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.
Bangkok (Thailand), 6 August 2013 - Although the sexual exploitation of children by travelling child-sex offenders remains prevalent in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) countries of Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and Viet Nam, better collaboration between law enforcement officials across and within borders and stronger investigation and enforcement capacity is beginning to have a positive impact, say regional experts.
"In the analysis of chat logs, INTERPOL experts have said that child sex offenders are starting to say "stay out of Bangkok" and "stay out of Southeast Asia". The work police officers do everyday contributes to this," said Ms. Margaret Akullo, Project Coordinator, Project Childhood (Protection Pillar). "Police Officers have taken a stand, a stand that says we do not tolerate child sexual exploitation in our countries."
Ms. Akullo was speaking in Bangkok recently at a five-day training of trainers for police officers organized by Project Childhood (Protection Pillar), in partnership with UNODC, INTERPOL and World Vision.
Project Childhood is a $7.5 million Australian AID (AusAID) funded initiative to combat the sexual exploitation of children in the Greater Mekong sub-region countries of Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand, and Viet Nam. Building on Australia's long-term support for programs that better protect children and prevent their abuse, Project Childhood is being implemented in two complementary pillars- the Protection Pillar, a partnership between UNODC and INTERPOL, and the Prevention Pillar, implemented by World Vision.
Attended by officers from the four Project Childhood countries who work in crimes against children units, the workshop aimed to improve investigative skills and knowledge on child sexual exploitation cases. The training utilized the newly developed police-training curriculum,Investigating Sexual Exploitation of Children.
Despite the successes achieved by the GMS countries, participants noted that stopping the sexual exploitation of children by traveling sex offenders still required greater coordination and cooperation between GMS criminal justice agencies.
"The results of our collaborative efforts show that we need our friends from Cambodia, Lao PDR and Viet Nam," said Pol. Col Dr. Surasak Laohapiboolkul, Instructor, Police Education Bureau of Thailand. "This forum can be the beginning of a new era for protecting sexually abused children in our region - if we continue to work together."
Trainers for the five-day session included Dr. Geeta Sekhon (UNODC expert and trainer on gender), Warren Bulmer (Canada), Bob Shilling (INTERPOL) and Jane Walsh (Australian Federal Police), all of whom are specialists in the area of crimes against children. Facilitation of the training event was provided by the INTERPOL Coordinator, Annethe Ahlenius.
"Cooperation is essential to do this job properly. It does no good if we chase an offender out of one country and into another," said INTERPOL's Mr. Shilling. "The more we cooperate and put these perpetrators behind bars, the better off everyone will be."
Mr. Jeremy Douglas, UNODC Regional Representative, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, highlighted the importance of a cooperative effort and the dissemination of training back to their countries.
"This is a significant milestone for Project Childhood (Protection Pillar)," said Mr. Douglas. "The training provides an excellent opportunity for officers to learn and share with other police colleagues, and to take what they learned from this event back with them and hold their own training sessions."
Curriculum topics included gender issues during police work, first response duties of frontline officers, analysis of evidence and images of child pornography, typologies of sex offenders, and cooperation in the investigation of these cases. Sexual exploitation of boys, a widely unrecognized crime, was also discussed by officers, who agreed that further work was required in this area.
Such responses include intelligence-led investigations, victim identification, detection, and prosecution of the perpetrators of these crimes as well as the protection, rescue and rehabilitation of young victims.
Project Childhood is a $7.5 million Australian AID (AusAID)-funded initiative to combat the sexual exploitation of children - mainly in the travel and tourism sectors - in the Greater Mekong sub-region. The project focuses on Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and Viet Nam and builds on Australia's long-term support for programs that better protect children and prevent their abuse. It is being implemented on the ground by UNODC, INTERPOL, and World Vision in two complementary pillars - the Protection Pillar (UNODC/Interpol) and the Prevention Pillar (World Vision).
