Trafficking of Men: Last to the response effort, but certainly not least

Very early in my interviews, I heard from multiple organizations that the trafficking of men is a serious problem that lacks considerable research, and that an international effort is underway to acknowledge and combat this problem. Some countries do not even recognize male victims or even labor victims. The State Department included some of these issues in their 2007 TIP Report including adding "servitude on the high seas" and "parity in anti-labor trafficking legislation" to their Topics of Special Interest. This month in the Global Eye on Human Trafficking, a bulletin produced by the IOM with basically the same purpose as this blog (to spread information, news, and analysis on human trafficking) but is created from direct IOM research, the main article is about trafficking of men.

As the article points out, the common approach to combating human trafficking has focused on combating trafficking in women and children. However, the problem is becoming more and more obvious among male victims as well, particularly concerning post-trafficking needs. According to a study done with 685 male trafficking victims from Ukraine and Belarus who were assisted by the IOM in 2004-2006, the study has found the following:

• the majority of victims are adult (18-44);
• the majority of these victims were trafficked for labor purposes to Russia; other purposes include sexual exploitation, adoption, criminal activities, and begging;
• Many had dependent children, and cited this as the need to find better work;
• Their experiences mostly began with situations that seemed like legal migration- contracts, (seemingly) reliable companies, etc.

Both Ukrainian and Belarusian men face exploitative, often traumatic working and living conditions, which, in many circumstances, compromised their physical and mental well-being. Men worked six to seven days each week, regardless of destination country or form of work, and work days were commonly 12 hours or more. Most men reported severely substandard living conditions while trafficked – living in unheated rooms, cramped together with others in unhygienic situations and being provided with limited and poor quality food. A combination of abuse (or threats of abuse), non-payment of salary, debts and restricted freedom of movement served to keep many men in their trafficking situations.

Most men exited their trafficking situation on their own (77.6% Belarusian men; 46.9% Ukrainian men) and often only when they realized that they would not be paid for their work. However, the ability to exit trafficking differed substantially, with some men physically prevented from leaving, confined, under constant guard and exposed to violence or threats of violence.

The article also points out serious difficulties in providing assistance. Even when the victim has been identified, even when the needs of the victim to reintegrate are identified, and even if the victim recognizes that he has been exploited (some refuse to say so), they rarely take to the idea that they are a victim. The recommendation, therefore, is to take gender dimensions into formulating a response in every step- prevention, identification, reintegration, prosecution.

Based on the information provided in this study, the IOM will be releasing a paper, "Trafficking of men - a trend less considered" as a part of their CTM Thematic Research Series in 2008.

As an additional resource, this paper focuses mostly on the trafficking of men in and out of Canada, but has background on the global situation and notes to other resources on the topic. Trafficking in Men: an Exploration of an Overlooked Phenomenon

Think it doesn't happen in the US?

Region in the Philippines Needs to Improve Anti-Trafficking Efforts

Source: Corbis

From GMA News:

Authorities on Monday admitted that Caraga region is lagging behind in the campaign against human trafficking and violence against women and children, affirming surveys by non-government organizations that showed the prevalence of trafficking of women and minors in the region.

In a press conference, lawyer Marilyn Pintor, Gender and Development-Regional Development Coordinating Council (GAD-RDCC) chair, some – if not majority – of local government agencies lack awareness on and, thus, fail to give priority to projects aimed at protecting women and children.

In fact, Pintor – who is concurrently the regional director of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) – said that Caraga courts have yet to convict alleged violators of Republic Act 9262 or the Act Defining Violence against Women and their Children as well as the Anti-human Trafficking law.

Edna Hontiveros, vice chair of the Gender and Development-Regional Development Coordinating Council said funds allocated for gender and development programs are not being used by local government units for this purpose. “What is unfortunate was some used these funds as milking cow," Hontiveros said.

Read the full article

Child Trafficking in Africa

This article shows how cultural practices can promote human trafficking.

From Reuters:

The U.N. Children's Fund UNICEF estimates that 1.2 million children are trafficked every year into what it calls "the modern-day equivalent of slavery".

This trafficking takes many forms in West Africa, encouraged by a tradition of "placing" young children with families of wealthier relatives to receive an education or learn a trade. "It's a high-risk practice," said Serigne Mor Mbaye, a staff member of U.S.-based non-profit development agency Plan International. "Many of those who are placed are victims of abuse. This traditional practice continues to happen, but (social) solidarity does not function like before," he said, adding that many children are placed these days with unrelated strangers.

