Intervew: Brittany Heenan, Invisible Children

On April 25th, 2009, Invisible Children held The Rescue all over the world (100 cities across 10 countries). The event garnered significant media attention to raise awareness about child soldiers in Uganda. Invisible Children started in 2003 in response to the abducting of children in Uganda who are then enslaved and used as soldiers. I interviewed Brittany Heenan about her experience participating in The Rescue. Brittany is a student at the University of Missouri who is actively involved with Invisible Children and anti-trafficking work.

JK: Can you describe your experiences with the Rescue in your own words?

BH: On April 25th, I drove to St. Louis, MO and met up with 500 others to sleep under the Arch. We waited and waited. We called political leaders like Claire McCaskill. We left notes at the front desk of Taylor Swift's hotel. We made signs and caught the attention of the media. Finally on Sunday we were lucky enough to be rescued by St. Louis Rams football player, Chris Chamberlain.

Immediately, a caravan of devoted Rescue Riders rode to Wichita, KS to wait to be rescued. Finally, over 500 people met at the last city: Chicago, IL. 6 days after abducting ourselves, we choreographed a song and dance to perform outside of Oprah's studio. By this point we were going to be picky. We would not settle for anyone but Oprah or Obama to rescue us.

On the morning of the 7th day of being abducted, we headed back to Oprah's studio at 3:00am. Around 5:00am we surrounded her studio, shoulder to shoulder with peace signs in the air. She drove up and invited the three founders of Invisible Children inside to talk about what was going on. She agreed to give us a spot on her show. Friday, May 1 at 9:00am we were finally rescued!

JK: What did you learn from this experience?

BH: I learned that not everyone is going to understand the point of raising awareness. I learned that getting people involved is not as easy as it seems. But I learned that it doesn't hurt to try to inform these people of the atrocities going on in other countries.

JK: What did you take away from participating in the Rescue?

BH: This was a life altering experience. I realized that "a bunch of kids" just got Oprah's attention. Which means we have finally reached the hearts of America. This was a huge step towards freeing these enslaved children.

JK: What motivated you to participate in the Rescue?

BH: Children all over the world are being forced to do things they don't and shouldn't want to do. I can't imagine me at 8 years old carrying around an AK-47. I hated guns when I was 8. I played with Barbies. Why should a child not be allowed to live the life of a child? I've come to realize that I can change this. Me.

Featured Organization: The Emancipation Network

The Mission
The Emancipation Network (TEN) is an international organization that fights slavery with empowerment, 'slavery-proofing' survivors and high risk communities by giving them economic alternatives and education and using the Made By Survivors products to help build the abolition movement in the US.

History
The Emancipation Network (TEN) was founded in 2005 by Sarah Symons as an organization dedicated to fighting human trafficking and modern day slavery. TEN imports and sells beautiful handicraft products made by survivors of slavery and persons at risk of being trafficked into slavery.


Sarah Symons, the founder and president of TEN with a group of teens at the Apne Aap partner NGO in India.

TEN combines public outreach and education programs about human trafficking with income-generating programs for survivors and high risk girls. Staff members, "Ambassadors" and volunteers organize awareness events across the country to educate people about human trafficking and sell the Made by Survivors products. Sarah was inspired to start TEN after viewing "The Day My God Died," a film about sex trafficking in Nepal and India. She visited Maiti shelter in Nepal and stumbled across a room full of beautiful purses. These handbags were made for art therapy, but Sarah had the idea to sell them in the US and raise money for the girls. The idea became reality and now the selling of Made by Survivors products generates income for both survivors and at-risk groups. Since Sarah's first visit to Nepal in 2005, TEN has expanded to work with over 20 partners in 12 countries.


Watch the Day My God Died trailer

Current Programs
TEN has programs both abroad and in the US.


Abroad
TEN has over 12 programs and partners in countries such as: India, Cambodia, Nepal, Philippines, Ukraine, and Uganda. One of our exciting new programs is the Destiny Program in Calcutta, India.

Destiny Productions at the Thomas Clayton Center in Calcutta, India is TEN's newest initiative to help survivors become fully independent, and to slavery-proof them and their children into the future.

