Slavery, a Personal Question Online - NYTimes.com

Source: NYTimes.com

By ANDREW MARTIN

Published: September 21, 2011

Do you know how many slaves work on your behalf?

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Michel Filho/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Textile workers in Brazil demonstrate against slavery.

While many people may assume the answer to that provocative and unsettling question is zero, the creators of a new Web site want to demonstrate how forced labor, especially overseas, is tantamount to slavery.

A nonprofit group, with funding from the State Department, will unveil the new site, www.slaveryfootprint.org, on Thursday in an effort to show that forced laborers are tied to all kinds of everyday products, from electronics and jewelry to the shirt on your back.

Ideally, they hope to get consumers engaged enough in the issue to do something about it, primarily hoping people demand that companies carefully audit supply chains to ensure, as best as they can determine, that no “slave labor” was used to manufacture its products.

“What we are trying to do is make it so it’s not just someone else’s business, it’s everyone’s business,” said Luis CdeBaca, ambassador at large for the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. “There’s a horror about it when they figure out what is going on.”

The slavery footprint is a twist on the more commonly known carbon footprint, and the new site tries to point out areas of a consumer’s life where the organization believes slavery is most likely used to manufacture products.

Slavery Footprint defines a slave as “anyone who is forced to work without pay, being economically exploited and is unable to walk away.” The State Department estimates that there are 27 million slaves globally. The Web site steers users through a set of prompts, where they can define where they live, the type of dwelling they live in, how many children they have, how many cars they use, what they eat and what types of things they have bought.

Sprinkled throughout are grim notations about slave labor and human trafficking, like this one: “In China, soccer ball manufacturers work up to 21 hours in a day, for a month straight. Even the toughest American coaches wouldn’t ask that from their squads.”

Or this claim: “Every day tens of thousands of American women buy makeup. Every day tens of thousands of Indian children mine mica, which is the little sparkles in the makeup.”

The site also asks users how many times they have paid for sex. While there is no way to answer, the site notes that people who pay for sex contribute to the demand for sexual trafficking.

The Web site offers a numerical score of how many slaves users have working on their behalf; the average is 55.

The site was created by the Fair Trade Fund, a California-based nonprofit group that uses media to promote advocacy on issues, particularly human slavery. Among its projects are “Call + Response,” a film on the slave trade, and chainstorereaction.com, a Web site that encourages consumers to send electronic letters to companies challenging them to define their policies on human trafficking.

The companies’ responses, or lack thereof, are posted on the Web site.

Based on the movie and the Web site, the State Department sought out the Fair Trade Fund to create the Slavery Footprint site and provided it with a $200,000 grant.

Justin Dillon, 42, the organization’s chief executive, said the Slavery Footprint site did not make specific companies its targets. Instead, it shows consumers which products they use are most likely to involve forced labor.

He said a mobile application would allow consumers to find information on products at the point of purchase, and send companies electronic letters asking about their policies on slave labor. Those letters will also be sent to all of the consumers’ Facebook friends, in the hopes of applying consumer pressure for changes in practices. “Really the goal is to amplify the conversation between the consumer and the producer,” Mr. Dillon said. “Our torches and pitchforks are out for the slave traders, not the multinationals.”

Ideally, he said companies would hire third-party auditors to determine if their supply chains were employing slave labor.

The Slavery Footprint application is being started nearly a year after California passed a law that requires companies with global sales in excess of $100 million who do business in the state to disclose what efforts they have made to eliminate forced labor from their supply chains.

Some business groups opposed the measure, saying it unfairly tagged companies for “failing” on an issue they were powerless to change.

On Wednesday, a spokesman for the United States Chamber of Commerce said he would not comment because officials at the organization had not yet seen the Slavery Footprint Web site. Mr. CdeBaca said the new grant recognized the need to encourage consumers to put pressure on the marketplace.

“Without some kind of demand, the traffickers wouldn’t be rushing to meet that through coercion and threats,” he said.

