Polaris Project's Fellowship Program

Polaris Project's Fellowship Program is recognized as one of the premiere leadership development programs focused on the issues of human trafficking and modern day slavery. The program provides young adults with training and on-the-ground practical experience in the anti-trafficking movement.

Applicants range from undergraduate students to retired attorneys from around the world and throughout the United States. At the beginning of each session, Fellows receive more than 40 hours of intensive training on human trafficking as well as program-specific training related to their particular position. Once trained, Fellows are integrated into the daily operations of their program and engage in meaningful projects and continuing education activities within the anti-trafficking movement.

All fellowships are unpaid, and most are designed as full-time positions. Since the fellowship program's inception in Spring 2003, more than 400 Fellows have completed the Fellowship Program, many of whom have gone on to take prominent positions in the anti-trafficking movement.

Washington, DC
Executive Assistant Fellowship
Communications and Media Fellowship
Social Media Fellowship
Policy and Legal Fellowship
Training/Technical Assistance and Research Fellowship
National Human Trafficking Hotline Fellowship
Information Technology (IT) Fellowship
Operations and Non-Profit Management Development Fellowship
Policy Implementation and Coordination Fellowship
Japan Liaison Fellowship
Program Liaison Fellowship
Client Services Operations Fellowship
Foundation and Grants Fellowship

New Jersey
Public Outreach and Communications Fellowship
Client Services Fellowship T

he Fellowships run January 13-May 13. Early application deadline is December 10. and the final application deadline is January 10.

For answers to frequently asked questions, click here.

Gambino Crime Family Charged with Sex Trafficking, Other Crimes

According to a Department of Justice Press Release:

PREET BHARARA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and GEORGE VENIZELOS, the Special Agent-in-Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI"), announced today the arrest of 14 members and associates of the Gambino Organized Crime Family of La Cosa Nostra (the "Gambino Family") on charges including racketeering, murder, sex trafficking, sex trafficking of a minor, jury tampering, extortion, assault, narcotics trafficking, wire fraud, loansharking, and illegal gambling.

DANIEL MARINO is a longtime member and is currently a Boss of the Gambino Family. In that capacity, MARINO has over 200 fully-inducted or "made" mafia members under his command, as well as hundreds of associates who commit crimes with and for the mafia. THOMAS OREFICE and ONOFRIO MODICA are currently Soldiers of the Gambino Family acting under MARINO's supervision. OREFICE and MODICA each supervise crews that include DOMINICK DIFIORE, ANTHONY MANZELLA, MICHAEL SCOTTO, MICHAEL SCARPACI, THOMAS SCARPACI, DAVID EISLER, and SALVATORE BORGIA, all of whom are charged with racketeering and racketeering conspiracy. The indictment also charges other individuals who committed crimes with and for the Gambino Family, including STEVE MAIURRO, KEITH DELLITALIA, SUZANNE PORCELLI, and ANTHONY VECCHIONE.

In addition to the racketeering charges, the defendants are charged with [among other crimes]

Sex Trafficking and Sex Trafficking of a Minor

OREFICE, DIFIORE, MANZELLA, SCOTTO, EISLER, MAIURRO, and PORCELLI are charged with sex trafficking and sex trafficking of a minor. From 2008 to 2009, the defendants operated a prostitution business where young women and girls—including an underage girl who was 15 years old at the time—were exploited and sold for sex. The defendants first recruited various young women and girls—ages 15 through 19—to work as prostitutes. The defendants then advertised the prostitution business on Craigslist and other websites. The defendants drove the women to appointments in Manhattan, Brooklyn, New Jersey, and Staten Island to have sex with clients. The defendants then took approximately 50 percent of the money paid to the young women. The defendants also made the women available for sex to gamblers at a weekly, high-stakes poker games that OREFICE and his crew ran. . .

U.S. Attorney PREET BHARARA stated: "As today's case demonstrates, the mafia is not dead. It is alive and kicking. Modern mobsters may be less colorful, less flamboyant, and less glamorous than some of their predecessors, but they are still terrorizing businesses, using baseball bats, and putting people in the hospital. Today, the Gambino Family has lost one of its leaders, and many of its rising stars have now fallen. We will continue to work with our partners at the FBI to eradicate the mafia, and to keep organized crime from victimizing the businesses, and the people, of this city."

FBI Special Agent-in-Charge GEORGE VENIZELOS stated: "In some ways, this is not the Gambino Family of John J. Gotti. But while the leadership may maintain a lower profile, this case shows that it's still about making money illegally, by whatever means. No crime seemed too depraved to be exploited if it was a money-maker, including the sexual exploitation of a 15-year-old. In truth, despite the popular fascination, it was never really about the thousand-dollar suits. It was—and is—about murder, mayhem, and money."

Mr. BHARARA praised the outstanding investigative work of the FBI. Mr. BHARARA also noted that the investigation is continuing.