The Plan research in Togo found most trafficked children went to Nigeria, girls generally as domestic servants and boys working in agriculture, markets or serving food. Different types of child trafficking networks have sprung up in other parts of West Africa.

Police in tiny Guinea-Bissau uncovered a trafficking network last week when they found over 50 young boys headed to Senegal, where hundreds of children sent from neighboring countries to attend Koranic schools end up begging for coins on street corners.

The child trafficking debate has been revived by the arrest last month in Chad of French humanitarian activists on child kidnapping charges over a bid to fly 103 children to Europe. The children were presented as orphans from Darfur, even though most turned out to be from villages in the Chad/Sudan border area and had at least one living parent.

Read the full article

Migraine of Migrant Children

Source: Corbis

From the Decan Herald:

The cases of trafficking in migrant children has been steadily increasing by the year in Bangalore.

Not less than 400 children, mostly girls, migrate to the City every year and ready-made fodder for human trafficking. The cases of trafficking in migrant children has been steadily increasing by the year. Almost 70 per cent of these child migrants are trafficked in one form or another. The bulk of trafficked children are migrant labourers. While most trafficked children are girls, increasingly boys are being recruited in the sex industry, besides for menial labour. According to an NGO working among migrant children, most of the these children who come to the City belong to lower echelons of the society: Lower castes like SC/STs, minority religious and ethnic groups and broken families. “Most children trafficked are from rural areas. But trafficking from other urban centres are also on the rise,” reveals C C Poulose, State Convener, Campaign Against Child Trafficking- Karnataka.

Children are mostly trafficked for labour. “Trafficking children for the purposes of domestic servitude, bonded labour, or work in hazardous industries, factories, restaurants and construction sites has grown. The number is growing as children are perceived as commodities prone to easy manipulation, nimble in work and can be exploited for a longer period,” he says. The mushrooming of unlicensed and unregistered orphanages, faith based welfare/charity homes have opened up a whole new avenue for trafficking of children, avers this social worker. Children are sold and relinquished at these institutions, some are picked up if found abandoned or missing, some are voluntarily handed over by parents.

Read the full article

Well Intentioned, but Potentially Harmful...

This article has been brought to my attention several times over the last few days and I think it would be good to break it down a bit.

It's entitled, "Escaping El Salvador's sex traffickers" and it's by Linda Pressly who writes for the Crossing Continents program for the BBC. As a matter of principle, I'm not going to copy the information directly from the article, because I believe this is an example of reporting that was intended to bring to light the plight of one young woman from Central America who was trafficked to El Salvador under the guise of a lawful job as a waitress, but was instead thrown into a brothel and suffered from physical and sexual abuse. She finally made it back home and is preparing to tesify against the traffickers who were arrested in the bust by San Salvador police.

Sergeant Jose Ayala of the Police Trafficking Unit was involved in helping rescue this young woman as well as others. He responded to the alarm of the victim's family member who had been contacted by the victim from San Salvador.

The article itself is a stark and realistic description of what a victim of trafficking suffers from and how the process happens. I thought the descriptions of the guilt the victim felt, the extreme depression and loneliness as well as the danger the victim still faces all contribute to a better overall picture of the reality of trafficking.

However, I take major issues with this article for multiple reasons.

1.) It reveals the real names of the victim and her caregiver. At least, there is absolutely no indication otherwise. It reveals specific details about the case, and is to specific about the current location of the victim. This type of reporting could potentially put the victim back in harms way if members of the trafficking network are still at large.

2.) There is not one statement from the victim. Her story is told entirely by her godmother. There is no indication the victim wanted to tell her story, or wanted her trauma to be advertised in a public manner. Consent is not present at all. This quote from the godmother, in particular, infuriated me:

"I am speaking out to you to say to any single mother or any adolescent, 'If you are offered a good job, do not be dazzled by the high salaries, because the price you pay is too heavy'," she says.

"We do not always have the courage to talk about trafficking, but we must be open about these things so this story is not repeated in other families."

It's not necessarily what the godmother said that upsets me. It indicates that she was well-intentioned to help other families prevent this tragedy from happening to someone they love. And I understand she is distraught by the whole event, too.

