Labor Trafficking News from October

Throughout the month there are many cases or stories that break regarding forced labor. They are usually not on the front pages of our newspapers, rather they are buried deep and sometimes are only accessible through the internet. These are some of the stories both headline articles and those that were not from October.

In their Fourth Annual Report, the Payson Center for International Development at the University of Tulane reports that not enough is being done to prevent suppliers from using child labor within their supply chains. Child labor (worst forms), forced labor and labor trafficking still occur within the industry and include abuses such as physical, sexual and verbal harassment along with restricted movement and children being sent to farms separate from their parents and guardians. While some companies have worked to clean-up their supply chains there is at least one company notably absent. Read more

Details about the first case involving charges of labor rather than sex trafficking in Canada began to come out at the beginning of October. A group of 19 or more victims were lured from Hungry to work in Canada. Once they arrived they were forced to work for a construction company and were controlled through threats of harm to either their families or to themselves. The workers were forced to apply for government support. The traffickers would take this money once it arrived. Ten members of a family are being charged in the crime. Read more

Authorities arrested 23 people and were looking for more in connection with a Chinese human trafficking ring in places such as New York City and Long Island. Victims paid up to $75,000 to come to the US for work. The victims families were threatened and required to pay off these fees while the victims were living in poor conditions and were forced to work in "slave-like conditions" in restaurants. Read more

A man was convicted in Missouri for his role in a scheme which spread across 14 states. It involved the recruitment of illegal aliens to work in places such as hotels. The employees were lead to believe the conditions of employment would be different. Once in the US the victims were threatened with deportation. The man was not charged with forced labor but was convicted under RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) charges. Read more

Additional charges have been brought against the Sou brothers in the Hawaii Aloun Farm case involving the 44 workers they brought to the US from Thailand. They have been charged with five counts of forced labor for threatening workers. There are also two counts of document (passport) confiscation, and two counts for hiding workers from the authorities after their visas were expired in order to force them to work. Read more

A potential case of child abuse/labor is being investigated in Britain. While it is still early in the investigation it appears that 8 children were being forced to work on a farm in near freezing weather while inadequately dressed. The children were between 9 and 15 years old. Read more

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the "California Transparency in Supply Chains Act of 2010" on the 18th of October. The Act requires manufacturers and retailers within California to detail what they are doing to ensure there is no slavery within their supply chains. This must be posted on the company's website. Read more

While a lot of attention is given to child labor in Uzbekistan's cotton industry, very little attention is paid to the forced labor of adults in the same industry. People from many different industries including police officers and teachers were reportedly being forced to pick cotton during this year's harvest particularly because prices for cotton are currently high. Uzbeki news sources reported several abuses related to people who refused to work. Teachers were beaten in effort to compel them to work and a whole village had its power cut to punish a man who refused to work. According to the report even the sick and old are being compelled to pick cotton. Of the 3,400,000 tons of cotton that was picked China is expected to receive at least 100,000 tons Read more

Photo by Kay Chernush for the U.S. State Department.

Human Trafficking in the Midwest

"Human trafficking in the Midwest, really?" is a question I am often asked. Perhaps because people tend to associate human trafficking with crossing international borders, states like Missouri that are located right in the middle of the country might seem immune. The reality is incredibly different, as shown in a recent indictment of 12 people in Kansas City accused of operating a massive trafficking ring.

According to the Kansas City Star, “A federal grand jury indicted the defendants on racketeering, marriage fraud, identity theft and other counts in a scheme that involved forced labor trafficking and immigration violations in 14 states.” Three businesses were also charged, and the scheme allegedly involved Missouri, Kansas, Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, South Carolina and Wyoming.

Though Kansas City has mainly dealt with sex trafficking cases and mainly with domestic trafficking, this case is an international labor trafficking case. Victims allegedly came to the US based on promises of legitimate jobs, only to be held with debt bondage and threats. The article quotes a written statement by James Gibbons, acting special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement who stated “The indictment alleges that this criminal enterprise lured victims to the United States under the guise of legitimate jobs and a better life, only to treat them as modern-day slaves under the threat of deportation.”