A version of this article appeared in print on September 22, 2011, on page B3 of the New York edition with the headline: Slavery Becomes a Personal Question Online.

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thebahamasweekly.com - An End to Human Trafficking, an Op-Ed by Hillary Rodham Clinton

By US Embassy Oct 30, 2010 - 9:54:23 AM

Elementary students across America are taught that slavery ended in the 19^th Century. But, sadly, nearly 150 years later, the fight to end this global scourge is far from over. Today it takes a different form and we call it by a different name -- “human trafficking” -- but it is still an affront to basic human dignity in the United States and around the world.

The estimates vary widely, but it is likely that somewhere between 12 million and 27 million human beings are suffering in bondage around the world. Men, women and children are trapped in prostitution or labor in fields and factories under brutal bosses who threaten them with violence or jail if they try to escape. Earlier this year, six ”recruiters” were indicted in Hawaii in the largest human trafficking case ever charged in U.S. history. They coerced 400 Thai workers into farm labor by confiscating their passports and threatening to have them deported.

I have seen firsthand the suffering that human trafficking causes. Not only does it result in injury and abuse—it also takes away its victims’ power to control their own destinies. In Thailand I have met teenage girls who had been prostituted as young children and were dying of AIDS. In Eastern Europe I have met mothers who lost sons and daughters to trafficking and had nowhere to turn for help. This is a violation of our fundamental belief that all people everywhere deserve to live free, work with dignity, and pursue their dreams.

For decades, the problem went largely unnoticed. But 10 years ago this week, President Clinton signed the Trafficking Victims’ Protection Act, which gave us more tools to bring traffickers to justice and to provide victims with legal services and other support. Today, police officers, activists, and governments are coordinating their efforts more effectively. Thousands of victims have been liberated around the world and many remain in America with legal status and work permits. Some have even become U.S. citizens and taken up the cause of preventing traffickers from destroying more lives.

This modern anti-trafficking movement is not limited to the United States. Almost 150 countries have joined the United Nations’ Trafficking Protocol to protect victims and promote cooperation among countries. More than 116 countries have outlawed human trafficking, and the number of victims identified and traffickers imprisoned is increasing each year.

But we still have a long way to go. Every year, the State Department produces a report on human trafficking in 177 countries, now including our own. The most recent report found that 19 countries have curtailed their anti-trafficking efforts, and 13 countries fail to meet the minimum standards for eliminating trafficking and are not trying to improve.

It is especially important for governments to protect the most vulnerable – women and children – who are more likely to be victims of trafficking. They are not just the targets of sex traffickers, but also labor traffickers, and they make up a majority of those trapped in forced labor: picking cotton, mining rare earth minerals, dancing in nightclubs. The numbers may keep growing, as the global economic crisis has exposed even more women to unscrupulous recruiters.

We need to redouble our efforts to fight modern slavery. I hope that the countries that have not yet acceded to the U.N. Trafficking Protocol will do so. Many other countries can still do more to strengthen their anti-trafficking laws. And all governments can devote more resources to finding victims and punishing human traffickers.

Citizens can help too, by advocating for laws that ban all forms of exploitation and give victims the support they need to recover. They can also volunteer at a local shelter and encourage companies to root out forced labor throughout their supply chains by visiting www.chainstorereaction.com .

The problem of modern trafficking may be entrenched, but it is solvable. By using every tool at our disposal to put pressure on traffickers, we can set ourselves on a course to eradicate modern slavery.

thebahamasweekly.com - An End to Human Trafficking, an Op-Ed by Hillary Rodham Clinton

Modern-Day Slavery in America - HUMAN EVENTS

Image via WikipediaSource: Human Events

by Billy Hallowell

09/18/2010

Young women and children around the world are increasingly falling victim to human trafficking, a heinous crime that was once unfathomable in First World societies. However, as new technologies have progressed, so have the abilities and evil desires of criminal deviants. 

