United Nations News Centre - New UN-led anti-trafficking campaign to help raise tourists’ awareness

Source: United Nations News Centre 

5 March 2014 – Encouraging travellers to help in the global fight against trafficking in illicit goods and services, three United Nations agencies have joined forces launching today a new campaign aiming to raise awareness among travellers and the tourism industry about making the right ethical choices and reducing demand for illegal products.

Continue here:

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=47286&Cr=trafficking&Cr1=#.Uxja_T9dWZg

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Human Trafficking Outpaces Drugs, Guns As World's Fastest Growing Criminal Industry | WGBH News

Source: WGBH News

"The smuggling of human beings for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation outranks drug smuggling, and is tied with illegal arms sales, according to a United Nations study. Task forces consisting of federal immigration officials, prosecutors, local police, the FBI and non-governmental organizations are pooling resources, knowledge and experience to deal with trafficking in southern New England. They are looking both worldwide and close to home for lessons that might help in better understanding the dimensions of the problem."

Read PHILLIP MARTIN 's full article here:

http://wgbhnews.org/post/human-trafficking-outpaces-drugs-guns-worlds-fastest-growing-criminal-industry

Afghans sell daughters to pay drug lords

Afghans sell daughters to pay drug lords:
By Samuel Burke, CNN
The mother of a little Afghan girl cannot even turn to face her daughter. She looks down in shame and explains why she must hand the girl over to drug lords.
The father of the girl has done what many Afghan farmers must do to finance their opium farms: borrow money from drug traffickers.


FULL STORY

Organized crime generates $120 billion annually: UNOD

Source: AFP October 18, 2010 

 

 

Forensic personnel collect evidence next to a bullet-riddled patrol car in which three policemen were gunned down by unknown assailants, in the municipality of San Nicolas de los Garza, neighbouring Monterrey March 6, 2010. Photograph by: Tomas Bravo, REUTERS

VIENNA - Organized crime generates revenues of more than 120 billion dollars globally every year, with drug smuggling by far the most lucrative activity, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said Monday.

"Organized crime has ballooned to global proportions," UNODC chief Yury Fedotov told a meeting here marking 10 years since the adoption of the so-called Palermo Convention on transnational organized crime.

Amid fears that globalisation was "extending the reach of crime in unprecedented ways," the convention was a "powerful but underutilized tool", Fedotov said at the start of the meeting.

Some 157 states had ratified the convention, which forms the global basis for extradition and mutual legal assistance, but Fedotov said more awareness was needed of how states could make more effective use of it, by co-ordinating efforts by law enforcement agencies.

UNODC calculated that heroin and cocaine smuggling generated annual revenues of 105 billion dollars worldwide, which was being invested in criminal businesses and fuelling terrorism.

"To put it another way: cocaine and heroin traffickers are earning almost 280 million dollars every day, almost 12 million dollars every hour, and almost 200,000 dollar every minute," it said.

Human trafficking and smuggling of migrants accounted for annual revenues of an estimated 10 billion dollars; illicit trade in fire arms for more than 53 million dollars; trafficking in natural resources for 3.5 billion dollars; counterfeit medicines for 1.6 billion dollars and cybercrime for one billion dollars, the UNODC estimated.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said Saturday at a conference on good governance in Morocco that "Organized crime syndicates grow ever more powerful."

"In some places, police and armies are being out-gunned. Our ability to deliver justice is not evolving as quickly as the criminal's skill at evading it," he said.

 

© Copyright (c) AFP

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Organized+crime+generates+billion+annually+UNOD/3688349/story.html#ixzz12wfAItJ9

 Organized crime generates $120 billion annually: UNOD

Source: calgaryherald.com

IndyStar.com | Indianapolis news, community, business, sports, yellow pages and classifieds. Serving Central Indiana.

18-year-old woman was abducted to pay off man's drug debt, forced into prostitution, IMPD says

By John Tuohy

Posted: September 2, 2010

 When an Indianapolis man couldn't pay his crack cocaine debt, police say, the dealer found another way to get the hundreds of dollars he was owed -- and then some.

The dealer, police say, abducted the 18-year-old daughter of the man's girlfriend and forced her into prostitution, keeping her in small Eastside motel rooms for weeks while selling her on the Internet to a string of "Johns."

The suspected drug dealer, Chris Smiley, 27, has been arrested, along with two people police describe as accomplices. Police say Smiley regularly beat and threatened the young woman, whom he forced to work in a Westside strip club before keeping her confined in motels.

Police are calling it one of the first cases of human trafficking in Marion County.

"These people are modern-day slave traders," said Prosecutor Carl Brizzi. "They took her captive and traded on her flesh and innocence for her parent's drug debt."

Smiley, Ayannah Willis, 26, and Lotoya Harlin, 21, were charged with several crimes, including promotion of human trafficking, criminal confinement, promoting prostitution, battery and intimidation.

The woman told police her ordeal began in the middle of February and lasted until mid-March. Police say her mother's boyfriend owed Smiley $500 for crack, so Willis told her she would have to be held hostage to pay off the debt. It's not clear, however, whether her mom and her mom's boyfriend knew she had been abducted.

Police and prosecutors are not naming the woman and use only her initials, B.A., in the charging document.

The woman told police she was taken to a Westside apartment where she was threatened and forced to work as a stripper at the Wild Cheri Show Club, 4884 Crawfordsville Road. She said Smiley hung out at the back door and collected the money she made after each dance.

About a week later, she said, the club owner told her and Harlin they could no longer work there because she had a black eye.

The woman said she tried to escape from the apartment once and that both female suspects captured her at the bottom of the steps. She said Smiley hit her on the side of the head with the butt of a .45-caliber handgun and threatened to kill her.

After she lost her job at the club, she, the two alleged accomplices and another girl -- a juvenile whose age was not contained in police documents -- moved to the Always Inn Motel, 7410 E. 21st St., according to police. Smiley referred to the group as "Team Smiley," the girl told police.The group took out ads online on Craigslist and LiveLinks, offering sex for money.

"Several men a day e-mailed back and came to the motel for sex" for $100, said Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Vice Investigator Laura Smith.

