World must do better to tackle human trafficking

From the UN News Centre:

The President of the General Assembly today called for redoubled efforts to tackle human trafficking, which the United Nations anti-crime agency says is a multi-billion dollar industry and one that enslaves some 2.4 million people at any given time, many of whom are children

“Although human trafficking takes place in the dark margins of our societies, we must not ignore its presence,” Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser said in remarks to the second ministerial meeting of the Group of Friends United Against Human Trafficking.

He told the gathering, which took place on the margins of the high-level debate of the Assembly’s 66th session, that nations must work together to end this global scourge, which ranks as the world’s third most profitable crime after illicit drug and arms trafficking. 

“We must prosecute and punish the criminals involved and protect and reintegrate the victims into their communities. We must spur governments and all members of society into action to reduce the vulnerability of victims, and increase the consequences for traffickers,” he said.

The President noted that despite the proclamation in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that all humans are born free and that no one shall be held in slavery or servitude, millions of people today, the majority of them children and women, are victims of human trafficking.  

He called for redoubling efforts to ensure that the rights and freedoms of every person are upheld. 

Read more 
 

Finding Graduate Programs to do Human Trafficking Research

I spent this fall applying to return to graduate school to obtain my Masters and conduct research on human trafficking. New research will be necessary for improving our understanding and ability to combat trafficking.

Some great research has been done already. Last October, I attended the First Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Human Trafficking at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. The call for papers for the Second Annual Conference has already been posted, and this is a tremendous opportunity to learn about some of the research efforts that are already going on in the field of trafficking and meet academics from institutions which may interest you.

I thought for this post, however, that I would share some of my experiences searching for graduate programs that I felt would be helpful to those of our readers who are considering the same options for continuing their education. I will add the caveat that I did not search very much outside of the U.S. so this post will be focused mostly on U.S. Institutions. This post will also likely require multiple parts in order to outline some of the different considerations that probably will go into a decision on a graduate program. Today, let's focus on some obvious suggestions: Look for schools that already have scholars and research centers with a focus on human trafficking.

If you're considering following a specific researcher/professor, here are some people to consider:

Dr. Ato Qauyson, University of Toronto: Professor of English and Director of the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies. Organized the conference The Commodification of Illicit Flows.

Professor Claude d'Estree, University of Denver: Lecturer in the DU Josef Korbel School of International Studies (JKSIS) and Executive Director of the Human Trafficking Clinic, Prof. d'Estree is also a Senior Advisor to Colorado Task Force on Human Trafficking.

Dr. Mohamed Mattar, Johns Hopkins University: Executive Director of the Protection Project, Dr. Mattar has worked in over 50 countries to promote state compliance with international human rights standards and has advised governments on drafting and implementing anti-trafficking legislation.

Dr. Sheldon Zhang, San Diego State University: Professor and Department Chair of Sociology, Dr. Zhang's recent publications include "Beyond the 'Natasha' Story" and Smuggling and Trafficking in Human Beings: All Roads Lead to America.

Professor Amy Farrell, Northeastern University: Assistant Professor of College of Criminal Justice and Associate Director of the Institute on Race and Justice, she has recently conducted research on local law enforcement responses to human trafficking and is currently leading the development of a national human trafficking data collection program for the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Professor Jacqueline Bhabha, Harvard University: Jeremiah Smith Jr. Lecturer in Law at Harvard Law School, the Director of the Harvard University Committee on Human Rights Studies, and a Lecturer in Public Policy at the Kennedy School, she is currently working on issues of child migration, smuggling and trafficking, and citizenship.

Dr. Thomas Steinfatt, Miami University: Professor of Communication Studies, his research on trafficking in women and children has been funded by USAID and is used by the U.S. State Department in combating human trafficking in Cambodia.

Dr. Mary Burke, Carlow University: Dr. Mary Burke is a faculty member in the Psychology Department at Carlow University where she is the Director of Training for the Doctoral Program in Counseling Psychology. She also serves as Executive Director of the Project to End Human Trafficking.

Professor Louise Shelley, George Mason University: Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center, her expertise in transnational crime and corruption includes money laundering and illicit financial flows, human smuggling and trafficking and national security issues.

Dr. Denise Brennan, Georgetown University: Associate Professor of Anthropology, her research focuses on urgent human rights concerns as trafficking, women’s poverty, and migrant labor exploitation.

Dr. Richard Estes, University of Pennsylvania: Professor of Social Work and Director of the School's International Programs, he also is a specialist on issues related to social and economic development, poverty, and the commercial sexual exploitation of children.

Schools with specific research centers on trafficking:

Johns Hopkins
University of Denver

Another way to find schools and scholars in the field is to do your homework:

• Pay attention to the authors of reports or articles you read about trafficking. See if the author teaches at any graduate programs or works frequently with one university.
• Look to see if any academic departments or professors take part in local task forces or assist trafficking victim service providers.
• Pay attention to names (authors or quoted experts) in books you read about trafficking. With which university is he/she affiliated?
  

For the next post, we will look at other considerations when trying to identify the right school to match your research interests in human trafficking.

