Trafficking Monitor is a blog I created and curate. It offers posts highlighting the multifaceted nature of human trafficking and forced/indentured labour. I draw on a diversity of sources for my posts. You are invited to recommend materials for posting.
Showing posts with label California Against Slavery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label California Against Slavery. Show all posts
LONDON, Ont. - Arrests in recent years for human trafficking have made for exciting front page headlines. The withdrawal of charges have happened without notice.
The low success rate in human trafficking charges is raising questions about the way those laws are being applied.
"It is really tricky. There are a lot of grey areas," said Karlee Anne Sapoznik, head of the Alliance Against Modern Slavery, a Canadian non-profitadvocacy group. "If you look at the difference between Canada and the United States, it's quite shocking the success rates for convictions for trafficking."
Berkeley City Council will consider creating a task force next week that would combat sexual exploitation of minors in the city, an effort that mirrors a push to increase the severity of human trafficking penalties across the state.
The council will vote on whether or not to create the nine-person task force, which would be made up of city and law enforcement officials, at its meeting on March 20. The idea for the task force originated from a panel discussion led by the city’s Commission on the Status of Women and the Peace and Justice Commission that was prompted by reports of underage girls at Berkeley High School involved in acts of prostitution, according to Stephen Murphy, vice-chair of the city’s Commission on the Status of Women.
“We are putting finances into community resources and into education … to criminalize the perpetrators,” he said.
According to the City Council recommendation, the city does not currently offer any services that specifically deal with issues of sexual exploitation and human trafficking. The purpose of the task force is to investigate and publish reports to the city on the “already-existing data of sexual exploitation and underage sex trafficking in Berkeley.”
The local effort is representative of a larger statewide endeavor to combat issues of sex trafficking through legislation, a battle that is at the crux of the Californians Against Sexual Exploitation Act — a bill that aims to increase prison terms for convicted sex traffickers and up the restitution fees they must pay to victims.
The bill was authored by California Against Slavery, a state human rights group that is trying to get the act onto the November 2012 state ballot.
“(The bill) is not the end all of human trafficking legislation,” said Daphne Phung, executive director and founder of California Against Slavery. “This is a huge step in our state to combat this issue and recognize the severity of horrendous acts against human beings.”
The issue of human trafficking is not new to the city. Following the conviction of Berkeley real estate mogul Lakireddy Bali Reddy on counts of transporting minors from India for illegal sexual activity, the state passed Assembly Bill 22 in 2005. The bill increased the severity of the sentence to three, four or five years in state prison for trafficking adults and a sentence of four, six or eight years for trafficking a minor.
The bill also mandated that convicted sex traffickers pay restitution to trafficking victims and allowed victims to bring their traffickers to civil court, something that was fairly new when the Bali Reddy case came to the courts.
Former state assemblymember Sally Lieber, Assembly Bill 22’s chief sponsor, told the SF Public Press that the Bali Reddy case “was confirmation of what the problem was” and “was definitely on our minds” when the legislation was drafted.
Bali Reddy served his sentence in federal prison between 2001 and 2008 and paid $2 million in fines to the sister of a female trafficking victim who died of carbon monoxide poisoning in one of his apartment buildings. He continues to work at Everest Properties on Shattuck Avenue, which manages a large percentage of the properties in the city.
“The Lakireddy case was important because it showed people that sex and labor trafficking can occur anywhere, even in Berkeley,” said Michael Rubin, the attorney who represented the victims of the Bali Reddy case in a civil suit in 2002. “Ultimately, that’s what’s going to be the first line of defense against trafficking — community awareness of these human rights violations.”
There were no official civil remedies provided by the state for victims of sexual trafficking before Assembly Bill 22, Lieber said at a human trafficking symposium hosted Sunday at the UC Berkeley International House.
Panelists and focus groups came together at the symposium to address implementing preventative education and increasing law enforcement that would increase support for survivors of human trafficking. “Despite substantial efforts made, human trafficking is at the same stage as domestic violence was decades ago, and there is still work to be done,” Lieber said at the symposium.
