Seduction, Slavery and Sex

From The New York Times on July 14, 2010:

By Nicholas D. Kristof

Against all odds, this year’s publishing sensation is a trio of thrillers by a dead Swede relating tangentially to human trafficking and sexual abuse. “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” series tops the best-seller lists. More than 150 years ago, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” helped lay the groundwork for the end of slavery. Let’s hope that these novels help build pressure on trafficking as a modern echo of slavery.

Human trafficking tends to get ignored because it is an indelicate, sordid topic, with troubled victims who don’t make great poster children for family values. Indeed, many of the victims are rebellious teenage girls — often runaways — who have been in trouble with their parents and the law, and at times they think they love their pimps.

Because trafficking gets ignored, it rarely is a top priority for law enforcement officials — so it seems to be growing. Various reports and studies, none of them particularly reliable, suggest that between 100,000 and 600,000 children may be involved in prostitution in the United States, with the numbers increasing.

Just last month, police freed a 12-year-old girl who they said had been imprisoned in a Knights Inn hotel in Laurel, Md. The police charged a 42-year-old man, Derwin Smith, with human trafficking and false imprisonment in connection with the case.

The Anne Arundel County Police Department said that Mr. Smith met the girl in a seedy area, had sex with her and then transported her back and forth from Washington, D.C., to Atlantic City, N.J., while prostituting her.

“The juvenile advised that all of the money made was collected and kept by the suspect,” the police department said in a statement. “At one point, the victim conveyed to the suspect that she wanted to return home, but he held her against her will.”

Just two days later, the same police force freed three other young women from a Garden Inn about a block away. They were 16, 19 and 23, and police officials accused a 23-year-old man, Gabriel Dreke-Hernandez, of pimping them.

Police said that Mr. Dreke-Hernandez had kidnapped the 19-year-old from a party and had taken her to a hotel room. “Once at the hotel,” the police statement said, Mr. Dreke-Hernandez allegedly “grabbed her around the throat and began to choke her. Hernandez then pushed her head against the wall several times before placing a knife to her throat and demanding that she follow his commands.

“The female further advised that all of the money made was collected and kept by the suspect. At one point, she indicated that she would not prostitute any longer and the suspect subsequently pulled her into the bathroom and threatened her again with a knife.”

Police officials did not release details about the 16-year-old and 23-year-old, though they said customers for the teenager had been sought on the Internet.

There’s a misperception in America that “sex trafficking” is mostly about foreigners smuggled into the U.S. That exists. But I’ve concluded that the biggest problem and worst abuses involve not foreign women but home-grown runaway kids.
To read the rest of the article, follow this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/15/opinion/15kristof.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=nicholas%20d.%20kristof&st=cse

Position Open in Baltimore

From Idealist:

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service
Field Coordinator—Baltimore

Education: Bachelor (BA, BS, etc.)

Location: Baltimore, Maryland, 21230, United States

Job Category: Health & Medical, Social Science, Psychology and Welfare

Sector: Nonprofit

Last day to apply: September 27, 2009

Type: Full time

Language(s): English, Spanish

Area of Focus: Children and Youth, Health, Mental, Human Rights and Civil Liberties, Human Services, Immigration

Description:

Position Objective: To ensure professional services to undocumented and unaccompanied children through assessments and recommendations related to placements, transfers and releases to sponsors.

Qualifications include...

1. Commitment to LIRS’s core mission and values and an ability to model those values in relationship with colleagues and partners; commitment to refugees and immigrants

2. Master’s degree in social work and a minimum of two years of demonstrated child welfare, case management, social service or mental health professional experience or a bachelor’s in social work and equivalent professional work experience.

3. Knowledge and experience in work with refugee or immigrant children or cross-cultural experience

4. Professional interviewing skills

5. Ability to foster teamwork and collaboration among various service agencies

6. Fluency in Spanish

7. Knowledge of Microsoft Office software and database management

8. Ability to manage complex projects with a high degree of independence

9. Demonstrated creativity and initiative

10. Willingness and ability to travel

Responsibilities include...

1. Implement assessment and placement activities with a holistic professional child welfare approach for children in federal custody.

2. Ensure complete assessment information is made available to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) for release or placement recommendations under the direction of the national agency.

3. Review family reunification packets from ORR-contracted facilities to ensure completeness and make release recommendations to ORR.