Reaching Out to Youth: Comic Book on The Stories of Trafficking Survivors

HTP Readers - We have a special post for you! Olga Trusova, a Fulbright Fellow who researched issues of trafficking, education and prevention in Ukraine and Dan Archer, a comics-journalist from California and founder of www.archcomix.com have teamed up to produce Borderland, a comic book based on the stories of trafficking victims to help raise awareness particularly among youth. Please see more information from the authors below as well as a way to get involved!

Borderland comic is coming soon!
As many of you know, we have been working on a comic called Borderland over the past year. In Borderland, we wanted to explore the human trafficking equation from a new perspective—to challenge our understanding of this complex issue. Borderland tells seven stories about human trafficking based on real testimonies from survivors. From a pastry maker in Warsaw to a waitress in Istanbul, the underground world of human trafficking touches every aspect of modern life. Often in surprising and unlikely ways. We are thrilled to announce that Borderland will be printed and distributed to schools and youth in Ukraine by the International Organization for Migration this fall. Now we are looking for ways to reach a similar audience in the United States. Please, take a speak peak at the first story from Borderland on our website: http://www.borderlandcomics.com and pre-order your full copy on Kickstarter: http://kck.st/dfcJUS

Support Borderland on KickStarter
By pitching in you can help us raise $8,000 on KickStarter to support and complete this project. We have two goals: to print and distribute a hard copy of the comic in the U.S., complete with extensive footnotes, research notes and further links; and to create an interactive iPhone/iPad app to promote awareness of the issue to a younger, tech-savvy U.S. audience. By pledging as little as $5, you can help make this happen and, as a bonus, will get various goodies such as a signed hard copy of the comic book, posters, behind the scenes pack, your name in the acknowledgements page, and more. Go to http://kck.st/dfcJUS and pledge!

About the Authors
Olga Trusova, a Fulbright Fellow from Stanford University, spent a year conducting research and collecting authentic stories told by victims of human trafficking in Eastern Europe. Dan Archer, a comics-journalist from California, a founder of www.archcomix.com and 2010 John S. Knight Journalism Fellow, has turned these testimonies into comics to create a comic book anthology project titled Borderland. The project began with a belief that as consumers of various goods and services, people should be aware of where those goods and services come from and at what cost. The U.S. government has tremendous influence on foreign governments and their policies, therefore it is important to bring its citizens' attention to such a powerful issue through an innovative combination of comic art and interactive technology. By reading Borderland, you help make the change!

I also had a chance to interview Olga Trusova, one of the co-authors, about this effort. Here a few of her responses:

EG: What about your research in Ukraine led you to believe that a comic book would be a good way to spread the message about trafficking?

OT: About a year ago I came to IDEO's Social Impact Lab with a question of "How might we prevent human trafficking?" that I was trying to answer as an upcoming Fulbright Fellow in Ukraine. A lot has happened since our initial brainstorm and I'm glad to share that one of the solutions proposed by IDEO folks back then has now become a reality! I decided to focus on comics and interactive storytelling as a way to engage with young audiences in order to raise awareness about this issue. It will be printed and distributed by the International Organization for Migration in 136 schools across four regions of Ukraine in the first pilot this Fall.

EG: Even though it is through a comic book medium, do you feel young students are able to understand human trafficking despite the complexity and difficulty of the material?

OT: I've conducted a number of focus groups with students in Ukraine and found that they were very excited to see comics about Ukrainians in Ukrainian. A lot of them were familiar with manga and American comics, so it was an easy medium for them to understand. I was also glad to see how many discussions sparked after the feedback session (with "Lera's Story" in particular, students were wondering why Lera felt unhappy in the end, how she got her job, why she wanted to find her mother in the first place, and so on). That is really the point of this comic - to promote an open dialogue about a taboo subject in a society that is highly affected by this horrific issue. While NGOs put together comprehensive materials with statistics, hot line info, and case studies, youth don't really relate to such dry documents and often prefer to read comics and play video games. Yet they are the ones who will be making life changing decisions soon. My goal was to start a mind shift in how we think about human trafficking in addition to teaching kids tips and tricks on how to avoid it.

EG: Will the stories be redone in any way for a U.S. audience compared with the Ukrainian series?

OT: In Borderland, I wanted to explore the human trafficking equation from a new perspective—to challenge our understanding of this complex issue. The comic will be available in Ukrainian, Russian, and English for a wider reach. This way it'll be used as a preventative tool among youth in Ukraine on the one hand, while on the other - it'll serve as a way for spreading awareness in the West.

Why is it so hard to catch men who sell teen girls for sex?

By Julia Dahl for The Crime Report.

Like a lot of 14-year-old girls, all Shaquana wanted was a boyfriend. The skinny Brooklyn, N.Y. eighth-grader was on the honor roll at school, but unhappy at home. She hadn’t seen her father in years, and endured constant teasing about her looks from her siblings and verbal abuse from her strict, religious mother.

“I used to pray every night that God would make me prettier and give me a boyfriend,” says Shaquna, now 20, who asked that her last name not be used for this story.

In the spring of 2004, her prayers were answered – or so she thought. Every day after school, as Shaquana walked to her job at a local farmers’ market, she’d pass a guy who tried to get her attention. You’re so cute, he’d tell her. Come here and talk to me. Shaquana ignored him for a while, but after a couple of weeks, she relented. The two exchanged numbers and started talking on the phone. She told him she was 15; she thought he was probably about 17.

