Malaysia: Loopholes in maid hiring

From the Star:

By P. Aruna

The Indonesian Embassy has criticised the Government's move to allow hiring of maids without going through agencies, saying it opened up loopholes for human trafficking.

“Direct recruitment violates our laws and regulations,” said its minister counsellor for information, social and cultural affairs Suryana Sastradiredja.

He warned Malaysian employers that they could be detained by Indonesian authorities.

In July, the Government announced that employers could hire Indonesian maids without going through recruitment agencies as a way to reduce costs for those who would otherwise have to pay hefty agency fees.

The maids are brought into the country through social visit passes by employers or agents, who then get a work permit for them from the Immigration Department.

Read the full article

Thailand urged to stamp out human trafficking

UN Urges Asia to Enforce Human Trafficking Laws

From Voice of America:

By Ron Corben

Senior United Nations officials say countries of the Greater Mekong Sub-region including Thailand, Cambodia and Laos are failing to apply existing laws aimed at combating human trafficking.  The conclusions come as a U.N. envoy on human trafficking concluded a 10-day assessment of Thailand's efforts to curb labor migration abuses.

The U.N.'s Special Rapporteur on Human Trafficking, Joy Ezeilo, says countries need to adopt a comprehensive approach to combat trafficking and implement laws that are already on the books.

Read the full article

Qatar: How The World's Wealthiest Nation Per Capita Relies on Migrant Worker Labor

In an attempt to further expand the scope of my research, I recently attended a few meetings and conferences in the State of Qatar to better assess the human rights and migrant labor issues that this majestic city-state currently faces.

Qatar hosts the most dramatic demographic contradictions between its local population and the migrant worker community that it must outsource in order to accommodate its rapid and unparalleled Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Industry. With only 350,000 Qatari citizens inhabiting a nation that boasts the highest production and export of LNG in the world, Qatar ranks number one for the world's highest GDP per capita income and embodies a rentier welfare-state in its most basic description.

However, the wealth that Qataris enjoy is at the expense of hundreds of thousands of migrant workers that are brought to the country on two-year contracts to work in nearly every sector and industry that the country has consecrated, mostly because the Qataris have no interest in working in positions that are not managerial or administrative. They hold a reputation that is even more negatively slanted than their Kuwaiti counter-parts, attributed largely to the country's massive natural resource wealth that provides a backbone for lavish lifestyles that are serviced and maintained by the hands of poor, outsourced laborers.

However, it is unfair to immediately dismiss the Qataris in their efforts to regulate and protect their migrant worker population. Higher income for Qataris has trickled down the economic ladder and raised income levels for migrant workers to higher salaries than anywhere else in the region. Legitimacy of private sector employment contracts is upheld and regulated by the Ministry of Interior. Unlike other parts of the region, Qatar maintains a strict turn-over of migrant workers to prevent long-term residency and the potential to reap attractive welfare benefits.

As a result, sponsors are less able to withhold wages and force their employees to stay in the country longer than the 2-year period the law allows. Although issues like withheld passports, coercive employment tactics (i.e. false contracts), and rights to change employers continue to remain crucial issues for anti-trafficking and human rights advocates, Qatar has seen rapid advancements under its labor law, with many foreseeable positive developments on the horizon.

Some of these developments have already come to fruition, and include, the abolition of the Camel Jockey industry. Previous to the Qatari Government's intervention in this regionally cultural tradition, underage children or "camel jockeys" were recruited from south Asia to participate in extremely dangers recreational races for entertainment purposes. Many were seriously injured and malnourished to keep them within race-weight standards. Now, the industry has made use of electronic jockeys instead, which has allegedly stopped the flow of the children who were previously trafficked into the country and exploited.

Another major development is the incorporation of anti-trafficking statutes under the current labor law. I will underscore that there is still no anti-trafficking law (although talk of drafting one has been reported); nevertheless, statutes exist that make use of similar language and highlight relative clauses that penalize trafficking of laborers. Qataris have even been tried, convicted, and imprisoned under these statutes-something barely seen in arguably more labor-friendly countries like Bahrain.