Kansas City has been extremely active in anti-trafficking efforts since receiving a grant from the Department of Justice in 2006; the number of cases investigated and prosecuted has sky-rocketed.

Just this past March, the Human Trafficking Rescue Project in Kansas City (the taskforce and larger coalition that received the DOJ grant) conducted an undercover operation investigating attempts to obtain underage prostitutes (which is automatically considered trafficking under Federal Law). KMBC Kansas City reported that “During the operation, task force officers placed Internet ads for underage prostitutes. According to court documents, the ads -- some of which were posted on Craigslist -- clearly stated that the prostitutes were "little girls" and were "young."”

This operation was unusual, in that it proactively focused on addressing those who patronize victims of human trafficking, rather than on traffickers per se. Seven defendants have been charged as a result of "Operation Guardian Angel" as the operation has been called; it is the "nation’s first-ever federal prosecution of the alleged customers of child prostitution under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act," according to Matt J. Whitworth, Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri.

Late last summer, a group of traffickers pled guilty in a case where they brought women into the Kansas City area from China for forced prostitution. According to an article in the Kansas City Business Journal, John Wood, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri, stated: “Chinese women were recruited to travel to Kansas City, then coerced to work as prostitutes at massage parlors. These businesses have been shut down and the owners brought to justice. We have also provided social services to assist their victims.” Two years ago, a year after receiving the Justice Department grant, officials in Kansas City conducted a similar raid on “massage parlors” that were fronts for forced prostitution.

While this might appear to be a disturbing trend, it is actually quite heartening; eventually I hope that the cases will go down, but for now it means that victims are actually being found unlike in the past, not that there has been a sudden influx of victims. Ideally, similar efforts to train law-enforcement and social-service professionals in Missouri and surrounding states will lead to similar increase in identifying trafficking victims, providing services to survivors, and punishing perpetrators.

Child Traffickers Active in the Philippines

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Human Trafficking in Colorado

Increase of Filipinas Trafficked to Singapore

From the Inquirer:

By Maila Ager
August 25, 2008

MANILA, Philippines -- A congressional inquiry into the worsening cases of Filipino trafficking in Singapore has been sought by a lawmaker at the House of Representatives. ARC Partylist Representative Narciso Santiago III said Congress should look into reports that Filipino trafficking in Singapore has reached an all-time high last year because of budget air fares, which aggravated the situation.

From 125 cases of human trafficking in 2006, the number went up by 70 percent or 212 cases in 2007, Santiago said, citing an alleged report by Philippine Ambassador to Singapore Belen Fule Anota.

He said the Philippine embassy in Singapore blamed this to the network of illegal recruiters and "quite possibly, syndicates across borders, which manage to persuade their recruits through various modes of deception and intimidation."

"Filipino victims are pushed to try their luck in Singapore not only because of poverty but also because of the promise of a lucrative job overseas," he said.

"The report states that the existence of a large number of bars/pubs in Singapore's red light districts fuels the demand for Filipino women," he pointed out. Based on records, Santiago said, the modus operandi essentially has illegal recruiters promising young women non-existent jobs as waitresses or guest relations officers in restaurants and hotels in Singapore.

"They are each charged a minimum of $100 as recruitment fee in the Philippines and given roundtrip tickets where the return ticket is oftentimes fake, a fake invitation letter, and "show money" for presentation to Philippine immigration officials who scrutinize their financial capacity as tourists," he said.

Read the full article

Sex Trafficking from the Philippines to Malaysia

From the Inquirer:

MANILA, Philippines—A non-government organization advocating migrant workers' welfare urged the government on Thursday to forge an anti-human trafficking agreement with Malaysia following the rescue of Filipino women forced to become prostitutes in the Malaysian state of Sabah.

The Blas F. Ople Policy Center quoted recent media reports from Malaysia relating how the eight Filipino women, allegedly recruited from Zamboanga about three months ago to work as waitresses, were forced to work as prostitutes upon their arrival in arrival in Sabah.

