" ... Armed conflicts and humanitarian crises expose those caught in the crossfire to increased risk of being trafficked both in and beyond conflict zones and exacerbate many factors that increase individual and group vulnerability to human trafficking, such as lack of economic livelihood, discrimination and gender-based violence, and that have a disproportionate impact on groups that already lack power and status in society, including women, children, migrants, refugees and the internally displaced. ..."
Read MORE
Report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of measures to counter trafficking in persons (S/2016/949) [EN/AR] - World | ReliefWeb:
Showing posts with label Syria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Syria. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 23, 2016
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Rampant trafficking of OFWs in Syria uncovered | Inquirer Global Nation
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/49632/rampant-trafficking-of-ofws-in-syria-uncovered
Source: Inquirer Global Nation
Sunday, September 9th, 2012
Source: Inquirer Global Nation
Sunday, September 9th, 2012
INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
DAVAO CITY—The government’s repatriation program for overseas workers in strife-torn Syria has uncovered rampant cases of human trafficking.
The Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (Iacat) said about 80 percent of the 1,800 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) brought home from the Middle East country as the civil war there heightened were victims of human trafficking.
Most of them were from the provinces of Maguindanao, Basilan and Sulu in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), Ruby Ramores, Iacat executive officer, said.
Ramores told reporters at the sidelines of the antihuman trafficking convention here Friday that the trafficked victims were uncovered following a review of their documents during their repatriation.
“Their travel documents did not bear departure details, travel stamps were counterfeited, they traveled on assumed identities and their passports were fake,” she said.
Ramores said they were illegally recruited either by their friends or recruitment agencies three or five years ago.
Worst, many of them were between 13 and 18 years of age when illegally deployed to Syria.
She said some of the illegally recruited workers left the country via Malaysia or Singapore, as first countries of entry, before traveling to the United Arab Emirates’ cities of Abu Dhabi and Dubai. From UAE, they went to Syria.
In leaving the Philippines, Ramores said the illegal recruits were aided by corrupt immigration officials positioned at regular airports and ports, who take a share of the $37 million per year illegal recruitment activities by organized trafficking groups.
Ramores said Iacat has projected to uncover more cases as the repatriation of workers from Syria continues.
She said based on an assessment by the Department of Foreign Affairs, at least 98 percent of the 10,000 overseas workers in Syria were undocumented.
Prosecutor Darlene Pajarito of the Department of Justice in Western Mindanao said they have validated that the ARMM has become the primary target of human traffickers.
Superintendent Rodelio Jocson, Tawi-Tawi police chief, said efforts were being done to prevent human traffickers from smuggling recruits out of the ARMM province of Tawi-Tawi. He reported that several apprehensions and rescue operations had been conducted in recent months.
ARMM Assemblywoman Kim Datumanong said the legislative assembly is eyeing the past legislations that could strengthen border patrols; for the conduct of massive campaign against human trafficking and its negative effects; and hold advocacy activities like workshops.
She said there was also a need to improve the birth registration system in ARMM to prevent unscrupulous people from faking birth documents. Ayan Mellejor and Judy Quiros, Inquirer Mindanao
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Human Trafficking Report Adds Syria to Failure List
Human Trafficking Report Adds Syria to Failure List: The State Department has added Syria to the list of nations that could face American sanctions for not doing enough to combat forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Study Details Sex-Traffic in Post-Saddam Iraq | Womens eNews
Source: http://www.womensenews.org/story/prostitution-and-trafficking/111108/study-details-sex-traffic-in-post-saddam-iraq?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email
Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq thousands of women and girls have been trafficked for sexual exploitation, finds a report published today by the London-based Social Change Through Education in the Middle East.
(WOMENSENEWS)--
Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, as many as 5,000 women
and girls have been trafficked for sexual exploitation, with most ending
up in Syria, according to a preliminary report released today by the
London-based Social Change Through Education in the Middle East.
