Combatting Modern Day Slavery in Hawaii and Mainland U.S. | Hawaii Reporter

Wednesday, April 20th, 2011 | Posted by Hawaii Reporter

Photo courtesy of The Age Cases

BY CHANCHANIT MARTORELL – The Thai Community Development Center in Los Angeles is a community economic development organization founded in 1994. The mission: Protecting the rights of disadvantaged and vulnerable Thai and other ethnic immigrants and improving their socio-economic well being through health, human and legal service resources, housing and community development, advocacy, and education.
Thai CDC played a pivotal role in the landmark and famed El Monte Thai Slavery Case considered the first case of modern day slavery in the United States since the abolishment of slavery. We participated in the multi-agency task force pre-dawn raid on the compound on that fateful day of August 2, 1995 and liberated over six dozen men and mostly women from conditions of slavery.
Unfortunately, we learned that the El Monte Case was just the tip of the iceberg. Over the past 16 years, Thai CDC has handled half a dozen more trafficking cases involving over 400 Thai victims. In 1998, we co-founded the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking. We are confronted by new and ever more unsettling trafficking and slavery cases – forced prostitution, involuntary servitude, debt peonage, even the renting of children for use in the trafficking of women.
Worst of all, the majority of the cases in the US continue to be Thai and interestingly, male not female. Going against the common perception of human trafficking as the trafficking of women and girls for sexual slavery, the majority of our victims are males and the purpose for which they are trafficked include garment work, domestic work, welding, and now farm work. And our current farmworkers’ case is now considered the largest case of human trafficking in United States history. We realized the magnitude of this case immediately upon learning that Global Horizons brought in over 1,100 Thai farmworkers to the United States between 2003 and 2005 by legal means through the agricultural guest worker visas known as H2A visas. Hence, we are now seeing a trend of a legalized form of slavery.
To step up our efforts in combating this scourge of human trafficking and modern day slavery and winning even more victories for victims, Thai CDC launched the SERI Project last month. SERI means freedom in Thai and stands for Slavery Eradication and Rights Initiatives. Thai CDC has been working on the Global case since 2003 when the first Thai farmworker escaped from one of Global Horizons’ contracted farms in Hawaii.
As more farmworkers started escaping from various Global Horizons farms located in different states on the mainland and off and coming to Thai CDC for aid and relief, we immediately reported the case to the US Department of Justice, the US Department of
Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Royal Thai Consulate General in Los Angeles. While we pressed the US Department of Justice to launch an investigation and begin the criminal prosecution, we also pursued a civil means of justice by filing charges of civil rights violations and discrimination based on nationality with the EEOC on behalf of over 200 farmworkers having succeeded in winning compensation for trafficked Thai welders in the past through EEOC. As advocates we leave no stone unturned to achieve justice for our workers.
The escaped workers shared a similar story of debt, deception and threats. I have seen these elements time and time again in my work with trafficking victims. I have now worked on seven major cases of human trafficking involving over 400 Thai nationals.
These workers’ stories were just like the stories of other trafficking victims. Of the over 260 farmworkers that finally made contact with Thai CDC in the course of several years, we found a common pattern of workers paying between 600,000 and 900,000 baht to come to work in the US, well above the amount the Thai labor ministry sets for agricultural work in the US, which is 65,000 baht
The Thai farmers were recruited by Thai brokers on behalf of Global Horizons, the company that applied for H2A visas for seasonal farm workers to work between three to six months on each farm. The workers were promised between $8.53 and $9.50 per hour but $42 was deducted from the workers’ pay for food. However, they were told by the brokers that they could work for three years making them believe that they had enough time to pay off their debt. However, the farmers who didn’t escape were deported back to Thailand after their three month H2A visas expired leaving them with insurmountable debt back home and the risk of losing their farms and ancestral homeland that they had mortgaged to pay the exorbitant recruitment fees.
Over half of the farmers came from Northern Thailand and were subsistence farmers. To pay the commission fee to the recruitment companies, they borrowed heavily from banks and private lenders and have debts ranging from 300,000 to 1,000,000 baht. Workers were sent to farms in various states in the United States to harvest all kinds of fruits and vegetables.
Once they arrived in the US, Global Horizons seized the workers’ passports and visas and did not provide any contract agreements. Because the workers did not have any form of identification, they feared leaving their premises. They were also threatened with deportation. Their phone calls were monitored by agents of Global Horizons and no visitors were ever allowed on the farms.
Farms were located in rural areas, therefore transportation was always provided by Global Horizons. In the case of one of the Hawaiian farms, the farmworkers were housed in an abandoned school house with 18 workers to a room in a very remote area that was at a great distance from the actual farm. Because they were always hungry, they had to eat leaves off the plants behind the schoolhouse. Their hours were regimented. A Thai overseer of Global’s gave orders to the workers. He would be described by workers as cruel and abusive as he would make threats of physical harm to the workers if they dared escape or disobeyed his orders. Posted at all times at the schoolhouse were Global Horizons guards. To evade the guards, one farmworker had to escape in the cover of darkness and walk quietly through a sugar cane field so as not to be detected until the break of dawn. The sugar cane field ended at a road where he sought help from a stranger.
Some workers lived in used freight containers in Hawaii where there were no windows, running water, electricity or basic amenities, and wooden shelves were used as beds.
Our assistance to over 400 Thai victims of the most severe form of exploitation and human rights abuse over the past 16 years have included providing an immediate response team that arranges shelter, food, clothing, medical care, and legal counsel for the victims.
While we help them overcome their trauma, we develop their survival and self-sufficiency skills and prepare them to seek redress and restitution through various legal channels.
For almost eight years now, Thai CDC has been working with legal aid organizations and private law firms throughout the U.S. to file legal and immigration relief for the farmworkers such as looking into private civil law suits, alien tort statute claims, and applying for their T visas.
Due to the real fear of retaliation back in their home country, families of the victims are being reunited with them in the United States. The relief, education, counseling and advocacy that Thai CDC provides to each victim require extensive and comprehensive case management. Once the family members are reunited with the victim, we must help them resettle requiring additional case management (such as obtaining social security cards, proper forms of identification, public benefits, housing, furnishings, personal supplies, and more).
As a result of our campaign for redress and restitution on behalf of victims, we have been instrumental in transforming victims into agents for social change and in influencing legislation to reform workplace conditions and to provide adequate protections and legal status for victims of trafficking. Our unwavering pursuit of justice in these cases won us much acclaim and recognition. However, there still remain too many men, women and children around the world victimized by human trafficking every day. Los Angeles,
California continues to be a major hub for human traffickers. Today, we are pleased to stand with our partners in the federal government and the community to achieve the ultimate goal of making survivors of human trafficking whole persons again with the will and self-determination to pursue justice and to lead an independent and productive life.
Chanchanit Martorell is the Executive Director of the Thai Community Development Center in Los Angeles, California