Acting on an informant’s tip, the police raided an apartment in Penampang, a small town adjacent to the capital city of Kota Kinabalu, where the women, aged between 18 and 25, were kept.

“The illegal recruitment and trafficking of Filipino women to Malaysia is fast becoming a thriving enterprise and we call on the Malaysian and Philippine governments to forge a bilateral pact against human trafficking,” the center's president Susan Ople said in a statement.

Ople said that based on the information gathered by the Center, previous victims of human trafficking were promised decent jobs in either Kuala Lumpur or Sabah by their recruiters who turned out to be receiving P3,000 per head from a syndicate in Malaysia.

“With mere P3,000, the recruiter turns a blind eye on whatever fate awaits the recruit bound for Malaysia,” she said.

The former labor undersecretary said local governments must also work together with other NGOs and relevant government agencies in a grassroots public information drive against human trafficking.

“The recruitment is now done door-to-door in both urban and rural areas and the only way to stop this is through active public vigilance leading to higher arrest and conviction rates,” she added.

Read the full article

Sex Slaves in Argentina

Philippines: 23 Women Rescued from Recruiters

From the Inquirer:

By Nancy C. Carvajal
August 21, 2008

MANILA, Philippines – Twenty-three women, including a minor, believed to be victims of human trafficking were rescued by the police from a five-story building in Valenzuela City on Tuesday.

Valenzuela police chief, Senior Supt. Ranier Idio, told Inquirer that the women were promised jobs abroad by Andy and Thelma Que, owners of Philquest Agency.

The victims, who had been recruited from various provinces in Visayas and Mindanao, were temporarily staying in the building while waiting for their applications to be processed.

Idio said at least 300 women were staying in the building, all of them waiting for their chance to go abroad.

The victims, however, were not allowed out of the building as they had been unable to pay the fees demanded by the couple. One of the victims even alleged that Andy Que had molested her several times.

The couple was later charged with qualified trafficking in persons and large-scale illegal recruitment. They, however, denied all the charges against them.

“They were promised jobs abroad. But they claimed some of them had been staying in the building for more than a year and worked as housemaids for the couple who recruited them from the province without being paid,” Idio said.

He added that it took two hours before the team composed of operatives from the Central Investigation Detection Group and the Anti-Illegal Recruitment Task Force of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration and local police were allowed to go inside the building.

The operation stemmed from a complaint filed by Nora Salik, one of the victims recruited by the Ques, who was able to escape from the building.

According to Salik, she had changed her mind about working overseas and told the couple that she just wanted to go back home to Maguindanao province. The Ques, however, allegedly refused to let her go unless she paid them P10,000 for letting her stay in the “dormitory.”

Alaska Man Sentenced to 30 Years in Prison on Sex Trafficking and Drug Charges

From Market Watch:

August 15, 2008

An Alaska man was sentenced today to 30 years in prison for sex trafficking of minors and adults, as well as drug trafficking offenses, Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Nelson P. Cohen of the District of Alaska announced.

Don Arthur Webster Jr., 51, also known as "Jerry Starr," was sentenced by Senior U.S. District Court Judge H. Russel Holland. In addition to his prison sentence, Webster was ordered to serve a lifetime of supervised release following his release from prison.

Webster was convicted on Feb. 5, 2008, of 28 counts in the first sex trafficking trial in the District of Alaska. After 11 days of testimony, the jury found Webster guilty on two counts of sex trafficking of a minor; nine counts of sex trafficking of adults by force, fraud or coercion; two counts of distributing crack cocaine to a pregnant woman; four counts of distributing crack cocaine to individuals under the age of 21; and eight counts of distributing crack cocaine. Webster was also convicted of one count of maintaining a premises for the purpose of manufacturing and distributing crack cocaine, and one count of manufacturing crack cocaine.

"This defendant preyed on the most vulnerable among us to make a fast buck. Using fear, violence and intimidation, he forced women and children into the tragic world of prostitution and drugs," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich. "The prison sentence handed down today denies Webster the freedom he denied his victims, and those who commit similar crimes should expect to be prosecuted."