Like its neighbors, Qatari labor law maintains a crucial fault with regard to its domestic worker population (including housemaids, drivers, cooks and gardeners) who are not offered any legal protection under the current labor law or benefits that are awarded to private sector employees. Salaries, days-off and contracts are the responsibility of the sponsor and offer considerable room for ambiguity and abuse to exploitative employers. However, in response to growing criticisms from the international communities towards Qatar and other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), new interest has developed in drafting a formal labor law that will better regulate Qatar domestic worker population.

Featured on the front page of one of the country's principle English-speaking newspapers, The Peninsula, an article described the development of a new domestic labor law being drafted by a special panel tasked with finalizing the regulation of rights and duties of domestic workers. The panel will incorporate representatives from several government agencies and will review with other GCC countries. The draft law may finally provide privileges to domestic employees, like end-of-service benefits, annual leave, and free medical care. These and other formal arrangements would have to be included in contracts between sponsors and their employees and would require endorsement by the Labor Department to be considered legally valid. The law might also regulate the functioning of manpower agencies and their role in hiring domestic workers in the country, The Peninsula reported.

And finally, the sponsorship system. Found in all countries except for Bahrain officially, but actually found in all countries of the Gulf unofficially, Qatar's sponsorship system seems to be the most archaic and limited with regard to a worker's access to mobility. As is required in Kuwait, Oman, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia, a sponsor must provide consent for his employer to change to a different sponsor. In Qatar, the process is further complicated with the addition of a second party that must approve a change of employment as well-the Ministry of Interior. Qatar, like Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait has embraced a new economic development model that "ization-izes" the national population and encourages locals to enter the job market. Limiting positions for expatriates is an effective way to open up the job market to locals but discourages the professional development of expatriates.

Qatar presents an intriguing case study for human trafficking and migrant worker issues in the Arabian Gulf. I intend to keep my attention partially focused on the peninsula as it embarks on a proactive course of action to improve its labor laws and the lives of its expatriate workforce. I am sure there will be some follow-up.

United Nations and Inter- Parliamentary Union Join Forces to Combat Trafficking in Persons

From UN.GIFT:

8 April 2009- Yesterday in the Ethiopian capital, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in the framework of the Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (UN.GIFT) launched the publication Combating Trafficking in Persons: A Handbook for Parliamentarians.

"Parliaments and parliamentarians have the power to prevent human trafficking by raising awareness and curbing exploitative practices". Said UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa. The President and Secretary-General of IPU, as well as the Speaker of the Austrian Parliament, were present at the launch.

As public awareness of human trafficking grows, people are demanding that action be taken to end it. As their elected representatives, parliamentarians have a responsibility and the power to ensure that laws and other measures are put in place and implemented to that end. The Handbook is intended to inspire them to enact sound laws and adopt good practices that will strengthen national responses to human trafficking.

The handbook also contains a compilation of international laws and good practices developed to combat human trafficking, and offers guidance on how national legislation can be brought in line with international standards by, for example, defining trafficking in persons and criminalizing all its forms. It outlines measures to prevent commission of the crime, to prosecute offenders and to protect victims.

"I urge you to use this Handbook, not only as a reference, but as a blueprint for strengthening your country's response to this crime" the Executive Director added.

In conclusion, it is clear that parliamentarians have a role to play in the fight against human trafficking. As agenda-setters and voices of the people, they can have significant power and influence in developing anti-human trafficking laws and policies.

***************************
Combating Trafficking in Persons: A Handbook for Parliamentarians is a useful step forward for legislators and compiles a significant amount of information. The Handbook lays out the various definitions of human trafficking and the international legal framework for combating trafficking in persons, the criminalization of trafficking, monitoring and reporting on human trafficking and enhancing the role of civil society in fighting human trafficking. This Handbook could be a useful resource in developing a common methodology for monitoring and reporting on human trafficking. Presently, a major problem with human trafficking statistics is that they are no comparable across countries and the standards of data collection vary significantly.