Jordan is the second-ranking destination for trafficked girls and women, according to the Nov. 9 report.
These two bordering countries have maintained a relatively liberal policy of granting visas to refugees while also subjecting them to labor restrictions.
That combination, the report finds, puts girls and women at high risk of seeking money through prostitution and also being prostituted by families and organized networks.
"Both the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government have failed to address the problem of sex trafficking," the report finds, also noting that the Iraqi constitution prohibits the trafficking of women and children, as well as the sex trade and slavery.
Despite that, the study charges the Iraqi government with failing to identify and prosecute traffickers or to protect victims. Instead, the government "often punishes victims of trafficking for crimes committed as a direct result of being trafficked."
The study, "Karamatuna" or "Our Dignity" in Arabic, serves as the first stage of a project to measure the full extent of trafficking of Iraqi women and the way in which women are exploited. It analyzes existing literature and data collected by nongovernmental groups and international organizations. In the next stage, researchers will interview victims.
"What is stated within the pages of this report is just the tip of the iceberg," says Iman Abou-Atta, founder and director of Social Change. "We will continue to work to uncover more hidden truths; conduct vital field investigations; challenge authorities and spread awareness internationally so that the world can stand up against the trafficking of women and girls in the Arab world."
The report describes the plight of Leyla, an Iraqi refugee, last known to be living with her mother and brothers. "Prevented as refugees from working legally in the country (Syria), her family had run out of its savings. By the age of 14, her mother had forced her to work in a nightclub as a prostitute in order to generate income for the family."
While Syria and Jordan are the top-two sex-trafficking destinations, other countries in the region are also involved: Kuwait, Lebanon, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
"Our Dignity" finds that while chaos and anarchy have made all people more vulnerable to trafficking, women and girls have been most affected. "The neglect of authorities to deal with this problem effectively had fostered a state of impunity in which crimes against women are neglected and offenders go unpunished," it says.
Refugee Women Hurt
Domestic violence, rape and other forms of gender-based violence have become a common practice among the internally displaced persons in Iraq and the large refugee communities in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and other countries of the Middle East, according to the report.
Iraqi women's vulnerability to trafficking began after the Gulf War in 1991 and the economic sanctions against Saddam Hussein's Baath regime, the study says. In the preceding two decades--from 1979 to 1991--Saddam's regime appeared to foster women's civil participation. Girls were allowed to attend school, which narrowed the literacy gap and provided women more access to high-ranking jobs in government agencies and ministries.
Divorce laws were liberalized, giving women more leeway to exit marriages. In 1980 women gained the right to vote and run for political office.
Two major exceptions to these liberalizations were Iraqi women from Shia Muslim and Kurdish communities who were subject to religious discrimination and highly vulnerable to rape by Saddam Hussein's militias and military personnel, or to being trafficked into Iran, Turkey, Egypt and Sudan, according to a 2010 study from the Norwegian Church Aid quoted by the study.
These restrictions worsened the exploitation of women in the workplace and led to an alarming increase in prostitution. "A huge number of widowed and single mothers, facing either no income or a monthly salary of just a few dollars, were forced into prostitution to merely survive," the study finds.
Facing financial difficulties, some families pushed daughters into prostitution, sold them to traffickers or forced them into marriage.
Authors tell the story on one young woman, Amira, whose " family was facing financial problems, when a man came to her father with an offer to hire Amira for $200 a month in order to help take care of his wife, who was handicapped. The impoverished family agreed with this tempting offer, but Amira, 17 years old, had no idea what was in store for her. Her work was not restricted to only housework; she had to have sexual intercourse with the son, and friends of, the man who hired her."
Confronted with this lack of security and the absence of punishment for such crimes, the report finds women and girls often confining themselves to their homes out of fear of being raped or kidnapped.
"We are all afraid and I cannot go alone anywhere. Even my older daughters, I fear for them. This is not a normal life we are living anymore," authors quoted a pharmacist in Bagdad.
