CNN: Sex Trafficking in Indonesia

CNN Headline News anchor Richard Lui reports on the disturbing realities of Asian sex trade. Posing as a sex tourist, Lui looks into the realities of sex worker trafficking.

Learn more about sex trafficking in Indonesia

A Look at the Times Special: Running in the Shadows - For Runaways, Sex Buys Survival

From Jennifer Hollinger:

In the second article of a two article series, Ian Urbina of the New York Times explored the growing number of teen runaways on US streets as a result of the recession. In this excellent article, Urbina discusses how teens survive a harsh life on the streets. For many teens, this means resorting to survival sex. According to the article, nearly 1/3 of runaway children engage in survival sex for food, drugs, or a place to stay. I suspect that the actual number of runaways who engage in survival sex is far higher.

I was immediately struck by how similar the situation of the teen runaways was to that of someone trafficked for sexual exploitation and how easily these two phenomena could intertwine. Pimps used the same methods a trafficker would to coerce women into working for them; seducing the women and girls, convincing them they were “in love,” initiating a sexual relationship and then demanding that they do them a favor by having sex with friends or simply forcing them to have sex for money. Take, for example, the story of 17-year-old Nicole, who ran away from home in Medford, OR. “I didn’t know the town, and the police would just send me back to the group home,’ Nicole said, explaining why she did not cut off the relationship once her first boyfriend became a pimp and why she did not flee prostitution when she had the chance. ‘I’d also fallen for the guy. I felt trapped in a way I can’t really explain.’

In addition to runaways, over a dozen convicted pimps were interviewed by the New York Times. According to Urbina, incarcerated pimps described the complicated roles they played as father figure, landlord, boss and boyfriend to the girls who worked for them. They said they went after girls with low self-esteem, prior sexual experience and a lack of options. Again, the overlap with the conditions leading to human trafficking was alarming. Those who wish to exploit vulnerable people have a common vocabulary of abuse, manipulation and deceit.

While there are those who seek to exploit young runaways, there are others who are doing their best to help, including anti-trafficking units in metropolitan police departments and the FBI. A poignant interview with a 16-year-old runaway who was forced into prostitution highlighted the fine line that the FBI prosecutor had to walk in this so-called flip interview. In essence, he had to persuade her to leave her pimp without actually admitting that she had one while simultaneously convincing her to testify against him, or flip on him. The irony of this situation is that, were this same girl 16-year-old girl to have sex with a male over the age of 18, he would end up in jail but, because money changed hands, he would simply be fined and she would be arrested for solicitation. If a 16-year-old child is too young to legally consent to sex, how can we simultaneously consider her old enough to sell it?

Overall, this two article series was highly informative and gave some good insights into the phenomenon of survival sex by teen runaways and the systematic abuse they face at the hands of their pimps. The article effectively highlights one of the fundamental flaws in the US legal system. We criminalize prostitutes, even those who are under 18, but we let off the johns with barely a slap on the wrist. The people who pay for sex promulgate this system of abuse and yet they suffer little fear of punishment from the legal system.

While much was done well in this article, more of a connection could have been made between human trafficking and teen prostitution, especially considering that Urbina quotes the head of a Boston anti-trafficking task force in the piece. The methods of exploitation employed by a pimp and a trafficker share many similarities and addressing the criminalization of prostitutes could do much to aid both trafficking survivors and teen runaways who are forced into survival sex.

Go here to read the full article.

What you are doing for civil rights today?

Inside the Ladies Locker Room, is running a Civil Rights Online Video Contest to recognize the efforts of civil rights activists.

They are asking people to submit a short video answering, "What you are doing for civil rights today?" and win $300 worth in prizes.

According to their site, the winner "will receive an official plaque from the Inside the Ladies Locker Room TV Talk Show recognizing their work in the Civil Rights arena. S/he will be invited to a taping of the Inside the Ladies Locker Room, and his/her winning video will play during the show. The winner will also receive Vegas Movie Studio HD editing software and iPod 8G Nano."

The contest ends 12.1.09 at 12 a.m. PST.

For official rules and to enter, please click here.

5-year-old Shaniya Nicole Davis Found Dead, Mother Accused of Sex Trafficking

On Saturday, November 14th, North Carolina police charged Antoinette Nicole Davis with human trafficking of her 5-year-old daughter for commercial sex. According to CBS News, " North Carolina police now say that the mother of 5-year-old Shaniya Nicole Davis, who has been missing since Tuesday, forced her child into sexual servitude and prostitution. . . Fayetteville police charged Antoinette Nicole Davis on Saturday with charges including human trafficking, child abuse involving prostitution, filing a false police report and resisting, delaying or obstructing an officer. "

Read the Full Article here.

On Monday, November 16th, the girl's body was found. Charges have been filed against Antoinette Nicole Davis and Mario Andrette McNeill, who was charged with first-degree kidnapping. According to the Associated Press, "[police] said surveillance footage from a Sanford hotel showed him carrying Shaniya. Authorities said McNeill admitted taking the girl, though his attorney said he will plead not guilty."