These barbarians have chosen to use the Internet, among other resources, to steal, exploit, abuse, sell and murder helpless individuals. This sale and commercialization of innocent victims has spread like a parasite, stretching into nations where this sort of crime was once a rarity. 

The notion that any individual could be viewed and treated as a commodity for sale at the discretion of morally bankrupt criminals is monstrous, yet this is exactly what is happening around the globe.

For many Americans, the term “human trafficking” brings to mind shady adversaries in far-off lands who capture individuals and then sell them for the purposes of sex or manual labor. This perception is surely accurate, but this growing crime ring is no longer restricted to far-away lands. Today, modern-day slavery is as much of a reality in America as it is abroad. 

While some may find it difficult to believe, American women and children are being exploited and sold into slavery. Recognizing this fact is paramount, as combating this social ill is going to become increasingly important, especially as technology enables criminals to find new ways to abduct and exploit the innocent. 

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) defines human trafficking as a “form of modern-day slavery” and confirms the notion that anyone—man, woman or child—has the potential to be victimized. 

As noted by HHS, those individuals who find themselves trapped in this dangerous industry are subjected to “force, fraud, or coercion, for the purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labor.” Victims are essentially made to produce or engage in a service against their will so that their “slave owners” (pimps, bosses, and the like) can financially benefit from their “work.”

Unlike those individuals who engage in criminal activities such as drug and weapons sales, these monsters choose to do so because they believe that abducting human beings provides a relatively renewable product. The children and young adults they capture are used and abused to the fullest capacity so that these degenerates can make optimal monies from the victims’ toils.

The situation in America is grim. According to the Justice Department, every year 300,000 American children are at risk of being enveloped into the commercial sex world. According to Stop Child Trafficking Now (SCTNow), “UNICEF values the global market of child trafficking at over $12 billion a year with over 2.5 million child victims.” 

To make matters worse, trafficking is one of the fastest-growing criminal activities in the world. SCTNow explains that, “No matter the reason, children have become sexual commodities to be bought and sold for the pleasure of exploiters.” While this is clearly unacceptable anywhere in the world, it is especially appalling and abhorrent that it occurs in a nation that is regularly heralded as the sole beacon of freedom and hope.

For years, non-profit organizations have been working to stop predators from exploiting children and adults, alike. Each year, the State Department releases the “Trafficking in Persons Report,” an initiative intended to extensively document global government initiatives to prevent and stop modern-day slavery.

HumanTrafficking.org explains that the report’s “findings will raise global awareness and spur countries to take effective actions to counter trafficking in persons.” In what many non-profit professionals who work in the field see as an encouraging move, for the first time ever, the U.S. listed itself in the report this year. 

While some may cast doubts on the full accuracy of America’s self-reporting (after all, it’s often difficult to comprehensively criticize one’s own policies), the nation’s own exploration into an issue that has received minimal publicity showcases a move in the right direction. 

In the State Department’s official report, some intriguing demographic information was released. When considering the different types of forced labor victims of human trafficking are forced to engage in, a majority of U.S. citizens are forced into sex trafficking as opposed to labor trafficking; this proves true for both children and adults. Conversely, foreigners are generally more likely to be found in forced labor than they are in sex trafficking. According to the report, the villains who run these rings have a penchant for the helpless, as “U.S. citizen child victims are often runaway and homeless youth.”

For instance, take M.S., a young girl who was featured in an ABC News piece in May 2010. At the age of 12, M.S. met an older man with whom she became instantly enthralled. One day, the man asked her to go for a ride with him and she accepted. Her decision to accompany him would prove a mistake, as she was abducted and thrust into the ugly world of human trafficking.

According to ABC News, “For four years, M.S. was forced into child prostitution with four different pimps. She was taken from city to city, forced to have sex with random men against her will. She rarely got to keep any of the $1,500 she made every day. Instead, she was abused mentally and physically by both her pimps and other girls who he housed.”