“He made me feel really comfortable,” she remembers. Soon, they were meeting at the local park, then hanging out at his apartment, where he started to pressure her for sex. “I told him it was a sin, but he was like, ‘I like you a lot, and if you like me you’re gonna do it.’ I thought that meant we would be together forever.”

She was wrong. After they had sex a few times, he stopped calling, and told her to stop coming around. She was devastated, and finally went to his place to beg him to take her back. That’s when he told her the truth: he was 26 years old ―and a pimp.

“He said, ‘I don’t have time for little girls,’” she says. “He told me if I wanted to be with him I had to work for him, or just get lost. I was so focused on being with him that I said I would.” Soon, Shaquana was going on “dates” he set up for her. He taught her how to perform oral sex, and strung her along, being nice one minute, manipulative the next. Shaquana says she felt completely trapped. “It was so degrading, and I felt like I was the only one my age who could possibly be doing this.”

She wasn’t. By some estimates, there may be as many as 100,000 minors involved in the sex trade in the United States. . .

Oakland’s Jim Saleda is one of five city officers assigned to a unit focused specifically on under-age prostitution and internet crimes against children – a unit that Saleda fears may not survive upcoming budget cuts. (Last year, California cut $80 million from the state’s Child Welfare Services budget, according to the non-profit California Budget Project.)

Saleda says that even as recently as 15 years ago, pimping was “a gentleman’s game,” a family business, of sorts, often passed down from father or uncle to son.

His observation matches research done by Prof. Jody Raphael of DePaul University Law School. Raphael conducted in-depth interviews of five former Chicago-area pimps and found that all but one had been introduced to the sex trade by family members.

Now, says Saleda, gangs and drug dealers have gotten involved, making the profession more violent and ruthless. Just this year, Saleda found one 16-year-old sex worker “savagely” murdered. Her killer is still at large.

“Pimping young girls is a lot less risk and a lot less overhead than dealing dope,” Saleda says. “The girl is the one that gets arrested, and she won’t talk because it’s built into them never to roll on their pimp. And it doesn’t cost anything but maybe a couple fast food meals a day and maybe getting their nails done.”

Slowly, law enforcement authorities and prosecutors at both state and federal levels have recognized they need to address the problem more seriously. Since 2003, the federally funded Innocence Lost National Initiative, has marshaled the efforts of 38 task forces and working groups around the country that focus on combating domestic child sex trafficking. . .

Some states, however, are doing more. In Washington State, for instance, a new law mandates longer sentences for both johns and pimps who exploit underage prostitutes. As of June 10, the punishment for paying for sex with someone under 18 went from a slap on the wrist to 21 to 27 months in prison, a $5,000 fine and 15 years of sex offender registration. . .

Still, concedes FBI Agent Michael Langeman, such efforts may not necessarily lead to more prosecutions.

“Prosecutors have a history of shying away from these cases because [the girls] don’t always make great witnesses,” explains Langeman, who has been with Innocence Lost for five years. “It can be (difficult) to portray them as victims when they’ve become so hard.”

The legal system wasn’t much help to Shaquana. She never testified against any of the men who turned her out, raped her, and even beat her so savagely she ended up in the hospital. But, with the help of advocacy group GEMS, she constructed a better future for herself. She was valedictorian at her high school graduation and while she attends college she works for GEMS, speaking at juvenile detention centers and group homes about her experiences.

“It was so easy for him to manipulate me,” says Shaquana of her first pimp. “He was twice my age. And all those guys I slept with, they’d ask me how old I was; when I’d say 19, they’d say, ‘No you’re not, you look 13.’ They knew, and they went on and did their thing anyway.”

Read the full article here.

Even as the US formally acknowledges its own trafficking problem for the first time in the 2010 Trafficking in Persons Report, it is important to consider the challenges that exist in the US for ending all forms of trafficking. I appreciate that this article details the insidious forms that recruitment and control can take, particularly in the commercial sexual exploitation of children, while also pointing to both policy and law enforcement innovation, as well as policy and law enforcement challenges. At the same time, issues with victim services and after care that this article draws our attention to bear out the US assessment in the TIP report that "government services for trafficked U.S. citizen children were not well coordinated; they were dispersed through existing child protection and juvenile justice structures. The government made grants to NGOs for victim services, though there are reports that the system is cumbersome and some NGOs have opted out of participating. Victim identification, given the amount of resources put into the effort, is considered to be low and law enforcement officials are sometimes untrained or unwilling to undertake victim protection measures."

Human Trafficking: 2009 In Review

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Trafficking Survivors Speak Out at the United Nations

From the AP:

UNITED NATIONS — A father of two from Nepal who thought he was going to America wound up in Iraq, forced to work at a U.S. airbase. A 14-year-old Ugandan girl kidnapped by rebels spent nearly eight years in captivity as a sex slave and human shield. And a young Venezuelan woman lured to New York by the man she loved wound up in a brothel his family was running.

The three victims of human trafficking spoke Thursday at an event organized by U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay who said it was "pressing and urgent" not only to listen to their stories of survival but to get their recommendations on how the international community can help end the growing global scourge.