One of the biggest problems confronting the shelters that rehabilitate survivors is that the survivors have no place to go. They are often not welcome back in their own community, especially if they were sold into prostitution. Typically they were trafficked at a young age (average 11-12 yrs) and have never lived independently. This not only means they don't have good options for the survivors, but it also means that the shelters can't free up space to take in newly rescued survivors.

To assist survivors in reintegration, this summer, The Emancipation Network, in partnership with T.E.N. Charities, the Clayton family, and three of our shelter partner organizations, opened Destiny Productions at the Thomas Clayton Center in Calcutta, India. Destiny Productions is housed in a rented 3-story house in the Kasba neighborhood of Calcutta. Calcutta is a city of over 18 million people, near the Nepal border in Northwest India where poverty and human trafficking are endemic.


Watch a video on Destiny Productions

United States
TEN offers concerned persons in the US the opportunity to take action to fight human slavery, and to make a real impact in the lives of survivors and high risk girls. TEN works together with other organizations to create a critical mass of concerned persons who can put pressure on those who tolerate the modern practice of slavery. We have educated tens of thousands of Americans about human slavery and trafficking, mostly in small groups of 10 or 20, in volunteers' homes, schools, and places of worship.

Milestones

John Berger, one of TEN's founders, with a group of girls who are benefiting from one of our partner organizations-Apne Aap

TEN has reached approximately 10,000 Americans with slavery education at home parties and community events and is currently employing approximately 300 survivors/high risk people part-time or full-time at shelters and prevention programs. TEN opened its own protection center, the Destiny Project, in the summer of 2008.

Future Growth

In the future TEN will address increasing NGO demand for its services by growing its marketing program and increasing the number of volunteers and reps it maintains to sell more survivor-made products and generate the funds needed to expand its business development services.

Learn more about TEN

Child Traffickers Active in the Philippines

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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.”

Child Sex Trafficking in Europe

Human Trafficking Detection

From the Washington Times:

By Jonathan Imbody
August 6, 2008

The news report "Human trafficking deterrence rapped" (Saturday, Web) notes the heart-wrenching hurdles that can prevent identification and rescue of victims of trafficking in persons, or modern-day slavery.

Captors often train their victims to fear law enforcement authorities as the enemy. They tell victims that reporting their plight will only result in deportation - a fear actually addressed by federal law that grants special visas to cooperating victims.

Captors threaten reprisals against victims' family members as retaliation for reporting. Incredibly enough, victims can develop emotional dependence on their captors through what is known as the Stockholm syndrome.

Federal agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of State and the Department of Justice, are developing new strategies to overcome these obstacles to the identification, rescue and rehabilitation of victims.

One of the most promising strategies includes educating health-care professionals to recognize, report and treat victims. Few health-care professionals know how to recognize the signs of human trafficking among the patients they treat.

One study found that nearly one of three sex-trafficking victims had seen a health care professional during her captivity, yet tragically, not one had been reported and rescued as a result.

Medical groups such as the Christian Medical Association are offering continuing medical education courses to remedy this problem and raise awareness in the medical community.

Much more engagement is needed by medical specialty groups to educate the hundreds of thousands of professionals they represent.

The Bush administration can advance its landmark leadership to abolish human trafficking by raising the visibility of the problem among health-care professionals and others who may represent the victims' only hope for rescue.

The president's leadership in this effort is crucial, and his speaking out to encourage the engagement of health care professionals can help raise up an army of rescuers.

When rescue is not the end, but a beginning

Excerpts from an article on Ghanian child victims of trafficking in the July 2008 IOM Migration Magazine:

“The money I get from my parents to buy food at school is not enough and I am hungry,” pipes up an older boy.

Of all the refrains, this is the most often repeated.

The gathering on the beach is a weekly mentoring session for a group of former child victims of trafficking in Cape Coast in Ghana’s Central Region and an opportunity for the children to unburden their woes, get some advice, and some tutoring help with their schoolwork. Organized by Ghana’s Education Service, the mentoring is part of a package of services being provided by IOM, various government ministries and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) to help Ghanaian child trafficking victims recover from their trauma and reintegrate into families and communities.

Since 2003, with funding from the US State Department’s Bureau of Population, Migration and Refugees (PRM), IOM has rescued nearly 650 children in Ghana knowingly or unknowingly trafficked by parents to work in fishing communities on Lake Volta in the belief they would be fed, educated and taught a useful trade.