Assistant United States Attorneys ELIE HONIG, STEVE KWOK, and JASON HERNANDEZ are in charge of the prosecution. The case is being handled by the Office's Organized Crime Unit.

The charges contained in the indictment are merely accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Read the Full Press Release.

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As the press release explicitly states, all actors named in this case have not been convicted and are presumed innocent. Also, while this case may highlight more sensational aspects of trafficking, it's important to keep in mind that there is no one face of traffickers, and many if not most traffickers are not involved in organized criminal syndicates. Nevertheless, I am excited to see this case for two main reasons. First, assembling prosecutable trafficking cases is extremely difficult. I am pleased to see sex trafficking charges included with the other charges and to see the trafficking aspect of the case explicitly acknowledged. Also, as this case shows, other criminal activity such as racketeering often occurs in conjuncture with trafficking, which can be a useful avenue to pursue for both criminal cases and civil litigation on behalf of survivors when trafficking charges themselves may not hold up. Second, this case is an important reminder that the United States is not exempt from human trafficking, including human trafficking cases involving organized crime. This reminder is quite timely as we await the soon to be released US State Department's 2010 Trafficking in Persons Report where the US will include a rating for itself for the first time.

Why We Need the Safe Harbor for Exploited Youth Act

It is still a shock for many, that in a technologically advanced and a small world like ours, where we are separated from one another by only six degrees, slavery still exists. Some say it is not possible for such a hideous phenomenon to exist and even if it does exist, it is not possible for it to exist around us. We would've known about it, they say.

But the reality is that it does exist; it is all around us and it is part of our lives. It many not be just around us, but it may be in our homes and part of our lives - from the shoes we buy to tomatoes we eat. It is very possible that its existence plays a critical role in how we dress, what we eat, and how we live our lives. Problem - Global and Local International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that around 12.3 million adults and children are being trafficked at any given time. The majority of these people are women and girls forced into sexual servitude. One thing which is common across cases is that the society does not treat them as victims and in fact penalizes them.

Cases:

• When Maria was five, her father’s common-law wife started selling her for prostitution in Nicaragua. After a few years, NGO workers found Maria living in the city dump and took her to a home for little girls. She behaved in a sexually inappropriate manner with the other girls, as that was the only life she had ever known. She was asked to leave that children’s home. Maria was taken to another children’s home for her protection while investigators documented her abuse and worked to terminate her father’s parental rights.
  

• When Julia was 8, a man took her and her sisters to a neighboring country and forced them to beg on the streets until their early teens, when he sold them into prostitution. Julia’s traffickers expected her to bring in a certain amount of money each day or face beatings. At 14, Julia ran away, eventually coming under the supervision of local authorities. They placed her in an orphanage where she was not allowed to go to school due to her undocumented status. After a few months, Julia ran away from the orphanage and became involved with a pimp who prostituted her to local men and tourists. Recently, Julia was arrested on narcotics charges. She will likely spend the next two years in a juvenile prison, where she will finally learn to read and write.

• Many victims don’t know where to go for help when they escape from their traffickers or after they return home. A male victim of forced labor explains: “I knew nothing about the assistance available for trafficking victims. I didn’t know who to address in the destination country in case I needed help. I thought I could go only to the police. There I didn’t have enough courage to go to the police because the [traffickers] used to say that they bought the police. They threatened me with death in case I went to the police. I was afraid.”
  

• Approximately "seventy percent of all female prostitutes are victims of repeated rape by their male customers, on average thirty-one times a year." One young prostitute in New York was kidnapped by her client at knife-point and gang raped by five of his friends.

• Prostitutes are arrested more often than their pimps and customers and can face police brutality. This is particularly true for the prostitutes operating at the lowest level of the prostitution subculture—including those on the street and drug-addicted prostitutes. According to senior retired police officer Joe Haggarty, in order for a case to be prosecuted against a pimp, at least one of the pimp’s girls must testify, but many refuse. Despite their abuse, pimps provide a roof over the heads of their prostitutes, and the girls are often very loyal to their pimps. New York Police Detectives added that it is very difficult to have the chance to talk to prostituted girls because any statements made against the pimp could also incriminate the girls.
  

It is clear that most sexually exploited victims do not feel there is any way out. They feel like criminals! According to several sources and agencies, New York City is one of final destinations of human trafficking activities. National Institute of Justice estimates approximately 4,000 child sex trafficking victims in NYC. Some claim this is a conservative estimate!

U.S. Department of Justice released a report in January 2009, which said a) about 80% of the reported trafficking incidents involved sex trafficking, b) about 90% of the victims were female, c) about 30% of the sex trafficking incidents involved children, and d) about 60% of the sex trafficking victims were US citizens. The picture for victims of sex trafficking is worse: the world often fails to see them as victims. They are not treated like the victims of violence and human rights abuses that they are. We need better laws and better services for the victims.