This is just one of the thousands of stories that illustrate lives stolen and destroyed by greed and moral deficiency. Another ABC News story from 2006 provides some startling statistics. According to the network, the FBI estimated that more than 100,000 women and children fall victim to human trafficking in the U.S. Sadly, these women range from nine to 19.

This same story recounts the brutal abduction and subsequent abuse that another 15-year-old teen named “Debbie” endured (including being kept in a dog kennel and being forced to serve as a sex slave and prostitute). Debbie was a normal teenage girl from Arizona before her abduction—yet another American to fall prey to human trafficking.

According to Malika Saada Saar, the executive director of the Rebecca Project for Human Rights, human trafficking is a relatively new conundrum in America. Earlier this year, Saar wrote a piece for the Huffington Post in which she offered some reasons why America is now grappling with a formerly Third-World issue. In Saar’s view, the Internet has created a portal through which young girls can be commercialized.

She writes, “Young girls are the new commodities that traffickers and gangs are selling. And, there isn't a culture of crime and punishment for selling girls as there is for selling illegal drugs. It is less risky, and more profitable (the girls are "reusable"), to traffic girls, instead of meth or crack.”

Understanding the nature of this issue is extremely important for all members of society. The notion that a free nation has this sort of criminal activity raging is horrific at best. Luckily, some excellent organizations like SCTNow are working diligently to stop predators in their tracks. 

As citizens, we should be educated about this important issue, while engaging in discussions about how we can stop innocent members of society from being forced into servitude and slavery. Educating ourselves and getting involved to make viable change is the least we can do.

---

Billy Hallowell is founder and president of Pathufind Media.

Modern-Day Slavery in America - HUMAN EVENTS

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Human Trafficking In The U.S.: One Woman's Story : NPR

by Sara Lerner

August 1, 2010 from KUOW

This year, for the first time ever, the U.S. included itself in the State Department's annual report on human trafficking. The report said the U.S. has a serious problem with human trafficking — a practice they call the equivalent of modern-day slavery, including commercial sex exploitation and forced labor — as a source country, and as a destination for victims.

"We think of trafficking as this huge network of organized crime, which it can be, but it can also just be a couple that wanted a nanny but didn't want to pay for it," says Kathleen Morris, who heads the Washington state Anti-Trafficking Response Network.

Human trafficking victims do more than just sex work. In fact, the majority work as forced laborers in all kinds of industries, from construction to agriculture or housekeeping.

Seven years ago, Washington became the first state in the nation to make human trafficking a crime on the state level. Now 44 states have a similar law and — just in the past few years — there's been a flurry of legislative activity all across the country to address the issue. Dozens of new laws increase criminal penalties for traffickers and require better help for victims of coercion and force.

An Offer That Seemed Promising

In a Seattle suburb, one woman from East Africa was tricked and ended up working virtually as a domestic slave. She can't use her name or even say which country she's from. If she reveals who the perpetrators are, they could come after her or, worse, hurt her family back in her home country, which is where this all began.

Sadly, her story is somewhat typical. Although she doesn't like to talk about it, she is doing so now "because I want other people who are going through this same situation that I had before to be careful about it," she says.

I was responsible for everything, except only their body they washed by themselves. But I was responsible for everything. ... Why did these people do this to me? It really make me sad when I remember this story.

- A woman from East Africa, whose named has been withheld to protect her and her family

In her home country, she took care of a wealthy woman's house. They got along so well that the woman asked her to go to the U.S. and work for her relatives, who are from this same country.

But she said no. She didn't want to leave her kids. Her boss persisted, but she kept refusing. Then, the woman offered to put her daughters in boarding school.

"Boarding school back home is very important, especially for girls," she says. "So I said, 'That sounds good, putting my children in boarding school, and then coming to visit them — oh, that's a good idea.' "

So the family organized her documents and brought her all the way to Seattle. But things were bad. Her duties far exceeded those of the job back home. She took care of a 2-year-old and a baby and all of the family's meals — cooking, cleaning, gardening and more.