The report also explores the rise of Syria s mut'a marriages, known also as temporary marriages, which can be allowed among some Shia communities. The practice, with varying degrees of social acceptability, can be abused for trafficking purposes so that a girl or woman is married off on a Friday for an agreed price, and on the following Sunday the couple is divorced.
Research suggests that "the rates at which these mut'a marriages are carried out intensifies in the summer when male tourists visit Syria from the Gulf." Similar practices have also been observed in Lebanon.
Salma, for instance, was forced by her father into a mut'a marriage with her cousin at age 15. After 48 hours, after sexually exploiting her, he abandoned her. Her father refused to take her back. Instead he decided to take her to Syria to find her mother. At the border, her father left, selling her to a stranger who subjected her to a series of rapes and forced her into sex work in a Damascus nightclub for two years. Upon becoming pregnant, she was turned over to the streets of Damascus.
"Although this particular kind of marriage is not explicitly called prostitution, it is in effect sexual exploitation, often forced, as means of either securing livelihood, or generating profit." the report says.
Traffickers tend to target the youngest girls and women, for whom they can get the highest prices. "For virgin girls, the sale price can reach thousands of dollars and in some devastating cases; girls are obliged by their traffickers to undertake painful and dangerous hymen operations in order that they might be re-sold again as virgins."
By Hajer Naili
WeNews correspondent
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq thousands of women and girls have been trafficked for sexual exploitation, finds a report published today by the London-based Social Change Through Education in the Middle East.
(WOMENSENEWS)--
Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, as many as 5,000 women
and girls have been trafficked for sexual exploitation, with most ending
up in Syria, according to a preliminary report released today by the
London-based Social Change Through Education in the Middle East.Jordan is the second-ranking destination for trafficked girls and women, according to the Nov. 9 report.
These two bordering countries have maintained a relatively liberal policy of granting visas to refugees while also subjecting them to labor restrictions.
That combination, the report finds, puts girls and women at high risk of seeking money through prostitution and also being prostituted by families and organized networks.
"Both the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government have failed to address the problem of sex trafficking," the report finds, also noting that the Iraqi constitution prohibits the trafficking of women and children, as well as the sex trade and slavery.
Despite that, the study charges the Iraqi government with failing to identify and prosecute traffickers or to protect victims. Instead, the government "often punishes victims of trafficking for crimes committed as a direct result of being trafficked."
The study, "Karamatuna" or "Our Dignity" in Arabic, serves as the first stage of a project to measure the full extent of trafficking of Iraqi women and the way in which women are exploited. It analyzes existing literature and data collected by nongovernmental groups and international organizations. In the next stage, researchers will interview victims.
"What is stated within the pages of this report is just the tip of the iceberg," says Iman Abou-Atta, founder and director of Social Change. "We will continue to work to uncover more hidden truths; conduct vital field investigations; challenge authorities and spread awareness internationally so that the world can stand up against the trafficking of women and girls in the Arab world."
The report describes the plight of Leyla, an Iraqi refugee, last known to be living with her mother and brothers. "Prevented as refugees from working legally in the country (Syria), her family had run out of its savings. By the age of 14, her mother had forced her to work in a nightclub as a prostitute in order to generate income for the family."
While Syria and Jordan are the top-two sex-trafficking destinations, other countries in the region are also involved: Kuwait, Lebanon, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
"Our Dignity" finds that while chaos and anarchy have made all people more vulnerable to trafficking, women and girls have been most affected. "The neglect of authorities to deal with this problem effectively had fostered a state of impunity in which crimes against women are neglected and offenders go unpunished," it says.
Refugee Women Hurt
Domestic violence, rape and other forms of gender-based violence have become a common practice among the internally displaced persons in Iraq and the large refugee communities in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and other countries of the Middle East, according to the report.