The reality is often different. Forced to work painfully long hours doing heavy and dangerous work because owners or ‘masters’ can’t afford to pay adults to do their jobs, the children are also severely underfed and often abused physically and verbally.

Food- the Main Issue

Food, Mavis Narh says, is the issue in the counselling sessions with trafficked children. “If we could feed these children properly, we would see significant results in just a few short months.”

Faustina Amegashie-Aheto, head of a clinical unit in a district in the Volta region where 90 per cent of the children rescued by IOM live, would agree. A health assessment of 178 children a year after their rescue revealed that 38 per cent of the children were still suffering from stunted growth while 62 per cent were underweight. Although de-worming and improved food intake meant that these figures were a vast improvement on those just gleaned after the children’s rescue, they highlight the enormous work ahead to improve the children’s health.

Challenge of Finishing School

Julia Damalie of the Ghana Education Service and in charge of girl and child education in his district recognises the difficulties older trafficked children face when going back to school. “We may need to consider allowing the children to jump years if they have the ability. We know that some children would much rather not go to school any more because of this age difference issue and instead learn a trade but there is no such facility to provide this at the moment,” she explains.

“At the moment, the retention rate is over 90 per cent but that is because of our sponsorship. The reality is that if 50 per cent of these children actually go on and finish their schooling, the programme would be successful. But we won’t know this for several years,” says Jo Rispoli of IOM in Ghana.

There are also other emerging long-term issues that will bear on the outcome...

“We’ve made a great deal of progress but many challenges remain. The key is to secure enough funding to ensure that the future holds a promise for all the children,” adds Rispoli.

To contribute or to sponsor a child through IOM’s rescue and reintegration programme, please click here.

Scotland: Crackdown on Sex Trafficking Leads to Rescue of 59 Women

From the Herald:

SCOTLAND- Police have rescued 59 women trafficked into Scotland's booming off-street sex industry.

In a major nine-month crackdown, officers from all eight Scottish forces raided saunas, massage parlours and covert brothels across the country - many believed to be run, or at least supplied, by Chinese organised crime.

Detectives arrested 35 suspects, most believed to be foreign, and identified 59 adult women they suspect were victims of sexual exploitation - many from China.

The raids were part of Operation Pentameter II, a UK-wide drive that helped rescue a suspected 351 sex slaves, 13 of them children.

It was the largest police crackdown on human trafficking to date and resulted in the arrest of 528 people across Britain.

The operation has again exposed the scale of the UK's off-street sex trade, a network of around 1000 brothels exploiting thousands of women, many trafficked into the country.

"The numbers have doubled since Pentameter I," said Detective Superintendent Michael Orr of Strathclyde Police, who co-ordinated the campaign north of the border. "Suffice to say, there's a high level of demand."

Senior police sources stressed many of the women who were "rescued" had declined to give evidence against their traffickers, mostly because they were terrified.

Only 15 of the 59 women initially identified as victims have confirmed they were trafficked. All were described as from being from "south-east Asia". Tara, a group run by Glasgow Community and Safety Service, an offshoot of the city council, has now identified women from 42 countries working as prostitutes in the city.

Read the full article

Finding the ‘Human’ in Human Trafficking

From Cafe Babel:

By Anna Patton

The European commission estimates that 100, 000 people per year are victims of trafficking in the EU; 80% of these are women and girls. Conversation with Barbara Eritt, a Polish-born social worker in Germany

"If someone done for drugs trafficking can get a more severe punishment than someone who traffics humans, there must be something wrong with this society."

Sadly, this is often the reality, explains Barbara Eritt, since cases against human trafficking often end up in probation or acquittal due to insufficient evidence. The Polish-born social worker runs the ‘Invia Koordinations- und Beratungsstelle für Frauen’, an advice and support centre in Berlin for victims of trafficking from central and eastern Europe. It is harrowing work.

‘But if you look at it not in terms of justice, but with the people, the women, as the focus, you work quite differently,’ she says, a perspective which has been at the heart of her work over the past decade. The women she meets, most of whom have been forced into prostitution, possess a drive for life and a great deal of humour despite what they have been through. "It’s about carrying on" she says, "being able to live with what has happened."