The team moved to two other motels -- Econolodge, 3525 N. Shadeland Ave., and Motel 6, 2851 N. Shadeland Ave. -- in the subsequent two weeks and continued the operation there.

Detectives received a call from the younger girl on March 19. She told police she had been raped.


When detectives went to the Motel 6, she and the 18-year-old were there, along with Willis and Harlin.

As the younger teenager began telling her story, detectives determined that she had not been raped by the clients visiting the motel, as she claimed, but had willingly been prostituting herself.

They also learned the 18-year-old's role in the operation might not be consensual, Smith said.

The questioning effectively broke up the operation. For the next five months, detectives interviewed the woman, who is now 19, and worked to verify her version of events. They subpoenaed telephone and e-mail records of the suspects and clients, obtained copies of the classified ads and seized motel records.

Smith said the motels had saved copies of the driver's licenses of the people who paid the bills.
"They were very helpful," she said.

On Aug. 11, Smiley, Willis and Harlin turned themselves in to police. Each is being held in the Marion County Jail on $100,000 bond, and they are set to appear in court Sept. 27.

Smith said gaining the cooperation of the shell-shocked 18-year-old was the most difficult part of the investigation. The woman was homeless and didn't trust anyone, Smith said.

"She doesn't trust me, she doesn't trust anyone. Everyone she has ever trusted has turned on her," Smith said.

Call Star reporter John Tuohy at (317) 444-6303.

IndyStar.com | Indianapolis news, community, business, sports, yellow pages and classifieds. Serving Central Indiana.

Human trafficking second only to drugs in Mexico - CNN.com

FROM CNN

 

By Arthur Brice, CNN

August 27, 2010 -- Updated 1214 GMT (2014 HKT)

These guns were found at the Mexican ranch in Tamaulipas state, 

where 72 bodies were discovered.

 

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• The road to the United States goes through Mexico for Central Americans
• The journey is "one of the most dangerous in the world," rights group says
• Thousands of migrants are abused each years by smugglers and drug cartels
• Human smuggling may be a $20 billion business in Mexico

(CNN) -- Mario Santos likely never made it to the United States.
The 18-year-old set out 10 years ago from his native El Salvador in search of opportunity and a better way of life. But he had to travel north through Mexico first.

A short while after leaving, he called his parents to tell them he had been beaten and robbed in Mexico, left penniless and without shoes or clothes. It was the last they heard from him.

While it's not certain that Santos is dead, he probably suffered the same fate as 72 migrants from Central and South America whose bodies were found this week in a ranch in northern Mexico, just 90 miles from the U.S. border.

Officials are investigating whether they were the victims of human traffickers or drug cartels that prey on migrants.
It's a fate that officials say befalls thousands of Central and South Americans every year.

"It's brutal," says Peter Hakim, president emeritus of the Inter-American Dialogue, a non-partisan Washington policy institute. "This is very big business. It's very brutal."

 

Video: 72 bodies found in Mexican ranch

 

It is indeed big business. Human trafficking is one of the most lucrative forms of crime worldwide after drug and arms trafficking, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said in April.

In Mexico, it is a $15 billion- to $20 billion-a-year endeavor, second only to drug trafficking, said Samuel Logan, founding director of Southern Pulse, an online information network focused on Latin America.

"And that may be a conservative estimate," Logan said.

That money, which used to go mostly to smugglers, now also flows into the hands of drug cartel members.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan, nonprofit policy institute based in Washington, noted in an August report that human smuggling and other illegal activities are playing an increasingly important role as narcotraffickers diversify their activities.

"The drug cartels have not confined themselves to selling narcotics," the report said. "They engage in kidnapping for ransom, extortion, human smuggling and other crimes to augment their incomes."

Some cartels have come to rely more in recent years on human smuggling.



"For the Zetas, it's been one of their main revenue streams for years," Logan said about the vicious cartel, which operates mostly in northeastern Mexico.

Cartel involvement has increased the risk for migrants crossing through Mexico to get to the United States, said Mexico's National Commission for Human Rights. An investigation by the commission showed that 9,758 migrants were abducted from September 2008 to February 2009, or about 1,600 per month.

No one knows exactly how many people try to make the passage every year.

The human rights organization Amnesty International estimates it as tens of thousands. More than 90 percent of them are Central Americans, mostly from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, Amnesty International said in a report this year. And the vast majority of these migrants, the rights group said, are headed for the United States.

"Their journey is one of the most dangerous in the world," Amnesty International said.

"Every year, thousands of migrants are kidnapped, threatened or assaulted by members of criminal gangs," the rights group said. "Extortion and sexual violence are widespread and many migrants go missing or are killed. Few of these abuses are reported and in most cases those responsible are never held to account."

An indication of how many people attempt the trip can be found in statistics compiled by Mexico's National Migration Service, which tracks how many migrants are detained and returned to their countries of origin each year. 

Experts note that these are only the migrants who get caught, and that many -- even most -- are not apprehended.

Nonetheless, the Mexican agency said it detained 64,061 migrants last year, 60,383 of whom were from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. About 20 percent of them were females and about 8 percent were under the age of 18. Some were under 10.

Officials in El Salvador, where the teen-aged Santos started his trip, estimate that about 10,000 Central American migrants suffered some kind of abuse in 2009.

"The vast majority has been committed by these organized crime gangs, such as the Zetas for example, in the route along the Gulf (of Mexico), which is where they operate most frequently," said Juan Jose Garcia, the Salvadoran vice minister for citizens living abroad.

"But we also have found events in which (Mexican) authorities have participated," Garcia said.

The Salvadoran Foreign Ministry estimates up to 150 citizens leave each day for Mexico. Some analysts put that figure at closer to 300.

For most Central Americans, that journey begins with a human smuggler, commonly called a "pollero." In the United States, the smugglers are better known as "coyotes."

For a set fee, usually ranging from $850 to $5,000 a head, a smuggler will deliver a migrant to the border of the United States or even offer passage across.

Problems often arise when smugglers and migrants approach the border and organized crime organizations get involved.

