Wednesday, April 30, 2014

The dark side of the oil boom: Human trafficking in the heartland | Al Jazeera America

Source:  Al Jazeera America:

"That mix of men and money has brought another plague. Undercover footage provided by the anti-trafficking organization iEmpathize hints at a more insidious problem: human sex trafficking.
"Windie Jo Lazenko said an influx of money and a highly skewed ratio of men to women has fueled a massive increase in prostitution, often arranged through websites like Backpage.com. And where there is prostitution, she said, there is trafficking.
Read the full article:
http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/articles/2014/4/28/the-dark-side-oftheoilboomhumantraffickingintheheartland.html
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Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Indonesian Fishermen Stranded in South Africa After Horror Voyage

Source: The Jakarta Globe


Cape Town. Dozens of Indonesian fishermen who spent months stranded in Cape Town’s harbor, sleeping in cramped and suffocating quarters, have been taken ashore to a repatriation center after being stuck at sea for years without pay.

The group of 75 fishermen tell of slavery-like working conditions aboard seven Taiwanese-owned vessels — an ordeal that only grew worse when South African authorities impounded their trawlers for illegal fishing.

The crew spent three months stranded in Cape Town’s Table Bay, sleeping crowded together in dirty, airless quarters that reeked of diesel, until they were moved to a repatriation center in Johannesburg on Saturday.
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Modern-day slavery commonplace on fishing vessels | The Jakarta Post

Source: The Jakarta Post

Singapore has one of the world’s busiest airports, at which thousands of sailors arrive and leave the island city-state every day.
Many of these are young Indonesians who work on the sea, some of whom have enough skills to meet international seamen qualifications. But others fail to meet even the minimum skill requirements.
Continue:

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/04/27/modern-day-slavery-commonplace-fishing-vessels.html
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Human Trafficking Law Blog: In Florida Tomato Fields, a Penny Buys Progress

Source: Human Trafficking Law Blog


IMMOKALEE, Fla. — Not long ago, Angelina Velasquez trudged to a parking lot at 5 each morning so a crew leader’s bus could drop her at the tomato fields by 6. She often waited there, unpaid — while the dew dried — until 10 a.m., when the workers were told to clock in and start picking.


Back then, crew leaders often hectored and screamed at the workers, pushing them to fill their 32-pound buckets ever faster in this area known as the nation’s tomato capital.


Continue:

http://humantraffickinglaw.blogspot.ca/2014/04/in-florida-tomato-fields-penny-buys.html

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Monday, April 28, 2014

Forum: Trafficked children need help, not more trauma

Source: New England Register

Barbara J. Guthrie, Independence Foundation Professor of Nursing, Yale School of Nursing 

Connecticut is incarcerating a 16-year-old accused of no crime in an adult prison. This child is a survivor of commercial sex trafficking, one of many horrific experiences she has endured in her short life. Rather than helping her recover from these traumas, the state is reinforcing them through placement in a highly unsafe environment.

Read more:
http://www.nhregister.com/opinion/20140426/forum-trafficked-children-need-help-not-more-trauma
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Monday, April 21, 2014

Carter Decries Abuse of Girls in India

Source: VOA

 — A 2013 State Department report on human trafficking says there are 26 million people around the world who are victims of modern day slavery, many of them young girls.  The problem is a growing concern, particularly in India. In a recent interview with VOA, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter talked about the problem, which is addressed in his new book A Call to Action.

Read more:
http://www.voanews.com/content/carter-decries-abuse-of-girls-in-india/1896249.html
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Sunday, April 20, 2014

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

From Buenos Aires to World: Pope Shines Spotlight on Trafficking | HispanicallySpeakingNews.com

Source: HispanicallySpeakingNews.com


As Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, the future pope dragged the hidden problem of human slavery into broad daylight.


He held annual open-air Masses in the city’s Constitution Square for
and with victims of human trafficking—many of them children accompanied
by their enormous burlap sacks stuffed with recyclable cardboard.


Continue:


http://www.hispanicallyspeakingnews.com/latino-daily-news/details/from-buenos-aires-to-world-stage-pope-shines-spotlight-on-human-trafficking/29676/
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Tuesday, April 15, 2014

States working to toughen laws against sex trafficking | SeacoastOnline.com

Source:  SeacoastOnline.com


In the small town of Sydney, Maine, population 4,200, a father and son were arrested Thursday on charges of sex trafficking for running a brothel out of their home with half a dozen women. That same day, two people in Litchfield, Maine, population 3,600, were arrested on the same charges for conducting a similar operation at their mobile home.

Continue:
http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20140413-NEWS-404130344
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Sunday, April 13, 2014

Burma: Trafficking worsens with war's return | Green Left Weekly

Source:  Green Left Weekly

 
Je yang camp, located a 30 minutes drive on often unpaved or rocky road from Laiza, the capital of rebels in Kachin State in northern Burma, accommodates about 8000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).

The wild landscape around the camp suggests the scenery would have been far more stunning without the presence of humans.

Continue:

https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/56224
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Thursday, April 10, 2014

Special Report - Flaws found in Thailand's human-trafficking crackdown - swissinfo.ch

Source:  swissinfo.ch



By Andrew R.C. Marshall and Amy Sawitta Lefevre

SATUN, Thailand (Reuters) - After a two-hour trek through swamp and jungle, Police Major
General Thatchai Pitaneelaboot halts in a trash-strewn clearing near
Thailand's remote border with Malaysia.

