Source: The Lincoln Journal Star Online
Where James Kofi Annan is from, a young boy's life is worth less than a fishing net.
Impoverished families living on the shores of Ghana's largest lake often sell their children into slavery for just $40.
Annan was one of these children.
Now an adult, Annan recounted the beatings, the 17-hour workdays and the fear that engulfed him to a crowd at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln on Thursday as part of the Interdisciplinary Conference on Human Trafficking.
"This fishing industry has an unquenchable thirst for the labor of children just to minimize the cost," he said. "This cannot be right."
At 13, Annan escaped slavery, taught himself to read and write and eventually earned a college degree. Now, he's devoted his life to ending modern-day slavery through Challenging Heights, an organization he founded to free children from hard labor and empower them with education.
"There is hope," he said. "The hope is you and me."
Annan's lecture was a fitting way to kick off one of the pre-eminent academic conferences on human trafficking in the country, said Ari Kohen, an associate professor of political science and organizer of the event.
“(Child labor) certainly is a different type of trafficking than what you normally think when you hear ‘human trafficking,’” Kohen said. “But labor is a huge component of modern-day slavery.”
The conference was created after university faculty members from several different disciplines discovered their shared interest in researching and raising awareness about human trafficking.
As many as 27 million people are enslaved worldwide. Organizers hope the research presented will help researchers, government officials, academics and law enforcement to understand and stop the trade.
“There are other, larger conferences on how to fight human trafficking, which are attended by law enforcement and those involved in rehabilitation,” said Dwayne Ball, a conference organizer and associate professor of marketing at UNL. “This conference has become the most important conference for the dissemination of research and knowledge.”
This summer, Ball and other UNL faculty members — with backgrounds ranging from law to advertising to computer science — received a grant from Microsoft to study the role of the Internet and technology in human trafficking.
The conference, now in its fourth year, along with years of work by local advocates, has made a tangible impact in Lincoln and at the Legislature, Kohen said.
This April, the Gov. Dave Heineman approved LB1145, a bill that ramped up penalties for pandering, created a task force to investigate and study human trafficking in Nebraska and placed posters at rest stops and strip clubs to guide victims to assistance.
The bill was introduced by Lincoln Sen. Amanda McGill, who spoke at a panel discussion at noon Thursday alongside keynote speaker Kristiina Kangaspunta, the deputy director of the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute.
In addition, UNL students have formed an active human trafficking advocacy group and hatched the idea for a public art display to raise awareness about human trafficking, which took the form of colorfully painted benches installed in November at 12th and P streets.
The scope of the problem in Nebraska is unknown, Ball said. Until recently, the funds to study human trafficking locally just haven’t been available.
“Everyone who comes to the conference feels that a great deal more needs to be understood,” Ball said. “And knowledge is not always a cheap enterprise.”
The conference continues Friday and Saturday. A free public screening of “The Pink Room,” a documentary about sex slavery and human trafficking in Cambodia, will be screened at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center.