"Evil takes many forms. Don Webster, a/k/a Jerry Starr, embodies several of them," said U.S. Attorney Nelson P. Cohen. "He is a drug pusher - who used both cocaine and crack to enslave his victims. He is a disgusting bully who manipulated women and children. He is a physical abuser who forced his will upon weaker people with threats of burning them with boiling water; confining them to a closet; beating and raping them; and even choking a woman to the point of unconsciousness in the presence of two other women and a child. He is a thief who stole their dignity and hope. He is a violent predator who deserves the sentence imposed today. There are people in our world who need to be locked up and put away for a long time. Jerry Starr is one of them."

The case against Webster revealed that he operated sham escort businesses that were fronts for prostitution in the Anchorage area of Alaska. The evidence presented at trial established that Webster would target children and women who were homeless, in low-paying jobs or runaways, and invite them to work for his purported "escort services" - Foxy Roxies, Sunshine Girls, American Beauties, Kotton Kandy, Tiffani's, Tickle Your Fancy and Lickety Split - businesses where an individual would supposedly pay for another person's "time and company."

Read the full article

Children Recruited to Be Sex Slaves

From WTOP:

By Eric Johnson
August 11, 2008

WASHINGTON - History teachers tell students that slavery ended in the U.S. in 1865, but sources tell WTOP that a "hidden epidemic" of child sex-slavery persists in this area and nationwide.

"There are a whole host of sex traffickers who specifically prey on children," says Bradley Myles, director of the Polaris Project, a non-governmental organization that fights human trafficking.

"They seek out children who may have any sort of vulnerability -- vulnerability from sexual abuse as a child, vulnerability from homelessness, vulnerability from all different hosts of issues."

Myles says recruiters often try to gain the target's trust, setting themselves up as friends or boyfriends. Sometimes, children who have already been ensnared by the traffickers are forced to convince the targeted youth that they can trust their pimp. But Jeff Taylor, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, says other times, kids are simply kidnapped.

"We have a case involving defendant Jovon Johnson, who was just sentenced in June of this year, in Superior Court, to 45 1/2 years in prison for sexual assault and sex-trafficking-type offenses," Taylor says.

"This fellow would drive around the District, see teenage girls on the street, entice them into his car, force them to disrobe and perform sex acts, hold them captive and then force them into acts of prostitution."

Myles notes that the pimps have learned to go after children in or around places that are hard for kids to avoid.

Read the full article

Mexican Human Trafficking Ring Manager Pleads Guilty in US

From JURIST:

A Mexican woman pleaded guilty [DOJ press release] Tuesday in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York [official website] to one count of sex trafficking for her role in recruiting Mexican women, sometimes by force, for prostitution in the US. Consuelo Carreto Valencia was extradited to the US in January 2007, and in March 2007 was arraigned [DOJ press releases] in federal court on 27 counts of sex trafficking, conspiracy and smuggling. Her trial on 12 of those counts began Monday but ended Tuesday with her guilty plea. The Department of Justice (DOJ) commented on the charges:

From 1991 through 2004, Carreto Valencia served as a manager in her family’s sex trafficking operation based in San Miguel de Tenancingo, Tlaxcala, Mexico. Carreto Valencia, and her sons Josue Flores Carreto and Gerardo Flores Carreto, and other co-conspirators, recruited young, uneducated women and girls from impoverished areas of Mexico and used or approved of a combination of deception, fraud, rape, forced abortion, threats, and physical violence to compel them to prostitute themselves in brothels throughout the New York City metropolitan area, including Queens and Brooklyn. Carreto Valencia and her family made hundreds of thousands of dollars in prostitution profits, while the women who had been separated from their families in Mexico received next to nothing.

Josue Flores Carreto and Gerardo Flores Carreto were each sentenced [DOJ press release] in April 2006 to 50 years in prison for their roles in the prostitution scheme. Carreto Valencia could be sentenced to up to life in prison and a $250,000 fine. The New York Times has more. AP has additional coverage.

Read the full article

Nike Contractor Using Forced Labor

Just stop it.