Combatting Modern Day Slavery in Hawaii and Mainland U.S. | Hawaii Reporter

What About American Girls Sold on the Streets? - NYTimes.com

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

When we hear about human trafficking in India or Cambodia, our hearts melt. The victim has sometimes been kidnapped and imprisoned, even caged, in a way that conjures our images of slavery.

Damon Winter/The New York Times

Nicholas D. Kristof

But in the United States we see girls all the time who have been trafficked — and our hearts harden. The problem is that these girls aren’t locked in cages. Rather, they’re often runaways out on the street wearing short skirts or busting out of low-cut tops, and many Americans perceive them not as trafficking victims but as miscreants who have chosen their way of life. So even when they’re 14 years old, we often arrest and prosecute them — even as the trafficker goes free.

In fact, human trafficking is more similar in America and Cambodia than we would like to admit. Teenage girls on American streets may appear to be selling sex voluntarily, but they’re often utterly controlled by violent pimps who take every penny they earn.

From johns to judges, Americans often suffer from a profound misunderstanding of how teenage prostitution actually works — and fail to appreciate that it’s one of our country’s biggest human rights problems. Fortunately, a terrific new book called “Girls Like Us,” by Rachel Lloyd, herself a trafficking survivor, illuminates the complexities of the sex industry.

Lloyd is British and the product of a troubled home. As a teenager, she dropped out of school and ended up working as a stripper and prostitute, controlled by a pimp whom she loved in a very complicated way — even though he beat her.

One of the most vexing questions people have is why teenage girls don’t run away more often from pimps who assault them and extract all the money they earn. Lloyd struggles to answer that question about her own past and about the girls she works with today. The answers have to do with lack of self-esteem and lack of alternatives, as well as terror of the pimp and a misplaced love for him.

Jocular references to pimps in popular songs or movies are baffling. They aren’t business partners of teenage girls; they are modern slave drivers. And pimping attracts criminals because it is lucrative and not particularly risky as criminal behavior goes: police arrest the girls, but don’t often go after the pimps. (In fairness, pimping is a tough crime to prove, partly because the star witness is often a girl with a string of prostitution arrests who leaves a poor impression on a jury.)

Eventually, Lloyd did escape her pimp after he nearly killed her, but starting over was tough, and she had trouble fitting in. When she showed up at church in a skirt she liked, four women separately came over to her pew with clothing to cover her legs.

“Apparently skirts need to be longer than your jacket,” she recalls. “Who knew?”

Then Lloyd came to the United States to begin working with troubled teenage girls — and found her calling. In 1998, at the age of 23, she founded GEMS, short for Girls Educational and Mentoring Services, a program for trafficked girls that has won human rights awards and helped pass a landmark anti-trafficking law in New York State. On the side, Lloyd earned a college degree and then a master’s, graduating summa cum laude.

Lloyd’s story is extraordinarily inspiring, as is the work she is doing. One of the girls she rescued from a pimp later graduated from high school as valedictorian. But Lloyd’s memoir is also important for the window it offers into trafficking in this country.

Americans often think that “trafficking” is about Mexican or Korean or Russian women smuggled into brothels in the United States. That happens. But in my years and years of reporting, I’ve found that the biggest trafficking problem involves homegrown American runaways.

Typically, she’s a 13-year-old girl of color from a troubled home who is on bad terms with her mother. Then her mom’s boyfriend hits on her, and she runs away to the bus station, where the only person on the lookout for girls like her is a pimp. He buys her dinner, gives her a place to stay and next thing she knows she’s earning him $1,500 a day.

Lloyd guides us through this world in an unsentimental way that rings pitch perfect with my own reporting. Above all, Lloyd always underscores that these girls aren’t criminals but victims, and she alternately oozes compassion and outrage. One girl she worked with was Nicolette, a 12-year-old in New York City who had a broken rib and burns from a hot iron, presumably from her pimp. Yet Nicolette was convicted of prostitution and sent to a juvenile detention center for a year to learn “moral principles.”

Our system has failed girls like her. The police and prosecutors should focus less on punishing 12-year-old girls and more on their pimps — and, yes, their johns. I hope that Lloyd’s important and compelling book will be a reminder that homegrown American girls are also trafficked, and they deserve sympathy and social services — not handcuffs and juvenile detention. 

I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, On the Ground. Please also join me on Facebook, watch my YouTube videos and follow me on Twitter.

Source: NYTimes.com

Most human trafficking related to prostitution - Washington Times

By Chuck Neubauer

The Washington Times

6:44 p.m., Thursday, April 28, 2011

Associated Press Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. calls human trafficking “an affront to human dignity” and said it´s occurring in “virtually every corner of our nation.”

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More than 80 percent of the 2,515 suspected incidents of human trafficking investigated by law enforcement agencies between January 2008 and June 2010 involved adult prostitution or the exploitation and forced prostitution of children, a Justice Department report released Thursday says.

The report, written by the department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), says 48 percent of the investigated incidents involved adults, while 40 percent uncovered the exploitation or forced prostitution of children. The remainder, about 350 cases, involved allegations of labor trafficking, in which people were being forced against their will into performing labor — including forced begging and roadside sales, along with work at hair salons, hotels and bars.