Beyond clichés
Eritt refuses to outline the typical profile of a trafficking victim. "I don’t want to resort to clichés; I have too much respect for the women to simply say they come from bad family situations or that they’re not educated. In most cases, the reasons are economic. This is a stronger motivation than any political reason."

The fear of separation and insecurity is a small sacrifice for the chance to afford a better life for oneself and one’s family.

A softly-spoken exterior belies Eritt’s steely determination. She helped to set up the centre in 1997, based on the motto ‘Do it yourself, or nobody will do it’. With an increase in trafficking over the past five years, there is still an urgent need for her services.

In Berlin, women hear about Invia through word of mouth or on police referral. Eritt only gets involved once women have escaped: "I don’t do streetwalking. In any case, you’d never recognise them as victims. These are beautiful women."

Access to women has become much more difficult, even though prostitution has been legal in Germany since 2002. Brothels are increasingly being replaced by apartments or hotels, and women cannot leave, except when they are driven to their clients’ homes or hotel rooms. Going to the police can be extremely difficult.

Even if escape is possible, the women may be subject to threats or intimidation; their captors might know where the women’s families live, for instance, and use this against them. Added to this are the practical difficulties of being in an unfamiliar country where one doesn’t speak the language. As Eritt explains, many prefer to hope that once they have paid off their debts, they’ll be free to go.

Read the full article

Why one girl refuses to remember

Part of an excellent story about how children cope with the horrors of tragedy, abuse, and exploitation:

From CNN:

Nway pretends that it never happened.

The storm didn't come. The wind didn't tear her home to pieces. The cyclone didn't sweep her mother and father away.

In those brief moments, when she tunes out the questions, the 7-year-girl from Myanmar can step back in time -- before May's Cyclone Nargis took everything away.

That's the girl aid workers from World Vision International, a Christian humanitarian group, found when they met Nway in her demolished village a month after the cyclone.

"When she was asked about the cyclone, she turned away and said she didn't remember anything about it, and left," says Ashley Clements, a World Vision worker who met Nway.

International relief groups know how to rebuild devastated countries like Myanmar. But how do they rebuild the lives of children like Nway? That's the challenge faced by groups trying to help child survivors of natural and manmade disasters.

Aid workers who deal with these children say the experience can drain their souls. They try to comfort children in Darfur, Sudan, who have seen their mothers raped; children in China who have seen their parents buried under rubble; children in Louisiana who watched their homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

No matter where they encounter these children, these aid workers face the same question: How can a child remain a child after experiencing a tragedy?

Rose Kimeu, a disaster response specialist for World Vision in African and Latin America, says many children don't know how.

"They don't laugh. They don't smile," Kimeu says. "They have this look in their eyes that's very sad... It's something that breaks my heart over and over."

What Nway wants for her future

But some of the memories aid workers carry around with them are more painful to recall.

Dean Hirsch, president of World Vision International, just returned from visiting some of the child-friendly spaces. He was struck by the children's body language.

"A lot of the children were holding onto to each other," he says. "If their mother was there, they would hold onto her, or if she wasn't, they'd hold onto the workers."

The children spent a lot of time drawing pictures of their homes, toys and pets.

"They were trying to restore through their memories what they had," Hirsch says.
A child who loses a parent faces plenty of dangers, Hirsch says. They could suffer brain damage or stunted growth if they don't eat enough.

"If they lost their father, the income source is gone," he says. 'If it's the mother, it's that person who did the food and supplied the love."

The children face other risks as well. They become easy targets for human traffickers. Some girls are exploited sexually by men.

When World Vision established child-friendly spaces in Darfur, Kimeu, the group's disaster response specialist, says her staffers noticed something odd. No girls would visit.

They later found out why. Many of them had been raped or seen their mothers raped. World Vision had male workers in the child-friendly spaces.

"They will not go near a man," says. "They will simply not show up."

The healing process varies with each child, Kimeu says. She says there was one girl who was raped in Darfur who took a year to play with other children.

Some never heal. In Uganda, some former child soldiers introduced to the child-friendly spaces never learned to be children again.

"Former child soldiers are very difficult," Kimeu says. "Some of them have killed not one but several people."

Today, Nway is being helped toward her own recovery. She lives in a village with her aunt. She plays with her friends during the day in child-friendly spaces and looks after her little cousin.

