Women are the New Coyotes

Source: Corbis

From the New America Media:

Experts, authorities and the smugglers themselves agree that human trafficking networks are entering a new era, in which women have ceased to be the victims – smuggled across the border and often raped along the journey – and have become the ones that pull the strings in smuggling people ("goats," "chickens" or "furniture,” as they call the undocumented). "The old story of the man who runs the ‘coyotaje’ business is now just a myth. It’s finally coming out that the big business of human trafficking is in female hands.

As long as they make it known that they are women, they have lots of business all along the border," explains Marissa Ugarte, a psychologist, lecturer and founder of the Bilateral Safety Corridor Coalition of San Diego, Calif. "The business is a real money-maker," says Ramón Rivera, a DHS spokesperson in Washington, D.C. “These women inspire confidence in the immigrants and when the authorities stop them and take them to court, they give them shorter sentences because they are mothers, daughters, because they are women. But when they get out, they go right back to doing the same thing, or worse – they start going into other areas."

Female coyotes say they run these risks to avoid poverty and for the love of their children.

"We all got into this business out of necessity. Some of us are single mothers, and others have husbands in jail. The fact of the matter is that we’re all on our own. What bastards are gonna blame us for what we do? Who wouldn’t do the same thing if the miserable pay you get in a factory couldn’t be stretched far enough to feed your kids, and you find you can get twice the money for just giving a drink or taking care of a goddamn ‘chicken’ (an undocumented migrant)? Anybody who blames us has never seen their kids cry out of hunger," affirms Esperanza, who smuggles undocumented migrants, money and narcotics in the Nogales, Ariz. region.

But others say drugs and a lust for power are the real forces that drive women to enter the U.S.-Mexico trafficking business. Nearly 90 percent of the women arrested at the Mexican border on smuggling charges are drug addicts, according to the organization Integral Family Development in Nogales.

"No matter how needy you might be, if you are an honest person, you’re not going to get involved in illegal activities. Women like to brag about being more sensitive, more honest and protective (than men) – and that’s not true with these women. Saying they’re doing it for their children is just a pretext. It’s really because they don’t have enough money to feed their addiction," says Susana Padilla Gómez, director of the organization Integral Family Development on the border between Arizona and Sonora, Mexico.

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GAATW releases new website for people involved in anti-trafficking work

Found this update from the La Strada Ukraine website. The Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women unveiled it's new website called "Access to Justice for Trafficked Persons: Centring Rights". The website is, in the words of the authors:

"intended to be a tool for those providing legal assistance or advocating for the rights of trafficked persons during the legal process. The site contains legal resources, relevant publications and guides as well as a forum for sharing information, strategies and experiences so that, ultimately, more individuals who have been trafficked or exploited at work or during the migration process have better recourse to justice...

Trafficked persons are often highly vulnerable and, as a general group, are usually marginalised - whether as illegal and/or low-skilled migrants in destination countries, or through social stigma and poverty in countries of origin. Achieving access to justice for victims of the crime of trafficking therefore requires comprehensive social and legal support, as well as constant analysis of the legal structures in place that make it more difficult for trafficked people to enter into and be empowered by the law. This website aims at facilitating this process."

Now, I'm not actually positive how new this site is. They have back issues of their e-bulletin (in English and Spanish) from April onward so it could be that here in Ukraine, we're slow to catch up :-) Nonetheless, the site offers useful information and discussion related to victims' rights, witness protection, the right to information (as it concerns VoTs), etc.

It also provides research material under the "Legal Resouces" section including international legal documents, protocols, conventions, guidelines, principles, resolutions, and agreements, as well as specialized articles related to legal issues in combating trafficking and assisting victims. There is a section on case law and decisions, but nothing is posted yet. Also good for research is their "Country Information" site, which breaks down by region and country (not exhaustive, of course. In fact, I was disappointed to find a lack of Ukraine) national anti-TIP legislation and their list of publications. Finally, if you need to speak to someone directly, they offer a contact list of their member legal partners in various countries.

Also useful is their interactive e-blog where people post about cases they have found to be either successful methods of combating trafficking or vice versa. The section on "Testimonies" is still blank, and it may be for good reason. Often times I've found that people want to hear specific cases of the horror trafficking victims face in order for the problem to become more real to them. However, as you can imagine, victims are very sensitive about their experiences and even anonymous or stories published with false identities put a permanence on their story that their often not comfortable with.

The point being, if you're looking for legal research or information, this site has some. I think it is far from comprehensive or rather exhaustive, but once it reaches that stage, it could prove to be an important information sharing tool.