Iraqi women's vulnerability to trafficking began after the Gulf War in 1991 and the economic sanctions against Saddam Hussein's Baath regime, the study says. In the preceding two decades--from 1979 to 1991--Saddam's regime appeared to foster women's civil participation. Girls were allowed to attend school, which narrowed the literacy gap and provided women more access to high-ranking jobs in government agencies and ministries.
Divorce laws were liberalized, giving women more leeway to exit marriages. In 1980 women gained the right to vote and run for political office.
Two major exceptions to these liberalizations were Iraqi women from Shia Muslim and Kurdish communities who were subject to religious discrimination and highly vulnerable to rape by Saddam Hussein's militias and military personnel, or to being trafficked into Iran, Turkey, Egypt and Sudan, according to a 2010 study from the Norwegian Church Aid quoted by the study.
Gulf War Sanctions
The 1991 Gulf War led to tough economic sanctions by the international community designed to overthrow Saddam's Baath Party. That brought the country's economy to its knees. Employed women were dismissed from their jobs, freedoms were restricted and girls' school attendance dropped.These restrictions worsened the exploitation of women in the workplace and led to an alarming increase in prostitution. "A huge number of widowed and single mothers, facing either no income or a monthly salary of just a few dollars, were forced into prostitution to merely survive," the study finds.
Facing financial difficulties, some families pushed daughters into prostitution, sold them to traffickers or forced them into marriage.
Authors tell the story on one young woman, Amira, whose " family was facing financial problems, when a man came to her father with an offer to hire Amira for $200 a month in order to help take care of his wife, who was handicapped. The impoverished family agreed with this tempting offer, but Amira, 17 years old, had no idea what was in store for her. Her work was not restricted to only housework; she had to have sexual intercourse with the son, and friends of, the man who hired her."
Confronted with this lack of security and the absence of punishment for such crimes, the report finds women and girls often confining themselves to their homes out of fear of being raped or kidnapped.
"We are all afraid and I cannot go alone anywhere. Even my older daughters, I fear for them. This is not a normal life we are living anymore," authors quoted a pharmacist in Bagdad.
Women Are Often Traffickers
Professional traffickers are very often women involved in the sex industry, authors say. These traffickers target girls and young women--often in cities or public transportation systems--who have often fled their homes out of fear of abuse, forced marriage or the threat of honor crimes. The traffickers pretend to provide assistance, offering to take the girls to shelters that turn out to be brothels. In other cases, male solicitors and taxi drivers are recruited by trafficking gangs to lure vulnerable young girls.The report also explores the rise of Syria s mut'a marriages, known also as temporary marriages, which can be allowed among some Shia communities. The practice, with varying degrees of social acceptability, can be abused for trafficking purposes so that a girl or woman is married off on a Friday for an agreed price, and on the following Sunday the couple is divorced.
Research suggests that "the rates at which these mut'a marriages are carried out intensifies in the summer when male tourists visit Syria from the Gulf." Similar practices have also been observed in Lebanon.
Salma, for instance, was forced by her father into a mut'a marriage with her cousin at age 15. After 48 hours, after sexually exploiting her, he abandoned her. Her father refused to take her back. Instead he decided to take her to Syria to find her mother. At the border, her father left, selling her to a stranger who subjected her to a series of rapes and forced her into sex work in a Damascus nightclub for two years. Upon becoming pregnant, she was turned over to the streets of Damascus.
"Although this particular kind of marriage is not explicitly called prostitution, it is in effect sexual exploitation, often forced, as means of either securing livelihood, or generating profit." the report says.
Traffickers tend to target the youngest girls and women, for whom they can get the highest prices. "For virgin girls, the sale price can reach thousands of dollars and in some devastating cases; girls are obliged by their traffickers to undertake painful and dangerous hymen operations in order that they might be re-sold again as virgins."
|
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
LEBANON: Plight of the trafficked domestic worker
Abbey, not her real name, was presented by the recruitment agent with a three-year contract, which included transport to the Lebanese hospital, and a salary of US$1,000 per month.