At times, Nway returns to her old village with the adults. She walks over the ruins of her old school. She proudly wears a yellow silk blouse that was donated to her. But she and the other villagers have a difficult time ahead. The cyclone blew away rice, utensils, farming tools -- even the village's cows and buffalos were swept away.

Nway may no longer talk about her past but she will talk about her future. Clements, the World Vision staffer who visited her, once asked Nway what she wanted to be when she grew up.

She talked that time. Her answer revealed that though she might not be ready to talk about her own wounds, she's already becoming more sensitive to the pain of others.

"I want," she answered after hesitating, "to be a doctor."

FBI Operation Targets Child Prostitution

By Michael King

From 11Alive.com:

ATLANTA - Atlanta was one of 16 cities targeted in a federal child prostitution sting. The FBI's newly formed Crimes Against Children Task Force in Atlanta made fire arrests as part of Operation Cross Country.

In 2001, the trial of three alleged pimps brought to light a problem that had plagued cities around the country for years -- trafficking of children for prostitution. It involved a young girl who had been carted from Atlanta to Las Vegas for sex.

Ever since that case, Alesia Adams has been crusading against the problem -- now working for The Salvation Army as coordinator against human and sexual trafficking. "Finally, public awareness around this issue is coming out and law enforcement is deciding that they're not going to have this anymore," Adams said.

She's referring to an announcement in Washington on Wednesday detailing results of a 16-city child prostitution sting called Operation Cross Country.

"There were a number of goals in this sweep, the most prominent is to identify those individuals who are juveniles and take them out of the cycle of victimization," said FBI Director Robert Mueller.

"The community certainly has changed its attitude in looking at these juveniles as more a victim than criminals as it relates to child prostitution," said Stephen Emmett of FBI Atlanta. The Atlanta FBI office now has a Crimes Against Children Task Force targeting the issue.

Adams says we need more safe places for children to go when they run away from abusive homes. "And they hit these streets and within 48 hours of that child hitting the street, the predators are there and they know where to find these children," she said.

Five arrests were made in Atlanta as part of Operation Cross Country. The operation lasted five days and led to the recovery of 21 children.

Read the full article

John McCain Speaks on Trafficking

It's good to see one of the presidential candidates finally speak on trafficking, even though in this case McCain proposes a trafficking task force that already exists...



Read the full text of McCain's speech

Ricky Martin: Llame y Vive

From Javno:

He may be known for Livin' La Vida Loca, but Latin pop idol Ricky Martin is using his star power for more, this time to campaign against human trafficking.

Martin has partnered with the Inter-American Development Bank and Ayuda to launch "Llama y Vive" or "Call and Live".

"My dream right now is all about seeing abolition, abolition of a new era, abolition of what we call a modern day form of slavery which is human trafficking and I'm not going to give up.", states Martin.

The campaign works to prevent human trafficking from Latin America and provide protection services to Latino victims in Washington, D.C. - including offering a confidential victims' hotline.

See the video here

Moldovan Sex Slaves Released in U.K. Trafficking Raids

From the Tiraspol Times:

April 22nd, 2008, NORWICH - A group of Moldovan women who were forced into prostitution have been freed in raids across London and Surrey, in the United Kingdom.

The raids, which took place over the past three days, uncovered a Moldovan-linked network of brothels and human trafficking which so far has led to the arrest of 15 people. They are suspected of being involved in an international criminal network managing people trafficking and prostitution, the Norwich Evening Post reports.

Moldova, Europe's poorest country, is the continent's leading supplier of underage girls for sexual exploitation. Human trafficking rings operate with impunity in Moldova, where they are for the most part under government protection and where a number of local government officials are involved as participants behind the rings. Due to a climate of impunity, no government officials have ever been charged with human trafficking and prostitution offenses in Moldova.

"This major operation successfully disrupted a long standing organized criminal network. Human trafficking is simply modern day slavery and, as we've discovered, it is happening in this county," said British Detective Chief Inspector Christine Wilson, head of Norfolk's Vulnerable People Directorate. In the investigation into the gangs involved in human trafficking, British police received no cooperation of any kind from Moldova's authorities.

