Global Slavery News

Photo

Fri, 18 May 2012 15:54:10 -0400

Olympic Games should not be a magnet for sex trafficking gangs

Thu, 17 May 2012 14:25:14 -0400

Prime Minister David Cameron must do more to stop next year’s Olympic Games becoming a magnet for criminal gangs to force women and girls into the sex trade, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said today.

Read More

Photo

Thu, 17 May 2012 12:31:46 -0400

Interview with Gloria Steinem [India]

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:50:05 -0400

Gloria Steinem, the 78-year-old feminist pioneer, was on a six-day Learning Tour in Delhi, Bengal and Bihar earlier this month, inspired by Apne Aap Women Worldwide, a grassroots movement to end sex trafficking. In a freewheeling chat during her stay, Steinem opened up to Ruchira Gupta, founder president of Apne Aap, on her latest tryst with trafficking victims in Calcutta, Obama’s re-election, Monroe’s loneliness and more. Excerpts.

Experience now reveals that what works — and has worked in Nordic countries, where trafficking has actually diminished — is to de-criminalise the women or men who are prostitutes, offer them services and practical alternatives, and prosecute the pimps, traffickers and brothel owners to the full extent of national and international law. After all, there is a greater percentage of the world’s population in slavery now than there was at the peak of the slave trade — with sex slavery about 80% and labour slavery about 20%, according to the UN, though the line between the two is sometimes academic.

The point is: you may have a right to sell your own body, but you have no right to sell the bodies of others. We must stop arresting the victim. In Nordic countries, they fine and educate the customer, not just to embarrass him, but to give them the facts of human trafficking for which he is part of the market.

The good news is that though the trafficking lobby and a few academics tell us there are only two alternatives, legalisation or criminalisation, we now know this Third Way actually works. It’s not about being moralistic and anti-sex — on the contrary. It’s pro-sex and mutual pleasure. We have a T-shirt that says, Eroticize Equality.

U.S. Congress puts global microscope on Google about sex-trafficking

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:48:58 -0400

WASHINGTON, D.C., United States: In an effort to stop a rising tide with the use of online networks for human trafficking, two U.S. Representatives of Congress, Republican Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, along with Democrat Carolyn Maloney of New York, have sent a bipartisan letter to the largest online search engine in the world – Google, Inc. Questioning current practices and policies at Google, specifically within the offices of Google Adwords, the Congresswomen are sending a joint letter from Congress to Google to bring hard questions to the internet giant.

Stepping up their efforts, the Blackburn and Maloney Congressional team are bringing Google’s employee policies under the microscope. Unless Google answers the questions regarding the handling, receiving and allowing of online advertising by Google Adwords the corporate giant may be questioned further.

“It’s about time that we all take a close look at the largest ad publisher in the world – Google,” said Phil Cenedella, founder and director of The National Association of Human Trafficking Victim Advocates, an advocacy group that works on-the-ground with women and girl victims of human trafficking and now over 41 global partners. “This problem is worldwide and it’s growing right under our feet,” continued Cenedella. “The U.S. is one of the biggest consumers of modern slaves and illegal slave labor worldwide and this includes sex-trafficking.”

Human Trafficking and the London Olympics

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:48:14 -0400

The United Nations (UN.GIFT) and STOP THE TRAFFIK have created a new joint project called ‘GIFT box’ which will take place during the 2012 Olympics to inspire visitors, both from the UK and abroad, to take action to stop the trade.

The GIFT box is a giant public art installation, which will demonstrate to people how victims of human trafficking can be deceived; beyond the promises of exciting opportunities that will entice people to the box, once inside, the stark reality of human trafficking will be revealed.

There are four different types of boxes, each dealing with the forms of human trafficking prevalent on the streets of London: domestic servitude, forced street crime, sexual exploitation, and forced labour. Whilst the GIFT box will be evocative, it will also be family-friendly and will inspire people to advocate and end trafficking in their own communities.

Human trafficking victim takes her message to the United Nations [VIDEO]

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:47:32 -0400

OLYMPIA, Wash. —An Olympia woman is sharing her harrowing story of human trafficking at the United Nations this week, and she’s using Washington state as an example of what government should be doing to end the scourge.

Rani Hong was just 7-years-old when she was taken from her mother in India and traded on the open child slave market.

She survived, and she’s now sharing her story with world leaders at a United Nations summit on human trafficking.

“My traffickers told me I would never have a voice, that nobody would ever listen to me,” she said at the summit.

