituted Child or Victim of Trafficking?

2012-01-10T06:02:00.000-08:00

I wanted to pass along a recent decision issued in New York City Criminal Court (The State of NY v. Samantha R.) in which the Court dismissed a charge of Loitering for the Purposes of Prostitution against a 16 year old defendant on its own motion in the interest of justice. The Court points out the various inconsistencies in the way the law addresses the minor, noting: "the law alternately regards [the defendant] as a child and an adult or quasi-adult. . .an 'exploited child' and possibly a 'victim.'” Happy to share the case with anyone interested.

Child Trafficking or International Adoption?

2012-01-09T08:46:00.000-08:00

International Adoption or Child Trafficking? (Book review of Finding Fernanda)

January 9, 2012

From The American Prospect:

Between 1998 and 2008, nearly 30,000 Guatemalan-born children (mostly infants and toddlers) were adopted by U.S. parents. In some years, that meant that an astonishing 1 out of 100 children born in Guatemala was adopted by an American family. For most of that time, everyone but the prospective adoptive parents knew—or in some cases actively chose to “unknow”—that the country’s international adoption system was a cesspool of corruption and crime, and motivated by money. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and news organizations reported in detail, repeatedly, that the country’s babies were systematically being bought, coerced, or even kidnapped away from families that wanted to raise them. But because healthy babies and toddlers kept on coming at a regular pace that kept up with demand in America, and because powerful Guatemalans were getting enormously rich off the baby trade, the system did not shut down until January 1, 2008.
Finding Fernanda is a true-crime page-turner about two mothers—Betsy Emanuel, an American, and Mildred Alvarado, a Guatemalan—accidentally united by a horrible adoption kidnapping. First-time author Erin Siegal uses the moving story to deliver investigative reportage at its finest, examining in tremendous detail exactly what happened to Betsy, to Mildred, and to the daughter that both of them lost. In doing so, Siegal writes the definitive book on the Guatemalan international adoption system’s endemic difficulties. In documenting exactly how Mildred Alvarado’s two youngest children were stolen, and by tracing Alvarado’s desperate search to regain them, Siegal exposes how Guatemalan crime rings and official corruption enabled children to cross borders and change identities without their families’ permission. And by showing how hard it was for Betsy Emanuel to find out what went wrong when she adopted Alvarado’s children, and how impossible it was for Florida to shut down Emanuel’s U.S. adoption agency, Celebrating Children—notorious for its involvement in suspect adoptions, and which Siegal definitively links to the Alvarado kidnapping—Siegal reveals the tremendous gaps in U.S. laws and regulations on international adoption.

Access the full article here.

Interesting Event in Miami

2012-01-06T05:06:00.000-08:00

“Justice at the Door: Ending Domestic Servitude”

St. Thomas University School of Law through its Graduate Program in Intercultural Human Rights’ Human Trafficking Academy and

its Intercultural Human Rights Law Review invites you to the 2012 symposium on human trafficking for domestic servitude*

WHEN: Friday, January 27, 2012, 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

WHERE: St. Thomas University School of Law, Moot Court Room,

16401 NW 37th Ave., Miami Gardens, FL 33054**

COSTS: Free

*Continuing Legal Education Credits application pending with the Florida Bar

**In addition to the live session, the conference will be streamed online.

For more information please contact: Human Trafficking Academy athumantrafficking@stu.edu

Thanks,

Ana Isabel Vallejo, J.D./LL.M./J.S.D. candidate

Human Trafficking Academy Project Coordinator

Graduate Program in Intercultural Human Rights

St. Thomas University School of Law

16401 NW 37th Avenue

Miami Gardens, FL 33054

Tel: 305-623-2320

Cel: 305-978-4404

Fax: 305-474-2413

email: avallejo@stu.edu

January is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month in the U.S.

2012-01-03T04:32:00.001-08:00

January is set as a permanent month of awareness for those who are denied their basic fundamental human rights by human trafficking in the US and around the world.

The statistics are bleak, and in a country like the US 90% of human trafficking is sex trafficking, and an estimated 80% of human trafficking victims are females and 50% are children.

There are approximately 100,000 to 300,000 children forced into prostitution yearly in the United States alone. Global figures are in the millions.

Hotels and resorts have been receiving more attention over accountability issues regarding human and sex trafficking. One group, meeting planners, has taken the initiative to sign the Tourism Child-Protection Code of Conduct.

