East West Players Perform Reading on Modern-Day Slavery and Trafficking in the U.S.

On Thursday, January 22nd, the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST) will host a reading of "The Girls from Afar" by East West Players to help bring awareness to slavery and trafficking in Los Angeles and the US.

According to their press release, CAST is a leader in the fight against human trafficking, and East West Players is one of the nation's premier Asian American theatre organizations. They have joined with a dozen other organizations in Southern California to bring awareness to the fact that 17,000 people are trafficked into the US every year.

The reading is part of the "From Slavery to Freedom" month-long campaign led by CAST "to encourage victims to seek help and let them know they will not be treated as criminals, inform the general public about the existence of modern-day slavery, and to inspire a national movement to eradicate slavery and human trafficking once and for all."

According to the news release, "The Girls from Afar" tells the story of two worlds colliding when a young girl comes face-to-face with two women her parents have kept hidden for many years and have used as modern-day slaves in their home. The reading will be followed by a panel discussion to explore in more depth the issue of slavery and trafficking in the US, specifically Los Angeles, and the steps that are being taken to eliminate it.

The event will take place on Thursday, January 21st 2010 at 7:30pm at the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy in the Tateuchi Democracy Forum 111 N. Central Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90012, 213-830-1880

Plea in Hawaii Agriculture Case

*Picture from KHON2

From the FBI:

Two Brothers Plead Guilty in Conspiracy to Hold Thai Workers in Forced Labor in Hawaii

WASHINGTON—Defendants Alec Sou and Mike Sou, co-owners of Aloun Farm, pleaded guilty on Jan.13, 2010, in federal district court in Honolulu, to conspiring to commit forced labor. The two defendants, who are brothers, each face up to five years in prison for their respective roles in a labor trafficking scheme that held Thai agricultural workers in service at Aloun Farm through a scheme of debts, threats, and restraint.

During their respective plea hearings, the defendants acknowledged that they conspired with one another and with others to hold 44 Thai men in forced labor on a farm operated by the defendants, using a scheme of physical restraint and threats of serious harm to intimidate the workers and hold them in fear of attempting to leave the defendants’ service.

“Holding other human beings in servitude against their will is a violation of individual rights that is intolerable in a free society,” stated Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “This prosecution demonstrates our commitment to combating human trafficking in all its forms, vindicating the rights of trafficking victims, and bringing human traffickers to justice.”

“Labor traffickers prey on vulnerable victims and their dreams of a better life. Those who conspire to hold workers in forced labor undermine this country's promise of liberty and opportunity,” said Florence T. Nakakuni, U.S. Attorney for the District of Hawaii. “We will continue to hold accountable those who seek to enrich themselves at the expense of the freedom, rights, and dignity of others.”

In the past fiscal year, the Civil Rights Division, in partnership with U.S. Attorney’s Offices, brought a record number of human trafficking cases, including the highest number of labor trafficking cases ever brought in a single year.

The government’s case is being prosecuted by trial attorneys Susan French and Kevonne Small of the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division and its Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit and by Assistant U.S. Attorney Susan Cushman.

This case was investigated by FBI Special Agents Gary Brown in Honolulu and Tricia Whitehill in Los Angeles, with support from ICE Special Agents Frank Kalepa and Daniel Kenney.

Walmart Won’t Buy Cosan Sugar Amid Slavery Blacklist

From BusinessWeek:

By Helder Marinho and Lucia Kassai

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s biggest retailer, suspended a supply contract with Cosan SA Industria & Comercio after the Brazilian sugar maker was added to a government slavery “blacklist.” Cosan said it won an injunction ordering it be removed from the list.

Walmart is the first retailer to come out with sanctions against Cosan after the sugar producer was added Dec. 31 to a Brazilian Labor Ministry’s list of companies whose workers operate in slave-like conditions. Walmart’s local unit said it temporarily suspended purchases of Cosan’s Acucar Uniao and Acucar da Barra sugar brands.