However, it is important to stress that, even when a country enacts stronger anti-trafficking in persons laws, this does not mean much for trafficking victims if these laws are not properly implemented. While Combating Trafficking in Persons: A Handbook for Parliamentarians may ultimately prove to be a useful resource for legislators for basic facts, more must be done to ensure that laws are not only enacted but fully implemented and actualized.

Child Trafficking in Malawi

Diplomats Abuse their Workers, Invoke Immunity

From Newsday.com:

By Anthony M. Destefano
July 28, 2008

Federal investigators have uncovered numerous cases of foreign diplomats - mostly in New York and Washington, D.C. - who abused their domestic workers without fear of prosecution because of diplomatic immunity, according to a government report to be released tomorrow.

The level of cruelty of some of the allegations appears similar to those recently uncovered in the human trafficking prosecution of Varsha and Mahender Sabhnani, the Muttontown business couple convicted of abusing two Indonesian maids. At the federal trial in Central Islip the maids, who have sued the Sabhnanis, said they were tortured and beaten, sometimes resorting to foraging for food in garbage pails.

At least 42 cases of suspected abuse by diplomats - including allegations of forced labor, human trafficking and physical abuse - have been uncovered in the past eight years, the Government Accountability Office study found, according to people who have seen summaries of the document.

GAO officials wouldn't release the report in advance of its scheduled unveiling tomorrow. But congressional staffers familiar with the report's contents said the diplomats suspected of the abuses were assigned to various embassies and United Nations missions. In some instances the officials were involved with agencies like the World Bank, said the staffers, who added that the report doesn't identify specific countries involved.

Juhu Thukral, an attorney with the Urban Justice Center in Manhattan who helps trafficking victims, said domestic workers represent the largest number of victims in trafficking cases and their plight is exacerbated by physical and language isolation.

But while the victims in the Sabhnani case saw their employers prosecuted and were able to file lawsuits, foreign diplomats who abuse domestic workers are insulated from criminal prosecution and most lawsuits under the Vienna Convention, the international treaty ratified here in 1961 that provides diplomatic immunity.

Earlier this month, Marichu Suarez Baoanan, 39, sued the former chief of the Philippines mission to the United Nations, Lauro Liboon Baja, Jr., in federal court in Manhattan. In her complaint, Baoanan said Baja and his family lured her from the Philippines and subjected her to forced labor at the official residence. But in court papers, Baja's attorneys argue that he is protected from the lawsuit by the Vienna Convention.

Read the full article

Philippines: Cagayan de Oro, Bukidnon Top Trafficking Cases

A Traditional Sunday Meeting of Filipino Maids in Hong Kong

From the Sun Star:

By Annabelle L. Ricalde
Tuesday, July 29, 2008

CASES of human trafficking this year are high in Bukidnon province and Cagayan de Oro compared to other places in Northern Mindanao, said the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) Task Force Against Human Trafficking.

As of June 2008, 38 percent of human trafficking victims came from Bukidnon and 35 percent from Cagayan de Oro, CFO data show. Another 20 percent of the victims live in Gingoog City, 16 percent in Ozamis City, and 11 percent Misamis Oriental.

The figures only account for the cases handled by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD)-Northern Mindanao, so the actual number of 138 victims could be higher, said lawyer Golda Myra Roma of the CFO.

Roma said that of the total number of victims, 117 are minors and almost all of them are females.

She said women are more preferred by human traffickers because of "the availability of the labor force for women."

The "jobs" offered for women often include forced prostitution, while others land into forced labor, slavery, servitude, or the removal of organs, she added.

Senator Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada meantime said the number of unemployed workers falling prey to human trafficking syndicates has risen in the last two years.

Estrada, concurrent chairman of the Senate Committee on Labor, Employment and Human Resources Development, said that international syndicates have been preying on desperate workers who are trying to get employment abroad.

Meanwhile, Roma named Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Brunei and Japan as the top haven of trafficked persons from the Philippines. She said these countries do not have comprehensive laws against human trafficking, unlike the Philippines.

She said that cases of human trafficking in the country have been going down since 2006, although the number remains alarming.