Read the Full Article here.

According to CBS, "Lockhart [Shaniya Davis' father] and his sister, who live out of state, cared for the girl until last month, when she went to live with her mother. Davis had worked to get her life together and had been working for at least six months and gotten a place of her own, Lockhart said. . . 'She's a precious, little angel, full of joy," Lockhart said. "A little reserved when you first meet her, but once she gets to know you, she just runs around, plays and won't leave you alone.'"

Read the Full Article here.

WNCT, a North Carolina CBS affiliate, points out that, "As tragic and troubling as the Shaniya Davis case is, it’s perhaps just as troubling to know that it’s not an isolated incident. Investigators say human trafficking is the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world."

Read the Full Article here.

The Exceptions to the Rule

The US has enacted both federal and state legislation to combat trafficking, and the US also has ostensibly made a financial commitment to ending slavery in the US and around the world. At the same time, however, a number of "exceptions to the rules" in US policies and practices create situations where slavery and exploitation can flourish. Intricate and contradictory visa policies and industries that are exempt from certain labor laws can help slavery go undetected.

According to the National Labor Relations Board, "Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act ("NLRA") in 1935 to protect the rights of employees and employers, to encourage collective bargaining, and to curtail certain private sector labor and management practices, which can harm the general welfare of workers, businesses and the U.S. economy." This act was key to bringing fair labor conditions to workers, and is an important source of protection for workers today. However, as Kevin Bales and Ron Soodalter point out in their recent book The Slave Next Door, farmworkers and domestics are excluded from its protections (263).

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers states that "Unlike laborers in other industries, agricultural laborers are not covered by the NLRA so the growers who employ them are under no obligation to dialogue with worker representatives. And workers have no recourse to the National Labor Relations Board if they are fired or discriminated against for raising issues with their employers." This exception for farmworkers results in a situation where workers have little recourse and trafficking can more easily occur.

I have written before about a particular egregious exception to the rule, when diplomatic immunity shields diplomats from the consequences of keeping a domestic slave. Bales and Soodalter argue, however, that other polices relating to domestic workers make these people particularly vulnerable, whether they are employed by a diplomat or not. First, as noted earlier, like farmworkers, domestic workers are exempt from the National Labor Relations Act.

Second, depending on the type of visa they hold, domestic workers face very different situations. Bales and Soodalter point out that J-1 visa holders, who largely are young, educated, middle-class European women, have a greater system of protections in place, from a mandatory orientation, formal networks with other workers in her area, mandatory sessions with her employers and a counselor each month, background checks on employers, and strict regulations about hours, pay, and working conditions (36). Holders of A-3 or G-5 visas. who are more likely to come from impoverished backgrounds, have no such protections.

Moreover, workers who hold A-3 or G-5 visas are "permit[ed]. . . to work only for that one employer [who sponsored the visa]," according to the Break the Chain Campaign. The Break the Chain Campaign, which works on behalf of domestic workers' rights in the DC area, goes on to note that "A domestic servant who leaves the employ of her official sponsor is considered “out of status” by the Immigration and Naturalization Service and is subject to deportation." Thus, though under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act threat of deportation is considered a form of coercion, for many domestic workers this threat is very real, making them especially vulnerable to exploitation and slavery.

I find such exceptions uniquely frustrating. On the one hand, expanding the National Labor Relations Act to cover domestic workers and farmworkers, and changing visa policies to protect all guest workers is possible. The frame works are in place, all we need is the political will. On the other hand, I know that any efforts in this area will likely face extreme opposition.

Open Sourced On-line Modern Anti-slavery Event Tomorrow

Best Practices to Combat Human Trafficking: Forced Labor - an on-line event

• When: Monday, November 16, 2009, 10 am - 12 pm (EST)

• With:
• E. Benjamin Skinner (moderator) - Fellow, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School; Author of A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery
• Karen McLaughlin - Director, Massachusetts Human Trafficking Task Force
  Roger Plant - Head, Special Action Programme to Combat Forced Labour, International Labour Organisation
• Anna Rodriguez - Founder and Director, Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking

• URL: For more information and to register, visit the event page here.
  

• Co-sponsored by the Initiative to Stop Human Trafficking and the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation’s Government Innovators Network
  
  This webinar is hosted online. Registration is required, and free of charge.

ICE: Human Trafficking PSA, Prostitution

Human trafficking and human smuggling represent significant risks to homeland security. Would-be terrorists and criminals can often access the same routes and utilize the same methods being used by human smugglers. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements Human Smuggling and Trafficking Unit works to identify criminals and organizations involved in these illicit activities.

Human Trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery. Sex trafficking occurs when a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or when the person induced to perform such acts has not attained 18 years of age.

For more information, please go to www.ice.gov.