Event: L.A. Marathon with Survivors and CAST

The Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST) is participating in the L.A. Marathon on March 21 along with survivors of human trafficking. CAST would like to more participants to become involved. They are looking for runners, race-day volunteers, and sponsors. For more details, visit http://www.castla.org/la-marathon.

Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery

In his book Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Slavery, author Siddharth Kara presents a business and economic analysis of sex trafficking. Though such a study may seem heartless or dehumanizing, Kara argues that analyzing sexual slavery through the lens of economics can reveal short- and long-term solutions to end trafficking, and that, in fact, without this type of analysis intervention attempts may do more harm than good.

Kara, a former investment banker with an MBA from Columbia University, left his corporate career to pursue anti-slavery research and work. He is a board member of Free the Slaves. In his book, he argues that ending sex slavery will necessitate ending the demand for sex slavery, and that the most effective way to decrease demand is to increase risk. He presents suggested ways to increase the risk/cost of slavery to traffickers, and uses basic economic concepts, such as elasticity of demand, to evaluate the effectiveness of anti-trafficking efforts.

Many of Kara's findings are more suggestive than conclusive, which he readily acknowledges. For example, he argues that increasing the costs of using sex slaves will dramatically decrease the demand for these slaves due to the elasticity of demand for commercial sex. Though his conclusion aligns with my own beliefs and the beliefs of many NGOs, the analysis is based on an extremely small sample size that may not be representative. While this example points to some of the challenges in conducting research on human trafficking and its causes, it also points to the need for more research and data.

Kara extensively researched sex trafficking around the world, and he contextualizes his economic analysis within his firsthand interviews with sex trafficking victims and survivors, and his experiences with the market for sex slaves. While many of the most compelling parts of his books spring from these experiences, his analysis of slavery in the United States is somewhat anemic and does not discuss the sex trafficking of US citizens.

Throughout the book, Kara discusses the role that globalization has played in creating situations rife for exploitation and slavery. He demonstrates the ways that governmental policies and corrupt greed help perpetuate human rights abuses and poverty. He argues that vulnerability to trafficking can often be traced to unequal distributions of power and wealth that are only increasing as a result of globalization.

Though his book focuses mainly on sex trafficking, Kara does touch on labor trafficking issues and acknowledges the need for a similar analysis of the business of labor trafficking. Many of his insights about the economic factors that contribute to the demand for slavery and the need to increase the economic costs of slavery for producers and consumers will prove useful in such an analysis. At the same time, the causes of labor trafficking and the factors that fuel its demand are different from sex trafficking, and more research on this form of trafficking is vitally needed.

Kara's research and analysis provide a useful foundation for further efforts to effectively end slavery that is grounded in an understanding of the economic and business realities that fuel this crime.

Hans Rosling's insights on poverty

*Fast forward to 10:00 minutes into the presentation.

Researcher Hans Rosling uses his innovative data tools to show how countries are pulling themselves out of poverty. His presentation revolves around globalization, health and economic prosperity.

About Hans Rosling:
Even the most worldly and well-traveled among us will have their perspectives shifted by Hans Rosling. A professor of global health at Sweden's Karolinska Institute, his current work focuses on dispelling common myths about the so-called developing world, which, he points out, is no longer worlds away from the west. In fact, most of the third world is on the same trajectory toward health and prosperity, and many countries are moving twice as fast as the west did.

Luis CdeBaca, America's Anti-Trafficking Czar

What is one of the most welcomed developments in the fight to end human bondage in 2009? Activists across the anti-trafficking spectrum welcomed the news in May of 2009 that Luis CdeBaca was appointed by President Obama as the Ambassador-at-Large of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. Frequently referred to as Lou by friends and admirers alike, deBaca faces enormous challenges in his work to spearhead the US effort to pressure and monitor foreign governments in their efforts to free slaves. There are an estimated 12-17,000 people trafficked into the United States each year and as many as 27 million people living in slavery worldwide.