"In every part of the world, countless individuals are callously exploited for profit," Pillay said. "While trafficking may be a problem related to migration and to transnational crime, it is also — and fundamentally — an attack on the dignity and integrity of the individual. Trafficking involves practices prohibited in every country including slavery, debt, bondage, forced labor and sexual exploitation."

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who opened the event, said the global economic crisis "is making the problem worse." He urged governments to heed his "call to action" and step up efforts to prevent exploitation, protect victims and pursue traffickers whose conviction rates in most countries "are microscopic compared to the scope of the problem."

The U.N. Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking estimated last year that annual profits from trafficked, forced labor is around $31.6 billion. Some experts say it is now the second-largest illicit business in the world after drugs.

Buddhi Gurung, who calls himself a poor Nepali man, described how he was unable to get a job to support his wife and two sons during fighting by Maoist rebels and the army in 2004. When an agent promised him a job in America for $500 a month, he said he borrowed about $2,800 to pay him — but instead of going to the United States, he was taken to Jordan via New Delhi.

After a month in Jordan, he said he was put in a van with 11 others and driven to Baghdad. Twelve Nepali friends in the van that left just before his were abducted, paraded on television and eventually beheaded. Gurung said he wound up at the U.S. Al Asad Air Base where he was forced to work and paid less than the promised $500 a month.

"We would hear bomb blasts nearby and we knew our life was at risk," Gurung said. "I always wanted to go back to Nepal but neither my passport was with me, nor did I have any money or knew any other way to go back. ... Finally, after 15 months, I was permitted to go back to Nepal. ... This is how my life was saved."

Gurung and the families of the 12 Nepali men have filed a U.S. federal lawsuit accusing Houston-based defense contractor KBR Inc. and a Jordanian subcontractor, Daoud & Partners, of human trafficking.

Gurung urged the "big people" at Thursday's event "to develop a mechanism to save people like me from such traps of human trafficking."

Charlotte Awino described how she and 138 other girls were abducted from a boarding school in 1996 by rebels from the Lords Resistance Army, marched for three months into southern Sudan, and used as human shields during fighting against Uganda soldiers.

"As usual, we girls suffered more," she said. "We were distributed to rebel commanders, as objects without rights, and we were sexually abused. ... I was given to a man who had 20 other abducted girls, and he was a brutal man. I had two children with him."

Awino, who escaped in 2004 when the rebels went back to northern Uganda, urged the U.N. to "try to get back the children who have been trafficked through war, some as young as 6."

She also called for victims to be given counseling, health care and education, for countries to better protect their citizens during war, and for improved methods to track and trace missing people. She also urged understanding for the plight of victims.

"One day I was at home. The next day I was among the rebels," Awino said. "Is everyone going to call us rebels or terrorists?"

Kikka Cerpa described falling in love with a man named Daniel while working at a hotel in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, when she was 17 years old. A few years later, she said, Daniel moved to New York and eventually she went to join him, only to discover that his family ran a sex trafficking ring.

Cerpa said her passport and money were taken, she was put in a basement and told she owed the family a lot of money, and the only way to pay it off was to work in a brothel.

"The first night was the worst," she said, her voice quavering. "I have to service 90 men."

Cerpa said she was trafficked from brothel to brothel over the next three years. Sometimes police would raid the brothels, but "instead of rescuing us, they demand that we perform sexual services on them." After her best friend in the brothel was murdered by a customer, she said, she knew she had to leave — so she married a customer, but he beat her and threatened to have her deported.

Finally, she escaped and was helped by an organization to get a divorce and legalize her status in the U.S.

"I'm telling my story to help all the trafficking victims around the world," she said. "We need to pass and enforce laws that will protect us from traffickers like Daniel."

Cerpa said customers should also be held accountable and "treated like a criminal, like they are," and police officers and prosecutors should be trained to identify and protect victims.

You can find a video of some of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's speech here as well as some of the victims' testimonies.

Dying to Work

While we frequently discuss the trafficking of women and girls, or that of children, the trafficking of men is a less commonly explored subject. A few years ago, I worked as a research assistant at the Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM) at Georgetown University. One of the duties I was tasked with was creating an annotated bibliography for an anti-trafficking study that included academic literature on the trafficking of men. I was shocked at the paltry amount of academic literature on the trafficking of men for work other than prostitution. True, there is a significant amount of grey literature but the academic studies and resources on the trafficking of men are vastly overshadowed by those on the trafficking of women and children. I always wondered if this was because in many societies across the globe there is a notion that men are more in charge of their destinies; are less in need of protection. It is easy to forget that there are so many circumstances that can intertwine to result in conditions of modern slavery for millions of men around the world.

Trafficking of men feeds a number of industries, such as agriculture, service, and construction. In a Huffington Post article posted on September 15th, Cameron Sinclair explores the darker side of the construction industry, focusing on the situation in the UAE. According to Sinclair, there are more than 1.1 million indentured construction workers in the UAE, mainly from India, Pakistan, and Nepal. Once they arrive in the UAE, as in many other countries, they find themselves in labor camps with inadequate food and even worse housing. Frequently, these men have their passports and other documentation taken away and receive meager wages, if they are even paid. As the global economic downturn has put over $300 billion in construction projects on hold in the UAE alone, indentured construction workers are often the most severely impacted. Without status in the UAE, they have no access to services or assistance and, without documentation or passports, they cannot return home.