"I was responsible for everything, except only their body they washed by themselves. But I was responsible for everything," she says.

She worked almost 100 hours a week. The couple paid her $70 a month and insisted that she talk to no one.

"Why did these people do this to me?" she says. "It really make me sad when I remember this story."

But, eventually, this woman did get away and contacted an immigration attorney.

Charges were brought against the couple she worked for, and she was able to recover her proper wages. That's a rare good outcome for these kinds of cases.

U.S. Has To Be Better At Identifying Victims

Erik Breitzke, who heads the human trafficking unit for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, says human trafficking is one of the most hidden crimes in the U.S.

"We're dealing with foreign-born victims, who are often in the United States illegally, may not speak the language, come from a country where their cultural norms and mores are different or there may be social caste systems in place, and where law enforcement may be generally distrusted," he says.

The State Department won't give an estimate of how many victims there are right now in the U.S. But this woman is among about 300 people who last year received a visa specifically designated for human trafficking victims.

The State Department says the U.S. has to do a better job at identifying these victims. Breitzke says it's a matter of educating law enforcement about what to look for.

"It's very easy to understand force in terms of a physical assault, but what about psychological coercion? But what about a threat against a family member, what about a threat against a child who's left in a home country?" he says. "We want to make the light bulb go off and to recognize that something might be going on here that they need to follow up with."

Back in Seattle, Kathleen Morris with Washington state's anti-trafficking group says she's hopeful these days.

"There has been great movement in the United States over the last 10 years to address this issue," she says. "We're really at a good place right now as far as attention to it."

Meanwhile, the woman who went through it all has made a new life for herself. She has a job in health care. And, after years without seeing her kids, they're finally together again. She's at her own apartment in Seattle, making her daughters beef with ugali — a staple all over East Africa.

Related NPR Stories

A First: U.S. Included In Human Trafficking Report June 15, 2010

Human Trafficking A Problem Within U.S. Borders May 13, 2010

Human Trafficking In The U.S.: One Woman's Story : NPR

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Slavery in Our Time -- In These Times

News » July 21, 2010

For the first time, the U.S. government acknowledges modern-day slavery in the United States.

By Michelle Chen

Geralyn Quezo, 17, (L) looks on as she stands by a fellow victim of human trafficking at the Visayan Forum Foundation’s halfway house in Manila, in the Philippines. (Photo by: Jason Guitierrez/AFP/Getty Images)

The media often focus on stories of young girls lured into prostitution rings. But government data suggest that “more foreign victims are found in labor trafficking than sex trafficking,” particularly in “above ground” sectors like hotel work and home healthcare.

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One-hundred-and-fifty years after the abolition of slavery, the State Department has acknowledged that people in the United States continue to be bought and sold as property.

The department’s 2010 “Trafficking in Persons” (TIP) report, a global review of human trafficking and civic and legal responses to it, lists the United States for the first time among the nations that harbor modern-day slavery.

The report was a long time in coming. In 2001, when Washington was rolling out landmark anti-trafficking legislation, Maria, a Mexican woman, testified before the House Committee on International Relations on her experience with sex slavery in Florida. “If any of the girls refused to be with a customer, we were beaten. If we adamantly refused, the bosses would show us a lesson by raping us brutally. We worked six days a week, twelve hours a day. Our bodies were sore and swollen. If anyone became pregnant we were forced to have abortions. The cost of the abortion was added to the smuggling debt,” she said.

The report gives the United States high marks for its efforts to combat trafficking, but victims remain scattered throughout the workforce, hidden from view: the captive migrant tomato picker, the prostitute bonded by a smuggling debt, the domestic servant working without pay.

The media often focus on stories of young girls lured into prostitution rings. But government data suggest that “more foreign victims are found in labor trafficking than sex trafficking,” particularly in “above ground” sectors like hotel work and home healthcare. Estimates vary, but the number of victims worldwide could be more than 12 million children and adults.