Read the full article



Related: Corruption breaks new records in Moldova
By Karen Ryan

April 25, 2008 CHISINAU- Being in charge of Moldova's government is a lucrative business, as long as you can still get money from the people who are left in the country. A large percentage of Moldova's working-age population has already gone abroad, but those who remain in the country are targeted for bribes like never before.

The country's government has been listed as Europe's most corrupt in a number of international studies, and the latest to weigh in is Transparency International with a fresh survey released this week. According to the poll, which was conducted on a sample of 1105 people in Moldova between 23 February and 10 March 2008, incidents of corruption now breaks new records in Moldova.

The polls excluded nearby Transdniestria (Pridnestrovie), which has 'de facto' not been a functioning part of Moldova since 1990.

Corruption is one of Moldova's main problems, Transparency International Director Lilia Carasciuc said at a 22 April press conference in Chisinau. Over 80% of Moldovans think that corruption is holding back the development of their country. "

- According to the survey, people place corruption as third among the problems they meet, it following only poverty and unemployment. The business people also feel that, and place this phenomenon as second after great taxes," says Lilia Carasciuc.

Over 76% of the Moldovans are prepared to pay a bribe, Basa Press reports. The percentage is higher when reported to the business people: over 81%.

According to the survey, Moldovans pay bribes in 80.7% of the cases when they try to get visas to leave their country. Many need visas to be able to work abroad. Among the lucky ones who manage to get out, most show no inclination of ever wanting to return.

Crossing the border in and out of Moldova, crooked customs officers demand their baksheesh 57.2 % of the time. And if that wasn't enough, once you are inside Moldova you will be forced to cough up even more cash: In dealing with police, bribes are required in 51.2% of all cases.

Read the full article

Malaysian Government Takes Action to Stop Trafficking

A Malaysian policeman checks passports of migrant workers

By Farrah Naz Karim

From NST Online:

The Government will try to help Malaysian victims of human trafficking in prisons abroad by taking up their cases with foreign governments. Home Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar said this would be done if it could be ascertained that any of the 57 Malaysians in such circumstances were victims of the crime. He said probes will be conducted to determine the background to their cases.

He said it was also possible that women in this group were duped into serving as drug mules by human trafficking syndicates.

“We will investigate their cases to see if they have any relations with human trafficking. We have notified our foreign missions to check if these women were used by syndicates to smuggle drugs in return for money,” he said. "Those under arrest or serving time abroad were mostly young and educated females who could have been duped by promises of high-paying jobs."

Speaking at the opening ceremony of a pilot course for the Asean Awareness Training for Judges and Prosecutors on Criminal Justice Responses to Trafficking in Persons here, Syed Hamid said Malaysia faced a problem of distinguishing between trafficked persons and illegal immigrants as well as those involved in self-trafficking in the matter.

This, he said, was evident with many foreigners, especially women claiming to be victims of trafficking, picked up during vice raids here.

Syed Hamid said that since the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act 2007 came into effect last month, some 33 victims of human trafficking had been rescued.

They have been placed at two shelters gazetted for such purposes run by the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry.

He said the police, immigration department and People’s Voluntary Corp had been directed to conduct more raids in the move to identify victims of human trafficking in the country.

“This is a new form of human slavery and the people involved in this activity must be dealt with seriously,” he said, adding that the government would also come down hard on employers who sourced for cheap labour illegally as this was among factors that promoted trafficking in humans.

Read the full article

Law Enforcement Challenges to Combatting Trafficking in India

From Merrinews:

Research conducted by the National Human Rights Commission during 2002-2004 shows that the major issues in law enforcement are as follows:

1. Lack of priority- The law enforcement agencies and justice delivery agencies, for various reasons, accord lowest or nil priority to HT issues.
2. Insensitivity- The lack of sensitivity to human trafficking is a major challenge. It is more of an attitudinal issue.
3. Victimisation of the victim- More often, the trafficked women have been arrested and penalized for ‘soliciting’.
4. Improper investigation- Trafficking involves a long trail, starting from the source point, covering several transit points before terminating at the destination. But the investigation is more or less confined to the place where the victim is rescued. Victims remain more often unheard and unrepresented.
5. Organised crime perspective is lacking in investigation- HT involves several offenders like recruiters, transporters, traffickers, harbourers, exploiters and conspirators. But often, investigation is limited to those present at the scene of rescue. Human trafficking being an organized crime requires sharing of intelligence and an in-depth investigation into all linkages but this is rarely done.
6. Lack of coordination- The response to human trafficking requires co-ordination among the various government departments, like police, public welfare, health, women and child. The gap in co-ordination is a major challenge to the response system.
7. Lack of coordination with NGO’s- The ITPA and labour laws do assign specific role to NGO’s; however there is no institutionalized system of co-ordination between the law enforcement agencies and NGO’s.
8. Lack of appreciation- Several instances of good work done by the police officers, researchers, NGO’s, etc, in controlling human trafficking can be cited. However such actions are not acknowledged and disseminated; often good news is no news and bad news is good news.
9. Lack of emphasis on rehabilitation- This is a major challenge which leads to not only victimization of victims but also re-trafficking of the rescued person. Despite the fact that several corporates set aside large funds for social responsibility, lack of synergy with the law enforcement agencies and NGO’s has been an impediment in effective dovetailing of such sources for rehabilitating the victim.

However, the emerging scenario is certainly positive. There are several initiatives launched across the country to address human trafficking in a comprehensive and effective manner. Some of these initiatives may be initiated by individuals who are committed to the cause and due to their initiatives, such steps are getting institutionalised. In fact, during the last six years of this century, there has been a growing momentum against human trafficking. The reasons may be many. First of all, credit should go to NGOs who have brought the HT issue into the national agenda. Secondly, several law enforcement officers and human rights activists have provided leadership and proper orientation in achieving better results in anti-human trafficking (AHT).

Increased awareness- There is a national momentum, involving various stake holders, especially the media, the corporates, government agencies including the law-enforcement wing and human rights agencies. One of the best examples is the Global Initiative in Fighting Human Trafficking (GIFT), initiated by UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime).

Holistic approach- Several agencies working together and attending to the issues of ‘PPP’(Prevention, Protection and Prosecution), in a concerted manner has been one of the features of the new response system. While police undertake rescue operations along with NGOs, other government departments immediately move in, to provide interim relief to the victims. The NGOs take over post-rescue care and attention in association with the government agencies concerned.

Synergy in action- The UNODC, New Delhi, in partnership with the government of India and State government agencies as well as civil society has set up ‘anti-human trafficking units’ (AHTU) in several states. AHTU is a special task force set up under the State police, by involving chosen police officers, NGOs and others who are specially trained for the purpose. UNODC has provided training and empowerment to these officers with focus on knowledge, skills and attitudinal orientation. These units are making a tremendous impact on the law enforcement scenario - for example, in a span of six months, the AHTUs in Andhra Pradesh have rescued more than 700 victims of which more than 100 are children under 18. The rescued victims are being promptly taken care of by the government as well as NGOs, most of them having been rehabilitated with the help of corporate and business houses. Excellent rehabilitation has been achieved through synergetic action.

Read the full article

New Halfway House for Trafficking Victims Built in the Philippines

From the Sun Star:

Zamboanga, Philippines - A Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) halfway house, a shelter that serves as a sanctuary for victims of human trafficking, is set to be operational in February.

PPA information officer Karen Kay Rivero said that a team from the Visayan Forum Foundation (VFF) will manage the halfway house.

The halfway house, or Bahay Silungan sa Daungan as it's known in Filipino, is a facility that will serve as a temporary shelter for women and children who are victims or potential targets of forced labor or sexual exploitation.

As a top priority program of PPA's Gender and Development Focal Point arm, the halfway house under the supervision of VFF provides services such as counseling, legal assistance, skills training, medical and other psychosocial assistance.

The halfway house will also have a hotline where human trafficking victims can call for assistance, according to Rivero.

The PPA, as part of its corporate social responsibility, has been working on the Bahay Silungan sa Daungan project since 1996, prompted by the numerous cases of stranded passengers in ports who have become victims of exploitation.

Other major ports in the country such as Manila's North and South Harbors, and the ports in Davao, Batangas, and in Matnog, Sorsogon have had halfway houses established.

Dizon emphasizes the inspiring fact that PPA's anti-trafficking program greatly aids countless women and minors. In the last six years, PPA halfway houses across the country saved 18,600 victims and potential targets of trafficking.

Rivero said the PPA financed the construction of halfway houses culled from its corporate funds, while its partner agency, the United States Assistance for International Development (USAID), finances its management and operation.