Follow-up to a comment

A comment was posted by anonymous to my story on the Greek sex trafficking ring that was busted with the following article:

"Sex Trafficking Worker May Be Back With Traffickers"

The article discusses a trafficking victim from China who was brought to the UK under the guise of paying off a debt she owed on a loan to cover her parent's medical expenses. Essentially, she was forced to work without pay, as the debt and interest rate became insurmountable. After being rescued by the police, and the story made headlines in the local area, the victim became fearful for her family's life in China and fled. The police are unsure where she is.

Following the interviews the investigators placed her into safe accommodation. She would inevitably have had to go through a number of immigration checks and more lengthy interviews before eventually being flown home.

Det Con Jones believes the possible delay made Shirley take drastic action.

She said: "She knew she still had the debt to pay off. She knew the raid had been disclosed in the local papers and feared the man who collected the money would read it. She was fearful word would get back to Hong Kong and feared what would happen to her parents."To her, that threat was very real. She was desperate."

"While the victim wasn't shackled or kept in chains she told us her passport was taken from her and she was threatened not to leave. She was made fully aware that they knew exactly where her elderly parents lived. She told us: 'you cannot trust the Chinese police to help. They are not like you'."

"Her number one priority was her parents. There was no other family to care for them, only her. She would rather go back to Hong Kong and face the guy there, face that punishment than it be imposed on her parents."

It is thought Shirley fled the safe accommodation just hours later and disappeared.

Investigators are unable to say where she is now, or whether she made it back to her parents.There is even a concern she may have been recaptured by the traffickers. Reports have found trafficked women who escape the clutches of their pimps are often tracked down, often at ports or airports, and threatened back into the trade.

I thought the headline was pretty misleading. When I saw it at first, I thought the article was accusatory that after the help she received, she turned around and went right back to the trade. This story, to me, highlights two important points.

1.) The treatment of victims is a complicated process and just because a victim is out of the immediate situation does not mean they feel safe nor are they completely out of the grasps of their traffickers. Just because the trafficker was caught in the country of destination does not mean those in the country of origin will not try to silence their victims or their families.

2.) The responsibility of the media to be careful about how they report trafficking cases. Due to the multiple layers of running a trafficking ring, breaking up one part of it does not ensure the rest of the organization will not threaten the victim. In Ukraine, some of the organizations I work with even do training for the media on how to provide victim-sensitive reporting on human trafficking. There were many problems with reports that blamed the victim, gave specific names, etc. All of which either re-traumatized the victim or put him/her back in harms way.

Now with all that said, there are cases where victims end up returning to their traffickers and pimps. Either they feel to threatened to continue to talk to the police, or their trafficker has made direct threats to his or her family, or the abuse they suffered puts them in a position that they feel compelled to return to their abuser. It could be they fear returning to their own country and community, either due to the humiliation they will suffer or knowing the economic situation hasn't changed. The situations all need to be considered when providing aid to a victim in order to build the most effective services possible. It also needs to be considered by the governments who want to stop this problem as far as creating effective criminal code and social services.

When Handouts Keep Coming, the Food Line Never Ends

Rethinking how to make a difference

From the Washington Post:

By Mark Winne, former director of Connecticut's Hartford Food System

How can anyone not get caught up in the annual Thanksgiving turkey frenzy? At the food bank I co-founded in Hartford, Conn., November always meant cheering the caravans of fowl-laden trucks that roared into our parking lot. They came on the heels of the public appeals for "A bird in every pot," "No family left without a turkey" and our bank's own version -- "A turkey and a 20 [dollar bill]."

Like pompom girls leading a high school pep rally, we revved up the community's charitable impulse to a fever pitch with radio interviews, newspaper stories and dramatic television footage to extract the last gobbler from the stingiest citizen. After all, our nation's one great day of social equity was upon us. In skid row soup kitchens and the gated communities of hedge-fund billionaires alike, everyone was entitled, indeed expected, to sit down to a meal of turkey with all the fixings.

And here we are, putting on the same play again this year. But come Friday, as most of us stuff more leftovers into our bulging refrigerators, 35 million Americans will take their place in line again at soup kitchens, food banks and food stamp offices nationwide.

The good souls who staff America's tens of thousands of emergency food sites will renew their pleas to donors fatigued by their burst of holiday philanthropy. Food stamp workers will return to their desks and try to convince mothers that they can feed their families on the $3 per person per day that the government allots them. The cycle of need -- always present, rarely sated, never resolved -- will continue. Unless we rethink our devotion to food donation.

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The author discusses several key points that are relevant to the larger discussion of addressing socioeconomic issues in general, beyond hunger and poverty.

