Here's a piece that provides an easy to digest overview of various articles and statistics on trafficking that were released last year.
From Zenit:
The BBC on Nov. 6 noted that the United Nations in 2006 had named Israel one of the main destinations in the world for trafficked women. According to the report, during the 1990s and the first years of the current decade, up to 3,000 women a year were lured to Israel by false promises of jobs, only to find themselves forced to be prostitutes. Prostitution in Israel is legal, but pimping and maintaining a brothel are not, according to the BBC.
Japan is another country with significant numbers of women forced into being sex slaves, the South China Morning Post reported Oct. 27. Every year, 50,000 women enter Japan on entertainer visas, but sources cited by the newspaper maintained there are never that many working as dancers or singers.
Japan is one of the largest destinations for international trafficking of women and children for sex and forced labor, according to the South China Morning Post. Due to international pressure the Japanese police set up a department to combat the problem. In 2005 the new unit made 81 arrests, but only five cases have reached the prosecution stage in the courts, all ending with suspended sentences.
In England, an Oct. 22 article in the Independent newspaper reported the arrest of a gang of Lithuanian and Chinese criminals who made up to 5,000 pounds ($10,281) a day by forcing young women to engage in prostitution.
According to the Washington Post, estimating the number of women trafficked into the United States is problematic. Estimates vary widely, but one recent calculation put it at 14,500 to 17,500 each year.
Read the full article
The October 2007 incident in the UK mentioned in your article is discussed in some depth at Times Online. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article2697577.ece
ReplyDeleteThe Independent article can be found at BNET. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20071022/ai_n21062476
Any thoughts on 1) which Chinese gangs might be involved in human trafficking and 2) which criminal activities are commonly paired with human trafficking activities? For example, prostitution seems a vital sideline and part of the business, as might be false documentation, but is there a link to the smuggling of contraband and counterfeit goods, the production of pornography, the production and distribution of music and films on disc or over the Internet, or manufacture and distribution of drugs? If you find one, do you find the others?