She said that the victims often would lose interest in pursuing the case because of the delayed and long process of the prosecution.

Read the full article

Russia's Thriving Sex Slave Industry

From CNN

By Matthew Chance

Young women in bright miniskirts and high heels line up to sell themselves in the dingy back streets throughout the Russian capital. Moscow's illegal flesh markets are flourishing, with up to 30 women at each pickup point, or tochka, standing in order of price for the night.

Customers light up the lines with their car headlights and are asked to pay between $100 and $700 for a woman.

Aid workers for groups fighting for women's rights say Moscow is witnessing a surge in prostitution, including forced prostitution, as a result of Russia's booming economy.

They say thousands of young women are made to work as sex slaves on the city's streets, unable to escape from the ruthless and violent criminal gangs who traffic them. "It's because of the economic boom they are brought here," said Afsona Kadyrova of the Angel Coalition aid agency, which rehabilitates trafficked women and children. "The fast pace of development in Moscow has fueled demand for a range of cheap workers, including prostitutes." To investigate the thriving trade, CNN went undercover posing as potential customers and gained access to speak directly to the prostitutes and their pimps.

"Take your pick from any of the girls," the female organizer said at one location, lines of women all around. "The expensive ones are on the right, for $600 and $700 a night. The women on the left are $100."

Read the full article

U.S. Anti-Trafficking Law Needs Improvement

From Medill:

By Hallie D. Martin

WASHINGTON D.C. – Thousands of working people walk near a bustling downtown intersection in the nation’s capital during the day, but after the clubs close at night pimps rule those streets.


The area was known as the red light district 30 years ago and it still is after 3 a.m., said Bradley Myles, the deputy director of the Polaris Project, a Washington-based organization dedicated to fighting human trafficking.

“This street, 14th, 15th and K, has been the main street since the 1970s where violent pimps are forcing women into street prostitution every single night,” he said. “And usually it’s not apparent to most people because it doesn’t begin until 3 a.m.”

The pimps’ activity in Washington meets the federal definition of sex trafficking, and is a microcosm of the problem in the United States.

The United States defines human sex trafficking as situations where individuals are forced into commercial sex acts by fraud or coercion, or if a person is a minor.

The sex trafficking industry is hugely profitable, and is the fastest-growing criminal industry worldwide, the Polaris Project reported.

In the Washington area, the project estimates human sexual trafficking revenue amounts to more than $100 million annually.

But participants in a discussion at the Hudson Institute Thursday, said there was not enough federal enforcement of laws meant to fight human trafficking.

There is no solid number of trafficking victims, though it is estimated 100,000 to 300,000 minors are trafficked within the United States each year. There is no estimate for adult women.

“No one knows if the cases are up or down because there are not enough years to compare,” said Tricia Swartz, the director of the National Center for Refuge and Immigrant Children. “But people suspect it is going up.”

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which passed congress in 2000 and was last re-authorized in 2005, provides grants to nongovernmental organizations that find and treat victims of trafficking.
The law also monitors programs that try to stop border trafficking.

It is up for re-authorization this year and is awaiting action in the House Judiciary Committee. “What’s not working [in the law] is the prosecution of pimps and people who traffic people,” said Donna Hughes, a professor at the University of Rhode Island. “The law persecutes the victims, not the men or the pimps.”

Bringing pimps to justice is dependant on the testimony of their victims, which Hughes said isn’t happening. A revamped law needs to reduce the burden on the victim, she said.

Read the full article

Made in China, Trafficked to Taiwan

From the China Post:

On Friday, the Legislative Yuan held a hearing to review the possibility of drafting legislation designed to combat human trafficking.

At the hearing, representatives of government agencies, non-governmental organizations, charities and human rights lawyers discussed the seriousness of human trafficking in Taiwan and ways that legislation should be designed to combat the problem.

We fully support the proposal for having a special Anti-Human Trafficking Law, and hope to see our legislators come up with a comprehensive bill that can finally address this growing problem.