"This is where things get complicated," said Logan, who is writing a book on the Zetas and is the author of "This is for the Mara Salvatrucha: Inside the MS-13 America's Most Violent Gang."

The drug-trafficking organizations charge the "polleros" a price per person for the right to cross over their territory, a practice called "derecho de piso," or right of passage.

Or they will abduct the migrants and hold them for ransom from their relatives and friends in the United States or family back home.

Often times, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said, migrants who are abducted are subjected to sexual or labor exploitation.

If the migrants are being held for ransom and the money is not paid in time, the situation can get ugly.

"Sometimes the Mexican organized crime group says, 'The hell with it. We're not going to deal with these people,' and they kill them all," Logan said.

That's what may have happened, Logan said, to the 72 people whose bodies were found Tuesday in a ranch building in Tamaulipas state, about 14 miles (22 kilometers) from the town of San Fernando, near the border with Texas.

Or the migrants may have refused to work for the cartel, which is one possibility that has been mentioned in news accounts.

A bloody turf war between the Zetas and the Gulf cartels also may have complicated matters because the smugglers may not have known who to pay or may have paid one group and angered the other.

"In Tamaulipas, it's very hard for a pollero to know who is who," Logan said. "The Zetas and Gulf cartels were once allied and now have split."

At any rate, the involvement of the drug cartels has changed the dynamics of human smuggling in Mexico, said Andrew Selee, director of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Mexico Institute.

Selee remembers living in northern Mexico a few years back and knowing that a father-son duo who lived on his block were "polleros."

"That's gone," Selee said, noting that the costs of having to pay cartels for the right to cross their territory has driven out small-time smugglers.

"They now have to be big enough to handle those costs," Selee said.

Selee and the Inter-American Dialogue's Hakim point out that increased border security and interdiction by the United States also has led to cartel involvement because of the level of sophistication and complexity now often involved in getting someone across the border. The cartels already have the routes and other facilities in place they use for smuggling drugs.

"We're no longer talking about a simple process that involves one or two individuals," Selee said. "This has become much more dangerous."

As always, profit is the motive.

"The smuggling became profitable the more the United States began to build barriers to immigration," Hakim said.

On Thursday, Amnesty International called on the Mexican government to take swift action about the slayings of the 72 people in Tamaulipas.

"Amnesty International issued a report in April highlighting the failure of Mexican federal and state authorities to implement effective measures to prevent and punish thousands of kidnappings, killings and rape of irregular migrants at the hands of criminal gangs, who often operate with the complicity or acquiescence of public officials," the rights group said in a release.

"This case once again demonstrates the extreme dangers faced by migrants and the apparent inability of both federal and state authorities to reduce the attacks that migrants face. The response of the authorities to this case will be a test."

It's too late for the families of the victims.

For the parents of Mario Santos, the Salvadoran who disappeared 10 years ago, much of the anguish lies in not knowing what happened.

"If only he would call me on the telephone and I would know he is alive, even if I never saw him again, that would satisfy me," said his father, Daniel Santos.

For thousands of Central American families, the phone does not ring.

Journalist Merlin Delcid contributed to this report.

Human trafficking second only to drugs in Mexico - CNN.com

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Is human trafficking the new slavery?

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 18:21:23 GMT

At least 50,000 women and children were sold in the West last year.
The following is a rush transcript of The Agenda program hosted by Press TV's Yvonne Ridley on human trafficking. Eastern-European Oxana Kelma, who was trafficked into Britain, Human Rights Consultant Ceri Hayes and Dr. Mick Wilkinson, a senior lecturer of race and social justice at the Wilberforce Institute were the guests of the program.

You can watch the program here.

It is the 21st century and yet there are more slaves around the world today than there were chained and put on boats in Africa during the 4th century when the UK dominated the slave trade.

This new form of slavery is global and even more lucrative than the world's drug trade. The statistics are shocking. The stories are harrowing, and the main victims are women and children.

The illegal industry is now worth USD 32 billion a year.

The UK parliament passed the slavery abolition act in 1833 giving all slaves in the British Empire their freedom. But it has been revealed that humans are still being sold and trafficked around the world.

At least 50,000, mainly women and children, were sold in the West last year.

Leading human rights groups are demanding governments meet their international legal obligations and provide compensation as protection measures for the 21st century slaves.

These include thousands of young women forced into the European sex industry and others trafficked to work for little or no pay as domestic staff where they are subjected to a physical and psychological violence and forced to work long hours.

Is human trafficking the new slavery?

Ridley: We are told that this evil trade involves millions of victims far bigger than that other dark period in our history, when African people were traded like pieces of meat across the British Empire. Just how vast is this evil trade Mick?

Wilkinson: It is vast. Professor Kevin Bales who is a colleague with me at the Wilberforce Institute at the University of Hull, has estimated that there are now 26 million people globally who are actually victims of the slave trade.

That is an enormous amount of people, within that the State Department in the United States estimates that there are 600-800 thousand people trafficked across borders each year, into the sex trade. So, we are talking about a vast global problem out there.

Ridley: Where is the hub of this? Is it an East problem or is it a Western problem. Where are these people being trafficked to?

Wilkinson: It is a globalized problem, it is difficult to find any corner of the globe where trafficking and slavery doesn't not exist. So, you have got slavery in the Amazon basin, you have got slavery in India. Children working in garment factories in India, you have got children in Burma. It is a global phenomenon. It is in Southwest Africa, in Ghana you have got children working with fishing nets there and women in the sex trade across Southeast Asia.

Ridley: Ceri, where do you start with this? It is such a huge problem.

Hayes: It is, but I think there are clear ways to tackle the problem. If you look at, for example, the EU convention on [Action Against] Trafficking, it has what is called the three P's: Prevention of the actually problem of trafficking; Protection of the women and children who are being trafficked; Prosecution of the people who are perpetrating this crime. So, there are clear rules and regulations around this. The problem is actually implementing them and making sure that the funding is in place to do that.

Ridley: Oxana, You were trafficked, you were a victim although you now work to highlight the dangers of this trade. The victims are sometimes afraid that they are going to be targeted if they got o the police or the authorities. Is that fear genuine or is it imagined?

