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.
ISLAMABAD: The United Nations says there is no place in the world where children, women and men are safe from human trafficking.
According to the ‘2014 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons’, there are at least 152 countries (of origin) and 124 countries (of destination) affected by trafficking in persons, and over 510 trafficking flows criss-crossing the world.
Released by the UN Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the report says that one in three known victims of human trafficking is a child – a five per cent increase compared to the 2007-2010 period. Girls make up two out of three child victims, and together with women, account for 70 per cent of overall victims worldwide.
One in three human trafficking victims is a child, most victims are female, and traffickers operate with wide impunity, the United Nations said Monday in a report on modern-day slavery.
The 2014 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, produced by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, also found that the proportion of children among victims appeared to be rising. Its first report, in 2012, said the proportion had been closer to one in four.Read more
Each year, thousands of people flee the extreme poverty and repression in the Horn of Africa to Yemen, hoping to go on to Saudi Arabia for work. In Haradh, many migrants sleep in the town square, a large expanse of parched earth littered with rotten mattresses. Many migrants fall into the hands of human traffickers who torture them to extort money from their families back home.
"On Saadiyat, and throughout the gleaming cityscapes of Abu Dhabi and Dubai, the construction work force is almost entirely made up of Indian,
Pakistani, Bangladeshi Sri Lankan and Nepalesemigrant laborers. Bound
to an employer by the kafala sponsorship system, they arrive heavily
indebted from recruitment and transit fees, only to find that their gulf
dream has been a mirage. Typically, in the United Arab Emirates, the
sponsoring employer takes their passports, houses the workers in
substandard labor camps, pays much less than they were promised and
enforces a punishing regimen under the desert sun."
The embassy has informed the Indonesian government in Jakarta and documents from the concerned companies will no longer be authenticated, ambassador Salman Al Farisi confirmed. Delores Johnson / The National
"GENEVA - A major new project to help prevent 100,000 girls and women across South Asia from falling victim to the worst forms of labour trafficking was launched today, by the Department for International Development and the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
A man is escorted by Spanish and Italian security forces to an unmarked police car after being arrested in a flat. REUTERS Photo
Almost every country in the world is complicit in human trafficking, as each one is an origin, transit or destination country for the trade, the executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Yury Fedotov, has said, adding that the victims of the crime are being exploited in almost every part of the world.
“We are often talking about vulnerable people tricked and coerced into being trafficked and then cruelly exploited. Almost every country in the world is an origin, transit or destination country for human trafficking,” Fedotov told the Hürriyet Daily News in a telephone interview.
He noted that human trafficking was a global crime producing estimated yearly profits of around $32 billion dollars, each one of those criminal dollars is earned from the misery and suffering of victims. According to the UNODC’s Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 2012, women account for around 60 percent of all trafficking victims detected globally by the authorities. “Our report found victims from 136 different nationalities in 118 countries. We also identified at least 460 different trafficking flows for the victims globally,” Fedotov added.
“Based on the findings of our report, however, I can say there are significant regional variations. The share of detected child victims, for example, is 68 percent in Africa and the Middle East, and 39 percent in South Asia, East Asia and the Pacific; that proportion diminishes to 27 percent in the Americas and 16 percent in Europe and Central Asia,” he said.
Fedotov underlined that many countries may had difficulties in confronting human trafficking. “They may, for instance, lack the law enforcement capacity or need additional support in the area of criminal justice,” he said. Noting that helping to build capacities and offering technical support to these countries was part of U.N.’s work, he said that they could not afford to exclude countries. If countries are excluded the system was at risk of a two-speed approach in which “human trafficking declines in some countries, and possibly grows in those countries that are blacklisted and possibly ignored. If we did this, we would be offering the traffickers the potential to simply cross borders to evade punishment.”
‘Turkey a transit route’
However, Fedotov heralded some good news, as the number of countries criminalizing human trafficking increased from 78 to 95 percent of the total considered in the report between 2008 and 2012. “The improvements are encouraging, but they are coming too slowly to help the millions of victims. A catalyst is needed. We need an inspirational, but totally realistic goal: a decade of concrete action to try to end human trafficking. Action built on cooperation and coordination,” he said.
There is a roadmap for the international community. A global plan of action was agreed in 2010 and the UNODC is working with its partners and the international community to implement this plan throughout the world.
When the executive-director was asked how they label Turkey on the issue, Fedotov said Turkey is a transit route for human trafficking along the so-called Mediterranean route for trafficking, but it is also a destination for victims.