But the author should have been more responsible! There are ways of writing this kind of story with the same powerful effect on readers without revealing so many details that it runs the risk of putting the victim back in danger or of retraumatizing her by making her story permanently public. Especially if no traffickers have actually been convicted and there is no indication that the victim actually wanted it to be told. The article offers better protection of the traffickers than it does the victim! It even acknowledges that few people have actually been convicted of the crime in Central America. So you release an article with details about a victim before her traffickers have been convicted in a part of the world notorious for not convicting traffickers? This author needs to learn a way to report this problem responsibly. Her writing style is effective, but if she contributes to the victim's suffering, it doesn't mean a damn thing.

Don't Believe the Hype?

Social Networking Sites Used for Human Trafficking



A friend pointed out to me:

This article seemed really fishy to me, so i looked into the publication. It turns out the Edmonton Sun is a tabloid, a pretty typical (i.e., trashy) one as far as I can tell except that it also has a blatantly conservative/reactionary ideological bias. I'd be skeptical of anything this paper publishes. In the case of this article, furthermore, the portrayal of online networking sites as dangerous breeding grounds for criminal perversion might as well have come out of Bill O'Reilly.

*Thanks Noah, now read on with a grain of salt...

From the Edmonton Sun:

City cops are investigating two suspected human-trafficking rings believed to be part of an international network that enslaves hundreds of young Albertans each year, many of whom are forced into the sex trade in Las Vegas.

Staff Sgt. Kevin Galvin, head of the Edmonton police organized crime and gang units, said because the investigations are still underway, he wouldn’t give specific details.

He said that while human-trafficking “criminal enterprises” have operated in Western Canada for at least 20 years – and for decades longer in central Canada – they’re more sophisticated than ever before.

They do most of their recruiting on social networking websites like Facebook and MySpace, choosing naïve or vulnerable victims for “grooming” who are right around 18 years old in order to avoid detection by authorities looking for predators after underage kids.

Asked how many young Albertans are caught up in this web each year, Galvin replied simply, “hundreds.” Most are women, he said, but young men are also targets. Galvin said that typically, a man will develop an online relationship with the victim, selling himself as a glamorous high roller.

Once he’s begun to reel in the victim, he makes a date to meet her. A whirlwind romance follows. “She gets the red carpet treatment,” Galvin explained, “Limos, expensive restaurants, VIP rooms at night clubs.

Everything mirrors the pop culture ideal of good times. These guys can read the girls really well. She thinks he’s her boyfriend.” After four or five dizzyingly spectacular dates, the predator will invite her to a private party...

Read the full article

Human Trafficking Film: Holly

From the Press Telegram:

In March 2002, Guy Jacobson, on vacation near Phnom Penh, Cambodia, was surrounded by 15 girls, aggressively soliciting him for prostitution. One 5-year-old girl told Jacobson, "I yum yum very good." She begged Jacobson for money and said the madam of her brothel would beat her if she returned empty-handed. Jacobson gave the girl $20, and she left. But Jacobson didn't forget. That encounter is recreated word for word in the new independent film "Holly," about a 12-year-old Vietnamese girl who has been sold by her impoverished family and smuggled into Cambodia where she is forced to work as a prostitute.

"When I realized how much of a global problem it is, a light bulb went off and I decided to write a movie about it," said Jacobson. The numbers are huge and reach into all countries. Every year, more than 1 million children, women and men around the world are sold into sexual slavery, according to UNICEF.

View the trailer


"Holly" was shot on location in Cambodia, including several scenes in actual brothels and Phnom Penh's infamous Svay Pak, also known as K 11 (it's 11 kilometers from Phnom Penh). For years, that notorious red-light village has been the premiere destination for thousands of child molesters and sex tourists coming to Cambodia to prey on children, some as young as 5 years old, for as little as $5.

View interviews with the actors, director and film crew


The 190-day production schedule for "Holly" began in January 2005, and it seemed like no one in Cambodia wanted "Holly" made.

Less than 12 hours before the first day of shooting, director Guy Moshe - with an armed bodyguard - sat in a hotel lobby counting $60,000 in cash to a local gangster - also with an armed bodyguard - to secure the release of the film's sound equipment.

During filming in and around the K 11, which is reported to be owned by the Vietnamese mafia, the cast and crew worked under heavy protection from guards armed with AK-47s.

Moshe, 33, says he knew ahead of time filming would be difficult and potentially dangerous, but "I went out and did it anyway. It was a job that had to get done." No one was hurt during production, he says.

Read the full article

Through the eyes of actor Ron Livingston, who plays a down and out good-hearted poker player, Holly effectively portrays the depravity of sex trafficking and the twisted system in which it operates.

*Visit the Priority Films website for more information on Holly