The Code of Conduct is an industry driven responsible tourism initiative in collaboration with End Child Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking (ECPAT) International, funded by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and supported by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).

Companies who sign onto the Code are now working to encourage their industry peers and competitors to address human and sex trafficking at every hotel where they do business.

Kimberly Ritter, Senior Account Manager and Coordinator of conference and meeting planning company Nix, claims that “Child sex trafficking is widespread, occurring right now even at luxury hotels in the United States. Most hotel executives have no idea this exploitation of children exists at their properties. Once they become aware, however, they can establish policies and train staff to identify and take action against child sex trafficking.”

As part of their commitment to end child sex trafficking, Nix recently added a clause to their standard Request for Proposal inquiring about hotel policies on human trafficking.

As a company, Nix seeks to discuss child sex trafficking and exploitation in one-on-one meetings with hotel general managers, provide written materials, and by encouraging them to sign the ECPAT-USA Code of Conduct for hotels.

Meeting planners who adopt the Meeting Planner's Code of Conduct agree to establish an internal social responsibility policy, implement an action plan with objectives and timeframes, and report annually.

Trafficking networks operate both domestically and internationally, and although abuses disproportionally affect women and girls, the victims of this ongoing global tragedy are men, women, and children of all ages.

Wednesday, January 11, is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day.

Famous Folks Fighting Trafficking by Kristof

2012-01-02T06:04:00.000-08:00

HERE’S a paradox: We’re finding authentic leadership these days not from our nominal leaders in Washington but from unelected (and mostly unelectable) figures whom we like to deride as self-indulgent narcissists.

On the Ground

Share Your Comments About This Column

Nicholas Kristof addresses reader feedback and posts short takes from his travels.

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Damon Winter/The New York Times

Nicholas D. Kristof

Congress is so paralyzed and immature, even sleazy, that we reporters sometimes leave a politician’s press conference feeling the urgent need to shower. But look at university and high school students. Sure, plenty still live for a party, but a growing number have no time for beer because they’re so busy tutoring prisoners, battling sex trafficking or building wells in Africa.

Even more startling, we can now turn to moral leadership from — brace yourself — Hollywood’s “most beautiful people.” I know, I know. What we expect from celebrities is mostly scandalous sex lives and crackpot behavior, and some do oblige. But increasingly as our “leaders” debase the national conversation, sex symbols elevate it.

Take Angelina Jolie, who is making her debut as a director and writer with the aching new movie “In the Land of Blood and Honey.” It’s a Bosnian love story set against genocide, and it illuminates the human capacity to both love and kill.

Let me acknowledge that I regularly embarrass my kids with my ignorance of popular culture. The first time I met Jolie, four years ago, I was brought over to a couch where three women were seated — and realized, to my horror, that I had no idea which one she was. She rescued me by introducing herself.

(Maybe I should warn of a conflict here. Jolie submitted a blurb for a book that my wife and I wrote about empowering women. Better yet, she held our book, the cover perfectly upright for the cameras, as a shield when paparazzi were hounding her.)

Jolie’s new movie doesn’t pander to anyone. For starters, she isn’t in it. The cast is made up of unknowns from the Balkans, speaking foreign languages with subtitles. When Jolie wrote the screenplay and proposed filming it, she said, everyone thought she was nuts.

The movie portrays the romance between a Bosnian Serbian man and a Bosnian Muslim woman. When the Bosnian war begins, he becomes an officer in a genocidal army and she becomes a survivor in one of the army’s rape camps. The couple reunites, but she is his prisoner as well as his lover. The army officer reminds me of war criminals I’ve interviewed: a good and decent guy when he’s not committing crimes against humanity.

“How do people get to the point,” Jolie asks, “when they’re murdering the grandmother next door. How does that happen? If we can start to understand it, then maybe we can figure out how to address the signs earlier.”

Jolie also wants viewers to meditate on humanitarian intervention and what can be done to prevent mass atrocities. “I hoped people would watch the film and think, ‘Why didn’t we stop it?’ ” she said.

I started off rather scornful of celebrities dabbling in humanitarian causes. When Mia Farrow inquired about going to Darfur with me, I archly declined on the presumption that she couldn’t hack it. Then she traveled to the region on her own, and I began to run into her anyway.

Once Farrow consulted me about her plan to buy a donkey and hike off by herself across a desert occupied by murderous militias. She planned to travel without even a tent, just a rope to encircle her as she slept in the sand on the theory that snakes and scorpions would turn aside at the rope.