Project Childhood was recently introduced in Lao PDR through a workshop in the capital Vientiane. The 80 participants to the "Workshop on Anti Human Trafficking: Universal Periodic Review Recommendations and Combating Child Sex Tourism" included representatives from Lao PDR government ministries, the international community, international and national governmental organisations and the media.
The Protection Pillar, being implemented by UNODC, in partnership with INTERPOL, will strengthen the capacity of local law enforcement to identify, arrest and prosecute travelling child sex offenders in the four countries named through a package of capacity building activities to Governments and their law enforcement agencies. UNODC is currently designing and implementing activities for technical assistance to fill gaps in legislation, training, and cooperation mechanisms These include ensuring that domestic legislation meets international standards, and that police officers are trained and equipped to investigate the abuse of children by child sex offenders. INTERPOL, for its part, will focus on pooling resources for operations that will combine international and regional investigative resources to target travelling child sex offenders.
At the launch event, Ms. Margaret Akullo, the Project Coordinator for Project Childhood (Protection Pillar), emphasized that the Protection Pillar will significantly expand the intelligence base on the closed community of travelling sex offenders to more effectively prosecute suspects who seek to sexually abuse children. UNODC will provide assistance to the four countries in SE Asia to facilitate ratification and implementation of the relevant international legal instruments. INTERPOL will give operational criminal police support and advanced technological tools to strengthen international criminal police cooperation.
"UNODC's partnership with INTERPOL is fundamental to Project Childhood's technical assistance activities for police, prosecutors and judges," Ms. Akullo said. "We will use our combined mandates and strengths to actively combat child sex tourism by training law enforcement officials on international best practice and with targeted operations of criminals".
The Prevention Pillar will be implemented by World Vision and will strengthen the protective environment for children in travel and tourism - including building community awareness and resilience to sexual exploitation of children. It will focus on awareness raising campaigns for the travelling public on child safe tourism, support child helplines, and conduct community-based awareness-raising and training for children and families in vulnerable communities prone to child sexual exploitation. It will also work with the private sector and governments to develop effective national preventative measures against sexual exploitation of children in the travel and tourism sectors.
Project Childhood countries were selected on the basis of a number of factors such as: the volume of reported arrests of alleged travelling child sex offenders; a perceived lack of institutional and legislative capacity to counter the crime, and the degree of participating Government willingness to engage with the international community to take effective action. Protection Pillar activities have already begun in Cambodia and Thailand and will extend to cover Lao PDR and Viet Nam in early 2012.
The workshop was also supported by theUNDP International Law Project in collaboration with Project Childhood (Protection Pillar). UNODC and INTERPOL Project Coordinators and a World Vision representative presented an overview of their partnership and how each Pillar will deliver Project Childhood activities over the next three years to address the abuse of children by travelling child sex offenders.
A key workshop objective was to present findings from a UNODC legal review that examined current domestic legislative frameworks in Lao PDR as they apply to travelling child sex offenders. The report, an important Protection Pillar activity, determined whether Lao PDR law and legislative frameworks met international standards and obligations and addressed key issues such as child prostitution, sexual abuse of children, child pornography, child trafficking, child protection measures and International cooperation.
Have you purchased a new pair of sneakers lately? Placed a call on a cell phone? Had a fruit salad for lunch?
f so, then there's a pretty good chance you have unwittingly benefited from slave labor. That's right: From the emblem on your shoes stitched in Asia, to the cobalt in your smartphone mined in Africa, to the berries on your plate picked in the Americas, there is a real likelihood that someone was exploited to provide you with the goods you take for granted.
Human trafficking has become so pervasive that Interpol now deems it the third most profitable transnational criminal enterprise – behind trafficking of arms and drugs – and it's quickly closing in on weapons-running.
According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), at least 12.3 million people are presently victims of human trafficking, the majority of them women and girls. But perhaps the most unfortunate casualties of this trade are children, who account for approximately 20% of all trafficked persons. Sadly, the ILO estimates that 1.8 million children are exploited by the commercial sex industry every year.