Kalemi: Well, when you are trapped with the people, they actually tell you that you are an illegal immigrant and if you go to the police, you will go to prison for 3-5 years for illegally coming to this country. So, that is what I knew and I didn't want to go to prison for 5 years for that, because I just came with no papers, so I was illegally there. So, that is what I knew, I didn't have any internet access or television or anything like that. I was kept in one room which was just walls and a bed. So, that is what I knew and that is what I was very, very afraid; for no one wants to go to prison.

Ridley: Ceri, you deal with a lot of people like Oxana. How can you get the message out to these women and children, to blow the whistle if they are away from any forms of communication and they are literally locked in tiny rooms?

Hayes: Well, that is precisely the problem. I think it is not straightforward. As Oxana has said, the way these cases tend to be dealt with is that they are seeing the victims, or themselves portrayed as criminals and also identifying these women as victims in the first place is very difficult. So, Oxana's experience is very common.

Ridley: Ceri as we have discussed, the scale is breathtaking. Is there one single global authority that deals with this? As one of the statistics said, America spends just one days worth of the money it spends on trying to combat drug trafficking, [on human trafficking], which was quite astonishing. It is not really taken as a serious problem is it?

Hayes: I think the issue is quite fragmented in the approach taken to addressing it, and that is why there needs to be more interaction and a more integrated approaches, both at regional level and also internationally, to addressing this. So, for example the problem of cross-border controls, you know the more cooperation between countries who are addressing this, the better.

Ridley: when people like Oxana do manage to escape and they go to the authorities, they are not treated like victims are they?

Hayes: No, that is the problem as Oxana has already said. For example, if you take the United Kingdom, the agency that is dealing with that, the UK Border Agency, will usually see this as an immigration problem. A report recently produced by some leading anti-human trafficking agencies in the UK, found that mechanisms in place to try and address the needs of some of these victims are just not being addressed and implemented properly. So, we need proper support for women like Oxana so that they are able to come out and escape from this awful trade.

Ridley: Oxana, you wrote a book called 'Mummy Come Home' and I believe it is doing very well [in sales]. But, can you tell me how you were able to escape you handlers, and what the reaction of the authorities was when you went to them for help?

Kalemi: Actually, when I ran away, I ran away to a friend. I did not run away to the police, I was too afraid to go to the police. And my friend told me that I can live in her place where she was working -- and she was working in a sauna. So, I had to have some money to earn somehow, to get a room and then think what I am going to do next. So, I didn't actually escape, and I didn't actually think through anything. I was just gone. I did not think about what was going to happen.

Ridley: How did it come to an end?

Oxana Kalemi: I had heard very bad news from my country and I was living in my boyfriend's house and I had to pack to a sauna and when I came back to the sauna, the second day I was there, the police raided and took me because I had no papers whatsoever.

When I got to the police station it was very scary because I thought that is it, my life has ended here. So, I was there [at the police station] all night, and I was very lucky to get a police officer who believed my story.

Ridley: Mick, how wide spread is child slavery?

Wilkinson: Again it is massive. In countries like India, there is enormous usage of children in the garment trade. It is an enormous phenomenon.

Ridley: But India is an emerging power it is seen as quite a force in the world today; surely it must be aware of this.

Wilkinson: Of course it is, that is why they have passed laws against slavery, but the problem is the implementation. Well, not just in India, I do not want to highlight India as the only country [practicing child slavery] and I don't want to highlight countries in the developing world, specifically either.

We have to accept the fact that part of this problem is the supply chain and part of this problem are major retailers in the north and in the west. Where do these jewelers think they get their diamonds from so cheaply? How are they produced? Is it beyond capabilities to go and find out who is producing these diamonds? How can I get T-shirts for two pounds on British high streets?

So, the retailers really think that those T-shirts are being created under decent labor conditions? It is laughable to suggest that they don't know there is slavery somewhere along the way of the supply chain.

Ridley: So, is it the fault of the consumers then? Should shoppers shop with conscience?

Wilkinson: It is not the fault of the consumers, we are going into a recession now, people buy goods where they see them cheaply. You cannot expect consumers to check out every product, whether it be garments or coffee, or whatever. There surely is a moral responsibility on the suppliers of these products.

There are people sending out buyers to get these products, the same buyers can easily find out where there is slavery somewhere along the line of the supply chain. And they can work with developing countries to organize with trade unions to ensure that this doesn't happen. The reality is there is no interest in doing this because they are making huge profits.

The other key agent here is the British government and other Western governments. It is the responsibility of national governments to ensure that they are not engaged in this kind of horrendous slavery-linked trade.

Ridley: Oxana, where do you see the problem? Do you see the problem as being the customers, the pimps in your case, or the people who lured you into Britain in the first place?

Kalemi: From my point of view, I think the problem is on the borders. Because I passed so many borders with no police check at all and that is just shocking. I was in a lorry with 5 people inside and we didn't even stop all the way from Germany.

Ridley: Presumably, before you boarded the lorry, you had handed over money already. What did you think you were going to?

Kalemi: My friend told me that I am going to a casino to work as a waitress and as I was left with three children and my husband gone, I needed to provide some food. So, of course it is a problem with economy in my country and lots of poor countries like Romania and Ukraine and also Europe. It is the economy. They (the governments) are not supplying anything. I mean we do not have any benefits. We do not have any hostels. We do not have any help whatsoever.

Ridley: Ceri, human rights organizations thought that it scored a major victory when the UAE brought out to stop the exploitation of children [as camel jockeys]. And then in a festival in Abu Dhabi, children were clearly being used again in camel racing. How can you overcome this problem when governments are quite prepared to turn a blind eye or do nothing?

Hayes: Well, I think governments need to be held accountable, as you say the laws are in place, but these laws needs to be enforced properly. And I also think that we need to look at this problem in a holistic way as well.

I want to come back to the points that both Oxana and Mick made, if I may. Oxana was talking very much about the push factors around trafficking, so in the case of women and girls in countries like for example, Albania, I have met with women's organizations in Albania that have been trying to help women that have been repatriated to Albania. The reasons that those girls left in the first place was because of lack of jobs, poverty in their own countries, and then they were tricked and coerced into going overseas for work, which turned out to be sex trafficking.