Under the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act, according to the report, human trafficking is defined as the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision or obtaining of a person to perform labor or a commercial sex act through force, fraud or coercion.

Any commercial sex act performed by a person under age 18 is considered human trafficking, regardless of whether force, fraud or coercion is involved, the report said.

Earlier this year, Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr., announced the formation of a presidential task force on human trafficking involving a new collaboration by the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security and Labor. Calling human trafficking a “modern-day slavery,” he said it was “an affront to human dignity,” adding that men, women and children were being exploited for sex and labor in “virtually every corner of our nation.”

Justice, Homeland Security and Labor are part of a Human Trafficking Enhanced Enforcement Initiative, in which specialized Anti-Trafficking Coordination Teams, known as ACTeams, have been convened in a number of pilot districts nationwide. Under the leadership of the highest-ranking federal law enforcement officials in the districts, the teams bring together federal agents and prosecutors across agency lines to combat human trafficking threats, dismantle human-trafficking networks and bring traffickers to justice.

Mr. Holder said the ACTeams give federal authorities the ability to leverage the assets and expertise of each agency more effectively than ever before.

“But we will not rest until this unprecedented collaboration translates into the results that matter most: the liberation of victims and the prosecution of traffickers,” he said.

According to the report, more than four-fifths of the confirmed victims of sex trafficking — about 83 percent — were U.S. citizens, while 95 percent of the confirmed victims of labor trafficking were either illegal immigrants or foreign nationals working legally in the U.S.

The report also said the confirmed victims of human trafficking were predominantly female and that among the confirmed sex trafficking victims, they were “overwhelmingly female” at 94 percent and made up 68 percent of the labor trafficking victims as well.

Most of the confirmed sex trafficking incidents involved the prostitution of children (about 60 percent) compared with adult prostitution (about 40 percent). The report said of the sex trafficking victims, 40 percent were black and 26 percent were white, while labor trafficking victims were identified as Hispanic (63 percent) or Asian (17 percent.)

According to the report, more than half of the confirmed labor trafficking victims were 25 or older (62 percent), while only 13 percent of the confirmed sex trafficking victims were that old. More than 80 percent of the confirmed human trafficking suspects were male, 62 percent of the confirmed sex trafficking suspects were black and 48 percent of the confirmed labor trafficking suspects were Hispanic, the report said.

Most human trafficking related to prostitution - Washington Times
Source: The Washington Times

Related articles

• Human Trafficking in the United States (kristof.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Victim of human trafficking? Call 1343 (fourbluehills.com)

STR Responsible Sourcing Offers Seminar on California Transparency in Supply Chains Act – Press Releases on CSRwire.com

Posted: Apr 25, 2011 – 12:23 PM EST

LOS ANGELES, Apr. 25 /CSRwire/ - Specialized Technology Resources Responsible Sourcing (STR RS), a leading global provider of ethical sourcing consulting services, is offering a series of training seminars to help companies manage the reporting rules set forth by the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act.
Businesses will soon need to publish any efforts they have undertaken to eradicate Slavery and Human Trafficking - including disclosure on whether they provide relevant training support to direct supply chain staff.

STR RS' Road Show Seminar Series on SB 657 and Modern Day Slavery and Human Trafficking, which is being held across the U.S., is designed to help businesses prepare for the new training disclosure requirements. Attendees will receive pointers on how to evaluate the risk of slavery and trafficking in today's global supply chain, and take an in-depth look at best practices in mitigating these pervasive problems. The three-hour dynamic seminar will include pragmatic case studies and interactive exercises to help attendees better understand the key concerns, and begin implementing systems to address this serious issue.

"Companies need to be prepared to disclose their efforts to eradicate slavery and human trafficking from their supply chains," said Rachelle Jackson, Director of Research & Development for STR Responsible Sourcing. "This is a big job and companies that do business in California or sell to a buyer that the Act applies to need to begin preparing now."

The seminars will be offered:
New York - May 10, 2011
Boston - May 11, 2011
Chicago - May 20, 2011
Seattle - June 7, 2011
San Francisco - June 8, 2011
Los Angeles - June 14, 2011
Miami - TBD
Dallas - TBD

Visit www.STRQuality.com to view the specific time and location for each seminar and to register. The fee is $150 per person.

STR Responsible Sourcing's "Act Now" program offers services to companies in the five areas mandated by the Act related to slavery and human trafficking. This includes:

• Third Party Verification of Supply Chains - STR RS provides customized supply chain mapping and comprehensive risk services to identify existing risks related to human trafficking, slavery and other labor issues, such as child and migrant labor.
• Independent and Unannounced Audits of Suppliers - With nearly 20 years of social auditing experience, STR RS can help companies ensure that suppliers comply with local and international laws on slavery and human trafficking, including assessments of supplier recruitment processes.
• Supplier Certification of Legal Compliance - STR RS can help companies establish a certification mechanism for direct suppliers to ensure that components incorporated into a company's product comply with country laws on slavery and human trafficking.
• Internal Accountability Standards and Procedures for Employees and Contractors - To assess the robustness of internal policies and procedures related to human trafficking, STR RS conducts in-depth systems gap analysis and makes recommendations for compliance. STR RS also provides support in policy development.
• Training on Human Trafficking and Slavery for Company Employees and Management With Direct Responsibility for Supply Chain Management - STR RS offers comprehensive training on the risk of forced labor and human trafficking in supply chains, which can be delivered in person or via the web in over 30 languages.

About the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act
Under the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act, which goes into effect on January 1, 2012, retail sellers and manufacturers with annual worldwide gross receipts over $100 million who do business in California must publicly disclose their efforts to eradicate slavery and human trafficking from their direct supply chains. Over 3,000 companies will be affected by the Act, which includes mandated five areas be addressed: third-party supply chain verification, independent and unannounced supplier audits, supplier certification of legal compliance, internal accountability standards, staff training on forced labor and human trafficking.