In the past decade, the United States has spearheaded a global crackdown on the trafficking of people, with a particular emphasis on rescuing children from the grip of involuntary servitude. Since 2000, with the enactment of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the U.S. has been at the forefront of promoting greater international efforts to combat trafficking.
Currently, Congress is considering a bill that would add to the undertakings of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act in terms of protecting minors under the age of 18. But as we will show, the pending Child Protection Compact Act is a piece of legislation that embodies smart ends but selects poor means to accomplish them. The Different Types of Human Trafficking
Human traffickers are cunning con-artists who use deceit or force to trap their prey in appalling conditions. The Internet is rife with stories of men and women being promised legitimate jobs abroad, only to arrive in their host country and to be told that they must first work off their debt in a sweatshop or a brothel. Stories involving children tend to be the most heart-wrenching: the son sent to relatives to receive a better education, only to be sold to a trafficker so that he might learn a trade; or the daughter kidnapped by a neighbor and then sold to a trafficker – sometimes for as little as $100 – so that she can be forced into prostitution.
While there are numerous ways to exploit people, there are in essence four main categories of human trafficking:
• Involuntary Servitude: Of all forms of human trafficking worldwide, this is the most prevalent. It involves forcing someone to perform work by deception or coercion. One of the best-known cases involving forced labor occurred right here in the U.S., and involved an affluent Long Island, NY, couple who had subjugated two women in their home for five years. As if to leave no doubt that this case of involuntary servitude was nothing short of modern-day slavery, the housekeepers were required to refer to the oppressors as "master" and "missus."
• Debt Bondage: A form of bonded labor, this involves an adulterated form of involuntary servitude. The victim is required to work off a debt before being allowed to pursue a job of his or her own choosing. In some instances, bonded laborers are provided with living quarters and some kind of wage, but only a bare subsistence wage. One of the most common forms of debt bondage involves migrant workers, who are transported somewhere and then forced to work off their "transportation costs." Another practice involves threatening migrant workers with repatriation if they do not comply with their traffickers' demands.
• Sex Trafficking: Usually, this involves the exploitation of females for purposes of prostitution or pornography – although lately, the number of reports of males being sexually exploited seems to be on the rise. Prostitution and pornography do not necessarily involve human trafficking. However, forcing people into the commercial sex industry against their will constitutes trafficking. Sex trafficking, then, often involves either a form of involuntary servitude or a form of debt bondage, but with the added horrors of sexual assault and/or exploitation.
• Organ Trafficking: While this is hardly as prevalent as the other three categories of human trafficking, one need only to jump onto Twitter to read nightmarish tales of people being trafficked for purposes of organ removal. The old urban legend involved the story of someone being promised work on the condition that he passed a medical exam. After being taken to a clinic, the person awakens, only to be told that his kidney has been removed and that, if he alerts authorities, he'll be killed. Sounds like a Hollywood horror film, but for the fact that it has actually happened in India, according to news reports. Indeed, the World Health Organization estimates that as many as 7,000 kidneys are illegally obtained by traffickers every year.
While involuntary servitude, debt bondage, sex trafficking, and organ trafficking are the main forms of human trafficking, there are also four categories of trafficking that are unique to children:
• Forced Child Labor (akin to involuntary servitude, but involving children).
• Child Soldiering (recruiting and ordering children to train in military tactics and engage in military patrols and combat).
• Child Sexual Servitude (forcing children to be domestic sex slaves).
• Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (trafficking children for purposes of forcing them into prostitution or pornography). Human Trafficking and the Trafficking Victims Protection Act
The Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) is arguably the most important anti-trafficking law ever passed. Its main purpose is to eradicate human trafficking, and it is a seminal piece of law in that it defines "human trafficking," thus providing the framework by which the government comprehends and combats this growing scourge. Pursuant to the TVPA, the most egregious forms of human trafficking are defined as:
a. sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age; or
b. the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.