A Mexican-American who grew up in Iowa, deBaca has long experience both prosecuting traffickers and rescuing and rehabilitating trafficking survivors. Mr. deBaca was a trial attorney for over 14 years, then became a special litigator in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and, subsequently, served as Majority Counsel at the House Judiciary Committee. A highly decorated prosecutor, he has convicted over a hundred human traffickers, updated US anti-slavery laws to help police prosecute traffickers, and received the Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award for his service as lead trial counsel in a case involving the enslavement of over 300 workers in American Samoa, the biggest slavery case ever prosecuted in the US.

Mr. deBaca’s tireless fight to prosecute traffickers is matched by his determination to rescue and rehabilitate trafficking survivors. According to Benjamin Skinner in a great piece in the Huffington Post in May of this year, Most meaningful to de Baca, however, are his successful rescues and rehabilitations of over six-hundred slaves. That is a record unmatched by any law enforcement official at any level since Reconstruction. And central to his approach has been his deeply felt compassion for the victims. "I always felt safe when Lou was working on our case and I knew we would be okay," said "Katya," a survivor of brutal sex traffickers who Lou helped put behind bars for a total of 21 years. "He is a good man." Too often in the past, law enforcement has dealt with slaves as if they were the perpetrators of a crime against the state, rather than victims of a crime against humanity. But for de Baca, fighting slavery is personal. Those of us who have met slaves, survivors and traffickers know de Baca's passion well, because we feel it ourselves.

Mr. deBaca is keenly aware that the other ally governments have in the anti-trafficking fight is the advocacy community, be they church groups, human rights groups, mission groups, unions or engaged individuals. During the release of the 2009 TIP Report, deBaca stated that he wanted to add a fourth “P” to the anti-trafficking categories: prevention, prosecution, protection, and (now) partnership. This was a move widely heralded by activists as a step forward and showed the US government was making a real effort to work in partnership with others around the world engaged in anti-trafficking efforts. In conjunction with the first ever release of a review of US efforts to fight trafficking that was promised for next year, it helped to lessen the impression that the US was less interested in pointing fingers at others and more interested in joint efforts and engagement.

I believe it’s also important that Mr. deBaca is committed to fighting slavery in all of its forms, from slave labor to sexual exploitation. The previous administration focused its evangelically influenced campaign a bit too much on sexual exploitation to the exclusion of other forms of trafficking. While human trafficking for sexual exploitation is deplorable and an abomination, the ILO estimates it represents about ten percent of those in slavery globally and our approach should be as multifaceted and proportionate as the phenomenon, addressing all types of human bondage.

Mr. deBaca has also shown his ability to contextualize human trafficking within the wider geo-political context. The US-Mexico border has a long history of transnational crime, including drug and human trafficking. The rampant criminality, along with the difficulty the long, porous border represents for law enforcement, has been highlighted by recent events, such as the Mexican sex trafficking ring that was broken up in November of last year by Brooklyn police and the murders of Juarez women. In May of 2009, Mr. deBaca has stated that human trafficking is a area where the US and Mexican governments can cooperate and is hopeful that sharing information on human trafficking cases will strengthen relationships between US and Mexican officials that would in turn strengthen transnational relations that help fight narcotrafficking.

What is also refreshing is that Mr. deBaca’s drive to fight trafficking is holistic. In November of last year, Mr. deBaca stated that "A phenomenal job of fighting trafficking still means that there’s trafficking. Having the best homicide detectives in your city doesn’t mean there’s not going to be murders. The fight against trafficking means that you try to keep it from happening, but also you’ve got cutting-edge tools to address it when it does. And to treat the victims the way they should be, but also to investigate and prosecute cases."

Mr. deBaca is welcome addition as the Ambassador-at-Large of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. While his approach is noteworthy and signs so far have been promising, he has to contend with a wafer-thin budget, which could shrink further under the weight of the current economic recession. Additionally, Mr. deBaca will need to build a constituency with the American and international public, as well as with key senators on the Foreign Relations Committee. I look forward to more positive developments in the fight against human trafficking this coming year and I believe Mr. deBaca is up for the challenges inherent in his position.

Behind the myth of the "happy hooker"

HTP Community Comment:

The so-called "nation wide survey" referred to here was conducted by Melissa Farley, IIRC, and has severe methodological problems. To put not too fine a point on it, Farley mostly interviewed prostitutes who were in rescue organizations. A similar analogy would be studying marriage by only interviewing women who were in shelters for battered women.