Farrow has since become a friend, but I’m now afraid to travel with her. I might not be able to hack it.

Likewise, the war in Congo is the most lethal since World War II, but it hasn’t been much covered by many news organizations. One person who has visited repeatedly is Ben Affleck. He has made himself an expert on Congo, and he plans to return this month.

Or think of Sean Penn and Olivia Wilde, who have shown a more sustained commitment to Haiti than most news organizations.

Look, as a journalist, I’m proud of my profession. Yet it’s also clear that commercial pressures are driving some news organizations, television in particular, to drop the ball. Instead of covering Congo, it’s cheaper and easier to put a Democrat and a Republican in a studio and have them yell at each other.

Frankly, it’s just humiliating when news organizations cover George Clooney (my travel buddy on one Darfur trip) more attentively when he breaks up with a girlfriend than when he travels to Sudan and uses satellite photos to catch the Sudanese government committing mass atrocities.

So here’s my hope for the new year. That our “leaders” in Washington will pause in their supercilious narcissism and show a hint of the seriousness and moral purpose of, yes, celebrities.

The Deported: 42 Get Sent Back From Greece, End Up In Jail

2011-12-30T10:07:00.000-08:00

Forty-two people were deported from Greece for attempting to enter illegally. Upon their arrival at Benazir Bhutto International Airport (BBIA) on Saturday, they were taken into custody by Federal Investigation Agency's Anti-Human Trafficking Circle (AHTC) officials. AHTC Gujranwala officials also arrested some deportees and shifted them to Gujranwala jails for further investigations. According to officials, a majority of the deported belonged to Gujrat who were trying to slip into Greece when they were caught by coast guards at a shipping port and detained for illegal entry. "They used the Iran-Turkey route and were travelling with the help of a human trafficker," said FIA immigration shift in-charge Khubaibullah Baloch. … An FIA official added that the deported were mostly from rural areas, uneducated and manipulated by traffickers.

21 Kidnapping Victims Rescued In Nuevo Laredo, Mexico

2011-12-29T04:46:00.000-08:00

Three men are behind bars after authorities rescued 21 Central American immigrants from a stash house in Nuevo Laredo. It all happened at a home in the Colonia Solidaridad. Mexico's Ministry of National Defense (SEDENA) reports that soldiers were out on patrol when they spotted armed men outside the building. The men tried to flee but were caught. Authorities found 21 immigrants from Guatemala and Honduras inside the home. Four of the immigrants were women.

Suspected Jamaican Human Trafficker Nabbed At US Embassy In Kingston

2011-12-28T12:53:00.000-08:00

The lives of 17 Jamaican children in the United States may be in danger after they were adopted and shipped off to that country by a woman the local police believe may be part of a major human trafficking ring operating between both countries. Local police, with the help of US law enforcement officials, are currently trying to track down the children, aged between five and 16. Detectives believe that more than the 17 children could well have been victims of the illicit trade. The human trafficking scheme was uncovered last week after the woman — a 53-year-old resident of Pleasant District in Bog Walk, St Catherine — was arrested by the Flying Squad at the United States Embassy in Kingston where she had presented forged documents in an effort to secure a US visa for a 16-year-old girl whom she had recently adopted. Detectives believe that the woman had been operating the scheme for about two years before she was arrested.

Human Trafficking Expert Pens "This is Our Story"

2011-12-27T04:48:00.000-08:00

Miami native and Florida State University law professor Wendi Adelson isn't in the law game just for the money. At Sweat Records on Dec. 27, she'll present This Is Our Story, her novel about human trafficking that draws on her experience and knowledge as a public interest lawyer.

She writes about two child victims of trafficking -- Rosa and Mila -- exploring their journey as they are caught in a life of domestic servitude and commercial sex exploitation. Together with their immigration lawyer, Lily, the young women fight an unjust system.

Cohosted by Emerge Miami and Sweat Records, This Is Our Story is meant to encourage awareness of human trafficking and the circumstances suffered by its victims. Adelson says she also hopes to prove that public interest law is a viable career choice for "people who want to do good in the world."

Public interest lawyers devote their careers to "helping a child with asthma petition her landlord to remove mold from her building; assisting an abused immigrant woman with self-petitioning for her immigration status; advocating for a disabled adult to receive certain benefits from social security, etc," Adelson says. But involving more lawyers in the field of public interest law is just one part of the solution. At the end of the day, Adelson says, educating people about human trafficking is the best step to take toward ending these crimes.