Walmart “vehemently repudiates any practice that does not respect human rights,” the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer said in a statement.

Walmart’s move follows a decision by Brazil’s national development bank BNDES to cut off Cosan from financing. The inclusion on the blacklist means Cosan isn’t eligible for new loans and won’t receive future installments of agreed-to financing, BNDES said yesterday in a statement.

Read the full article

Human Trafficking and the Environment

In December, the world watched the progress of the Copenhagen United Nations Climate Change Conference. While the conference may not have been front and center in the anti-trafficking community, the impact of environmental degradation on slavery and human rights cannot be ignored.

This issue is particularly pressing in light of the recent tragic events in Haiti resulting from a 7.0 earthquake. Haiti already faced extreme hardships and poverty, making the devastation even greater. Haiti also has a significant problem with trafficking of children called restaveks for forced domestic labor, often in situations of extreme abuse and neglect.

Environmental catastrophes, from Hurricane Katrina to the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean to a cyclone in Myanmar, wreck incredible damage on people's lives. Sadly, the devastation often impacts the most vulnerable, leaving them even more susceptible to abuse and exploitation. According to the United Nations Climate Change Conference, while it is hard to predict the extent of the consequences of climate change, we can expect more droughts, more flooding, and increased incidence of extreme weather, all of which could negatively impact people's lives in extreme ways.

According to Linking Human Rights and the Environment, by Romina Picolotti and Jorge Daniel Taillant, "victims of environmental degradation tend to belong to more vulnerable sectors of society - racial and ethnic minorities and the poor - who regularly carry a disproportionate burden of [human rights] abuse. Increasingly, many basic human rights are being placed at risk, as the right to health affected by contamination of resources, or the right to property and culture comprised by commercial intrusion into indigenous lands." Such people are also extremely vulnerable to trafficking.

In The Slave Next Door, Kevin Bales and Ron Soodalter make the link between the environment and human trafficking even more explicit with a slightly different perspective. In their discussion of slavery and consumer goods, they point out that trafficking victims are often forced to contribute to environmental degradation to produce products. Bales and Soodalter describe teh horrific conditions endured by slaves in charcoal camps in Brazil: "slaves suffer burns and cuts, the heat is ferocious, and their flesh wastes away. . . Unknowingly, the US consumer provides the incentive for this destruction of both human life and the environment" (146).

A report entitled Close to Slavery: Guestworker Programs in the United States by the Southern Poverty Law Center, shows another point of intersection between environmental issues and human trafficking. They highlight a trafficking case where a company exploited guestworkers from India to fill hotel positions vacated by people who evacuated after Hurricane Katrina. Threatened with massive "debts" and unable to leave their employee because of visa restrictions, they were ripe for exploitation.

Environmental degradation and slavery exist in a vicious cycle where people can be trafficked for labor that harms the environment or as the result of environmental issues, and where such environmental degradation places additional burdens on those who are already the most vulnerable to trafficking. Ending slavery and promoting human rights will require addressing this cycle.

Announcement for Volunteer Opportunity at RestoreNYC (Jan. 14th 2010)

Are you in NYC area? Are you interested in supporting human trafficking victims? Are you looking for an opportunity to build your experience with hands on experience in the field? Restore NYC is inviting you to NYC to join their session to be held on Thursday, January 14th. at 7 pm. During the session, Faith Huckel, the Executive Director of the organization will speak about the organization, including its mission statement as well as the organization's plan to combat sex trafficking in NYC. The purpose of this session is to build a safe house for human trafficking victims in NYC.

More on Restore NYC
According to its website, the organization was started in 2004 when three people felt called to serve human trafficking victims in New York City. After receiving training, the organization obtained its nonprofit status in 2006. Since then, the organization has dedicated itself to assisting victims of trafficking to restore themselves from physical and psychological damages caused by their experience in prostitution and sex trafficking. Restore also became the first organization in NYC to provide holistic long-term aftercare services and house care for international women victimized by human trafficking.