Afternoon Update:

*I worked closely with the Visayan Forum Foundation (VFF) during my Fulbright research in the Philippines and was always impressed with their collaborative, inclusive and innovative approach to combating trafficking.

The reality of combating trafficking is often messy: the government, law enforcement, and criminal justice system all have the potential to be corrupt, uninformed, or lack the motivation/pressure from the public, the media, or the international spotlight to make any real impact. There are certainly many skilled, well-intentioned individuals working within bogged-down government and law enforcement agencies (and also non-governmental organizations of course) that do want to make a difference, but may not know how or have the resources to do so on their own.

But the situation is far from being all fire and brimstone.

VFF created the halfway houses to intercept trafficking victims en route to exploitation and, through forging cross-sector partnerships, is making a sizable difference- the article states that halfway houses in sea ports across the Philippines have rescued 18,600 potential trafficking victims in six years of operation.

Trafficking is not a simple issue- it is a problem created by a complex stew of social, cultural, economic and political factors and, as would fit the chemistry of the problem, there is no one person or organization or economic sector that can handle trafficking on its own.

It is by learning about the collaborative relationships that VFF has developed with stakeholders like the Philippine Police, the Department of Social Welfare and Development, the Philippine Port Authority and private shipping companies (that’s the public, private, and citizen sector working together for those keeping track) that I saw true hope in an otherwise murky situation.

Report from Turkey Releases Data from 2004-2006

Istanbul

From Today's Zaman: Turkish authorities intercepted some 246 victims of human trafficking in 2006, an overwhelming majority of whom came from former Soviet Union countries, official data announced yesterday revealed.

One hundred ninety-one of the victims have been safely sent back to their home countries. The data, announced in a 55-page report prepared jointly by officials from the Interior Ministry, the Justice Ministry, the police department and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), show that the number of people falling victim to human trafficking has remained steady in past years: In 2004, authorities identified 239 victims and in 2005, the number stood at 256.

According to the report, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine top the countries of origin for victims of human trafficking in Turkey. Turkey has in the past been more of an origin country itself, but in the recent past has grown as a destination country as its economy gets stronger. Of course the most frequent place these victims were found was in Antalya, a very popular Turkish Mediterranean resort destination for Eastern Europeans. I can't tell you how many advertisements I see around Ukraine for tourism to Turkey, with the most popular site being Antalya. Not that those are necessarily connected, but to some extent, they are.

The last two paragraphs of the article really shocked me:

A significant instrument in the rescue of human trafficking victims is a hotline launched in 2005. According to the report, some 56 people were rescued by security forces after victims themselves or others dialed 157 for help. As in previous years, the clients of women forced to prostitution themselves proved to be the most helpful: Clients of friends/relatives of the women made 81 percent of the calls to 157, while only 19 percent of the calls were made by the victims themselves.

All of the victims repatriated to their countries by IOM were women, the report also revealed, and 40 percent of them had one or more children. The report also showed an increase in the number of people detained for human trafficking in 2006 compared to earlier years. Some 422 people were detained in 2006, 379 in 2005 and 277 in 2004. A total of 156 people were arrested after being brought to court, while 127 were released pending trial in 2006.

A couple things did not necessarily strike me as out of the ordinary:

1) The success of the hotline. It also has been a very useful counter-trafficking instrument here in Ukraine as well, although the national hotline also gets an excessive amount of phone calls with questions regarding migration.

2)Women victims often have children. So do male victims of labor trafficking.

However what did surprise me was the amount of victims who called in themselves for help as well as the fact that clients were willing to step out and report what was happening. Its good to hear more people are being detained under the law. I'm hoping and assuming they're detaining more traffickers and pimps as opposed to victims. I'll have to go through the whole report.

iPods used to fight trafficking in Europe

From the Sunday Sun:

HUNDREDS of pounds of taxpayers’ money is being spent on a scheme to help a police force tackle human trafficking.

The devices, which can hold huge quantities of information, have been preloaded with recorded messages in a variety of different languages.

The idea is to provide victims of human trafficking with basic information in their language while officers wait for a qualified interpreter.

The messages have been recorded in Albanian, Portuguese, Czech, French, Lithuanian, Malay, Mandarin, Romanian, Russian and Thai.