"This is it," he says, surveying the remains of a deserted camp on a hillside pressed flat by the weight of human bodies.


Continue:

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/news/international/Special_Report_-_Flaws_found_in_Thailands_human-trafficking_crackdown.html?cid=38365296
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Merchants of modern slavery: Sex traffickers use deception, manipulation to control victims - El Paso Times

Source:  El Paso Times


They were wealthy and well-educated with words like "executive" and "Harvard" strung behind their names. They seemed like the type of man 21-year-old Denico Harris aspired to become.

But their big houses and impressive resumes masked an insidious underground world where young, vulnerable men were bought and sold.

By the time Harris discovered their secret, it was too late — he had become their slave.

 Continue:
 http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_25482694/sex-traffickers-use-deception-manipulation-control-victims


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Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Feds, strip clubs fighting human trafficking - chicagotribune.com

Source: chicagotribune.com


It was a standard hotel conference room scene — slices of fresh fruit
and muffins laid out next to coffee urns and bottles of water chilling
on ice as the attendees straggled in, industry friends hugging hello and
quickly catching up on personal lives.


The west suburban conference, though, was hardly typical, and before
it got started a hotel manager, standing near TV cameras there to cover
the event, even asked an organizer to leave his hotel chain's name out
of remarks if possible.


The 100 or so attendees were dancers, doormen, valets and bartenders from six Chicago-area
strip clubs. And they were there to meet with federal agents from the
Department of Homeland Security about how they might offer help with a
problem that has increasingly become a target of law enforcement
investigations: sex trafficking.


Continue here:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-strip-club-trafficking-training-met-20140406,0,467972.story
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Authorities cannot go it alone in human trafficking fight: MP - Channel NewsAsia

Source: Channel NewsAsia


SINGAPORE: The authorities cannot go it alone in the fight against human trafficking.


MP Christopher de Souza, who plans to introduce a private member's Bill in Parliament on the Prevention of Human Trafficking, said he and a taskforce looking into this issue are happy to work alongside civil society and members of the public.


Singapore is one of many countries that have become a convenient point of transit and a destination for human trafficking.


Read here:


 http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/authorities-cannot-go-it/1058970.html
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Tuesday, April 8, 2014

High Culture and Hard Labor - NYTimes.com

High Culture and Hard Labor - NYTimes.com




"On Saadiyat, and throughout the gleaming cityscapes of Abu Dhabi and
Dubai, the construction work force is almost entirely made up of Indian,
Pakistani, Bangladeshi Sri Lankan and Nepalese migrant laborers. Bound
to an employer by the kafala sponsorship system, they arrive heavily
indebted from recruitment and transit fees, only to find that their gulf
dream has been a mirage. Typically, in the United Arab Emirates, the
sponsoring employer takes their passports, houses the workers in
substandard labor camps, pays much less than they were promised and
enforces a punishing regimen under the desert sun."


Read Andrew Ross' article here:


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/29/opinion/high-culture-and-hard-labor.html?_r=0
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Special Issue: Human Trafficking: Recent Empirical Research. Edited by: Ronald Weitzer & Sheldon X. Zhang | Research on Human Trafficking


 Includes arrticles by 

Ronald Weitzer 

 New Directions in Research on Human Trafficking
  
Sheldon X. Zhang,Michael W. Spiller,Brian Karl Finch,and Yang Qin

Estimating Labor Trafficking among Unauthorized Migrant Workers in San Diego

and more ...

Countries covered include US, S. Africa, Asia, Easter Europe.

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Is jailing victims of sex trafficking constitutional? | HeraldTribune.com

Source: HeraldTribune.com


 By


SARASOTA - Severely traumatized child sex-trafficking victims
could be confined in secure safe houses, or lockups, for up to 10 months
under bills being discussed by Florida lawmakers.


And that proviso means that two bills aimed at providing services for
sex trafficking victims could fail even before reaching the governor's
desk.


Read more:

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20140407/ARTICLE/140409713/-1/news50?Title=Is-jailing-victims-of-sex-trafficking-constitutional-
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Thursday, April 3, 2014

Is your manicurist a sex slave? Nail salons a front for human trafficking? | Mail Online

Source: Mail Online

With manicures costing as little as £10 — and taking no more than half an hour — they offer the perfect affordable pick-me-up.

However, behind the bright lights and spotless surfaces of the salons, there is an altogether darker story.

Experts believe many staff — very often Vietnamese — are smuggled into Britain illegally by organised gangs of human traffickers. They are made to work as virtual slaves during the day and then, sometimes, as prostitutes or drug farmers by night.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2396774/Is-manicurist-sex-slave-Nail-salons-human-trafficking.html#ixzz2xqkUcGMu

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Let’s Stop Using the Term 'Modern-Day Slavery' - Pacific Standard: The Science of Society

Source: Pacific Standard: The Science of Society

Last week, 59-year-old Tieu Tran, a former nail salon owner in Minnesotapleaded guilty to human trafficking in U.S. District Court. According to court documents, in 2008, Tran recruited a woman from Vietnam to come work in the U.S., promising her a high-paying job and help immigrating into the country legally. She did not keep either of those promises.

Continue here
http://www.psmag.com/navigation/politics-and-law/lets-stop-using-term-modern-day-slavery-77776/
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