Today’s slave trade capitalizes on vast inequalities, sharpened by economic globalization, that spur migration across national borders. Many governments have instituted anti-trafficking policies, but with uneven success. The TIP report states that 23 countries got an “upgrade” in the ranking of their anti-trafficking programs. But 19 countries were “downgraded” due to “sparse victim protections, desultory implementation, or inadequate legal structures.”

Despite the country’s relative wealth and sophisticated legal system, slavery trickles into the United States through deep cracks in labor and immigration laws.

Victims often remain hidden because they depend on their bosses not only for their livelihoods but for protection from immigration authorities. Even for documented workers, legal status is not a safeguard, and precarious temporary worker visas may even facilitate trafficking.

Stephanie Richard, director of policy with the Los Angeles-based Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST), told In These Times: “We’re actually seeing an increase in the number of cases of people coming in on lawful visas, and then ending up in human trafficking … because people are using those visas as one of the forms of coercion for keeping people working for them against their will.”

To its credit, the State Department’s report stresses that anti-trafficking measures should not just emphasize cracking down on trafficking crimes, and that a comprehensive “victim-centered” approach should “focus on all victims, offering them the opportunity to access shelter, comprehensive services, and in certain cases, immigration relief.”

To qualify for special immigration relief­-the T visa­-trafficking survivors must cooperate with law enforcement investigations—a process advocates say can be humiliating and traumatic. That may be why the number of T visas granted each year is far smaller than the estimated number of survivors. And despite pressure to bring survivors into the criminal process, the Department of Justice’s Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit reported only 47 convictions in 43 human trafficking prosecutions in fiscal year 2009.

This year’s report glosses over the systemic failures that fuel the thirst for cheap labor—or even free labor. Sienna Baskin, an attorney with the Sex Workers Project—which campaigns for legislation to protect the rights of trafficked sex workers in New York—sees a correlation between the trafficking epidemic and immigration and law enforcement policies that criminalize victims. Baskin told In These Times, “The growing problem of labor exploitation could be lessened by comprehensive immigration reform that provides visas and fair wages to all workers.”

The Florida-based Coalition of Immokalee Workers merges anti-trafficking, immigration reform and labor activism in its campaigns for farm workers’ rights. The group was recently honored by the White House for its Campaign for Fair Food, which has successfully pressured corporations to adjust their labor policies across the supply chain, from the tomato farms all the way up to restaurants like Taco Bell.

At the D.C. event announcing the new TIP report, Laura Germino, coordinator of the Coalition’s Anti-Slavery Campaign, said that 20 years ago the United States refused to acknowledge “that the unbroken threat of slavery that has so tragically woven through our history … was a constant.” She added, “But here’s the good part. There was nowhere to go but up.”

This article originally appeared in different form on In These Times’ workers’ rights blog, Working In These Times.

Michelle Chen's work has appeared in AirAmerica, Extra!, Colorlines and Alternet, along with her self-published zine, cain. She is a regular contributor to In These Times' workers' rights blog, Working In These Times, and is a member of the In These Times Board of Editors. She also blogs at Colorlines.com. She can be reached at michellechen @ inthesetimes.com.

More information about Michelle Chen

Slavery in Our Time -- In These Times

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Despite U.S. ban, tough battle against sex trafficking in war zones

By Nick Schwellenbach and Carol Leonnig

Saturday, July 17, 2010; 2:58 PM

An eight-year-old policy forbidding govenment contractors and employees from engaging in sex trafficking in war zones has proven almost impossible to enforce, despite indications that such activities are occurring in Iraq and Afghanistan

The policy, instituted eight years ago by President George W. Bush and still in effect today, calls for prosecutions of government employees and contractors and suspensions or disqualifications of companies whose workers engage in trafficking. Bush's get-tough language also threatened criminal prosecutions for solicitation of prostitutes because many of the women are forced into the work.