And, similarly, coming back to the point that Mick was making, about the demand. We need to look at the demand as well. And this is something that the Anti-Trafficking Alliance has been looking at, in terms of sex trafficking and the men who pay for sex in the first place. So, there is the men paying for sex, and the demand for prostitution that increases sex trafficking. So, we need to be addressing that as well.

Ridley: And of course it is a multi-billion-dollar trade, and that is higher than the drugs trade?

Hayes: I believe that the arms trade is the most lucrative, then the drugs trade and then it is sex trafficking. But they anticipate that in the coming decades, sex trafficking and trafficking of humans generally will actually overtake drugs trafficking.

Ridley: Who is getting rich on all of this Mick?

Wilkinson: criminal gangs and local newspapers. Let me explain that one for you. The difference between the drugs trade and the reason why the sex trade will surpass it is that the penalties for being involved in the drugs trade, is far greater than the penalties for being involved in trafficking people for sexual activity and sexual exploitation.

Ridley: And that is quite shocking in itself in terms of the value of a human.

Wilkinson: Yes, that is why the criminal gangs are moving over or jointly doing both drugs and sex trafficking. But the people who profit are criminal gangs, in the one instance, and in another instance, local newspapers.

Ridley: I am intrigued by the local newspapers, I mean I started my career on a local newspaper.

Wilkinson: Open many local newspapers across the UK, to the back you will find advertisements of massage parlors, saunas, and so on. Many of the women, who work in these massage parlors and saunas, have been trafficked into them for the use of sexual exploitation.

For example in 2004, the POPPY project in London did a study called Sex in the City where they highlighted the fact that 85 percent of women who are working in off-street prostitution in London -- that is massage parlors and saunas -- 85 percent of them, have been trafficked into those situations against their will.

So, all those clever boys in the city of London who think it is funny and as easy to go and use a prostitute as it is to order pizza, they should be aware of the fact that the vast majority of those women, are in those circumstances against their will and so effectively they are raping them.

Ridley: Well, surely the newspaper publishers should take responsibility as well because if there weren't the advertising [then this wouldn't happen]. I mean, isn't this one way of trying to crack down?

Wilkinson: You will not have any arguments on that from me. My own local MP (Member of Parliament) Diana Johnson for instance has done some solid work in trying to counter that.

Ridley: US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton launched the US State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons Report and among the countries on that list of shame was, for the first time, the United States.

Mick how much of a major breakthrough was that?

Wilkinson: It is a major breakthrough in the sense that it publicizes the issue and with some one like [US Secretary of State] Hilary Clinton behind it, it obviously has some sway with the Obama government. What is more important than words, is action. I would actually like to see some action happen materially in terms of providing funding for support agencies.

Ridley: Well, Oxana had identified the borders as being one of the key areas, I mean is that one of the main problems in your view?

Wilkinson: Yes, it is a primary problem because most of the agencies that have been given responsibility to identify traffic victims are actually immigration forces and their primary objective appears to be, and certainly in the UK, with the UK Borders Agency, is to not allow illegal immigrants rather than protect and support victims.

The Guardian in February of this year (2010) wrote, the title: Border staff humiliate and trick asylum seekers -- Whistleblower. Louise Perrett who worked cases at the borders agency in Cardiff for three and a half months last summer claims staff kept a stuffed gorilla and grant monkey, which was placed as a badge of shame on the desk of any officer who approved an asylum application. She claims the tone was set on the first day when one manager said of an asylum seeking clients 'if it was up to me I would take them all outside and shoot them.'

Now, do we really think that UK Borders Agency is an appropriate body to be identifying the victims of trafficking?

Ridley: Which highlights again when you (Oxana) said you were lucky you were dealt with by a police man who was actually sympathetic. What would have happened if, God forbid, you had been confronted with somebody with such racist attitude?

Kalemi: I would have been packed off and deported. I do not think I would have gone back to my kids.

Ridley: You have now been re-united with you children?

Kalemi: No.

Ridley: Still?

Kalemi: I am still fighting my government to give me my kids back but no. Because they took my rights while I was trapped and trafficked. I have been in court twice and they still do not want to give me back my kids. My daughter disappeared three years ago from the orphanage and the government said she is adopted but there is no proof whatsoever, so I am still fighting, but I will get them.

Ridley: And this is documented in your book, 'Mummy Come Home.'

Again Ceri this is another dimension to the misery suffered by victims, even after they have been rescued.

Hayes: Yes, it is a double traumatization if you like. So, already they have suffered massive physical, mental and emotional torture, but then to have to be put through that again and the uncertainty of their immigration status, what is going to happen to them, their family, compounds the problem if you like.

Ridley: What about this compensation scheme? Because as you said before, this trafficking industry is worth billions. And presumably when these gangs are arrested, money is impounded and assets frozen. What happens to that?

Hayes: Well, exactly. That is a good question. We do not know, and we think that money should be channeled towards compensating the victims of trafficking. An EU (European Union) campaign has been launched precisely on that, to make sure that some of that money goes to the right place, but at the moment that is not the case.

Ridley: Mick, what initiatives are happening in Britain, if any, to crack down on this human trafficking?

Wilkinson: Well, it is difficult to say, I mean we have had a change of government obviously. We did have the UK Human Trafficking Center, which did actually do some positive work, though the parliamentary committee who were on the first committee said that it could do a lot more. It has now been subsumed together.

Ridley: How do they measure success?

Wilkinson: Well, the measurement of success was primarily…,by the way this doesn't exist as a separate body now, it has been subsumed back into the serious organized crime organization, there is a problem within that, because that means that everyone can identify in Sheffield that the UK Human Trafficking Center no longer exists specifically.

Again they were primarily for the first couple of years, and they had success in this, [and that's why] they publicized the issue.

Let me explain…we have a government that spends hundreds of thousands of pounds every year, putting posters across all the major cities, bus shelters, bus stations, everywhere you can imagine, on the sides of buses, about benefit fraud.