1) As sociologist Janet Poppendieck made clear in her book "Sweet Charity," there is something in the food-banking culture and its relationship with donors that dampens the desire to empower the poor and take a more muscular, public stand against hunger... It may have been that a donor-recipient co-dependency had developed. Both parties were trapped in an ever-expanding web of immediate gratification that offered the recipients no long-term hope of eventually achieving independence and self-reliance. As the food bank's director told me later, "The more you provide, the more demand there is."

True we can donate and hand out food to alleviate hunger, but doesn't the Chinese proverb "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" also apply here? What is the risk of the food bank approach? Does it create a form of dependency, whether it be emotional dependency and fulfillment on the part of the donors and volunteers or nourishment for the hungry?

2) Food banks are a dominant institution in this country, and they assert their power at the local and state levels by commanding the attention of people of good will who want to address hunger. Their ability to attract volunteers and to raise money approaches that of major hospitals and universities. While none of this is inherently wrong, it does distract the public and policymakers from the task of harnessing the political will needed to end hunger in the United States. The risk is that the multibillion-dollar system of food banking has become such a pervasive force in the anti-hunger world, and so tied to its donors and its volunteers, that it cannot step back and ask if this is the best way to end hunger, food insecurity and their root cause, poverty.

One theme rings true from my experience in the non-profit world: it is not only about having the ambition and heart to make a positive difference in the world, but knowing how to do so that counts. It is amazing to see the support and resources offered to address issues like hunger and human trafficking, but at the same time it behooves us to take a step back and understand the forces that create the problem so we know that our efforts are truly making a difference and empowering people to improve their lives.

For example, it is great to see that many countries have adopted anti-human trafficking laws in the past few years, but what type of legislation will most effectively support trafficking victims and put offenders behind bars? Do we offer victims services only if they cooperate with law enforcement to pursue a case against the trafficker? If we tighten immigration, does this decrease the flow of migrants or simply increase the number of those who migrate illegally because of the scarce economic opportunities that exist at home (Latin America, Asia, Africa, take your pick...) and are thus susceptible to exploitation? These are questions that need to be addressed. Creating an anti-trafficking law is a good start, but considering the issues involved in trafficking so that the law can best support survivors and prosecute traffickers is something that still needs work.

My point is, simply because something is being done, doesn't necessarily mean that that something will ultimately help defeat the problem. Whether discussing hunger or human trafficking, if it doesn't focus on empowering the vulnerable, we run the risk of perpetuating a dependence on hand outs and not truly putting an end to the issue.

3) The author comments on watching a food bank van unload cereal and fresh produce in a poor neighborhood: No one made any attempt to determine whether the recipients actually needed the food, nor to encourage the recipients to seek other forms of assistance, such as food stamps. The food distribution was an unequivocal act of faith based on generally accepted knowledge that this was a known area of need. The recipients seemed reasonably grateful, but the staff members and volunteers seemed even happier, having been fortified by the belief that their act of benevolence was at least mildly appreciated.

The author responds:

I often wondered what would happen if the collective energy that went into soliciting and distributing food were put into ending hunger and poverty instead. Surely it would have a sizable impact if 3,000 Hartford-area volunteers, led by some of Connecticut's most privileged and respected citizens, showed up one day at the state legislature, demanding enough resources to end hunger and poverty. Multiply those volunteers by three or four -- the number of volunteers in the state's other food banks and hundreds of emergency food sites -- and you would have enough people to dismantle the Connecticut state capitol brick by brick.

But what we have done instead is to continue down a road that never comes to an end. Like transportation planners who add more lanes to already clogged highways, we add more space to our food banks in the futile hope of relieving the congestion.

My thoughts:

This is a critical point in the context of human trafficking. Trafficking is an issue that touches on economics, politics and culture. It is a product of under achieving economies and the criminal elements that move in to monopolize on the desperation of the vulnerable. It is a product of governments whose laws formerly arrested trafficking victims on charges such as illegal immigration and prostitution. It is the product of a culture of corruption that results from low pay and tempting bribes. It is the product of gender bias and the feminization of migration as a result of the growing demand from industries like domestic work and entertaining where the risk of exploitation runs high.

Anti-trafficking laws are good, but it cannot stop there. Law enforcement task forces are good, but it cannot stop there. Non-governmental organizations' efforts to rehabilitate and reintegrate survivors are good, but it cannot stop there. Trafficking is ultimately an issue of poverty and the lack of opportunities to provide a stable livelihood. People need jobs. This is where the private sector can step in. This is where development of local, stagnant economies becomes key. The presence of human trafficking in a country that is a source for victims is really an indication of economic under achievement.