Agencies say the cases are difficult to pursue because of limited investigative resources and jurisdictional questions. But some experts and lawmakers believe that authorities are turning a blind eye to evidence of such crimes.

"Zero prosecutions," said attorney Martina Vandenberg, a former Human Rights Watch investigator, "suggests zero effort to enforce the law."

The State Department reported recently that allegations of contractor employees procuring commercial sex acts were "well publicized" but noted that no contractors have been prosecuted and no contracts terminated.

Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., author of 2000 U.S. anti-trafficking law, questions whether agencies vigorously pursue allegations. "If you care about the women who are being exploited, you don't look askance when those that we're paying to do jobs for us are exploiting them," he said.

Justice Department spokesman Alejandro Miyar said that the agency "investigates all credible allegations of human trafficking." An Army Report

Nearly a decade after Dyncorp International LLC employees were accused of buying and selling women from throughout Eastern Europe -- and not prosecuted -- the State Department alerted the U.S. Army to allegations made by a freelance journalist. The journalist said she had interviewed women held in Iraq as involuntary servants in debt slavery.

The February report, posted online as part of an Army PowerPoint presentation, alleged that supervisors of an Army subcontractor in Iraq had sexually assaulted some of the women.

"The women were recruited from their home nations with promises of well-paying beautician jobs in Dubai," said an Army summary, "but were instead forced to surrender their passports, transported against their will to Iraq, and told they could only leave by paying a termination fee of $1,100."

The subcontractors work for the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, which runs restaurants and other commercial operations on military bases.

An Army Criminal Investigation Command spokesman, who declined to discuss specifics, said the allegations "were investigated and not substantiated."

In another allegation, a former Blackwater guard said that he saw colleagues and American soldiers paying Iraqi girls for sex acts. The allegations surfaced in a lawsuit filed last summer in the Eastern District of Virginia, alleging wrongful death and abuse on behalf of families of Iraqi victims. But the anonymous statement detailing the allegations was withdrawn by the Iraqi families, who agreed to a settlement in January.

The former guard, who asked that his name not be used out of concern for his safety, said that in 2005 he watched older boys collect dollar bills while Iraqi girls, some as young as 12 and 13, performed the sex acts.

The former guard said he reported this to his Blackwater superiors, but no action was taken. "It sickens me to talk about it even now," he said.

The former Blackwater guard said he provided the information to a grand jury, but the Justice Department would not confirm or deny the existence of an investigation.

Stacy DeLuke, a spokeswoman for Blackwater, now known as Xe Services, said the firm "vehemently denies these anonymous and baseless allegations." She said Xe policies forbid human trafficking. Brothels in Afghanistan

In Afghanistan, trafficking evidence came to light after 90 Chinese women were freed after brothel raids in 2006 and 2007. The women told the International Organization on Migration that they had been brought into Afghanistan for sexual exploitation, according to a 2008 report.

Nigina Mamadjonova, head of IOM's counter-human trafficking unit in Afghanistan, said the women alleged in interviews that their clients were mostly Western men.

In late 2007, officials at ArmorGroup, which provides U.S. embassy security in Kabul, learned some employees frequented brothels disguised as Chinese restaurants and might be engaged in sex trafficking. A company whistleblower has alleged in an ongoing lawsuit that the firm withheld the information from the U.S. government. James Gordon, then an ArmorGroup supervisor, alleged that a manager "boasted openly about owning prostitutes in Kabul" while a company trainee boasted that he hoped to make some "real money" in brothels and planned to buy a woman for $20,000.

Gordon said he warned his bosses and also alerted Heidi McMichael, a State Department contracting officer.

Months later, according to Gordon, he asked McMichael why no action had been taken and she told him the matter had been referred to the FBI. She declined to comment, as did the bureau. Gordon said that the trainee was fired but no other action taken.

Susan Pitcher, a spokesman for ArmorGroup's parent company, Wackenhut Services Incorporated, said in an e-mail that the company would not respond to Gordon's allegations. She stressed that ArmorGroup policies prohibit trafficking.
An internal corporate investigation in November 2007 found that a Kabul program manager knew that some workers had violated company policies by "seeking out prostitutes." .