As it has become increasingly imperative, even trendy, to "go green," Sinclair reminds us that we must look at not only our environmental footprint, but also our ethical footprint. What does it really mean if we construct an environmentally friendly building if we use exploitative labor practices? Can we laud such a structure when it was built on the backs of people who are living as modern slaves?

Read the full article here

In a recent search I conducted, I found that there are more academic resources available today than there were three years ago on the trafficking of men. However, this remains a fertile avenue for further research and exploration.

A World Without Slavery Part I

Over the past few months, the Human Trafficking Project has reported on the impact of the global economic crisis on human trafficking. Increased poverty, gender inequality, desperation, and demand for cheap labor and goods has created a deadly combination. At a recent talk on human trafficking sponsored by LexisNexis, Martina Vandenberg stated that on the balance, she believes we are currently losing the fight against human trafficking.

Despite these bleak trends, many anti-trafficking organizations state that their mission is to create a world free of slavery. Free the Slaves suggests that slavery can be ended within 25 years; Polaris Project's "vision is for a world without slavery;" the Not For Sale Campaign states that "together we can end slavery in our lifetime."

On the other hand, when I think about what must happen to completely eradicate slavery, I can't help but recall a conversation I had back when I first became involved in the anti-trafficking movement. At the height of my naivete, when asked about ending slavery I talked about ending poverty, racism, gender-based violence, and other forms of inequalities. The person who asked me the question countered that my vision was utopian, and that if ending human trafficking means ending all these other global problems, a world without slavery is impossible.

Given these apparent contradictions, I would like to open a dialog about what it really will take to end human trafficking. Over the next few weeks (and possibly longer), I hope that many of the writers for the Human Trafficking Project can weigh in with their perspectives. I also want to invite readers to be a part of the conversation through the comments section.

Some questions to help spark thoughts: what concrete steps, short-term and long-term, would you advocate for/implement if you could? What do you think is working in the anti-trafficking movement? What isn't? What are the most pressing needs (prevention, victim/survivor services, prosecution, education, etc.)? How do we allocate scarce resource among these needs effectively?

On a more abstract level, what would a world without slavery look like? What other issues are interrelated with human trafficking - ie, is global climate change an anti-trafficking issue? - and what does that mean for the anti-trafficking movement? What roles/responsibilities do we have as people with awareness of this issue?

Meet Ellen Bruno, the Founder of Bruno Films

Ellen Bruno is the founder of Bruno Films who has produced many award winning documentary movies. In particular, her film, Sacrifice, deserves our attention as it exposes the child prostitution widespread on the border of Burma and Thailand.

THE SACRIFICE



About the movie:

The Sacrifice is a documentary movie based on the stories of a few Burmese girls caught up in the sex industry on the border of Thailand and Burma. Bruno shares that her intention is to bring viewers to recreate a state of mind in which information, impressions, memory and history have equal weight and are directed towards an emotional response.

Her Mission is to touch people in a visceral way and not overload people intellectually. True motivation, Bruno believes, comes from their hearts being touched. Bruno further states that her work is to stoke the fires a little.

On Her Inspiration:

Bruno once had a refugee from Thailand telling her stories of mundanely committed tragedies in developing countries in South Asia. Twenty years later, Bruno finds herself with a sense of calling to disclose such stories to westerners. Bruno added that film art is her way of sharing those stories with other Westerners to raise awareness in regard to what's happening in those countries.

The Challenges:

During the interview with the filmarts, Bruno reveals her challenging experience with Thai law enforcement:

Bruno and her translator talked their way into a Thai brothel where, through a translation errors, they were given permission to shoot materials for the film with a small camcorder. Bruno was ecstatic that footage of the girls actual working conditions inside a brothel, which had eluded her for weeks that it was hers for the taking. Then the owner of the brothel woke up, realized what was going on and called the police. the police asked Bruno to erase the video footage she had recorded, then hauled her and her translator to the local jail when she refused. After six more hours of interrogation, Bruno decided that she was putting her translator into jeopardy, and she agreed to erase the tape.

Her Passion for Justice:

But Bruno persists to go back to troubled, potentially dangerous circumstances because of her passion for community based work. Her work is based on the kind of empathy and familiarity with her subject that comes with years of friendship and common work. She refuses to focus on the new age notion of oneness because it can too easily stand in for exoticism. Rather, her mission is to touch people in a visceral way and not overload people intellectually. She further says,

True motivation comes from their hearts being touched. Unless you have motivation, nothing will happen. My job is to stoke the fires a little.

More information on the film:

Sacrifice as well as other works of Ellen Bruno are distributed on video by film library. For more information call (800) 343-5540 or visit her website www.brunofilms.com

I'm a Walking Contradiction, a Victim of a Catch 22

A few weeks ago, a new writer for the blog introduced herself. This is an incredibly exciting opportunity to write for this blog. We're all so passionate about the end of slavery and educating people about it.

In response to this writer’s piece, someone commented on her identifying herself as a feminist and an abolitionist. Said person alluded to feminism being contradictory to being anti-trafficking. I commend the writer for responding to the reader with such dignity and poise. I was slightly angered. Considering myself a feminist, I stand firmly in those beliefs. I by no means believe that feminism and trafficking go hand-in-hand.