This isn't the first time Adelson, a Miami native and graduate of the University of Miami School of Law, has written about this issue. She also blogged about her experiences representing victims of human trafficking at the prominent blog Ms. JD, and regularly speaks to her students about these issues in her well-regarded seminars.

"Instead of internalizing my clients' traumas, too paralyzed by their pain to move forward, I have felt empowered by my ability to be part of their solution," Adelson writes. She wants to encourage others to empower themselves, too, and together end the human trafficking crisis. Awareness is the first step toward activism.

Adelson will be reading from her novel, signing books, answering questions, and screening a short film she uses in her seminar on human trafficking. The event is on Tuesday, December 27 at 8pm at Sweat Records; it is free and open to the public. Books will be sold at $15.

Senior Mumbai Cop Moved After Sex Trade Raid

2011-12-27T04:45:00.000-08:00

A senior inspector of Versova police station in India was transferred following the recent raid on a prostitution racket by the Social Service Branch (SSB) of the city police. Senior police inspector Sharad Borse, who is presently on leave, has been ordered to move to the Local Arms Division (LAD) at Naigaon. … The raid took place at a Mhada colony in Versova. More than 23 women were rescued, while 13 pimps were arrested under the Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act (PITA). Police constable Arvind Kadam from the Versova police station was found to be at the location of the raid and was subsequently suspended. Officials stated that it is normal for senior police officials to be transferred if there is a raid by special teams like the SSBin the area of their jurisdiction. Sources reveal that Borse had gone on leave just a couple of days prior to the raid. A similar raid had taken place in July, when Borse was again on leave.

People Smugglers Stood To Earn $1M From Tragic Voyage in Australia

2011-12-26T04:41:00.000-08:00

The people smuggling syndicate that organized the vessel which sank off the coast of East Java could have made as much as $1 million from the venture. About 250 people were on the boat that capsized and, according to testimony from survivors, the Iranians that made up most of the human cargo paid $7000 each while the Afghans paid about $4500. Assuming the average amount paid was $5000, the venture would have grossed about $1.25 million and, Senior Commissioner Budi Santoso, the head of Indonesia's people smuggling taskforce, said the overheads for the syndicate would have been surprisingly low.… Commissioner Budi said that, from his experience, the crew would be paid about 20 million rupiah each [$2,200]. That's the equivalent of almost a year's salary for a poor Indonesian fisherman, and significantly more than they used to receive. There were six crew on the boat, including the captain, who would have made at least double the amount the underlings earned. Even so, it's unlikely the total bill for the syndicate would have exceeded $100,000.

Florida Jury Deliberating In Boom Boom Room Case

2011-12-23T04:04:00.000-08:00

Jurors deliberated for 2 1/2 hours in the case of a man charged with recruiting eight underage girls to become prostitutes at an Oakland Park brothel called the Boom Boom Room. The jury hadn't reached a verdict by 5 p.m. and will return Tuesday to decide James "Red" Mozie's fate. Mozie, 34, is charged with eight counts of child sex trafficking, one count of conspiring to commit child sex trafficking and one count of producing child pornography. Prosecutors said he recruited girls as young as 13 to strip, give lap dances and have sex with customers at a house in an industrial section of the city. They also said he required many of the girls to go through what he called "orientation," which included having sex with him. If convicted of just one of the trafficking charges, Mozie could face up to life in federal prison.

Florida Detectives Focus On Human Trafficking

2011-12-22T04:29:00.000-08:00

In Tallahassee, police investigators learned new ways to handle cases of human trafficking. It's a serious problem in Florida. The state is ranked third in the nation in the number of human trafficking cases. Terry Coonan of the FSU Center for the Advancement of Human Rights says many young women, including runaway U.S. citizens and immigrants, are forced into prostitution. "Once they arrive are told, 'You owe a smuggling debt of $5,000 or $20,000 or $40,000 and until you pay that off in forced prostitution, we own you.' Often the "we" is an organized crime group, Russian, Asian, Latin American," Coonan said. Coonan says Florida's economy is riddled with human trafficking. … But it's not always sex trafficking. The girls are also exploited in labor trafficking for job sectors that rely on cheap labor.