Prostitution is, in many ways, a bad job. It is NOT, however, synonymous with slavery or trafficking as the author of the above article makes out. Bad and tenacious science which greatly exaggerates the dangers of prostitution does nothing to help us to stop trafficking as it reroutes anti-trafficking resources into, essentially, anti-vice programs.

- Dr. Thaddeus Blanchette, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

From the Global Post:

By Kate Transchel

Generating an estimated $32 billion dollars annually, human trafficking is the fastest-growing criminal activity in the world today. It is also the most lucrative. According to a 2005 International Labor Office (ILO) report, just a single female held for sexual exploitation yields an average of $67,200 annually in Western Europe and North America.

A multitude of recent studies try to explain why women get snared into the trade in flesh. Researchers point to poverty, chronic unemployment, domestic violence and drug addiction as the primary “push factors.”

But sadly, there isn’t enough discussion of the real root of the problem — the men. Human trafficking is basically international sexual terrorism perpetrated against women and children on a mass scale by men. It is their demand for illicit or predatory sex that generates huge profits for the slavers and leaves behind the tortured minds and broken bodies of those women and children they violate.

According to a 2008 study by the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, the majority of men who buy prostitutes do so in order to obtain sex they are uncomfortable asking for. As one interviewee put it, “I want to pay someone to do something a normal person wouldn’t do. To piss on someone or pay someone to do something degrading.” The same study revealed that johns subscribe to a tremendous amount of denial — 87 percent thought women choose prostitution, “just like any job,” and 64 percent believed that the women they bought were sexually satisfied by the encounter.

Read the full article

California - Human Trafficking Prevention Month Events

If you live in California, it's not too late to get involved in Human Trafficking Prevention Month, thanks to the San Francisco Collaborative Against Human Trafficking, and the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking:

San Francisco:

February 6, 2010 - "Building the Wings of Freedom" benefit dinner for Freedom House, a nonprofit that is opening a shelter for victims of human trafficking. 6:00 pm at Dolores Park Church. www.freedom-house.us.com.

February 9, 2010 - Panel discussion: "In Our Backyard: Recognizing and Combating Human Trafficking in San Francisco." The focus will be on providing ways for members of the public to identify and assist trafficking victims. 5:30 pm at the Koret Auditorium at the San Francisco Public Library main branch. http://www.sf-hrc.org/index.aspx?page=58

Los Angeles:

January 20, 2010 - UCLA Trafficking Awareness Panel Discussion Speaker Event, featuring speakers Dr. Susie Baldwin, Stephanie Richard of CAST, and a CAST survivor advisory caucus member. 6:00-7:30 pm at UCLA campus. http://www.castla.org/ucla-panel-on-public-health.

January 21, 2010 - Certain Jamba Juice locations will donate 20% of sales to CAST for those who bring in the flier. http://www.castla.org/jamba-juice-to-donate-20percent-to-cast.

January 23, 2010 - CAST community clothing and basic necessities drive for trafficking survivors. Needed items include bus passes, gift cards, toiletries, laundry detergent, diapers, and children's clothing. Volunteers are also needed. http://www.castla.org/community-clothing-and-basic-necessities-drive--el-segundo.

Friends at a Distance

It is with a mixture of sadness and excitement that I write this post. I am sad to announce that I will be taking an extended hiatus from blogging for HTP. On the other hand, I am also excited because I have been given a wonderful opportunity to work in Sudan. I will be the Program Manager for a community strengthening project in the Darfur region.

Blogging for HTP has been a challenge and a joy, as well as teaching me a great deal. It has enabled me to keep up-to-date with developments in the trafficking field as well as to engage with and evaluate important events. I have enjoyed your comments and the posts of my fellow contributors and am profoundly grateful for this experience. My hope is to return to HTP at the end of my contract in Sudan in 18 months.

Thank you all for allowing me to be a part of this conversation and connect with a like-minded community in distributing and sharing information. Awareness raising is a critical step in combating human trafficking and, in the spirit of this understanding, I will leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Gandhi…There is no road to freedom, freedom is the road.