Job Opportunity: Department of Justice Trial Attorneys

The Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice is seeking experienced attorneys for the position of Trial Attorney in the Criminal Section. The Criminal Section prosecutes criminal civil rights cases, including Hate Crimes,deprivation of rights under color of law, and Human Trafficking offenses.

Attorneys in this position would have substantial opportunities to do Human Trafficking cases along with other Criminal Civil Rights cases, and attorneys for the specialized Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit within the Criminal Section are generally selected from within the Criminal Section. These positions are based in Washington, DC and require significant travel.

Job Description: The core duties of a Trial Attorney in the Criminal Section include investigating alleged violations of federal criminal civil rights statutes (including statutes prohibiting official misconduct, hate crimes, involuntary servitude, and violent interference with abortion rights) and conducting grand jury investigations and trials in federal district courts around the country. The complexity of the matters assigned, and the level of supervision required, varies depending on the Trial Attorney's years of specialized experience.

Requirements: Applicants must possess a J.D. degree, be an active member of the bar in good standing (any jurisdiction), have a minimum of three years post-J.D. experience. Applicants must demonstrate superior oral and written communication skills (including strong advocacy skills), possess excellent academic and professional credentials, and [have] outstanding professional references. Applicants must also demonstrate exceptional interpersonal skills and professional judgment, and be able to excel in a fast-paced, highly demanding environment.

Necessary Experience: The Criminal Section seeks candidates with significant litigation experience and a demonstrated commitment to public service and/or civil rights. Applicants with one or more of the following qualifications are preferred: 1) first-chair criminal defense experience; 2) criminal or civil jury trial experience; 3) federal criminal or civil litigation experience; 4) experience with complex investigations, especially in utilizing investigative grand juries; 5) demonstrated commitment to public service through employment or volunteering; 6) demonstrated commitment to civil rights and/or human rights issues; 7) substantial knowledge of federal constitutional law; 8) fluency in Spanish, Chinese, Korean, or South East Asian or South Asian languages; or 9) judicial clerkship experience.

Salary: Within the GS-14 to GS-15 range ($105,211 through $153,200 per annum).

How to Apply: Applications for this position are being processed through an on-line application assessment system that has been specifically configured for Department of Justice applicants. Deadline to apply: 2/18/2010.

Click here to obtain more information and to apply.

Pepsi Refresh Project Demi Moore for GEMS

Demi Moore is joining the Pepsi Refresh Project with a grant idea to support GEMS (Girls Educational & Mentoring Services), an organization that empowers young women, ages 12-21, who have experienced commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking to exit the commercial sex industry and develop to their full potential. With $250,000, GEMS can train 10 former victims as outreach workers and employ them to go back in their community and help refresh the lives of thousands of victimized girls.

Support Demi's idea for GEMS by voting for her at www.facebook.com/refresheverything

More info on GEMS

Human trafficking in India Part I: Caste and Human Trafficking

Highly developed IT industry, nuclear weapons, and a fast developing economy with rich culture and resources are what one thinks of when he or she thinks of India in the 21st century. Also, when reading articles on Bollywood stars traveling to Africa to fight against human trafficking, readers are led to think that the victims are never Indian themselves, but instead are those who are trafficked from its neighboring countries. Furthermore, the democracy in India is well established enough that Indians, including the Bollywood stars, have a great understanding of a person’s fundamental human rights.

Scholars have pointed out to corruption, bureaucracy, and high illiteracy rates as three main factors causing human trafficking in India. However, unless one is familiar with the Indian culture and the society, one would have a hard time recognizing the connection between human trafficking and the three causes behind such atrocities in India. In fact, the causal relationship between human trafficking and the three factors is possible soley because the Caste System in the country allows Indians to accept such issues - which human trafficking - as part of the tradition or custom. Further, the Caste System allows many Indians to believe that human trafficking of low Caste class members is a fact of life, rather than a flawed tradition.

According to The Dalit Freedom Network, Dalit people are the lowest class in the Indian Castes system. The population of Dalit contains nearly 67% of the entire Indian population, which amounts to 250 million Indian citizens. [2] Though the Indian constitution outlawed the mistreatment of Dalits solely based on their social status, it has not officially abolished the Caste System from the society as a whole. Therefore, in practice, Dalit people's status in the lowest Caste's class continues to control their lives with a rare chance of climbing up the social ladder.

As Castes affect every aspects of a person’s life in India, Dalits have faced all sorts of discrimination against them. In the past, the society expected them to “use separate water taps, temples and graveyards in the cities." [3] Their Caste class status also affected their chances of getting a job or finding a place to live. Moreover, Dalit students were told to arrive earlier to clean the classroom for other students.