It has long been known that foreign nationals and mainland Chinese have been brought into Taiwan to perform difficult or illegal tasks, ranging from menial factory jobs to prostitution. For such a law to be effective, provisions must be drafted that impose stiff punishments for people convicted of smuggling or exploiting illegals immigrants.

Budgets for the Coast Guard have to be increased so more traffickers can be interdicted at sea and their human cargoes rescued. A mechanism must also be set up to protect the dignity and human rights of foreign nationals who help bring their exploiters to justice.

Much of the attention focused on the human trafficking problem is centered on the smuggling of people into Taiwan. However, we believe another important facet of this human rights catastrophe often goes overlooked and needs more attention.

It has long been known in law enforcement circles in the United States, Canada and Europe that "snakehead" groups smuggling mainland Chinese into other countries prefer to use Taiwan-issued travel documents when bringing their clients into foreign countries on commercial flights. The main reason why ROC documents are preferred is because mainland Chinese have the easiest time posing as Taiwanese tourists and speak the same language as we do.

According to research performed on human smuggling in China, an ROC passport containing a valid U.S. visitor's visa can fetch more than US$20,000 on the black market, as it can easily be used to smuggle a mainland Chinese into the United States.

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Actions Against Human Trafficking

From Iceland Review:

The Icelandic government is preparing a plan on how to act on human trafficking. The plan will be ready in the fall.

Current Icelandic laws include no clauses on how to protect the victims of human trafficking. Those who have been sold to slavery cannot file for residence or work permits on the grounds of human trafficking. Morgunbladid reports.

The Icelandic police are also not equipment to deal with those circumstances. According to Hildur Jónsdóttir, a member of the task force which is creating the plan, there is a huge task to be done.

The police must be capable of recognizing human trafficking and make those involved in it stand trial. The welfare system must also be fit enough to receive the victims. The operation plan calls for co-operation between the police, the welfare system as well as health institutes and organizations that work for human rights.

The prototype of this strategy came from Norway where a similar plan was put into action in 2003. The size of human trafficking was unknown then, and it was even believed that human trafficking in Norway did not exist. That has proved to be wrong and since the plan was introduced in Norway, 204 possible victims of human trafficking have been discovered.

Read the full article

Senate Panel Rejects Human Trafficking Proposal

From the Deseret News:

UTAH, United States, February 27, 2008- A bill to create a state felony penalty for human trafficking and smuggling hit a roadblock Wednesday when it was rejected in a tied 2-2 vote by a Senate panel.

Rep. Christopher Herrod, R-Provo, told the Senate Judiciary Committee that HB339 had received unanimous support in the House as a way to add a state provision to match federal law. Herrod said human trafficking is a modern day slave trade, and "some of the saddest ones are children brought ... for sexual purpose."

And he said Southern Utah is a popular human smuggling route. Herrod said a state statute would help bring grants to Utah and pointed out it's local police and social workers who are more likely to encounter trafficking than federal agents.

However, in voting against HB339, Sen. Scott McCoy, D-Salt Lake, said he believed existing federal efforts to curtail trafficking are sufficient.

Human Trafficking Thrives Across N.Korea-China Border

An infrared photograph shows two naked people crossing the Tumen River in the dark -- one is a human trafficker and the other a North Korean woman.

From Chosunilbo:

A 26-year-old North Korean woman, Mun Yun-hee crossed the Duman or Tumen River into China in the dawn of Oct. 22 last year, which at that point was some 40 m wide, guided by a human trafficker.

She was being sold to a single middle-aged Chinese farmer into a kind of indentured servitude-cum-companionship. Both of them wore only panties, having stored their trousers and shoes in bags, because if you are found wearing wet clothes across the river deep at night, it is a dead giveaway that you are a North Korean refugee.

Mun was led to a hideout, and the agent left. Asked why she crossed the river, she replied, "My father starved to death late in the 1990s, and my mother is blind from hunger." Her family owed 300 kg of corns, beans and rice and sold herself for the sake of her blind mother and a younger brother.