Jim Keady is a former assistant soccer coach from St. John's University. While coaching, Keady was also doing a research paper on Nike's labor practices for his MA in theology. Citing Nike’s use of sweatshop labor, Keady began to publicly protest the university's relationship with Nike. He also refused to wear the equipment Nike provided the University. On May 12, 1998 Keady was given an ultimatum by university officials, "Wear Nike and drop this issue publicly or resign." Keady was forced to resign.

In May 1999, Keady offered to work for six months in a Nike shoe factory in south-east Asia to dispel the myth that "these are great jobs for those people." Brad Figel of Nike’s Labor Practices Department responded, "We are not interested in your offer". So, Keady and project assistants Leslie Kretzu, and Mike Pierantozzi did the next best thing ... read from their diary.

Ukraine takes steps to curb trafficking

From the Kyiv Post:

With no money, no husband, a sick mother and two children, Natalia became an ideal target for a human trafficking network that has claimed an estimated 100,000 victims in independent Ukraine.

Natalia’s journey took the 38yearold woman from her hometown in western Ukraine, to a brothel in Western Europe for six months and back again to her native country, where she is now working at a printing house.
While Ukraine continues to be a haven for traffickers, the situation is not entirely bleak and there is progress to report.

According to a recent U.S. State Department Trafficking in Persons Report, the Ukrainian government is doing a better job of punishing convicted traffickers, both through convictions and longer prison sentences. The government is also improving its prosecution of labor traffickers, training the judiciary and carrying out prevention strategies.

However, the State Department criticized the Ukrainian government for not doing enough to help victims. A weak witness protection program and a bias against sex trafficking victims which discourages many from testifying in courts, according to the report.

For example, Natalia, which is not her real name, is afraid to press charges against the woman who deceived her and then recruited her into the network where she was sexually exploited...

From 2000 to 2008, IOM assisted 5,214 Ukrainians who were trafficked for sexual and labor exploitation.

Jeffrey Labovitz, chief of mission in Ukraine for IOM, says trafficking in Ukraine remains an “acute problem” and says the government needs to take more responsibility to decrease the number of trafficked victims.

“They need to go after the big fish,” says Labovitz, speaking about the lack of prosecution against the traffickers, who adds that weak prosecution of traffickers prevents Ukraine from getting a top ranking for combating the problem.

The organization helps victims reintegrate into society and provides them with shelter, medical, psychological, legal and job placement assistance. It also runs five centers for migrant advice throughout the country where Ukrainians can get information on workers’ rights, contract terms, visas and fraudulent schemes used to lure workers abroad.

Labovitz believes that Ukraine has, over the last few years, improved its efforts to deal with trafficking by setting up a countertrafficking department within the Interior Ministry that employs over 300 employees. He also points to the statistics and says 90 percent of Ukrainians understand what trafficking is, a significant increase over the last five years, when only 60 percent of Ukrainians knew what trafficking was, he says.

Labovitz says partnerships to reduce human trafficking are crucial. “You need the government, civic society, corporate Ukraine and international organizations working together to get the maximum effect,” he said. Joint efforts remain essential to tackling this problem and over the years more partnerships have been formed between the public and private sector.
Partnership programs between international organizations and the government have helped Ukraine rise from the Tier 2 watch list, a type of “red flag,” to Tier 2, a slight improvement...

New partnerships between the public and private sector are a recent phenomenon and more companies are climbing on board to raise awareness of trafficking. A new campaign was launched by Ukrainian oil company Galnaftogas in February 2008 that includes countertrafficking billboards at 12 OKKO gas stations in Lviv, Volyn and Zakarpattya oblasts warning travelers of human trafficking. In addition, three leading mobile companies Kyivstar, Life, MTS, have joined forces and set up a tollfree number “527” that provides information and assistance on trafficking to callers. Microsoft Ukraine has also donated software to seven nongovernmental organizations meant to train trafficked victims and help them with their job skills. MTV Ukraine has been involved by donating airtime for public service announcements informing viewers of the dangers of working abroad...