When I spoke to the UK Human Trafficking Center two years ago, after they had done their first major poster campaign against sex trafficking in the UK, they said the actual posters had been designed by the son of one of their officers with a computer in his bedroom because he had no designated fund to run such a campaign and to prepare it.

Ridley: A lot of people who were told about the 50,000 people who were trafficked last year, they were very surprised that it was on such a scale. But you seemed to think that they were conservative figures?

Wilkinson: Well, yes. The State Department figures between 600-800 thousand people trafficked across borders and millions trafficked within borders. I am not surprised that they thought it was excessive because I think, even 50,000 was mentioned because there is lack of public knowledge on this, and it is not in the interest of the traffic and also in the interest of the government who do not want to take any action against it.

Ridley: Why is it not in the interest of the government though? I mean what are they losing out on?

Wilkinson: Well, I think it has become unfortunately embroiled with the whole immigration debate and that is a major problem particularly in this country and well now, across western Europe for example and certainly in this country, we had a conservative party in the run up to the last election which whipped up hysteria about European migrant workers, when Cameron knew full well there was nothing he could do about East-European migrant workers. Because we have got trade agreements, agreement sin terms of free movements in labor within Europe.

Immediately after the election he then used that hysteria to cut down on third country migrants, i.e. people from outside Eastern Europe, to make it more difficult for them to come and legitimately work in this country. And if you make it more difficult for people to come and work in this country legitimately, they end up being trafficked. That is the problem.

We have been talking about people being trafficked for the sex trade, this needs to be looked at in the wider perspective. We know for instance that anywhere between 300,000-800,000 undocumented migrants workers are in the UK today. The Home Offices estimate is 480,000. We know these people have been exploited in the most appalling ways by gang masters, some of them are working in care one minute and the next minute working on the street as prostitutes. The vast majority of the people have been undocumented through no fault of their own. It is due to the duplicity of criminal gangs and gang masters who take the papers.

The logical solution to that problem is to offer an amnesty from undocumented migrant workers and to offer an amnesty for sex workers who have been trafficked into the countries because then these people can come forward and assist the police in prosecuting the real criminals here which are the traffickers and the illicit gang masters.

Ridley: that sounds like a good solution Ceri, why has no one suggested it?

Hayes: I think we need to pressure governments to do something about it. I want to add another aspect to this debate because I think the immigration is one issue but also another perspective is around the attitudes that tolerate violence against women and girls as another factor that is contributing to this. We are seeing the unchecked growth of the commercial sex industry, that is a major factor in all of this, attitudes which tolerate violence, the sexual objectification of women and girls is another factor and that needs to be addressed. We need national awareness campaign in the UK, but we also need a global awareness campaign about the issues of trafficking.

RBK/MMN

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=136582

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There’s no human trafficking in my community, right?

Published: July 2010

This is just one of many misconceptions associated with the problem of human trafficking. Several weeks ago, The New York Times reported that eight people were indicted in Brooklyn, NY on charges that include sex trafficking or promoting prostitution of women and girls as young as 15 years of age. So it is happening here under our noses; a simple Google search reveals similar activities all around the country, not just in our biggest city.

In fact, estimates put the number of American kids under the age of 18 who are victimized by child prostitution at anywhere from 100,000 to 300,000. This is not just prostitution – it’s human trafficking on a grand scale… domestic minor sex trafficking to be exact.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof nailed it in a recent column when he wrote: “Human trafficking tends to get ignored because it is an indelicate, sordid topic, with troubled victims who don’t make great poster children for family values. Indeed, many of the victims are rebellious teenage girls — often runaways — who have been in trouble with their parents and the law, and at times they think they love their pimps.”

Our domestic problems mirror global problems. After drug dealing, the “trafficking of humans” is tied with arms dealing as the second largest criminal industry in the world, with an estimated 17,000 trafficked people arriving on our shores every year.

And it’s all too easy for all of us to just turn our heads away from the problem.

A valuable first step in dealing with human trafficking is dealing with the myths associated with human trafficking.

• Victims of trafficking are all foreign born. Not true. Since 2006, the “Innocence Lost National Initiative,” collaboration between the FBI, the Justice Department’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, has rescued 900 U.S. children trafficked into prostitution.
• Human trafficking is just another term for the sex trafficking. Not true. According to a recent report from the US Department of State, three-quarters of identified foreign adult trafficking victims were trafficked for forced labor.
• Existing laws are enough to address the problem of human trafficking. They aren’t. Given the state of existing laws and resources to combat trafficking globally, it is estimated that only one person is convicted of trafficking for every 800 trafficking victims. Part of the reason for a lack of complete data on human trafficking can be attributed to a lack of anti-trafficking legislation and/or legislation that is narrow in scope.
• If trafficked individuals were truly victims they would just walk away. That’s hard to do. Traffickers use threats of violence to trap their victims and often convince them that seeking help from local law enforcement will result in incarceration.

Generating awareness of the problem of human trafficking and educating the public on how it can be prevented has been an important initiative for various Junior Leagues around the country for the past several years. Only recently has the issue become a topic of interest in the media and state politicians on how to solve this growing problem in their communities.

Welcome to the fight.

connected » Blog Archive » There’s no human trafficking in my community, right?

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'Debt bondage' grows in Windsor area

Image via Wikipedia

By Craig Pearson, The Windsor Star June 19, 2010

Thailand natives Sumalee, 31, and Sophe, right, talk about the path they took to get to work in Canada, Wednesday June 16, 2010. Most had to paid large fees to come to Canada and work. Photograph by: Nick Brancaccio, The Windsor Star

The Windsor Star / Thailand native Sumalee, 31, talks about the path she took to get to work in Canada. Sumalee, who makes as little as $50 a day, said she didn't get what she expected.Photograph by: Nick Brancaccio, The Windsor Star

LEAMINGTON, Ont. -- Her first duty when she stepped off the plane at Toronto's Pearson International Airport: slip her Canadian contact some money wrapped in a newspaper.

Her next duty: start paying back the $5,000-plus -- a huge sum for her back home -- that she paid to work in Canada.