The initiative would revise state law to increase the sentences and fines for human trafficking offenses, add the sex trafficking of minors as a distinct type of a trafficking offense, mandate human trafficking training for law enforcement officers, and improve victims' restitution rights. The initiative also boosts funding for organizations that serve trafficking victims, providing that at least 50% of seized trafficker assets and fines assessed against traffickers will go to community-based organizations that provide direct services to victims.
Human trafficking is a modern-day form of slavery and its victims are subjected to force, fraud, or coercion, for the purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labor. It happens in the United States and worldwide.
Due to the covert nature of the crime, it is difficult to quantify the scope of human trafficking, but experts suggest the problem is large and growing.
An unknown number of U.S. citizens and legal residents are trafficked within the United States, primarily for sexual servitude, according to the U.S. Department of State [1]. Many victims are minors. An estimated 286,506 minors in the United States are at risk of becoming victims of commercial sexual exploitation, according to a report from the University of Pennsylvania [2]. Labor trafficking also happens in the United States in domestic service, factories, farms, restaurants, and other work sites.
Worldwide, human trafficking is the fastest growing criminal industry and it is tied with the illegal arms industry as the second largest criminal industry [3]. An estimated 17,500 people are trafficked into the United States each year, according to the U.S. Department of State [4].
California is a prime target for human traffickers because of its international borders, port cities, large economy, and metropolitan regions [5].
Despite the prevalence of the problem, current California law does not reflect the severity of the crime. A human trafficking offense is currently punishable by a state prison sentence of three to five years for trafficking of an adult or four to eight years for trafficking of a minor [6].
"Human trafficking is a criminal industry and it flourishes where the law is weak," said Daphne Phung, executive director of California Against Slavery. "The initiative will make this crime less lucrative and provide much needed assistance to victims that are often overlooked in the justice system."
California Against Slavery will begin collecting signatures for the initiative on Jan. 25, 2010. The goal is to collect one million signatures by March 31, 2010, to place the initiative on the November 2010 ballot.
For more information and to read the initiative, please visit http://www.CaliforniaAgainstSlavery.org
References:
[1] U.S. Department of State
Trafficking in Persons Report 2009
http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2009/123133.htm
[2] University of Pennsylvania, Richard J. Estes and Neil Alan Weiner
The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, September 19, 2001
http://www.sp2.upenn.edu/~restes/CSEC_Files/Exec_Sum_020220.pdf
This report was cited on page 2 of the "Domestic Human Trafficking" report from the Human Smuggling and Trafficking Center.
Human Smuggling and Trafficking Center, U.S. Department of State
Domestic Human Trafficking: An Internal Issue, December 2008
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/113612.pdf
[3] U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Human Trafficking Fact Sheet
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/trafficking/about/fact_human.html
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/trafficking/about/fact_human.pdf
[4] U.S. Department of State
Trafficking in Persons Report 2004
http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2004/34021.htm
[5] California Alliance to Combat Trafficking and Slavery Task Force
Human Trafficking in California Report, October 2007
http://www.ohs.ca.gov/pdf/Human_Trafficking_in_CA-Final_Report-2007.pdf
[6] California Penal Code Section 236.1
http://info.sen.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=pen&group=00001-01000&file=236-237
California Office of Homeland Security
California Human Trafficking Legislation (from 2005 to 2007 only)
http://www.homeland.ca.gov/human_trafficking_legislation.html
Governor Schwarzenegger Signs Legislation to Combat Human Trafficking (9/21/05)
http://gov.ca.gov/index.php?/press-release/1409/
About California Against Slavery:
California Against Slavery is a non-profit group organized by Californians appalled by the injustice of modern day slavery in our state and around the world. Our mission is to strengthen California state laws to better reflect the personal and societal impact of human trafficking. Our goal is to pass an initiative on the November 2010 California General Election ballot to strengthen current human trafficking laws and increase victims' rights.
Contact:
Daphne Phung,
Executive Director and Founder of California Against Slavery
info@californiaagainstslavery.orgThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
(510) 473-7283
California Against Slavery
P.O. Box 7057
Fremont, CA 94537
http://www.CaliforniaAgainstSlavery.org
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