The middleman paid her 350 yuan, or W46,000 (US$1=W939), equivalent to half of the grain debt. A Chosun Ilbo news team became the first in the world to see the scale of human trafficking in the China-North Korea border. The exodus in the famines of the latter half of the 1990s has degraded into blatant human trafficking.

In the 10 months since May, 2007, the team witnessed the lives of North Korean refugees in five countries: China, Russia, Japan, the U.S. and Britain. In China, the refugees live day and night in fear of deportation to the North and poverty.

"I was first sold to a 34-year-old Chinese man in Shandong Province. Six months later, public security officers arrested me one day at midnight. Asked how, they said on a notification by a neighbor," Mun said. She was immediately sent to Dandong prison, from where a group of North Korean detainees were deported to Shinuiju chained two and two. There, she was thrown into a North Korean State Safety and Security Agency camp for a month.

"They took a quantity of blood to check possible venereal disease. Undressing the women, they checked even inside the sexual organs with gloved hands,” Mun recalled. If you repeat sit-and-stand 20 times, you vomit up everything you have eaten. Male inmates are forced to strike their heads against the steel door and beaten with clubs when they resist. Pregnant inmates were forced to miscarry on the grounds they were bearing Chinese children.

“The meals of corns with one side dish served were so poor that we longed for the meals we were given by the Chinese prison." Transferred to an escapees camp in Chongjin, North Hamgyeong Province, she was released after a stint of hard labor in 17-hour shifts.

Several months later, now 25, she again entrusted her body to a trafficker. An officer from the Durihana Mission, an organization assisting North Korean refugees, asked her, "We won't sell you to a Chinese. Will you go to South Korea?" Without hesitation, she replied, "I'll go back to the Chinese man who bought me first. I want to live with him, eating plenty and earning money, and send money to my family at home."

For the benefit of her blind old mother and younger brother, she opted to stay in China, risking another deportation. The Durihana Mission officer, failing to persuade her into going to the South, bid her farewell after buying her a few pieces of winter clothes.

Read the full article

Human Trafficking in Maryland on the Rise

From the Examiner:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read the full article

Asia Urged to Be Harder on Labor Traffickers

Mark Lagon

From Radio Australia:

The United States' most senior official on human trafficking says too few Asian countries are imposing strict enough punishments for human trafficking and forced labour.

Mark Lagon is US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's senior advisor on human trafficking.

He's called on Asian countries to impose harsher penalties for people convicted of crimes related to the trade in human beings.

But Allan Dow from the International Labour Organisation says stricter penalties are only part of the solution.

"You cannot combat trafficking, human trafficking effectively by just focusing on law and order," he said.

"If you did that you would end up with tighter border controls which probably wouldn't have much of an impact."

Prostitution Suspects Could Be Victims of Trafficking

This article brings up the tricky process of determining if trafficking occurred, versus prostitution in this case. The issue of consent is especially relevant- what qualifies as consent and what qualifies as coercion? If someone consents to a certain situation knowing generally what the circumstances will be, for example prostitution, but not knowing that they will be virtually enslaved or entered into a form of debt bondage, does that qualify as consent?

By Sarah Moore

From the Beaumont Enterprise:

BEAUMONT, Texas - Possible prostitution at two spas raided last week could be linked to a Houston-area operation and be part of a worldwide human trafficking network, Beaumont police investigators say.

Police suspect one spa owner, who lives out of state, might have been the owner of a similar operation in Montgomery County before being shut down.

Beaumont Lt. Curtis Breaux said the two women arrested Wednesday, Su Han Jun, 45, and Li Zhao, 51, might be among untold numbers of foreign women lured from their homes with promises of lucrative jobs. They then are ensnared in a web of debt and coercion amounting to a form of feudal bondage, Breaux said.

The two were arrested in a sting at the Sun Spa on Old Dowlen Road and VIP Spa on Calder Avenue. Police charged each with three counts of prostitution, a Class B misdemeanor.

If convicted, the women, who are Chinese, face up to six months in jail on each count. They also could be deported, immigration officials have said.