Feminism is a controversial belief in and of itself and for someone reason you cannot be feminist and have any other belief. Allow me to introduce myself, I’m Christian, Feminist, Liberal, Activist, Humanitarian and Abolitionist. Many of which people say you can’t be one and the other.

I don’t mean this to be sarcastic, or to be rude. I am simply troubled that anyone would think that someone’s ideology would prevent them from being against a cause such as slavery. No matter what or whom you believe in, you should believe that slavery in any form is wrong. My intentions for joining this blog were to help in educating people who stumble upon this blog and to learn, myself, from fellow activists and abolitionists. We’re building a community, uniting a front, banding together to fight against the biggest secret this world holds.

Let’s break down what it means to be a feminist and an abolitionist. Feminism is the belief that women are politically, socially, sexually, and intellectually equal to men. A feminist stance can change from woman to woman (or even man to man), but a huge concern and often argued stance is prevention and protection against sexual harassment, domestic violence, and rape. A majority of Human Trafficking going on in the world right now is sex trafficking. Thus making perfect sense for a person who adopts feminist ideology would want to see an end to Human Trafficking. Women of the sex trafficking are not willing participants, no one in Human Trafficking is a willing participant. A woman, feminist or not, would want every woman to be able to make a decision when and with whom she wants to have sex with and without force. Based on the definition of a feminist (being against sexual exploitation) they would be the perfect candidate of someone AGAINST human trafficking.

Trafficking isn't about a woman's right to sexual exploration. I'm sure it's easy to confuse the terms for some people, however when disecting the two would show vast differences. Feminists do think that women should be seen in the same light, sexually as men. We should be able to explore and parade the same way men would and not be judged for the actions we take. That would be sexual exploration. When exploitation is concerned, we shouldn't be forced to do or be something sexually.

An abolitionist is someone who wants to end slavery. In our world today we are blind to the fact that there are 27 million people who are enslaved all over the globe today. Slavery is illegal everywhere. Abolitionists usually have the same stance, some just have a heart for different areas of the world. My heart is in India, and most likely will always be. However, as an abolitionist, I want to see slavery end EVERYWHERE. No man, no woman, no child, no mother, no father, no brother, no sister, should be forced to succumb to these horrible conditions and acts commented by traffickers and the people who participate.

This issue not only bothered me because the viewpoint of my fellow blogger made sense, but because I really think that you can’t keep people in a box. Not every label a person decides to use fits the stereotypes of the label. Clearly, I am a walking contradiction as all of the labels I acquire are not usually together in social circles. The most fascinating factor about the human being is how multifaceted we are. Different parts of our brain fire different signals and affect the way we think and feel about all different types of ideas or matters of the heart. We are allowed to modify whatever ideology we choose to adopt because those ideologies meant different things to each individual.

Readers, I challenge you to think beyond the box of “abolitionist”, “feminist” or any other label you adopt and look towards the big picture that brought you here to this blog. We all have different interests, careers, passions and calling; we all have a common goal, end slavery.

Human Trafficking and Media: Blessing or Curse

This post comes from Amanda Kloer, the author of the End Human Trafficking blog on Change.org. We thank Ms. Kloer for her contribution to HTP and the counter-trafficking movement. Please visit her site and look for more cross-posting to come!

Human Trafficking and Media: Blessing or Curse

I believe that the world’s stereotypes emanate from one source: Lifetime television. Over the years, Lifetime has taught me that cancer mostly happens to young, pretty, white women; that eating disorders can be cured by a good, long cry; and that Tori Spelling can survive anything. Lifetime has taken on a lot of serious issues, but many of their made-for-tv productions are so fraught with sensationalism and stereotypes, they can do more harm than good. And Human Trafficking is no exception.

In 2005, Lifetime produced a film called Human Trafficking, which starred Mira Sorvino and Donald Sutherland. It was one of the first times that any form of mainstream media had done such an extensive feature on the issue. The story was fictional, about a female Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent (Sorvino), who eventually goes undercover in a ring of human traffickers. The narrative hits a few accurate details, but sensationalizes, simplifies, and ignores others. It stereotypes traffickers, victims, and law enforcement agents, sometimes with gross inaccuracy.

And yet in some ways, Human Trafficking may have been what took the abolitionist movement from the niche to the mainstream, or at least made it more visible. I worked for an anti-trafficking NGO when Human Trafficking first aired on Lifetime, and fielded at least ten phone calls the following day. People asked “Does this really happen?”, “Does this really happen in America?”, “What can I do?”. Some of them donated money. Some of them asked for a volunteer application form. What I saw as frustrating inaccuracies, they saw as a call to action against their first taste of injustice.

The presence of human trafficking in the mainstream media is both a blessing and a curse. Media attention raises awareness, which raises funds and public demand for better legislation and enforcement, which ultimately can help tackle this huge issue. But the temptation to oversimplify it, to make it “sexier”, to sensationalize a story which practically begs to be sensationalized is overwhelming.