Oceanside Man Gets 30 Years For Sex Trafficking Of 17-Year-Old

2011-12-21T04:40:00.000-08:00

A 41-year-old Oceanside man was sentenced in federal court Monday to 30 years in prison after being convicted of forcing a 17-year-old girl into prostitution. Maurice Lerome Smith set up Internet ads offering sex with an underage female, according to testimony. He would drive the victim to motels, require her to meet a daily quota, and then keep the proceeds, often as much as $1,200 a day. Smith first met the teen while she was walking in San Diego, forced her into his car, beat her with a belt and raped her, according to testimony at a three-day trial. When she balked at prostitution, he threatened to kill her and warned that her body would be found "in pieces in the trunk." Smith, who had previously been convicted on state charges of assault and conspiracy to kidnap a child, was convicted in federal court under a statute concerning the sex trafficking of children through violence and coercion.

Go Google!

2011-12-20T04:34:00.001-08:00

Google puts $11.5 million toward US coalitions devoted to fighting labor and sex slavery

By Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO — Tech giant Google announced Wednesday it is donating $11.5 million to several coalitions fighting to end the modern-day slavery of some 27 million people around the world.

In what is believed to be the largest-ever corporate grant devoted to the advocacy, intervention and rescue of people being held, forced to work or provide sex against their will, Google said it chose organizations with proven records in combating slavery.

“Many people are surprised to learn there are more people trapped in slavery today than any time in history,” said Jacquelline Fuller, director of charitable giving and advocacy for Google. “The good news is that there are solutions.”

The Washington-based International Justice Mission, a human rights organization that works globally to rescue victims of slavery and sexual exploitation, was chosen by Google to lead the efforts.

It will partner with Polaris Project and Slavery Footprint and a handful of smaller organizations for the multi-year effort to rescue the enslaved, push for better infrastructure and resources for anti-slavery enforcement agencies overseas, as well as raise awareness here in the United States and help countries draft anti-slavery legislation.

“Each year we focus some of our annual giving on meeting direct human need,” Fuller said. “Google chose to spotlight the issue of slavery this year because there is nothing more fundamental than freedom.”

Gary A. Haugen, president of the International Justice Mission, said the coalition would focus on three initiatives: A $3.5 million intervention project to fight forced labor in India; a $4.5 million advocacy campaign in India to educate and protect the vulnerable; and a $1.8 million plan to mobilize Americans on behalf of the millions currently at risk of slavery or waiting for rescue around the world.

The remaining $1.7 million will go to several smaller organizations working to combat slavery.

“It’s hard for most Americans to believe that slavery and human trafficking are still massive problems in our world,” said Haugen. “Google’s support now makes it possible for IJM to join forces with two other leading organizations so we can bring to bear our unique strengths in a united front.”

Those leading the U.S. efforts will meet in Washington on Wednesday to kick off the joint initiative. The project will focus on improved legislation to protect vulnerable children and adults in the United States, as well as a push for more accountability and transparency in the U.S. supply chain by retailers and manufacturers to make sure their products are “slave-free.”

The trafficking of women for the sex trade is common in big American cities. Some illegal immigrants find themselves forced to work in sweatshops, in private homes as domestic servants or on farms without pay under the threat of deportation.

The new effort will launch new initiatives that ordinary Americans can take to help abolish modern-day slavery, such as understanding how their own clothing or smartphones might contain fabrics or components manufactured by forced labor.

“Whether it’s by calling the national human trafficking hotline, sending a letter to their senator, or using online advocacy tools, millions of Americans will be able to use their voices to ensure that ending this problem becomes a top priority,” said Bradley Myles, executive director of Polaris Project.

Google.org — the philanthropy arm of the Silicon Valley firm — announced the anti-slavery effort as part of its $40 million in end-of-year giving that brings its charitable donations to more than $100 million in 2011. The grants will also support science, technology, engineering and math education; girls’ education in the developing world; and the use of technology for social good.

Justin Dillon, the founder of Slavery Footprint, said the Google grant would allow the movement to move from “anecdote and emotion,” to tangible action that could make a dent in history.

“Having a company like Google recognize the value of our work marks a major turning point for the anti-slavery movement,” said Dillon, whose nonprofit gives consumers some tools to determine whether slaves were used in the making of their goods and teaches them to use social media to sound off about slavery and engage with corporations about their supply chains.

Go Broward!

2011-12-19T09:37:00.000-08:00

I feel so proud of my hometown/county when I see the fantastic work that the Broward Human Trafficking Coalition is doing. My hats off to Adriane Reesey and team!