Natalia’s story

Despite a steadily improving economy that is reducing financial desperation, Natalia’s story is still all too common in Ukraine. Millions of people still remain mired in poverty or lowwage jobs in tiny villages scattered throughout the nation.

The IOM, which assisted Natalia, set up an interview between her and the Kyiv Post on the condition that her real name and other identifying information not be used. She is a woman with shortbrown hair, skyblue eyes and two gold teeth. Wearing an all-white crochet dress and a gold cross around her neck, her nails are not painted and her makeup is minimal.

Like many deceived victims, Natalia said she was destitute when a young woman approached her as she was working in a local market in her hometown. The woman asked if she was interested in working abroad.

“She promised good money,” says Natalia in a shaky voice, her mascara watering as tears begin to trickle down her face.

“This woman knew I had no money, no husband, a sick mother and two children and she knew I was desperate,” she says. Natalia was told she would work in the home of a family in a Western European nation.

It turned out to be a lie.

“When I arrived, I asked where the family was, where the washing machine was and all the other things I would need to help around the house. Suddenly a large man dressed in black threw cheap lingerie at me and said I had to work to pay off the cost of my travel, and that’s when I knew I had been trafficked. I knew I had been trafficked on the first day.”

Natalia worked with five other women from Ukraine and Moldova in a small apartment, where she was forced to service up to four men a day, she says. She worked in slavelike conditions for six months until she got pregnant and begged to be sent back to Ukraine by one of her customers, who refused to pay for an abortion. The abortion had to wait until she returned to Ukraine.

*Photo courtesy of IOM Mission in Ukraine

Mind Trafficking: Child Soldiers in Africa

By Ayesha Ahmad

The figure is staggering: there are 200,000 child soldiers across the continent of Africa.

"Recruitment" takes the form of kidnapping: villages are raided by rebel groups who pillage and destroy leaving dead bodies and burning homes in their wake.

After the devastation is complete, the children are gathered and taken back to the rebel's camp. The children's horrific journey has just begun.

Immediately the children see and experience things the average man or woman cannot comprehend: other captives are maimed in front of them or the children are maimed themselves for crying or being frightened.

The transition is cruel and jolting. Like other forms of indoctrination in forced prostitution, forced labor and domestic slavery, the child goes into a state of shock and loses his sense of self.

More than likely these soon-to-be child soldiers have never before visited a city. Growing up in small rural villages, they are accustomed to a quiet existence. Maybe the threat of war was always there, but they would most likely have been sheltered from the talk and fears by their parents. Or not. Either way, as with many things in life something only happens to others... until it happens to you.

Suddenly they are thrust into a living nightmare; all around them is killing. Having just experienced their families being killed, the children are told that they too have to kill or be killed.

Sometimes they have to kill their family as part of their initiation. Killing to save their life. Even in this type of living hell, survival is still an issue.

But how can a child kill?

The rebel armies work from the first minute to brainwash the children. To blame the other armies for the deaths of their parents.

The rebels incite anger.

They use a child’s vulnerability to instill a simple world view: kill or be killed. And most importantly kill those who killed their family. The child becomes an empty vessel, his true personality buried underneath the anger and hatred the rebel armies instill in their young minds.
Could this be the worst form of trafficking: the brainwashing and trafficking of a child's mind to create violence, bloodshed and brutality?

Many of these children are under twelve years old. They raid villages, they guard border points, they are under control day and night by the rebels; the only adults these children have left in their young lives.

Rehabilitation programmes can be successful, but the road to healing is a long and arduous process. A child soldier's ability to bounce back from their horrific experiences and begin to find joy and trust in life again, however, illustrates the great resilience of a child’s mind, of the human mind.

Those who traffic children and force them to soldier, on the other hand, know the capability of a child’s mind all too well. Indeed, this amazing ability to adjust, to adapt, to survive can be molded to any situation, whether for the greater good or the greater evil.

A child enters the world with no paradigms, no preconceived notions, no stereotypes or limitations on what they can or cannot do. They are blank canvasses upon which we adults paint the rules and ways of the world as we understand them, as our community, society, nation and world dictates.