Her husband, Trong, is also a survivor of the child slave trade from Vietnam.

#ENDSLAVERY – JOIN WORLD VISION, IJM, POLARIS PROJECT, AND SAFE HORIZONS TO TWEET OUR SENATORS

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:46:32 -0400

Six months have passed since Congress allowed Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) to expire, jeopardizing the centerpiece of U.S. policy to combat human trafficking. To help move this critical legislation forward, World Vision, International Justice Mission (IJM), the Polaris Project, and Safe Horizons are joining together to urge Congress to renew the TVPRA and help end slavery for the 27 million enslaved people around the world.

Our goal is to get 10 more senators to sponsor the TVPRA in order to reach a total of 50 Senate co-sponsors by April 30.

Join us by tweeting these senators – who have NOT yet sponsored the TVPRA – by using the hashtag #endslavery

Domestic workers: Now that there’s a law to protect us from abuse, enforce it! [US]

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:45:35 -0400

An angry crowd, outraged by the abuses said to be perpetrated on a loving nanny by her employers, was expected to rally on Thursday to send them an unmistakable message: Never again.

Dozens of domestic workers and supporters, among them Occupy Wall Street activists, would gathe to protest the mistreatment that Patricia Francois, 53, an immigrant from Trinidad and Tobago who lives in Flatbush, said she suffered at the hands of her employers while she took care of their daughter.

“The little girl I was taking care of is a wonderful little girl. I stayed in the job for a long time because of her, even though I endured a lot of verbal abuse,” Francois said. “And even though I have a family back home depending on me, he crossed the line by hitting me.”

“He” is filmmaker Matthew Mazer and and according to Francois, he punched her in the face more than three years ago.

The situation of Francois and other women like her is ironic: While we trust them with our most precious possessions — our children, our elderly parents, our homes — they have traditionally been among the most exploited and abused of society’s laborers.

“We are the part of the 99% that is directly in contact with the 1% of this country every single day,” said Jocelyn Gill-Campbell, a former nanny and organizer with Domestic Workers United, the largest coalition of nannies, housekeepers and caretakers in the city.

“Domestic workers care for them, their loved ones, and the most precious elements of their lives, yet we are abused and mistreated,” Gill-Campbell added.

In 2010, New York became the first state to pass a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, guaranteeing minimum standards for New York’s over 200,000 privately employed, mostly immigrant women, nannies, housekeepers, and elder caregivers, such as paid days of rest and protection from discrimination and harassment.

But as advocates who worked for six years to pass the landmark legislation explain, abuse and exploitation will continue unless employers who violate domestic workers’ rights are brought to justice.

Lebanon: UN expert on slavery urges authorities to investigate the suicide of a migrant domestic worker

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:44:19 -0400

GENEVA (3 April 2012) – The United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, Gulnara Shahinian, urged the Government of Lebanon to carry out a full investigation into the death of Alem Dechasa, a 33-year-old Ethiopian migrant domestic worker who committed suicide on Wednesday 14 March 2012, a few days after she was seen been beaten by men and dragged into a car in the Lebanese capital.

These acts of abuse caught on video* and posted on a social media websites, show the victim shouting and struggling to resist a man dragging and forcing her into a car as bystanders stood by.

“Like many people around the world I watched the video of the physical abuse of Alem Dechasa on a Beirut street,” said the UN expert monitoring contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences. “I strongly urge the Lebanese authorities to carry out a full investigation into the circumstances leading to her death. I also express my deepest condolences to Ms. Dechasa’s family and friends”

“The cruel image on the website reminded me of the many migrant women workers I met in Lebanon during my official visit to the country last year,” she said. “Women who had been victims of domestic servitude told me they had been under the absolute control of their employers through economic exploitation and suffered physical, psychological and sexual abuse.”

At the end of her visit to Lebanon in October 2011, Ms. Shahinian urged the Government to enact legislation to protect the some 200,000 domestic workers in the country, indicating that without legal protection some of them would end up living in domestic servitude. “Migrant domestic workers in Lebanon, the majority of whom are women, are legally invisible,” she said at the time. “That makes them acutely vulnerable.”

Domestic workers get repatriation aid

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:43:29 -0400

Labour chiefs from Bahrain and across the region have agreed to fast-track repatriation of migrant workers, particularly women, at times of security crisis at a major forum in Manila, the Philippines.

They also agreed to assign government teams to closely monitor the recruitment of labourers.