“I should also point out that the Turkish government has vigorously sought to prosecute traffickers and has introduced legislation that outlaws this crime,” he said.
“Although it concerned migrant smuggling and not human trafficking, I would like to commend Turkey on its work earlier this year, in early February, when the Istanbul police force worked with law enforcement agencies from other countries to break up an international migrant smuggling operation.
It was a very good example of how international cooperation and information sharing supports local police work.”
"Human trafficking requires a forceful response founded on the assistance and protection for victims, rigorous enforcement by the criminal justice system, a sound migration policy and firm regulation of the labour markets," said Yury Fedotov, Executive Director of UNODC of the findings.
Also worrying is the increase in the number of girl victims, who make up two thirds of all trafficked children. Girls now constitute 15 to 20 per cent of the total number of all detected victims, including adults, whereas boys comprise about 10 per cent, says the Report, which is based on official data supplied by 132 countries.
Within this picture, there are significant regional variations. While the share of detected child victims is 68 per cent in Africa and the Middle East, and 39 per cent in South Asia, East Asia and the Pacific, that proportion diminishes to 27 per cent in the Americas and 16 per cent in Europe and Central Asia.
The vast majority of trafficked persons are women, accounting for 55 to 60 per cent of victims detected globally. However, the total proportion of women and girls together soars to about 75 per cent, with men constituting about 14 per cent of the total of detected victims. Nonetheless, this is not a uniform picture as one in four detected victims is a male.
Mr. Fedotov acknowledged the current gaps in knowledge about this crime and the need for comprehensive data about offenders, victims and trafficking flows. Still, the number of trafficking victims is estimated to run into the millions.
Victims of 136 countries were detected in 118 countries between 2007 and 2010, during which period, 460 different flows were identified. Around half of all trafficking took place within the same region with 27 per cent occurring within national borders. One exception is the Middle East, where most detected victims are East and South Asians.
Trafficking victims from East Asia have been detected in more than 60 countries, making them the most geographically dispersed group around the world. Victims from the largest number of origin countries were found in Western and Central Europe.
There are significant regional differences in the detected forms of exploitation. Countries in Africa and in Asia generally intercept more cases of trafficking for forced labour, while sexual exploitation is somewhat more frequently found in Europe and in the Americas. Additionally, trafficking for organ removal was detected in 16 countries around the world.
The Report raises concerns about low conviction rates - 16 per cent of reporting countries did not record a single conviction for trafficking in persons between 2007 and 2010. On a positive note, 154 countries have ratified the United Nations Trafficking in Persons Protocol, of which UNODC is the guardian. Significant progress has been made in terms of legislation, as 83 per cent of countries now have a law that criminalizes trafficking in persons in accordance with the Protocol.
10/06/2012 There was a time in America, 150 years ago -- on September 22, 1862 to be exact -- when it was chic to have a slave serving your dessert, or at hand to service your every need. While slavery is no longer acceptable in the developed world, legally or socially, the sad truth is that it is still rampant -- hidden in the underbelly of society (all around the world) and woven into the supply chain of some of our goods. Human trafficking is a $32 billion industry with 20.9 million people trafficked annually, according to the International Labor Organization. One-quarter of the world's slave labor are children.
Young boys are forced to become child soldiers in countries that export coffee, diamonds, oil and other materials to the U.S. and the rest of the developed world. As you can see in the map below, the problem is more acute, but not limited to, Africa and the Middle East.
Young girls, even before puberty, are forced into prostitution -- not just in developing countries, but here in the United States as well. Impoverished individuals are promised a better life, and then forced to work 18-hour days in sweat shops -- bound by a debt that they can never pay off.
There is a large effort going on to stop modern slavery, however. Two weeks ago, on September 25, 2012, President Barack Obama marked the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation with a new call to action against "modern slavery." In front of a packed house at the Clinton Global Initiative, President Barack Obama advocated for everyone to become involved in the eradication of forced labor and the exploitation of children, saying, "All the business leaders who are here and our global economy companies have a responsibility to make sure that their supply chains, stretching into the far corners of the globe, are free of forced labor... And, every citizen can take action: by learning more; by going to the website that we helped create -- SlaveryFootprint.org; by speaking up and insisting that the clothes we wear, the food we eat, the products we buy are made free of forced labor; by standing up against the degradation and abuse of women."