As a child solider, their mind is twisted, brainwashed and pigeon-holed into a reality based on violence and killing.

The child soldier is the saddest of trafficking victims.

Thai Woman Jailed for 14 Years on Trafficking Charges

From the Macau Daily Times:

Thailand's criminal court yesterday sentenced a 63-year-old women to 14 years in prison for trafficking young women to Italy, a court official and a child rights groups said.

Jomsri Srisam-aung, from Thailand's poor northeast, lured two women in their 20s and 30s from her hometown with the promise of work in her daughter's restaurant, a statement from the Fight Against Child Exploitation (FACE) said.

But when the two women arrived in Italy via France in 2005, they were told no jobs were available at the restaurant and they had to work as prostitutes to repay the money Jomsri lent to them to travel to Europe.

The two victims were rescued by Italian police in 2006 and sent home.

"Jomsri was sentenced to 14 years in prison," a court official said. "The suspect has many similar cases awaiting trial and sentencing."

Read the full article

A Horrible Business

From the Economist:

CONSIDERING it is a business that has provoked wars in centuries past, scant attention is paid to the modern slave trade. But one way to track the trade in people is the recently released annual report on trafficking in persons from America’s State Department. And it makes for gloomy reading. Though there have been improvements of late, the numbers of people involved are still appallingly high. Approximately 800,000 people are trafficked across national borders each year and millions more are traded domestically. The International Labour Organisation estimates that there are at least 12.3m people in forced labour at any one time, including sexual exploitation, as a result of trafficking.

Efforts to wipe out this modern slave trade are hampered because human trafficking is a big business. It is impossible to know the exact sums involved but recent estimates of the value of the global trafficking trade have put it as high as $32 billion. The United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking describes it as a high-reward and low-risk crime. People come cheap and many countries lack the necessary laws to target traffickers, or they are not properly enforced. Worse still, it is often the victims of the traffickers that are treated as criminals.

Women suffer most in this respect: the report estimates that 80% of victims of international trafficking are women forced into some form of prostitution. Women are involved in trafficking too, though this is less common. In Europe and Central and south Asia women are often recruited by other women who were themselves the victims of trafficking. In part to avoid detection by the authorities, traffickers grant victims limited freedom while simultaneously coercing them to return home to recruit other women to replace them.

The report also casts a light on the increasingly important role that technology is playing in the trade, both in combating it and its perpetration. The internet helps to identify and track down the perpetrators but increasingly it is becoming part of the problem. Chatrooms are used to exchange information about sex-tourism sites; people are targeted through social-networking sites where pornographic records of sex trafficking are also bought and sold; victims are ensnared through instant messaging.

There are a few bright spots. Ethiopia is commended for its efforts to combat the trafficking of children by establishing child-protection units across the country. Romania’s creation of a national database to identify and respond quickly to trends in trafficking is also praised as is Madagascar’s campaign to wipe out sex tourism.

Read the full article

The power of technology, both as a tool to fuel or prevent trafficking is an interesting and necessary discussion.

During the past two decades we have experienced the rise of the Internet and its incredible capacity to disseminate information, give a voice to the unheard and spur social change. The emergence of bloggers sounded the bell that the opinions of citizens, of individuals mattered- no longer was news limited to large organizational filters. Social networks established a new means of connecting with others and mobilizing action. In short, the Internet largely democratized information and created the power of connection between individuals across the world on a previously unimaginable level.

At the same time, whether it be environmental degradation, the Iraq war, soaring grain prices or the prevalence of modern day slavery, it is clear that we live in a time of serious global problems that we cannot afford to ignore. On its own, technology, and principally the Internet, offer the raw potential to connect, interact and have access to information on a level previously unheard of. This potential can be used, as mentioned by the above article, in innovative ways that either promote trafficking or prevent it.