In essence, human trafficking involves the exploitation of a person through "force, fraud, or coercion" for financial benefit.
Despite the common understanding of the term, an important feature of the TVPA's conceptualization of trafficking is that there is no requirement that the person has to be physically transported from one locale to another, in order for the act to constitute "human trafficking."
The TVPA seeks to combat trafficking by promoting a policy of "3 Ps": prosecution, protection, and prevention. Prosecution involves passing the appropriate laws that criminalize trafficking, and jailing the abusers who exploit other humans for profit. Protection involves identifying victims, providing them with medical care and shelter (and if necessary witness protection), and, when appropriate, repatriating them. Prevention involves raising awareness of the inhumane practices involved in the trafficking trade and promoting a paradigm shift that seeks to reduce the demand for the "fruits" of human trafficking.
While trafficking does occur right here in the U.S. (even in our own small towns and backyards), the majority of human trafficking takes place abroad, particularly in Asia. Overseas, the TVPA charges the State Department with monitoring foreign governments' efforts to crackdown on trafficking. As part of this endeavor, each year the Secretary of State issues a report of each nation's progress: the Trafficking in Persons (TiP) Report.
The 2009 TiP Report was issued a few weeks ago, and the conclusions are hardly uplifting. Of particular concern, the number of people who are vulnerable to exploitation by traffickers has been magnified by the global economic downturn. With unemployment on the rise, and more and more people in need of money, the conditions are ideal for traffickers to take advantage of desperate people. Most troubling, as the report notes, is the continued practice of parents selling their children as a means of settling debts.
To eradicate such practices, the State Department is tasked with cajoling foreign governments into combating human trafficking. As part of this campaign, every year the State Department ranks the anti-trafficking efforts of foreign governments, placing countries in one of four categories. Tier 1 countries are those that meet the TVPA's minimum standards of fighting human trafficking. Tier 2 countries are those states that, while not fully complying with the TVPA's minimum standards, are at least making significant efforts to comply. Tier 2 Watch List countries are Tier 2 countries with significant trafficking problems and/or a slippage in their most recent efforts. Tier 3 countries are those that not only do not meet TVPA minimum standards, but also are failing to do much to combat trafficking.
In the latest TiP Report, out of the 173 states assessed, only 28 merited Tier 1 status. The plurality of countries (76) earned a Tier 2 rating. The remaining 69 nations were placed either on the Tier 2 Watch List (52) or Tier 3 (17).
As recent efforts have been underwhelming at best, Congress is now contemplating new legislation to empower America's diplomatic corps with an additional means of protecting society's most unsuspecting and vulnerable prey: children. The Child Protection Compact Act and Child Trafficking Abroad
The Child Protection Compact Act (CPCA – H.R. 2737), sponsored by Rep. Christopher Smith (R-NJ), seeks to "to protect and rescue children from trafficking by the establishment of Child Protection Compacts between the United States and select eligible countries with a significant prevalence of trafficking in children." The goal of the CPCA is to provide funding (through grants, cooperative agreements, and contracts) to foreign governments so that they can develop and implement national child protection strategies to combat the exploitation and trafficking of children.
In particular, Congress seeks to encourage foreign governments to develop and promote the following seven initiatives or programs:
• Evaluation of legal standards and practices and recommendations for improvements that will increase the likelihood of successful prosecutions.
• Training anti-trafficking police and investigators.
• Building the capacity of domestic nongovernmental organizations to educate vulnerable populations about the danger of trafficking, and to work with law enforcement to identify and rescue victims.
• Creation of victim-friendly courts.
• Development of appropriate after-care facilities for rescued victims.
• Development and maintenance of data collection systems.
• Development of regional cooperative plans with neighboring countries to prevent cross-border trafficking of children and child sex tourism.