I blog about human trafficking, and have often felt that pull to boil trafficking down to a series of words: child, sex slave, chained, forced, kidnapped, virginity, corruption, conspiracy. They are words that leap at your eyeballs and wiggle into your memory. But breaking human trafficking down to mere words loses the truth: that slavery is a complex and growing institution that we support and that we allow to flourish. We worship the pimps. We buy the iPods. We think we can end human trafficking with a good long cry. We can’t.

Like trafficking itself, mainstream media attention for the issue is complicated. Must we take the bad with the good? Or can we continue to push for real depth and accuracy, instead of sensationalism or simplification? We can, but it might take a lifetime.

Oman Committed to Curbing Human Trafficking, Abuse of Children

From the Khaleej Times Online:

MUSCAT – Oman, which recently set up a Human Rights Commission, has reiterated its commitment to curbing trafficking in humans and sexual exploitation of children.

Social Development Minister Dr Sharifa bint Khalfan Al Yahya’eeya, extending her country’s wholehearted cooperation to the global drive against the menaces, also revealed that the government had formed working teams to survey the Sultanate’s regions and review the conditions of children and families with the aim of drawing up a ‘rapid intervention plan’. 

“The Omani society vehemently opposes all forms of sexual exploitation because it contradicts with the values and traditions of the Omani society as well as the teachings of Islam,” she said.

She was addressing delegates at the ‘World Congress Against Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents’ in Rio de Janeiro on Friday.

She said the Sultanate considered a strong family as the first line of defence against sexual exploitation of children, adding that the Basic Law of the State guaranteed the dignity of all citizens and residents and protected them against violence and exploitation, regardless of their age, ethnic background or religion. 

The laws in force in the Sultanate, Dr Sharifa said, prohibited all forms of sexual exploitation of children, slavery and trade, possession or promotion of pornographic materials.

“The first draft of the Child Law is currently under revision by the departments concerned as well as NGOs,” she added.

She said the ministry had constituted working teams to survey all the Sultanate’s regions and assess the conditions of children and families and prepare a rapid intervention action plan.

Dr Sharifa observed that the Internet is being used at a global level to destroy the lives of millions of children through the “propagation of the sex business which keeps luring children to the making and distribution of pornographic materials”.

She said the Rio de Janeiro congress must be considered as an important step in efforts to realise children’s rights.

Five major themes are being addressed by the congress — forms of commercial sexual exploitation and the emerging scenarios in this respect; international trafficking; child pornography on the Internet, sexual exploitation of children and adolescents in tourism; and sexual exploitation of children and adolescents in prostitution.

Human Trafficking Unit to Disband

From BBC:

November 10, 2008

A London police unit dedicated to tackling human trafficking will close after the Home Office withdrew £2.3m funding support.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman confirmed the Human Trafficking Team will disband in April 2009.

Critics say the unit is vital to protecting vulnerable men, women and children who are sold or lured into the sex trade, slavery or illegal working.

But the Home Office said the money was intended as one-off start-up funding.

A Home Office spokesman said the government's support for the policing of those who traffic people into the UK for the sex trade or as low-cost illegal workers will continue.

"The Met does not have the additional funds to keep the team running in its current format whilst meeting other existing policing requirements." Charities that attempt to rescue those trafficked into the UK against their will estimate that as many as 4,000 people are currently in the country as a result of being trafficked. Many are used as slave labour or forced into prostitution.

Slave labour
"We have made it clear that trafficking should be core police business and a high priority, and the Home Office is continuing to support forces' effort, notably through funding the UK Human Trafficking Centre with £1.7m this year."

But in a statement, the Met said the dedicated team launched in March 2007 will have to cease operations because it does not have the money to keep it open.

Read the full article

Child Trafficking in Malawi

A Shocking Story

By Ayesha Ahmad
September 14, 2008

The UK media has recently covered two instances of human trafficking.

Police Raids
The first story reported a series of raids involving over 50 polices forces across England and Wales. Some 500 people were arrested and almost 200 people including women and children were, as the newspaper reported, “released”.

The next day the story had disappeared from the media despite the enormous scale of the police operation. The operation was conducted to crack down on human trafficking, but the perspective is still that the way to do this is blaming the trafficked rather than the traffickers.

What happened to the men, women and children who were released? One can only assume that they were deported. And upon returning home, there may be no emotional reunion with their family; instead, these people who had already endured so much exploitation and abuse are sometimes and not uncommonly placed straight back into the hands of the traffickers linked to the gang masters in the UK that were imprisoned.

Imprisonment of trafficking victims or even traffickers does not erase the “debt” that will have issued to each trafficked victim. This is a debt that either has to be repaid in money or death. Returning a trafficked victim to their home country is only a continuation of their journey, the journey that they were enticed into with the prospect of providing a “better life” for their family.

Forced Labor
The second story in the media recently reported a shocking murder trial of four men who were part of a trafficking gang in Wales, UK. All four men were found guilty of manslaughter following the death of a Vietnamese man. The report describes how the 44 year old was dumped in a hospital with severe head injuries. A large police operation followed his subsequent death, tracing back to the perpetrators and revealing the following chain of events.

After entering the country illegally via the Ukraine and entering the UK in the back of a lorry, the trafficked man was provided work in an illegal cannabis factory. Two months later he was accused of using the produce and tortured before being left at the hospital entrance.