About STR Responsible Sourcing
STR Responsible Sourcing is a leading provider of corporate responsibility auditing and consulting services, which include monitoring, training, research, and program development. STR RS is a business within Specialized Technology Resources' Quality Assurance Division, which was founded in 1944. STR RS has offices in over 30 countries across five continents, and the reach to provide audit services in over 140 countries around the world. Visit STR at www.STRQuality.com.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release may contain certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 regarding the Company's results of operation, financial position and long-term strategy. These forward-looking statements are based on current information and expectations, and are subject to risks and uncertainties discussed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which could cause the Company's actual results to differ materially from expected results. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement contained in this release, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise, except as may be required by law.

For more information, please contact:

Diana Trigo

Phone: 310-215-0554 ext. 524

Amy Blumenthal

Phone: 617-879-1511

STR Responsible Sourcing Offers Seminar on California Transparency in Supply Chains Act – Press Releases on CSRwire.com
Source:  csrwire.com

The 2012 Games and human trafficking. Identifying possible risks and relevant good practice from other cities

Image via Wikipedia

• European Commission Fight Against Trafficking in Human Beings
  

  January 2011, 32 pages
  
  London Councils has commissioned GLE Group to review the potential impact of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games on human trafficking, in the context of a possible increase of people entering the UK due to human trafficking.

  While international and national laws are in place to combat trafficking, London boroughs and other organisations offer services that aim to mitigate the impact. Local organisations highlight good practice and the value of multi-agency working, close cooperation between agencies and maximising existing resources.

  The report describes the activities that are already in place to mitigate human trafficking, addresses the risks in London at present and describes what has happened at past major sporting events.

  Attachments

  • The 2012 Games and Human Trafficking.pdf

Source: ec.europa.eu

Related articles

• 3534 human traffickers arrested in 2009-10 (fourbluehills.com)

Thousands of Burmese 'enslaved' in Thai fishing industry

25 April 2011 Last updated at 13:25 ET
 

A BBC investigation has found that thousands of workers are illegally trafficked from Burma to work in Thailand's fishing industry - on Thai ships, or in factories.

Some are enslaved at sea for years without ever coming onshore, forced to work long hours for little or no pay, or are imprisoned on land between voyages.

Some of those who have escaped have described torture and killings by their Thai captains, as Alastair Leithead reports.

CLICK ON URL:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13189103

BBC News - Today - Burma's trafficked fisherman

A new investigation by the BBC has revealed that thousands of workers are being illegally trafficked from Burma to work on Thai fishing ships or factories, many enslaved at sea for years.
Alastair Leithead reports on the "abuses" of Thailand's "brutal" fishing industry.
[CLICK ON URL:]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9467000/9467216.stm

BBC News - Today - Burma's trafficked fisherman

BBC News - Burmese 'slavery' fishermen are trafficked and abused

25 April 2011 Last updated at 07:04 ETBy Alastair Leithead BBC News, Bangkok

Zaw Zaw now lives and works in Bangkok, and helps others who are trying to escape

Zaw Zaw's story of being a Burmese worker enslaved on a Thai fishing boat is extreme, but not unusual.

He is one of thousands of young men trafficked into Thailand's fishing industry, which is one of Britain's biggest suppliers of fish.

The 26-year-old spent only three months on board before he escaped, but in that time saw three men killed, watched the captain lace the drinking water with drugs and was forced to work around the clock.

It began as he joined a group being smuggled illegally from his home in Burma through the jungle into Thailand with the promise of a job in a local market or factory.

"On the way, two of the Burmese women were raped by the Thai broker and then they started to beat us," Zaw Zaw said.

They were passed from broker to broker and locked up before being sold to a fishing boat - he didn't know it, but they were being trafficked into what human rights activists describe as slavery.

"The man was tortured with electric shocks and was then shot in front of us all and thrown overboard”
Zaw Zaw Trafficked fisherman

If the men became sick they were beaten, they were never allowed more than a few hours sleep at a time, and were living under threat of violence or even death.

Zaw Zaw described the desperate measures some would go to in order to get away.

"Three men tried to escape at 2am. They grabbed fishing net floats and jumped in the sea, but it was very rough and two drowned as they couldn't swim. The other was caught when he got to shore.

"They brought him back to the boat - his face swollen from being beaten and tortured. They called us all on deck and the Thai captain said this is what happens if you try to escape.

"The man was tortured with electric shocks and was then shot in front of us all and thrown overboard."

Water drugged

They slept in wooden bunks only just big enough for them. Zaw Zaw said they were like coffins and so small that when the bell was rung for them to work - every few hours - those new to the boat would bang their heads when they were woken suddenly.

Thousands of Burmese workers are thought to be aboard Thai vessels

"I saw the captain put 15-20 amphetamine tablets into a plastic bag and crush them into a powder and then put that into the drinking water. We worked faster and faster but then had terrible headaches afterwards."

After seeing three men killed Zaw Zaw realised it could happen to him and so, despite the risks, decided to escape.

"When the fishing boat was anchored near the shore I took a float and jumped into the sea at 1am. I reached the shore at 6am - the sea was very rough.

"I got through the sand dunes and then hid in bushes. They were searching for me and walked right in front of me but never saw me - I thank God for that."

After walking four days he reached Pattaya city, found a church group which could help him and now he is legally living and working in Bangkok, and helping others who are trying to escape. He was paid nothing for the work he did.

Widespread problem

We spoke to many Burmese men now in Thailand who described similar stories - the trafficking, the beatings, the killings. They estimate there are thousands of Burmese workers aboard Thai vessels.

Illegal workers are also trafficked to packing and processing factories

They told us some workers were kept on fishing boats for years without seeing the shore as the fish were delivered on to bigger boats which would take the catch to the docks.

Mahachai is one of Thailand's bigger fishing towns, with fishing boats coming in early every morning.

A dock official, who did not want to be named, said the boats are all run in a similar way, with a Thai captain and engineer, but with illegal Burmese workers making up most of the 20 crew.

And it's not just on board ship - illegal workers are trafficked to packing and processing factories as well.

Ka Oo was 18 when he arrived in Thailand: "I wasn't allowed to leave the factory for four years here and worked 15 to 20 hours a day. It was like living in a prison."