They were also expected to sit in the back of the classroom. [4] Some people say that such extreme forms of discrimination mentioned above no longer exist. However, Caste discrimination is severe enough for Indians to justify modern-day slavery. Even if they try to work hard to rise above the poverty line, their social status perpetuates the maintenance of their life styles under the poverty lines.

Problems with U.S. Guest Worker Program

From the New York Times:

Suit Points to Guest Worker Program Flaws
By Julia Preston

Immigration authorities worked closely with a marine oil-rig company in Mississippi to discourage protests by temporary guest workers from India over their job conditions, including advising managers to send some workers back to India, according to new testimony in a federal lawsuit against the company, Signal International.

The cooperation between the company and federal immigration agents is recounted in sworn depositions by Signal managers who were involved when tensions in its shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., erupted into a public clash in March 2007.

Since then, hundreds of the Indian workers have brought a civil rights lawsuit against the company, claiming they were victims of human trafficking and labor abuse. Signal International is fighting the suit and has sued American and Indian recruiters who contracted with the workers in India. The company claims the recruiters misled it — and the workers — about the terms of the work visas that brought them to this country.

The Departments of Justice and Homeland Security have opened separate investigations. The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission determined in September that there was “reasonable cause” to believe the Indian guest workers at Signal had faced discrimination and a work environment “laced with ridicule and harassment.”

The Signal case has come to represent some of the flaws and pitfalls, for immigrants and for employers, in the H-2B temporary guest worker program. As Congressional lawmakers weigh moving forward this year on an overhaul of the immigration system, they are debating whether to include an expansion of guest worker programs.

A lawyer for Signal, Erin C. Hangartner, said the company could not comment on the suit.

As it rushed to repair offshore oil rigs after Hurricane Katrina, Signal International hired about 500 skilled metalworkers from India in 2006. Numerous workers have said that they paid as much as $20,000 to Signal’s recruiters, many going into debt or selling their homes. They said recruiters had promised that their visas would soon be converted to green cards, allowing them to remain as permanent residents.

Once the workers realized they would not receive green cards, many complained of fraud and banded together to seek help from American lawyers.

In a deposition in the lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in New Orleans, Signal’s chief operating officer, Ronald Schnoor, said he grew frustrated with Indian workers who were “chronic whiners.” In early 2007 he decided to fire several who were encouraging protests.

Those workers “were making impossible demands” for the company to secure green cards for them or to repay the high fees, Mr. Schnoor said. They were “taking workers away from their work and actually trying to get them to join some effort they were organizing,” he said.

Mr. Schnoor and Darrell Snyder, a manager in the shipyard, where the Indians were living in a labor camp, said they had consulted with agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement for “guidance” on how to fire the workers, following the rules of the H-2B program.

Mr. Schnoor said the “direction” he received from an immigration enforcement agent was this: “Don’t give them any advance notice. Take them all out of the line on the way to work; get their personal belongings; get them in a van, and get their tickets, and get them to the airport, and send them back to India.”

Signal managers said they tried to carry out those instructions on March 9, 2007, putting several Indian workers into vans to take them to the airport. They were prevented from leaving the shipyard by immigrant advocates gathered at the gates.

In an internal e-mail message 10 days later, Mr. Snyder reported that another immigration official had assured him in a meeting that day that the agency would pursue any Indian workers who left their jobs, “if for no other reason than to send a message to the remaining workers that it is not in their best interests to try and ‘push’ the system.”

Carl Falstrom, an immigration lawyer in New Orleans who is not associated with the Signal case, said there were rules for employers who fired guest workers. They are required to provide return airfare to the workers’ home countries, and they are supposed to notify the visa agency, Citizenship and Immigration Services, when workers are no longer employed. But, Mr. Falstrom said, private companies cannot carry out deportations.

Saket Soni, director of the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, which represents some workers in the lawsuit, said the managers’ testimony showed that immigration enforcement agents had “advised the corporation on how to retaliate against workers who were organizing.”

An ICE spokesman, Brian Hale, said he could not comment on a continuing investigation. But Mr. Hale said ICE agents were generally aware that a company that fires workers in the H-2B program “is prohibited from compelling individuals to get on the plane.”

This particular story is not new, but this account is only one of many that illustrates that we are dealing with a broken guest worker program. Probably the most extensive account of these issues is outlined in the Southern Poverty Law Center's report "Close to Slavery." 2010 will likely be the year that immigration reform is taken up again, and the anti-trafficking movement will need to pay close attention to the reforms that are proposed. Real comprehensive reform will be extremely important to addressing some of the larger policy issues surrounding human trafficking.

Courtney's House Volunteer Opportunities

Courtney's House has two upcoming trainings for volunteers. According to its website, the organization was founded by Tina Frundt, a survivor of of domestic child sex trafficking. Courtney's House is projected to be a six-bed long-term group home for sex trafficked girls between the ages of 12 and 17. It will be the only group home of its kind in the Washington, DC area to cater specifically to this vital population segment. Courtney's House also offers mentoring, support groups and other programs for survivors, and conducts a street outreach program.