On arrival there, however, she was put in a house with another Madagascan domestic worker where she was forced to cook, clean and care for three children and a newborn.
"We didn't sleep day or night; we had to be up whenever the baby cried. We didn't even have time to shower or eat during the day because we were always rocking him so he didn't cry. It was like that for two and a half years," Abbey told IRIN.
From her salary of just $150 a month, Abbey said she had to give her Lebanese employer money to buy food for her: "So basically, we were working for free."
Cases like Abbey's are not uncommon in Lebanon, which is a country of destination for women trafficked from Africa, Sri Lanka and the Philippines for the purpose of domestic labour.
In June, Lebanon was added to the US State Department's human trafficking tier 2 watch list [http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2009/123132.htm] for its failure to protect victims of trafficking or to prosecute those responsible.
Inclusion on the list, which includes neighbouring Syria on tier 3 (the worst category), [http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=82686] for a second year could mean Lebanon faces US sanctions on non-humanitarian and trade-related aid and US opposition to loans and credits from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
Deception, exploitation
Being deceived about the job she was brought to Lebanon to perform makes Abbey's case one of trafficking under the established UN definition [http://www.unescap.org/esid/Gad/Issues/Trafficking/index.asp] of the "recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force".
However, the US State Department's 2009 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report [http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2009/] makes clear it considers trafficking to include the conditions a worker is kept in, including forced labour and debt bondage. That makes not only Abbey's life after arriving in Lebanon a case of trafficking but means the situation of many of Lebanon's estimated 200,000 migrant domestic workers [http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=78865] can also be considered trafficking.
"Women from Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Ethiopia who travel to Lebanon legally to work as household servants often find themselves in conditions of forced labour through withholding of passports, [http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=83948] non-payment of wages, restrictions on movement, threats, and physical or sexual assault," said the TIP report.
'
Local rights activists praised the recognition of exploitative labour conditions as trafficking.
"Working on trafficking is very difficult because of the definition set by the UN, but if you simplify it you see that there are three main components: the recruitment; deception or coercion; and then that the purpose of recruitment is exploitative. This is considered trafficking," said Ghada Jabbour, gender and trafficking specialist at Lebanese NGO KAFA.
The TIP report said that exploitation includes the specific crimes of "involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery".
After escaping from the home she was forced to work in, Abbey has spent the past 10 years working as a freelance domestic worker, facing jail if she is caught by police without the identification papers she was never issued with, and owing $5,000 in fines to the General Security Directorate, a Lebanese intelligence agency, for overstaying her visa.
Little protection
Domestic workers remain outside Lebanon's Labour Law and its protection.
Last year, according to the 2009 TIP report, the Lebanese government reported no criminal prosecutions, convictions, or punishments for trafficking offences, a significant decrease from the 17 prosecutions reported in 2007.
The Lebanese Penal Code does not specifically prohibit forced labour or trafficking, but Article 569's prohibition against the deprivation of an individual's liberty to perform a task could be used to prosecute forced labour. Commercial sexual exploitation, deprivation of freedom and use of false documents are also criminalized in Lebanese law.
The TIP report urges authorities to investigate and prosecute claims by domestic workers who have escaped abusive employers, and implement the new unified contract for domestic workers [http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=83948] created in March this year, but which rights groups say remains largely unimplemented.
Valuable trade
Activists believe the value of the trade in domestic workers is such that the political will to comply with international regulations against trafficking remains lacking.
"The money that is collected through domestic workers coming to Lebanon is millions of dollars per year. You have the residency fees, the visa and recruitment fees on both sides for the worker and the employer," said KAFA's Jabbour.
"The government takes a lot of money in the process by regulating domestic workers and there are a lot of stakeholders. Politicians are also involved in this issue and it goes underground, which is why it's difficult to get laws to protect these women."
http://www.tayyar.org/Tayyar/News/PoliticalNews/en-US/128988024720725404.htm#
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=860e153f-f6da-48a0-9964-6a0fac28d031)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