This is what New York Safe Harbor for Exploited Youth Act is trying to do. The Act, which comes into effect in April 2010, is the nation's first such act which recognizes sexually exploited children as victims and offers them social services instead of punishing them. Both the Trafficking in Persons Report and the UN meeting with survivors of human trafficking have pointed out that the victims need a safe place to speak out and we need to help them break out of the cycle of fear.

In the next post, I will write about what we can look forward to regarding the impact of this act. I hope to interview NGOs and researchers to find out how they feel this act can help and if they feel it is sufficient do what we hope to do, which is to stop this abuse!

Child Labor in Blueberry Fields

Earlier this week, ABC broke a story worked on by a group of Carnegie Fellows about child labor in blueberry fields in Michigan; in addition, the fellows investigated child labor in agriculture in New Jersey and North Carolina. According to the story, "A five-year-old girl, named Suli, was seen lugging two heavy buckets of blueberries picked by her parents and brothers, aged seven and eight. An 11-year-old boy in the Adkin fields told the Carnegie fellows he had been picking blueberries since the age of eight."

In addition to violating child labor lays, these young children are exposed to harmful labor conditions, particularly given the wide-spread use of pesticides and chemicals. According to the ABC story, "The nurse with a migrant health clinic program, Josie Ellis, told the fellows she is concerned for the health of the young children given the widespread use of pesticides in the fields." Health consequences includes respiratory problems, rashes, and neurological problems.

Like slavery, people may be aware that child labor is still a problem, but most do not think of it occurring in the United States. The ABC story quotes Zama Coursen-Neff of Human Rights Watch as saying: "Americans think of child labor as a problem elsewhere, but in fact we have that problem in our own backyard." Human Rights Watch is also conducting an investigation into child labor in the U.S.

Major US companies, including Kroger and Wal-Mart, used to purchase blueberries from Adkins, the grower whose fields have been worked by children, according to the Carnegie Fellows investigation. "Walmart and the Kroger supermarket chain have severed ties with one of the country's major blueberry growers after an ABC News investigation found children, including one as young as five-years-old, working in its fields."

In an interview with Democracy Now, Brian Ross, the chief investigative correspondent at ABC News, stated "we discovered a pervasive pattern, really across the country, of a situation that has continued for decades and has gone unenforced. There are laws against children this young working in agricultural fields. But for the most part, until very recently, those laws were largely ignored by federal authorities at the Department of Labor."

This raises questions about the responsibility of both the US Government and corporations such as Wal-Mart, given that these violations of child labor laws are occurring systematically and have been for years. Though Hilda Solis, Secretary of Labor, released a statement in September stating that "Child labor and forced labor are inexcusable abuses of human rights," such abuses continue to occur in the U.S. The ABC story reports that "While advocates for children welcomed the enforcement efforts, many say the fines levied by the Department of Labor, are so slight they're little more than a slap on the wrist."

Ending child labor will take a commitment to enforcing child labor laws, as well as a commitment to economic and social justice for low-income families and migrant workers, since these practices will continue as long as families cannot survive economically under current labor practices.

Picture taken from ABC News Investigates

Three Get Max Sentences for Roles in Human Trafficking Ring

From NJ.com:

A federal judge in Trenton today sentenced three people to the maximum sentences allowed for their role in a human trafficking ring that smuggled young women from Honduras and forced them into indentured servitude working in Hudson County bars.

"I've been around criminal law a long time -- since 1974," U.S. Distirct Court Judge Joel A. Pisano said. "I don't know that I've seen a more brazen, outrageous and depraved course of conduct" as this case.

"The facts of this case are horrific," the judge added. "We have threats, physical abuse, psychological abuse, coercion, and we have death."

Pisano sentenced Noris Elvira Rosales-Martinez, 31, to six and a half years in prison, the maximum allowed under federal sentencing guidelines. Rosales-Martinez's older sister and fellow illegal immigrant Ana Luz Rosales-Martinez was also sentenced yesterday to the maxiumum 57 months behind bars for her role in the ring.

Noris Elvira's boyfriend, Jose Dimas Magana, 41, a legal immigrant from El Salvador, was sentenced to 51 months, also the maximum allowed under the guidelines.

The three had pleaded guilty to forced labor, conspiracy and harboring of illegal aliens. All three are expected to face deportation when they complete their sentences.

Today's hearing brought the total number of suspects sentenced in the case to five. Three more have entered guilty pleas and are awaiting sentencing. And four more are awaiting trial in Honduras.

The Rosales-Martinez sisters admitted they helped oversee dozens of illegal Hondurans who were forced to work six days a week and live in cramped Hudson County apartments until they could repay smuggling fees as high as $20,000.

The immigrants earned $5 an hour, plus tips, by dancing and drinking with male patrons at bars in Union City and Guttenberg. One ring member said the girls were encouraged to prostitute themselves; another said they were beaten if they ignored the house rules.

Read full article