Volunteers interested in helping with direct services or street outreach can apply to attend training sessions.

Mentor Training/Direct Service Training Feb. 20th 10am-3pm, Location TBA.
This training is for people interested in mentoring, art therapy, dance therapy, sewing classes, etc. You must be 21 years or over; male or female. Email jkimball@courtneyshouse.org for information.

Street Outreach Training March 22-March 28 6:30pm-8pm Mon-Thurs. Special Training Friday, Marcy 27. Location TBA. March 28 Self-Defense Class 3pm-6pm.
Requires at least a three-month commitment. You must be 21 years or over; female volunteers only. If you are interested in applying for the training, please email jkimball@courtneyshouse.org.

For information about other volunteer opportunities with Courtney's House, visit their website.

Celebrities and Trafficking

Intro by Justin: We idolize celebrities. They are modern day demigods who roam the Earth gracing us once every year or so with a world shaking motion picture or a heart wrenching song. They are the heroes and caricatures of perfection that grace the silver screen and more recently dance and sing for us on YouTube, our mouse clicks often numbering in the millions busily pressing "play" and "repeat." Yet when a celebrity gets involved in a human rights issue what does it mean?

When I was researching human trafficking in the Philippines in 2007 I worked with people who had been fighting the good fight day and night for over a decade, pouring themselves, their time and energy into combating trafficking. I know that trafficking is currently highly lucrative and that where there is money, there is deep motivation on the part of the traffickers to maintain business as usual. I saw first hand that the struggle to end human trafficking is a long-term process that ultimately requires the transformation of deeply entrenched political, economic and cultural factors if the root issues are to be effectively addressed.

With this in mind, what are we to think when a celebrity joins the fight against trafficking? What do photos with trafficking survivors, a visit to a shelter and a speech or a song actually amount to? Does a celebrity's involvement signal real commitment or is it just a flash in the pan? Despite these misgivings, it is impossible to deny the unique opportunity and ability that celebrities possess to use their fame to focus our attention on important global issues like human trafficking and make a significant impact.


Justin: After researching Ricky Martin and his humanitarian efforts, I am happy to have discovered his dedication to combating modern day slavery and his use of his celebrity status as a way to effectively support the anti-trafficking movement.

Ricky Martin first encountered human trafficking in 2002 during a visit to Calcutta, India. Founder of the Ricky Martin Foundation, which works to combat human trafficking and other human rights issues, Mr. Martin has had an admirable track record in activism receiving numerous accolades for his efforts including Billboard's Spirit of Hope Award, the Alma Award, the International Humanitarian Award by the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children and the Hispanic Heritage Award for his humanitarian work through the Sabera Foundation in rescuing three orphan girls from the streets of Calcutta. In 2005 the U.S. State Department named Mr. Martin one of its "Heroes in Ending Modern-Day Slavery." Martin also collaborated with the International Organization for Migration on “Llama y Vive” (Call and Live), a campaign aimed at the prevention of human trafficking, protection of the youngest victims of child trafficking and prosecution traffickers.

Human trafficking is an issue that requires a collective effort from all sectors of society to be effectively addressed. No one group has all the answers or resources needed to solve the problem of modern day slavery whether it be government, law enforcement, the civil sector or celebrities. Collaboration becomes integral to making a real difference in the long term and, at the same time, recognizing how we can each use our unique strengths to help the cause.

Although celebrities alone are not the solution to ending human trafficking, I am glad to see someone like Ricky Martin embracing his role as a pop icon, engaging the issue of human trafficking over the long term and using his fame to make a difference.

Click here to watch Ricky Martin's speech at the UN GIFT conference in February 2008

Youngbee: Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore launched the Demi and Ashton Foundation (DNA) on January 25th, 2010. The couple have been very explicit about their support for anti-human trafficking through social media even prior to launching their DNA Foundation. They tweeted statistics on human trafficking and they also spread the word about anti-trafficking events and campaigns on Twitter. I am not sure what motivates they have behind their support for anti-human trafficking initiatives. Maybe they want to support human trafficking victims because they want to be trendy, or maybe they just are genuinely concerned for the victims of trafficking. Either way, that is not something that I would like to waste my time worrying about. I don't know them in person, nor do I know anyone who can tell me what they were about when they established DNA.

But one thing is clear: their celebrity status is put into a good use with this work. Within three days of launching the DNA Foundation, 2,182 fans have already joined their Facebook page and 3,661 people are following them on Twitter. Obviously, this is a significantly better start than most nonprofits in the US have. From their website, it is not clear what direction the DNA Foundation will take in terms of supporting the cause of trafficking victims. But, time will tell, and one can only hope for the best.