Statue Deepens Dispute Over Wartime Sexual Slavery

2011-12-16T05:02:00.000-08:00

Time is running out for these comfort women of history.

The Twice-Victimized of Sexual Assault

2011-12-15T17:09:00.000-08:00

An article that all who work with victims of trafficking should keep in mind. Let me amend that: this is so prevalent, we all need to remember what Jane Brody discusses here!

Shining Light on the Role of Drivers in Prostitution

2011-12-14T05:15:00.000-08:00

Sofia, a sweet-voiced and cherubic 24-year-old, was one of the lucky ones: She managed to escape much of the suffering shared by the millions of sex workers trafficked throughout the world, and even saw two of her traffickers forced out of the country and back to Mexico.

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Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times

Sofia, a sex-trafficking victim who uses a pseudonym, will testify before City Council committees on Wednesday.

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But the young woman said she still feels that complete justice has eluded her, because the drivers who ferried her from john to john, her de facto bosses, remain at large.

As prostitution has shifted off the streets and into hotels and apartments, the drivers who transport prostitutes have emerged as some of the industry’s most powerful players. Sofia, who uses a pseudonym because she fears retribution from traffickers, said that when she was enslaved as a prostitute, her drivers organized her schedule, drove her to appointments and took half of her earnings before she turned over the remainder to her pimp.

“They are more important than the pimps because they’re the ones who decide everything,” Sofia said softly in Spanish. Her words were translated by a counselor and a lawyer from Sanctuary for Families, a nonprofit group that works with domestic violence victims. “I want all of them in jail, or back in their countries. I don’t want to see them working like this.”

On Wednesday, Sofia will testify, from behind a screen, before a joint hearing of the City Council’s Transportation and Women’s Issues Committees, on two pieces of proposed legislation that would penalize drivers who knowingly transport prostitutes.

The first proposal, introduced by Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras, would raise the fines on drivers who knowingly transport trafficking victims, and would direct the Taxi and Limousine Commission to add training for all its drivers on the subject of sex trafficking.

The second bill, introduced by Councilman James Vacca and Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley, seeks to punish those who operate unregistered cars as liveries, with misdemeanor charges, fines and possible prison time, noting that many of the drivers fail to register with the Taxi and Limousine Commission.

“Who would have thought that black cars or livery cars were going to become a point in the issue of sex trafficking?” said the Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, who noted that this would be the Council’s fourth hearing on sex trafficking this year. “We have to hit every way we can to crack down on that effort.”

David S. Yassky, the chairman of the taxi commission, said he wanted to work with the City Council without adding costs for drivers. He suggested that the agency could issue a pamphlet about sex trafficking.

“I don’t know if we need full-blown classroom instruction on this particular topic,” Mr. Yassky said. “We would like to do what we can at the T.L.C. to make sure that car services, livery bases are not participating in reprehensible human trafficking.”

Reporting of sex-trafficking cases seems to be growing more frequent. Lori Cohen, a senior staff attorney with the Anti-Trafficking Initiative of Sanctuary for Families, said that the number of victims it advised had jumped to 293 in the 12-month period that ended June 30, compared with 85 in the previous 12 months.

Sofia estimates that she worked with 70 drivers, who brought her to 5,000 clients. Clients often found drivers’ phone numbers in advertisements placed in newspapers or on cards handed out on the street. When business was slow, her pimp would give her a list and have her call the drivers directly. Her drivers took more of her earnings if she did not finish her appointments within 15 minutes, she said.

Sofia said that the drivers rarely spoke to her, except when they tried to recruit her away from her pimp. “They promised us a better life,” Sofia said. “I know a lot of girls who said they left the pimp they were working with. In the end they just worked for the driver.”

Chocolate Just Got Even More Appealing

2011-12-13T07:46:00.000-08:00

Nestle 'to act over child labour in cocoa industry'

The BBC's Humphrey Hawksley travelled to Ivory Coast and found children using machetes to hack open cocoa pods

Global food giant Nestle says it has taken a major step to end child labour on cocoa farms supplying its factories.

The firm, one of the world's largest chocolate producers, says it is going to work with the Fair Labor Association (FLA) on tackling the problem.

The FLA is set to examine Nestle's cocoa supply chains in Ivory Coast in January, the firm said in a statement.

Critics ask why it has taken Nestle so long to act if it knew children were involved in its cocoa production.

Nestle and the world's other biggest chocolate producers signed a cocoa protocol - an international commitment to end child labour in the cocoa industry - 10 years ago.

