Witness: The “Innocent” Human Trafficker | Human Rights Watch

Source: Human Rights Watch

Amy Braunschweiger

Each year, thousands of people flee the extreme poverty and repression in the Horn of Africa to Yemen, hoping to go on to Saudi Arabia for work. In Haradh, many migrants sleep in the town square, a large expanse of parched earth littered with rotten mattresses. Many migrants fall into the hands of human traffickers who torture them to extort money from their families back home.

Read the story:

http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/05/25/witness-innocent-human-trafficker-0

Yemen’s Torture Camps

Abuse of Migrants by Human Traffickers in a Climate of Impunity

MAY 25, 2014

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Somaly Mam resigns from foundation after probe into her personal history

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation 

 Lisa Anderson

NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) — Somaly Mam, one of the world’s best-known activists against sex trafficking, resigned Wednesday from the foundation she created after an investigation uncovered discrepancies in the shocking personal history she used to raise millions of dollars in funding around the world.

Continue here: 
http://www.trust.org/item/20140528212842-43u8o/

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A Desperate Mother’s Search Leads to a Fight Against Sex Trafficking - NYTimes.com

Source:  NYTimes.com:

By JONATHAN GILBERT

SAN MIGUEL DE TUCUMÁN, Argentina — HERE in the impoverished north of Argentina, sex traffickers search among the vulnerable for targets. Typically, they lure women with deceitful job offers and then traffic them to big cities, mining towns and agricultural regions, where they are forced into sex slavery.

For most women, in the past, it was the beginning of years of servitude in a grim underworld of prostitution. But these days more manage to escape, many with the help of the Fundación María de los Ángeles, a nongovernmental organization founded by Susana Trimarco, whose daughter was seized 12 years ago.

Read the full article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/24/world/americas/a-mothers-search-in-argentina-leads-to-a-fight-against-sex-trafficking.html

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Profits and Poverty: The Economics of Forced Labour

Source: ILO

1. 

   Download

   Profits and Poverty: The Economics of Forced Labour

   
   

   The study investigates the underlying factors that drive forced labour, of which a major one is illegal profits. Figures include a breakdown of profits by area of forced labour and by region.

   1. Full report - [pdf 1.2MB]
   2. Summary of the report - [pdf 0.1 MB‎ ]

Continue here to see some graphs on annual profits from forced labor


http://www.ilo.org/global/topics/forced-labour/publications/profits-of-forced-labour-2014/lang--en/index.htm

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'Forced labor can be made visible and combated' | Globalization | DW.DE | 20.05.2014

Source: DW.DE | 20.05.2014:


Even the UN labor agency was surprised by the results of its report on forced labor. The organization found that the illicit practices generate $150 billion yearly. DW spoke to the ILO's Corinne Vargha about the study.

Read the interview here:

http://www.dw.de/forced-labor-can-be-made-visible-and-combated/a-17648980

'Forced labor is tolerated in many countries' | Business | DW.DE | 20.05.2014

Source: DW.DE | 20.05.2014:

The International Labor Organization (ILO) report revealed that more than half the people in forced labor are women and girls, primarily in commercial sexual exploitation and domestic work. Men and boys are primarily forced to work in agriculture, construction, and mining. At the same time, about 5.5 million of the victims are children.

The Asia-Pacific region is home to more than half of forced workers worldwide with some 11.7 million exploited people generating around $51.8 billion each year for their abusive employers. Africa takes the second slot with 3.7 million forced laborers, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean with 1.8 million.

In a DW interview Ekkehard Ernst, ILO's labor market expert, says slave labor is rife in some countries because of the tolerance for the practice in these places.

Read the interview here:

http://www.dw.de/forced-labor-is-tolerated-in-many-countries/a-17649609

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Q&A: The Plight of the UK’s Migrant Domestic Workers | Human Rights Watch

Source: Human Rights Watch: "

By: Izza Leghtas

Wealthy families who come to the UK may bring with them domestic workers who work for them in their home country – often women who raise their children, clean their homes and cook their meals. In a move to cut down on immigration, two years ago the UK tied domestic workers’ visas to their employer. But in forbidding these women to change employers, even in abusive circumstances, this policy has the unintended consequence of forcing some women either to endure terrible situations or to go underground. The UK has pledged to combat “modern day slavery,” and this week, as part of this effort, a special parliamentary committee is calling on the government to change this visa policy. For her report on abuses against migrant domestic workers in the UK, “Hidden Away,”Human Rights Watch researcher Izza Leghtas took on the difficult task of finding these elusive women and reporting their stories."

Continue here:

http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/04/08/qa-plight-uk-s-migrant-domestic-workers

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Indian anti-trafficking operation one of biggest in year - police | Reuters

Source: Reuter


Anti-trafficking and railroad police and child rights groups, arrested 23 alleged traffickers and rescued 63 children between ages 7 and 17 at the Old Delhi railway station ... 