On October 5, 2012, the film Trade of Innocents, starring Academy Award winner Mira Sorvino and Dermot Mulroney, opened in New York City. Trade of Innocents is a powerful, fictional story that was inspired by real-life incidents. Mira Sorvino, Dermot Mulroney, Trieu Tran and John Billingsley bring the sobering, heartbreaking, firsthand experiences of writer/director Christopher Bessett and producers Bill and Laurie Bolthouse to life in a way that will change your life instantly and forever. At the premiere, when the final credits rolled, people sat unable to move or speak.
Bessett told the shell-shocked crowd how he had personally witnessed a scene from the movie -- when an American businessman openly "dates" a seven-year old village girl in the local speakeasy, and had her request that the band play "Puppy Love" for them. In the movie, the young girl had been kidnapped from her home. Her teenage sister, who had tried to escape prostitution, was sold back to the brothel by a mother who needed her daughter to "provide for the family."
For the audience, it is a movie. For millions of young girls, it is real life. According to the U.S.Department of Justice, age 14 is the average age of entry into pornography and prostitution in the U.S. More than a quarter of a million children are in danger of becoming sexual commodities in the U.S. every year.
Mira Sorvino, who is the U.N. Goodwill Ambassador to Combat Human Trafficking, explains the harsh reality of forced, underage prostitution, which she has witnessed firsthand in care centers around the world, writing:
A little girl, around three and a half feet tall, approached me, holding out papers. Her mouth was open in a smile; her front baby teeth were out, and the new ones had not grown in yet. She handed me her addition and subtraction problems on lined paper. A staffer whispered, "We rescued her four months ago. Her father killed her mother in front of her when she was three, then relatives sold her to a brothel for tourists, where she worked from age four to seven." When the child was asked what things she had been made to do, she did not even know how to describe them. All she could say was, "Incorrectos."
Trade of Innocents shines a light into the corners of a world you know in your heart exists. Suspect circumstances flash before us when we least expect them, and then disappear before we can make sense of what happened. It's easy to be so embroiled in our own life challenges that we forget to look more closely and listen more astutely to the far away cries of victims who are forced into brothels, sweatshops, fields, factories, domestic servitude, war, drugs and even organ selling on a global scale that is reminiscent of some of the worst chapters in human history.
In the midst of a heated presidential election, President Obama took the stage at CGI and, instead of trying to win another vote, he used that moment to fire up our national commitment to the oppressed, saying:
Right now, there's a woman, hunched over a sewing machine, glancing beyond the bars on the window, knowing if just given the chance, she might some day sell her own wares, but she doesn't think anybody is paying attention. Right now, there's a young boy, in a brick factory, covered in dust, hauling his heavy load under a blazing sun, thinking if he could just go to school, he might know a different future, but he doesn't think anybody is paying attention. Right now, there is a girl, somewhere trapped in a brothel, crying herself to sleep again, and maybe daring to imagine that some day, just maybe, she might be treated not like a piece of property, but as a human being. And so our message today, to them, is -- to the millions around the world -- we see you. We hear you. We insist on your dignity. And we share your belief that if just given the chance, you will forge a life equal to your talents and worthy of your dreams.
If you'd like to take part in this call to action, below are a few ways to lend a hand in eradicating modern slavery.
1. Trade of Innocents. Learn where this important movie is playing. Go see it and encourage your thousands of friends on Google+, Twitter and Facebook to see it, too. Limited screenings began in New York City on October 5, 2012.
2. Zero Under 18. Learn more about the United Nations campaign to end the involvement of children in armed conflict.
3. SlaveryFootPrint.org. Take two minutes to learn how many slaves work for your lifestyle, and how you can change that. And share this web link with thousands of your friends, too.
In the face of complaints of abuse and fraud abroad, Philippine government officials are seeking to stem the wave of more than a millionFilipinas who have headed overseas to work as maids.
The outpouring of workers to other countries has paid off for the Philippines financially, sending more than $20 billion into the country last year. But horror stories of Filipinas beaten, molested and left unpaid elsewhere in Asia and the Middle East have dogged the "maid trade."
Their plight so alarmed Philippine lawmakers that a government mission traveled to Saudi Arabia last year to interview hundreds of housekeepers. One legislator likened the worst cases abroad to "modern-day slavery." Reeling, the Philippines has pushed for stricter rules, demanding a minimum wage and a weekly day off. It ratified an international treaty promising to protect the workers' rights.
But the tales of abuse have continued, pushing the government to go further. Philippine media have aired a litany of grim stories over the last year: a 22-year-old worker leaping from a third-floor window to escape her employer in Jordan, another burned with a hot iron and stabbed with a kitchen knife in Syria, yet another whose body allegedly came back from Saudi Arabia without eyes or a tongue.