At the end of the day, I am grateful to have worked with organizations that support survivors of trafficking. Without them, so many victims would be worse off and never have received the help or support they deserve. At the same time, serious consideration needs to be given to the economic situations that create trafficking. In the words of the author Mark Winne, without addressing poverty and unemployment we will ultimately be creating more lanes on an already clogged highway.

It is in our best interests to once in a while take a step back and analyze where our efforts are leading us. The need to understand the context and act accordingly with issues such as poverty and human trafficking is critical. Otherwise we run the risk of acting without truly addressing the issue. Otherwise people will still go hungry. Otherwise people will still be enslaved.

It is not only about having the ambition and heart to make a difference in the world, but knowing how to do so that counts.

The Art of Trafficking?

Human Rights Watch questions Guggenheim museum labor

From the International Herald Tribune:

Guggenheim museum officials have not addressed concerns about how workers would be treated during construction of a Frank Gehry-designed art museum in the United Arab Emirates, a human rights organization said.

Construction has not started, but the Persian Gulf nation has a "systemic" worker abuse problem at other construction sites in the booming region, Human Rights Watch spokeswoman Sarah Leah Whitson said Tuesday. "We know how construction workers are used and abused in the U.A.E.," she said. "We know with confidence that workers are going to be subjected to these conditions unless the museum does something to insist otherwise."

Whitson said the museum foundation had failed to respond to numerous requests for meetings to discuss how to ensure that workers are not exploited. "If they ignore the abuse of construction workers so common in the U.A.E., they will put the Guggenheim's reputation at risk, as well as the laborers."

Last year, Human Rights Watch issued a report on labor conditions in the Middle East, saying the United Arab Emirates had "abdicated almost entirely from its responsibility to protect workers' rights." Labor Minister Ali Al Kaabi said the United Arab Emirates was increasing its enforcement of already strict laws on labor rights and human trafficking and was increasing the number of labor inspectors. While acknowledging the United Arab Emirates still had a long way to go, Al Kaabi disputed many of the report's findings, including allegations that the government was not penalizing companies for violations.

The United Arab Emirates already has issued laws addressing many of the abuses in the Human Rights Watch report: workers' salaries and passports held back by companies, dangerous working conditions, shady labor agents whose fees keep workers locked in debt and labor law enforcers beholden to connected companies, not to workers.

Read the full article

Making a Difference One Word at a Time

A friend told me about this ingenious website the other day.

It's called Free Rice.

It does two things:

1. Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free.
2. Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.

This is made possible by the sponsors who advertise on the site.

Fun. Simple. Effective.

ADDICTIVE.

I love how a game can be utilized to a) feed the hungry, b) entertain you and c) benefit corporations through advertising.

Although not the Achilles heal to end world hunger, efforts like Free Rice are effective, tangible methods of supporting those who address the world's socioeconomic issues (in this case the rice is donated to the United Nations World Food Program).

How can this creative, out-of-the-box thinking be used to address human trafficking?

Any ideas?

I'm all ears.

Large International Sex Trafficking Ring Broken Up in Greece

Received a notice today about this break in Greece:

Greek police on Thursday said they had broken a major European sex trafficking network by arresting 30 people in Athens and Salonika after tracking the group's activities for nearly a year. In a swoop operation code-named New Life carried out with Interpol and Europol assistance, police on Wednesday night arrested seven men and two women suspected of working for the trafficking ring. Another 21 people were arrested during raids on stripclubs, bars and brothels for breaking laws on prostitution, which is strictly controlled here.

Police also freed two Russian women anda Romanian woman held captive by the traffickers. They are still seeking another 15 Greeks, four Russians, three Germans and a Turk believed to be part of the network.

The traffickers lured Eastern European women into prostitution through bogus job-hunting agencies and travel agencies they ran in Moldova, Romania, Russia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan, the Greek police department said in a statement.The women were furnished with fake Lithuanian passports and sent to Austria, Britain, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland, depending on local demand, the police said.(AFP)

IHT also added:

About 200 police officers raided houses and businesses in Athens and Thessaloniki in an operation overseen by the international police organizations Europol and Interpol. Thirty suspects were arrested — nine gang members and 21 associates, police said...

Police said in a statement that the police action had "broken up one of the biggest criminal gangs active in the sexual exploitation of immigrant women in our country." The gang operated in at least four European Union countries as well as several nations outside the EU.

The raid, which had been planned for a year, targeted 15 apartments, offices and other properties in the two cities. Police confiscated five cars used for transporting women along with mobile telephones, cash and around two dozen passports.

This is important news, especially as the response to human trafficking by the Greek government attracted criticism from international groups like Human Rights Watch in the recent past. According to IOM Mission statistics, Greece is among the higher destinations of Ukrainian victims of trafficking.