Image via WikipediaPublished: Sunday, October 31, 2010
Updated: Sunday, October 31, 2010 15:10
The University of Texas-Pan American received a visit from human rights activists from Nigeria, Zambia and Kuwait Monday afternoon. The panel, which took place in the University Ballroom, was part of a tour the speakers have embarked on throughout the United States to learn what the country is doing to battle human trafficking. The speakers also discussed how their counties are combating this crime.
The speakers were Eugenia Temba, consultant from Zambia for the Red Light 2010 Anti-human Trafficking campaign, and the Women and Law in Southern Africa Education and Research Trust (WLSA); Adesina Adefolahan, from the Ogun State's Women's Consortium of Nigeria (WOCON); and Jamal M.M.A. Alotaibi, secretary general of the Kuwait Center for Expatriate's Rights.
The visit was sponsored by the U.S. Department of State's International Visitor Leadership Program and facilitated by the World Affairs Council of South Texas, of which UTPA President Robert S. Nelsen is a Board of Trustees member.
"President Nelsen invited the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences to coordinate a day of activities for our guests to explore the awareness and education efforts and international cooperation in combating trafficking in persons," said Nick Weimer, event coordinator and director of the Center for Academic Excellence at UTPA.
Adefolahan and Temba spoke about the different types of trafficking that exist in their respective countries and what is being done to fight them.
"In Nigeria we have what is called internal trafficking and transnational trafficking," Adefolahan explained. "Internal trafficking is when people are trafficked from rural communities to major cities."
He went on to say that victims are deceived with promises of a better education and a job once they arrive to the cities. However, once they reach their destination they are often sold as house servants and prostitutes.
Adefolahan has been an anti-human trafficking advocate for about nine years. He is a member of WOCON, a non-governmental, non-religious, and non-profit organization providing care for women and children who fall victim to violence and human trafficking.
Like Adefolahan, Temba, an activist from Zambia, spoke about what her country is doing to battle human trafficking. She mentioned that the act of trafficking is highly feminized in Zambia, meaning that women and young girls are the main targets. Ironically, women are also the primary recruiters.
She added that the main types of trafficking women fall victim to include forced marriages, domestic work, and child laundering. This last one is when women, especially young girls, are impregnated repeatedly and forced to give up their children for adoption.
"We're also seeing cases of trafficking in families… fathers and uncles selling children," she said. "A father attempted to sell his 10-year-old son for $200. Also an uncle attempted to sell his nephew for $6,000."
According to Temba, Zambia is one of the first countries in the Southern African region to have passed a specific and comprehensive anti-trafficking law. In 2005 Zambia signed something called the Palermo Protocol.
"The Palermo Protocol is the anti-human trafficking international instrument," Temba said. "It will allow the country to change its laws."
In 2008 the country passed a law that mandates a minimum of 20 years in prison for the trafficking of an adult and a minimum of 25 years for child trafficking.
According to Temba, the most common kind of human sales in Africa is labor trafficking. Temba who served seven years in the United Nation's Children's Fund, said that about 12 million people worldwide are subjected to forced labor. And out of that number, 2.45 million are victims of trafficking.
The U.N. International Labor Organization quotes a figure of 800,000 to 1 million people trafficked across international borders every year. One in five is an African, four in five are female, and half are children.
Both Temba and Adefolahan said they plan to take what they learned from their visit back to their home countries, with the hope that it will help lead a more effective fight against human trafficking.
During their visit to the Rio Grande Valley, the panelists met with law enforcement agents, representatives of the Mexican government, tour shelters, and colonias of the Valley.
"This event helped to educate and raise awareness about issues on human trafficking in the Valley," Weimer added. "Which will hopefully lead to increased initiatives to address this problem that affects us all."
Human rights activists shed light on trafficking practices - The Pan American
Source: The Pan American Online
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