"Our overriding concern is the protection of domestic workers," Hans Leo Cacdac, head of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, said in an interview late last month. "That’s why we are undertaking this plan to reduce the numbers."
How exactly the Philippines will reduce the flow of overseas domestic workers is unclear, with plans still being shaped by government officials. Cacdac says the goal is not to bar Filipinas from going abroad, but to nudge them toward better jobs by assessing their skills and education.
Some Filipinas take jobs doing housework despite having other skills. Marilou Pundar Monge studied engineering and technology in the Philippines but struggled to find a job at home that could provide for her two children. She headed to Malaysia to do domestic work, toiling almost 15 hours a day in a Kuala Lumpur home.
"I couldn’t earn much in the Philippines even though I had finished college," said Pundar Monge, now 51.
Talk of cutting back on foreign workers has been closely watched in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and other countries that bring in tens of thousands of Filipinas annually to cook and clean. In the past, the Philippines has blacklisted entire countries; it assured an Emirati newspaper it wouldn't do so this time, focusing on abusive employers and recruiters instead.
Migrant activists say focusing on better jobs is a better tactic than simply cutting women off from working overseas, as media reports about the plan first suggested. Banning workers from jobs abroad can backfire and end up worsening abuse, said Human Rights Watch senior researcher Nisha Varia.
"Women still want these jobs. Employers still want these workers. If the formal channels are closed, people will go around them –- and they’ll go around them without protection," Varia warned.
The desire to seek a better living abroad is so strong, said Ellene Sana, executive director of the Center for Migrant Advocacy in Manila, that thousands of Philippine domestic workers are still in war-ravaged Syria. Though hundreds returned to Manila this week, Sana says new workers have been illegally recruited even as the fighting escalated, and thousands have stayed in the country despite the government insisting it will cover the costs of their repatriation.
Turning its gaze inward, to address what drives people away from the Philippines, makes sense, Sana said. "We have been prodding the government to do precisely that, rather than looking beyond the borders where we have very little influence," she said.
The burgeoning Philippine economy may change the dynamic, a Singaporean financial group argued in a recent research note. On the flip side, wilting economies abroad could make staying home more attractive.
Pundar Monge said she decided to return to her country years ago for her dignity and her family. Leaving home cost her too much, she said. While she was working abroad, her oldest daughter died. Fellow workers told her about beatings and starvation at the hands of their employers.
"I would persuade young women to stay and find greener pastures here," Pundar Monge said.
A Filipina trafficked by a Kuwaiti diplomat spoke out last week about her abuse. A New York advocacy group that helped her win a settlement is staging a Sept. 21 demonstration to prod her country's U.S. consulate to help victims like her.
Dema Ramos, middle, was trafficked by a Kuwaiti diplomat
Dema Ramos, middle, was trafficked by a Kuwaiti diplomat Credit: Samantha Kimmey NEW YORK (WOMENSENEWS)--Dema Ramos' voice quivered as she recounted over three years of abuse she endured during her time with a Kuwaiti diplomat and his family, both in the Middle East and in New York City.
Through a translator at a press conference here last week, Ramos said that, at an earlier point in her life, she did not believe a country could be worse for workers than the Philippines. But the deep, calming breaths and pregnant pauses she had to take underscored how wrong she was.
The 57-year-old Filipina, now certified by the U.S. government as a victim of trafficking, said she began working for the family in 2006 after she responded to an ad seeking domestic workers in Kuwait. She wanted to earn money to help support her family.
She is one of many women who are "lured by the promise of high-paying jobs," said Enecita Brodsky, chair of the event-hosting organization Damayan Migrant Workers, which helped Ramos escape her abusive situation, find legal representation and receive a settlement from her former employer.
After this major victory, Damayan will be staging a rally on Sept. 21 in New York City to light a fire under the Philippine U.S. consulate to do more to protect its overseas workers here.
Various members of Damayan have filed affidavits at the consulate indicating that their passports were stolen -- a known sign of worker abuse -- but "the consulate hasn't done anything to help those women," said Leah Obias, campaigns coordinator and case manager at Damayan, in a phone interview.
"We're not seeing the kind of support from the consulate that there should be," she said.
Obias theorized that a lack of training in what trafficking looks like might be a contributing factor, but also noted that the consulate works with diplomats, which "puts them in a certain kind of position with diplomats themselves." But, she added, "diplomacy should not come at the expense of workers' basic rights."