He eventually escaped by getting hold of a mobile phone, banned in the factory, contacting a friend to arrange to be picked up and then climbing over a huge wall to get away.

Buyer beware

The Thai authorities say they cannot comment on individual cases, but insist laws are in place and they are doing what they can to stop the abuses and to regulate Thailand's fishing fleet, which is one of the biggest in the world.

Human rights groups want consumers to pressure the Thai government to regulate the industry

But human rights activists say more could and should be done to stop this. Andy Hall works with a human rights group for Burmese migrants in Thailand.

"Many people are being tricked into going into the fishing industry so the people are literally like slaves and kept on the fishing boats," he said.

He believes people in Britain and around the world should be aware of what they are buying.

"What we would say is when you buy your fish, and that fish comes from Thailand, it's coming from an industry where there is a gross exploitation of people who are trafficked into the industry, who are working such long hours in inhumane conditions.

"The people who are receiving this fish need to be demanding that the Thai government regulate the fishing industry and ensure that the exploitation is reduced, because at the moment it is a very serious problem."

BBC News - Burmese 'slavery' fishermen are trafficked and abused
Source: BBC News

Related articles

• VIDEO: 'Enslaved at sea for years' (bbc.co.uk)

5 Things You Need to Know About Human Smuggling | TakePart - Inspiration to Action

Allan MacDonell |


The Associated Press reported Tuesday that European police had arrested 98 alleged members of a Hungarian human smuggling ring. The network is said to have been trafficking Vietnamese “gardeners” into Britain. Each gardener paid the smugglers $28,500 for the service of being sneaked into the U.K. An estimated 35,000 illegal Vietnamese immigrants have already been slipped into Britain, where one worker’s annual earnings can feed a family of 10 for 10 years in Vietnam.

The smugglers make a living, the smuggled send life-sustaining funds back home, and the host country receives an infusion of cheap labor. Everybody seems to be winning. And still law enforcement swoops in with the big buzz kill! What is law enforcement’s problem?

While waiting to be smuggled into Israel, African migrants sleep inside a store, dreaming of a better life. (Photo: Asmaa Waguih/Reuters)

Well, sneaking desperate immigrants from dozens of troubled nations into as many unwitting host countries has at least five sobering realities….

1) Many immigrants can't pay the full smuggling fee and are forced into slave labor, which makes them ideal—as in expendable—workers for illegal enterprises. British police uncovered 6,900 U.K. marijuana plantations last year—and they certainly didn’t find them all. “[One] Vietnamese 'gardener' can run six premises," explained Andre Baker, deputy director of Britain's Serious Organized Crime Agency, to the AP. As lucrative as growing marijuana can be, prostitution is probably the most common criminal activity foisted upon “trafficked” immigrants. In the eyes of the law, trafficking is distinct from smuggling. Traffic of humans involves exploiting the migrant, such as for forced labor, drug running or prostitution. The pure smuggling of people—facilitating an individual’s illegal entry into a country where the individual is neither a citizen nor a permanent resident—is less malignant in comparison. But many of the criminals who smuggle people cannot resist using their human cargos’ illegal status to grease a slide into contemporary slavery.

2) Very often traveling and living conditions are inhumane: The migrants are packed into trucks or boats like sides of beef, except with less care to avoid spoilage. Fatal accidents occur frequently. Officials have lost count of how many people traveling in small, overcrowded boats have drowned while attempting to reach Europe. Traveling from Central America to the United States, or from the Netherlands to the U.K., immigrants have suffocated by the dozens in trucks and shipping containers. After landing in the destination country, the new arrivals are at the mercy of their smugglers, who are not steeped in mercy. Syndicates that smuggle humans benefit from weak legislation, huge profits and a relatively low risk of arrest.

3) If you can read this, you may live in a destination country. Thailand is a destination country for men, women and children who are trafficked for commercial sex and forced labor, including begging. India is a source country for men, women and children trafficked for forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. India is also a destination for women and girls from Nepal and Bangladesh trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation.  Nepali children are trafficked to India for forced labor in circus shows.  Indian women are trafficked to the Middle East for commercial sexual exploitation. Australia is a destination country for human trafficking from East Asia, South East Asia, Eastern Europe, China, Korea and Thailand. Burmese men, women and children are trafficked for sexual and labor exploitation in Thailand, China, Malaysia, Bangladesh, South Korea, Macau and Pakistan. Japan  is a destination country for women and children who are trafficked from China, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America for sexual and labor exploitation. The Kyrgyz Republic is a source and transit country for men and women trafficked from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and South Asia for forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. Men and women are trafficked to Kazakhstan and Russia as forced labor in the agricultural, construction and textile industries. Kyrgyz and foreign women are trafficked to the U.A.E, Kazakhstan, China, South Korea, Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Thailand, Germany and Syria for commercial sexual exploitation. Women and girls are trafficked to the Netherlands from Nigeria, Bulgaria, China, Sierra Leone, Romania and other countries in Eastern Europe for sexual exploitation and forced labor. Men are trafficked to the Netherlands from India, China, Bangladesh and Turkey for forced labor and sexual exploitation. Men, women and children from the former Soviet Union and wider Eastern Europe are trafficked through Bulgaria to Western and Southern Europe for commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. Ethnic Roma women and children are highly vulnerable to trafficking. Bulgarian women and some men are trafficked internally, primarily to resort areas along the Black Sea for commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. The United States is principally a transit and destination country for trafficking in persons, primarily women and children.
This list, perhaps exhausting, is by no means exhaustive.

4) Hardened criminal gangs have branched into human smuggling. Traditionally, migrant facilitators have been amateurs of the same ethnic origin as those they were smuggling. As far back as 2008, Mexican drug cartels merged human smuggling with drug trafficking. Migrants are forced to act as drug "mules" as the price of passage. "This used to be a family business. The coyote and the migrant were from the same town; they were connected," said Carlos Vélez-Ibáñez of Arizona State University. "Now, what's been created is this structure of smuggling in the hands of really nasty people who only treat the migrant as a commodity."