In addition to perhaps being the iceberg tip in a much larger prostitution picture, the case also presents a prosecution challenge similar to what police and lawyers have faced in larger cities.

Police and prosecutors must grapple with small penalties for the offenses, unwilling witnesses and absentee business owners.

Women are lured to work by ads on the Internet, in newspapers and by word of mouth, according to a 2006 Dallas Morning News report.

And while some of them might have known they were expected to prostitute themselves, the issue of consent can become blurred after their arrival, said Terry Coonan, executive director of the Center for the Advancement of Human Rights at Florida State University.

"Consent is always the question. Did they consent initially, and did they continue to consent?" Coonan told the Dallas Morning News. "Even if they initially consented to doing this, even if they knew they were going to come over and work, did they know they were going to ultimately be held as a slave or not have recourse to leave and do anything else?"

Breaux said Jun and Zhao told police that they were free to come and go as they pleased.

"But that's not necessarily true," Breaux said of cases in general, adding that prostitutes often have a misplaced sense of loyalty to their pimps. "They tend to protect the people that are exploiting them."

Read the full article

Senate Drops Human Trafficking & Smuggling Bill Revision

By Deborah Bulkeley

From Deseret News:

The Senate on Tuesday cited a GOP caucus position when it took back its revision to a House bill that creates state criminal penalties for human trafficking and smuggling.

HB339 had been amended Monday before initial Senate approval to reduce the crime of human smuggling from a second degree felony to a Class A misdemeanor, in order to coordinate with a provision in SB81, a comprehensive bill dealing with illegal immigration.

On Tuesday, Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, said the entire closed GOP caucus had wanted the change, except for Majority Leader Curt Bramble, R-Provo.

The misdemeanor provision had been an agreement reached by Sen. Ross Romero, D-Salt Lake, and the bill's sponsor, Rep. Christopher Herrod, R-Provo, in order to garner the support needed to move the bill from committee to a Senate vote. Romero made clear his frustration at that agreement "being revoked."

Senate Minority Leader Mike Dmitrich, D-Price, also expressed concerns at the political maneuvering.

"Sen. Romero talked to Rep. Herrod in a true and honest-to-goodness way to solve this problem," he said. "To take this so late in the session, and take a caucus position. It sets a bad example."

The arguments against Romero's amendment centered around the severity of human trafficking as modern day slavery. Sen. Carlene Walker, R-Cottonwood Heights, said the committee's agreement does not mean the entire Senate needs to follow suit.

"I don't think I could in good conscious vote for this as a misdemeanor, when here we are talking about making animal torture a felony," she said.

However, under Romero's amendment, human trafficking for forced labor or sexual exploitation would still have been a second degree felony. And both crimes would be aggravated to a first degree felony if they involved death of a smuggled or trafficked person or if they involved sex crimes or victims held against their will for more than 180 days.

Read the full article

Human Trafficking in Zambia

By Kasuba Mulenga

From the Zambia Daily Mail:

Forty-two Congolese nationals on a human trafficking mission to South Africa have been intercepted and detained by the Immigration Department in Lusaka.

Immigration Department public relations officer, Mulako Mbangweta, said in Lusaka yesterday that 26 of those arrested in Lusaka last week were yesterday repatriated to the Democratic Republic of Congo while 16 were still in detention in Kabwe.

“We could not detain the Congolese nationals who were arrested in Lusaka because most of them are women with children as young as six months old,” Ms Mbangweta said.

She said the ones in Kabwe would remain in detention until the department completed its investigations. Those repatriated were arrested in Lusaka’s Kanyama Township some five days ago.“

From the interviews we have conducted so far, they look like they were being trafficked to South Africa. When people are being trafficked, they do not know where they are going and where they are,” she said.

Immigration officers arrested 16 Congolose nationals in Kabwe last week and picked up leads from them that another larger group had proceeded to Lusaka.

An unknown group of human traffickers is behind the scheme to move the Congolese nationals to South Africa.