The report disputed allegations that the manager frequented brothels but concluded that he knew about activities "that could bring discredit upon both the company and the client." A letter of reprimand was placed in his file.

 
A Difficult Mandate

Justice Department prosecutors privately complain that the zero-tolerance policy is nearly unenforceable-- partly because it makes little distinction between organized sex trafficking and voluntary prostitution.

"Are we interested in chasing every contractor that gets a hooker, or using our resources to go after the guys who force people into modern-day slavery?" asks one former trafficking investigator, who requested anonymity.

Law enforcement faces two main challenges in pursuing such crimes -- gathering evidence and legal jurisdiction -- according to Laura Dickinson, an Arizona State University law professor.

The FBI has 35 to 40 agents in war zones, but they are focused on investigating fraud and corruption. The military's own law enforcement agencies have about 150 agents in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kuwait handling all types of felony-level crimes.

Some experts say investigators and prosecutors will likely decline a trafficking case if it proves time-consuming and manpower intensive.

Gordon, the former ArmorGroup manager, questions whether agencies take the allegations seriously.

"If it's so serious," he says, "if you have a zero tolerance policy, why aren't you doing anything?"
This report is a collaboration between the Center for Public Integrity and The Washington Post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/17/AR2010071701401_3.html 

US Intensifies Eforts to Prevent Trafficking in Haiti

By Jane Morse

Washington — The State Department announced it is stepping up its efforts to prevent human trafficking — particularly of children — in post-earthquake Haiti.

The magnitude 7.0 earthquake that hit Haiti January 12 — and the strong aftershocks that followed — killed tens of thousands. Many children were separated from their families in the confusion, exposing them to a greater risk of being trafficked by the unscrupulous.

Even before the earthquake, the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons had been working with Haitian authorities to control human trafficking. According to the State Department’s most recent Trafficking in Persons Report, Haiti is a source, transit and destination country for men, women and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation. The report says several nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) working in Haiti noted that in 2008 there had been a sharp increase in the number of Haitian children trafficked for sex and labor to the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas.

Although Haitian officials recognize that human trafficking is a serious problem in their country, Haitian law does not specifically prohibit trafficking in persons, which limits the Haitian government’s ability to punish traffickers and protect victims. This is made worse by Haiti’s political instability and lack of resources, the State Department report says.

At a January 29 press briefing, Philip Crowley, assistant secretary of state for public affairs, said U.S. officials assisting in the post-earthquake relief efforts have noted a few cases involving pedophiles attempting to adopt Haitian children.

Crowley, in a statement released January 28, said that although UNICEF has taken the lead role in child protection and safety in Haiti since the earthquake, the United States is working to supplement their efforts in combating child trafficking.

Specifically, the State Department — along with UNICEF, the government of Haiti, the Red Cross and other international and nongovernmental organizations — is stepping up efforts to protect vulnerable children by:

• Registering unaccompanied and separated children and working to reunite them with their families.
• Preventing the trafficking of displaced Haitians.
• Educating Haitians about the risks of giving away children in times of crisis.
• Rebuilding the capacity of Haitian NGOs already working to protect child domestic servants, known in Haiti as restaveks.

There are some 90,000 to 300,000 restaveks in Haiti, according to the State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report. The word restavek comes from the French “reste avec” or “one who stays with.” It is actually a social system in Haiti where poor, usually rural, families send their children to work as domestics for wealthier families. The child is to receive food, shelter and education in exchange for the labor. Many restaveks, however, find themselves in unpaid servitude and physically abused; many are trafficked.

This latest push to help Haiti’s most vulnerable victims, Crowley said, “is just the first wave of coordinated efforts in the aftermath of the earthquake which builds on existing efforts and expertise on the ground. We are coordinating further action to be announced in the coming days.”

South Florida Caribbean News

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