5) People snatching is a fishier and fishier business. In its favor, the global fishing industry supplies jobs and food to billions of people, but the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) points out that fishing boats are commonly floated to transfer and transport drugs to West Africa. Fishing vessels are also ideal for smuggling migrants, weapons, terrorists and wildlife. Increasingly, the very crews on the boats are themselves trafficked. Deceiving young men to work in Thailand’s extremely harsh fishing industry—think of it as Deadliest Catch with less sleep, starvation rations, routine beatings, no pay and no way off the boat—is a new pattern of human trafficking. Ring members pay 3,000 to 5,000 baht (less than $160) to agents who persuade or abduct young men to work on fishing trawlers. These agents’ methods range from false job ads to drugging victims and dragging them on board the boats. In July 2003, six fishing trawlers sailed with about 100 crewmembers from Samut Sakhon province to fish in Indonesian waters. The trawlers returned to Thailand in July 2007, but about 40 crewmembers did not. They had died on the job. The intervening years have seen conditions deteriorate for migrant fishermen, including 17 Vietnamese who perished with sinking of South Korean boat No. 1 Insung off the coast of Antarctica in December 2010.
 
5 Things You Need to Know About Human Smuggling | TakePart - Inspiration to Action
Source:  takepart.com

Katya's story: trafficked to the UK, sent home to torture | Law | The Guardian

The experience of one woman, enslaved by traffickers and and shuttled across Europe to serve the sex trade, highlights the need for urgent reform of the law

• Amelia Gentleman
• The Guardian, Tuesday 19 April 2011
• Article history

A model poses as a victim of sex trafficking. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA
When they assessed her case, British immigration officials knew that Katya, a vulnerable 18-year-old from Moldova, had been trafficked and forced into prostitution, but ruled that she would face no real danger if she was sent back. ays after her removal from the UK, her traffickers tracked her down to the Moldovan village where she had grown up. She was gang-raped, strung up by a rope from a tree, and forced to dig her own grave. One of her front teeth was pulled out with a pair of pliers. Shortly afterwards she was re-trafficked, first to Israel and later back to the UK. The Home Office decision last week to pay her substantial damages has raised serious questions about the way Britain treats trafficked women. The unprecedented case also opens the possibility that other individuals who have been removed from this country and subsequently found themselves exposed to danger in their home country, could attempt to sue the Home Office for damages. The Moldovan woman was first kidnapped by traffickers when she was 14, repeatedly sold on to pimps and other traffickers, and forced to work as a prostitute for seven years in Italy, Turkey, Hungary, Romania, Israel and the UK. She told the Guardian that British police need to do much more to protect women like her and to prevent others from being trafficked into prostitution. "Just look around you - see how many girls there are like me. They are coming all the time. I see them every day - in tube stations, all made up, early in the morning. Maybe for you it is difficult to see them, but I see them," said Katya (not her real name), in an interview in her solicitor's office. "I think the police should work better to stop this. Why don't you shut down saunas and brothels? Then there would be no prostitutes, no pimps." The exhaustive account that Katya has given in court documents, explaining how she was targeted, captured and intimidated, reveals the sophisticated methods employed by gangs trafficking vulnerable women from eastern Europe, Africa and the far east. It also reveals the danger that these women are often exposed to when the British immigration service opts to remove them. Experienced staff at the Poppy Project, which provides specialist support for trafficking victims and which last week learned it was losing its government funding, described her story as among the most disturbing they have encountered. Katya has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, but finds therapy sessions too painful to engage with. She was living with her mother in Moldova when two older men invited her and a friend to a birthday picnic in a nearby forest. Both girls were knocked unconscious, driven to Romania, blindfolded, taken across a river in an inflatable dinghy to somewhere in Hungary, dressed in dark clothes and made to walk through the forest across the border during the night, passing through Slovenia and arriving eventually in Italy. They were sold on to two separate men. Katya worked first in a flat in Rimini and then on the streets of Milan. After some months, she managed to escape and was sheltered for a while in the Moldovan embassy there, when she discovered she was pregnant. She chose to return to her family in Moldova to have the child, but her traffickers found her, beat and raped her brother and killed the family dog as punishment for her decision to tell Italian police what happened to her. She discovered that the friend she had been kidnapped with had been murdered by traffickers in Israel who had drugged her and thrown her off a seven-storey building. These experiences terrified her so much that for years she avoided doing anything that might upset her traffickers in case they acted on their threats to hurt her family. After she gave birth, and sent her daughter to live in relative safety with an aunt, Katya was sent to Turkey to work in a nightclub. She was later smuggled in a lorry to work in a London brothel. During her time working as a prostitute, she was given no money for her work and was not allowed to go anywhere unaccompanied in case she tried to escape. Her clients in London rarely asked about the conditions in which she was working. "The clients, they're drunk, and just come and say, 'Give me this, that'. No one asks: 'How are you?'. Some of them asked, 'Why do you do this job?', but I wouldn't answer," she said, explaining that she was afraid that if she appealed to them for help, they might turn out to be friends with the trafficker. She and the other women - mainly eastern European, none of them British - never talked of their circumstances among themselves. "I didn't know if the other girls were friends of the trafficker. It was dangerous to speak to the clients or the other girls. There were speakers in the flat where we lived. We didn't talk about anything. Sometimes we were locked up for weeks and weeks, not going out." The brothel, in Harrow, north-west London, was raided a few weeks after she arrived. She was arrested, but she did not reveal the full details of her enslavement to the police because the Kosovan Albanian man who had bought her told her that her family would be in danger if she said anything. Because officials did not realise Katya had been intimidated by her trafficker, they allowed him to visit her nine times when she was in detention, visits he used to intimidate her further. Although they recognised that she had been trafficked, immigration officials decided to remove her to Moldova, judging that there was no real risk to her safety. A few days after she returned home, her traffickers found her. "They took me to a forest and I was beaten and raped. Then they made a noose out of rope and told me to dig my own grave as I was going to be killed," Katya's court statement reads. "They tied the noose around my neck and let me hang before cutting the branch off the tree. I really believed I was going to die. They then drove me to a house where many men were staying. They were all very drunk and took turns to rape me. When I tried to resist, one man physically restrained me and pulled my front tooth out using pliers." The attack ended only when her trafficker told the men they needed to stop as Katya was to be sold in Israel. "I think maybe they did not kill me because I was more valuable alive," her statement reads. Katya, now 26, is thin and pale, but dentists have replaced her tooth, and her other scars are well hidden. "I didn't have too many scars or injuries as the traffickers wanted to keep me looking pretty," she said. After working in Tel Aviv for a while, Katya again escaped before being trafficked to work in a central London flat, where her pimps sold her for £150 an hour; again, she received no money. In 2007 she was detained for a second time by immigration officials, who considered returning her to Moldova, before finally granting her refugee status. Katya has been interviewed by medical and trafficking experts in preparation for the trial, all of whom found her account credible. Her legal team argued immigration solicitors should have investigated evidence that she was a victim of trafficking and that their decision to return her to Moldova, where she ran the risk of retribution and retrafficking, was a violation of her rights under article 3 (the right to freedom from torture and inhumane and degrading treatment) and article 4 (the right to freedom from slavery and servitude) of the European convention on human rights. Paul Holmes, the now retired former head of the Metropolitan police's vice unit, CO14, said in a pre-trial statement that there was already much evidence by 2003 that should have led immigration officials to identify her as a trafficking victim. He said there was "friction" at that time between the immigration service's desire to remove "illegal entrants" to the country, and his department's desire to interview potential victims and get them to testify against traffickers. "Our doubt about the effectiveness of prompt removal was exacerbated by the fact that our intelligence-gathering and operational activities had highlighted the fact that in some cases, victims that had been removed were subjected to retrafficking and were being discovered for a second time in London brothels or elsewhere within weeks of their original removal," he said Katya's case was due to open last week at the high court in London, but Home Office lawyers agreed to pay substantial, undisclosed damages the day before the scheduled start of the case. Her solicitor Harriet Wistrich, of legal firm Birnberg Peirce, said she hoped the case would highlight the dangers of unlawful removal and could prompt other claims. Wistrich said she believed the case, which has been two years in preparation, might also educate people about the reality of trafficking of women from eastern Europe. "People don't believe it's happening on this scale. People don't want to believe it," she said. There is no clear data to indicate how many trafficked women may be in England and Wales, but research for the Association of Chief Police Officers last year found clear evidence of 2,600 trafficked victims and of another 9,600 "vulnerable migrants" who might have been trafficked. The Home Office says there have been improvements in the way immigration officials deal with trafficked women since 2003, and minister Damian Green said: "The UK has become a world leader in fighting trafficking and has a strong international reputation in this field." But Sally Montier, of the Poppy Project, said the charity was still regularly helping women who were wrongly sent home and retrafficked. She warned that 21% of the women who came to the charity seeking help had already been sent home and retrafficked at least once. "Worryingly, we are seeing an increase in women who have been identified as victims of trafficking but who are in the process of being removed," she said. Last week's decision to award the Salvation Army the government contract to provide support to trafficked women would lead to the loss of the expertise built up by the Poppy Project over the last eight years, she said. "We are very worried that we will see more women who are not identified as having been trafficked, and who are consequently removed, so that they fall back into the cycle of trafficking and abuse." Katya's traffickers have not been arrested and she is concerned they could now target her younger sister in Moldova. She plans to stay in the UK, has signed up for computer courses and English language classes, and is doing voluntary work. Recently she succeeded in bringing her daughter to live with her, but is troubled by the possibility that she could run into the people who forced her into prostitution in London. She is sceptical about the likelihood that the Home Office decision could force officials to treat trafficking victims with more sensitivity: "If the government cared it would not be closing the Poppy Project. They don't care." But she adds: "I'm not angry with the government. How can you be angry with the government? I'm angry with my life, the things that have happened."