It comes as 19 Asian and Middle Eastern countries are taking part in the Abu Dhabi Dialogue-II (ADD-II), which is being held under the theme ‘Sustaining Regional Co-operation Towards Improved Management of Labour Mobility in Asia’, at the Sofitel Hotel in Pasay City.

Bahrain’s delegation headed by Labour Minister Jameel Humaidan, is taking part in the high-level conference, which ends today.

He will then enter talks with senior GCC officials to discuss labour and migration policies in the region.

Activists welcomed the new recommendations, saying it would help fast-track proposals made by human rights societies in Bahrain.

“Most of our recommendations to protect the rights of migrant workers are being considered or reviewed by authorities. The laws are gradually changing and becoming labour-friendly,” said Migrant Workers Protection Society chairwoman Marietta Dias.

“We have an average of eight to 10 domestic workers housed at our shelter because of different cases such as abuse or being exploited by unscrupulous recruiting agents,” she added. …

However, unionists are urging authorities to make vital amendments to the country’s labour law to protect migrant workers from exploitation.

“There is no doubt in crisis situations like in Libya it is important to repatriate domestic workers,” said a General Federation of Bahrain Trade Unions spokesman yesterday.

“But at the same time, we should not ignore their rights in such situations such as receiving their full settlements. We have always called for the protection of domestic workers, who continue to be excluded from Bahrain’s labour law.”

The ADD-II featured proposals and discussions by labour-exporting countries, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam and labour-importing countries such as Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the UAE and Yemen. Japan, Malaysia and South Korea took part as observers.

Philippines Labour Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said during the opening of the forum that their nationals continued to face difficulties in repatriating distressed Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) amid the Arab Spring that spread across Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya and Syria.

He said this was due to policies adopted by these countries that require payment to be made to employers and respective governments before allowing OFWs to leave.

Meanwhile, a petition signed by hundreds of domestic workers in Bahrain would be submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council at the Universal Periodic Review of Bahrain in Geneva next month.

8 accused of human trafficking in India

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:36:58 -0400

NEW DELHI, April 10 (UPI) — Police in India said they have arrested eight members of a gang accused of human trafficking who allegedly sold girls for $1,300 each or less.

Superintendent of Police Lalit Shakyawar said the six men and two women were arrested in Madhya Pradesh, a state in central India, and the girls — two of them age 11, the other two, also minors — were rescued, Bikyamasr.com reported.

Shakyawar said the two 11-year-olds had been sold for about $1,272 each to a man identified as Kalu and were rescued from him in Bhawani Mandi. The girls alleged Kalu had raped them and his parents and brothers had beat them.

The other two girls had been sold for $1,300 each, police said.

Man 'tortured during work slavery' [London]

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:36:08 -0400

A destitute man was plucked from the north-west London streets by a traveller family, forced to work as a “slave” and “mentally tortured”, a court heard.

The man was living in a hotel early last year when he was stopped by two travellers outside a Greggs bakery in Wembley and offered an £80-a-day job, he said.

He agreed as it sounded like “good money” but was taken to a traveller site, coerced into performing hard labour and never paid a penny, he claimed.

Prosecutors say he was among dozens of homeless people, alcoholics and drug addicts controlled, exploited, verbally abused and beaten by seven members of the Connors family for financial gain.

Provisions for human trafficking victims lacking [Malaysia]

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 18:02:00 -0400

YOU may remember news broke out last month of 42 women from Vietnam who were stranded in a house in Pulau Tikus, Penang after their visas expired. The women who were brought to Malaysia by an agent for employment found themselves instead shut in the house without their passports, while reportedly surviving mostly on rice that they were given.

When their plight was made known and they were finally rescued, they claimed their employer had not even paid their salaries. They were later sent to a women’s shelter in Kuala Lumpur.

Following this, the authorities also found 34 Vietnamese and Nepalese men held under similar circumstances and believed to have been brought in by the same agent. They were sent to a camp in Malacca.

Last week, two non-governmental organisations revealed that the women had been transferred from the shelter in KL to a detention camp for illegal immigrants in Juru.

Why were these women, quite apparently victims of human trafficking, detained in such a place? According to the NGOs – the Northern Migration Network (Jump) and the Penang Office of Human Development (POHD) – 41 Nepalese men who were also victims were in the same situation.

“This doesn’t make sense as they are victims of human trafficking but are treated like criminals,” POHD spokesman K. Sudhagaran Stanley said. Both Sudhagaran and Pulau Tikus assemblyman Koay Teng Guan have lodged a police report about the detention.

Who killed Baby Falak?