She also said, however, that the August ratification of a new international labor convention on domestic workers' rights was "a good first step."
Sleepless Years
During her two and a half years in Kuwait and Lebanon, Ramos made about $165 a month. She barely slept as she cared for five children, cleaned the house, cooked and washed and ironed clothes. Other maids rotated in and out as they were hired and quickly left, although at least one of those women was physically assaulted before she quit.
While with the family for eight months in New York City, where the father worked as a diplomat, she typically made about $500 per month. Considering her long hours, she said that amounted to about 69 cents an hour. She received only two days off during that time: Christmas and New Year's Day.
After the family arrived in the city, they swiped her passport. The prospect of attempting an escape without documentation frightened Ramos.
The Philippine economy enjoys a huge influx of earnings from overseas workers, with over $20 billion in remittances sent there every year. Ten percent of Filipinos work overseas, said the panelists.
Manila classified about 150,000 of its overseas workers as domestic and household workers in 2011, according to a Sept. 11 letter sent by Damayan and the National Employment Law Project to the Philippine consulate in New York City.
When diplomatic immunity becomes involved, as in Ramos' case, workers face particular challenges because it almost always protects the diplomat from prosecution. A Washington Post article from 2009 cites the case of Mildrate Yancho Nchang, a domestic worker abused by a Cameroonian diplomat's family. Her case was dismissed when the diplomat invoked immunity.
Between 2000 and 2007, the Philippines issued more A3 visas -- those typically given to the domestic workers of diplomats -- than any other country in the world, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
The letter sent to the Philippine consulate in New York City asks that it work with Damayan to prevent abuses and advocate for additional protections in cases of "abuses of diplomatic immunity."
Rape, Abuse Common
Many Filipinas working abroad as domestic workers "face rape, physical violence and sexual abuse," according to the State Department. Ramos made no such allegations during last week's press event.
Ramos' lawyer, Nicole Hallett, said that her client suffered health problems and emotional distress while working for the Kuwaiti family.
While she was caring for the children outside the family home she asked other domestic workers from her country how she could get help. Someone connected her to Damayan and during a rare outing when she was allowed to attend church, she escaped in a prearranged getaway car.
Ramos is currently applying for a T-visa, which is available to trafficked workers. She will obtain a green card, a type of temporary residency permit, and may be allowed to bring her family to the states.
Ramos did not have to file a lawsuit against the diplomat because the employer was quick to settle, which, Hallett said, "We see as a victory." Hallett could not disclose the details of the financial settlement reached by the diplomat and Ramos.
Damayan has been pushing the issue of Philippine workers' rights in response to both the Philippines' ratification -- which happened just last month -- of the International Labor Organization's first convention for domestic workers and Ramos' desire to speak out, Obias said at the event.
The convention -- which requires domestic workers to receive the same protections for hours worked, overtime, minimum wage, time off and more -- is the first set of global standards for domestic workers, according to Human Rights Watch. The Philippines is the second country to ratify it, after Uruguay did so earlier this year.
Legal Force Treaty
When a country ratifies an International Labor Organization convention, it becomes a treaty with legal force, although all such conventions are treated as international standards of labor. The International Labor Organization's 185 member states must submit all conventions to their own legislatures for ratification or other action.
Hallett noted that few cases are brought under the act, which she argued was not a reflection of the rate of abuse but the fear victims have in coming forward.
Panelists were mixed about the significance of the International Labor Organization's convention. One panelist said only time would tell if it had "teeth." Hallett added that laws and regulations are the "first step, not the last step."
Ramos castigated her country's consulate, saying, "They were supposed to be supporting Filipinos abroad."
While the Middle East and Persian Gulf are most notorious for domestic-worker abuses, her case spotlights infractions taking place on American soil.
Other Asian countries have also been contending with the plight of overseas workers. In August, Nepal announced that it was barring women under 30 from working in Persian Gulf states due to reports of abuse, reported CNN in early August. Human Rights Watch, based in Washington, D.C., condemned that decision, labeling it discrimination and calling for Nepal to instead improve protections for female workers.
In 2010, a Human Rights Watch report found a steep increase in female migrant workers in recent decades. Such women are now about half of all such workers worldwide.
In August 2012, a Philippine official said that the country would begin a five-year plan to bar exploitative employers in other countries from hiring Filipino workers, although rights advocates argue that there are ways to work around such a system, reported Gulf News.
Samantha Kimmey is a writer in Brooklyn, N.Y., covering women and politics this election season.