One of the running themes of this blog is to identify innovative uses of technology to combat trafficking, for example initiatives led by Microsoft, MTV, Ashoka Changemakers and let's not forget the great viral videos by the guys and gals at the Freeze Project. I believe, however, that we are just starting to tap into the full potential of the Internet to effectively combat trafficking. I am not, however, making this criticism without offering some solutions of my own. The upcoming Human Trafficking Project website (not this blog) will launch next month and includes a few examples of how we can use technology to easily connect and work together to fill much needed gaps in the global anti-trafficking effort.

Slavery in Missouri

By Amelia Waters

From KHQA.com:

Many shelters house abused women and children. Some shelters receive victims that have been through worse. Human trafficking for commercial sex is one of the worst ways to treat a human being. I found one woman who works in a shelter in northwest Missouri who has helped trafficking victims who come in from third world countries.

"We have dealt with many cases where as the girls are brought in as mail-order brides, when they got here basically they were used for prostitution and pornographic purposes," said Cheryl Leffler, who operates a women's shelter in northwest Missouri for more then 10 years.

We've agreed to safeguard its location to protect its clients. But how does it come to this?

"They usually start with just written correspondence with them, and after they have pretended to be the perfect person they get the girls to trust them," said Leffler.

Traffickers promise the world to potential victims and pay for their plane ticket to Kansas City. Traffickers then take them to their home, where the horrific experience begins.

"They had been traumatized. Their first sexual experience had basically been brutally raping them to get them under control," states Leffler, "'This is what's going to happen to you if you don't do what I tell you.' They thoroughly believe these guys will kill them."

Leffler told us of one woman's experience, after being locked in a house she fled for her life once she saw an unlocked door. Running down the street, a local church member helped her and brought her to the shelter.

Rescuing victims doesn't stop the cycle of trafficking.

Bringing trafficking victims into a shelter is only the first step. Leffler went on to tell me how she believes local law enforcement authorities are reluctant to help.

"We've had issues in rural Missouri that law enforcement are reluctant to believe these girls. They're reluctant to help because they're not us citizens," quoted Leffler, "We sometimes deal with racial issues and they sometimes just don't want to help them."

Leffler also says Missourians in rural areas are reluctant to help as well.

"I think Missourians are definitely in denial," she stated strongly, "We have a large population of immigrants in our area and I don't think its an issue people want to think would happen in this area."

Is there a profile of a trafficker? Most of those Leffler's shelter has dealt with are middle aged white males, 40 to 60 years old. They're isolated and are likely to be involved with drugs and alcohol.

Man Sentenced for Human Trafficking and Alien Smuggling

From the PR Newswire:

Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division Grace Chung Becker and U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas Don DeGabrielle announced that Walter Corea was sentenced today for his role in a scheme to smuggle Central American women and girls into the United States and hold them in a condition of forced labor in bars and cantinas in the Houston area. U.S. District Judge Vanessa D. Gilmore sentenced Corea to 180 months in prison and further ordered that he, jointly with his co-defendants, pay $1,715,588 in restitution to the victims.

"These defendants used false promises and threats of harm to lure and coerce vulnerable women and girls into conditions of forced labor and servitude," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Becker. "The Department of Justice is committed to vigorously prosecuting human trafficking cases such as this one."

In all, eight defendants have been convicted in connection with this scheme to compel the victims into service in restaurants, bars and cantinas in the Houston area, using threats to harm the victims and their families if they attempted to leave before paying off their smuggling debts.

"Some measure of justice has been meted out today," DeGabrielle said. "Any who think of smuggling and enslaving fellow human beings should count this very real cost of doing business."

Corea previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to hold persons in a condition of peonage and to illegally and knowingly recruiting, harboring and transporting persons for labor and services. Peonage is a condition of involuntary servitude imposed to extract repayment of an indebtedness. He has also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to bring, harbor and transport known illegal aliens for purposes of commercial advantage and private financial gain.

Corea lured young Central American women to the United States with promises of good jobs. However, once the young women arrived, they were forced to work in the bars and cantinas of the defendant and co-defendants selling high-priced drinks to male customers. The women were subjected to numerous threats of harm to themselves and family members in order to compel their servitude, and some suffered sexual assaults at the hands of the defendant and his co-defendants.

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