She remained hopeful, but when "Angela" arrived in Leamington from her home country in southern Asia, she soon started realizing farm work in Canada wasn't as advertised.

She said she lives in an overcrowded apartment, her wages are below what she signed on for and she experiences a general lack of freedom, including with whom she associates.

"I'm still paying after almost two years," said Angela, who supports two children back home on $400 a month and lives in an apartment here with eight people.

"We don't have a problem with the work, it is only with the agent we work with." "He tries to control our home, our work renewal permits, even our laundry," Angela said.

"We do not have freedom at all." Human-rights advocates are focusing more and more on the growing issue of "debt bondage" and human trafficking in Windsor and across the country, helping educate foreign workers about their rights in Canada.

Angela is among the thousands of temporary foreign workers who cut fish, pack cucumbers and pick tomatoes in Essex County.

Most work at legitimate operations and happily return year after year. Some, however, pay excessive fees to agencies promising benefits that never materialize.

A work renewal permit costs $150. But third-party agents sometimes charge $2,000 or more to fill out the paperwork. If workers attempt to complete the requirements themselves, an unscrupulous agent might threaten to have a worker fired -- which would instantly render the foreign national "illegal" in Canada.

Such workers then feel defenceless.

"I came to work in Canada to get money for my family in Thailand," said Sumalee, 31, who has been in Canada for four years and who sometimes makes as little as $50 a day doing piece-meal work in a fish-packing plant. "I feel disappointed because we didn't get what we expected.

"It's kind of frustrating. But I keep smiling. I still have hope." The United Nations defines human trafficking as "the acquisition of people by improper means such as force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them." The UN notes that every country in the world experiences the phenomenon to some degree and estimated in 2008 that some 2.5 million people fell victim to human trafficking worldwide.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: "After drug dealing, trafficking of humans is tied with arms dealing as the second largest criminal industry in the world, and is the fastest growing." Yet it's hard to see.

"Human trafficking is a very difficult problem to wrap your head around statistically, because it's a very hidden crime," said Marty Van Doren, the RCMP's London-based human trafficking awareness co-ordinator. "Most human trafficking victims never come to the attention of law enforcement or other organizations. They don't come forward because they can be very scared of the human traffickers who are taking advantage of them, scared to testify, scared of authorities. Quite often they're ashamed to come forward, and if they're illegal in this country, they have a big bull's-eye on them because there's always a chance of being deported." Van Doren said while coercing women into the sex trade is the most common form of human trafficking, exploited labourers -- especially in southern Ontario -- are the next most common group.

Canada has obtained five convictions of human trafficking under the Canadian Criminal Code, and some 30 others are before the courts. One human trafficking charge was laid in the Windsor area under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. A Windsor man allegedly kept two American men against their will, collecting their pension cheques.

Yet human trafficking convictions prove difficult, Van Doren said, since the cases often come down to one person's word against another's.

Shelley Gilbert, co-ordinator of social-work services at Legal Assistance of Windsor, provided a presentation on the complexities of human trafficking Friday at the Canadian Social Forum, at All Saints Church.

She notes that Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and B.C. have specific legislation governing third-party job recruiters.

She wants to see tougher federal legislation, which includes the stipulation that employers, not workers, pay recruiter fees.

Some workers, she said, pay more than $10,000 to third-party agents, and then come here to find more and more fees added, and less and less ability to break the cycle. They can't go home because they still owe money, and they face restrictions if they stay.

"There are thousands of temporary foreign workers in Windsor and Essex County," Gilbert said. "Are all of them victims of human trafficking? Absolutely not.

"But the more we work with that population, the more we see evidence and people coming to us over the last year. I liken the issue to domestic violence 25 years ago, when domestic violence was very secretive." Gilbert believes that while most people don't know the term "human trafficking," the tide has begun to turn, and that temporary foreign workers are starting to recognize that they can stand up.

A group of Thai workers recently approached MP Dave Van Kesteren's Chatham-Kent-Essex constituency office, for instance, to discuss the phenomenon.

"We want to investigate this," Van Kesteren said Friday, noting that abuses are rare but that they generally arise from third-party recruiters. "We don't want abuses. It's heart-rending to hear these people's stories." Van Kesteren said he has spoken to the government about human trafficking, and that he wants to explore legislation that would place more controls on third-party job recruiters. But he doesn't want to dismantle the current system.

"This is a very important process that we have here," he said. "It's very important to our farmers, to the greenhouse growers, to the economy, and it's also important to the migrant workers who have good, legitimate arrangements." Van Kesteren plans to host a round-table on the issue with community stakeholders later this summer.

© Copyright (c) The Windsor Star

'Debt bondage' grows in Windsor area

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Beaten and sold | The Columbus Dispatch

Small-town women were lured into sex slavery by their neighbors, four smooth-talking men led by a soldier who promised fun times in the big city.

Sunday, May 23, 2010 2:58 AM
By Randy Ludlow
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

The conspiracy to enslave and sell women for sex began at the Matchbox, a hard-edged tavern wedged against the railroad tracks along S. Washington Street in Circleville.

Army Spc. Craig Allen Corey II was on leave back home in Chillicothe. Over beers at the Circleville bar, he talked to a pair of childhood buddies about his plan to pad his soldier's wages. And there would be good money in it for them, too.

Corey had been a customer of illicit massage services advertised on the Internet, and he proposed to do the same out of his apartment more than 300 miles away in Millersville, Md., near his post as a supply specialist at Fort Meade. With some risque photos of the offerings and some explicit erotic-services listings on craigslist, Corey calculated he could pocket $150,000 a year on top of his drug-dealing income.
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That night in late 2008 in Circleville marked the origin of Corey as "Pimp C." His drinking mates - Jacob Tyler and Robert "Little Rob" Harris II - would act as enforcers to keep the women and johns in line while he played Army. The men added another hometown friend and drug dealer - Richard "Little Richy"Johnson II - to the operation and set out to stock their brothel.

The young men did most of their shopping for women - both willing and not - on the turf where they already peddled drugs: Chillicothe.