These are excellent initiatives, and the CPCA is on the right track in terms of encouraging foreign governments to strengthen their national efforts to protect children from exploitation and trafficking.
However, the CPCA does not go far enough. At present, the Act only plans to allocate $50 million to the promotion of bilateral compacts – over three years. In other words, the CPCA would make, on average, approximately $16.7 million available to the State Department on an annual basis.
When one takes into account that these funds are most needed by the Tier 2 and Tier 2 Watch List countries, the math comes up dramatically short. In essence, if every country from these two categories were to seek to enter into a Child Protection Compact with the U.S., it would mean that an average of only $130,000 would be available to each country each year. And it doesn't take a whiz kid to know that practically every single one of the seven initiatives identified above will cost more than that.
In conclusion, human trafficking is one of the darkest sides to globalization. It occurs everywhere in the world – and it is deplorable, particularly when it exploits children. The CPCA, in conjunction with the TVPA, can truly make a significant impact in protecting society's most vulnerable victims – but not without a greater, more realistic allocation of funding.
We hope that as Congress considers this pending legislation that it will put its money where its mouth is. Fighting this 21st century form of slavery demands nothing less. Louis Klarevas is a professor at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs and coordinator of the Transnational Security concentration in the M.S. in Global Affairs program. Christine Buckley is a human rights advocate and co-author (with Aaron Cohen) of Slave Hunter: One Man's Quest to Free Victims of Human Trafficking, (Simon and Schuster 2009). You can follow the authors on Twitter, respectively, at: twitter.com/NYUProf and twitter.com/christibuckley.
Ms. Akullo was speaking in Bangkok recently at a five-day training of trainers for police officers organized by Project Childhood (Protection Pillar), in partnership with UNODC, INTERPOL and World Vision. 
Attended by officers from the four Project Childhood countries who work in crimes against children units, the workshop aimed to improve investigative skills and knowledge on child sexual exploitation cases. The training utilized the newly developed police-training curriculum,Investigating Sexual Exploitation of Children. 
Trainers for the five-day session included Dr. Geeta Sekhon (UNODC expert and trainer on gender), Warren Bulmer (Canada), Bob Shilling (INTERPOL) and Jane Walsh (Australian Federal Police), all of whom are specialists in the area of crimes against children. Facilitation of the training event was provided by the INTERPOL Coordinator, Annethe Ahlenius. 
Mr. Jeremy Douglas, UNODC Regional Representative, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, highlighted the importance of a cooperative effort and the dissemination of training back to their countries. 
Project Childhood was recently introduced in Lao PDR through a workshop in the capital Vientiane. The 80 participants to the "Workshop on Anti 
At the launch event, Ms. Margaret Akullo, the Project Coordinator for Project Childhood (Protection Pillar), emphasized that the Protection Pillar will significantly expand the intelligence base on the closed community of travelling sex offenders to more effectively prosecute suspects who seek to sexually abuse children. UNODC will provide assistance to the four countries in SE Asia to facilitate ratification and implementation of the relevant international legal instruments. INTERPOL will give operational criminal police support and advanced technological tools to strengthen international criminal police cooperation. 
Project Childhood countries were selected on the basis of a number of factors such as: the volume of reported arrests of alleged travelling child sex offenders; a perceived lack of institutional and legislative capacity to counter the crime, and the degree of participating Government willingness to engage with the international community to take effective action. Protection Pillar activities have already begun in Cambodia and Thailand and will extend to cover Lao PDR and Viet Nam in early 2012. 
A key workshop objective was to present findings from a UNODC legal review that examined current domestic legislative frameworks in Lao PDR as they apply to travelling child sex offenders. The report, an important Protection Pillar activity, determined whether Lao PDR law and legislative frameworks met international standards and obligations and addressed key issues such as child prostitution, sexual abuse of children, child pornography, child trafficking, child protection measures and International cooperation. 
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