The focus of the police operation concentrated on prosecuting those responsible for the man’s death, yet no charges were made against them for trafficking. In fact, the issue of trafficking was entirely bypassed except for mentioning the illegality of the victim in the country.

Again, the traffickers are not viewed as responsible for trafficking people, which brings attention to an apparent societal lack of comprehension of the vulnerability rendered by poverty and war that allows traffickers to deceive or coerce their victims. The first step in changing the opinion of society, including that of the media and how the media portrays human trafficking, must stem from distinguishing between the traffickers and the trafficked in terms of vulnerability and violation.

In the above two examples, both parties were viewed as criminals. This approach has got to change.

MBAs Lift Non-Profit Sector

From the Financial Times:

By Sarah Murray
July 28, 2008

When discussing the social sector, Bill Drayton, founder and chief executive of Ashoka, a non-profit organisation that promotes social entrepreneurs, remembers the sector 25 years ago.

“Salaries were pathetic, smart people would avoid it, it was disorganised,” he says. “That’s all gone. We’ve been catching up and once you go from non-competitive to competitive, organisations have to join in the party or they’ll be eaten alive.”

As many non-profit organisations strive to make their operations more professional, a growing number of their employees are choosing to take an MBA.

“We are definitely seeing more of them in the part-time MBA programme,” says Liz Livingston Howard, associate director of the Centre for Non-profit Management at the Kellogg School of Management, at Northwestern University in the US. “There’s been a statistically significant increase in the past 10 years.”

In the past, executives seeking qualifications that would help them in the non-profit sector headed to policy schools or took programmes in education or non-profit management. “Now a lot more people are going the MBA route,” says Mel Ochoa, who graduated from the NYU Stern MBA programme in May and heads the marketing department of Achievement First, a charter school organisation in Connecticut and Brooklyn.

Mr Ochoa says this is because of the new requirements of non-profit organisations. “They’re changing their attitude towards the people they want on staff,” he says. “They want a lot of the skills you learn in business school, such as strategy and finance – and they want those applied to their non-profits.”

Lara Galinsky head of strategy at Echoing Green, a US foundation that provides seed money and support to young social entrepreneurs, agrees. “An MBA is a coveted staff person,” she says. “In the non-profit field, we’re good generalists or we come with degrees in public policy or non-profit sector management – but we’re not steeped in traditional business skills. A business school student trained in a traditional curriculum is value added for us.”

Part of the reason more non-profit organisations value business school education lies in the changing nature of the donors that fund their activities. Many of the new generation of philanthropists made their money in business, rather than inheriting it, and look for the same rigorous standards of professionalism and accountability in the charities they fund.

“When you get people with that kind of business savvy, they don’t want to just write a cheque, but they want to change the nature of public education or global health,” says Nora Silver, director and adjunct professor at the Centre for Non-profit and Public Leadership at the Haas School of Business, in Berkeley, California. “Then the philanthropy looks very different.”

Read the full article

When Sex Is a Business, You Can't Forget About Demand

From the Huffington Post:

By Sonia Ossorio
March 25, 2008

Whether it's a $30 sex act in a brothel in Flushing, Queens that markets to dishwashers and day laborers, or a $4,000 sex act sold through a glossy website, the demand by men for commercial sex in the United States today is overwhelming. It's time to take a hard look at the culture and laws in our society that make it so easy for television commentators to say it is a "victimless crime." I've been to Roosevelt Avenue in Queens where men on corners in this prostitution district get paid to hand out fliers covered in naked women's bodies. They'll guide you to the brothels that line the side streets filled with trafficked women from Central and South America. Men pay $30 for 15 minutes of sex.

Our image of the jet-set call girl is an illusion. Rare news about the workings of the upper-end of the prostitution industry is now before us and the undeniable truth is they aren't the empowered women characterized in movies, music and the American psyche. Behind the polished pictures and polite language of the now-shuttered Emperor's Club VIP is the woman Governor Eliot Spitzer summoned to Washington D. C. for paid sex: a 22-year-old from a broken home, who's abused drugs, been abused and wasn't sure how she was going to pay the next month's rent.

There's a clear link between the proliferation of prostitution and a flourishing sex-trafficking industry. Our country and the State of New York have made great strides in passing laws that are aimed at stemming the tide of prostitution and trafficking. In 2000, the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act was passed and gave the Justice Department further tools to fight the proliferation of organized prostitution. Led by Governor Spitzer himself, New York State passed a tough anti-trafficking law in 2007 which gives local prosecutors the new crime of trafficking to indict traffickers and pimps.

But we still have a long way to go. The bill, while important, lacks the funding or the teeth to enact real change. (As I wrote in the Albany Times-Union today, New York state is currently allocating only $450,000 in this year's budget to combat sex trafficking. It takes more money than that to clear snow from New York City streets for one day.)

All the while, the prostitution industry has boomed. JFK Airport is one of the main hubs used by traffickers, according to the Justice Department. Flip past the electronics category of the Yellow Pages and you'll find dozens of pages of escort service listings. Manhattan's Verizon Yellow Pages has startling images of girls that appear to be as young as 10 years old. And it's clear that these are big operations: it costs $45,000 upfront for a full-page ad in the escort category.

We will never make progress until we address demand, until johns face stiffer penalties and public shame instead of a free pass and bragging rights.

Read the full article