Elise: Some may have already heard that Lindsay Lohan is attempting to make her mark in the anti-trafficking world ever since she started tweeting her vows to take action over the summer. Now, a clip has been leaked for a new documentary that she is apparently shooting for the BBC in India focused on child trafficking. I have to say that this is a particular avenue by a particular celebrity where the negatives seem to outweigh the positives: here is someone known for her poor personal decisions and the clip reveals that, like in many other arenas in her life, she is diving head first into a topic that she really does not understand. While her celebrity status could at least spark interest in awareness among her fans who would otherwise spend their time watching how many times she changes her clothes every day, starring in her own documentary and narcisstically claiming to save 40 children in a day will probably not create the kind of change she seems to hope for.

This is one human rights issue where, if you really want to contribute to the fight, you cannot expect that your face will be plastered all over the results of your assistance. For example, donating funds to a victim service provider is a great idea, but the provider may not want a lot of attention in order to avoid risks to themselves or the survivors with whom they work. I'm not sure Lohan would be able to handle that kind of tame or unpublicized philanthropy. Maybe I'm not being fair; maybe she already has. I am not looking forward to her documentary, though.

Jennifer: In November 2009, Emma Thompson's exhibit called Journey opened in New York after showings in London and Vienna. The exhibit, curated by the two-time Oscar winner, is inspired by the story of a sex-trafficking survivor that Thompson first met in 2006. In a piece for Newsweek, Thompson writes, "What made her story so personal for me was where she'd been imprisoned: the same massage parlor [in my neighborhood that] I'd once treated as a joke. It underlined an awful truth: that human trafficking is not just a problem for other communities or other people. It exists on our own doorsteps, and our lack of action shames us all." Perhaps I am drawn to Thompson's anti-trafficking work because a similar experience was the catalyst for my anti-trafficking work.

In addition to her work raising awareness, Thompson is also the chair of the Helen Bamber Foundation, an organization that works with trafficking survivors and survivors of other human rights abuses. In interviews and pieces about her work, Thompson stresses the importance of being self-reflective about the ways we promote slavery through our own life choices, and she also cautions about objectifying and re-victimizing survivors. Like Elise, I am wary of celebrities whose anti-trafficking work appears more narcissistic than useful. In her writing and speaking about trafficking, Thompson not only works to end slavery, she serves as a model for others seeking to use their celebrity status to fight trafficking.

Click here to watch Emma Thompson speak about the Journey Exhibit

Meg: It's certainly amazing what fame and money can accomplish, and I think that Oprah is an obvious example. Human Trafficking is one of the many causes she is championing. Besides featuring a book that spotlights human trafficking in her book club (and having worked at a bookstore, I can vouch for the popularity of Oprah's Book Club books), she also has devoted a significant portion of her Oprah's Angel Network charity to human trafficking. On the For All Women Registry section of the site, visitors are encouraged to spend "$5 - or 5 Minutes" on causes including ending modern-day slavery -- and there are many creative suggestions of ways to help.

Just a thought: although celebrities who choose to can certainly do amazing things to promote a cause, I think it's important to keep in mind that we all have our own valuable resources and advantages which we can use for the benefit of others. It can sometimes be easy to focus on our limitations, rather than on what we can do. Even a few dollars or minutes of time donated here and there can do good things to help victims of human trafficking, and a few dollars or minutes donated by many "everyday people" can do great things.

National Freedom Day 2010

Today marks the culmination of National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. President Obama proclaimed January, 2010 to be dedicated to promoting anti-trafficking work. On February First, the United States honors the signing of the resolution that formally abolished the legality of slavery in the United States on February 1st, 1865.

The 13th Amendment to the Constitution proclaimed that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude. . . shall exist within the United States." Though 145 years have passed, slavery continues to flourish and more people are enslaved today than ever before. Nevertheless, Freedom Day honors an important milestone for eradicating slavery and acknowledging the fundamental aberration of the crime. The day also serves as an opportunity for anti-trafficking organizations and activists to revitalize their work.

As President Obama stated in his proclamation "The United States was founded on the principle that all people are born with an unalienable right to freedom -- an ideal that has driven the engine of American progress throughout our history. As a Nation, we have known moments of great darkness and greater light; and dim years of chattel slavery illuminated and brought to an end by President Lincoln's actions and a painful Civil War. Yet even today, the darkness and inhumanity of enslavement exists. Millions of people worldwide are held in compelled service, as well as thousands within the United States. . . [W]e acknowledge that forms of slavery still exist in the modern era, and we recommit ourselves to stopping the human traffickers who ply this horrific trade."

National Freedom Day is an opportunity to honor and remember the important work to eradicate slavery that has been done and to recommit efforts to deliver on the 13th Ammendment's declaration that slavery shall not exist in the United States, while expanding that promise so that slavery does not exist anywhere in the world.

Picture by Josh Nichols