Human trafficking, mostly associated with big cities, suddenly had come to small-city Appalachia, about 45 miles south of Columbus. Corey and his gang would travel regularly from Maryland to Chillicothe to obtain and sell drugs and, as he told an acquaintance, "recruit some bitches."

Corey also used MySpace, YouTube and Web ads to recruit a few women from Virginia, and he imported a woman from Watertown, N.Y., where he once was stationed at Fort Drum. But most of the women - and a 16-year-old girl - came from Chillicothe and surrounding Ross County.

"I don't think any area is immune," said William Winter, special agent in charge of the Baltimore office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which built a case against the men that sent them to prison for a combined 57 years. "A lot of the women had not traveled much and were low on the socio-economic scale. They were ripe to be exploited by someone with strong personalities like these guys.

"They would recruit these women by saying ... 'Come to the big city of Baltimore and bring your friends. Come party with us,' basically. 'We have a lot of money,'" Winter said.

Nearly nude photos of the women soon were posted on craigslist, with rates of up to $200 an hour "for modeling, role-playing, sensual body rub, personal assistance and private dancing." A disclaimer added: "I do not offer illegal or immoral services."

The operation was short-lived, spanning January to April 2009, before it was busted after "Holly" - a 28-year-old Chillicothe woman - accepted $100 for her services from an undercover cop.

But during those four months, beatings, threats and drugs underlined the coercion and control in play in Millersville, an unincorporated area of populous Anne Arundel County south of Baltimore.

The women, who numbered at least 12 over the weeks, were plied with free drugs of their choice to keep working and, once their addictions were rooted, forced to pay for their fixes by handing over their share of earnings.

Women who balked at serving sex customers or attempted to withhold cash paid by the johns would be beaten and threatened with more violence. Tyler and Harris had guns and were not shy about flashing them.

Harris threatened a customer with a gun at one point, and he and Tyler talked of shooting a particularly troublesome woman.

The 16-year-old was ferried from Chillicothe by Corey and his fiancee under the pretext of partying. Then, she was forced to have sex with three men who had responded to an Internet ad from "Vanilla." She arrived only a few days before the operation was busted.

With little money, no transportation and total reliance on their captors for food and shelter, the women had nowhere to turn.

With thousands of dollars a week coming in, the guys from Chillicothe were living large, buying electronics, clothes, jewelry and car accessories. Harris added gold teeth.

The first sign of what was unfolding in the middle-class apartment complex along Millwright Court in Millersville came in the first month.

A 19-year-old woman called her parents in January, saying her car had been disabled and she couldn't leave. Her parents recruited police to retrieve her. Tyler had beaten her, but she refused to tell police what had happened.

It wasn't long before the craigslist ads - offering "companionship" at the price of $80 for 15 minutes - caught the attention of Anne Arundel County authorities. On April 24, 2009, an undercover officer bought a quick date with "Holly."

Police also found the 16-year-old, drugs and a gun in the apartment. "Holly" was charged with prostitution. Corey was charged with human trafficking. Johnson and an 18-year-old woman from Chillicothe were charged with drug possession.

Because a minor child had been imported across state lines for prostitution, local police turned the case over to ICE, and federal agents visited Chillicothe to help build their case and track down and interview the women who had returned home.

On Sept. 29, the men were arrested on a multitude of federal charges that included sex trafficking by force, sex trafficking of a minor, interstate transportation for prostitution, drug trafficking and conspiracy.

Even after Corey was busted, he continued dealing drugs, traveling to Detroit to buy drugs that were then sold on the streets in both Maryland and Chillicothe. He also sold to an undercover officer.

Of the four sex traffickers, the ringleader perhaps was the most unlikely suspect. Corey had only minor scrapes with the law in Chillicothe and had graduated from high school in 2005. He seemingly had a good Army record, with the exception of getting a female solider pregnant and then denying he was the father. He was discharged after his arrest.

Tyler has had more than 30 misdemeanor arrests in Chillicothe and had done prison time for theft and receiving stolen property. He still has a case pending against him in an armed home-invasion robbery in Chillicothe on March 22, 2009.

Johnson's criminal record was small-time, but he had become a proficient drug dealer. He bought crack, powdered cocaine and heroin from suppliers in Columbus and from Corey's supplier in Detroit.

Harris is a castaway from a shattered Columbus home. In 1994, when Harris was 6, his mother died from a stray bullet fired by a gunman outside a Near East Side bar. He was raised by a relative in Chillicothe, where he dropped out of high school and began dealing drugs.

"We had no idea they were running as a group," said Chillicothe Police Chief Roger Moore. "We knew they all were troubled youths. We had looked at them all over time for drug trafficking. ... This has been shocking to the community."



Recently, in a small house on Mulberry Street in Chillicothe, 17-month-old Robert C. Harris IV scampered around his grandmother's toy-strewn living room, finally selecting a black-and-white police car as the moment's plaything.

The littlest Harris last saw his father at his sentencing in U.S. District Court in Baltimore on April 28 this year. Even then, they were not allowed to touch.

With all but Tyler facing the possibility of life in prison, the men signed plea arrangements. Corey, 23, will serve 171/2 years. Tyler, 23, and Harris, 21, each received 15-year terms. Johnson, 23, was sentenced to 10 years.

"Robbie will be 13 before his dad is ever out of prison," said Tabitha White, 20, the child's mother and the elder Harris' fiancee. "I don't think what he did deserved 15 years. I'm not saying he's innocent, but 15 years?''

White described Corey as a "cocky and arrogant" type who easily recruited Harris into his scheme.

"Robbie's a follower," added Tabitha's mother, Teresa White. "He'd do anything for you."

Teresa White, whom Harris calls "mom," doesn't buy that the women exported to Maryland were held against their will.

"There's prostitution everywhere. It was all blown out of proportion," she said.

"All those boys had been friends for years. I told Robbie he needed to start dealing with himself and warned him to stay away from those guys. They were trouble."

Information for this story came from court and police documents and interviews with local and federal officials, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who investigated the case.

rludlow@dispatch.com

Beaten and sold | The Columbus Dispatch