If you would like to get involved
The volunteer opportunities include accounting, blogging for its website, case managing, mentoring, supporting with prayers and prayer walk, and assisting with recreational outings and workshop instruction. If you are interested, e-mail Restore at restorevolunteer@gmail.com to complete the volunteer application. You are also encouraged to attend the session this Thursday, January 14th at 7 pm. For more information on the opportunity, visit RestoreNYC

Legislators Work to Improve Laws on Runaways

From The Gainesville Sun:
In Congress, Democratic leaders in the House and Senate are moving several bills that would improve how runaways are tracked by the police, increase spending to provide them with social services and promote methods for earlier intervention.

The Government Accountability Office, an auditing arm of Congress, initiated an investigation in December at the request of the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, and Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, into whether police departments are handling runaways properly. Lawmakers in at least 10 states have proposed or passed bills in recent months that focus on runaways by extending outreach efforts and shelter options and changing state reporting requirements so that youth shelters have enough time to win trust and provide services before they need to report the runaways to the police.

The bill, co-sponsored by Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, also requires the police to provide anyone who reports a missing person with information about the services provided by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the National Runaway Switchboard. In many cases, the police said, they often did not take reports about runaways as seriously as abductions, and families were often unaware of other resources.

FULL ARTICLE

If anyone asks me what would be the greatest accomplishment that anti-human trafficking advocates have made in 2009, I would point to the legislators implementing new laws to better assist runaways and child prostitution victims as mentioned above. The experts and researchers have recognized the close connection between domestic minor trafficking and problems with runaway youths in the U.S. for decades. However, it is only recent that they were able to capture the attentions for the Congress. Often, children run away from their own homes because of feeling neglected. ( For more information on the root causes of runaway youths in the U.S., click here).

Though the state seldom will be better able to parent a child than the child's own parents. Nevertheless, it's valuable that law makers are paying a little more attention to the needs of the American youths who are at risk of being made human trafficking victims by other greedy and immoral Americans -- and that is a fruit of awareness raising efforts by advocates.

Picture taken by Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times

T-Shirt Design Contest from Stop Traffick Fashion

From Stop Traffick Fashion:

It’s 2010 and we’re excited to add T-shirts to our collection of items made by survivors of human trafficking! As you may know, we currently sell awesome jute totes from Freeset in Kolkata, India. We’ll be adding some great new tote bag designs to our website by the end of January but we are also thrilled that Freeset is now making fair trade, organic cotton t-shirts. A Freeset tee sustainably pulls people out of poverty, children and pesticides out of fields, and women out of the sex trade - what a deal!

There’s just one catch - we need some designs! And we’d like the designs to reflect our vision. At Stop Traffick Fashion we have 3 goals:

• Support the victims and survivors of human trafficking
• Support the organizations who are rescuing and providing rehabilitation for victims
• Raise awareness about human trafficking

Think hope. Think change. Think restoration. Think about a design that will get people’s attention and allow you to tell them about Stop Traffick Fashion and the 27 million slaves around the world. You can read more about our vision here.

The design should fit the following specifications:

• 1-3 colors on front (and back if desired)
• Black, White, Brown, Blue or Green T-shirt Background (see swatches below)
• Female or Unisex design
• PDF and PNG files

We’ll be choosing 1-2 designs to be printed and sold on Stop Traffick Fashion. The winner will receive 1 free T-shirt, a $25 gift certificate for Equal Exchange, plus the knowledge that you’re helping us spread the word about human trafficking and making a difference in the lives of survivors around the world! January is National Human Trafficking Awareness month (more on this later) so what a great way to contribute.

Final Details:

• Designs are due by February 1, 2010
• Email your submission to hello@stoptraffickfashion.com
• Please provide your email address and phone number so we can contact you!
• If your design is chosen the final version will be owned by Stop Traffick Fashion
• If you have any questions you can also email us at hello@stoptraffickfashion.com