Read the full article



More info on human trafficking law in Zambia from the U.S. Department of State:

There were reports that persons were trafficked to, from, and within the country. The law prohibits the trafficking of any person for any purpose, but it does not define trafficking. Persons convicted of trafficking were subject to a term of imprisonment from 20 years to life. The law had not been used to prosecute a case of trafficking at year's end. Convictions of the crimes of abduction, assault, or seeking to have sex with a minor could be punished with sentences up to life imprisonment with hard labor.

The government did not collect or maintain data on the extent or nature of trafficking in the country; however, trafficking, particularly in the form of child prostitution was believed to be significant. Female citizens were trafficked within the country and to other parts of Africa and to Europe, and the country was used as a transit point for regional trafficking of women for prostitution. Traffickers fraudulently obtained Zambian travel documents for their victims before proceeding to other destinations. During the year there were reliable reports that women were trafficked to the country for commercial sex work.

Through its social welfare agencies, the government provided counseling, shelter, and protection to victims of child prostitution or referred victims to NGOs that provided such services. There was no formal screening or referral process. In some cases victims have been placed in protective custody at rehabilitation centers or victim support shelters operated by NGOs.

When government officials understand that individuals are victims of trafficking, they do not treat victims as criminals. In identified cases, victims have not been detained, jailed, deported, or prosecuted for violations of other laws. When trafficking investigations have substantiated allegations, the government has encouraged victims to assist with investigation and prosecution. The government did not have its own means of protecting victims and witnesses; however, it arranged for protective custody and security protection through facilities operated by NGOs.

I wonder why in the above article the journalist reports that the trafficking victims being "detained"? Will they be charged with violating other laws as seems possible from the Department of State's report? In what cases does the Zambian government prosecute trafficking victims and does this make sense within the scope of how other countries have structured their human trafficking law? Because one of the underlying factors of trafficking is coercion and deceit, is it just to charge trafficking victims for a crime they did not necessarily intend to commit? I think not.

And lastly, how can you effectively prosecute traffickers if the law doesn't define what trafficking is? That having been said, there has been one conviction since the human trafficking law and the government is making efforts to combat trafficking, but there is clearly a long way to go.



From the Department of State 2007 Trafficking in Persons Report:

Zambia's government sustained a weak anti-trafficking law enforcement effort over the reporting period. Zambia prohibits all forms of trafficking through a 2005 amendment to its penal code, which prescribes penalties of 20 years to life in prison - penalties that are sufficiently stringent and commensurate with those for rape.

The statute does not, however, define trafficking or set out the elements of the offense, thus limiting its utility. The government obtained its first conviction under this statute during the reporting period, but it took minimal additional law enforcement action against traffickers exploiting Zambian children.

During the year, the government, with outside technical help, began drafting a comprehensive anti-trafficking law and policy. In March, police in Serenje arrested a man for attempting to sell his 10-year old son for the equivalent of $215. In January 2007, the High Court found him guilty of trafficking under the 2005 penal code amendment, and sentenced him to 20 years in prison.

In April 2006, immigration officials detained two Chinese women suspected to be trafficking victims as they attempted to board a flight to London using forged travel documents; their handler escaped before he could be taken into custody.

Organ Trafficking: a Fast-Expanding Black Market

From Jane's Information Group:

As global demand for live transplants keeps growing, the shadowy organ trading business is rapidly expanding, dominated by unscrupulous brokers and facilitated by inadequate national legislations, widespread corrupt practices and a general lack of public awareness on the extent of the trade.

The illegal trade in body parts is largely dominated by kidneys because they are in greatest demand and they are the only major organs that can be wholly transplanted with relatively few risks for the living donor.

Organ trafficking accounts for around 10 per cent of the nearly 70,000 kidney transplants performed worldwide annually, although as many as 15,000 kidneys could be trafficked each year.

China, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Brazil, the Philippines, Moldova, and Romania are among the world's leading providers of trafficked organs. If China is known for harvesting and selling organs from executed prisoners, the other countries have been dealing essentially with living donors, becoming stakeholders in the fast-growing human trafficking web.

Trafficked organs are either sold domestically, or exported to be transplanted into patients from the US, Europe, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and especially Israel.

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