Katya's story: trafficked to the UK, sent home to torture | Law | The Guardian
Source: guardian.co.uk

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Uniting against human trafficking

Global News: Saturday, April 23, 2011 1:49 PM

Joy Smith, Conservative candidate for the St. Paul/Kildonan riding, called on Manitobans to unite against human trafficking.

Photo Credit: Sam Karney, Global News

After the 2011 Manitoba Prayer Breakfast wrapped up at the Canad-Inn Polo Park Saturday morning, Conservative candidate for the St. Paul/Kildonan riding, Joy Smith, hosted a press conference on human trafficking, which was also the theme of this year’s Prayer Breakfast.

“Human trafficking is a global issue; it happens every day, but it also happens in our country every day, where children are bought and sold,” Smith said.

Smith called on Manitobans, Canadians and all levels of government to work together to stop this “horrendous” crime.

Brian McConaghy, a 22-year RCMP forensic scientist who was instrumental in the investigations of Canadian serial killer Willie Pickton, was on-hand to discuss his experiences, which have led him to start Ratanak International, a humanitarian organization that provides aid to help trafficked and sexually-exploited children in Cambodia.

“The whole issue of human trafficking is under the table and people don’t realize it’s very real; these are real lives, real young people that will disappear, and even the ones that don’t disappear are horribly abused,” McConaghy said.

Unlike “one-off” sexual assaults, McConaghy added that human trafficking is a “slow way of murdering them from the inside-out.”

By raising awareness of the human trafficking with Canadians, Smith and McConaghy hope citizens will pressure government to allocate more resources to fighting the crime.

Uniting against human trafficking
Source: globalwinnipeg.com

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Prevention and Awareness Campaign on Human Trafficking in Colombia

(Espacios de Mujer) -Thousands of Colombian men, women and children have to migrate each year in search for better opportunities outside their communities of origin. Migration within the country or outside its borders makes them often vulnerable to human trafficking.