Analysis

Humphrey HawksleyBBC News

During my visit to Ivory Coast earlier this month, it was easy to find child labour and difficult to see substantive measures to prevent it.

The sight of children carrying machetes or pesticide equipment is common throughout the country's cocoa belt.

More than 800,000 children there are believed to do some form of cocoa-related work. I found a group walking along a muddy path towards trees where bright yellow cocoa pods hung ready for harvest.

Silently, the children squatted down and started work. They wore torn and grubby shorts and T-shirts. There was no laughter or play.

On their legs were scars from machete injuries. There was no first-aid kit around or any protective clothing.

One - a 12-year-old - said his parents lived far away and he had not seen his family for three years.

The trafficking and selling of children is still commonplace. The Nestle announcement came within days of the report being broadcast.

Child labour on West Africa's cocoa farms

Earlier this year, a report commissioned by the US government found that the chocolate industry's funding since 2001 had "not been sufficient" and it needed to do more.

Nestle, in its statement, said the "cocoa supply chain is long and complex" - making it "difficult for food companies to establish exactly where their cocoa comes from and under what conditions it was harvested".

The firm said the FLA would send a team of independent examiners to Ivory Coast - where Nestle buys most of its cocoa - to map the supply chain.

The results of its assessment will be published next year and will guide future operations there, the firm said.

"Child labour has no place in our supply chain," said senior Nestle executive Jose Lopez.

"We cannot solve the problem on our own, but by working with a partner like the FLA we can make sure our efforts to address it are targeted where they are needed most".

'Moral obligation'

The US government-backed report by Tulane University, published in March, found that more than 1.8 million children in West Africa were involved in growing cocoa.

Earlier this month, the BBC's Humphrey Hawksley travelled to Ivory Coast and found children using machetes to hack open cocoa pods to extract the beans.

One boy told him that he had been sent by his father to the farm to work, and had not seen his family for three years.

Gilbert Kone Kafana, Ivory Coast's minister for labour and social affairs, said there was a "moral obligation" on chocolate companies to help rebuild the country ravaged by years of civil war.

"We need to build roads, schools, hospitals and social centres; anything that would allow Ivory Coast to progress," he told the BBC.

"This development is necessary for farmers to have a good life, and it is in the interest of the industry to work with us."

Moving video on Child Trafficking

2011-12-12T04:32:00.000-08:00

Please check out this film about child trafficking.

China Children?

2011-12-09T07:01:00.000-08:00

China children rescued in swoop on traffickers

Chinese state television footage of the arrests

Police in China say they have rescued nearly 200 children after uncovering two child-trafficking gangs.

More than 600 people were arrested in raids in 10 Chinese provinces.

A BBC correspondent in Beijing says the staggering numbers in the investigation reveal the scale of the country's child-trafficking problem.

Critics blame China's one-child policy and lax adoption laws, which they say have created a thriving underground market for buying children.

Thousands missing

The Ministry of Public Security said 178 children had been rescued in the joint investigation. It did not give their ages and said they were being cared for while officials sought to trace their parents.

The ministry described the crackdown as "one of the biggest victories for anti-trafficking".

A statement said 5,000 police had co-operated for six months before arresting suspects last week.

"Police departments will continue to crack down on child trafficking and ensure that involved children are kept out of the reach of buyers," the statement said.

It appears police stumbled on one trafficking gang while investigating a road accident in the southern province of Sichuan in May.

Links were found to at least 26 other trafficking gangs in China, the statement said. A second gang was uncovered in August in the south-eastern province of Fujian.

The BBC's Michael Bristow in Beijing says it remains unclear how many more cases remain undiscovered.

Our correspondent says many people blame China's one-child policy because it creates a demand for children - particularly boys.

Families may also buy trafficked women and children to use as extra labour and household servants, as well as brides for unmarried sons.

Clear data is hard to obtain but correspondents say thousands of children are snatched from their families each year and sold in China. Despite government efforts to counter it, child trafficking is a growing problem.

Greater freedom of movement that came with China's economic reforms is thought to have made it easier for trafficking gangs to operate.

Technology and the Future of Child Sex Trafficking

2011-12-08T03:39:00.000-08:00

Wanted: Technology Breakthroughs to Fight Child Sex Trafficking

7 Dec 2011 9:00 AM

Posted by Samantha Doerr
Public Affairs Manager, Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit

There are few online crimes more heartbreaking than technology-facilitated crimes against children, which is why Microsoft is working with experts to advance innovation to combat them, including aresearch effort on child sex trafficking being introduced today by danah boyd and Rane Johnsonof Microsoft Research and the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit. Through Microsoft’s previous work, we have found that research and creative collaborative efforts can have a meaningful impact on crime, and we believe the same can be true in the commercial sexual exploitation of children.