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 15:01:40 -0400

A child died and we collectively mourn. She was just two years old. And she fought bravely, but the tubes and wires connecting her to life support in the AIIMS Trauma Centre were no match for the systemic failures that carried this baby to her death. For the truth is that Falak never really stood a chance.

What we know of Falak’s life are odd fragments from media reports. A 15-year-old girl brings an unnamed baby to a hospital. The baby has human bite marks on her body, and has been beaten, almost to death. It turns out the teenager is not the mother, and has herself been abused by a partner who dumped the baby on her just months ago. Some days later, the real mother is found — 22-year-old Munni, trafficked across many State borders, from Bihar to Delhi and sold into a second marriage in Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan, forced to leave her three children to the mercy of strangers who promise to look after them but never do

Child sex trafficking case police arrest 13 in Oxford

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 14:54:18 -0400

Thirteen men have been arrested in Oxford by police investigating child exploitation offences.

Police said the men, aged between 21 and 37, were arrested following an investigation into exploitation of 24 girls aged between 11 and 16.

They have been arrested on suspicion of prostitution of females under the age of 18, trafficking, grooming and rape.

Four of the men have been released on police bail until 19 April and nine remain in custody.

Thames Valley Police said they believed the offences had taken place over a six-year period.

Twelve men were arrested during early morning raids with a 13th arrested on Thursday afternoon.

Estonia makes human trafficking illegal

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 14:51:06 -0400

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Estonia’s Parliament passed legislation on Wednesday banning human trafficking and making the Baltic nation the last EU country to enact such laws.

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

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

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

Student busts human trafficking racket in Darjeeling

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 14:49:40 -0400

Courage and presence of mind of Durga (name changed for security reasons) a class XI student from Darjeeling helped bust a human trafficking racket and also saved the victim from being trafficked. V V Thambi, DG (CID) has announced a cash award of Rs. 5000/- for the student. The NGO that Durga approached to help in this case has also decided to hand over a cash award to this brave girl. Three men and a woman have been arrested.

In Darjeeling [Aruna] had met Durga and in the way of conversation had divulged her plans of going to Delhi. Durga had attended a workshop on trafficking in her school, organized by an NGO. Motivated by the workshop and sensing something fishy, Durga called up the Delhi number and showed interest in taking up a job.

As the conversations grew frequent, the man tried to lure Durga into giving her consent for the flesh trade. Durga was now sure that it was a trafficking racket.

She informed the NGO and the police. The police then lay a trap. Durga and Aruna asked the person from Delhi if they could be picked up from Darjeeling town.

Sex Trafficking Rampant in Mexico, Lawmaker Says

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 14:45:58 -0400

At least 47 sex-trafficking rings are operating in Mexico and the number of victims is more than 800,000 a year, including 20,000 children, Congresswoman Rosi Orozco said.

She cited data from the National Shelter Network in comments following Congress’ receipt of a report on sex trafficking from the Attorney General’s Office.

The AG’s office produced the document in response to Orozco’s Feb. 2 resolution calling on authorities to compile statistics as a first step toward a comprehensive approach to the problem.

Information from the office of the special prosecutor for Crimes Against Women and Human Trafficking was used to create a database for use by prosecutors and law enforcement, the AG’s office said.

Human trafficking is a roughly $30 billion year business in Mexico, according to the National Shelter Network, which represents groups that aid women and children threatened by domestic violence

More steps required to counter human trafficking: media experts

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 14:43:33 -0400

ISLAMABAD: Human trafficking is a very serious social issue and has brought Pakistan in the limelight, but there is not much focus in the media on this critical issue, media experts concurred during a consultation held on Thursday.

The consultation was a critical part of a project of International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and was arranged and conducted by PINFO, an info-knowledge and communication management organisation. The IOM at present is working to create ‘Counter Human Trafficking District Taskforces’ in districts of Pakistan where human trafficking is endemic.

Human trafficking cannot be seen in vacuum, the participants said and shared that the countries where this issue was rampant were usually politically unstable and economically challenged. “The people of these countries only wish to leave and go to greener pastures, no matter what,” a participant said and added that the situation in Pakistan was also challenging. There was a consensus among the participants that Pakistan’s society must appreciate the actuality of the problem and should not fall prey to the fallacious promises that human traffickers usually made. It is to be noted that Pakistan is a source, transition and destination of the human trafficking phenomenon.

Human trafficking expert, Aarish Khan, said that Pakistan’s biggest problem was its internal human trafficking that both the government and people did not regard as a form of trafficking.