A lack of knowledge about the phenomenon of trafficking in persons  leads to the deception of an increasing number of Colombians who end up as victims of different forms of exploitation.  Corporacion Espacios de Mujer is a civil society organization in Colombia working to prevent human trafficking  and assisting its victims. They have launched the campaign "Porque se Trata de tí!", aimed to raise awareness about trafficking, specially amongst women, as they make the majority of trafficking victims in Colombia.

Colombian women trafficked to Japan, assisted by Corporacion Espacios de Mujer, reported that women are sold by traffickers for amounts that range between USD $15.000 and $20.000. They usually end up exploited in the sex industry.  They are confined in  small apartments and forced to get "customers" day and night. If they protest or try to flee, they are abused as a form of "punishment". Corporacion Espacios Mujer knows of cases of women who have committed suicide because of despair. Often, their families cannot even ask for the return of the body, because the victims entered to the country with a false passport.

Corporacion Espacios de Mujer will carry its awareness campaign until 2013. The activities include messages on mass media and other activities  in specific at-risk communities.

For more information please visit the website of  Corporación Espacios de Mujer.

Awareness-raising, Trafficking and gender, NGO, Colombia

 Prevention and Awareness Campaign on Human Trafficking in Colombia
Source: UNGIFT.org

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The kids making our kids’ Easter Eggs — SOS Children

Image via Wikipedia

Apr 21, 2011 09:29 AM

 

When British children tuck into their Easter eggs on Sunday, few will know their chocolate treats have been made by African children working as modern day slaves.

Sixty per cent of the chocolate in UK shops is produced using cocoa beans from Ghana and the Ivory Coast.
Last year, posing as cocoa dealers, a BBC team found a significant chunk of the chocolate sold in the UK is produced by children as young as eight forced to work seven hours a day.
A new report released by World Vision is asking people to slow down on their chocolate eggs and think of exploited children this Easter.

“We’re eating cheap chocolate because of trafficked children, child slavery and hazardous labour,” said the charity’s Tim Costello.

About 97 per cent of the world’s supply of chocolate does not have the ethics certificate showing that they were made without using forced and child labour, the report said.

It also revealed that as well as child labour, human trafficking is playing a huge part in making chocolates.
World Vision is suggesting a few simple strategies to wipe out child labour in chocolate production. It is calling for a certificate scheme to prove no child labour was used in making each product. Child labour is often used to make up for the lower prices, it says.

The BBC’s Panorama: Chocolate, the Bitter Truth a made a big impact raising awareness and promoting the fact that people need to take more responsibility for the food they eat and where it comes from.

Reporter Paul Kenyon investigated the supply chain that delivers most of the chocolate sold in the UK,  more than half a million tonnes a year. He found evidence of human trafficking and child slave labour. The programme also found that there is no guarantee, despite safeguards, even with chocolate marketed as FairTrade, that child labour has not been used at least somewhere along the supply chain. By the time it hits the High Street, cocoa is very hard to trace.

In a village in Ghana, Kenyon met 12-year-old Ouare Fatao Kwakou, who was sold to traffickers by his uncle and taken from neighbouring Burkina Faso to work as a cocoa picker. More than a year later, he had not been paid a penny for his work - the profits of his labour went instead to his new cocoa masters and to the uncle who sold him.

The kids making our kids’ Easter Eggs — SOS Children
Source:  soschildrensvillages.org.uk

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Americans Want Slave-Free Chocolate, Too — THE NORTH STAR

by Katherine Chon

When I was in London last April, I walked into a local convenience store for a chocolate fix to help relieve some jet lag. I browsed through options for chocolate, looking for bars that I wouldn’t necessarily find back home in the United States. My scanning stopped when my eyes fixed on a Cadbury Dairy Milk bar that looked like this:

Here were my immediate thoughts: Cadbury? Fair trade? When did this happen? This is so exciting! Oh, but why don’t I see the little Fair Trade logo on the Cadbury eggs?

I purchased the Cadbury milk bar and left the caramel egg behind. Later, I learned from colleagues at Stop the Traffik that Cadbury’s decision to receive the Fair Trade certification for its Dairy Milk product came two years into the Stop the Traffik Chocolate Campaign. Cadbury became one of the first big chocolate companies to begin to go Fair Trade. The good news: grassroots consumer pressure through the campaign convinced Cadbury to produce cocoa under international standards that prohibit forced labor and the worst forms of child labor. The bad news: Cadbury’s bars are only Fair Trade in the U.K.; you won’t be able to find them in the United States – yet.

When our chocolate is not fair trade, we don’t know what working conditions went into producing it. According to a U.S. Department of Labor Report released in 2009, cocoa is one of the main raw goods produced by forced labor or child labor. In August 2009, Interpol investigated the production of cocoa in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, which make about 70% of the world’s cocoa. Thousands of children are estimated to be trafficked in these two countries for cocoa production. Interpol found children bought by plantation owners for cheap labor, working in extreme conditions, and carrying loads heavy enough to cause physical harm. The children regularly worked 12 hours a day, received no pay and no education. Girls were purchased as house maids.

Tulane University conducted a four-year study corroborating much of Interpol’s findings: “Among child cocoa workers between the ages of 5-17, 43% in Ivory Coast and 74.7% in Ghana report injuries while working in cocoa production, including wounds, broken bones, and snake bites.”

Fortunately, the International Labor Rights Forum, Global Exchange, and Green America have been working to bring Cadbury’s and other companies’ Fair Trade products to the United States. The major obstacle for Cadbury? Hershey is the manufacturer of Cadbury chocolate in the U.S. and allegedly one of the worst offenders of not taking action on its commitment to help reduce forced labor and the worst forms of child labor. According to Green America, Cadbury’s Fair Trade progress in the U.K. demonstrates that “it is viable for a major chocolate bar to go Fair Trade without passing a significant cost increase to consumers.” It is human sense and makes business sense.

As consumers, let’s encourage Hershey –‘The Sweetest Place on Earth’ – to make it that much sweeter for the children and communities who produce the chocolate in American markets. Sign the petition through the International Labor Rights Forum, calling on Hershey to “Raise the Bar!”

Americans Want Slave-Free Chocolate, Too — THE NORTH STAR
Source:PolarisProject

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