Microsoft Research has released today an outline of fifteen different aspects of the child sex trafficking process fueled by U.S. demand where technology might play a role. We welcome readers to review this framework and provide feedback as we drive for scientifically sound research to understand and disrupt the problem. Also, to kick off deeper exploration of the dynamics already identified, we are issuing a $150,000 request for proposals on two of the fifteen processes – a) the role of technology in the advertising and selling of victims for exploitation and b) the purchase of victims by “johns”.

The role technology plays in both facilitating and fighting most forms of cybercrime is fairly well understood. For example, the online distribution of child pornography is reasonably well analyzed, and valuable new technology tools like PhotoDNA are emerging to help fight it. Sadly, the same is not true for human trafficking. The world has only barely scratched the surface in driving deeper understanding of the role that technology plays in facilitating modern-day slavery, let alone exploring ways that technology might be able to help fight it.

Dedicated members of law enforcement, NGOs, academia and governments worldwide are making a significant impact in this fight, but as we’ve learned in other areas of cybercrime, once technology is involved in a crime, there is also a unique and valuable role that technology experts and researchers can play to combat it. There has been some early momentum on this, with specialists from a variety of backgrounds coming together to drive progress.

In the U.S. for example, Polaris Project, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children,DNA Foundation, Shared Hope, GEMS, University of Southern California, Dartmouth College, Attorneys General Rob McKenna and Kamala Harris, police departments from states like Washington and California, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Twitter, Lexus-Nexus and many others are already engaging in thought-provoking and interesting possibilities. Internationally, there have been great efforts to use technology for law enforcement and corporate training, victim services, awareness and more. But so much more can be done.

There are many forms of human trafficking other than child sex trafficking – adults can also be victims of sex trafficking and labor trafficking is a significant problem – and by no means is all child sex trafficking driven by U.S. demand. This research effort aims to start somewhere with a scope that was immediately actionable, and we are hopeful that as we continue to drive deeper connections between academia, technology, advocacy, law enforcement and governments in this area, we will see new advancements never before possible in the fight against trafficking as a whole.

This problem can be complicated and daunting, but there are many reasons why we are so optimistic in the fight. We know that law enforcement today reports that gangs and organized crime increasingly get into the child sex trade because it may be less risky to traffic children than drugs, and because child traffickers’ ‘inventory’ is reusable, whereas drug inventory is not. It’s a sad phenomenon, but it also demonstrates that child sex trafficking shares the same weak point we exploit with most other forms of cybercrime DCU works on– it’s a business fueled by the promises of money and profit for criminals. While we may never wipe out trafficking completely, if we can drive up the costs and risks of ‘doing business’, we can make it a much less appealing business for traffickers.

I am incredibly lucky to get to work every day with smart, passionate leaders in this field around the world. Whether in our work to combat child exploitation or other cybercrime, we have seen firsthand how public-private partnership efforts combined with technical and legal innovation aimed at disrupting the heart of criminal operations serve as a powerful force against crime. Although the problem of trafficking is unique in many ways, I truly believe that kind of change is possible.

In recent months, I’ve had the humbling opportunity to meet women who were once young girls rented out in the sex trade and who have since transformed their lives, becoming influential leaders in a variety of fields. These survivors have not let their victimization define them, but appear to have taken their experiences as a source of strength that is part of who they are today. It is these women, and the thousands of victims of trafficking, both male and female around the world, who serve as a daily inspiration of what is possible.

For more information about what you can do to help, please visit the links from some of the organizations mentioned above. Most importantly, if you or someone you know suspect a trafficking situation, report it to appropriate authorities. In the U.S., Polaris Project runs a national hotline where any tips can be sent to 1-888-3737-888. If you are a researcher in the field, I also strongly recommend you check out the Microsoft Research site for more information about this effort as well as USC’s recent report Human Trafficking Online: The Role of Social Networking Sites and Online Classifieds.

Lastly, for anyone simply interested in staying up to speed on this and other efforts to combat digital crime, I welcome you to follow the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit on Facebook and Twitter, where we will continue to share information on breaking advances and news in the field.

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