4. Track and manage various types of complex special needs cases including referrals for suitability assessments, follow-up services, long-term foster care, residential treatment and trafficking cases.

5. Act as liaison among local facilities’ staff, child, federal ORR/Division of Unaccompanied Children’s Services (DUCS) staff, national LIRS and United States Conference of Catholic Bishops staff, legal representatives for children in custody, Department of Homeland Security/ Immigration and Customs Enforcement, relevant consulates, and others regarding assessment of children’s placement or release.

6. Make regular visits to ORR-contracted facilities, meet with individual children as needed, and make recommendations for treatment or other services.

7. Maintain knowledge of the continuum of care options available throughout the country.

8. As part of a national team, consult with other field coordinators on special cases, provide operational support, and develop and share effective strategies and best practices.

9. Assist ORR or ORR-contracted facilities with rapid response on special cases as required.

10. Assist with training and technical assistance to local providers to support smooth field placements, transfers and releases.

11. Ensure clear and consistent communication with the LIRS national office and ORR, including regular conference calls and other coordination meetings necessary to ongoing case management and program development.

12. Ensure projects and assignments are completed within established guidelines and agency standards.

13. Provide statistics and assist with writing reports on activities and recommendations for ORR as required.

14. Utilize DUCS Tracking Management System (TMS) for processing releases and transfers as well as other functions that are incorporated into the system.

15. Monitor changes on the ground; identify new trends and effectively communicate those trends to LIRS.

16. Assist in the identification of social and mental health services for children in custody.

17. Where appropriate, monitor trends in immigration proceedings for DUCS children in the region.

18. Organize and participate in local and regional meetings with agencies and providers in the region to address current and future issues affecting the program operations.

19. Provide on-call assistance in emergency situations.

20. Perform other job-related duties as assigned.

How to Apply:
Send cover letter, including salary requirements, with résumé to... hrmail@lirs.org

This position is also open in New York.

Related information from LIRS's website on services for children:

Unaccompanied Children in Federal Custody

Refugee foster care programs are also open to children and youth who have entered the United States alone and are placed in the custody of the Division of Unaccompanied Children's Services (DUCS) within the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) pending a determination of their legal status. As an alternative to detaining such children, ORR refers some chilren for foster care and community-based services through the LIRS network of culturally sensitive service providers, Examples of such children includes minors who are applying for, or have been granted, asylum in the United States; children with special needs; and youths potentially at risk from smugglers and traffickers.

Trafficked Children

Trafficked children who are under the age of 18 are elgibile for a special foster care program, administered by LIRS and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which provides them with a home along with the services and support they need to rebuild their lives. This program has a special emphasis on preserving the cultural, linguistic and religious identities of all foreign-born children in care.

Human Trafficking in Maryland on the Rise

From the Examiner:

MARYLAND, United States- Human trafficking is on the rise throughout the region, those who work with victims say, but so are local efforts to combat it.

“Maryland is viewed as a state that hasn’t done a good job of combating [human trafficking], and that’s made it worse here,” Del. Joanne Benson, D-Prince George’s County, who has introduced legislation to crack down on trafficking, told The Examiner.

Since its founding in 2003, District of Columbia-based Ayuda, a nonprofit group that helps human trafficking victims, has gone from a handful of cases to serving more than 100 victims, spokeswoman Estera Barbarasa said.

Those cases are evenly split between men and women, Barbarasa said. The victims come from all over — the Middle East, Europe and Asia — but the majority are Hispanic. And, although human trafficking is commonly perceived as a sex worker issue, it also includes farmhands, construction workers and domestic help — anyone who’s been tricked or forced into traveling across borders and has had his identification taken from him or falsified.

Human trafficking is not something either the Montgomery County or Prince George’s County police departments make arrests for, police officials said. Part of the reason is that until last year, human trafficking wasn’t considered a separate crime, Benson said. Now, it’s considered a misdemeanor, but she’d like to make it a felony.

That’s why George Udeozor, who was extradited from his Nigerian home earlier this month for a 2004 conviction, wasn’t charged with human trafficking despite having brought a teenage girl to the United States on a fake passport, said Jessica Salsbury, a lawyer at Casa of Maryland. Udeozor and his now ex-wife, Adaobi, told the girl’s parents she would be paid and attend school, but, instead, all she received was sexual abuse and forced labor, according to federal prosecutors.

Read the full article