Read article here:

http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/05/22/india-trafficking-idINKBN0E21L920140522

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Cigarette makers can't market to kids. Why do tobacco farms employ them? | Human Rights Watch

Source: Human Rights Watch

Author(s): 

 Margaret Wurth

Published in: 

 the guardian

OUR REPORT: 

• Tobacco’s Hidden Children
  Hazardous Child Labor in United States Tobacco Farming
  MAY 13, 2014
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  Download the appendices
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Some companies even allow for lower standards of protection for children in their US supply chain than for those elsewhere.

Continue with article here:

http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/05/14/cigarette-makers-cant-market-kids-why-do-tobacco-farms-employ-them

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North Dakota Asks Nation For Help In Human Trafficking Epidemic

Source:Mint Press News

North Dakota’s male-dominated oil fields have created huge demand for sex workers. This demand has led to a human trafficking epidemic that the state can’t remedy on its own.

It’s an unfortunate reality seen throughout the world: where there are men and money, there are prostitutes. And where there are prostitutes, there are victims of human trafficking.


Continue with Katie Rucke's article here:
 

http://www.mintpressnews.com/north-dakota-asks-nation-for-help-in-human-trafficking-epidemic-2/190269/

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Victims of human trafficking might get housing in Toronto | Toronto Star

Source: Toronto Star

By:Laurie Monsebraaten

Social justice reporter, Published on Thu May 15 2014

Toronto may soon become the second city in Canada to provide
specialized housing and support to young women escaping
sexual exploitation and human trafficking.

Continue:


http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/05/15/victims_of_human_trafficking_might_get_housing_in_toronto.html

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The war on human trafficking - Travel Weekly

Source: Travel Weekly

Take a look at this article that discusses efforts to counter human trafficking on the part of the travel and tourism industries.

Read Kate Rice's article here:

http://www.travelweekly.com/Travel-News/Travel-Agent-Issues/The-war-on-human-trafficking/

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Some NGOs in Nepal do more harm than good say experts

Source: Thompson Reuters Foundation


Author: Rachel Browne and Alia Dharssi


“Right now, everybody is just doing their own thing, following the money, and it’s very sensationalised and it really causes more chaos than help in a lot of ways,” said Michelle Kaufman, a professor at Johns Hopkins University who has studied anti-trafficking programs in Nepal."

http://www.trust.org/item/20140507213441-lnbvr/

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Denise Brennan Examines America's Labor Trafficking Problem - US News

Source: US News

By Kira Zalan


President Obama called the fight against human trafficking “one of the great human rights causes of our time” and doubled down on efforts, which have been ongoing since 2000, to combat it. But 14 years after the passage of landmark anti-trafficking legislation, eradication of this form of exploitation remains elusive. In “Life Interrupted: Trafficking into Forced Labor in the United States,” Denise Brennan, chair of the department of anthropology at Georgetown University, uses a decade of field work to explain human trafficking and to identify its causes. She recently spoke to U.S. News about
misconceptions that have caused setbacks and what she says needs to be done to protect the vulnerable. Excerpts:

Continue: 

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2014/04/24/denise-brennan-examines-americas-labor-trafficking-problem

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• Groups say Thailand should face U.S. sanctions over trafficking

Joint letter to Hon. John F. Kerry Re: Human Trafficking in Thailand | Human Rights Watch

Source: Human Rights Watch:

The Honorable John F. Kerry

Secretary of State

U.S. Department of State

2201 C Street NW

Washington, DC 20520

Dear Secretary Kerry:

In your recent remarks to the Annual Meeting of the President’s Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, you noted that Cambodian men are trafficked to sea to become slaves aboard fishing vessels. As a group of human rights and labor organizations concerned with this issue, we were pleased to see you address it in your remarks. We write today to ask that you ensure the U.S. Department of State takes the next step to putting an end to this practice and downgrade Thailand, whose labor and immigration policies allow trafficking to flourish in the seafood industry and others, to Tier III in the 2014 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report.

The Government of Thailand does not meet the minimum standards of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, nor is it taking real steps to meet those standards. Thailand was placed on the Tier II watch list in the 2013 Trafficking in Persons Report, which documented the Thai Government’s failure to “adequately regulate brokers, reduce the high costs associated with registration, or allow registered migrants to change employers.” The 2013 TIP Report review of Thailand also cited “pervasive trafficking-related corruption and weak interagency coordination” that “continued to impede progress in combating trafficking” in its assessment of the Government’s efforts to combat human trafficking. Nothing about this system has changed significantly in the course of the last year, and the government continues to be at best complacent, at worst complicit, in the trafficking of migrant workers from neighboring countries to provide inexpensive labor for export industries.

Read here:

http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/05/09/joint-letter-hon-john-f-kerry-re-human-trafficking-thailand

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